How about getting your facts straight. Dakota hasn't worked at GameSpy for about 2 years now. And how did he "sell out"?
Okay I guess I missed that, but can you please point me in the direction of the employee listing at Gamespy? Not really public knowledge, is it?
Dakota traded Captured.com for a career with Gamespy. Captured wasn't paying any bills, and Gamespy did. How isn't that selling out? Obviously he had his reasons for leaving, but it still was a financial choice -- wasn't it?
Selling out isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it just makes sense -- but it's still considering finances over art. Dakota didn't have time to run Captured, and I think GSN pulled the plug because CTF readership fell off. It went from being a kind of early blog to being a news site, to being a p1mp subsection of PQ, to being DOA. Is Dakota happy with that lifecycle? I doubt it.
But the bulk of my comment was simply a reply to the person who wanted to know how video game journalism has progressed, and it's really on point in my opinion. The whole games industry has gone very corporate/bottom line, and I think it sucks.
Looks like Dakota did leave GSN, and from his sig, here is where it looks like he went. If anything, this proves he sort of felt like getting away from GSN, and seeing that he's not doing games related stuff, maybe he had a change of heart?
I remember back in the early days of Planet Quake, when Bastard (Basty) was running the site. This was of course before Gamespy transformed from being a little ping tool, into a giant marketing juggernaught. Quake lovers like myself would collect in #planetquake and chat about the latest mod, hang out on servers and submit news to contribute to the (then) growing online Quake community.
I did a lot of mods myself. Some I would have liked to have finished, but the ones I did finish all collect dust now. (and some of them collected dust THEN)
At the same time Bluesnews was also a great place to find out awesome insights to the whole Quake scene.
Look at these two sites now, and all you can see is marketing.
They both, arguably, sold out. I don't know why... maybe they like affording new computers from Alienware, or maybe they just like the concept of selling their souls. Another person who sold out bigtime was Dakota, the CTF guy that some of you might remember as the founder of Captured.com (which is now closed). He joined Gamespy and is running a large part of that company now. He used to post amazing CTF news, mods, tourney info and stuff.
Vid journalists all get bought up by the industry.
But the games changed, too. It used to be a lot of fun to play Quake or Thunderwalker on servers, but then other games came along and stole the show, thus putting an end to the tight-knit community. Each new game fractured the core community until, for quite a while, there was no cohesion.
All good things come to an end, and I think that is how we really know they were good.
I've come up with a few ways to stop dynamic ip abuses. Set cookies and sessions to check for previous maliciousness is one method which I'm sure they are likely already using. The other is to store a user's IP in a session-based array and require registration if the array has more than one record. I've tried this while using Tor and it's 99% effective for quelling IP abuse.
After the fearless heroics displayed by the enslaved mechazoid, the team nicknamed the bot Mighty Mouse (well actually, M^2). Obviously some old school nerds work at the White Sands Missile Range, and possibly because Mighty Mouse's arch rival was Oil Can Harry, an evil cat. Oil can, meet cobalt-60!
M^2 is not quite as compact as the nick would suggest (judging from the pic ITFA, it looks a bit like Number 5). Still smaller were the Exocomps, those self-aware bots that, given human liberty to choose, saved the day in TNG S6-E9, "The Quality of Life". I can't wait until robots can fly, and make decisions for us. Then I can sit around and read Slashdot all day while my Exocomp does all the unpleasant tasks I need done, like going to work every day, doing my laundry, cooking and cleaning for me.
And actually, I think Microsoft has pretty much done everything it could get away with...
How much do you attribute that truth to Bill Gates, and how much do you attribute that to the corporate collective? What I think is that Gates is sometimes sold on really bad ideas that hurt the company, from people who want to get ahead in the company (risk takers, wheeling & dealing). Bill might be a genius, but he buys into sometimes wrong ideologies, because he is possibly an idealist at heart (with the intellect to think he actually can make a difference, because he can see it maybe the way I'm describing it). Some of the most dangerous people have the best intentions, and I like to think Bill gets caught up in corporate politics, not that he's a bad person. Corporatism is not free market, but one man does not truly have absolute power. There are always outside forces, for good and evil.
Some of what you're saying is ok with me, but not all of it. Before Bill Gates, IBM was *EVIL*. Now they are GOOD, giving millions to Open Source. Now some other body (ahem, Google, ahem) is giving Microsoft a run for their money, so MS will be forced towards more righteous practices (or bankruptcy).
It's critical to separate the baby from the bathwater, and talking about Microsoft is no different. Some of their practices and policies are evil. That's the bathwater. The rest is still the company that curbed IBM and delivered computer GUI to the planet. I certainly don't like the bathwater, but I kinda like the fact that a company is connecting people, don't you?
Bill Gates amassed a fortune through ruthless and merciless and eventually illegal practices.
For every illegal practice Bill's company has been accused of, there are at least a few practices that have helped bring computers and the internet to the masses. Not sure I would personally consider Bill Gates to be a good person, but you have to be a ruthless dictator in order to run a multi-national. When in Rome. Show me one CEO who can exist in *that* world, without holding true to the values of the Sith.
That said, much of Bill's contribution to the dark side of the force has sparked great strides for the light. Our enemies unite us, and there is no clearer enemy to Open Source than Bill Gates. Maybe he just wants us all working for free? Nah.
I'm surprised PayPal accepts donations for PA. Remember when PayPal shut down the SomethingAwful.com Katrina aid drive without so much as a consideration for the victims? I thought their response was that PayPal doesn't support charities? Or was it a conflict of interest with one of the major charity groups that PayPal is contracted with?
Slander is not dependant upon it being true. In fact, slander is dependant upon its not being true.
It's also dependant upon plausibility, and Wikipedia might have valid info, but it certainly has had its fair share of the invalid kind, and therefore is not a 100% reliable source. Hell, it's not even 65% valid. On articles linked by Slashdot, a frigging Slashdot box appears on the top, warning people of our trolls who will edit the articles, FFS!
Chase is not a journalist, or someone of repute, so therefore he could not be considered a valid source. Also he didn't know the man in question. Plus he retracted it. Nothing in this case, except for some written untruths, adds up to slander, or even libel.
pla; You have a very strong position here and I wanted to let you know that I found your statements on freedom of speech verycompelling. The responsibility for freedom of speech is indeed on the part of the audience, and not the orator. Each human being is a liar once; nobody is perfect. Our mission is not to be perfect; it's to handle and understand why we are NOT perfect. When we can achieve that level of understanding, we can become truly evolved and perhaps then we could be within reach of the lofty utopian goals discovered and idolized by our ancestors. The guy who pranked Wikipedia did it as a joke... but people found out who he was because in American society, slander is punishable regardless of the medium. The thing is -- there is no slander on Wikipedia because it's impossible to prove that it's a reliable source of information -- anyone can edit any article, so there must be a high level of speculation on any post.
The purpose of Wikipedia is to have a launch pad for information... not actually keep it locked down as factual. Think something? Post it. Someone will either edit it or not. If they find something they want to add, let them. The end product is a plethora of great info that should be double-checked before it's used for anything imporant. Fact checking is required when citing Wikipedia in any kind of formal essay. It's a great place to START an essay, but it's a lousy reference. Therefore even if Seigenthaler wanted to sue Chase (and Seig] has announced he does *not* want to do so because Seig] believes in freedom of speech), Seig] couldn't win.
Consider that Intel owns a big chunk of CNET and then you see a possible conflict of interest brewing over an article possibly designed to sink Open Office. Now consider the author, George Ou, who has also posted such titles as, Is the Honeymoon with Firefox Over?
I'm not sure about names but the whole Warden issue made me rethink the whole Wow thing. The bottom line is that this game is Blizard's to create policy however they see fit. If you don't like it, talk about it. If the cons outweigh the pros -- it's a no brainer, but otherwise it makes for a good discussion about our online rights and who can control your online identity. Then again... I might go by God online. Does that mean people should worship me?
This just seems unsafe to me. Imagine something goes wrong and the train is stuck up at that altitude. Then what?
I remember riding a train that had colided with a truck a few years back. This wouldn't likely happen at that altitude, but what could happen would be wildlife and environmental blockage.
I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".
Me too! But there is a catch-all to it and it might actually make sense for IBM do apply their patents with stringent force over all businesses -- to protect us.
FTA: "Patent applications are routinely written to include every possible use of a technology, even some the company doesn't intend to pursue. Still, it's clear somebody at IBM has a pretty creepy imagination."
Examine this and a company like IBM could protect us from some the GREATER EVIL of RFID applications. IBM would be a white knight; they already support Open Source!! Maybe we should trust them on this? Of course, they might not be a good samurai, but think of the press if their patents actually SECURED humanity from a possible abuse like we're talking about here. IBM could become a protectorate. That's profitable!
Let HBO use black-hat tactics if they want. It won't save their ratings, and it certainly won't improve their public image. Someone is going to be fired over this, I think.
While we both know you're kidding, I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated.;-)
Seriously, I like it. I like the fact that govs are looking at the bottom line and trying to streamline operations. Phasing out Microsoft? That would have been unheard of ----- last year.
I am happy to hear the Chew'setts have the brass tacks to pull something like this off and I can't wait to see Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot on this one.
What's more lame is parent saved a really old comment URL that I made, just so he could be petty and vindictive. That he saved that trivia in his puny mind, where the answer to tomorrow's lottery numbers could be stored instead -- that he wasted the time of every reader on Slashdot just to point out the trivia is confounding and inappropriate.
The likelihood that someone will mention MFH(56)'s Slashdot account being purchased on Ebay approaches 100% as the moderation of MFH(56)'s comments increase.
I was wondering if there was going to be a story on this.
Me too... I blogged this earlier today, and briefly (first impression) journal'd it too, and would love to comment now on some more technical aspects of the page now that I've had time to examine it more thoroughly. Kudos to all involved on a very positive step in the right direction!
The CSS is really clean and impressive. I don't have a problem with it at all at this point, but CSS was never really my strong suit so you may want to get a second (thousand) opinion on that.
I have to admit, it's nice to see the page load faster, with fewer visual errors in Firefox. The links and text seems quite a bit nicer. Now I can modify the CSS of the site to make it look however I want on my own system too, so that is certainly a benefit.
I'm sure many will point out that there are lots of errors in the HTML.
You can see for yourself, here. That part isn't that important, because once you begin the road to enlightenment, that zen of CSS, it's a journey that has no return.
I'm actually quite proud of Slashdot today, even though I merely post here.
I will be far more proud when the new moderation systems come online. Not sure how many of you submitted ideas and had discussions with CmdrTaco on that subject but I had a thread going with him for quite some time last year. Much of what was said was repetitive, geared towards filtering out what he already had considered or someone else had suggested, but he genuinely listened to some of the suggestions that were unique. I wonder what the timeline is on the moderation changes... Taco?
We also found that the market prices gave decisive, informative predictions in the sense that their predictive power increased as time passed and uncertainty was resolved.
This is why I like Google. The use of intelligence to develop accurate results in a predicative system, and keep it all flowing -- it shows not only wisdom -- it shows an early level of omnipotence, which has to be the key ingredient to success today! If God is supposed to be omnipotent, why not try it? (haha I'm not a religious nut, FYI... just like to use the data available)
Consider the alternative solution to success and you really must put your investment dollars where you have the most faith. Google stock can only go up, thus breaking the law of Gravity. Only a supra-genius (Wyle E. Coyote) knows how to bend the laws that govern market economy to their favour. Are you really going to bet against that kind of mindpower?
Being geeks, we naturally used information theory to measure the entropy of our probability distributions:
This is a demonstration of wisdom. Knowing the rate of market decay is a HUGE BENEFIT for all Google stockholders. Google keeps proving that time and time again: being a geek puts you in the best position for the continuation of the species, even if you're not getting laid *today*, you will get laid PLENTY when you get lots of money, and therefore sire many children and overwhelm the market with clones of yourself. Then improve the genome of your clones in modular functionality, so that parts become interchangeable. You can now patent genes, so you don't have to patent actual clones to profit.
Seriously, at this rate, I see this coming as the next logical step for Google. Bioharvesting of nerds for fun and profit. Especially nerdy gamer chix!
The main reason this can't work, is that Google already owns the mindshare of the internet. You can't buy what Google has going for it, IMHO. Consider the mindshare that AOL has...
People who don't like computers or the internet buy AOL, because they think they have to. They think it's the internet.
So Microsoft is going to waste billions on AOL. *tries to contain glee*
Microsoft can certainly buy that client base. They can milk it for all it's worth for maybe even ten years.
As information becomes more and more readily available online, as people read blogs and learn the way of the force, they change. They learn to despise the despots and the weasels. They retaliate.
And this lesson is something that Balmer et al have never understood. They aren't evolved enough to get it. So they buy it, but they can't possibly buy what Google has, and that is what's driving them crazy.
Microsoft needs a whole new mindset if they want to compete in this market, and it's not going to happen.
And as a final note on this deal-based waterfront, FTA: AOL has been losing subscription customers rapidly, which is why it recently switched its business from purely subscription based to increasingly advertising-based.
Slashdot Mirror
How about getting your facts straight. Dakota hasn't worked at GameSpy for about 2 years now. And how did he "sell out"?
Okay I guess I missed that, but can you please point me in the direction of the employee listing at Gamespy? Not really public knowledge, is it?
Dakota traded Captured.com for a career with Gamespy. Captured wasn't paying any bills, and Gamespy did. How isn't that selling out? Obviously he had his reasons for leaving, but it still was a financial choice -- wasn't it?
Selling out isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it just makes sense -- but it's still considering finances over art. Dakota didn't have time to run Captured, and I think GSN pulled the plug because CTF readership fell off. It went from being a kind of early blog to being a news site, to being a p1mp subsection of PQ, to being DOA. Is Dakota happy with that lifecycle? I doubt it.
But the bulk of my comment was simply a reply to the person who wanted to know how video game journalism has progressed, and it's really on point in my opinion. The whole games industry has gone very corporate/bottom line, and I think it sucks.
Looks like Dakota did leave GSN, and from his sig, here is where it looks like he went. If anything, this proves he sort of felt like getting away from GSN, and seeing that he's not doing games related stuff, maybe he had a change of heart?
I remember back in the early days of Planet Quake, when Bastard (Basty) was running the site. This was of course before Gamespy transformed from being a little ping tool, into a giant marketing juggernaught. Quake lovers like myself would collect in #planetquake and chat about the latest mod, hang out on servers and submit news to contribute to the (then) growing online Quake community.
I did a lot of mods myself. Some I would have liked to have finished, but the ones I did finish all collect dust now. (and some of them collected dust THEN)
At the same time Bluesnews was also a great place to find out awesome insights to the whole Quake scene.
Look at these two sites now, and all you can see is marketing.
They both, arguably, sold out. I don't know why... maybe they like affording new computers from Alienware, or maybe they just like the concept of selling their souls. Another person who sold out bigtime was Dakota, the CTF guy that some of you might remember as the founder of Captured.com (which is now closed). He joined Gamespy and is running a large part of that company now. He used to post amazing CTF news, mods, tourney info and stuff.
Vid journalists all get bought up by the industry.
But the games changed, too. It used to be a lot of fun to play Quake or Thunderwalker on servers, but then other games came along and stole the show, thus putting an end to the tight-knit community. Each new game fractured the core community until, for quite a while, there was no cohesion.
All good things come to an end, and I think that is how we really know they were good.
I've come up with a few ways to stop dynamic ip abuses. Set cookies and sessions to check for previous maliciousness is one method which I'm sure they are likely already using. The other is to store a user's IP in a session-based array and require registration if the array has more than one record. I've tried this while using Tor and it's 99% effective for quelling IP abuse.
These measures may slow the casual trolling and idiocy but it will do nothing to deter or prevent the more dedicated trolls.
I'm a coder and I can't imagine why Wikipedia would want to semi-protect select articles, and not *all* articles. (Bitflag vs Micromanagement)
After the fearless heroics displayed by the enslaved mechazoid, the team nicknamed the bot Mighty Mouse (well actually, M^2). Obviously some old school nerds work at the White Sands Missile Range, and possibly because Mighty Mouse's arch rival was Oil Can Harry, an evil cat. Oil can, meet cobalt-60!
M^2 is not quite as compact as the nick would suggest (judging from the pic ITFA, it looks a bit like Number 5). Still smaller were the Exocomps, those self-aware bots that, given human liberty to choose, saved the day in TNG S6-E9, "The Quality of Life". I can't wait until robots can fly, and make decisions for us. Then I can sit around and read Slashdot all day while my Exocomp does all the unpleasant tasks I need done, like going to work every day, doing my laundry, cooking and cleaning for me.
And actually, I think Microsoft has pretty much done everything it could get away with...
How much do you attribute that truth to Bill Gates, and how much do you attribute that to the corporate collective? What I think is that Gates is sometimes sold on really bad ideas that hurt the company, from people who want to get ahead in the company (risk takers, wheeling & dealing). Bill might be a genius, but he buys into sometimes wrong ideologies, because he is possibly an idealist at heart (with the intellect to think he actually can make a difference, because he can see it maybe the way I'm describing it). Some of the most dangerous people have the best intentions, and I like to think Bill gets caught up in corporate politics, not that he's a bad person. Corporatism is not free market, but one man does not truly have absolute power. There are always outside forces, for good and evil.
Some of what you're saying is ok with me, but not all of it. Before Bill Gates, IBM was *EVIL*. Now they are GOOD, giving millions to Open Source. Now some other body (ahem, Google, ahem) is giving Microsoft a run for their money, so MS will be forced towards more righteous practices (or bankruptcy).
It's critical to separate the baby from the bathwater, and talking about Microsoft is no different. Some of their practices and policies are evil. That's the bathwater. The rest is still the company that curbed IBM and delivered computer GUI to the planet. I certainly don't like the bathwater, but I kinda like the fact that a company is connecting people, don't you?
Bill Gates amassed a fortune through ruthless and merciless and eventually illegal practices.
For every illegal practice Bill's company has been accused of, there are at least a few practices that have helped bring computers and the internet to the masses. Not sure I would personally consider Bill Gates to be a good person, but you have to be a ruthless dictator in order to run a multi-national. When in Rome. Show me one CEO who can exist in *that* world, without holding true to the values of the Sith.
That said, much of Bill's contribution to the dark side of the force has sparked great strides for the light. Our enemies unite us, and there is no clearer enemy to Open Source than Bill Gates. Maybe he just wants us all working for free? Nah.
I'm surprised PayPal accepts donations for PA. Remember when PayPal shut down the SomethingAwful.com Katrina aid drive without so much as a consideration for the victims? I thought their response was that PayPal doesn't support charities? Or was it a conflict of interest with one of the major charity groups that PayPal is contracted with?
Slander is not dependant upon it being true. In fact, slander is dependant upon its not being true.
It's also dependant upon plausibility, and Wikipedia might have valid info, but it certainly has had its fair share of the invalid kind, and therefore is not a 100% reliable source. Hell, it's not even 65% valid. On articles linked by Slashdot, a frigging Slashdot box appears on the top, warning people of our trolls who will edit the articles, FFS!
Chase is not a journalist, or someone of repute, so therefore he could not be considered a valid source. Also he didn't know the man in question. Plus he retracted it. Nothing in this case, except for some written untruths, adds up to slander, or even libel.
pla;
You have a very strong position here and I wanted to let you know that I found your statements on freedom of speech very compelling. The responsibility for freedom of speech is indeed on the part of the audience, and not the orator. Each human being is a liar once; nobody is perfect. Our mission is not to be perfect; it's to handle and understand why we are NOT perfect. When we can achieve that level of understanding, we can become truly evolved and perhaps then we could be within reach of the lofty utopian goals discovered and idolized by our ancestors. The guy who pranked Wikipedia did it as a joke... but people found out who he was because in American society, slander is punishable regardless of the medium. The thing is -- there is no slander on Wikipedia because it's impossible to prove that it's a reliable source of information -- anyone can edit any article, so there must be a high level of speculation on any post.
The purpose of Wikipedia is to have a launch pad for information... not actually keep it locked down as factual. Think something? Post it. Someone will either edit it or not. If they find something they want to add, let them. The end product is a plethora of great info that should be double-checked before it's used for anything imporant. Fact checking is required when citing Wikipedia in any kind of formal essay. It's a great place to START an essay, but it's a lousy reference. Therefore even if Seigenthaler wanted to sue Chase (and Seig] has announced he does *not* want to do so because Seig] believes in freedom of speech), Seig] couldn't win.
If it's for cancer...
Consider that Intel owns a big chunk of CNET and then you see a possible conflict of interest brewing over an article possibly designed to sink Open Office. Now consider the author, George Ou, who has also posted such titles as, Is the Honeymoon with Firefox Over?
Seeing a bit of a pattern forming.
I'm not sure about names but the whole Warden issue made me rethink the whole Wow thing. The bottom line is that this game is Blizard's to create policy however they see fit. If you don't like it, talk about it. If the cons outweigh the pros -- it's a no brainer, but otherwise it makes for a good discussion about our online rights and who can control your online identity. Then again... I might go by God online. Does that mean people should worship me?
This just seems unsafe to me. Imagine something goes wrong and the train is stuck up at that altitude. Then what?
I remember riding a train that had colided with a truck a few years back. This wouldn't likely happen at that altitude, but what could happen would be wildlife and environmental blockage.
It seems like a challenge to me.
I posted this a week ago too, linking to Boing Boing of course.
find an honest politician and vote for him
There is no such thing. To seek power is to corrupt. To seek office is to corrupt. To corrupt is to be human.
I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".
Me too! But there is a catch-all to it and it might actually make sense for IBM do apply their patents with stringent force over all businesses -- to protect us.
FTA: "Patent applications are routinely written to include every possible use of a technology, even some the company doesn't intend to pursue. Still, it's clear somebody at IBM has a pretty creepy imagination."
Examine this and a company like IBM could protect us from some the GREATER EVIL of RFID applications. IBM would be a white knight; they already support Open Source!! Maybe we should trust them on this? Of course, they might not be a good samurai, but think of the press if their patents actually SECURED humanity from a possible abuse like we're talking about here. IBM could become a protectorate. That's profitable!
Let HBO use black-hat tactics if they want. It won't save their ratings, and it certainly won't improve their public image. Someone is going to be fired over this, I think.
First all those dinosaur bones and now this!
;-)
While we both know you're kidding, I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated.
Seriously, I like it. I like the fact that govs are looking at the bottom line and trying to streamline operations. Phasing out Microsoft? That would have been unheard of ----- last year.
I am happy to hear the Chew'setts have the brass tacks to pull something like this off and I can't wait to see Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot on this one.
It's turning into a morph of Godwin's Law.
Because it's my law, I will call it MFH's Law:
I was wondering if there was going to be a story on this.
Me too... I blogged this earlier today, and briefly (first impression) journal'd it too, and would love to comment now on some more technical aspects of the page now that I've had time to examine it more thoroughly. Kudos to all involved on a very positive step in the right direction!
The CSS is really clean and impressive. I don't have a problem with it at all at this point, but CSS was never really my strong suit so you may want to get a second (thousand) opinion on that.
I have to admit, it's nice to see the page load faster, with fewer visual errors in Firefox. The links and text seems quite a bit nicer. Now I can modify the CSS of the site to make it look however I want on my own system too, so that is certainly a benefit.
I'm sure many will point out that there are lots of errors in the HTML.
You can see for yourself, here. That part isn't that important, because once you begin the road to enlightenment, that zen of CSS, it's a journey that has no return.
I'm actually quite proud of Slashdot today, even though I merely post here.
I will be far more proud when the new moderation systems come online. Not sure how many of you submitted ideas and had discussions with CmdrTaco on that subject but I had a thread going with him for quite some time last year. Much of what was said was repetitive, geared towards filtering out what he already had considered or someone else had suggested, but he genuinely listened to some of the suggestions that were unique. I wonder what the timeline is on the moderation changes... Taco?
We also found that the market prices gave decisive, informative predictions in the sense that their predictive power increased as time passed and uncertainty was resolved.
This is why I like Google. The use of intelligence to develop accurate results in a predicative system, and keep it all flowing -- it shows not only wisdom -- it shows an early level of omnipotence, which has to be the key ingredient to success today! If God is supposed to be omnipotent, why not try it? (haha I'm not a religious nut, FYI... just like to use the data available)
Consider the alternative solution to success and you really must put your investment dollars where you have the most faith. Google stock can only go up, thus breaking the law of Gravity. Only a supra-genius (Wyle E. Coyote) knows how to bend the laws that govern market economy to their favour. Are you really going to bet against that kind of mindpower?
Being geeks, we naturally used information theory to measure the entropy of our probability distributions:
This is a demonstration of wisdom. Knowing the rate of market decay is a HUGE BENEFIT for all Google stockholders. Google keeps proving that time and time again: being a geek puts you in the best position for the continuation of the species, even if you're not getting laid *today*, you will get laid PLENTY when you get lots of money, and therefore sire many children and overwhelm the market with clones of yourself. Then improve the genome of your clones in modular functionality, so that parts become interchangeable. You can now patent genes, so you don't have to patent actual clones to profit.
Seriously, at this rate, I see this coming as the next logical step for Google. Bioharvesting of nerds for fun and profit. Especially nerdy gamer chix!
The main reason this can't work, is that Google already owns the mindshare of the internet. You can't buy what Google has going for it, IMHO. Consider the mindshare that AOL has...
People who don't like computers or the internet buy AOL, because they think they have to. They think it's the internet.
So Microsoft is going to waste billions on AOL. *tries to contain glee*
Microsoft can certainly buy that client base. They can milk it for all it's worth for maybe even ten years.
As information becomes more and more readily available online, as people read blogs and learn the way of the force, they change. They learn to despise the despots and the weasels. They retaliate.
And this lesson is something that Balmer et al have never understood. They aren't evolved enough to get it. So they buy it, but they can't possibly buy what Google has, and that is what's driving them crazy.
Microsoft needs a whole new mindset if they want to compete in this market, and it's not going to happen.
And as a final note on this deal-based waterfront, FTA: AOL has been losing subscription customers rapidly, which is why it recently switched its business from purely subscription based to increasingly advertising-based.