When is it ever desirable for indentation to not match the logical structure of a program? The only possible reason I can come up with is if you're intentionally attempting to obfuscate your code.
Ideas are indeed a dime a dozen, but we're talking about already successful ideas with existing fan-bases.
Personally I think the problem is that people try to make a movie based on a video game, rather than making a movie based on characters, setting, and plot. There is often the same issue with games based on movies, and they usually suck just as much as the game-to-movie attempts.
Don't make a movie of a game, just make a movie. Don't make a game of a movie, just make a game.
This isn't about how many hours you play. The game companies don't care if you play 58 hours or 2 minutes, as long as you bought the game. Heck, the less time you play a game, the sooner you're likely to buy another one, so the companies probably *don't* want you to play games for very long.
But think about this: with console multiplayer games, who runs the servers? Who decides when those servers will get shut down? Who decides when the sequel will be released? Think the original was a better game? Want to play that with your friends, instead? Tough shit; either buy the new version ("now with MORE teabagging!"), or stick to the single-player campaign (hah!).
Gifts can be subject to a gift tax, as SETIGuy mentioned.
On the subject of spouses, it is my understanding that there already exist legally-binding agreements between spouses (and equivalent legal partnerships) concerning property ownership following the death of one of the parties. If this were not the case, would not the current system also result in what you describe?
Case A would simply be tax evasion. And it would be quite simple to identify if your offspring were to mysteriously gain great wealth (through what, babysitting?) at almost exactly the rate the parent/s lost it. I'm not saying that people won't try to abuse or avoid the system. I'm not saying that it would be perfect. I'm just saying that the current tradition of nepotism is incompatible with a truly fair society.
Case B is just as nepotistic/selfish as Case A. If your children are adults, then they should be earning their own incomes and not need your leftover wealth. What about all the people who have no parents, or home? Are they less deserving of the wealth you had, simply because they didn't spring from your loins?
Of course, if the children in either case are not adults, then arrangements would have to be made until they came of age. The same as is currently done for children in a similar situation; those whose parents didn't have assets, or had never even known their parents.
A 100% death tax is essential for a fair and equal society. But fairness and equality are not usually wanted by those with money and privilege (and hence power), or their offspring. "Providing for your children" should mean preparing them to be happy and successful in their own right, not installing a recliner on your coat-tails.
If anyone has links to (informative) discussion on the subject, I'd be interested to see. Especially on the subtopic of company ownership transferral, which I'm not yet sure about.
My suggestion is that there is a modest fixed term (on the scale of a human lifespan) from the time of publication, full stop. If people want to continue making money, then they should continue contributing to society.
If someone is so talented that their works will be celebrated for their entire life (and beyond), what is gained by eternally paying them for their first success, and thus giving them no further incentive to create more works?
Companies have the conscience, remorse and morals of those people who control them. Companies are not autonomous entities. To perpetuate such a preposterous idea is to absolve those who run companies of any responsibility for their decisions and actions.
1) Explained in TNG that a single humanoid race had "seeded" the galaxy with its likeness IIRC. 2) Universal translator, duh. Have you even seen the shows? 3) Isn't that just racism (speciesism?) on your part? Since, as you have already observed, the aliens are almost all physiologically similar to humans.
But ebooks also entail a raft of issues that paper books don't have -- power, relative fragility, DRM, data corruption, etc.
...pretty much all of which are also issues word processors have that typewriters don't. Yet typewriters are dead.
Power is pretty much a non-issue for e-ink displays. Data corruption is possibly *less* of an issue with ebooks, as backups and copies are trivial to create. In fact, I would contend that all those issues you mention are mere implementation details. Using them as arguments against ebook adoption is like saying computers will never replace typewriters because a computer takes up an entire room.
Or perhaps, being technical types, you and clodney are overestimating the importance of technical quality. End-user sales are increased through marketing, not quality products.
Microsoft use the "Windows" trademark for their operating system, and they claimed "Lindows" was similar enough to cause confusion in the market. I believe Microsoft were correct in this belief. Lindows, however, counter-claimed that; within the IT industry the term "window(s)" was a generic term, used well before and apart from Microsoft's usage of it as a product name. I believe also that Lindows were correct in this belief.
The two sides were then looking at the trademark dispute being decided in court, where there was the very real possibility that Microsoft's "Windows" trademark would be found invalid. So Microsoft offered Lindows a big chunk of change if they changed their name and dropped the case.
Don't blame the instigator for what the implementors do.
AFAICT, the fashion industry is only really concerned about Trademarks. Gucci probably couldn't care less if someone tried to sell "Krauti" handbags, which looked almost exactly like Gucci ones. They know that their customers wouldn't buy Krauti handbags even if they were physically identical atom-for-atom (barring the branding).
Level cap was very low? There must be over 30 different skills, branching out from the five basic ones, each of which can go up to level 250. And it was like this since the open beta AFAIK.
Or perhaps you just never made it out of the beginner/tutorial island, where the skills and equipment available are restricted?
Slashdot Mirror
Plants are alive. At least until some bugger eats the poor things. Won't someone think of the flora?
Oh, and I do believe that science can set us free from the endless cycle of destruction. Behold: Meat Sheets!
When is it ever desirable for indentation to not match the logical structure of a program?
The only possible reason I can come up with is if you're intentionally attempting to obfuscate your code.
Just to pedant: The Telvanni were the ones who lived in and grew the mushroom-cities; Tel Mora being one of those cities.
Well, I say cities, but they were more like villages. There are far too few people in game worlds, generally.
Ideas are indeed a dime a dozen, but we're talking about already successful ideas with existing fan-bases.
Personally I think the problem is that people try to make a movie based on a video game, rather than making a movie based on characters, setting, and plot.
There is often the same issue with games based on movies, and they usually suck just as much as the game-to-movie attempts.
Don't make a movie of a game, just make a movie.
Don't make a game of a movie, just make a game.
This isn't about how many hours you play. The game companies don't care if you play 58 hours or 2 minutes, as long as you bought the game. Heck, the less time you play a game, the sooner you're likely to buy another one, so the companies probably *don't* want you to play games for very long.
But think about this: with console multiplayer games, who runs the servers? Who decides when those servers will get shut down? Who decides when the sequel will be released?
Think the original was a better game? Want to play that with your friends, instead? Tough shit; either buy the new version ("now with MORE teabagging!"), or stick to the single-player campaign (hah!).
Gifts can be subject to a gift tax, as SETIGuy mentioned.
On the subject of spouses, it is my understanding that there already exist legally-binding agreements between spouses (and equivalent legal partnerships) concerning property ownership following the death of one of the parties. If this were not the case, would not the current system also result in what you describe?
Case A would simply be tax evasion. And it would be quite simple to identify if your offspring were to mysteriously gain great wealth (through what, babysitting?) at almost exactly the rate the parent/s lost it.
I'm not saying that people won't try to abuse or avoid the system. I'm not saying that it would be perfect. I'm just saying that the current tradition of nepotism is incompatible with a truly fair society.
Case B is just as nepotistic/selfish as Case A. If your children are adults, then they should be earning their own incomes and not need your leftover wealth. What about all the people who have no parents, or home? Are they less deserving of the wealth you had, simply because they didn't spring from your loins?
Of course, if the children in either case are not adults, then arrangements would have to be made until they came of age. The same as is currently done for children in a similar situation; those whose parents didn't have assets, or had never even known their parents.
If you want a soundbite, my definition of a fair and equal society would be something like: "To each what they earn".
I don't believe a person should be entitled to wealth, simply through an accident of their birth. So yes; car, house, everything else.
A 100% death tax is essential for a fair and equal society. But fairness and equality are not usually wanted by those with money and privilege (and hence power), or their offspring.
"Providing for your children" should mean preparing them to be happy and successful in their own right, not installing a recliner on your coat-tails.
If anyone has links to (informative) discussion on the subject, I'd be interested to see. Especially on the subtopic of company ownership transferral, which I'm not yet sure about.
My suggestion is that there is a modest fixed term (on the scale of a human lifespan) from the time of publication, full stop. If people want to continue making money, then they should continue contributing to society.
If someone is so talented that their works will be celebrated for their entire life (and beyond), what is gained by eternally paying them for their first success, and thus giving them no further incentive to create more works?
"Hockey"? Is that what you kids are calling it now?
I guess he meant to say:
"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'proof'"
Companies have the conscience, remorse and morals of those people who control them.
Companies are not autonomous entities. To perpetuate such a preposterous idea is to absolve those who run companies of any responsibility for their decisions and actions.
No, it was not.
As was noted on Slashdot at the time:
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
Here's a Nomad review from almost a year before Apple's iPod annoucement.
Meh. The Beatles are overrated.
1) Explained in TNG that a single humanoid race had "seeded" the galaxy with its likeness IIRC.
2) Universal translator, duh. Have you even seen the shows?
3) Isn't that just racism (speciesism?) on your part? Since, as you have already observed, the aliens are almost all physiologically similar to humans.
But ebooks also entail a raft of issues that paper books don't have -- power, relative fragility, DRM, data corruption, etc.
...pretty much all of which are also issues word processors have that typewriters don't. Yet typewriters are dead.
Power is pretty much a non-issue for e-ink displays.
Data corruption is possibly *less* of an issue with ebooks, as backups and copies are trivial to create.
In fact, I would contend that all those issues you mention are mere implementation details. Using them as arguments against ebook adoption is like saying computers will never replace typewriters because a computer takes up an entire room.
That's not geography, it's politics.
You seem to be erroneously conflating "socialism" and "authoritarianism"
Or perhaps, being technical types, you and clodney are overestimating the importance of technical quality. End-user sales are increased through marketing, not quality products.
In most of the world we study Mathematics. I didn't realise that there was only one Mathematic studied in the US.
Microsoft use the "Windows" trademark for their operating system, and they claimed "Lindows" was similar enough to cause confusion in the market. I believe Microsoft were correct in this belief.
Lindows, however, counter-claimed that; within the IT industry the term "window(s)" was a generic term, used well before and apart from Microsoft's usage of it as a product name. I believe also that Lindows were correct in this belief.
The two sides were then looking at the trademark dispute being decided in court, where there was the very real possibility that Microsoft's "Windows" trademark would be found invalid. So Microsoft offered Lindows a big chunk of change if they changed their name and dropped the case.
We had the same thing happen in the UK with our previous government, and it turned out to be a great boon to the economy.
Oh, wait...
Don't blame the instigator for what the implementors do.
AFAICT, the fashion industry is only really concerned about Trademarks. Gucci probably couldn't care less if someone tried to sell "Krauti" handbags, which looked almost exactly like Gucci ones. They know that their customers wouldn't buy Krauti handbags even if they were physically identical atom-for-atom (barring the branding).
Level cap was very low?
There must be over 30 different skills, branching out from the five basic ones, each of which can go up to level 250. And it was like this since the open beta AFAIK.
Or perhaps you just never made it out of the beginner/tutorial island, where the skills and equipment available are restricted?