Seth writes: "Michael Moore is an extremist. Extreme left-wing in this case, if I recall correctly. I saw Bowling for Columbine and it was a a good movie, but always, ALWAYS remember that's just ONE side of the spectrum."
It's funny you should label him an extremist. That's always been the way to sort of brush someone off without actually talking the salient points, isn't it? You just say "they're out of the mainstream" much as the Bush administration themselves have done.
But money talks and bullsh*t walks. Fahrenheit is currently on-track to be the biggest documentary ever, currently number one on the charts, so the money says Moore isn't nearly out of the loop as you'd like to think. At the very worst one can say he's preaching to the choir. In which case the choir is pretty goddamn big.
So... just keep telling yourself that Moore doesn't resonate with mainstream America. Come December you'll wonder what the hell just happened.
And while we're on the subject, I'd like for you to point me to any rant you've ever written -- on Slash or anywhere else -- about how the right wingers (Coulter, Bush, et al) don't make their opponent's cases for them.
I'll bet you a wooden nickel you can't produce anything.
I have shot thousands of images at Rocky Horror over the last few years which is kind of similar to your situation. One second I'd have slow motion but low light which would call for a flash, ISO 100 and natural light whitebalance. The next I'd have some spotlight on the performers so I'd need no flash and ISO 200. THEN I'd get some house lights which would call for a different whitebalance, no flash and ISO 400 when there was action (preshow, let's say).
My Olympus C-4040 (which I realize is not an SLR) was woefully in adequate for the task. It was pretty much spray and pray for me, let the post-processing pluck out the Hail Mary's.
So to the original poster, I would suggest that if you have ANY intention of MAYBE doing anything outside of shooting the kids in daylight you consider the ability to set 3 or more presets (macros?) and check to see how quickly you can shuffle between them. Maybe you'll be at a wedding someday, or a hockey match, or anything that requires shifting bewteen a few presets in a snap lest you miss the shot.
The only other advice I can suggest is making sure that you have a flash shoe on the camera but...what digital SLR won't?
When the fuck did it become the gamer's duty to subsidize a skewed pricing tier? This reeks of "if we don't rape you for $16 for every CD, you won't get to listen to the inspired strains of the Backstreet Boys, oh hell!" RIAA shill.
First, creativity will always exist. If it flounders, an opportunity will emerge. There will always be people for whom the "work" is more akin to "love" and will do it not only cheaper but better than the competition. Linux*cough*linux.
Second, if old games were $15 and new games were $25, would this problem exist?
Believe it or not, I'm fairly tolerant of self-indulgent Slashdot posts. But this one takes the cake.
Re:Me v The Casino Industry, Round One
on
Geeks and Poker?
·
· Score: 1
ZB writes: "My casino philosophy has kept me on the winning side of the equation for some time now. My lifetime up-to-down ratio is something like 4:1, and here's why:"
It's kind of weird that 98% of everyone I meet swears they make more than they lose at any given sort of gambling. The fact that you use the term "something like" indicates that you have not kept track.
Human nature being what it is, you'll tend to remember more wins than losses because nobody likes to think that they're getting shafted. So unless you're a person who keeps regular records and a person that could be trusted not to fib, you'll have to forgive most Slashdotters for not taking this post very seriously.
More specifically, just because you chalk up $100 as being a "written off" entertinment expense doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Chalking up three visits @ $100 each as an entertianment expense and then winning $200 your next trip does not put you in the black.
I just began playing poker about 2-3 weeks ago. I don't think I'll be able to add a heck of a lot of insight into the game as I'm just now understanding it, but here are some useful resources:
http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-top-lists Th is is a site that does a grid-style review of about 40-50 online poker sites. Me, I like EmpirePoker.com.
Play Poker Like the Pros I found this book to be quite useful as a beginner but post-flop play advice is extremely vague or too caught up on specific situations that do not happen most of the time.
Ken Warren Teaches Texas Hold'em This is a GREAT book but there are a few critical examples in there where I think his editor should have been hung in effigy. There is one chart that I have yet to figure out what it means, a few areas I don't quite follow what he's saying because if it's read literally, it's logically inconsistent and even a few misspellings. But despite all of these gripes, the best book I've seen on the specific game of Texas Hold 'Em.
He covers all areas of play, tells, betting (when to raise, when to check-raise, when to do none of the above), learning how to calculate outs, probabilities. He even includes "homework lessons" so you can better understand what hands may be profitable for your particular style of play.
I guess I can make some recommendations...
1) Playing for fake money is a great way to get a feel for the game in a general sense but people do not bet and play the same with fake money as they do with real money. I realize this may seem stupendously obvious but don't get your balls all worked up when you take in $1,000 in a night playing 5/10 Hold 'Em on Yahoo Games. These people play like asshats.
2) Speaking of which, don't play on Yahoo Games. Most of the betting sites that will take real money deposits also let you play for fake chips as well. I find that people who will go through the hassle of downloading a client for a specific poker site tend to take a more serious approach to betting and therefore you'll have a better gague of your gameplay.
One advantage of Yahoo, however, is that you cannot simply replenish your chips (AFAIK) by clicking on a few buttons. This means if you see someone with -2,402 chips, they kind of suck and you may want to avoid those tables if you really want to test your chops.
3) Bust out your spreadsheet of choice and label the headings with some of these; date, play/real money, day of week (1-7), month date (1-31), location, game type (texas hold 'em, omaha, etc), low bet, high bet, start time, end time, duration (calculated from the previous two), time of day, start bank, end bank, win/loss (calculated from the previous two), # of large bets per hour, rate per hour, table "looseness" (1-10), secondary expenses, tips to dealer, tips to waitstaff, narrative.
You might wonder what the day of the week and the day of the month have to do with anything. You will find that you do better or worse on certain days for reasons that may be non-obvious to you. For example, federal checks come on the 1st and the 15th, IIRC. Expect to see a better bankroll and profit on these days or even before since people will write checks that do not yet have backing a few days before knowing they'll be covered by the time they're cashed. Days of the week is probably a bit more obvious. Holidays factor in too.
If you're at a real casino you can bring a small notepad to jot these down on and enter into the sheet. If you're playing online you can just enter them in at the end of your gaming session. Generally you can just highlight the last row along with the next e
This is directed at the original poster. Since I'm sure he'll read even -1 stuff, mod down all you like. Here goes:
If you have so much excess old hardware that you want to stuff it into some sort of database, and you're not an eBayer or a retailer, you have issues. Big, expensive issues.
And not only because you feel the need to turn to a computer for what could be a very simple solution; two piles. One labeled "stuff I will never use or will likely never use" and one labeled "stuff I might someday use." Feel free to have several boxes! Maybe one is for cables, one is for HDs, one is for FDs, etc.
I've have never engaged in the "this question is too stupid for Slashdot" flamewars but I tell you, I don't mind if I start right now because if any post ever deserved it, it's this one. If you have so much outdated, unmarketable stuff that you need a db, a db isn't your solution. A garage sale or eBay is. If that doesn't work, try the trash.
I'm sure 95% of the replies are going to be in this vein but Christ, I really don't mind driving the point home Just That Little Extra Bit.
Why not just invoke the DMCA? All the popup blocker would need to do is require some sort of challenge-response to allow a popup to occur. Circumvention of that blocker would then be a violation of the DMCA.
From the blurb: "With the impending release of Valve's Half-Life 2 and id's Doom 3, we're looking at the first required hardware upgrade in gaming history..."
Uhhhh, no. While I'll buy that this does qualify as a de facto necessary hardware upgrade, the original Doom caused anyone interested to move from whatever they had -- likely a 486 -- to a Pentium chip. That's a whole new machine in case you're a young 'un.
Wolfenstein caused anyone without a clock doubler to quickly find out what the hell they were.
no_longer_myself writes: "Can anyone else recall the difference between Type I, Type II and Type IV tapes?
This is a highly non-technical answer (because I'm not looking it up and pretending I knew it from memory =) but IIRC, type 1 was ok for speech, type 2 was acceptable for grade/highschool level radio recording (gotta love New Edition and Milli Vanilli-style mix tapes you swapped with your friends...) and type 4 sounded really, really good, was primo for recording CDs when those came out, but were generally too expensive.
And I have no idea why there was simply no type 3.
netshare writes: "Guess why they do that? It's intentional, to make it difficult for rippers like you to steal the music. It's a bad position to be in, if the RIAA learns about stream-rippers, they will make life for Internet Radio Stations even more difficult, so they're fighting the bad guy but they have to give in to some of the baddies' wishes as well."
You have positively no idea what you are talking about.
I just reply and ask if they can send it in a different format. This does the same thing you're suggesting by the same method that Microsoft is trying to employ. It makes it an inconvenience for them to have to use something that is closed and not used by everyone. If this happens enough, a person will either suffer, send in several formats at once or send in a format that nobody has a problem with.
As a "reason," I might state that I don't run Windows. This enough is a brain-jarrer. "What? There are other options??"
BenjyD writes: "Except that a piece of art is not entirely arbitrary - it requires time and effort to make. If they wanted to, the developers could produce any number of these items in effectively zero time and effort."
I'll approach this on three fronts.
First, I'm going to guess you're young since your reply indicates you're probably not familiar with Warhol and his Studio 54. The point of Studio 54 was to mass market art. To, in effect, assembly line it and essentially make fun of the 80's art craze. On a side note, go see Basquiat. It's the most star-filled, incredible movie you've never even heard of.
Second, clearly the effort of art production is not commensurate with the price.
effort + raw materials != cost
Third, the central issue here is that the idea that an intangible item has hard currency value is novel. It isn't. Whether or not the people that maintain the software could effectively glut the market instantly only proves that the market is manipulatable. It does not speak to the "why" of the fact that the market exists in the first place.
anthony_philipp writes: "yeah, but if someone else has your balls, and you want them back, theres a limited supply, (presumably two) and a demand (you.) it doesnt mean that the person with your balls wants them a lot. it just so happened that they came about them, and now that you want them there is a market for them."
Once you've introduced someone else into the group -- the person who has my balls -- you have a market. If you have only one person, then that person still has their balls, don't they? If you then argue that they could be broken with a hammer, then you're still talking "value," not "a market," because the hammer is not in competition with me for them. And if they were, then we'd have a market again! =)
Look, I'm not going to keep replying until you get it. Markets are the result of a differential in the value inflection. If you don't have a span, you don't have a market.
I originally wrote: "Here is a simple rule! If more than one person values something, you have a market."
anthony_philipp asserted: "you only need one person for an object to have value. an example is that of a family heirloom, no one else might want it, but it only has to be important to that one person to have value. and if they're rich the value may be quite high."
That's why I said it takes more than one person to make a market, not more than one person to have a value. My balls are pretty valuable to me but if nobody else wants them, there is no market.
anthony_philipp writes: "why does it have to be more than one person?"
Because markets are created by a disparity between perceptions of worth. When a person sells a stock, for example, that person thinks it is in their best interest to sell it while another person feels that it's a bad idea to sell it and it's a good idea to buy it.
If you have only one person, you have no span. If you have no span you have no market because one person must have only one perceived value.
I did not take into account the possibility of that one person being a schizophreniac, however...
From the article: "The phenomenon of the online economies is symptomatic of the increasing age and maturity of players of interactive entertainment. According to calculations reported by Edward Castronova, an economics professor at California State University, people are taking internet games so seriously that since the beginning of the year, Category 1654 has racked up $6,404,668 in sales - real money spent on things that do not exist."
I kind of take umbrage at the notion that buying something intangible is a concept new to the advent of MMOs or even somehow novel.
What is art? It's about $20 worth of paint, canvas and wood, isn't it? Oh, it's arranged in a way that makes it worth $4.6mil? I see, so it's not the worth of a thing but the perception of worth, the interpolation of physical value with non-physical value?
So why is the selling of items that carry very real value to people surprising? Here is a simple rule! If more than one person values something, you have a market.
From the original post: "...volunteers are expected to show their emotions in a chimp like fashion. This can be done by baring their teeth and by using submissive body language such as lowering their heads and crouching. The ZSL will publish their findings later this year."
And this would differ from the average Slashdotter's daily experience...how?
BrianCalstrom writes: "I've been on both sides of this issue. I don't understand how techies can argue against the fact that half of their team is below average *for the team*."
I have a simple question for you then...
There are three team-members. All three arrive on time, indeed, they all arrive early. All three contribute greatly to the project and produce great work. All three have great attitudes.
Now, which one do you think should get ranked as a "1," which translates to "needs action?"
Suppose for a minute that guy A is the one who isn't quite as stunning as the rest but he really busted his ass for a few months to get a project out. He gets the "1." Guess who isn't going to bust his ass for the team any more?
I can say this because I'm there now. I've been with three companies over the last six years (one left to go to a better company, next one laid off (4th round), next one laid off (only round), then where I'm at now). I've been promoted multiple times at the first three, given substantial raises at all of them too. Been selected to head teams, teach, etc. The head of my department has a "beatings will continue until morale improves" management style. Guess who is leaving this week?
The problem is not rating people. The problem is forcing someone to be the dog. You can't force a curve because your group doesn't look like a perfect curve. No matter what your thinking process is, you have to concede that the curve doesn't fit reality.
It's funny that this story should be posted. I was just given a very similar review just yesterday, though without the important aspect of forced groupings. But I am so annoyed with mine -- because it left out such important factors as the fact that I've stayed late/worked a double/filled shifts every time I was asked with one exception -- that I am strongly considering getting everyone to anonymously rate the company I work for.
You could do something similar. Form your own questionare but have the targets be either individual suits, individual departments...or heck, maybe both! When a complaint is made about the fact that some department has to be rated a "1,"...well, you can just sort of shrug and say "hey, it was your idea."
Of course, they will get to hem and haw about the results but have no standing at all to change the results. Then publish them. Hm. I think I'm on to a new website idea...
You can expect to be fired, of course. Just have something lined up. I can't imagine that McDonalds would be much worse than such a dumbass system...
I know that's not the point of the article, but I figured I'd chip in. If you can bring yourself to do it, you will never regret it. Nobody ever sits on their death bed and says "geeze, wish I watched more tv..."
Slashdot Mirror
Seth writes:
... just keep telling yourself that Moore doesn't resonate with mainstream America. Come December you'll wonder what the hell just happened.
"Michael Moore is an extremist. Extreme left-wing in this case, if I recall correctly. I saw Bowling for Columbine and it was a a good movie, but always, ALWAYS remember that's just ONE side of the spectrum."
It's funny you should label him an extremist. That's always been the way to sort of brush someone off without actually talking the salient points, isn't it? You just say "they're out of the mainstream" much as the Bush administration themselves have done.
But money talks and bullsh*t walks. Fahrenheit is currently on-track to be the biggest documentary ever, currently number one on the charts, so the money says Moore isn't nearly out of the loop as you'd like to think. At the very worst one can say he's preaching to the choir. In which case the choir is pretty goddamn big.
So
And while we're on the subject, I'd like for you to point me to any rant you've ever written -- on Slash or anywhere else -- about how the right wingers (Coulter, Bush, et al) don't make their opponent's cases for them.
I'll bet you a wooden nickel you can't produce anything.
"Kock safely?"
I have shot thousands of images at Rocky Horror over the last few years which is kind of similar to your situation. One second I'd have slow motion but low light which would call for a flash, ISO 100 and natural light whitebalance. The next I'd have some spotlight on the performers so I'd need no flash and ISO 200. THEN I'd get some house lights which would call for a different whitebalance, no flash and ISO 400 when there was action (preshow, let's say).
...what digital SLR won't?
My Olympus C-4040 (which I realize is not an SLR) was woefully in adequate for the task. It was pretty much spray and pray for me, let the post-processing pluck out the Hail Mary's.
So to the original poster, I would suggest that if you have ANY intention of MAYBE doing anything outside of shooting the kids in daylight you consider the ability to set 3 or more presets (macros?) and check to see how quickly you can shuffle between them. Maybe you'll be at a wedding someday, or a hockey match, or anything that requires shifting bewteen a few presets in a snap lest you miss the shot.
The only other advice I can suggest is making sure that you have a flash shoe on the camera but
When the fuck did it become the gamer's duty to subsidize a skewed pricing tier? This reeks of "if we don't rape you for $16 for every CD, you won't get to listen to the inspired strains of the Backstreet Boys, oh hell!" RIAA shill.
First, creativity will always exist. If it flounders, an opportunity will emerge. There will always be people for whom the "work" is more akin to "love" and will do it not only cheaper but better than the competition. Linux*cough*linux.
Second, if old games were $15 and new games were $25, would this problem exist?
Believe it or not, I'm fairly tolerant of self-indulgent Slashdot posts. But this one takes the cake.
Remove the tape from the middle of your glasses.
ZB writes:
"My casino philosophy has kept me on the winning side of the equation for some time now. My lifetime up-to-down ratio is something like 4:1, and here's why:"
It's kind of weird that 98% of everyone I meet swears they make more than they lose at any given sort of gambling. The fact that you use the term "something like" indicates that you have not kept track.
Human nature being what it is, you'll tend to remember more wins than losses because nobody likes to think that they're getting shafted. So unless you're a person who keeps regular records and a person that could be trusted not to fib, you'll have to forgive most Slashdotters for not taking this post very seriously.
More specifically, just because you chalk up $100 as being a "written off" entertinment expense doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Chalking up three visits @ $100 each as an entertianment expense and then winning $200 your next trip does not put you in the black.
I just began playing poker about 2-3 weeks ago. I don't think I'll be able to add a heck of a lot of insight into the game as I'm just now understanding it, but here are some useful resources:
http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-top-lists
Th is is a site that does a grid-style review of about 40-50 online poker sites. Me, I like EmpirePoker.com.
Play Poker Like the Pros
I found this book to be quite useful as a beginner but post-flop play advice is extremely vague or too caught up on specific situations that do not happen most of the time.
Ken Warren Teaches Texas Hold'em
This is a GREAT book but there are a few critical examples in there where I think his editor should have been hung in effigy. There is one chart that I have yet to figure out what it means, a few areas I don't quite follow what he's saying because if it's read literally, it's logically inconsistent and even a few misspellings. But despite all of these gripes, the best book I've seen on the specific game of Texas Hold 'Em.
He covers all areas of play, tells, betting (when to raise, when to check-raise, when to do none of the above), learning how to calculate outs, probabilities. He even includes "homework lessons" so you can better understand what hands may be profitable for your particular style of play.
I guess I can make some recommendations...
1) Playing for fake money is a great way to get a feel for the game in a general sense but people do not bet and play the same with fake money as they do with real money. I realize this may seem stupendously obvious but don't get your balls all worked up when you take in $1,000 in a night playing 5/10 Hold 'Em on Yahoo Games. These people play like asshats.
2) Speaking of which, don't play on Yahoo Games. Most of the betting sites that will take real money deposits also let you play for fake chips as well. I find that people who will go through the hassle of downloading a client for a specific poker site tend to take a more serious approach to betting and therefore you'll have a better gague of your gameplay.
One advantage of Yahoo, however, is that you cannot simply replenish your chips (AFAIK) by clicking on a few buttons. This means if you see someone with -2,402 chips, they kind of suck and you may want to avoid those tables if you really want to test your chops.
3) Bust out your spreadsheet of choice and label the headings with some of these; date, play/real money, day of week (1-7), month date (1-31), location, game type (texas hold 'em, omaha, etc), low bet, high bet, start time, end time, duration (calculated from the previous two), time of day, start bank, end bank, win/loss (calculated from the previous two), # of large bets per hour, rate per hour, table "looseness" (1-10), secondary expenses, tips to dealer, tips to waitstaff, narrative.
You might wonder what the day of the week and the day of the month have to do with anything. You will find that you do better or worse on certain days for reasons that may be non-obvious to you. For example, federal checks come on the 1st and the 15th, IIRC. Expect to see a better bankroll and profit on these days or even before since people will write checks that do not yet have backing a few days before knowing they'll be covered by the time they're cashed. Days of the week is probably a bit more obvious. Holidays factor in too.
If you're at a real casino you can bring a small notepad to jot these down on and enter into the sheet. If you're playing online you can just enter them in at the end of your gaming session. Generally you can just highlight the last row along with the next e
This is directed at the original poster. Since I'm sure he'll read even -1 stuff, mod down all you like. Here goes:
If you have so much excess old hardware that you want to stuff it into some sort of database, and you're not an eBayer or a retailer, you have issues. Big, expensive issues.
And not only because you feel the need to turn to a computer for what could be a very simple solution; two piles. One labeled "stuff I will never use or will likely never use" and one labeled "stuff I might someday use." Feel free to have several boxes! Maybe one is for cables, one is for HDs, one is for FDs, etc.
I've have never engaged in the "this question is too stupid for Slashdot" flamewars but I tell you, I don't mind if I start right now because if any post ever deserved it, it's this one. If you have so much outdated, unmarketable stuff that you need a db, a db isn't your solution. A garage sale or eBay is. If that doesn't work, try the trash.
I'm sure 95% of the replies are going to be in this vein but Christ, I really don't mind driving the point home Just That Little Extra Bit.
vasqzr writes:
"Then why, do you have as the #1 thing on your 'wish list' on your website, a Chrysler PT Cruiser?"
Why, do you have, commas in your sentence, where they're, not needed?
From the blurb:
"With the impending release of Valve's Half-Life 2 and id's Doom 3, we're looking at the first required hardware upgrade in gaming history..."
Uhhhh, no. While I'll buy that this does qualify as a de facto necessary hardware upgrade, the original Doom caused anyone interested to move from whatever they had -- likely a 486 -- to a Pentium chip. That's a whole new machine in case you're a young 'un.
Wolfenstein caused anyone without a clock doubler to quickly find out what the hell they were.
And I'm just warming up. First? Jeepers...
no_longer_myself writes:
"Can anyone else recall the difference between Type I, Type II and Type IV tapes?
This is a highly non-technical answer (because I'm not looking it up and pretending I knew it from memory =) but IIRC, type 1 was ok for speech, type 2 was acceptable for grade/highschool level radio recording (gotta love New Edition and Milli Vanilli-style mix tapes you swapped with your friends...) and type 4 sounded really, really good, was primo for recording CDs when those came out, but were generally too expensive.
And I have no idea why there was simply no type 3.
netshare writes:
"Guess why they do that? It's intentional, to make it difficult for rippers like you to steal the music. It's a bad position to be in, if the RIAA learns about stream-rippers, they will make life for Internet Radio Stations even more difficult, so they're fighting the bad guy but they have to give in to some of the baddies' wishes as well."
You have positively no idea what you are talking about.
I just reply and ask if they can send it in a different format. This does the same thing you're suggesting by the same method that Microsoft is trying to employ. It makes it an inconvenience for them to have to use something that is closed and not used by everyone. If this happens enough, a person will either suffer, send in several formats at once or send in a format that nobody has a problem with.
As a "reason," I might state that I don't run Windows. This enough is a brain-jarrer. "What? There are other options??"
"Do not use for the other thing."
I'm not kidding.
BenjyD writes:
"Except that a piece of art is not entirely arbitrary - it requires time and effort to make. If they wanted to, the developers could produce any number of these items in effectively zero time and effort."
I'll approach this on three fronts.
First, I'm going to guess you're young since your reply indicates you're probably not familiar with Warhol and his Studio 54. The point of Studio 54 was to mass market art. To, in effect, assembly line it and essentially make fun of the 80's art craze. On a side note, go see Basquiat . It's the most star-filled, incredible movie you've never even heard of.
Second, clearly the effort of art production is not commensurate with the price.
effort + raw materials != cost
Third, the central issue here is that the idea that an intangible item has hard currency value is novel. It isn't. Whether or not the people that maintain the software could effectively glut the market instantly only proves that the market is manipulatable. It does not speak to the "why" of the fact that the market exists in the first place.
anthony_philipp writes:
"yeah, but if someone else has your balls, and you want them back, theres a limited supply, (presumably two) and a demand (you.) it doesnt mean that the person with your balls wants them a lot. it just so happened that they came about them, and now that you want them there is a market for them."
Once you've introduced someone else into the group -- the person who has my balls -- you have a market. If you have only one person, then that person still has their balls, don't they? If you then argue that they could be broken with a hammer, then you're still talking "value," not "a market," because the hammer is not in competition with me for them. And if they were, then we'd have a market again! =)
Look, I'm not going to keep replying until you get it. Markets are the result of a differential in the value inflection. If you don't have a span, you don't have a market.
"Here is a simple rule! If more than one person values something, you have a market."
anthony_philipp asserted:
"you only need one person for an object to have value. an example is that of a family heirloom, no one else might want it, but it only has to be important to that one person to have value. and if they're rich the value may be quite high."
That's why I said it takes more than one person to make a market, not more than one person to have a value. My balls are pretty valuable to me but if nobody else wants them, there is no market.
anthony_philipp writes:
"why does it have to be more than one person?"
Because markets are created by a disparity between perceptions of worth. When a person sells a stock, for example, that person thinks it is in their best interest to sell it while another person feels that it's a bad idea to sell it and it's a good idea to buy it.
If you have only one person, you have no span. If you have no span you have no market because one person must have only one perceived value.
I did not take into account the possibility of that one person being a schizophreniac, however...
From the article:
"The phenomenon of the online economies is symptomatic of the increasing age and maturity of players of interactive entertainment. According to calculations reported by Edward Castronova, an economics professor at California State University, people are taking internet games so seriously that since the beginning of the year, Category 1654 has racked up $6,404,668 in sales - real money spent on things that do not exist."
I kind of take umbrage at the notion that buying something intangible is a concept new to the advent of MMOs or even somehow novel.
What is art? It's about $20 worth of paint, canvas and wood, isn't it? Oh, it's arranged in a way that makes it worth $4.6mil? I see, so it's not the worth of a thing but the perception of worth, the interpolation of physical value with non-physical value?
So why is the selling of items that carry very real value to people surprising? Here is a simple rule! If more than one person values something, you have a market.
I've been reading Slashdot for ...I'm guessing somewhere around seven years (1997?). This is the funniest goddamn reply I have ever read.
Thank you.
From the original post:
...how?
"...volunteers are expected to show their emotions in a chimp like fashion. This can be done by baring their teeth and by using submissive body language such as lowering their heads and crouching. The ZSL will publish their findings later this year."
And this would differ from the average Slashdotter's daily experience
Maybe they could throw in "get paid in peanuts."
BrianCalstrom writes:
"I've been on both sides of this issue. I don't understand how techies can argue against the fact that half of their team is below average *for the team*."
I have a simple question for you then...
There are three team-members. All three arrive on time, indeed, they all arrive early. All three contribute greatly to the project and produce great work. All three have great attitudes.
Now, which one do you think should get ranked as a "1," which translates to "needs action?"
Suppose for a minute that guy A is the one who isn't quite as stunning as the rest but he really busted his ass for a few months to get a project out. He gets the "1." Guess who isn't going to bust his ass for the team any more?
I can say this because I'm there now. I've been with three companies over the last six years (one left to go to a better company, next one laid off (4th round), next one laid off (only round), then where I'm at now). I've been promoted multiple times at the first three, given substantial raises at all of them too. Been selected to head teams, teach, etc. The head of my department has a "beatings will continue until morale improves" management style. Guess who is leaving this week?
The problem is not rating people. The problem is forcing someone to be the dog. You can't force a curve because your group doesn't look like a perfect curve. No matter what your thinking process is, you have to concede that the curve doesn't fit reality.
It's funny that this story should be posted. I was just given a very similar review just yesterday, though without the important aspect of forced groupings. But I am so annoyed with mine -- because it left out such important factors as the fact that I've stayed late/worked a double/filled shifts every time I was asked with one exception -- that I am strongly considering getting everyone to anonymously rate the company I work for.
...or heck, maybe both! When a complaint is made about the fact that some department has to be rated a "1," ...well, you can just sort of shrug and say "hey, it was your idea."
You could do something similar. Form your own questionare but have the targets be either individual suits, individual departments
Of course, they will get to hem and haw about the results but have no standing at all to change the results. Then publish them. Hm. I think I'm on to a new website idea...
You can expect to be fired, of course. Just have something lined up. I can't imagine that McDonalds would be much worse than such a dumbass system...
I'm 31, turned my TV off in 1994 (@ 22).
Best decision of my life.
I know that's not the point of the article, but I figured I'd chip in. If you can bring yourself to do it, you will never regret it. Nobody ever sits on their death bed and says "geeze, wish I watched more tv..."