You must have missed the word "hobby" in there. Consider the case of someone with an embroidery business, who has the cliparts built in to the machine. They are most likely not even aware that the images were licensed from Company X, only that they are available. Now this little embroidery shop thinks it would be neat to show prospective customers what motives are available on a web page, and makes a page with a bunch of GIF images that look like what the machine can do. Would you sue that person?
Returning to my jeans analogy, the point is that I have no way to prove to you that I purchased them, since I got them at a garage sale. Even though you are the sole supplier of these jeans, you cannot prevent people from selling them on eBay or at garage sales. Even if they were counterfeits made in some sweat shop, it would be unwise for you to accuse me of stealing them (though in the EU big brands have pushed legislation through that punishes someone who buys a fake brand more than if they had bought stolen goods...go figure).
That is why I said that, since I'm most likely not the only one. Too many companies have tried to fake grassroots support, so much so that most readers become jaded. I wanted to give you a chance to allay my doubts (and the doubts of those like me).
Yes, I agree with you there: it's the issue of someone selling clipart as their own that should be persecuted, not those using clipart in good faith. Unfortunately, Mr. Riddick's letters poison the atmosphere and make an amicable agreement almost impossible.
(Umm, you just triggered my "astroturf" alert. This is the only comment Slashdot has you on record for, so I can't get a grasp of whether you are real or not.)
Your argument is wrong in that it tries to place a burden of proof on every amateur website out there, something that is silly. Cliparts from the Eighties have changed hands many, many times; disks sold at garage sales and copy/paste make it impossible for a hobby webmaster to keep records. If we were to use your metric, then almost all of the web would be easy prey to copyright lawsuits.
No, I have to disagree with you there, Mister Former Riddick Employee. If someone is actually selling cliparts, well, OK. That's worthy of legal action. But merely using a picture and not remembering if you bought it or not? Please. You may as well accuse me of shoplifting because I can't produce the receipt for the jeans on me arse.
I'm surprised that there are so few follow-ups to such research projects as Apple's Classrooms of Tomorrow project. Rather, instead of getting all depressed, the response I would like to have seen more recognition of the foundation saying "well, this worked here but not here. Now we just have to figure out why." After all, it's not like they're giving up.
I suppose the problem is that the scientific approach of experimentation is the moral issue here, since it's the future of the students that is at risk here. We are understandably loath to just try things in case we ruin their education, even if we could learn something to improve education for all through such mistakes.
What isn't so simplistic is to note that with smaller schools, the quality of the individual teacher plays a bigger role. What makes a school a success is the motivation of both teachers and students. On the most basic level, it means spikes aren't swallowed by the whole. Or to use another metaphor, more (if smaller) spotlights mean more of a chance of recognition, which is in itself a powerful motivator (why do you think medals are so popular?).
Now this is a difficult thing to achieve, since it often refuses to fit into a formula. You have to get the right sort of teacher to fit the group of students, and figure out what will motivate those students yet not frustrate the teacher.
So yeah, there were some schools where the Gates Foundation found a perfect fit. I think the point is that the things that make it a success aren't any sort of universal rule, and lack of adaptation is where the foundation fell short.
Two things that I find glaringly wrong with your post:
1. Your attempt to claim discrimination for choosing a style that resembles skinheads falls flat. You're comparing an active choice with ethnic characteristics, and that just ruins your credibility.
2. If done right, the filter really is an embargo, but one that drills down to the site host. This avoids harming other, legitimate businesses and encourages the actual providers to clean up their acts.
Note that I don't agree with Ms. von der Leyen's idea, since it can be easily circumvented and will most likely trigger a whole host of false positives. But I also don't agree with your position. Yes, I live in Germany, and yes, I am a foreigner, and yes, I have friends who have shaved heads, but they vote SPD. Cheers!
GTK is not the target...
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I have a hunch Nokia is looking at XCode and Apple instead. After all, the main battle for them is in the mobile market, and Apple made a big deal about the iPhone being based on OS X. So this is a bid to win over the talented developers.
QT is available on more platforms, true, and it always has been. Still, XCode was free for anyone with a Mac, and the developer kits for the iPhone only required that you own a Mac and that you registered as a developer.
Well, I'm not a sysadmin meself, just a lowly webmonkey. So relax. I'm just quoting what the IT types say to me whenever I inquire about it.
Besides, I personally prefer Pages for formatted texts, and TextWrangler for editing raw texts. I'd rather keep the copies of my data on physical media, so I can access it without net access, personally.
On the whole subject of collaborative document editing, I think this is the real kicker. Many companies block Google's tools since that would mean storing company info outside of the company. Add to this the "beta" caveat that Google carries, and Google no longer considers itself liable if competitors get access to the info. After all, they did tell you it was buggy and all...
Are we really moving back to a server/terminal mentality? More importantly, is it a good thing that we are adding traffic to do tasks that were done with local media? I think corporations like the idea of collaborative editing, but they would prefer it of everything stayed behind their firewalls and on their own server's drives.
Steve Wozniak (the other founder of Apple) used to keep a special book of US$2.00 bills that he had made from bills that hadn't been cut. He then had them perforated so that he could tear them out like checks for payment.
The sad part is that we've always had micropayments: it's called a meter. You buy gasoline (or petrol) not in integer gallons (or litres), but rather you get a price rounded to the nearest cent for your purchase. Long distance calls? Another micropayment, lumped into a monthly bill.
That's what made micropayments feasible in the past: instead of having to buy each increment, you only made one payment at the end of your consumption. You don't have to prepay every long distance call. You don't have to second-guess how much fuel your car needs. Another writer that is far more clever than I pointed out that if were otherwise, we would balk since each payment involves a little anxiety that is independent of the amount paid.
So yeah, I agree. Customers hate micropayments. They prefer the "all you can eat" flat rate for services. It's only things like fuel pumps where people don't think too hard about it, since it's a lump sum at the end (and there's no economically feasible way to apply a flat rate to a fuel station).
I think we are close to consensus, but not quite there all the way. It's the tiny little niggling details where we differ.
I am not trying to make math "not-math", but my statement is that on top of mathematics an engineering approach is also valid. The difference is that engineering deals with the emergent behaviour instead of directly dealing with the maths underneath. An imperfect analogy would be using a compiled high-level language rather than machine code. The machine code is still there, but a different approach is used.
The reason I think of a computer program as more than just maths is because although the vast core of programming is maths, there are still instructions to deal with the interface. I would even dare to suggest that maths is itself an emergent behaviour over the setting of switches. Formulae allow us to understand the complex setting of these switches and circuits that make up hardware.
I think others in this discussion have expounded both of our viewpoints sufficiently. Our differences are now getting into the philosophic of whether the universe a model of formulae is or formulae a model of the universe. I even consider some forms of mathematics to be engineering, only instead of dealing with, say, the flow of liquids it deals with the flow of data. Our neurons and the circuits of the computer are the pipes and pumps, and the formula the blueprint of the plumbing, so to speak!
Ahem. I'm getting carried away here.
I only hope that I have been able to defend the position that an engineering approach can also be valid in designing computer code. I never doubted your viewpoint, but I did feel it worthwhile to point out where mine differs. Cheers!
I think you are missing the point, but just barely: software is a set of instructions, like formulae are. Formulae are instructions on how to reach a sum, and software is a set of instructions on how to set circuits inside a computer. They are alike, but not entirely the same.
The other thing to realise is the magnitude of complexity in software means that emergence kicks in: the set of instructions begins to behave like a physical object, and engineering approaches gradually apply. Sure, there are maths in there, but it's no longer so relevant to the design of the set of instructions. Refining and redesigning the code becomes more analogue to engineering, redesigning a structure for better performance and so on.
It's easy to forget this since the first purpose of computers was to compute. Solve mathematical problems. But modern usage of these machines has gone beyond that, so seeing the set of instructions we call software as merely mathematical formulae cheapens the term "formula".
Re:Hey, remember when Ender's Game was good?
on
Ender in Exile
·
· Score: 1
I have to agree with you there. When a government grants legal perks (tax filing, inheritance, powers of attorney, etc.) to those considered married, then it has to define what it means by "married". It just has to be clear that legal marriage is a separate case from religious marriage.
If taken to its logical conclusion, bigamy could return as a religious marriage that has no legal standing; all it would be from a legal standpoint is a meaningless term. As far as the state is concerned, only two in the group are legally wedded, the third person an extramarital affair - gender is unimportant. Church and state would be separate.
Oh, BTW: to understand how the poster can "overwhelming majority" despite evidence to the contrary is the use of the word "support". That narrows down the group to the advocates and winnows out the tolerant. It's a common trick in propaganda.
Now you're talking about specifics in a version I never played, son*. What I was talking about was how the level system originally evolved out of the primitive level system of wargames (for example "Green"-"Veteran"-Elite"), and that the different numbers of XP needed to reach each level were supposed to balance this. It had nothing to do with how experience really played a role in how the heroes developed, but was to keep the magic users from stealing the show too soon. That's why different character classes had different XP levels to reach in the first editions.
The balance in the original D&D/AD&D wasn't inter-party balance, either: it was balance against the other side. Monsters and adventure modules were rated according to what level the adventurers were expected to have. It was a logical extension if the tabletop wargame, where armies were ranked by size times experience level. A fifth-level champion thus costing as much as five companies of infantry or five 1st-level champions when building your army and so on.
The things you describe, the whole prestige classes and Feats are alien concepts someone like me, a guy who played the original D&D. Back in my day, sonny, munchkins would exploit loopholes and logical inconsistencies, as there were less options to tweak the stats. Instead, they would fudge their stats outright or complain loudly when a roll went against them.
*Note: I'm making fun of my own age here, not of yours.
I think we both have the same idea, the whole "blind men describing an elephant" thingy. The original D&D was balanced for a win/lose of opposing players, not for players on the same side being equally rewarded.
I used to play a lot more AD&D, since it was the only game the rest of the group would play, but it wasn't ever my favourite rule system. I preferred games like Traveller and GURPS, where you only had one role: Protagonist.
I also agree with your philosophy that the only balance necessary in a game, no matter the rules, is equal involvement in plot. The revisions to the D&D rules may now address that, but I left that rule system before Wizards of the Coast took over.
I think it's a problem with a lot of games, that the more powerful you become the less of a challenge the game becomes. Get Fuzzy brought it to a point when Rob was playing a Rugby video game, trying to unlock the best team. "So to get the team that lets you beat all other teams, you have to first beat all the other teams and prove you don't need them?"
I personally think the Bigger Guns With Experience metaphor is slightly broken. You don't reward the Good Stuff after you finish the adventure, really. The best reward is unlocking a new part of the game, or other sorts of information. Complete the level to get the next mission, collect the bits you need to get the McGuffin and so on. Characters levelling up may be fun in, say, Diablo, but it's not realistic. Years of training are compressed into a single night (or a few days in the sequel).
Reading the post, it most likely was the original D&D/AD&D that was referred to. The game was balanced in a way that reflected its Chainmail roots, with different XP thresholds for each class. What you describe are the ways munchkins to this day use items that were added later to the game that the original balance paradigm was not equipped to handle.
AD&D Magic Users were artillery pieces who benefited the most from feature creep. After all, magic is the easiest route to add new, more amazing things to a game. Players made up ever more powerful spells and items, and even in 1980 (when I first started playing) we had godlike wizards.
This inherent balance is why so many other role playing systems used the D&D class/level/XP framework, and concentrated instead on what class and level meant. Other systems like Traveller and GURPS never used class and achieved balance with other tools, but D&D still is the role model for most online RPG systems.
Actually, I think Nintendo was right to choose different names and to emphasise that the Wii is a different product from the Game Cube. Sony sees their Playstation lineup as an evolution, and with the product naming implies that it is backwards-compatible. Microsoft, well, they kinda muddle in between.
Actually, that's pretty typical of Microsoft: Windows 95 was a different product than previous Windows, as was Windows NT. But not entirely different, and a new naming versus version policy was put in place that turned the whole concept of version numbers inside out.
Now that I think of it, Microsoft isn't the worst offender. Adobe did the same with Adobe Illustrator 88, and Macromedia did the same with FreeHand 5.5 to FreeHand 7, skipping over 6. Apple also wasn't all that consistent, with System 7.5 going to Mac OS 7.6, and Mac OS 8.6 becoming Mac OS 9 so that they could call their next-gen OS version X (enough "this one goes to XI" jokes, sheesh!).
I think it's because Google was doing "proof of concept" and not really trying to corner the browser market. By using WebKit, they can play in their own little sandbox and not make the Firefox developers feel like they are being assimilated. Also, from what I've read WebKit was easier to rewrite into the "tab=app" model that is at the heart of Chrome.
Also, if you read through the Scott McCloud comic about Chrome, they have a section devoted to plugins and how they don't yet fit into the new process concept of Chrome. The whole idea is that when one browser tab goes south, it shouldn't take the whole browser with it. Since plugins can't be reliably sandboxed, they are still a programming challenge that is being worked upon.
Remember, the code is open. Coding concepts can be taken as wanted and worked into any other browser. There is nothing out there to prevent Firefox 4 from taking some of Chrome's ideas (or even the underlying code) and incorporating it into their own.
I don't think Google was really snubbing Firefox. By their own admission, Chrome isn't ready for prime time, and I suspect the future of browsers may see the engines and the interface become even more interchangeable. I could actually envision a future browser which allows for switching between Gecko and WebKit on the fly.
If you look beyond the USA, you can see that there really is a consensus that teachers are more effective when the classes are smaller. Sources differ about where the "sweet spot" is in the ratio between teachers to pupils, but it seems to be somewhere between 15 and 25.
Classes with more than 30 pupils do progressively worse, in general. Things like maintaining discipline and individual attention play a very important role in education up to the end of high school.
I don't think unions are the evil bugaboos you suggest that they are. More often it's tradition that is the main roadblock to restructuring the school system into one that is more effective. I have seen terrible schools with no budget or resources resist change simply because "we've always had a school in this part of town" or "we've always done it this way".
I won't quibble the details, but I do recall Bungie extolling the fact that they were going to put all players on the same "world", thus Massively Multiplayer Online. Halo's selling point was how it was going to be a MMORTS, not a MMORPG. Bungie told fans (yes, I loved Bungie for making Myth and Marathon) that different servers would handle different zones on the ringworld, and that they were working on techniques to reduce lag. Granted, much of what we were told was vapourware, but it still got many people excited.
OK, so I'm quibbling with the details.:)
Hmm, come to think of it, an acronym like MMORTS fits the old Bungie, who gave us such delightful weapons as the SPNK-R and the WASTE-M...
Well, the original version of Halo (pre-Microsoft) was to be a MMO game first and foremost, and Apple used to demo it at Mac events. Then Microsoft bought up Bungie, nerfed Oni and killed all development on Halo that wasn't XBox-relevant.
Kinda sad, really, that the dream of MMO Halo was never realised. The ringworld would have made an interesting battleground.
Slashdot Mirror
You must have missed the word "hobby" in there. Consider the case of someone with an embroidery business, who has the cliparts built in to the machine. They are most likely not even aware that the images were licensed from Company X, only that they are available. Now this little embroidery shop thinks it would be neat to show prospective customers what motives are available on a web page, and makes a page with a bunch of GIF images that look like what the machine can do. Would you sue that person?
Returning to my jeans analogy, the point is that I have no way to prove to you that I purchased them, since I got them at a garage sale. Even though you are the sole supplier of these jeans, you cannot prevent people from selling them on eBay or at garage sales. Even if they were counterfeits made in some sweat shop, it would be unwise for you to accuse me of stealing them (though in the EU big brands have pushed legislation through that punishes someone who buys a fake brand more than if they had bought stolen goods...go figure).
That is why I said that, since I'm most likely not the only one. Too many companies have tried to fake grassroots support, so much so that most readers become jaded. I wanted to give you a chance to allay my doubts (and the doubts of those like me).
Yes, I agree with you there: it's the issue of someone selling clipart as their own that should be persecuted, not those using clipart in good faith. Unfortunately, Mr. Riddick's letters poison the atmosphere and make an amicable agreement almost impossible.
(Umm, you just triggered my "astroturf" alert. This is the only comment Slashdot has you on record for, so I can't get a grasp of whether you are real or not.)
Your argument is wrong in that it tries to place a burden of proof on every amateur website out there, something that is silly. Cliparts from the Eighties have changed hands many, many times; disks sold at garage sales and copy/paste make it impossible for a hobby webmaster to keep records. If we were to use your metric, then almost all of the web would be easy prey to copyright lawsuits.
No, I have to disagree with you there, Mister Former Riddick Employee. If someone is actually selling cliparts, well, OK. That's worthy of legal action. But merely using a picture and not remembering if you bought it or not? Please. You may as well accuse me of shoplifting because I can't produce the receipt for the jeans on me arse.
I'm surprised that there are so few follow-ups to such research projects as Apple's Classrooms of Tomorrow project. Rather, instead of getting all depressed, the response I would like to have seen more recognition of the foundation saying "well, this worked here but not here. Now we just have to figure out why." After all, it's not like they're giving up.
I suppose the problem is that the scientific approach of experimentation is the moral issue here, since it's the future of the students that is at risk here. We are understandably loath to just try things in case we ruin their education, even if we could learn something to improve education for all through such mistakes.
What isn't so simplistic is to note that with smaller schools, the quality of the individual teacher plays a bigger role. What makes a school a success is the motivation of both teachers and students. On the most basic level, it means spikes aren't swallowed by the whole. Or to use another metaphor, more (if smaller) spotlights mean more of a chance of recognition, which is in itself a powerful motivator (why do you think medals are so popular?).
Now this is a difficult thing to achieve, since it often refuses to fit into a formula. You have to get the right sort of teacher to fit the group of students, and figure out what will motivate those students yet not frustrate the teacher.
So yeah, there were some schools where the Gates Foundation found a perfect fit. I think the point is that the things that make it a success aren't any sort of universal rule, and lack of adaptation is where the foundation fell short.
Two things that I find glaringly wrong with your post:
1. Your attempt to claim discrimination for choosing a style that resembles skinheads falls flat. You're comparing an active choice with ethnic characteristics, and that just ruins your credibility.
2. If done right, the filter really is an embargo, but one that drills down to the site host. This avoids harming other, legitimate businesses and encourages the actual providers to clean up their acts.
Note that I don't agree with Ms. von der Leyen's idea, since it can be easily circumvented and will most likely trigger a whole host of false positives. But I also don't agree with your position. Yes, I live in Germany, and yes, I am a foreigner, and yes, I have friends who have shaved heads, but they vote SPD. Cheers!
I have a hunch Nokia is looking at XCode and Apple instead. After all, the main battle for them is in the mobile market, and Apple made a big deal about the iPhone being based on OS X. So this is a bid to win over the talented developers.
QT is available on more platforms, true, and it always has been. Still, XCode was free for anyone with a Mac, and the developer kits for the iPhone only required that you own a Mac and that you registered as a developer.
Well, I'm not a sysadmin meself, just a lowly webmonkey. So relax. I'm just quoting what the IT types say to me whenever I inquire about it.
Besides, I personally prefer Pages for formatted texts, and TextWrangler for editing raw texts. I'd rather keep the copies of my data on physical media, so I can access it without net access, personally.
On the whole subject of collaborative document editing, I think this is the real kicker. Many companies block Google's tools since that would mean storing company info outside of the company. Add to this the "beta" caveat that Google carries, and Google no longer considers itself liable if competitors get access to the info. After all, they did tell you it was buggy and all...
Are we really moving back to a server/terminal mentality? More importantly, is it a good thing that we are adding traffic to do tasks that were done with local media? I think corporations like the idea of collaborative editing, but they would prefer it of everything stayed behind their firewalls and on their own server's drives.
Steve Wozniak (the other founder of Apple) used to keep a special book of US$2.00 bills that he had made from bills that hadn't been cut. He then had them perforated so that he could tear them out like checks for payment.
You can read the full story in his words here: http://woz.org/letters/general/78.html
The sad part is that we've always had micropayments: it's called a meter. You buy gasoline (or petrol) not in integer gallons (or litres), but rather you get a price rounded to the nearest cent for your purchase. Long distance calls? Another micropayment, lumped into a monthly bill.
That's what made micropayments feasible in the past: instead of having to buy each increment, you only made one payment at the end of your consumption. You don't have to prepay every long distance call. You don't have to second-guess how much fuel your car needs. Another writer that is far more clever than I pointed out that if were otherwise, we would balk since each payment involves a little anxiety that is independent of the amount paid.
So yeah, I agree. Customers hate micropayments. They prefer the "all you can eat" flat rate for services. It's only things like fuel pumps where people don't think too hard about it, since it's a lump sum at the end (and there's no economically feasible way to apply a flat rate to a fuel station).
I think we are close to consensus, but not quite there all the way. It's the tiny little niggling details where we differ.
I am not trying to make math "not-math", but my statement is that on top of mathematics an engineering approach is also valid. The difference is that engineering deals with the emergent behaviour instead of directly dealing with the maths underneath. An imperfect analogy would be using a compiled high-level language rather than machine code. The machine code is still there, but a different approach is used.
The reason I think of a computer program as more than just maths is because although the vast core of programming is maths, there are still instructions to deal with the interface. I would even dare to suggest that maths is itself an emergent behaviour over the setting of switches. Formulae allow us to understand the complex setting of these switches and circuits that make up hardware.
I think others in this discussion have expounded both of our viewpoints sufficiently. Our differences are now getting into the philosophic of whether the universe a model of formulae is or formulae a model of the universe. I even consider some forms of mathematics to be engineering, only instead of dealing with, say, the flow of liquids it deals with the flow of data. Our neurons and the circuits of the computer are the pipes and pumps, and the formula the blueprint of the plumbing, so to speak!
Ahem. I'm getting carried away here.
I only hope that I have been able to defend the position that an engineering approach can also be valid in designing computer code. I never doubted your viewpoint, but I did feel it worthwhile to point out where mine differs. Cheers!
I think you are missing the point, but just barely: software is a set of instructions, like formulae are. Formulae are instructions on how to reach a sum, and software is a set of instructions on how to set circuits inside a computer. They are alike, but not entirely the same.
The other thing to realise is the magnitude of complexity in software means that emergence kicks in: the set of instructions begins to behave like a physical object, and engineering approaches gradually apply. Sure, there are maths in there, but it's no longer so relevant to the design of the set of instructions. Refining and redesigning the code becomes more analogue to engineering, redesigning a structure for better performance and so on.
It's easy to forget this since the first purpose of computers was to compute. Solve mathematical problems. But modern usage of these machines has gone beyond that, so seeing the set of instructions we call software as merely mathematical formulae cheapens the term "formula".
I have to agree with you there. When a government grants legal perks (tax filing, inheritance, powers of attorney, etc.) to those considered married, then it has to define what it means by "married". It just has to be clear that legal marriage is a separate case from religious marriage.
If taken to its logical conclusion, bigamy could return as a religious marriage that has no legal standing; all it would be from a legal standpoint is a meaningless term. As far as the state is concerned, only two in the group are legally wedded, the third person an extramarital affair - gender is unimportant. Church and state would be separate.
Oh, BTW: to understand how the poster can "overwhelming majority" despite evidence to the contrary is the use of the word "support". That narrows down the group to the advocates and winnows out the tolerant. It's a common trick in propaganda.
Now you're talking about specifics in a version I never played, son*. What I was talking about was how the level system originally evolved out of the primitive level system of wargames (for example "Green"-"Veteran"-Elite"), and that the different numbers of XP needed to reach each level were supposed to balance this. It had nothing to do with how experience really played a role in how the heroes developed, but was to keep the magic users from stealing the show too soon. That's why different character classes had different XP levels to reach in the first editions.
The balance in the original D&D/AD&D wasn't inter-party balance, either: it was balance against the other side. Monsters and adventure modules were rated according to what level the adventurers were expected to have. It was a logical extension if the tabletop wargame, where armies were ranked by size times experience level. A fifth-level champion thus costing as much as five companies of infantry or five 1st-level champions when building your army and so on.
The things you describe, the whole prestige classes and Feats are alien concepts someone like me, a guy who played the original D&D. Back in my day, sonny, munchkins would exploit loopholes and logical inconsistencies, as there were less options to tweak the stats. Instead, they would fudge their stats outright or complain loudly when a roll went against them.
*Note: I'm making fun of my own age here, not of yours.
I think we both have the same idea, the whole "blind men describing an elephant" thingy. The original D&D was balanced for a win/lose of opposing players, not for players on the same side being equally rewarded.
I used to play a lot more AD&D, since it was the only game the rest of the group would play, but it wasn't ever my favourite rule system. I preferred games like Traveller and GURPS, where you only had one role: Protagonist.
I also agree with your philosophy that the only balance necessary in a game, no matter the rules, is equal involvement in plot. The revisions to the D&D rules may now address that, but I left that rule system before Wizards of the Coast took over.
I think it's a problem with a lot of games, that the more powerful you become the less of a challenge the game becomes. Get Fuzzy brought it to a point when Rob was playing a Rugby video game, trying to unlock the best team. "So to get the team that lets you beat all other teams, you have to first beat all the other teams and prove you don't need them?"
I personally think the Bigger Guns With Experience metaphor is slightly broken. You don't reward the Good Stuff after you finish the adventure, really. The best reward is unlocking a new part of the game, or other sorts of information. Complete the level to get the next mission, collect the bits you need to get the McGuffin and so on. Characters levelling up may be fun in, say, Diablo, but it's not realistic. Years of training are compressed into a single night (or a few days in the sequel).
Reading the post, it most likely was the original D&D/AD&D that was referred to. The game was balanced in a way that reflected its Chainmail roots, with different XP thresholds for each class. What you describe are the ways munchkins to this day use items that were added later to the game that the original balance paradigm was not equipped to handle.
AD&D Magic Users were artillery pieces who benefited the most from feature creep. After all, magic is the easiest route to add new, more amazing things to a game. Players made up ever more powerful spells and items, and even in 1980 (when I first started playing) we had godlike wizards.
This inherent balance is why so many other role playing systems used the D&D class/level/XP framework, and concentrated instead on what class and level meant. Other systems like Traveller and GURPS never used class and achieved balance with other tools, but D&D still is the role model for most online RPG systems.
Actually, I think Nintendo was right to choose different names and to emphasise that the Wii is a different product from the Game Cube. Sony sees their Playstation lineup as an evolution, and with the product naming implies that it is backwards-compatible. Microsoft, well, they kinda muddle in between.
Actually, that's pretty typical of Microsoft: Windows 95 was a different product than previous Windows, as was Windows NT. But not entirely different, and a new naming versus version policy was put in place that turned the whole concept of version numbers inside out.
Now that I think of it, Microsoft isn't the worst offender. Adobe did the same with Adobe Illustrator 88, and Macromedia did the same with FreeHand 5.5 to FreeHand 7, skipping over 6. Apple also wasn't all that consistent, with System 7.5 going to Mac OS 7.6, and Mac OS 8.6 becoming Mac OS 9 so that they could call their next-gen OS version X (enough "this one goes to XI" jokes, sheesh!).
I think it's because Google was doing "proof of concept" and not really trying to corner the browser market. By using WebKit, they can play in their own little sandbox and not make the Firefox developers feel like they are being assimilated. Also, from what I've read WebKit was easier to rewrite into the "tab=app" model that is at the heart of Chrome.
Also, if you read through the Scott McCloud comic about Chrome, they have a section devoted to plugins and how they don't yet fit into the new process concept of Chrome. The whole idea is that when one browser tab goes south, it shouldn't take the whole browser with it. Since plugins can't be reliably sandboxed, they are still a programming challenge that is being worked upon.
Remember, the code is open. Coding concepts can be taken as wanted and worked into any other browser. There is nothing out there to prevent Firefox 4 from taking some of Chrome's ideas (or even the underlying code) and incorporating it into their own.
I don't think Google was really snubbing Firefox. By their own admission, Chrome isn't ready for prime time, and I suspect the future of browsers may see the engines and the interface become even more interchangeable. I could actually envision a future browser which allows for switching between Gecko and WebKit on the fly.
If you look beyond the USA, you can see that there really is a consensus that teachers are more effective when the classes are smaller. Sources differ about where the "sweet spot" is in the ratio between teachers to pupils, but it seems to be somewhere between 15 and 25.
Classes with more than 30 pupils do progressively worse, in general. Things like maintaining discipline and individual attention play a very important role in education up to the end of high school.
I don't think unions are the evil bugaboos you suggest that they are. More often it's tradition that is the main roadblock to restructuring the school system into one that is more effective. I have seen terrible schools with no budget or resources resist change simply because "we've always had a school in this part of town" or "we've always done it this way".
I won't quibble the details, but I do recall Bungie extolling the fact that they were going to put all players on the same "world", thus Massively Multiplayer Online. Halo's selling point was how it was going to be a MMORTS, not a MMORPG. Bungie told fans (yes, I loved Bungie for making Myth and Marathon) that different servers would handle different zones on the ringworld, and that they were working on techniques to reduce lag. Granted, much of what we were told was vapourware, but it still got many people excited.
OK, so I'm quibbling with the details. :)
Hmm, come to think of it, an acronym like MMORTS fits the old Bungie, who gave us such delightful weapons as the SPNK-R and the WASTE-M...
Well, the original version of Halo (pre-Microsoft) was to be a MMO game first and foremost, and Apple used to demo it at Mac events. Then Microsoft bought up Bungie, nerfed Oni and killed all development on Halo that wasn't XBox-relevant.
Kinda sad, really, that the dream of MMO Halo was never realised. The ringworld would have made an interesting battleground.
Which just goes to show that Chuck Norris should take the warning seriously, before he runs out of fists.
It does seem rather harsh, though, putting his dismembered fist inside of a book. But Ninja are not known for their compassion...
Which explains why so many hedge funds are in trouble?