So, the price is lowered because the raw materials are oversupplied (so a decent skinner can't make money) and then the prices are inflated because of lots of "extra" gold being thrown around (so a decent skinner can make money).
Tell me how that works out to be anything but a draw.
I play WoW actively, and I have several beefs with people who complain about gold farming.
I think it's too hard to tell whether gold farming has a significant detrimental effect on the economy of a game such as WoW. There are too many variables that we don't know about - for instance, as players all we see is what we percieve as inflation at auction house. We assume the inflated prices have a direct correlation to gold farming, but we don't know if Blizzard takes active steps that also counter inflation. For instance, we don't know if Blizzard reduces the rate at which a farmable commodity is dropped. We also don't know if a lot of those putting items with inflated prices are simply players who are matching what they see as healthy market prices. There are far too many variables to account for to assume gold farming has a significant impact on game inflation (a market with a made up value in the first place, at that).
I hear this counter argument to gold farming used so much it's becoming cliche, but I think it still works: ultimately aren't we all gold farmers? Blizzard has set up a game that encourages people to go out and grind away in order to earn money. An epic mount usually costs 1000G, and 1000G requires that you grind and grind and grind in order to earn money. You end up performing the exact same activity that a gold farmer does. The only difference is that you'll spend it on an epic mount, while a gold farmer's 1000G goes in a sort of limbo for a while until someone from the outside buys it, and then uses it in the game itself. The fact that Blizzard makes gold farming legal means it's fair game, so to speak.
But Blizzard does use some techniques to make it rather pointless to have lots of gold at lower levels. Most of the armor and weapons that a lot of gold will buy don't help lower level players in the slightest. To get the best armor from the auction house at level 20, for example, doesn't require a lot of gold. And on top of that, the best armor outside of the auction house can't even be bought, you have to finish quests or fight specific rare NPCs to get it, and it binds to you the second you pick it up. Can't even be sold on the market. At level 60, there's nothing you'd want to buy on the auction house for any amount of gold except for perhaps commodities, commodities that you can go grind for yourself pretty easily at level 60. I get the distinct impression that Blizzard works hard at making sure that the gold you need at any given level to buy good stuff is pretty finely tuned. Excess does not equal an advantage.
And finally, as a level 60 rogue, what do I care if a level 20 guy has 1000G that he bought from someone? It doesn't hurt me in the slightest. Whether he begged it off of people or bought it from Chinese gold farmers it doesn't change how I play at all. Even if a level 60 player bought 1000G I wouldn't blink an eye. He won't have an advantage over me - he still has to go fight for his weapons and armor.
Ultimately I have to fall back on the argument of whether or not Blizzard makes it legal. If the game allows it, you have a recourse - you can stop playing the game.
For reef aquarium hobbyists this is a very desirable thing. Currently, hobbyists spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on high intensity Metal Halide and high output fluorescent systems that do a fair job of replicating tropical sunlight.
This highly inefficient technology also packs a extra costs. The lighting on my reef aquarium accounts for possibly half of my entire electricity bill. Every six months I spend close to $180 on bulb replacements, as bulbs lose their intensity and correct color spectrum with age.
Piping direct sunlight into the tank would certainly have benefits, not only on the budget, but for the organisms inside. It's long been argued in the reef hobbyist circles that the organisms we keep benefit from cyclic changes in lighting over the course of the day. My aquarium seems to benefit from lower light levels in the morning, reaching full intensity midday, tapering off to lower lighting in the evening. Having the sun do this for me would be nice, though I'd likely have to supplement what the sun brought to compensate for my non-tropical location on the hemisphere in the winter, and taper off the natural light in the summer to better replicate tropical light cycles.
Most intriguing to me (as I run the AC in my house and run the aquarium water through a chiller to keep the temps from going too high) is the fact that, if I had one of these pipes point 50k lumens to my aquarium, is that I'd be drastically reducing the heat directed to my tank. I could lose the fans pushing the hot air away from the top of my tank, and not have to cool the entire house when it's only 80 outside.
I'd expect that if a home user model comes out, it'll be gobbled up by hard core reef aquarium enthusiasts like myself, even if the initial costs are high.
Film still has the ability to store information that digital formats will take years to catch up to.
OK, so that's hard to argue, but your example doesn't help your argument.
Let's pretend that your grandfather had an 8MP digital camera and a photo printer as well as whatever film camera he had. He takes a group of photos with the DSLR, and another group with the film camera. He prints the images from the DSLR on say, 6x10", and develops the prints from the film camera at 6x10" (a reasonable size).
I'd be willing to bet that you'd be hard pressed to find any more detail in the film prints than you would the DSLR prints.
Now, if you said you have the negatives from your grandfather's photographs, we might be singing a different tune, but I don't buy it. Digital imaging is getting to the point where the outcome, the final print, is nigh impossible to distinquish from analog.
But you're spot on about the long term storage of digital media. That's a problem that needs fixing immediately
I'd predict that even if all the hurdles of convincing a library to maintain an OSS CD library were jumped, the library itself would suffer the same fate as technical books at most local libraries.
The technical books themselves take so long to procure because of the multiple(albiet not vast) layers of red tape that by the time they end up on the shelves, they're flirting with being out of date (just as new tech books flirt with being out of date before even hitting the store shelves).
I can't think of any open source project that isn't regularly patched, and because of this constant progression, I can't see a CD library being up to date, ever. It would require an individual or group of individuals who would simply cost too much to justify having them in the first place to maintain it.
For example, a 4x5 using Velvia color film is in the 200 megapixel range, and the 8x10 would be closer to the gigapixel category using 25 ASA black and white...
Actually, 4x5 inch Fuji Velvia might have the capability of capturing images in the 198MP range (splitting hairs, really). I'm not an expert here, so I may be way off, but it's interesting to actually put the resolution of a 4x5 Fuji Velvia shot into perspective.
Assume the human eye has the capability of seeing about 10MP, just as a comparison (based on 1 pixel per arcminute, an arcminute comprising 1/60th of the total capable view). It's not a perfect science, but we can agree that at the very least, there is a limit to what the human eye can perceive.
Now, if we can also agree that beyond, say 1200dpi (being generous), within a few inches of the image the human eye has a difficult time distinguishing between even higher dpi, then the final photograph produced from a 4x5 inch Fuji Velvia could get away with being about 33 inches by 41.24 inches (if we assume that a 198MP == 9900dpi, blowing up to 1200dpi).
Am I incorrect in stating that, while it's relatively easy for a film camera to capture pretty high resolution, that it doesn't really matter if the human eye has a difficult time perceiving that resolution? I mean, Digital SLRs probably won't need to hit the 200MP range to be able to produce incredibly detailed images in print. At some point, it will reach a level of acceptance that will satisfy the requirements of capturing high resolution images that satisfy the requirements of the human eye. Perhaps a 9600dpi negative exists not out of need but simply because it can?
I own a D100, and while still a neophyte digital SLR user, even I know it's not capable of capturing the detail that Ansel Adams was capable of capturing with film.
On the other hand, Nikon has pro cameras currently available and pro-sumer cameras in the hopper that approach the capabilities that Adams would have required. Within a few years, I suspect it will be the norm for digital cameras to easily compete with film. To suggest Ansel Adams would prefer a D100 over say a D2H for example, is like suggesting that Chuck Yeager would have preferred the Concorde over the SR-71.
Seems to me that the RIAA is starting to sue the hell out of anyone doing anything special with music or media in general.
It's good business sense for Apple to cover their asses by squashing something they fear might get the RIAA crawling up their innards.
And with earnings in the red, Apple is sure to be sensitive to the desires of shareholders, who might not be savvy enough to understand that a 3rd party tool should really not be of Apple's concern.
I have a hard time believing that, seeing as he's been working at the 7-11 on the corner of my neighborhood for the last 6 years. The most good he's ever done for me is push the button on the QuickPicks machine, winning me $5.00.
Being an Open Source (and *nix) neophyte, I found RedHat 8.0 to be very easy to work with, although I get the impression it's not what power users prefer.
But as someone who's primary desktop is Windows 2000, RedHat 8.0 was very impressive.
To answer specifically:
1. If using RedHat 8.0, I'd say a kid wouldn't need to know how to install an OS. The RedHat installer is dead easy.
2. I'd suggest RH 8.0 is a good first introduction - it was for me. After using it, I know it's probably something I'll want to grow away from over time, but having used it, I have a larger base of Linux knowledge to work with.
3. One of the things I'm struggling with is working without the GUI. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with command line, but when you're new to a system, being able to poke around is easier than trying to guess commands and arguments. Not having a reference makes it nearly impossible.
4. Give the CDs away.
5. If it were me, I'd avoid being preachy about Linux. One of the things that had me turned me off from using Linux was the "Windows sucks" attitude shovelled at me by every Linux enthusiast I've known. I've always been one for using tools that work, and without a doubt each OS has it's strong points. To illustrate that point, I use a Mac to edit video, Windows 2000 to do development and play games, and Linux to serve up the goodies.
This isn't to say that each of those machines couldn't do what the other does, I just suggest that it's easier/better to use each for what *I* can make them do with ease. You (linux or os x hardcores) might suggest that a Mac can blow away a W2K box when it comes to games, and I'd take your experience level into account when absorbing that statement.
Also, because OS preference can sometimes be someone's religion, teaching a die hard Windows user that Linux Is The Only Way(tm) could get some flaming turd bags on your porch, so to speak.
I believe most of the slaves were usually men, makes sense to me.
Read some of the Old Testament and you'll learn that entire races, man, woman, and child were slaves. In modern time, American's enslaved man, woman, and child.
The more I think of it, the more I come to the conclusion that there's never been a "males only" slave society.
Perhaps the men did the heavy lifting, but certainly there were other tasks for women and children to perform.
First of all, having Tivo last night was like a fluffy dream come true. As the distance between "real" content decreased with each commercial break, I became more and more thankful for the commercial skipping features. All told, my viewing of the real content probably only trailed live users by a handful of minutes.
According to Zahi, I learned a few new things:
1. Not a single slave helped build the pyramids.
2. Using a crowbar to chip into a 4000 year old sarcophogas is just fine, rather than using more delicate means (did you see the huge chunk of the lid flake off as he got a little too excited?).
3. Zahi thinks the rest of the world with theories opposed to his "kind and loving egyptians built the pyramids" are idiots because of a thumbprint on the sarcophogas lid. (!?)
4. Zahi's bone specialist confirms: no slaves here, we have 50% men and 50% women in our findings (as if slavery was something only men had to endure).
5. Robots aren't as snazzy as portrayed in the movies. Most movie robots would have been at least able to MacGuyver their way through the second door.
Leave it to the Brits to get absorbed in fancy pants cubicle construction for a country on the other side of the world.
Tally Ho! Let's see some effort put forth towards improving British food. How about inventing a device that can eliminate unwanted blood pudding or dry bagettes?
That CNN article is as devoid of details as British food is of flavor.
Slashdot Mirror
So, the price is lowered because the raw materials are oversupplied (so a decent skinner can't make money) and then the prices are inflated because of lots of "extra" gold being thrown around (so a decent skinner can make money).
Tell me how that works out to be anything but a draw.
I play WoW actively, and I have several beefs with people who complain about gold farming.
I think it's too hard to tell whether gold farming has a significant detrimental effect on the economy of a game such as WoW. There are too many variables that we don't know about - for instance, as players all we see is what we percieve as inflation at auction house. We assume the inflated prices have a direct correlation to gold farming, but we don't know if Blizzard takes active steps that also counter inflation. For instance, we don't know if Blizzard reduces the rate at which a farmable commodity is dropped. We also don't know if a lot of those putting items with inflated prices are simply players who are matching what they see as healthy market prices. There are far too many variables to account for to assume gold farming has a significant impact on game inflation (a market with a made up value in the first place, at that).
I hear this counter argument to gold farming used so much it's becoming cliche, but I think it still works: ultimately aren't we all gold farmers? Blizzard has set up a game that encourages people to go out and grind away in order to earn money. An epic mount usually costs 1000G, and 1000G requires that you grind and grind and grind in order to earn money. You end up performing the exact same activity that a gold farmer does. The only difference is that you'll spend it on an epic mount, while a gold farmer's 1000G goes in a sort of limbo for a while until someone from the outside buys it, and then uses it in the game itself. The fact that Blizzard makes gold farming legal means it's fair game, so to speak.
But Blizzard does use some techniques to make it rather pointless to have lots of gold at lower levels. Most of the armor and weapons that a lot of gold will buy don't help lower level players in the slightest. To get the best armor from the auction house at level 20, for example, doesn't require a lot of gold. And on top of that, the best armor outside of the auction house can't even be bought, you have to finish quests or fight specific rare NPCs to get it, and it binds to you the second you pick it up. Can't even be sold on the market. At level 60, there's nothing you'd want to buy on the auction house for any amount of gold except for perhaps commodities, commodities that you can go grind for yourself pretty easily at level 60. I get the distinct impression that Blizzard works hard at making sure that the gold you need at any given level to buy good stuff is pretty finely tuned. Excess does not equal an advantage.
And finally, as a level 60 rogue, what do I care if a level 20 guy has 1000G that he bought from someone? It doesn't hurt me in the slightest. Whether he begged it off of people or bought it from Chinese gold farmers it doesn't change how I play at all. Even if a level 60 player bought 1000G I wouldn't blink an eye. He won't have an advantage over me - he still has to go fight for his weapons and armor.
Ultimately I have to fall back on the argument of whether or not Blizzard makes it legal. If the game allows it, you have a recourse - you can stop playing the game.
For reef aquarium hobbyists this is a very desirable thing. Currently, hobbyists spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on high intensity Metal Halide and high output fluorescent systems that do a fair job of replicating tropical sunlight.
This highly inefficient technology also packs a extra costs. The lighting on my reef aquarium accounts for possibly half of my entire electricity bill. Every six months I spend close to $180 on bulb replacements, as bulbs lose their intensity and correct color spectrum with age.
Piping direct sunlight into the tank would certainly have benefits, not only on the budget, but for the organisms inside. It's long been argued in the reef hobbyist circles that the organisms we keep benefit from cyclic changes in lighting over the course of the day. My aquarium seems to benefit from lower light levels in the morning, reaching full intensity midday, tapering off to lower lighting in the evening. Having the sun do this for me would be nice, though I'd likely have to supplement what the sun brought to compensate for my non-tropical location on the hemisphere in the winter, and taper off the natural light in the summer to better replicate tropical light cycles.
Most intriguing to me (as I run the AC in my house and run the aquarium water through a chiller to keep the temps from going too high) is the fact that, if I had one of these pipes point 50k lumens to my aquarium, is that I'd be drastically reducing the heat directed to my tank. I could lose the fans pushing the hot air away from the top of my tank, and not have to cool the entire house when it's only 80 outside.
I'd expect that if a home user model comes out, it'll be gobbled up by hard core reef aquarium enthusiasts like myself, even if the initial costs are high.
OK, so that's hard to argue, but your example doesn't help your argument.
Let's pretend that your grandfather had an 8MP digital camera and a photo printer as well as whatever film camera he had. He takes a group of photos with the DSLR, and another group with the film camera. He prints the images from the DSLR on say, 6x10", and develops the prints from the film camera at 6x10" (a reasonable size).
I'd be willing to bet that you'd be hard pressed to find any more detail in the film prints than you would the DSLR prints.
Now, if you said you have the negatives from your grandfather's photographs, we might be singing a different tune, but I don't buy it. Digital imaging is getting to the point where the outcome, the final print, is nigh impossible to distinquish from analog.
But you're spot on about the long term storage of digital media. That's a problem that needs fixing immediately
I'd predict that even if all the hurdles of convincing a library to maintain an OSS CD library were jumped, the library itself would suffer the same fate as technical books at most local libraries.
The technical books themselves take so long to procure because of the multiple(albiet not vast) layers of red tape that by the time they end up on the shelves, they're flirting with being out of date (just as new tech books flirt with being out of date before even hitting the store shelves).
I can't think of any open source project that isn't regularly patched, and because of this constant progression, I can't see a CD library being up to date, ever. It would require an individual or group of individuals who would simply cost too much to justify having them in the first place to maintain it.
For example, a 4x5 using Velvia color film is in the 200 megapixel range, and the 8x10 would be closer to the gigapixel category using 25 ASA black and white...
Actually, 4x5 inch Fuji Velvia might have the capability of capturing images in the 198MP range (splitting hairs, really). I'm not an expert here, so I may be way off, but it's interesting to actually put the resolution of a 4x5 Fuji Velvia shot into perspective.
Assume the human eye has the capability of seeing about 10MP, just as a comparison (based on 1 pixel per arcminute, an arcminute comprising 1/60th of the total capable view). It's not a perfect science, but we can agree that at the very least, there is a limit to what the human eye can perceive.
Now, if we can also agree that beyond, say 1200dpi (being generous), within a few inches of the image the human eye has a difficult time distinguishing between even higher dpi, then the final photograph produced from a 4x5 inch Fuji Velvia could get away with being about 33 inches by 41.24 inches (if we assume that a 198MP == 9900dpi, blowing up to 1200dpi).
Am I incorrect in stating that, while it's relatively easy for a film camera to capture pretty high resolution, that it doesn't really matter if the human eye has a difficult time perceiving that resolution? I mean, Digital SLRs probably won't need to hit the 200MP range to be able to produce incredibly detailed images in print. At some point, it will reach a level of acceptance that will satisfy the requirements of capturing high resolution images that satisfy the requirements of the human eye. Perhaps a 9600dpi negative exists not out of need but simply because it can?
I own a D100, and while still a neophyte digital SLR user, even I know it's not capable of capturing the detail that Ansel Adams was capable of capturing with film. On the other hand, Nikon has pro cameras currently available and pro-sumer cameras in the hopper that approach the capabilities that Adams would have required. Within a few years, I suspect it will be the norm for digital cameras to easily compete with film. To suggest Ansel Adams would prefer a D100 over say a D2H for example, is like suggesting that Chuck Yeager would have preferred the Concorde over the SR-71.
Why build it when it's so much easier to make /. required reading?
Seems to me that the RIAA is starting to sue the hell out of anyone doing anything special with music or media in general.
It's good business sense for Apple to cover their asses by squashing something they fear might get the RIAA crawling up their innards.
And with earnings in the red, Apple is sure to be sensitive to the desires of shareholders, who might not be savvy enough to understand that a 3rd party tool should really not be of Apple's concern.
now the very existance of 3G is supported by thumbnails of the nude.
'Elvis has been good to us. I can't complain.'
I have a hard time believing that, seeing as he's been working at the 7-11 on the corner of my neighborhood for the last 6 years. The most good he's ever done for me is push the button on the QuickPicks machine, winning me $5.00.
Being an Open Source (and *nix) neophyte, I found RedHat 8.0 to be very easy to work with, although I get the impression it's not what power users prefer.
But as someone who's primary desktop is Windows 2000, RedHat 8.0 was very impressive.
To answer specifically:
1. If using RedHat 8.0, I'd say a kid wouldn't need to know how to install an OS. The RedHat installer is dead easy.
2. I'd suggest RH 8.0 is a good first introduction - it was for me. After using it, I know it's probably something I'll want to grow away from over time, but having used it, I have a larger base of Linux knowledge to work with.
3. One of the things I'm struggling with is working without the GUI. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with command line, but when you're new to a system, being able to poke around is easier than trying to guess commands and arguments. Not having a reference makes it nearly impossible.
4. Give the CDs away.
5. If it were me, I'd avoid being preachy about Linux. One of the things that had me turned me off from using Linux was the "Windows sucks" attitude shovelled at me by every Linux enthusiast I've known. I've always been one for using tools that work, and without a doubt each OS has it's strong points. To illustrate that point, I use a Mac to edit video, Windows 2000 to do development and play games, and Linux to serve up the goodies.
This isn't to say that each of those machines couldn't do what the other does, I just suggest that it's easier/better to use each for what *I* can make them do with ease. You (linux or os x hardcores) might suggest that a Mac can blow away a W2K box when it comes to games, and I'd take your experience level into account when absorbing that statement.
Also, because OS preference can sometimes be someone's religion, teaching a die hard Windows user that Linux Is The Only Way(tm) could get some flaming turd bags on your porch, so to speak.
I believe most of the slaves were usually men, makes sense to me.
Read some of the Old Testament and you'll learn that entire races, man, woman, and child were slaves. In modern time, American's enslaved man, woman, and child.
The more I think of it, the more I come to the conclusion that there's never been a "males only" slave society.
Perhaps the men did the heavy lifting, but certainly there were other tasks for women and children to perform.
According to Zahi, I learned a few new things:
1. Not a single slave helped build the pyramids.
2. Using a crowbar to chip into a 4000 year old sarcophogas is just fine, rather than using more delicate means (did you see the huge chunk of the lid flake off as he got a little too excited?).
3. Zahi thinks the rest of the world with theories opposed to his "kind and loving egyptians built the pyramids" are idiots because of a thumbprint on the sarcophogas lid. (!?)
4. Zahi's bone specialist confirms: no slaves here, we have 50% men and 50% women in our findings (as if slavery was something only men had to endure).
5. Robots aren't as snazzy as portrayed in the movies. Most movie robots would have been at least able to MacGuyver their way through the second door.
Leave it to the Brits to get absorbed in fancy pants cubicle construction for a country on the other side of the world.
Tally Ho! Let's see some effort put forth towards improving British food. How about inventing a device that can eliminate unwanted blood pudding or dry bagettes?
That CNN article is as devoid of details as British food is of flavor.