"I'm sorry to hear that the Star Wars kid decided to be a blood sucking lawyer." Yep, they're all evil until YOU need one to help you navigate the law, or until the EFF uses them to fight for your rights. Lawyers don't sue, PLAINTIFFS sue.
And if I've got a project running behind schedule I won't say "no" to a Sith Lord offering to find new ways to motivate my men. I wouldn't want to have a beer with him, though.
it's simple, really - spin-offs are, by definition, lame and derivative.
books based on tv shows, books based on movies, tv shows based on movies, movies based on movies (aka sequels), video games based on movies, and movies based on video games - all are driven by profit over artistry. these products don't start with the question "wouldn't this be a neat idea?", they start with "can we extract more profit from this franchise?" because people already have a positive relationship with the brand, there is less incentive to work on quality, because there are large numbers of people who will consume the product regardless of its quality. since the product's quality does not dictate its profitability, the quality tends to suck.
It's possible to wed good storytelling with commercialism. Those of us who grew up in the 80's might recall the GI Joe comic book. The original toyline had barbie-sized dolls that you dressed up with soldier clothes. When the GI Joe line was revamped, they went with the smaller "action figures" that were of molded plastic with the clothes as part of the model. They also tried to come up with a storyline to go with the toys and also approached Marvel Comics. A guy named Larry Hama got the gig. He took a rejected idea he'd worked up for a stand-alone storyline he'd worked up for Nick Fury and friends battling an evil terrorist organization and worked in the toy line instead.
It just so happened that you got someone in charge who really liked the concept, really liked the characters, and put some heart into it. There's no freakin' reason why the comic tie-in should have been any good. It should have been awful. Everyone involved in the process should have been looking shame-faced in the mirror saying "I'm only doing it for the money." But people actually liked what they were doing. And even through the executive meddling, they were pleased with the results.
But how often do you get hands-off freedom on these projects? Not often. You don't get people who are doing it for the love of it and oh, by the way, I'm making money, too! You get people who are just cashing in. And really, who could get inspired over making an A-Team movie or GI Joe movie? The people signing the checks aren't demanding quality, they just want something flashy that will sell. How does McDonalds design a new burger? Put in lots of fat and grease and sugar, stuff that appeals to the lowest common denominator of taste. Sure, we could use quality ingredients and make a healthy, nutritious, and tasty option here but let's be real, we're just cranking this shit out. So you get movies with titty, explosions, titty, bad writing, and it just gets shoved out the door.
The other problem with the licensed products is they're not even expected to be any good. EA buys the Harry Potter license. They just need to put the faces in a game and shove it out the door. So long as the game doesn't crash on load they're guaranteed to sell a shit-ton of copies. Is it really worth their time to polish it up to be a 10/10 of a game? Not really. It'll sell just as much if it's an uninspired 5/10. Use an off-the-shelf engine, slap some skins on some models and push it out the door. It's a big mac, not a goddamn $40 kobe steak burger.
This is once again one of those numbers that will be thrown around by IP holders to get attention from the politicians. And yet the study does the same idiotic assumption as all the other ones.
You are such a cynical, suspicious person! It must feel so awful living inside your head. You probably aren't even able to form meaningful bonds with other people.
No, I'm sure this figure is completely accurate. After all, who knows an industry better than the people who work in it? These numbers should be every bit as accurate as BP's risk assessment for deep water drilling.
Just out of curiosity, why the hell is going online/podcast a last-last ditch effort for this guy? He's got a name recognition that would draw people in, and the format would seem to work well for podcasting. At the very least a podcast could drive people to his website and help him sell a few CD's/tshirts. I get he's an old school guy and up until recently still had a terrestrial broadcast to do, but you'd think someone would have come to them at some point and suggested this.
Radio is a wasteland. Honestly, I didn't even know he was still on the air. I never got to hear him locally.
There are so many weird and wonderful new things online. Just look at all the stuff that's being produced, from song parodies to music video parodies to fan films and the like. The impetus never went away, it's just not channeled through his show. As a case in point, MST3K. Had a great run, died a horrible death on the Skiffy Channel. Resurrected in the form of Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax. They both seem to be making money doing what they're doing. I just get a kick out of hearing Tom Servo's voice riffing on new, crappy movies. I only wish Trace was working on that project, too. Mike I could do without -- I'm still hoping Joel comes back. (Give it up, man. Yeah, I know.)
All that being said, I agree with the other poster -- Demento has huge name recognition. He should be able to get enormous traffic with it. Look at what the Onion's done with their online presence. And they seem to be making money -- at the very least they haven't closed up shop yet.
Sticking a stupid name on something and overblowing what it means isn't the same thing as it not existing to begin with. Computers are vulnerable. People who don't like us can exploit those vulnerabilities. But this is really just another arena of non-shooting conflict, all under cloak and dagger.
The CIA has a long history of trying this sort of thing, sometimes successfully, many times not. There's directly funding revolutionaries, slipping agents into countries, running guns, sponsoring assassination attempts, economic sabotage, infrastructure sabotage, spying with human intelligence, electronic intelligence, satellite intelligence, etc. The CIA has a history of over-promising and under-delivering but this doesn't mean they won't still try.
The Russians have traditionally been much better at running spy rings. The beauty of hacking is you don't even have to put your own assets in-country and risk their capture.
On one hand, I don't think we'll ever get to the point where it can be Die Hard 4 info-Armageddon with hackers blowing up power plants at will. I think that public screwups will force a higher level of security and more rigorous design so that we are less vulnerable to external attacks. On the other hand, the BP fuckup shows that reason and logic are poor tools for explaining the behavior of large organizations. BP should have taken drilling seriously. They should have realized that they had no good plans for capping an uncontrolled well so if they were going to drill, the only option would be making sure they would never, ever, ever have an uncontrolled well. All the internal warnings they had in the months leading up to the disaster should have been their opportunities to stop the disaster before it happened. And we can see how it turned out.
The first scandal is the usual shit the government does, make a mistake and then cover it up. We've seen a lot of those in this war. We know this stuff happens all the time but the proof of it always hits me in the gut.
The second scandal is that the government is so poor at covering this stuff up that a junior guy like this is able to find the info and disseminate it without any difficulty. Absolutely piss-poor security. Perversely, I expect and demand a modicum of competence to go along with the amoral and evil. I feel insulted when I find out I'm getting screwed over by Mayberry Machiavellis.
s of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
The 3G connectivity is not sufficient for watching video in volume comparable to TV. TV bandwidth is essentially free (a true one-to-many broadcast,) whereas 3G is not (it's limited and shared.)
Even the Wi-Fi connectivity is lacking in many cities, let alone countryside. I think we are a good decade away from being able to depend on our Internet links for reliable, always-on TV viewing.
For "live" tv no, it's insufficient. For cached TV, it works fine. My ipod can download podcasts at whatever speed it can manage and I watch when it's done. It wouldn't take too much more effort for Apple to put automatic downloading into the operating system on the phones/pods. On my Mac, I run Miro and it downloads automatically without me asking a damn thing. Same with itunes itself. But since the units are so powerful these days and have so much space, needing to go back to home base for automatic downloads or having to manually trigger downloads is annoying and could be easily remedied.
The only difference here is we see the rigging out in the open. They're designed to fleece money from the ignorant and stupid. If ever there was a time for that War Games winning move quote, this is it.
I don't want to hear anymore about Obama and his socialist plan to move space launching into the hands of private enterprise.
I heard he wants to build a moonbase! You know who else wanted a moonbase? HITLER! They called it National Socialism for a reason! That's why Hitler and Stalin were so so gay for each other. That whole WWII thing, just an act to make us think they weren't in cahoots.
It's a damned shame that books like this are needed. Too bad "help" is so fuXXored.
Video games build the tutorial into the game with speech, motion, graphics, the works. I never understood why this sort of thing isn't baked into productivity software or operating systems. I'm guessing it's not worth the effort when that sort of thing would just be another cost for the developers and customers who want that sort of thing are already paying money for someone else to write dead tree manuals.
So you'd be okay if the south brought back slavery?
That's the part I have trouble with. I'm morally on the side of ending slavery, establishing civil rights. I'm not comfortable with the precedent set by the feds enforcing it because that same justification could be used by religious extremists to ram any number of things through "for our own good." Prohibition was rammed through that way, something the majority of the people obviously disagreed with given how successful the booze racket was.
If we didn't use force, the South would still have the Jim Crow laws. But I don't know if this has made the region any nicer for blacks. I'd have to ask some old-timers and see if they've noticed much change.
The problem with weakly enforced federations is that the whole thing tends to come apart at the seams. The Articles of Confederation made for far too weak a union and were done away with for a reason.
"The nation-state is ungovernably information-rich." You mean that the powers that be can't piss on our heads and tell us it's rain when we're no longer wearing blinders, nose in the feedbag and under sensory deprivation. We can smell it, we can taste it, we know we're getting pissed on. Maybe we wouldn't be so upset if they were doing their job of governing the country instead of focusing on keeping us baffled and confused while robbing us blind?
The Internet is the printing press turned up to 11. We saw the kind of shitstorm that swept Europe when Guttenburg started cranking out his bibles.
As someone who has been through both sides of the spectrum, I can just say, games are meant for entertainment. Play them, have fun, but don't confuse entertainment with real life.
For people who can't succeed at real life or don't think they can, the game world provides more sensation and reward than real life. You can be awesome, beautiful, an important person. In real life you are nobody but on the game server you are Sheldor the Conqueror. Pure escapism. MMO's are just a new twist on the whole thing but it's been a very old problem for quite some time. When I was a kid my escape was books, the local BBS scene, and many other solitary activities. People were difficult, confusing, and complicated.
I'm happy I'm not working on a gaming jones as described above but real life remains difficult, confusing, and complicated. I think the only difference between guild politics and office politics is... well, there isn't any. Human beings are awful creatures no matter what environment they're acting in.
I was born in 1971. Which means if I were a computer I would be obsolete and replaced by a faster, younger model with prettier looks.
Come to think of it, maybe I am a computer....
Take heart! There might be an older, poorly-dressed, socially stunted computer geek willing to collect you for the sheer historical value. Of course, that usually means stored with a dozen other castoffs in the basement. I don't like where this is going.
So, take your socialist crap, go to Canada where it is welcome, get sick, and wait in line for a doctor. Health care there is "a free social benefit", but the wait can be murder./quote>
You were doing so well up to this point and then squandered everything.
I'm a fan of the decentralized model of decision-making. I want to push authority out to the periphery of an organization so the people immediately experiencing the situation in the field also have the authority to act as needed. Centralization does breed inefficiency. The classic paperclips in the US vs. the USSR model shows the shortcomings. In the USSR you have one state agency deciding how many paperclips are needed and telling everyone else how much they're getting. Screwups are magnified across the country. In the US, the market decides the number of paperclips required. Multiple companies make them, businesses buy them at will, and mistakes are eaten by the manufacturers. The federal government's only involvement is buying paperclips as a customer and regulatory oversight to make sure nobody's slipping too much lead into them.
That all works fine in theory. But it all breaks down when we hit reality.
Who defines what a social good is? Great question. It should be a matter of public debate. But that's also problematic. If a clear 60% of the nation decides blacks are subhuman and should be denied civil rights, is it moral to pass laws supporting that viewpoint? I would say "of course, not." But anti-abortionists feel just as strongly about their view and would feel justified in ramming their legislation through against popular will because they know they're right.
I agree with you that we don't have a free market. What we have is gangster capitalism. From my perspective, the problem isn't one of whether or not the federal government has too much power vs. state and local governments, it's that the feds are only paying attention to the big money corporate donors. The voter no longer really has a say in any of this. Don't like the Goldman Sachs bailout? That was brought to you by a Republican. Vote for a Democrat and watch them fund the next bailout. Do we have a candidate we can vote for who won't fund the bailout after that? No.
Third party candidates can't gain enough traction. But we're starting to see more agitation from the fringe, the fringe growing larger on the left and the right. The mainstream parties are both center-right corporatists. The DLC actively mocks and belittles progressives who are supposed to be on their side. The GOP leaders are privately contemptuous of the religious right and libertarians in their coalition, they're just usually smarter about voicing the contempt.
What would be great is if we could have some choice in how we want to live. Are you libertarian and want to opt out of as much taxation as possible with the corresponding lack of social services? Go move to this state, you'll have what you want. Do you like a more socialized approach and are willing to have the high taxation that goes with it? Move to this state. All part of the union, all sharing in the common defense, all getting to live the way they choose. Hell, if the Christians want to have a Jesusland somewhere, let them have it. They just have to agree not to try to make over the rest of the country into Jesusland, too.
Oh, this is where I laugh. I'm a socially conscious, progressive kind of guy. I believe in humanitarian capitalism, not social darwinism. But in a case like this, they're proposing a tax to support a business model that cannot support itself in light of other players able to make a living providing the same kinds of services.
I do support operating businesses with a social benefit at a deficit. Public transit does not usually support itself entirely from the fares collected but receives subsidies from the taxpayers because it's of social benefit to all. After all, how much money does the local fire department collect from you to provide emergency services? There's no fees, it's all direct 100% taxpayer support. But we all agree that this is something we need. Same with public schools.
What I find especially amusing is the same free market evangelists who would huff and puff about how awful the fire department is would probably also line up behind the newspaper bailout, especially if they happen to be columnists. Socialism for the goose but show the door to the gander.
I do agree that competition is a good thing and a major problem with government-sponsored monopolies is that there's no competition, no choice for the customer if they don't like what they're getting. But there's not a whole lot of competition amongst "private" industry, either! Smaller competitors get gobbled up until we get too-big-to-fail companies every bit as broken and inefficient as the communist state-owned industries we were warned about in our economics textbooks. Oh, it's bad when they do it but ok when our guys are doing it? Riiiight.
I like what the brits have tone with the BBC. I could get behind that kind of government support. I don't want to see Ruport Murdoch sucking at the public teat while putting out his bullshit.
Is it just me (and I am running a 102 degree fever, so it might be) or is the summary basically gibberish? It starts off talking about Indian kids being good at spelling, and ends with something about the "spellbound kids" (whatever the heck that is) and Ted Brigham who is apparently dead. I am very confused.
Spellbound was a spelling bee documentary. Ted Brigham was one of the kids in it. And he evidently killed himself in 2007. There's no cause of death listed, just a death notice, and families generally don't list the cause of death if it might be damaging to the person's reputation; suicide, death by erotic misadventure, really dumb accidents, etc.
The reason Homer is so appealing to us is because he is Everyman, at his worst. Whenever he does something I either have done it, thought about doing it or know someone who did it.
So appalling to us, I hope you mean. As a fat IT guy, I bore more than a passing resemblance to Michael Moore which I did not mind but I also looked a bit like Peter Griffin which I found disturbing. I like Moore's politics but hate Peter's stupidity. If there's any Family Guy character I'd rather be called similar to, it would be Brian! Getting told I looked like Peter was the final straw and I started going to the gym. Down 51 lbs now. Now I don't look like either of 'em. Now people say I look like the slimmer Ricky Gervais which is an improvement I hope! Just say to Mt. Dew and yes to sweating your arse off.
I completely understand why many people aren't as quick to believe everything scientists say. Simply because scientific -fact- seems to change every few years. A few years ago scientists said there were 9 planets. Now there's 8. First there was no water on the moon, now there is. As far as science is concerned, theres no problem with updating facts and theories as new information is obtained. But most people don't work like that. As far as they're concerned, you're the same as the guy who keeps changing his story every time you ask a question.
The problem is that scientists will call you ignorant or stupid if you stop believing every word they say just because you know there's a good chance of them saying something different in a short while.
Religion on the other hand, rarely changes its story.
Here's the thing I love about science -- you can test it. I'll be the first to admit that I don't instinctively believe quantum mechanics, relativity, and some of the weirder shit coming out of the theoretical community. It's all counterintuitive to me. So I say "prove it" and goddamn, they can do it in spades. The GPS system would be non-functional if it didn't take relativity into account. If Einstein hadn't thought it up when he did, we'd have ended up discovering it when we started finding errors we couldn't account for in the timing of the signals from the satellites, the same way the background radiation from the Big Bang was first discovered as noise screwing up an unrelated experiment. Accidental discoveries are some of the sweetest.
QM stuff doesn't make a lick of sense to me. It sounds like bullshit. But the physicists can put together experiments that can't be explained by anything but their theories. And if a better theory comes along, they'll replace it. I'm still gobsmacked by spooky action at a distance.
What we don't have on religion's side is experimental theology. There's no way to actually put the Lord thy God to the test. Could you imagine how awesome life would be if that actually were the case?
We must not let ourselves be terrorized by these new masters of high technology! Further fines levied against kidnappers who make ransom demands by phone rather than letters cut and pasted together with words from magazines.
Slashdot Mirror
For those of you who don't get it, Goatse Security is a division of the great Gay Niggers Association of America.
I'm not fucking joking.
Additionally, this may be a Slashdot first: The GNAA first post is actually the article itself.
I see that for myself and I still don't believe you. Or me, for that matter. What has the world come to?
"I'm sorry to hear that the Star Wars kid decided to be a blood sucking lawyer."
Yep, they're all evil until YOU need one to help you navigate the law, or until the EFF uses them to fight for your rights.
Lawyers don't sue, PLAINTIFFS sue.
And if I've got a project running behind schedule I won't say "no" to a Sith Lord offering to find new ways to motivate my men. I wouldn't want to have a beer with him, though.
it's simple, really - spin-offs are, by definition, lame and derivative.
books based on tv shows, books based on movies, tv shows based on movies, movies based on movies (aka sequels), video games based on movies, and movies based on video games - all are driven by profit over artistry. these products don't start with the question "wouldn't this be a neat idea?", they start with "can we extract more profit from this franchise?" because people already have a positive relationship with the brand, there is less incentive to work on quality, because there are large numbers of people who will consume the product regardless of its quality. since the product's quality does not dictate its profitability, the quality tends to suck.
It's possible to wed good storytelling with commercialism. Those of us who grew up in the 80's might recall the GI Joe comic book. The original toyline had barbie-sized dolls that you dressed up with soldier clothes. When the GI Joe line was revamped, they went with the smaller "action figures" that were of molded plastic with the clothes as part of the model. They also tried to come up with a storyline to go with the toys and also approached Marvel Comics. A guy named Larry Hama got the gig. He took a rejected idea he'd worked up for a stand-alone storyline he'd worked up for Nick Fury and friends battling an evil terrorist organization and worked in the toy line instead.
It just so happened that you got someone in charge who really liked the concept, really liked the characters, and put some heart into it. There's no freakin' reason why the comic tie-in should have been any good. It should have been awful. Everyone involved in the process should have been looking shame-faced in the mirror saying "I'm only doing it for the money." But people actually liked what they were doing. And even through the executive meddling, they were pleased with the results.
But how often do you get hands-off freedom on these projects? Not often. You don't get people who are doing it for the love of it and oh, by the way, I'm making money, too! You get people who are just cashing in. And really, who could get inspired over making an A-Team movie or GI Joe movie? The people signing the checks aren't demanding quality, they just want something flashy that will sell. How does McDonalds design a new burger? Put in lots of fat and grease and sugar, stuff that appeals to the lowest common denominator of taste. Sure, we could use quality ingredients and make a healthy, nutritious, and tasty option here but let's be real, we're just cranking this shit out. So you get movies with titty, explosions, titty, bad writing, and it just gets shoved out the door.
The other problem with the licensed products is they're not even expected to be any good. EA buys the Harry Potter license. They just need to put the faces in a game and shove it out the door. So long as the game doesn't crash on load they're guaranteed to sell a shit-ton of copies. Is it really worth their time to polish it up to be a 10/10 of a game? Not really. It'll sell just as much if it's an uninspired 5/10. Use an off-the-shelf engine, slap some skins on some models and push it out the door. It's a big mac, not a goddamn $40 kobe steak burger.
That screenshot lowers sperm count.
If they can't make it look nicer then I'll keep the old clunky, please.
This is once again one of those numbers that will be thrown around by IP holders to get attention from the politicians. And yet the study does the same idiotic assumption as all the other ones.
You are such a cynical, suspicious person! It must feel so awful living inside your head. You probably aren't even able to form meaningful bonds with other people.
No, I'm sure this figure is completely accurate. After all, who knows an industry better than the people who work in it? These numbers should be every bit as accurate as BP's risk assessment for deep water drilling.
Just out of curiosity, why the hell is going online/podcast a last-last ditch effort for this guy? He's got a name recognition that would draw people in, and the format would seem to work well for podcasting. At the very least a podcast could drive people to his website and help him sell a few CD's/tshirts. I get he's an old school guy and up until recently still had a terrestrial broadcast to do, but you'd think someone would have come to them at some point and suggested this.
Radio is a wasteland. Honestly, I didn't even know he was still on the air. I never got to hear him locally.
There are so many weird and wonderful new things online. Just look at all the stuff that's being produced, from song parodies to music video parodies to fan films and the like. The impetus never went away, it's just not channeled through his show. As a case in point, MST3K. Had a great run, died a horrible death on the Skiffy Channel. Resurrected in the form of Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax. They both seem to be making money doing what they're doing. I just get a kick out of hearing Tom Servo's voice riffing on new, crappy movies. I only wish Trace was working on that project, too. Mike I could do without -- I'm still hoping Joel comes back. (Give it up, man. Yeah, I know.)
All that being said, I agree with the other poster -- Demento has huge name recognition. He should be able to get enormous traffic with it. Look at what the Onion's done with their online presence. And they seem to be making money -- at the very least they haven't closed up shop yet.
Sticking a stupid name on something and overblowing what it means isn't the same thing as it not existing to begin with. Computers are vulnerable. People who don't like us can exploit those vulnerabilities. But this is really just another arena of non-shooting conflict, all under cloak and dagger.
The CIA has a long history of trying this sort of thing, sometimes successfully, many times not. There's directly funding revolutionaries, slipping agents into countries, running guns, sponsoring assassination attempts, economic sabotage, infrastructure sabotage, spying with human intelligence, electronic intelligence, satellite intelligence, etc. The CIA has a history of over-promising and under-delivering but this doesn't mean they won't still try.
The Russians have traditionally been much better at running spy rings. The beauty of hacking is you don't even have to put your own assets in-country and risk their capture.
On one hand, I don't think we'll ever get to the point where it can be Die Hard 4 info-Armageddon with hackers blowing up power plants at will. I think that public screwups will force a higher level of security and more rigorous design so that we are less vulnerable to external attacks. On the other hand, the BP fuckup shows that reason and logic are poor tools for explaining the behavior of large organizations. BP should have taken drilling seriously. They should have realized that they had no good plans for capping an uncontrolled well so if they were going to drill, the only option would be making sure they would never, ever, ever have an uncontrolled well. All the internal warnings they had in the months leading up to the disaster should have been their opportunities to stop the disaster before it happened. And we can see how it turned out.
Totally ridiculous. I ... hold on, gotta take this call.
The first scandal is the usual shit the government does, make a mistake and then cover it up. We've seen a lot of those in this war. We know this stuff happens all the time but the proof of it always hits me in the gut.
The second scandal is that the government is so poor at covering this stuff up that a junior guy like this is able to find the info and disseminate it without any difficulty. Absolutely piss-poor security. Perversely, I expect and demand a modicum of competence to go along with the amoral and evil. I feel insulted when I find out I'm getting screwed over by Mayberry Machiavellis.
s of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
The 3G connectivity is not sufficient for watching video in volume comparable to TV. TV bandwidth is essentially free (a true one-to-many broadcast,) whereas 3G is not (it's limited and shared.)
Even the Wi-Fi connectivity is lacking in many cities, let alone countryside. I think we are a good decade away from being able to depend on our Internet links for reliable, always-on TV viewing.
For "live" tv no, it's insufficient. For cached TV, it works fine. My ipod can download podcasts at whatever speed it can manage and I watch when it's done. It wouldn't take too much more effort for Apple to put automatic downloading into the operating system on the phones/pods. On my Mac, I run Miro and it downloads automatically without me asking a damn thing. Same with itunes itself. But since the units are so powerful these days and have so much space, needing to go back to home base for automatic downloads or having to manually trigger downloads is annoying and could be easily remedied.
The only difference here is we see the rigging out in the open. They're designed to fleece money from the ignorant and stupid. If ever there was a time for that War Games winning move quote, this is it.
I don't want to hear anymore about Obama and his socialist plan to move space launching into the hands of private enterprise.
I heard he wants to build a moonbase! You know who else wanted a moonbase? HITLER! They called it National Socialism for a reason! That's why Hitler and Stalin were so so gay for each other. That whole WWII thing, just an act to make us think they weren't in cahoots.
It's a damned shame that books like this are needed. Too bad "help" is so fuXXored.
Video games build the tutorial into the game with speech, motion, graphics, the works. I never understood why this sort of thing isn't baked into productivity software or operating systems. I'm guessing it's not worth the effort when that sort of thing would just be another cost for the developers and customers who want that sort of thing are already paying money for someone else to write dead tree manuals.
So you'd be okay if the south brought back slavery?
That's the part I have trouble with. I'm morally on the side of ending slavery, establishing civil rights. I'm not comfortable with the precedent set by the feds enforcing it because that same justification could be used by religious extremists to ram any number of things through "for our own good." Prohibition was rammed through that way, something the majority of the people obviously disagreed with given how successful the booze racket was.
If we didn't use force, the South would still have the Jim Crow laws. But I don't know if this has made the region any nicer for blacks. I'd have to ask some old-timers and see if they've noticed much change.
The problem with weakly enforced federations is that the whole thing tends to come apart at the seams. The Articles of Confederation made for far too weak a union and were done away with for a reason.
"The nation-state is ungovernably information-rich." You mean that the powers that be can't piss on our heads and tell us it's rain when we're no longer wearing blinders, nose in the feedbag and under sensory deprivation. We can smell it, we can taste it, we know we're getting pissed on. Maybe we wouldn't be so upset if they were doing their job of governing the country instead of focusing on keeping us baffled and confused while robbing us blind?
The Internet is the printing press turned up to 11. We saw the kind of shitstorm that swept Europe when Guttenburg started cranking out his bibles.
As someone who has been through both sides of the spectrum, I can just say, games are meant for entertainment. Play them, have fun, but don't confuse entertainment with real life.
For people who can't succeed at real life or don't think they can, the game world provides more sensation and reward than real life. You can be awesome, beautiful, an important person. In real life you are nobody but on the game server you are Sheldor the Conqueror. Pure escapism. MMO's are just a new twist on the whole thing but it's been a very old problem for quite some time. When I was a kid my escape was books, the local BBS scene, and many other solitary activities. People were difficult, confusing, and complicated.
I'm happy I'm not working on a gaming jones as described above but real life remains difficult, confusing, and complicated. I think the only difference between guild politics and office politics is... well, there isn't any. Human beings are awful creatures no matter what environment they're acting in.
I was born in 1971. Which means if I were a computer I would be obsolete and replaced by a faster, younger model with prettier looks.
Come to think of it, maybe I am a computer....
Take heart! There might be an older, poorly-dressed, socially stunted computer geek willing to collect you for the sheer historical value. Of course, that usually means stored with a dozen other castoffs in the basement. I don't like where this is going.
So, take your socialist crap, go to Canada where it is welcome, get sick, and wait in line for a doctor. Health care there is "a free social benefit", but the wait can be murder./quote>
You were doing so well up to this point and then squandered everything.
I'm a fan of the decentralized model of decision-making. I want to push authority out to the periphery of an organization so the people immediately experiencing the situation in the field also have the authority to act as needed. Centralization does breed inefficiency. The classic paperclips in the US vs. the USSR model shows the shortcomings. In the USSR you have one state agency deciding how many paperclips are needed and telling everyone else how much they're getting. Screwups are magnified across the country. In the US, the market decides the number of paperclips required. Multiple companies make them, businesses buy them at will, and mistakes are eaten by the manufacturers. The federal government's only involvement is buying paperclips as a customer and regulatory oversight to make sure nobody's slipping too much lead into them.
That all works fine in theory. But it all breaks down when we hit reality.
Who defines what a social good is? Great question. It should be a matter of public debate. But that's also problematic. If a clear 60% of the nation decides blacks are subhuman and should be denied civil rights, is it moral to pass laws supporting that viewpoint? I would say "of course, not." But anti-abortionists feel just as strongly about their view and would feel justified in ramming their legislation through against popular will because they know they're right.
I agree with you that we don't have a free market. What we have is gangster capitalism. From my perspective, the problem isn't one of whether or not the federal government has too much power vs. state and local governments, it's that the feds are only paying attention to the big money corporate donors. The voter no longer really has a say in any of this. Don't like the Goldman Sachs bailout? That was brought to you by a Republican. Vote for a Democrat and watch them fund the next bailout. Do we have a candidate we can vote for who won't fund the bailout after that? No.
Third party candidates can't gain enough traction. But we're starting to see more agitation from the fringe, the fringe growing larger on the left and the right. The mainstream parties are both center-right corporatists. The DLC actively mocks and belittles progressives who are supposed to be on their side. The GOP leaders are privately contemptuous of the religious right and libertarians in their coalition, they're just usually smarter about voicing the contempt.
What would be great is if we could have some choice in how we want to live. Are you libertarian and want to opt out of as much taxation as possible with the corresponding lack of social services? Go move to this state, you'll have what you want. Do you like a more socialized approach and are willing to have the high taxation that goes with it? Move to this state. All part of the union, all sharing in the common defense, all getting to live the way they choose. Hell, if the Christians want to have a Jesusland somewhere, let them have it. They just have to agree not to try to make over the rest of the country into Jesusland, too.
Oh, this is where I laugh. I'm a socially conscious, progressive kind of guy. I believe in humanitarian capitalism, not social darwinism. But in a case like this, they're proposing a tax to support a business model that cannot support itself in light of other players able to make a living providing the same kinds of services.
I do support operating businesses with a social benefit at a deficit. Public transit does not usually support itself entirely from the fares collected but receives subsidies from the taxpayers because it's of social benefit to all. After all, how much money does the local fire department collect from you to provide emergency services? There's no fees, it's all direct 100% taxpayer support. But we all agree that this is something we need. Same with public schools.
What I find especially amusing is the same free market evangelists who would huff and puff about how awful the fire department is would probably also line up behind the newspaper bailout, especially if they happen to be columnists. Socialism for the goose but show the door to the gander.
I do agree that competition is a good thing and a major problem with government-sponsored monopolies is that there's no competition, no choice for the customer if they don't like what they're getting. But there's not a whole lot of competition amongst "private" industry, either! Smaller competitors get gobbled up until we get too-big-to-fail companies every bit as broken and inefficient as the communist state-owned industries we were warned about in our economics textbooks. Oh, it's bad when they do it but ok when our guys are doing it? Riiiight.
I like what the brits have tone with the BBC. I could get behind that kind of government support. I don't want to see Ruport Murdoch sucking at the public teat while putting out his bullshit.
Everyone add the tag, Cylons to this one. :-D
They said nothing about sexually-triggered bioluminescence.
Is it just me (and I am running a 102 degree fever, so it might be) or is the summary basically gibberish? It starts off talking about Indian kids being good at spelling, and ends with something about the "spellbound kids" (whatever the heck that is) and Ted Brigham who is apparently dead. I am very confused.
Spellbound was a spelling bee documentary. Ted Brigham was one of the kids in it. And he evidently killed himself in 2007. There's no cause of death listed, just a death notice, and families generally don't list the cause of death if it might be damaging to the person's reputation; suicide, death by erotic misadventure, really dumb accidents, etc.
The reason Homer is so appealing to us is because he is Everyman, at his worst. Whenever he does something I either have done it, thought about doing it or know someone who did it.
So appalling to us, I hope you mean. As a fat IT guy, I bore more than a passing resemblance to Michael Moore which I did not mind but I also looked a bit like Peter Griffin which I found disturbing. I like Moore's politics but hate Peter's stupidity. If there's any Family Guy character I'd rather be called similar to, it would be Brian! Getting told I looked like Peter was the final straw and I started going to the gym. Down 51 lbs now. Now I don't look like either of 'em. Now people say I look like the slimmer Ricky Gervais which is an improvement I hope! Just say to Mt. Dew and yes to sweating your arse off.
I completely understand why many people aren't as quick to believe everything scientists say. Simply because scientific -fact- seems to change every few years. A few years ago scientists said there were 9 planets. Now there's 8. First there was no water on the moon, now there is. As far as science is concerned, theres no problem with updating facts and theories as new information is obtained. But most people don't work like that. As far as they're concerned, you're the same as the guy who keeps changing his story every time you ask a question.
The problem is that scientists will call you ignorant or stupid if you stop believing every word they say just because you know there's a good chance of them saying something different in a short while.
Religion on the other hand, rarely changes its story.
Here's the thing I love about science -- you can test it. I'll be the first to admit that I don't instinctively believe quantum mechanics, relativity, and some of the weirder shit coming out of the theoretical community. It's all counterintuitive to me. So I say "prove it" and goddamn, they can do it in spades. The GPS system would be non-functional if it didn't take relativity into account. If Einstein hadn't thought it up when he did, we'd have ended up discovering it when we started finding errors we couldn't account for in the timing of the signals from the satellites, the same way the background radiation from the Big Bang was first discovered as noise screwing up an unrelated experiment. Accidental discoveries are some of the sweetest.
QM stuff doesn't make a lick of sense to me. It sounds like bullshit. But the physicists can put together experiments that can't be explained by anything but their theories. And if a better theory comes along, they'll replace it. I'm still gobsmacked by spooky action at a distance.
What we don't have on religion's side is experimental theology. There's no way to actually put the Lord thy God to the test. Could you imagine how awesome life would be if that actually were the case?
Can we also give longer sentences to criminals who rip us off with exotic investment instruments instead of good old-fashioned grifts and cons?
We must not let ourselves be terrorized by these new masters of high technology! Further fines levied against kidnappers who make ransom demands by phone rather than letters cut and pasted together with words from magazines.