Touche.
I think this is just one of those things that bothers me a little bit every time I see it. Its like the old "Chinese water torture", you tie a person down and let water drip on thier forehead slowly. At first its nothing, but after time and repeated drips on the exact same spot it starts to get really damned annoying.
Same thing with me and this subject, I've just finally reached the point where its getting really damned annoying. I have a pretty thick skin for the most part, but everyone has a breaking point.
Maybe its just me, but it seems that no one has any sort of skin these days. At the first sign of anything that might offend them, they scream, "sue!" Why don't people toughen up a bit and realize that they are going to be exposed to things that may be contrary to thier sensabilities? You have an email address, and its on the corporate web site? Then you should expect that its going to get spammed at some point, and some of it may be offensive. Delete it, deal with it, and move on for fucks sake! There is a great big world out there, and most of it doesn't give a tinker's damn about you. The rest of it just wants your money, if you can't handle a little bit of emotional distress now and again, how do you ever expect to survive?
Sorry for the rant, but people without the slightest bit of ability to cope with stress piss me off. I have four words for the people involved with this sort of lawsuit, FUCKING DEAL WITH IT!!!
Ah, I feel better. Please forward all complaints to: FuckYou@I.Do.Not.Care.com
My question is, what fuel do we go to?
Solar?
Not quite effiecent enough yet for mass use, nor is it available in high enough quantities on demand. Here in Southern California, we could probably start switching, but we do still get cloudy days and night. And batteries are not going to work unless they are massive, and wonderfully toxic.
Hydrogen?
Where do you plan to get that hydrogen from? The best idea I've heard so far is cracking sea water, so where do we get the enegry to crack sea water? This is the one place solar could step up, but there still may be a problem with supply versus demand. And yes, we could try and reduce demand. And I could try and get my alarm clock replaced with Angelina Joline giving me a blow job every morning to wake me up; some things in this world just aren't going to happen. The US people are just too used to being able to consume at current levels, getting them to go back, en mass, is about as likely as me getting my alarm clock replacement.
Nuclear?
This is my favorite, but its been so vilified by the same people calling for a change in energy production, that it can't even get off the ground. Not to mention that, in the US, the use of reactors to re-use the spent fuel rods from normal fission reactors has been outlawed, due to plutonium production fears. So we get left with some really toxic end products, that have to be stored. As for radiation, nuclear is no worse than the crap left over from a coal fire plant.
I would love to see us get off forgien oil, we could then tell the entire middle east to go screw itself, let them kill each other, and enjoy the nice glow once Isreal gets backed into a corner and nukes the place. It would solve so many of the world's current problems.
"Hmmm. I wonder what happens if we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?" "Shhhhhh! We really don't want to know the answer to that. It might hurt business."
Actually, if you read some of the studies done on this subject, its been found that plants tend to grow bigger and be more resistant to stress when CO2 is incresed. Most likely, if the CO2 levels continue to rise, we will see an increse in vegitation, which will work to strip CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Like most changes on Earth, things tend to balance themselves back out after time.
Now this isn't to say that we should just go hog wild and pollute as much as we want, but let's not go abandoning the advantages of an industrial society, just becuase it may change the climate a bit. Remember, climate change happenes with our without us, we just nudge it a bit now and again.
Actually, its both sides who are playing fast and loose with the facts. One of the things that still irks me to no end, is hearing some enviromentalist go off about how the global temperature has raised so much in the past century. While this is technically true, it ignores the fact that for the first part of the 20th century there was a slight decline in temperature, then the Global Pacific Occilation hit, circa mid-70's, and since then, there has only been a slight increse in global temperature. However, most envromentalists, don't see fit to inform people of this detail. Instead, they just smooth over this natural occurance, and use it to justify thier position.
Fact is, there has been some warming in the past century. Part of this is probably anthropogenic in nature, but you also have to keep in mind that we were comming out of a little ice age at the end of the 19th century, and that the GPO happened in the middle of the data set, which throws it all out of whack, and don't forget that recent studies have shown that solar output had been incresing slowly. While all of these factors together may not account for all of the warming seen in the 20th century, they do account for a good part of it.
This isn't to say that we should abandon all clean air policies. Quite the contrary, we should be working to make the air cleaner (have you ever seen LA in the summer, when the wind isn't blowing?) But, we should at least try and base the arguments on more than Global Warming, which is so poorly understood. Also, blaming one gas so heavily (CO2) is rather dumb, there is a lot more to it than that, but this is what gets center stage, and gets the research dollars.
I think one thing we should do is put an age limit on our representatives. At the moment, you must be at least a certain age to serve in the senate, or as president. Sure, they are pretty low numbers, but they do exist. Why not have a maximum age? Why not accept the fact that as people age, thier ability to learn tends to decrese? Perhaps they do have some advantage in experience, but they also have that whole fear of the unknown working against them, and as they start pushing 75-80, there is going to be a lot of new stuff that has been developed, that they don't understand.
This type of thing has happened over and over again. Some new form of entertainment comes along, the current generation loves it, but the older generation does not understand it, and blames it for all the evils of society. In the end, the old people die off, and the form of entertainment becomes validated as the generation, who grew up with it, take over the control of society; only to repeate the same mistake with the new form of entertainment their own kids play. This is one of the problems with the long life spans we have now, the older generations get to hold on to the reins of power for too long, there is no way to take them from the older generation, and they don't die off soon enough to get out of the way of the progress of the younger generation. Or maybe I am just bitter because I think that 80 year old senators don't have a clue about video games, and are just knee-jerk reacting to the problem.
Did this for a while with the "Oddworld" series. We would trade off each time one of us died. Made for a whole lot of fun, both in trying to figure out the levels, and in laughing at our mistakes. And since it is mostly puzzle orientated, it seems to do better with women.
While its fair that a company (Diebold in this case) should be allowed to believe that they are being wronged. If they act on that belief (sending DMCA takedown notices) and are found to be wrong, they should be held responsible. In this case, it would appear to me, that the EFF is trying to ensure that Diebold is held responsible for misusing DMCA takedown notices. Despite all of its flaws there are provisions for companies who misuse the DMCA takedown notices, and that is what the EFF (by proxy) is pursuing them about. Its not about sticking it to some mythincal "man", its about proper punishment for misuse of the legal system. If anything, this is a good thing, a big company is (hopefully) about to get smacked down for abusing the system.
second, missles turn guns into blobs of steel, so what use is a gun if your facing the turret of a tank coming up your front lawn?
So, you do the same thing the VC did. Hide, wait for the tank crew to get out of the tank, and then kill them. Quite simple, and effective. Really, if there was a popular revolt in the US (and I mean more than some whack job malitia), it would be a meat grinder for both sides. Remeber, how do you tell a good loyal american from one who is pretending to be loyal, until he shoots you? You can't. If there is an armed revolt in America, it will be fought in a very similar manner as the Vietnam conflict. You will have a populous that doesn't really like the military that is trying to control it, who can hide in plain sight, and the more damage the military does to the enemy, and to infrasructure, the more people it turns against itself, and the more damage it does to its own infrastructure.
This is why the government having files on everyone is so dangerous. If open, armed, revolt ever becomes necessary, and the government has files that give it a pretty good clue about who the dissidents are going to be, the people lose the advantage of being able to hide in a crowd. The war would be over before it ever got started. Also, it will be advantagous for the revolutionaries, if there are plenty of weapons just lying about, and they don't have to storm a government base for them.
Sure, if it comes down to it, a revolt is going to kill lots of people; but let's not give up their greatest advantage before the war even starts.
It depends upon how its charged. If they tell you to come up with a sum to be deposited, and then they charge a 1% fee of that, you would, in fact, give the GOM 101,000 GP to end up with a deposit of 100,000 GP. Which is a much nicer way to go about it than telling people that a 1% charge will be levied against the monies given. Which would end up with some screwy numbers. For example, to get 100,000 GP final deposit, we would have to do something like:
X *.99 = 100,000
X = 100,000 /.99
X = 101010.10101010........
Do you really think they want to put a customer through this?
Just make sure the fake information is close enough looking to real information that it is not eaisly filtered out. Not only will it DOS the site, it will screw with the data in their database. Its tough to deal with data that is 90% crap.
I don't believe that I can agree with this statement. Giant law firms would randomly pick people breaking some stupid regulation and use their vast legal resources to sue them for large amounts of money. Since they had more lawyers, they would usually win and then force the randomly selected victim to pay the court costs. (RIAA anyone?) The law would become a vast automatic random extortion machine.
I'm sorry, but isn't this happening now? The civil court system is being used to extort people, because it costs to much to defend one's self. If the system forced the loser to pay the court costs of the winner (within reasonable limits), it might be possible to defend yourself from screwy, extortion type suits. As, you said, the RIAA and their shotgun type approch. It works really well right now because, I may be right, but it would cost me more money to prove I am right that it would to just pay the protection money.
Now, this isn't to say that a "loser pays" system would be perfect. It would need some tweaking. A good thought (posted by someone else), was that you are never forced to pay more for the other side's court costs than you put out for your own. So the little guy, who lost, who put out a couple thousand in court costs couldn't be forced to pay for the RIAA's million dollar legal fees. But the RIAA would probably be risking $20k or so everytime it went after someone who had a file sharing app installed.
I really do think a better system could be put in place, but it never will. Our country is ruled by the Lawyers for the Lawyers. The only way it will ever change, is when the country degrades to the point that the people, at large, start shooting at the people in government.
You know it's probably just a matter of time before the EYE TOY has a "fondling game" developed for it. Imagine the possibilities there, eh! Combine that with REZ's Vibrator and you'll finally be able to take your relationship with your PS2 to "the next level".
You can love your console, but, please, don't love your console.
Speaking of Japanese games, does America have the surfing or skateboarding games where you stand on a surf/skateboard shaped controller and kick/slide/balance to do tricks? (Been over here too long to know what's gotten back home)
Yup, seen them in just about every arcade I've been in, in the past few years. Along with skiing, even saw a fighting game where you had to punch and kick to get the character to do so; it sucked horribly, didn't register a good straight jab, and certainly not as fast as I threw them (was in pretty good shape, and kickboxing at the time).
And DDR is now everywhere. Plus, one of my newer favorites is Police Squad (I think, I never pay much attention to names). Basically, its a light-gun type game, but you have to actually duck and move, and the in game character mimics your movement. I've even seen a boxing game, with a similar basic concept, though not tried it yet.
All in all, I think american gamers are starting to accept the movement based games, e.g. you have to actually do more than move a joystick and chug soda.
I don't think The Sims, is much of a dating sim. Sure, there are some aspects; but, heck, the Final Fantasy series has plenty of dating sim aspects in it, and I wouldn't call those dating sims.
If anything, The Sims is virtual barbie dolls. You get to decorate their house, dress them up, and have them do all the things a "normal" person does. I tend to think that this is one of the reasons it does so well with female gamers. Its a better version of barbie.
Along similar lines, this is why FPS games do real well with male gamers, its GI Joe, only better.
Sure, in both cases you have cross overs. Many women like FPS games, and many men like The Sims. Which is actually kinda interesting, we have created new versions of old toys, and managed to disassociate them enough with traditional gender biases, that it is acceptable for either gender to play with them.
As for dating sims. I've never been able to get much into them, though my experience with them is very limited, so who knows. But, I tend to fall into the expected American demographic, I like strategy games, and FPS games. I used to love "RPG" games, but the Final(ly the cut scene is over, oh shit, here's another one) Fantasy series broke me of that.
If I could burn DVD's, I would ghost my home machine as a backup occasionaly. Recovery time is far faster than file based backup and restore
Sorry, dumb question here. Doesn't Ghost support splitting the image into smaller chunks? I use Power Quest Drive Image at work daily, and we always split images to 723,517,440 bytes (why they put it in bytes I'll never know, but it works). This makes for nice CD size chunks, which we burn off and send a copy with a system to the customer, and keep a copy for ourselves.
You're probably not going to get away cheaply, I work with RFID tags on a regular basis. You know those identity cards everyone carries at work now, most of them are RFID cards (tags). An easy way to tell is, if you swipe the card near a small box that goes beep to go through doors, that is an RFID tag you are swiping. The technology is cheap enough, if you don't care about range. But if you want to get beyond about a foot, you're looking at some real money. Though that is on the reader side, the cards themselves are not overly expensive, and there are tags specifiaclly made for inventory tracking, which can be stuck on to just about anything (1 inch adhesive disk).
Now, putting it on a metal tool, well that's going to screw your range, and be damn sure that its not close to a power supply, or forget it. If I put a reader next to one of the 12v power supplies we use here, I have to smack the reader with the card to get it to read, and even then it doesn't always recognize the card. Put the reader on a metal surface and its only slightly better. You have to remember, your working with radio waves, they tend to be affected by things like metal and EM fields. Also, if the tags are too close to each other, they tend not to read.
Try this sometime, if you get a chance: Borrow a few of the ID badges from your co-workers, stack them together and present them to a reader, the reader will fail to read any of them.
In all, I don't think you'd be happy with RFID tags for tracking your tools. The range would suck, it would be a bit costly, and the system would probably be flaky due to all the metal involved.
I'm sick of this arguement. This is the way it always was! There are a few good bands that put out quality albums. Then there are the people who have 3 singles and filler. This has been the same since the industry moved to selling albums in the 60's.
That's true, what has changed is that many people are no longer willing to put up with the situation. Personally, I just stopped buying CD's altogether, and I don't download music, the radio works for me (in short bursts, getting shorter these days), the rest of the time silence is kinda nice. Though, I am seriously considering XM or the like, some of the stations they have cover my musical tastes very nicely, and not having comercials, ya, I'd pay for that.
seriously though, the record companies are finally waking up to the relization that people just aren't going to accept being force-fed a full album. With services like iTunes taking off, I think, ala carte music is going to be the way people buy music in the future. Before, people had singles, though tended to go for the full album, now that trend is reversing, people just want the one or two "good"* songs, and don't care about the rest.
* "good" is a subjective term here, and often refeers to the songs played ad nauseum by Clear Channel
I just have one question:
1. Did they fuck up the fighting? In both of the original POP games the sword fighting was all about timing and control. Too many of the modern 3D games seem to rely on button mashing or pulling off annoying combos. While I saw mention of combos on the site about the game, are they really required, or can one rely on careful timing and control still. Along with that, can I control the blocking? This pissed me off to no end in Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy, no control of my blocking, just some, really, stupid script.
This is essentially correct. Without a country with a large/powerful military to keep the US in check, the US can pretty much run amok, and the UN is powerless to stop it. What is the UN going to do? Sanction the US, nope that will get vetoed by the US in the security council. Get everyone in the UN to not trade with the US? This is a joke, it would be like herding cats, enough of the nations would keep trading with the US behind the UN's back, plus many countries rely on US exports of foodstuffs, those countries would be in trouble. A military solution? Are you fucking suicidal, especially with the cowboy we have in office at the moment. I bet GWB is just itching to see the Eiffel Tower melt. It would be WWIII, a.k.a The End of the World a.k.a The Apacolypse.
Simply put, there is nothing the UN can do to the US at the moment that would have a real, or lasting, effect. The US has simply grown too powerful, it is now much like Rome was at its height. With luck, eventually US society will collapse under its own weight and the next great empire will rise and carry humanity forward, rather than the current stagnation that is happening in the US. The US's fall will probably parallel with the fall of the Roman empire, it will be an internal collapse from the slow degradation of social values and an unsustainable welfare state.
I disagree, using a tool with no comprehension at all of how it works is a bad thing. It can lead to accidents.
For example, to take your microwave example; Suppose someone just knows that to use a microwave they put what they want warmed inside and push the buttons. So they put something in a metal container in the microwave.
This type of problem still does not require an intimate knowledge of the tool being used. Its simply is a matter of those people who really do understand a tool giving everyone else a basic list of do's and don't's. As in your example, most people know not ot put metal in a microwave, but they have no clue as to why. Same with a car, right now desiel is cheaper (in my area), than standard gasoline, why aren't people trying to put that in passener cars? They know not to, they don't know why, but knowing not to is enough.
Its the same thing with computers, people are learning the basic do's and don't's, and while we have a long way to go till everyone runs a firewall, we are getting there. It just takes time for everyone to get used to the idea.
I only have one problem with the whole dyson sphere idea. Assuming you are trying to walk around inside it, what is going to keep you on the ground? Not gravity.
One of the problems we had to deal with in my college physics courses was figuring out the effect of gravity on an object inside a shell, resultant from that shell. And you know the answer we came up with? Zero, Zilch, the gravity from the shell counteracts itself no matter where you are in the shell. Simply put, even though you are might be closer to one spot on the shell, the fact that most of the mass of the shell is now on the other side of you, cancels out the effect of the distance.
Here is a reference, for those that don't trust me.
So my point is, why would anyone build a dyson sphere in the first place, unless its just a collector and the people live elsewhere?
Exactly zero. Slashdot is nice, but, I'm afraid I wouldn't pay for it, I can find similar sites elsewhere. I am willing to see its banner ads and provide click-thrus on occasion for it, but that's about it. If/. went offline (or subscription only) tomorrow I would go elsewhere. Until then, or my account is shuttered for not being supportive, I will continue to use it for free.
To me, part of then problem is the ego of webmasters. They put up a site and assume that it is so good people will want to support it. This is, of course, rarely the case. Yes/. is a nice site, as are many others, but they are hardly unique. Also, they are based on a really flawed premise: the end-user (me) is willing to put up with anything to get at what is on a site. This is untrue, I refuse to put up with annoying ads, and I have the ability to block what comes up on my screen, if you don't like it, take your ball and go home, don't try and force me to change the way my computer renders your page. If you want, refuse requests from Mozilla, or have some sort of authentication which stops the page from loading if banners are blocked, but don't expect me to pander to your needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Touche.
I think this is just one of those things that bothers me a little bit every time I see it. Its like the old "Chinese water torture", you tie a person down and let water drip on thier forehead slowly. At first its nothing, but after time and repeated drips on the exact same spot it starts to get really damned annoying.
Same thing with me and this subject, I've just finally reached the point where its getting really damned annoying. I have a pretty thick skin for the most part, but everyone has a breaking point.
Maybe its just me, but it seems that no one has any sort of skin these days. At the first sign of anything that might offend them, they scream, "sue!" Why don't people toughen up a bit and realize that they are going to be exposed to things that may be contrary to thier sensabilities? You have an email address, and its on the corporate web site? Then you should expect that its going to get spammed at some point, and some of it may be offensive. Delete it, deal with it, and move on for fucks sake! There is a great big world out there, and most of it doesn't give a tinker's damn about you. The rest of it just wants your money, if you can't handle a little bit of emotional distress now and again, how do you ever expect to survive?
Sorry for the rant, but people without the slightest bit of ability to cope with stress piss me off. I have four words for the people involved with this sort of lawsuit, FUCKING DEAL WITH IT!!!
Ah, I feel better. Please forward all complaints to: FuckYou@I.Do.Not.Care.com
My question is, what fuel do we go to?
Solar?
Not quite effiecent enough yet for mass use, nor is it available in high enough quantities on demand. Here in Southern California, we could probably start switching, but we do still get cloudy days and night. And batteries are not going to work unless they are massive, and wonderfully toxic.
Hydrogen?
Where do you plan to get that hydrogen from? The best idea I've heard so far is cracking sea water, so where do we get the enegry to crack sea water? This is the one place solar could step up, but there still may be a problem with supply versus demand. And yes, we could try and reduce demand. And I could try and get my alarm clock replaced with Angelina Joline giving me a blow job every morning to wake me up; some things in this world just aren't going to happen. The US people are just too used to being able to consume at current levels, getting them to go back, en mass, is about as likely as me getting my alarm clock replacement.
Nuclear?
This is my favorite, but its been so vilified by the same people calling for a change in energy production, that it can't even get off the ground. Not to mention that, in the US, the use of reactors to re-use the spent fuel rods from normal fission reactors has been outlawed, due to plutonium production fears. So we get left with some really toxic end products, that have to be stored. As for radiation, nuclear is no worse than the crap left over from a coal fire plant.
I would love to see us get off forgien oil, we could then tell the entire middle east to go screw itself, let them kill each other, and enjoy the nice glow once Isreal gets backed into a corner and nukes the place. It would solve so many of the world's current problems.
"Hmmm. I wonder what happens if we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?" "Shhhhhh! We really don't want to know the answer to that. It might hurt business."
Actually, if you read some of the studies done on this subject, its been found that plants tend to grow bigger and be more resistant to stress when CO2 is incresed. Most likely, if the CO2 levels continue to rise, we will see an increse in vegitation, which will work to strip CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Like most changes on Earth, things tend to balance themselves back out after time.
Now this isn't to say that we should just go hog wild and pollute as much as we want, but let's not go abandoning the advantages of an industrial society, just becuase it may change the climate a bit. Remember, climate change happenes with our without us, we just nudge it a bit now and again.
Actually, its both sides who are playing fast and loose with the facts. One of the things that still irks me to no end, is hearing some enviromentalist go off about how the global temperature has raised so much in the past century. While this is technically true, it ignores the fact that for the first part of the 20th century there was a slight decline in temperature, then the Global Pacific Occilation hit, circa mid-70's, and since then, there has only been a slight increse in global temperature. However, most envromentalists, don't see fit to inform people of this detail. Instead, they just smooth over this natural occurance, and use it to justify thier position.
Fact is, there has been some warming in the past century. Part of this is probably anthropogenic in nature, but you also have to keep in mind that we were comming out of a little ice age at the end of the 19th century, and that the GPO happened in the middle of the data set, which throws it all out of whack, and don't forget that recent studies have shown that solar output had been incresing slowly. While all of these factors together may not account for all of the warming seen in the 20th century, they do account for a good part of it.
This isn't to say that we should abandon all clean air policies. Quite the contrary, we should be working to make the air cleaner (have you ever seen LA in the summer, when the wind isn't blowing?) But, we should at least try and base the arguments on more than Global Warming, which is so poorly understood. Also, blaming one gas so heavily (CO2) is rather dumb, there is a lot more to it than that, but this is what gets center stage, and gets the research dollars.
I think one thing we should do is put an age limit on our representatives. At the moment, you must be at least a certain age to serve in the senate, or as president. Sure, they are pretty low numbers, but they do exist. Why not have a maximum age? Why not accept the fact that as people age, thier ability to learn tends to decrese? Perhaps they do have some advantage in experience, but they also have that whole fear of the unknown working against them, and as they start pushing 75-80, there is going to be a lot of new stuff that has been developed, that they don't understand.
This type of thing has happened over and over again. Some new form of entertainment comes along, the current generation loves it, but the older generation does not understand it, and blames it for all the evils of society. In the end, the old people die off, and the form of entertainment becomes validated as the generation, who grew up with it, take over the control of society; only to repeate the same mistake with the new form of entertainment their own kids play. This is one of the problems with the long life spans we have now, the older generations get to hold on to the reins of power for too long, there is no way to take them from the older generation, and they don't die off soon enough to get out of the way of the progress of the younger generation. Or maybe I am just bitter because I think that 80 year old senators don't have a clue about video games, and are just knee-jerk reacting to the problem.
Did this for a while with the "Oddworld" series. We would trade off each time one of us died. Made for a whole lot of fun, both in trying to figure out the levels, and in laughing at our mistakes. And since it is mostly puzzle orientated, it seems to do better with women.
While its fair that a company (Diebold in this case) should be allowed to believe that they are being wronged. If they act on that belief (sending DMCA takedown notices) and are found to be wrong, they should be held responsible. In this case, it would appear to me, that the EFF is trying to ensure that Diebold is held responsible for misusing DMCA takedown notices. Despite all of its flaws there are provisions for companies who misuse the DMCA takedown notices, and that is what the EFF (by proxy) is pursuing them about. Its not about sticking it to some mythincal "man", its about proper punishment for misuse of the legal system. If anything, this is a good thing, a big company is (hopefully) about to get smacked down for abusing the system.
second, missles turn guns into blobs of steel, so what use is a gun if your facing the turret of a tank coming up your front lawn?
So, you do the same thing the VC did. Hide, wait for the tank crew to get out of the tank, and then kill them. Quite simple, and effective. Really, if there was a popular revolt in the US (and I mean more than some whack job malitia), it would be a meat grinder for both sides. Remeber, how do you tell a good loyal american from one who is pretending to be loyal, until he shoots you? You can't. If there is an armed revolt in America, it will be fought in a very similar manner as the Vietnam conflict. You will have a populous that doesn't really like the military that is trying to control it, who can hide in plain sight, and the more damage the military does to the enemy, and to infrasructure, the more people it turns against itself, and the more damage it does to its own infrastructure.
This is why the government having files on everyone is so dangerous. If open, armed, revolt ever becomes necessary, and the government has files that give it a pretty good clue about who the dissidents are going to be, the people lose the advantage of being able to hide in a crowd. The war would be over before it ever got started. Also, it will be advantagous for the revolutionaries, if there are plenty of weapons just lying about, and they don't have to storm a government base for them.
Sure, if it comes down to it, a revolt is going to kill lots of people; but let's not give up their greatest advantage before the war even starts.
It depends upon how its charged. If they tell you to come up with a sum to be deposited, and then they charge a 1% fee of that, you would, in fact, give the GOM 101,000 GP to end up with a deposit of 100,000 GP. Which is a much nicer way to go about it than telling people that a 1% charge will be levied against the monies given. Which would end up with some screwy numbers. For example, to get 100,000 GP final deposit, we would have to do something like: .99 = 100,000 .99
X *
X = 100,000 /
X = 101010.10101010........
Do you really think they want to put a customer through this?
Just make sure the fake information is close enough looking to real information that it is not eaisly filtered out. Not only will it DOS the site, it will screw with the data in their database. Its tough to deal with data that is 90% crap.
I don't believe that I can agree with this statement. Giant law firms would randomly pick people breaking some stupid regulation and use their vast legal resources to sue them for large amounts of money. Since they had more lawyers, they would usually win and then force the randomly selected victim to pay the court costs. (RIAA anyone?) The law would become a vast automatic random extortion machine.
I'm sorry, but isn't this happening now? The civil court system is being used to extort people, because it costs to much to defend one's self. If the system forced the loser to pay the court costs of the winner (within reasonable limits), it might be possible to defend yourself from screwy, extortion type suits. As, you said, the RIAA and their shotgun type approch. It works really well right now because, I may be right, but it would cost me more money to prove I am right that it would to just pay the protection money.
Now, this isn't to say that a "loser pays" system would be perfect. It would need some tweaking. A good thought (posted by someone else), was that you are never forced to pay more for the other side's court costs than you put out for your own. So the little guy, who lost, who put out a couple thousand in court costs couldn't be forced to pay for the RIAA's million dollar legal fees. But the RIAA would probably be risking $20k or so everytime it went after someone who had a file sharing app installed.
I really do think a better system could be put in place, but it never will. Our country is ruled by the Lawyers for the Lawyers. The only way it will ever change, is when the country degrades to the point that the people, at large, start shooting at the people in government.
You know it's probably just a matter of time before the EYE TOY has a "fondling game" developed for it. Imagine the possibilities there, eh! Combine that with REZ's Vibrator and you'll finally be able to take your relationship with your PS2 to "the next level".
You can love your console, but, please, don't love your console.
Speaking of Japanese games, does America have the surfing or skateboarding games where you stand on a surf/skateboard shaped controller and kick/slide/balance to do tricks? (Been over here too long to know what's gotten back home)
Yup, seen them in just about every arcade I've been in, in the past few years. Along with skiing, even saw a fighting game where you had to punch and kick to get the character to do so; it sucked horribly, didn't register a good straight jab, and certainly not as fast as I threw them (was in pretty good shape, and kickboxing at the time).
And DDR is now everywhere. Plus, one of my newer favorites is Police Squad (I think, I never pay much attention to names). Basically, its a light-gun type game, but you have to actually duck and move, and the in game character mimics your movement. I've even seen a boxing game, with a similar basic concept, though not tried it yet.
All in all, I think american gamers are starting to accept the movement based games, e.g. you have to actually do more than move a joystick and chug soda.
I don't think The Sims, is much of a dating sim. Sure, there are some aspects; but, heck, the Final Fantasy series has plenty of dating sim aspects in it, and I wouldn't call those dating sims.
If anything, The Sims is virtual barbie dolls. You get to decorate their house, dress them up, and have them do all the things a "normal" person does. I tend to think that this is one of the reasons it does so well with female gamers. Its a better version of barbie.
Along similar lines, this is why FPS games do real well with male gamers, its GI Joe, only better.
Sure, in both cases you have cross overs. Many women like FPS games, and many men like The Sims. Which is actually kinda interesting, we have created new versions of old toys, and managed to disassociate them enough with traditional gender biases, that it is acceptable for either gender to play with them.
As for dating sims. I've never been able to get much into them, though my experience with them is very limited, so who knows. But, I tend to fall into the expected American demographic, I like strategy games, and FPS games. I used to love "RPG" games, but the Final(ly the cut scene is over, oh shit, here's another one) Fantasy series broke me of that.
If I could burn DVD's, I would ghost my home machine as a backup occasionaly. Recovery time is far faster than file based backup and restore
Sorry, dumb question here. Doesn't Ghost support splitting the image into smaller chunks? I use Power Quest Drive Image at work daily, and we always split images to 723,517,440 bytes (why they put it in bytes I'll never know, but it works). This makes for nice CD size chunks, which we burn off and send a copy with a system to the customer, and keep a copy for ourselves.
You're probably not going to get away cheaply, I work with RFID tags on a regular basis. You know those identity cards everyone carries at work now, most of them are RFID cards (tags). An easy way to tell is, if you swipe the card near a small box that goes beep to go through doors, that is an RFID tag you are swiping. The technology is cheap enough, if you don't care about range. But if you want to get beyond about a foot, you're looking at some real money. Though that is on the reader side, the cards themselves are not overly expensive, and there are tags specifiaclly made for inventory tracking, which can be stuck on to just about anything (1 inch adhesive disk).
Now, putting it on a metal tool, well that's going to screw your range, and be damn sure that its not close to a power supply, or forget it. If I put a reader next to one of the 12v power supplies we use here, I have to smack the reader with the card to get it to read, and even then it doesn't always recognize the card. Put the reader on a metal surface and its only slightly better. You have to remember, your working with radio waves, they tend to be affected by things like metal and EM fields. Also, if the tags are too close to each other, they tend not to read.
Try this sometime, if you get a chance: Borrow a few of the ID badges from your co-workers, stack them together and present them to a reader, the reader will fail to read any of them.
In all, I don't think you'd be happy with RFID tags for tracking your tools. The range would suck, it would be a bit costly, and the system would probably be flaky due to all the metal involved.
I'm sick of this arguement. This is the way it always was! There are a few good bands that put out quality albums. Then there are the people who have 3 singles and filler. This has been the same since the industry moved to selling albums in the 60's.
That's true, what has changed is that many people are no longer willing to put up with the situation. Personally, I just stopped buying CD's altogether, and I don't download music, the radio works for me (in short bursts, getting shorter these days), the rest of the time silence is kinda nice. Though, I am seriously considering XM or the like, some of the stations they have cover my musical tastes very nicely, and not having comercials, ya, I'd pay for that.
seriously though, the record companies are finally waking up to the relization that people just aren't going to accept being force-fed a full album. With services like iTunes taking off, I think, ala carte music is going to be the way people buy music in the future. Before, people had singles, though tended to go for the full album, now that trend is reversing, people just want the one or two "good"* songs, and don't care about the rest.
* "good" is a subjective term here, and often refeers to the songs played ad nauseum by Clear Channel
Ahh, cool, thank you, you have restored my faith that this may be more than an attempt to cash in on a well loved license.
I just have one question:
1. Did they fuck up the fighting? In both of the original POP games the sword fighting was all about timing and control. Too many of the modern 3D games seem to rely on button mashing or pulling off annoying combos. While I saw mention of combos on the site about the game, are they really required, or can one rely on careful timing and control still. Along with that, can I control the blocking? This pissed me off to no end in Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy, no control of my blocking, just some, really, stupid script.
This is essentially correct. Without a country with a large/powerful military to keep the US in check, the US can pretty much run amok, and the UN is powerless to stop it. What is the UN going to do? Sanction the US, nope that will get vetoed by the US in the security council. Get everyone in the UN to not trade with the US? This is a joke, it would be like herding cats, enough of the nations would keep trading with the US behind the UN's back, plus many countries rely on US exports of foodstuffs, those countries would be in trouble. A military solution? Are you fucking suicidal, especially with the cowboy we have in office at the moment. I bet GWB is just itching to see the Eiffel Tower melt. It would be WWIII, a.k.a The End of the World a.k.a The Apacolypse.
Simply put, there is nothing the UN can do to the US at the moment that would have a real, or lasting, effect. The US has simply grown too powerful, it is now much like Rome was at its height. With luck, eventually US society will collapse under its own weight and the next great empire will rise and carry humanity forward, rather than the current stagnation that is happening in the US. The US's fall will probably parallel with the fall of the Roman empire, it will be an internal collapse from the slow degradation of social values and an unsustainable welfare state.
I disagree, using a tool with no comprehension at all of how it works is a bad thing. It can lead to accidents.
For example, to take your microwave example; Suppose someone just knows that to use a microwave they put what they want warmed inside and push the buttons. So they put something in a metal container in the microwave.
This type of problem still does not require an intimate knowledge of the tool being used. Its simply is a matter of those people who really do understand a tool giving everyone else a basic list of do's and don't's. As in your example, most people know not ot put metal in a microwave, but they have no clue as to why. Same with a car, right now desiel is cheaper (in my area), than standard gasoline, why aren't people trying to put that in passener cars? They know not to, they don't know why, but knowing not to is enough.
Its the same thing with computers, people are learning the basic do's and don't's, and while we have a long way to go till everyone runs a firewall, we are getting there. It just takes time for everyone to get used to the idea.
I only have one problem with the whole dyson sphere idea. Assuming you are trying to walk around inside it, what is going to keep you on the ground? Not gravity.
One of the problems we had to deal with in my college physics courses was figuring out the effect of gravity on an object inside a shell, resultant from that shell. And you know the answer we came up with? Zero, Zilch, the gravity from the shell counteracts itself no matter where you are in the shell. Simply put, even though you are might be closer to one spot on the shell, the fact that most of the mass of the shell is now on the other side of you, cancels out the effect of the distance.
Here is a reference, for those that don't trust me.
So my point is, why would anyone build a dyson sphere in the first place, unless its just a collector and the people live elsewhere?
Exactly zero. Slashdot is nice, but, I'm afraid I wouldn't pay for it, I can find similar sites elsewhere. I am willing to see its banner ads and provide click-thrus on occasion for it, but that's about it. If /. went offline (or subscription only) tomorrow I would go elsewhere. Until then, or my account is shuttered for not being supportive, I will continue to use it for free. /. is a nice site, as are many others, but they are hardly unique. Also, they are based on a really flawed premise: the end-user (me) is willing to put up with anything to get at what is on a site. This is untrue, I refuse to put up with annoying ads, and I have the ability to block what comes up on my screen, if you don't like it, take your ball and go home, don't try and force me to change the way my computer renders your page. If you want, refuse requests from Mozilla, or have some sort of authentication which stops the page from loading if banners are blocked, but don't expect me to pander to your needs.
To me, part of then problem is the ego of webmasters. They put up a site and assume that it is so good people will want to support it. This is, of course, rarely the case. Yes