You knew that your friends were acting immorally and breaking the rules of the university, and you chose to do nothing about it.
But is it really a matter is simply choosing to or not to do something about plagiarism? Unless a cheater comes right up to you and shows documented evidence that he plagiarized some work, theres nothing a student can do about it. Its a student's word against another student's. Do research? Too time consuming, you've got your own term papers to write. Report it to the teacher? Most don't care enough to do a thing about it unless its really blatant. Report it to the dean? Good luck with that, I have friends who don't know the name of the dean on my campus and I attend a small regional campus.
For the second month in a row, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade was the best-selling PC game in the US. However, its margin of victory was much less lopsided that the month before. Instead of selling 1.4 million copies domestically, the expansion pack sold a much more modest 141,000 units, just ahead of the original World of Warcraft.
1.4 million + 141,000 = 1.541000 units in two months. Nowhere near the 7~8 million subscribers they claim to have.
I live just outside of New York City, I'm not spending $~300 USD on a plane ticket just fly across the country and play games that'll probably hit shelves less than a month later. And then theres food, hotel and on-the-ground transportation costs in addition to the admission ticket price. To hell with that, if they want me to fly out there, they better be giving away free HDTVs, PS3s, Xbox 360s and Wiis. Then I'd think about it.
I don't think the Command and Conquer AI "cheats" went by unnoticed. I can't speak for the majority but among friends and fellow gamers I spoke to, the money "cheat" was pretty blatant if you took advantage of the fact that the map would remain completely revealed after being explored once. I can't count the number of times I would tear apart enemy harvesters only to look inside the enemy base and see half a dozen tanks/buggies/humvees/apcs/flame tanks clustered around their weapons factory/airlift and an impossible to manage for a human number of infantry units.
OH wait... movies could NEVER affect real world behavior... I keep forgetting that...:rolling eyes:
Call me when Hollywood executives start serving prison sentences for crimes committed after being encouraged by movies that glorified violence and criminality.
Damn what kind of wall was it? Maybe you should invest in some of the original Xbox controllers, unless your controllers have a tendency to collide with a sledgehammer.
The Director's Guild is a union. You can be a director without being a member (you can't work on DGA signatory films tho'). George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, and Robert Rodriguez are all not members.
You're comparing movie directors with bloggers? When bloggers have an actual stake in their work, besides their virtual reputations, then they can talk about getting credentials. Until then, bloggers should sit down, shut up and grow up.
Oh and the wikipedia definition is too broad and ultimately inaccurate when used to describe the overwhelming majority of bloggers (face it, most political blogs are personal rants). By that logic, anyone with any level of knowledge who even speaks about such knowledge is a journalist. If you hear a news report over the radio and repeat it to a friend; that by, wikipedia's defination, makes you a journalist. Furthermore, if there is an inability to transfer information quickly and efficiently (such as in third world countries), does the failure to gather and disseminate information about current events, trends, issues and people ultimately bar you from calling yourself a journalist? (Since any information you spread could be outdated anywhere from 1 day to several months.) Don't forget, before satellite phones, portable solar panels and long range digital wireless internet connections, news reporters would often times spend months or years cut off from contact from their editors and such, yet were still considered to be journalists.
"Photoshopping" images to mock/insult/degrade people have been around since the someone drew a mustache over someone's face in a photograph and redistributed it. You seriously cannot make yourself a notable figure in the world and not expect some level of negative feedback. Thats an unrealistic ideal and naive outlook on the world found only in cartoons.
NO ONE is safe. I've seen people on forums mock/insult/degrade Iraqi refugees, children who were born malformed/disabled/disadvantaged and soldiers disfigured from combat (regardless of which war). Show me ONE notable figure that can be talked about on the internet without being insulted/mocked/degraded for one week and I'll admit the long term use of internet to us/. geeks has simply "desensitized" us.
So show up for court whenever the judge says so regardless of your schedule? Fail to show up just once and lose the case by default? Oh and you can't declare bankruptcy if you're attending college. Either you're receiving income from your parents as a minor in which case your parents take legal responsibility for you and THEY get sued, or you're forced to drop out when you suddenly can't afford books, food, transportation, tuition, etc because the RIAA is keeping an eye on every non-cash transaction you make. Don't expect to sneak by on scholarships either, there aren't many scholarships out there for known legally found guilty copyright infringers.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think 24 and Jack Bauer should be a model of modern anti-terrorism policies but the American public is simply getting fed up with authority. In any given episode of 24, Jack breaks anywhere between 5 to 25 laws ranging from speeding to trespassing to murder to torture. And if you pay attention to the sub-plot, Jack is virtually turned into a terrorist by his superiors because of it. Well, if you were the audience watching Jack save the world while the arrogant, bumbling, ineffective authorities try to stop Jack Bauer from saving the world (assuming they're not apart of the conspiracy as well), who would you root for?
Contrast that with the real world. Authorities had been trying to get their hands on Osama Bin Laden since the 90's only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Political gestures held back military forces resulted in thousands of Al Qaeda fighters escaping into the mountains in Afghanistan. Political pride and decisions have resulted Iraq's current status of near civil war. Dragnets to catch "terrorists" domestic and foreign have resulted in courts being overloaded and military interrogators being out stretched. Etc, etc, etc.
Americans want someone to cut through the bullshit, get the job done and get it done FAST cause the sooner its done, the sooner we can get the hell out of the mess we're in. Trying to get the public to not believe in a character like Jack Bauer in the modern age of terrorism is like trying to get the public to not believe in God during the Black Plague/Black Death.
Harassment, improper behavior, mis-representation as an officer of the court. All serious grounds for a lawyer, especially since hes been doing this YEARS. He's already been reprimanded by the Florida Bar Association and a judge for his behavior in court. Sooner or later, hes gonna push his luck too far and a judge will either throw him out of court (effectively ending his career since no one wants a lawyer who can't keep his cool) or he'll lose his license as a lawyer. If senators can't get legislation passed against "violent" video games, Jack Thompson is simply going to be destroyed by the courts when push comes to shove.
If theres anyone to blame for the glut of mini-games being passed off as full games, blame third-party developers and anti-Nintendo zealots. Don't forget, during/after the Gamecube's lifetime you had developers whining about rising costs and greater risks, then choosing to jump onto the PS3 bandwagon because the 360 looked weak and the Wii looked risky. Then you had gamers trashing on the Wii all over the internet mocking everything from the graphics, to the name, to the motion sensor, to the hardware weaknesses, to the radical features announced, etc.
When it finally looked like the Wii was going to smash through the video game market, developers were caught with their pants down being raped by PS3 development costs, blind-sided by Xbox Live Arcade's runaway success and the Wii's "we're Nintendo, we will ALWAYS have a profit" guarantee. What you see is simply the net result of such behavior.
Except in the case of Shadowrun, you could argue that going multiplayer-only is remaining true to its roots. With the exception on the SNES and Genesis games, the Shadowrun series was just another paper-and-pen table top game meant to be played with friends.
EVE Online's forums are legendary among MMOs for deleting posts/threads and banning accounts if you say anything that would deface the game or company.
Makes them an offline video game developer? I liked Dreamfall and the Longest Journey (I own both), but to be honest, I only remembered the company more for Anarchy Online and their wacky attempts to bring in new subscribers.
Microsoft could "win" the console war simply through long term attrition. As you pointed out, Microsoft only redeeming quality is that 'they stole market share from Sony and hurt it too.' R&D costs for the Xbox 360? PENNIES! Just imagine how much was spent on Vista alone. Manufacturing costs? The Xbox was obviously a loss in that sector but for the 360, they more or less have it at break-even at this point (1 year to improve manufacturing techniques, no price drop, having "core" and "premium" models). Compare this with Sony.
Sony is up against an opponent with a 1 year start and needs to play catch-up FAST or get stabbed in the back by third-party developers (first GTA, then Assassin's Creed and recently Mercenaries 2 all jumped ship/turned cross-platform). Since the PS2 was THE dominant system last generation, they have no place to go but down and they need to do damage control FAST since they've delayed the PS3 launch for almost 6 months (it was originally supposed to launch Spring 2006, destroying the 360's lead down to a short 3 or so months.) R&D costs? Big enough to warrant complaints from stockholders. The fact that the Cell chip was built from the ground up with IBM no doubt burned some serious cash. Manufacturing costs? Sony isn't even willing to talk about those and people have estimated them to be anywhere from $700 to $1100 each unit, not a vote of confidence there.
Nintendo meanwhile is riding a bicycle and pedaling as fast (manufacturing bottlenecks) as they can to make up for Microsoft's 1 year advantage leaving Sony in the dust.
Cultural differences also pertain to the local regionals. In China, obesity was also a sign of health...
Suburban living is not completely to blame for the obesity issues in the U.S. today. I don't know where you live, but when I was a kid I and dozens of other classmates walked to and from home from school. A mile and a half each way is nice exercise, especially for an elementary school student. Assuming conditions permit it, kids should walk to learn to walk to if only for a short time school.
"A lot more homework" is also questionable since I used to get homework assignments in 2nd grade like 'do 50 grammar questions in one night', while my younger sister just two years later get less than half that number. Is repetition REALLY effective? Maybe, maybe not.
And no offense but have you actually stopped looked and compared the prices of that instant crap? Some frozen pizzas can cost up to $5 each. Any half-assed cook could put together a better meal on a $5 budget. Americans these days are simply getting lazier and blaming the food is nothing short of ignorance. (I'm not even going to get into the health issues)
I agree that theres no singular answer to this problem but just because the temptation and ease is greater now than it was before is nothing more than an excuse for people's lack of willpower.
The shop you went into is the exception not the rule. Most (major video game retail) stores operate under the 'first come, first serve' rule. With the exception of pre-orders, most stores will never call customers to let them know when a product has come into stock.
When I was in school 20 or so years ago, you could count the number of fat kids (in a school of 2300 students) on your fingers, and a child who would be considered obese by today's standards was virtually unheard of. At my kids' schools, it's easier to count the kids who aren't fat than the ones who are, and there's at least one obese kid in any group larger than about ten.
This is definately something that VERY true these days. Anyone who's flipped up a school yearbook over the years (some schools keep them on hand and will let alumni look through them) will notice how amazingly thin students looked compared to their modern counterparts. Obesity among children is a very new and concerning issue. (How concerning is debatable given our ultra-healthy yet exercise deprived lifestyles. I also say among children because cases of excessive obesity can be very easily found among the rich in the early 1900's (robber barons anyone?))
But in that case you risk profit over theory. Video games prices get cheaper as the game gets older and fundamentally, the general rule of thumb is, ($1+X)-X = successful product (X being the cost of development, marketing, producing etc.) In that case, although you may ultimately reach sales of 100% within your market, your profits may not ultimately cover X. As games production get more expensive, there are only three options available to companies.
1. Raise the price. The effects of this are obvious as many gamers are already up in arms over the simple raise from $50 to $60 in the U.S. Unless you're selling the next Mario, Halo or Final Fantasy game, this is SERIOUSLY going to result in a decrease in market penatration. (Most) Mac developers only get away with this because their software is generally higher in cost and typically take a longer period of time to come down in price.
2. In-game marketing. This is still an experimental idea (remember the BF2142 outrage?) so wait and see on this.
3. Target a larger audience. This is the most logical and most pursued idea companies are taking. (With the exception of the Wii) Developers can do this with relative ease. Xbox 360 and PS3 games can more or less be ported relatively easily. PC and Xbox/Xbox 360 games are popularly ported between one another (Jade Empire was recently released for the PC) as games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 will attest to.
Valve is a staunch defender of the PC, and points to the success of alternative revenue streams as evidence that the death of PC gaming is a myth.
Valve is a staunch defender of the PC? Aren't they porting the whole Half-Life 2 package to the Xbox 360 and the PS3? Valve probably just feels that Steam would be overtaken by Games for Windows.
Gamers will be willing to take it until the point where they won't, then the producers will stop at exactly that point. Yeah, I know, it's not rocket surgery.
Allow me to rephrase that sentence.
TV audiences will be willing to take it until the point where they won't, then the producers will stop at exactly that point. Yeah, I know, it's not rocket surgery.
In other news, TiVo usage rises as audiences continue to skip commercials despite market adjustments.
By splitting them into two separate events, I wonder how that dynamic is going to play out; if the same exhibitors that were at E3 would also want to go to a consumer-only event?
All but the biggest and richest developers will shun E for All because they know the media will simply focus on the invitation-only E3. All but the most hardcore gamers will attend E for All because they know developers won't want to show alpha/early-beta stage demos in fear of being torn apart by blogs.
Everyone else is going to sit at home reading over invitation-only E3 media reports while laughing at the idea of flying across the country just to play video game demos which they can probably download off Wii Shop Channel/Xbox Live/Playstation Store a few days later. (If you live in other countries chances are you have your own public video game conference(s).)
Seriously, splitting E3 up like this and then expecting the public to accept it is a joke. No one is going to fly across the country to a video game conference if they won't get the chance to hear some keynote speeches or see some big name figures in the industry.
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But is it really a matter is simply choosing to or not to do something about plagiarism? Unless a cheater comes right up to you and shows documented evidence that he plagiarized some work, theres nothing a student can do about it. Its a student's word against another student's. Do research? Too time consuming, you've got your own term papers to write. Report it to the teacher? Most don't care enough to do a thing about it unless its really blatant. Report it to the dean? Good luck with that, I have friends who don't know the name of the dean on my campus and I attend a small regional campus.
1.4 million + 141,000 = 1.541000 units in two months. Nowhere near the 7~8 million subscribers they claim to have.
I live just outside of New York City, I'm not spending $~300 USD on a plane ticket just fly across the country and play games that'll probably hit shelves less than a month later. And then theres food, hotel and on-the-ground transportation costs in addition to the admission ticket price. To hell with that, if they want me to fly out there, they better be giving away free HDTVs, PS3s, Xbox 360s and Wiis. Then I'd think about it.
I don't think the Command and Conquer AI "cheats" went by unnoticed. I can't speak for the majority but among friends and fellow gamers I spoke to, the money "cheat" was pretty blatant if you took advantage of the fact that the map would remain completely revealed after being explored once. I can't count the number of times I would tear apart enemy harvesters only to look inside the enemy base and see half a dozen tanks/buggies/humvees/apcs/flame tanks clustered around their weapons factory/airlift and an impossible to manage for a human number of infantry units.
Call me when Hollywood executives start serving prison sentences for crimes committed after being encouraged by movies that glorified violence and criminality.
Damn what kind of wall was it? Maybe you should invest in some of the original Xbox controllers, unless your controllers have a tendency to collide with a sledgehammer.
You're comparing movie directors with bloggers? When bloggers have an actual stake in their work, besides their virtual reputations, then they can talk about getting credentials. Until then, bloggers should sit down, shut up and grow up.
Oh and the wikipedia definition is too broad and ultimately inaccurate when used to describe the overwhelming majority of bloggers (face it, most political blogs are personal rants). By that logic, anyone with any level of knowledge who even speaks about such knowledge is a journalist. If you hear a news report over the radio and repeat it to a friend; that by, wikipedia's defination, makes you a journalist. Furthermore, if there is an inability to transfer information quickly and efficiently (such as in third world countries), does the failure to gather and disseminate information about current events, trends, issues and people ultimately bar you from calling yourself a journalist? (Since any information you spread could be outdated anywhere from 1 day to several months.) Don't forget, before satellite phones, portable solar panels and long range digital wireless internet connections, news reporters would often times spend months or years cut off from contact from their editors and such, yet were still considered to be journalists.
NO ONE is safe. I've seen people on forums mock/insult/degrade Iraqi refugees, children who were born malformed/disabled/disadvantaged and soldiers disfigured from combat (regardless of which war). Show me ONE notable figure that can be talked about on the internet without being insulted/mocked/degraded for one week and I'll admit the long term use of internet to us /. geeks has simply "desensitized" us.
So show up for court whenever the judge says so regardless of your schedule? Fail to show up just once and lose the case by default? Oh and you can't declare bankruptcy if you're attending college. Either you're receiving income from your parents as a minor in which case your parents take legal responsibility for you and THEY get sued, or you're forced to drop out when you suddenly can't afford books, food, transportation, tuition, etc because the RIAA is keeping an eye on every non-cash transaction you make. Don't expect to sneak by on scholarships either, there aren't many scholarships out there for known legally found guilty copyright infringers.
I'm waiting for the PS9!
Contrast that with the real world. Authorities had been trying to get their hands on Osama Bin Laden since the 90's only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Political gestures held back military forces resulted in thousands of Al Qaeda fighters escaping into the mountains in Afghanistan. Political pride and decisions have resulted Iraq's current status of near civil war. Dragnets to catch "terrorists" domestic and foreign have resulted in courts being overloaded and military interrogators being out stretched. Etc, etc, etc.
Americans want someone to cut through the bullshit, get the job done and get it done FAST cause the sooner its done, the sooner we can get the hell out of the mess we're in. Trying to get the public to not believe in a character like Jack Bauer in the modern age of terrorism is like trying to get the public to not believe in God during the Black Plague/Black Death.
Harassment, improper behavior, mis-representation as an officer of the court. All serious grounds for a lawyer, especially since hes been doing this YEARS. He's already been reprimanded by the Florida Bar Association and a judge for his behavior in court. Sooner or later, hes gonna push his luck too far and a judge will either throw him out of court (effectively ending his career since no one wants a lawyer who can't keep his cool) or he'll lose his license as a lawyer. If senators can't get legislation passed against "violent" video games, Jack Thompson is simply going to be destroyed by the courts when push comes to shove.
When it finally looked like the Wii was going to smash through the video game market, developers were caught with their pants down being raped by PS3 development costs, blind-sided by Xbox Live Arcade's runaway success and the Wii's "we're Nintendo, we will ALWAYS have a profit" guarantee. What you see is simply the net result of such behavior.
Except in the case of Shadowrun, you could argue that going multiplayer-only is remaining true to its roots. With the exception on the SNES and Genesis games, the Shadowrun series was just another paper-and-pen table top game meant to be played with friends.
EVE Online's forums are legendary among MMOs for deleting posts/threads and banning accounts if you say anything that would deface the game or company.
T20's secret is revealed publicly.
CCP: "..."
'Questionable evidence' begins to surface that The Enslaver has been involved in similar transgressions.
CCP: "F*** you, you're banned."
A few months later...
CCP: "We actually did a survey, and we found it's an even distribution of CCP employees in the top ten alliances."
EVE Community: "..."
Makes them an offline video game developer? I liked Dreamfall and the Longest Journey (I own both), but to be honest, I only remembered the company more for Anarchy Online and their wacky attempts to bring in new subscribers.
Sony is up against an opponent with a 1 year start and needs to play catch-up FAST or get stabbed in the back by third-party developers (first GTA, then Assassin's Creed and recently Mercenaries 2 all jumped ship/turned cross-platform). Since the PS2 was THE dominant system last generation, they have no place to go but down and they need to do damage control FAST since they've delayed the PS3 launch for almost 6 months (it was originally supposed to launch Spring 2006, destroying the 360's lead down to a short 3 or so months.) R&D costs? Big enough to warrant complaints from stockholders. The fact that the Cell chip was built from the ground up with IBM no doubt burned some serious cash. Manufacturing costs? Sony isn't even willing to talk about those and people have estimated them to be anywhere from $700 to $1100 each unit, not a vote of confidence there.
Nintendo meanwhile is riding a bicycle and pedaling as fast (manufacturing bottlenecks) as they can to make up for Microsoft's 1 year advantage leaving Sony in the dust.
Suburban living is not completely to blame for the obesity issues in the U.S. today. I don't know where you live, but when I was a kid I and dozens of other classmates walked to and from home from school. A mile and a half each way is nice exercise, especially for an elementary school student. Assuming conditions permit it, kids should walk to learn to walk to if only for a short time school.
"A lot more homework" is also questionable since I used to get homework assignments in 2nd grade like 'do 50 grammar questions in one night', while my younger sister just two years later get less than half that number. Is repetition REALLY effective? Maybe, maybe not.
And no offense but have you actually stopped looked and compared the prices of that instant crap? Some frozen pizzas can cost up to $5 each. Any half-assed cook could put together a better meal on a $5 budget. Americans these days are simply getting lazier and blaming the food is nothing short of ignorance. (I'm not even going to get into the health issues)
I agree that theres no singular answer to this problem but just because the temptation and ease is greater now than it was before is nothing more than an excuse for people's lack of willpower.
The shop you went into is the exception not the rule. Most (major video game retail) stores operate under the 'first come, first serve' rule. With the exception of pre-orders, most stores will never call customers to let them know when a product has come into stock.
This is definately something that VERY true these days. Anyone who's flipped up a school yearbook over the years (some schools keep them on hand and will let alumni look through them) will notice how amazingly thin students looked compared to their modern counterparts. Obesity among children is a very new and concerning issue. (How concerning is debatable given our ultra-healthy yet exercise deprived lifestyles. I also say among children because cases of excessive obesity can be very easily found among the rich in the early 1900's (robber barons anyone?))
1. Raise the price. The effects of this are obvious as many gamers are already up in arms over the simple raise from $50 to $60 in the U.S. Unless you're selling the next Mario, Halo or Final Fantasy game, this is SERIOUSLY going to result in a decrease in market penatration. (Most) Mac developers only get away with this because their software is generally higher in cost and typically take a longer period of time to come down in price.
2. In-game marketing. This is still an experimental idea (remember the BF2142 outrage?) so wait and see on this.
3. Target a larger audience. This is the most logical and most pursued idea companies are taking. (With the exception of the Wii) Developers can do this with relative ease. Xbox 360 and PS3 games can more or less be ported relatively easily. PC and Xbox/Xbox 360 games are popularly ported between one another (Jade Empire was recently released for the PC) as games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 will attest to.
Valve is a staunch defender of the PC? Aren't they porting the whole Half-Life 2 package to the Xbox 360 and the PS3? Valve probably just feels that Steam would be overtaken by Games for Windows.
Allow me to rephrase that sentence.
TV audiences will be willing to take it until the point where they won't, then the producers will stop at exactly that point. Yeah, I know, it's not rocket surgery.
In other news, TiVo usage rises as audiences continue to skip commercials despite market adjustments.
All but the biggest and richest developers will shun E for All because they know the media will simply focus on the invitation-only E3. All but the most hardcore gamers will attend E for All because they know developers won't want to show alpha/early-beta stage demos in fear of being torn apart by blogs.
Everyone else is going to sit at home reading over invitation-only E3 media reports while laughing at the idea of flying across the country just to play video game demos which they can probably download off Wii Shop Channel/Xbox Live/Playstation Store a few days later. (If you live in other countries chances are you have your own public video game conference(s).)
Seriously, splitting E3 up like this and then expecting the public to accept it is a joke. No one is going to fly across the country to a video game conference if they won't get the chance to hear some keynote speeches or see some big name figures in the industry.