All the article says is "Final Fantasy retains a lot of the improvements made in the PlayStation version, including better save capabilities and gameplay tweaks."
So what i want to know from anyone who's actually played the game, how many of the changes are optional? I've been told that in the PSX remake you could select the difficulty level, either the original difficulty or a new easier mode, and i'm hoping that's one feature they kept. I've also heard that this new version replaces the old levels of spells with the MP system that all(?) FF games have used since then. I'm really hoping that that will be an option i could turn off as well.
I can understand them wanting to revamp the graphics and music to some degree and i'll accept that, however i really wish they'd stop forcing gameplay changes on us. If i'm going to play/buy the games it's going to be for the nostalgia value. If i wanted an improved version i'd buy one of the newer games instead. I'd probably try out the changes as well, but i'd like the option to play it the way it was.
When i was young and you had several guys attack one monster and the first attack killed it then your other attacks were wasted, and we liked it! Well, maybe not liked it, but certainly have masochistically fond memories of what a pain in the ass it was:)
Well let's see. The stats according to Enluxled: their lights cost $80, last 50,000 hours, uses 22 watts, and produces 300 lumens at 15 watts (why the 22 vs 15 i have no idea)
On the other hand this flourescent floodlight from FEIT uses 18 watts to produce 950 lumens, or 23 watts to produce 1300 lumens, both lasting 6000 hours. I haven't found price listings on the their site, but a quick google on the model number found this site selling the stronger version for $9.
it's also worth noting that the FEIT webpage seems a little out of date. They list their small flourescent bulbs as "ESL13T" with 800 lumens at 13 watts and a lifetime of 8000 hours. However i recently bought some of their bulbs at Costco that were the same size but had a model number of "CE13T" and list 900 lumens at 13 watts and a lifetime of 10,000 hours, so their floods might have seen similar improvement.
So all in all it seem the only advantage the LEDs have is lifetime. They last somewhere between 5 and 8 times longer than flourescents, but produce a _lot_ less light per watt and cost almost 9 times as much.
Anything is better than fluorescent. I can't believe anyone voluntarily uses those garish headache inducing monstrosities.
Are you trolling, or have you just been stuck in a cave with ten year old flourescent lights?
FEIT has a whole line of flourescent lightbulbs, including a couple kinds of floodlights. I've replaced all the lights in my apartment with them and they work great. I can't tell any difference between them and the old incandescent bulbs in terms of color. They also run a lot cooler; you wouldn't want to grab one and hold onto it for awhile but you can unscrew one with your bare hands even after it's been on for a few hours (why you'd actually want to do that i have no idea, but it gives you an idea of its temperature.) The only disadvantage is that it takes them 30-60 seconds to light up to full strength, however you get about 75% of the full light intensity immediately when you turn it on and a slow gradual brightening after that so it's not really a big deal.
Unfortunatly they seem not to have updated the page very recently, because the bulbs i bought at Costco a few months ago (8 pack for about $12, and i was pissed when i went there last week and found SoCalEdison was offering an instant rebate for $10) are a slight improvement. They're BPCE13T rather than the BPESL13T listed on the site. They're 900 lumens, 13 watts, and a 10,000 hour lifetime. The old GE bulbs i was using were, 840 lumens, 60 watts, 1000 hours.
Because he said he wanted the Democrats and Republicans to work together. Because he said he wanted the broad support of all Americans.
If he actually _meant_ that he should be working on compromises, not sticking it to the opposition as hard as he can. The states have proven they can outlaw gay marriage if they want. All the states that really wanted to have done so, and any other that want to join in can do so next election. So what do they need a constitutional amendment for? It might make them feel better to inflict their prejudices on people in other states, but Bush has no _need_ to go along with it, he's already won his second term. The only reason for Bush to push for it is because he also believes in forcing others to follow his religious views.
I'm not suprised that he's sticking to it (although it would have been nice if it had just been a hollow pre-election promise) but it makes a mockery of his claims that he wants to bring everyone together now. Clearly he doesn't want to include the ~10% of the nation that is gay or any of the rest of us who support them. Furthermore i suspect that he doesn't really want to join together with _any_ of the Democrats who aren't willing to completly give up their own agendas in favor of his, but the gay rights aspect is just the issue that he's being most blatant about so far.
trying to help unify the nation after such a bitter election. Apparently no one listened.
Hell no i'm not listening. Bush started out by declaring that he had a "broad victory" and "a very clear mandate from the American people." A 2% margin of victory is neither of those.
He has no actual intent to unite the nation. He's just been saying it for the PR value. Rove probably thinks that if they just shout loudly enough that they have a clear mandate and they want to work with the Democrats that anyone who disagrees won't be believed.
Everything i've read recently has said that historically the incumbant doesn't usually get any higher in the election than they did in the last poll before the election, which seems to indicate that if anything the polls skew towards the incumbant. If so that trend has certainly been destroyed this election.
Every exit poll i've seen says Florida is leaning towards Kerry by about 1 or 2 percent, however NBC says that with 22% of the precincts reporting that Florida is 55% for Bush, which seems well outside what i'd expect for the margin error.
So are we just getting an odd set of precincts reporting first, or is the official vote vastly different (statistically speaking) from the exit polls?
[tinfoil-hat]
At what point do we demand some kind of investigation, especially given the number of Diebold machines in Florida? This is the first time i've been glad for the exit polls, which will hopefully provide some check on votes getting changed after they're cast.
[/tinfoil-hat]
As usual in these kinds of discusions, everyone on all sides of the issue seems to be getting carried away.
Just to point something out, no one said they were slaves. And regardless of how much the game is based on ancient egypt and what rights women did or did not have in ancient egypt, the character in question was from somwhere _other_ than ancient egypt. Someplace where the men view all women as slaves, or at least so subservient to them as makes no difference.
Therefore no criticism based on what things were like in real or imagined ancient egypt is relevant.
Furthermore it's possible that it was "some man projecting his fantasies of enslaved women onto the game," but it's also possible that it was a good GM playing an NPC in the way that was appropriate to that character's background and personality, regardless of his own feelings on the matter. Also note that the character in question is presented as a theif and wanted criminal, not exactly the most sympathetic presentation. Perhaps the focus on female slavery in his character was intended to make people dislike him rather than as an endorsement of enslaved women.
Now whether or not you want to play a game in which characters/events like that take place is entirely up to you. However the presence of a certain culture or mindset in any work of art is not necessarily an endoresement of that culture or mindset. There is the entire branch of dystopian fiction which involves setting up the kind of society the author wouldn't wish to live in for the purpose of showing how bad that society is, a form that at least feminist author has used.
So continue on with your argument, but try to tone down the hyperbole and stick to the known facts please.
and Alpha Centauri remains the best of any games spawned out of the series.
Well that goes without saying:)
It might be nice to see a sequel to Alpha Centauri, however they'd either have to stick to just updating the graphics and AI or redo the entire thing from scratch. The old storyline was great, with compelling voice acting for the various quotes and other story bits and Baraka was a gold mine for the video clips.
With a new title! "Almost as good as the last one!" Which was almost as good as the last one..
Actually, if you'd been paying attention to previous news on the subject, you would know that a more proper title would be "As different from the previous game as we can make it and still call it Civilization," which will doubtless please some people and cause them to declare that it's the best Civ other while enraging others and causing them to declare that it's the worst Civ ever.
And generally speaking, the majority of people seem to agree that Civ2 was a big improvement over the original Civ, while opinion is split on whether Civ2 or Civ3 was better.
And in other news, as the updated article now says the games are no longer listed, which makes sense since as far as I can tell the list consists entirely of already released games.
I think if you want to look at it from a socialogical standpoint what they did makes a lot of sense. They've just demonstrated that a large group that cooperates can do well by screwing the system as long as they can convince peons to sacrifice themselves for the winners.
Sounds like a pretty good description of organized crime and corrupt corporations.
So like real life, the people who play fair do moderatly well, the heads of gangs and large corporations do great, and their underlings and everyone who deals with them gets screwed.
Of course in real life you can't get all the peons to sacrfice themselves at every occasion. You have to make sure that the percieved rewards are greater than the percieved risks or you don't get any more volunteers. However given the nature of human greed and the frequent human inability to calculate probabilities, that usually isn't too hard.
This isn't just a normal filler news report, it contains information that people may be able to take action on and should do so if possible. The deadline to register may have passed in Nevada, but the group has also been active in Oregon and who knows where else, and in some of those locations people still may have time to correct the problem.
Every year they run short on flu shots and every year there are news stories about where you can go to still get shots. Every year there are new outbreaks of west nile virus and every year there are news stories about what signs to watch for and who you should call if you see dead birds lying about. Every few months or years some area has accidental contamination of their water supply and the news runs stories on what areas are affected and for how long.
It doesn't matter how often or regularly such events happen, if there is a specific case going on at the moment the news has a responsibility to try and inform those people who might be affected so they can take appropriate action.
And please tell me what corporation _doesn't_ incorporate their rivals' plans into their buisness strategy?
I really doubt it's an issue of what Nintendo can or can't afford, given that they're swimming in cash at the moment. Rather it is an attempt to judge what release window would give them the biggest bang for the buck. And Sony certainly didn't have any problems admiting they needed to play "catch-up" to the Dreamcast back before the PS2 came out, and they did a great (if slimey) job of it and look where they are now.
No company survives by ignoring the competition, and if Nintendo tried to deny that they're currently in second place in the console wars you'd just say they were going to fail because they were insular and self-deluded and couldn't adapt to the changing times.
I could have sworn that earlier Nintendo was claiming they were going to be first to market. Personally i thought trying to get out before Sony would probably be a mistake, given Sony's past successes with underhanded "why buy that piece of crap now when our system will be coming out in six months and it will be ten times as powerfull as their stuff and it will grant you the magic ability to fly as well" marketing schemes.
So i'm glad that they're going to match step with Sony now, but that wasn't what i remembered them planning earlier. But i could just be confused.
Wizards of the Coast is sponsoring a game day? That's nice of them. It's been a long time since i've played D&D, so maybe i should go check it out.
Oh wait, i can't. The only local game store specialized in RPG stuff disapeared a little while after Wizards of the Coast opened up all their big stores in all the malls around here. Then after a couple years they decided they weren't making enough money (their first mistake was probably buying retail space in malls) and shut down all their stores and went back to wholesaling.
So now i have nowhere to buy the products they're trying to sell. I was hoping maybe the list of stores whould show some nearby place i just hadn't heard about till now, but no such luck.
And yes, i probably contributed to the problem some, but not as much as many other people. I continued to stop by the local store for as long as it remained open as well as going to Wizards of the Coast, but i wasn't buying much at either place since nobody i knew was interested in gaming at the time.
Wow! What incredible insight! Until you pointed it out i had never noticed the amazing similarities between Jesus getting it on with Mary Magdalene and the upcoming predidential election!
From the wiki article: "However, in anarchist philosophies, anarchy means an "anarchist society", that is, a society where individuals are free from coercion."
The point of me having a gun isn't tht the strongest survive or "win", it's that communities will find a way to protect themselves.
If you need to find a way to protect yourself, you're being coerced by the people you're protecting yourself from, even if not quite in the way those people want.
If your community forms a militia group to stop people from looting and killing, isn't that militia/community then in charge of the nearby area? Aren't you using coercion to keep those people from killing and looting?
Spain during the revolution in the thirties for one.
Again from the wiki article: "Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control," "Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian communes. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers."
Sounds like a whole lot of control and governing was going on, even if it wasn't by a state body.
I would say it was more of a true communist system. I don't know why you insist on calling it anarchy other than to try to get away from the common perception of communism as a totalitarian state.
Do you have any evidence to show that your definition of anarchy predates the "absence of any form of political authority" definition? If you go back to the original root: "anarchia, from Greek anarkhi, from anarkhos, without a ruler" then the US would be an anarchy if we just eliminated the executive branch, but i don't think you would consider that an anarchy by your definition.
In fact, it was so important that the Anarchists be defeated that russia supported the Fascists.
So much for "communities will find a way to protect themselves."
I don't think what you're describing is anarchy. Insisting that people living communaly in communes is anarchy when we've already got word communism to use is just silly. However i agree that what is described in spain sounds great, whatever you call it.
However such a society will last only as long as most people are more willing to do whatever work is required than they are willing to steal or kill to get what they need (and "most" needs to be _very_ close to 100%) and no large group of outsiders has anything against them.
This means of course that the stability of the system is closely linked to how much work is required to support everyone, and how willing the society is to give freely to those who choose not to meet that level of work.
I know what a lot of you are thinking. Where do I get all this stuff? I got it by READING THE NEWS for the last three years. It's surprising what you get when you read, especially if you stop getting your "facts" from the thoroughly whipped American mainstream news and reading, well, news from anywhere else but here. There are no surprises concerning the Bush manipulation of the CIA if you read the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, any Candaian news outlet.
Whoa, you're going to extremes there. You may know some more details than i do, but i already knew the gist of all that and i don't read no fancy-shmancy foreign newspapers (although i know i probably should.) I learned it all just from _CNN_ and _Yahoo_News_!
The truth isn't hidden, it's right there in even the "thoroughly whipped American mainsteam news," you just need to bother to read past the front page. Apparently i learn more just from skimming the headlines and one paragraph blurbs of Yahoo News' "Most Popular" for a few days than the average american can learn in a year!
Half the people in this country don't vote, but it seems like 90% of them can't bother to think anything that isn't discussed in the first five minutes of TV news. This slashdot discussion, even with all the trolls and the loons from both sides of the spectrum, is far above the level at which our national discourse is taking place, and that is scary. The important questions aren't even being asked, much less answered.
Uhmm, these guys did a job (fantastic though it was) that NASA had already pioneered. I dare say they'd have spent a hell of a lot more cash had they not been following in the footsteps...
That's the whole point of the exercise. They're supposed to be doing what NASA has already done in the way that NASA_hasn't_, cheaply and easily. Advancing technology is supposed to make things like this easier and cheaper. However despite the claims made back when the Shuttles were being developed back in the 70s, NASA has if anything made spaceflight harder and more expensive.
The reason for this is that NASA is a huge beuracracy which must answer to the US government. The space shuttle was designed by government committee to fulfill a lot of "needs" that the shuttle wasn't well equiped to handle. Trying to meet those government mandates made the shuttle more complicated, more fragile, and above all, more expensive. The shuttle was prevented from taking full advantage of the advanced technology of the times, and NASA has done very little about coming up with a replacement using today's technology.
So yes, they're doing what NASA has already done, but they're doing it better and cheaper. The hope is that the private organizations can keep to that track record while trying for orbital fligts and other achievements.
The problem is i'n not buying beans from them, i'm buying coffee. The last time i went to a Starbucks i asked him what the roast was of the coffee they were serving, and he didn't know! I decided to try it anyways, since it was 11:30 at night and nowhere else was open, and it was burnt bitter crap.
Is it a process that acts differently in some people than others? I know some people are prone to alcoholism, is that just because they have an "addcitive personality" or can you have a metabolism that is resistant to certain drugs but susceptible to others?
I don't seem to get addicted to caffeine. I normally go through about two litres of (diet) pop a day. Somedays it's a 2L bottle of mountain dew, others it's a 2L bottle of diet coke. But some days it's root beer or that orange drink or something else. I don't seem to suffer from any kind of withdrawl symptoms on the off days.
For awhile when i was working near a Trader Joe's i'd get chocolate covered espresso beans every cuple of months and go through them in a week or two. I'd be a little hyper and jittery for that week or two, but when i ran out i just continued on without noticing any headaches or grumpiness.
So am i just fooling myself somehow, or can it be addictive for some people and not for others?
Darker roasts like French have been toasted longer to produce a deeper flavor but loose some of the caffiene in the process. The same is true for using an espresso roast for drip coffee.
And don't forget the Starbucks "cremate the coffee beans and then glue the ash back together into a bean-shaped lump" method of roasting.
It's pathetic that Starbuck's ubiquitousness has convinced most americans that that's the way coffee is supposed to be.
He should have asked his voters in swing states to vote for Gore, and Gore voters in non-swing states to vote for him.
Personally i think what he _should_ have done was get a written and signed agreement with Gore/the DNC that if they won the election he would have been given a cabinet level position or that they would support certain legislation. In excchange for this Nader would instruct his supporters to vote for Gore but tell the exit pollers that they voted for Nader.
Of course that would have been sane and reasonable, and i might even have defected from the democrats under that deal if Nader was that kind of person. However Nader is an just as much an unethical liar as any other politician, and he wasn't willing to place his professed beliefs ahead of his ego.
Step 1: Set up a sneaky and misleading links so you can trick your "friends" repeatedly to go to some stupid site for your benefit.
Step 2: "Send your friends the link"... "they will have no idea it is going to bring them to your secret link page. You tricked them again!"
Step 3: Profit!!! (well, kind of anyways)
Step 4: Wonder why you have no friends anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
So what i want to know from anyone who's actually played the game, how many of the changes are optional? I've been told that in the PSX remake you could select the difficulty level, either the original difficulty or a new easier mode, and i'm hoping that's one feature they kept. I've also heard that this new version replaces the old levels of spells with the MP system that all(?) FF games have used since then. I'm really hoping that that will be an option i could turn off as well.
I can understand them wanting to revamp the graphics and music to some degree and i'll accept that, however i really wish they'd stop forcing gameplay changes on us. If i'm going to play/buy the games it's going to be for the nostalgia value. If i wanted an improved version i'd buy one of the newer games instead. I'd probably try out the changes as well, but i'd like the option to play it the way it was.
When i was young and you had several guys attack one monster and the first attack killed it then your other attacks were wasted, and we liked it! Well, maybe not liked it, but certainly have masochistically fond memories of what a pain in the ass it was :)
On the other hand this flourescent floodlight from FEIT uses 18 watts to produce 950 lumens, or 23 watts to produce 1300 lumens, both lasting 6000 hours. I haven't found price listings on the their site, but a quick google on the model number found this site selling the stronger version for $9.
it's also worth noting that the FEIT webpage seems a little out of date. They list their small flourescent bulbs as "ESL13T" with 800 lumens at 13 watts and a lifetime of 8000 hours. However i recently bought some of their bulbs at Costco that were the same size but had a model number of "CE13T" and list 900 lumens at 13 watts and a lifetime of 10,000 hours, so their floods might have seen similar improvement.
So all in all it seem the only advantage the LEDs have is lifetime. They last somewhere between 5 and 8 times longer than flourescents, but produce a _lot_ less light per watt and cost almost 9 times as much.
Are you trolling, or have you just been stuck in a cave with ten year old flourescent lights?
FEIT has a whole line of flourescent lightbulbs, including a couple kinds of floodlights. I've replaced all the lights in my apartment with them and they work great. I can't tell any difference between them and the old incandescent bulbs in terms of color. They also run a lot cooler; you wouldn't want to grab one and hold onto it for awhile but you can unscrew one with your bare hands even after it's been on for a few hours (why you'd actually want to do that i have no idea, but it gives you an idea of its temperature.) The only disadvantage is that it takes them 30-60 seconds to light up to full strength, however you get about 75% of the full light intensity immediately when you turn it on and a slow gradual brightening after that so it's not really a big deal.
Unfortunatly they seem not to have updated the page very recently, because the bulbs i bought at Costco a few months ago (8 pack for about $12, and i was pissed when i went there last week and found SoCalEdison was offering an instant rebate for $10) are a slight improvement. They're BPCE13T rather than the BPESL13T listed on the site. They're 900 lumens, 13 watts, and a 10,000 hour lifetime. The old GE bulbs i was using were, 840 lumens, 60 watts, 1000 hours.
Because he said he wanted the Democrats and Republicans to work together. Because he said he wanted the broad support of all Americans.
If he actually _meant_ that he should be working on compromises, not sticking it to the opposition as hard as he can. The states have proven they can outlaw gay marriage if they want. All the states that really wanted to have done so, and any other that want to join in can do so next election. So what do they need a constitutional amendment for? It might make them feel better to inflict their prejudices on people in other states, but Bush has no _need_ to go along with it, he's already won his second term. The only reason for Bush to push for it is because he also believes in forcing others to follow his religious views.
I'm not suprised that he's sticking to it (although it would have been nice if it had just been a hollow pre-election promise) but it makes a mockery of his claims that he wants to bring everyone together now. Clearly he doesn't want to include the ~10% of the nation that is gay or any of the rest of us who support them. Furthermore i suspect that he doesn't really want to join together with _any_ of the Democrats who aren't willing to completly give up their own agendas in favor of his, but the gay rights aspect is just the issue that he's being most blatant about so far.
Hell no i'm not listening. Bush started out by declaring that he had a "broad victory" and "a very clear mandate from the American people." A 2% margin of victory is neither of those.
Now it's being made clear that he still believes in enforcing his view of morality on the entire nation: Rove: Bush Serious About Gay Marriage Ban
He has no actual intent to unite the nation. He's just been saying it for the PR value. Rove probably thinks that if they just shout loudly enough that they have a clear mandate and they want to work with the Democrats that anyone who disagrees won't be believed.
Everything i've read recently has said that historically the incumbant doesn't usually get any higher in the election than they did in the last poll before the election, which seems to indicate that if anything the polls skew towards the incumbant. If so that trend has certainly been destroyed this election.
So are we just getting an odd set of precincts reporting first, or is the official vote vastly different (statistically speaking) from the exit polls?
[tinfoil-hat]
At what point do we demand some kind of investigation, especially given the number of Diebold machines in Florida? This is the first time i've been glad for the exit polls, which will hopefully provide some check on votes getting changed after they're cast.
[/tinfoil-hat]
"Afternoon Exit Polls - The latest batch.
By Jack Shafer - Updated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 2:29 PM PT - The 4 p.m. ET exit-poll numbers:
Florida - Kerry 52 - Bush 48
Ohio - Kerry 52 - Bush 47
Michigan - Kerry 51 - Bush 48
Pennsylvania - Kerry 58 - Bush 42
Iowa - Kerry 50 - Bush 48
Wisconsin - Kerry 53 - Bush 47
Minnesota - Kerry 57 - Bush 42
New Hampshire - Kerry 58 - Bush 41
Maine - Kerry 55 - Bush 44
New Mexico - Kerry 49 - Bush 49
Nevada - Kerry 48 - Bush 49
Colorado - Kerry 49 - Bush 50
Arkansas - Kerry 45 - Bush 54
North Carolina - Kerry 47 - Bush 53"
It's still too early to be sure about anything, but this is a lot better than i've been fearing for the past few weeks.
Just to point something out, no one said they were slaves. And regardless of how much the game is based on ancient egypt and what rights women did or did not have in ancient egypt, the character in question was from somwhere _other_ than ancient egypt. Someplace where the men view all women as slaves, or at least so subservient to them as makes no difference.
Therefore no criticism based on what things were like in real or imagined ancient egypt is relevant.
Furthermore it's possible that it was "some man projecting his fantasies of enslaved women onto the game," but it's also possible that it was a good GM playing an NPC in the way that was appropriate to that character's background and personality, regardless of his own feelings on the matter. Also note that the character in question is presented as a theif and wanted criminal, not exactly the most sympathetic presentation. Perhaps the focus on female slavery in his character was intended to make people dislike him rather than as an endorsement of enslaved women.
Now whether or not you want to play a game in which characters/events like that take place is entirely up to you. However the presence of a certain culture or mindset in any work of art is not necessarily an endoresement of that culture or mindset. There is the entire branch of dystopian fiction which involves setting up the kind of society the author wouldn't wish to live in for the purpose of showing how bad that society is, a form that at least feminist author has used.
So continue on with your argument, but try to tone down the hyperbole and stick to the known facts please.
Well that goes without saying :)
It might be nice to see a sequel to Alpha Centauri, however they'd either have to stick to just updating the graphics and AI or redo the entire thing from scratch. The old storyline was great, with compelling voice acting for the various quotes and other story bits and Baraka was a gold mine for the video clips.
Actually, if you'd been paying attention to previous news on the subject, you would know that a more proper title would be "As different from the previous game as we can make it and still call it Civilization," which will doubtless please some people and cause them to declare that it's the best Civ other while enraging others and causing them to declare that it's the worst Civ ever.
And generally speaking, the majority of people seem to agree that Civ2 was a big improvement over the original Civ, while opinion is split on whether Civ2 or Civ3 was better.
And in other news, as the updated article now says the games are no longer listed, which makes sense since as far as I can tell the list consists entirely of already released games.
Sounds like a pretty good description of organized crime and corrupt corporations.
So like real life, the people who play fair do moderatly well, the heads of gangs and large corporations do great, and their underlings and everyone who deals with them gets screwed.
Of course in real life you can't get all the peons to sacrfice themselves at every occasion. You have to make sure that the percieved rewards are greater than the percieved risks or you don't get any more volunteers. However given the nature of human greed and the frequent human inability to calculate probabilities, that usually isn't too hard.
This isn't just a normal filler news report, it contains information that people may be able to take action on and should do so if possible. The deadline to register may have passed in Nevada, but the group has also been active in Oregon and who knows where else, and in some of those locations people still may have time to correct the problem.
Every year they run short on flu shots and every year there are news stories about where you can go to still get shots. Every year there are new outbreaks of west nile virus and every year there are news stories about what signs to watch for and who you should call if you see dead birds lying about. Every few months or years some area has accidental contamination of their water supply and the news runs stories on what areas are affected and for how long.
It doesn't matter how often or regularly such events happen, if there is a specific case going on at the moment the news has a responsibility to try and inform those people who might be affected so they can take appropriate action.
I really doubt it's an issue of what Nintendo can or can't afford, given that they're swimming in cash at the moment. Rather it is an attempt to judge what release window would give them the biggest bang for the buck. And Sony certainly didn't have any problems admiting they needed to play "catch-up" to the Dreamcast back before the PS2 came out, and they did a great (if slimey) job of it and look where they are now.
No company survives by ignoring the competition, and if Nintendo tried to deny that they're currently in second place in the console wars you'd just say they were going to fail because they were insular and self-deluded and couldn't adapt to the changing times.
So i'm glad that they're going to match step with Sony now, but that wasn't what i remembered them planning earlier. But i could just be confused.
Oh wait, i can't. The only local game store specialized in RPG stuff disapeared a little while after Wizards of the Coast opened up all their big stores in all the malls around here. Then after a couple years they decided they weren't making enough money (their first mistake was probably buying retail space in malls) and shut down all their stores and went back to wholesaling.
So now i have nowhere to buy the products they're trying to sell. I was hoping maybe the list of stores whould show some nearby place i just hadn't heard about till now, but no such luck.
And yes, i probably contributed to the problem some, but not as much as many other people. I continued to stop by the local store for as long as it remained open as well as going to Wizards of the Coast, but i wasn't buying much at either place since nobody i knew was interested in gaming at the time.
Wow! What incredible insight! Until you pointed it out i had never noticed the amazing similarities between Jesus getting it on with Mary Magdalene and the upcoming predidential election!
The point of me having a gun isn't tht the strongest survive or "win", it's that communities will find a way to protect themselves.
If you need to find a way to protect yourself, you're being coerced by the people you're protecting yourself from, even if not quite in the way those people want.
If your community forms a militia group to stop people from looting and killing, isn't that militia/community then in charge of the nearby area? Aren't you using coercion to keep those people from killing and looting?
Spain during the revolution in the thirties for one.
Again from the wiki article: "Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control," "Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian communes. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers."
Sounds like a whole lot of control and governing was going on, even if it wasn't by a state body.
I would say it was more of a true communist system. I don't know why you insist on calling it anarchy other than to try to get away from the common perception of communism as a totalitarian state.
Do you have any evidence to show that your definition of anarchy predates the "absence of any form of political authority" definition? If you go back to the original root: "anarchia, from Greek anarkhi, from anarkhos, without a ruler" then the US would be an anarchy if we just eliminated the executive branch, but i don't think you would consider that an anarchy by your definition.
In fact, it was so important that the Anarchists be defeated that russia supported the Fascists.
So much for "communities will find a way to protect themselves."
I don't think what you're describing is anarchy. Insisting that people living communaly in communes is anarchy when we've already got word communism to use is just silly. However i agree that what is described in spain sounds great, whatever you call it.
However such a society will last only as long as most people are more willing to do whatever work is required than they are willing to steal or kill to get what they need (and "most" needs to be _very_ close to 100%) and no large group of outsiders has anything against them.
This means of course that the stability of the system is closely linked to how much work is required to support everyone, and how willing the society is to give freely to those who choose not to meet that level of work.
Whoa, you're going to extremes there. You may know some more details than i do, but i already knew the gist of all that and i don't read no fancy-shmancy foreign newspapers (although i know i probably should.) I learned it all just from _CNN_ and _Yahoo_News_!
The truth isn't hidden, it's right there in even the "thoroughly whipped American mainsteam news," you just need to bother to read past the front page. Apparently i learn more just from skimming the headlines and one paragraph blurbs of Yahoo News' "Most Popular" for a few days than the average american can learn in a year!
Half the people in this country don't vote, but it seems like 90% of them can't bother to think anything that isn't discussed in the first five minutes of TV news. This slashdot discussion, even with all the trolls and the loons from both sides of the spectrum, is far above the level at which our national discourse is taking place, and that is scary. The important questions aren't even being asked, much less answered.
That's the whole point of the exercise. They're supposed to be doing what NASA has already done in the way that NASA_hasn't_, cheaply and easily. Advancing technology is supposed to make things like this easier and cheaper. However despite the claims made back when the Shuttles were being developed back in the 70s, NASA has if anything made spaceflight harder and more expensive.
The reason for this is that NASA is a huge beuracracy which must answer to the US government. The space shuttle was designed by government committee to fulfill a lot of "needs" that the shuttle wasn't well equiped to handle. Trying to meet those government mandates made the shuttle more complicated, more fragile, and above all, more expensive. The shuttle was prevented from taking full advantage of the advanced technology of the times, and NASA has done very little about coming up with a replacement using today's technology.
So yes, they're doing what NASA has already done, but they're doing it better and cheaper. The hope is that the private organizations can keep to that track record while trying for orbital fligts and other achievements.
The problem is i'n not buying beans from them, i'm buying coffee. The last time i went to a Starbucks i asked him what the roast was of the coffee they were serving, and he didn't know! I decided to try it anyways, since it was 11:30 at night and nowhere else was open, and it was burnt bitter crap.
I don't seem to get addicted to caffeine. I normally go through about two litres of (diet) pop a day. Somedays it's a 2L bottle of mountain dew, others it's a 2L bottle of diet coke. But some days it's root beer or that orange drink or something else. I don't seem to suffer from any kind of withdrawl symptoms on the off days.
For awhile when i was working near a Trader Joe's i'd get chocolate covered espresso beans every cuple of months and go through them in a week or two. I'd be a little hyper and jittery for that week or two, but when i ran out i just continued on without noticing any headaches or grumpiness.
So am i just fooling myself somehow, or can it be addictive for some people and not for others?
And don't forget the Starbucks "cremate the coffee beans and then glue the ash back together into a bean-shaped lump" method of roasting.
It's pathetic that Starbuck's ubiquitousness has convinced most americans that that's the way coffee is supposed to be.
Personally i think what he _should_ have done was get a written and signed agreement with Gore/the DNC that if they won the election he would have been given a cabinet level position or that they would support certain legislation. In excchange for this Nader would instruct his supporters to vote for Gore but tell the exit pollers that they voted for Nader.
Of course that would have been sane and reasonable, and i might even have defected from the democrats under that deal if Nader was that kind of person. However Nader is an just as much an unethical liar as any other politician, and he wasn't willing to place his professed beliefs ahead of his ego.
Step 1: Set up a sneaky and misleading links so you can trick your "friends" repeatedly to go to some stupid site for your benefit. ... "they will have no idea it is going to bring them to your secret link page. You tricked them again!"
Step 2: "Send your friends the link"
Step 3: Profit!!! (well, kind of anyways)
Step 4: Wonder why you have no friends anymore.