Gosh, first reaction so far that puts the shoe on the other foot. Uptil this post everyone complains basically that their criminal record can come back to haunt them. Oh noes! Being held accountable for your actions! What will the world turn into.
Don't think that your dream will happen AC. Notice you yourself don't even dare to post it under your own account and face the karma burn.
People learning to accept the consequences of their actions and therefor restrain themselves from actions that might hurt them? Nah.
Sure, you think that, right now when you have zero responsibility. But wait till it is your own company and you got to choose between hiring the person with an alcohol problem and the one that goes to bed early enough to be awake at work.
Gosh, which do you choose? And I don't care what nonsense you spout now. When it is your own money you put in a company, you will be whistling a different tune.
Mind you, most employers who have something to loose have a simpler remedy for it. Don't hire young people. Really, I have been worried about finding jobs as programmer as I got older, but in fact it has been gotten easier. When asked almost all employers answer that age is in fact a benefit to them. They know you don't think some rock concert is more important then your job. You can still take days off for events, but they know you will not drink yourself in to a stupor the last evening so you can actually show up fresh for work when your employer is paying for your hours ago.
Archive your post, and read it again in 20 years, when you have moved up from the fryer to head fryer and say what you think then.
But on the whole, I wouldn't hire the guy who somehow thinks throwing in your neighbors windows is "acceptable" no matter your age.
Gosh, I expected an example like a kid caught skipping school, or listening to some really bad music or being drunk. Not serious crime.
Oh, I set an orphanage on fire at 16, but that is just kids being kids.
Somewhere there is a level between stuff you shouldn't have done but you grew out of it AND serious warning signs that this person has trouble separating right from wrong. And the OP crossed.
What he wants is the "no consequences" society. Where nothing is ever your fault and you should never be made to face the consequences of your actions. The kind of world Amnesty International wants were not a single criminal would ever do time because it is just to hard on them.
Sorry, but the majority says NO.
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. And the time is the rest of your fucking life. On behalf of everyone who did NOT throw in their neighbors windows. GET STUFFED.
Society is a pendulum, it swings one way, then as a counter reaction swings the other way and NEVER EVER just settles down properly. And TV LOVES it all.
The idea of sugar causing hyperactive kids. Know that one? Sitcoms LOVE the idea. But it is absolute 100% bullshit. Sugar does NOT make you hyperactive. Kids whose parents EXPECT the kid to become hyperactive, get hyperactive kids. Normal kids, don't.
ADHD and ADD has become the medical term for every "bad parents". It might have started out as a genuine medical diagnosis for people that have something very wrong with the make up of their brain BUT it no longer is. "Little Jimmie is a bit excited today, lets shoot him up". According to analyst the upcoming new handbook for the profession will make such diagnosis even more common. Even just being happy is wrong then.
The problem is that we want everyone to be the same. The no child left behind idea is one of the most horrid ideas ever to emerge from the human race. VERY close to the master race idea.
Rather then accept that some are better and some are worse, we pump everyone in the same mold and cut of the bits that don't fit.
Autisme, one of the old catch-alls. Bad? The tax office don't think so. They LOVE them. They hire them because everyone else, "normal" people, go insane checking forms over and over again. But that is what a lot of jobs, very important jobs need. Your son can't concentrate on more then one thing at the time? So? Why ask him to do so?
In olden days he would have gone to a special school were people knew how to deal with it and not demand he do more the one thing at the time. And he would have been employed as an accountant, made a highly decent job, married a wive who could multi-task and be reasonably content or even, god forbid, happy.
How do I know this? Because I worked for the taxman years ago in Holland and you couldn't move in the cantine for the weirdos who needed their lunch to be seperated or the flavors not mixing or god knows what more. Insane the lot of them, but highly productive nonetheless.
AH, but calling your son insane is unacceptable isn't it. He is bright you say BUT only on YOUR terms, as a person who can multi-task. If he can't, then there is somethingwrong that needs to be fixed at all costs. WHY did he cry? Because HE was upset or because he was upset you were upset?
No child left behind... no indeed. We just drag them along kicking and screaming. Everyone marching to the same drummer. Yuch.
Why should every kid be able to function in the same school system. Have you BEEN to school? Have you SEEN what counts as a success in regular school? Does our society only need Jocks and Cheerleaders? Sure, burgers always need to be flipped, but who is going to check their tax return?
Sigh... burning WHISKY is terrible. It is too good for whiskey.
One is Scottish. The other Irish or worse... Your engine would spit out the American stuff. Although to be fair, it makes a better solvent. American whiskey is a close relative to vodka, but without the taste.
Now just find the compiler with the right set of libraries that can compile it. And yes, I am NOT just being anal. Half a million lines of code is MEANINGLESS. Quickly, how many lines do you need for a "Hello World" program? In assembly? C? Java? PHP?
If one day someone designs a cpu with a built in Hello World function, then it would require what? 2 instructions in assembly? Meanwhile the java guy will be pounding out yet another page of code.
I for god sakes hope AM radio equipment is not portable, or the logical feedback loop could explode the universe!
Some USB sticks can do more. Do they count? Does every mobile phone, no matter how simple now have to have a FM radio inside? What about official equipment. Walkie Talkie? GPS device?
Insanity, thy name is the entertainment industry. Guess they did their job, I am quite entertained. If you can't laugh at the programs, then at least you can laugh at the people who make them.
I tend to agree BUT am also reminded that smoking used to be recommended by doctors... well people in lab coats anyway.
DDT? Perfectly harmless.
History has shown time and time again that mankind has been perfectly capable of doing harmfull stuff claiming there was no scienfitic evidence against it by stomping very hard on scientists trying to proof it.
Are you just a smoker who denies the existence of lung cancer? Hard to say isn't it? 50 years from now, you might be as laughible as the people who claimed smoking was good for your health.
We saw the video. It showed very clearly how the US deals with unarmed civilians. Only a total fool would deny it.
The truth, it hurts doesn't it?
gosh, go undercover with the US army. You mean emigrate to the US, enlist, be assigned to afghanistan, film? Oh you mean go with some US troops who know they got a reporter with them and capture them on video behaving as if there was a reporter present?
This might sound odd, but a real villain is FAR more constrained in what he can or cannot do, then the hero.
Darth Vader does not go about killing kids. That is pathetic. You got two kinds of villains, the intresting bond type and the nazi type. Nobody likes the nazi type. The Bond villain who kills 006, well, 006 had a shot, now it is time for the prime time hero to show the villain his place, but we don't hate him since he is not mean, just evil. Intresting evil.
Killing kids ain't intresting, it is despicable. Darth Vader the unstoppable right hand of the emperor who even his own troops face kills a captured soldier but at least a soldier. He doesn't stomp into the ships kindern garden and starts slaughtering them. It is the same reason the ewoks are so hated. Because to many they made the already bumbling imperial soldiers look even worse. Granted Lucas might have meant it as a clever stab at future tech vs human spirit (remember an old proper sci-fi story that follow a super powerful race in battle armour withstanding countless attacks, only to be killed by wooden spear thrown by a monkey like race) but the public saw teddy bears killing of this army of terror.
Villains are very hard to do. You constantly walk the line between making them intresting and making them to nasty. Take "Mulan". When they pick up the little childs doll, showing the devastated village, the movie hits a sour note. This is NOT FUNNY. The witch in Snowwhite might be scarier, but the huns in Mulan are to nasty.
So with Anakin. He is no longer the 2 meter tall black force of darkness, but a child killer. Your no longer rooting for the hero because he is the hero, you are rooting for the hero because the bad guy must die. And knowing all that there is to know about Anakin, seeing him redeemed looses all meaning. For some things, there is no redemption. You wouldn't accept a WW2 movie with a hitler cyring for mercy in the bunker at the end would you?
There is a reason the faceless horror, the unexplored horror is so common. Because making evil evil but acceptable is bloody hard. You don't do it by getting a kid who people never cared about going insane in a kinder garden.
But your entire argument falls flat on ONE important point. Where is the F2P behemot? WHERE is the Blizzard equivalent?
This is the amusing thing in most MMO debates. People talk about how succesfull PvP is, but not a single PvP game is a financial success. And F2P games are surefire money machines, yet none of them do all that well.
Simply put, the number of idiots that spend as much as the parent on a single game are few. Ther is more money in the masses then the niche. And F2P payers are niche. You get F2P fans arguing about the success for their game with a whole 2 servers and a third might be coming any day now!!!
The real reason for the geographic difference is that original american MMO's were run by dumb americans unable to provide any other payment scheme then credit cards. SOE was the first to sign up with global payment companies to provide world wide payment solutions. No credit card, no Ultima Online or Meridian 59. And you could forget about localisation.
The asian MMO developers operated in a vacuum, they had an audience that wasn't being catered to.
This has changed and WoW is played around the world.
Even today, most western MMO subscription companies are horrible about payment solutions. Don't underestimate the difficulty of selling to customer who can't pay you money.
But in the end, F2P tends to be more expensive. For 1000 bucks you could have bought 3 lifetime editions of Lotro. Why pay more for lesser games?
F2P only appeals to the cheap skates and the mathematically challenged.
Is it Kirk? Is it Janeway? Is it Picard? Is it Archer?
The question depends on who you ask. The soap lovers probably thought DS9 was the bomb, they LOVED the long story arcs. To the old timers, that was the beginning of the end, when Star Trek became a soap.
What is Star Trek depends on who you are. You see to SOME people, unworthy people, the conversion of Darth Vader was all the drama they ever wanted.
There is a certain amount of outrage about Twilight and its sparkly vampires. So what do the haters trod out? Buffy... Buffy as the example of true vampires... the mind boggles.
But people get very defensive about this, after all if I say Buffy sucked, then anyone who liked it by association also sucks. People don't want to hear their favorite entertainment is drivel.
This is not saying that the prequels were meant for young kids, because that is just another cop out. Old people liked the original movies well enough. But it is saying that those who liked the prequels simply have different expectations. If you look at the movies honestly then you notice they are fundamentally different. They have to be.
Jedi's: In the prequel they are a massive force, original there is one last master remaining. Prequels are a cop movie, original is a master teaches student movie, Lord of the Rings, the karate kid type.
The empire: Original faceless baddy who slowly turns human as he is replaced by an even worse baddy. The prequels, scheming person seeking to overthrow the good guess but remaining unknown... this is actually the biggest failing of the prequels. We are following the wrong guys. In hero movies, the heroes win. They don't in the prequels and yet we barely know anything about the villain. In the art of story telling, this is a major no-no. The unknown villain only works if he is defeated anyway. The turning of Anakin in part 3 is so bad because we don't know anything about what he is being turned into. If you want to make a movie about someone selling his sole to the devil, you got to explain the devil. Else it is just seems silly. You can't expect us to care about a heroine addict throwing his life away if you don't explain heroine. Show the desire, to explain the temptation.
The battles: One against many in the originals, many against many in the prequels. We can forgive the half dozen escaping from the deathstar because hero movies don't have to make sense. But we expect more from a war movie. Tactics. Strategy. It is why Pearl Harbour sucked so much compared to Tora! Tora! Tora! We need MORE from the bigger story.
Kids and women: The original had only a SINGLE adult female. The prequels had a kid, young jedi's, young females... that is just asking for trouble. Neither kids nor young (child) women are interesting. Think about it, recall the best movie/tv moments and ask, how many had kids or women? Especially the light entertainment stuff that Star Wars most definitely is.
George Lucas made a mistake with the prequels. He should have been able to clean-up with it. It was the perfect IP. Attractive to pretty much the entire planet. The prequels did okay but they should have blown the box office records apart. The originals did, for YEARS, no DECADES they were at the absolute top. Nobody else came close. The prequels? Just another box office hit. When Titanic does better then Star Wars, you know you got a problem.
The mistakes are plenty, he removed the grime from the universe. Gave us unintresting leads and didn't bother to give us an insight into their motivations. But worsed of all, he made an anti-hero story. Lets be honest. That is HARD. Lord of the Rings (the movies) BARELY get away with the snivelling Bilbo but at least he redeems himself in the end... well sorta... be honest how many would pay for a Lotr movie with the hobbits cut out? Anakin just never becomes known enough to feel/understand WHY the darkside is so appealing and that is because Palpatine himself is never explored. He is just
He has a valid point. More information != better informed. I could spend all day following celeb drivel and not know what days it is.
BUT I object to the "caring about some victim in Pakistan". I can be very well informed, and still not give a shit. Why does being informed having to mean I should care? There are plenty of rich muslim nations, let them donate some for a change. They wanted their own Red Cross, let it take care of their own. You see, being well informed means knowing that the Red Moon isn't all that well organized and Muslim nations that insisted it be created are very poor donors (pledges mean nothing, money actually paid out counts).
So, if Iran doesn't care, why should I?
Being well informed I also know that any money I donate personally in such a country will not reach the people I intend it to go to. An uninformed person might think ten bucks goes to feed a starving family. An informed person knows it goes to some tribal chiefs new car.
It is tricky isn't it? An uninformed person doesn't have a bleeding heart because they don't know about it. An informed person heart isn't bleeding because he knows the background.
Perhaps what the article writer wants is to have people informed JUST enough so they agree with his vision of the world. After all, someone who thinks exactly like me must be very well informed and highly intelligent. If a person who thinks exactly like me was a blittering idiot... well that just isn't possible. I might be thought to be a blittering idiot and clearly I am not!
Just what is living a life. What is an accomplishment? If a person enjoys twittering, then isn't that living the life he wants to life? Some say an achievement is to go forth and reproduce. If you haven't got a dozen kids or more, you are failing. But because someone else thinks that, does that mean everyone should think that.
Life is futile. No matter what you do, you die and the way our society works we need more passive people then revolutionaries. If everyone made a difference in the world, we would never get done reading the newspaper.
99% of people life in their own small part of the world, barely touching the rest of it. They collect matchboxes or know every soccer match ever played and then they die and it is gone. They mattered in their own little world but in the global scheme of things? Not so much. That is life. Learn to accept it or run for president... and what will Clinton and Bush be known for? Getting bush in and global war. I think someone scoring 1000 tweets is a lot less harmful.
If Mexico simply closed the border, with force. Stopped ALL americans from entering, the problem would be solved.
Because it is the US that is the problem, not Mexico. The US taste for drugs causes problems around the globe. Isolate the US and the drug trade ceases. The US are clearly to incompetent and to poor to patrol their own borders, so someone else should do it for them. Maybe the UN should blokkade the US:P
And the US could hardly protest, after all, they are against drugs aren't they? So UN ships blokkading their harbours would be a powerful move in the war on drugs.
Unless of course the war on drugs is merely a ruse for a different agenda... but that couldn't be, could it?
Basically the problem is that small countries cannot fight the endless stream of money that the American drug users generate. Similar problem to Iraq/Iran being able to wield large armies in a poor region from western oil money.
You can't stop the flow of drugs, so stop the flow of money.
It just goes to show, the average human being is not that bright.
In Holland we got even higher prices. was at one point over 3 euro, per LITER... for americans, that is a quarter gallon.
So, what do you think, did SUV sales go UP or DOWN?
Remember, this is in a small cold country where many streets were designed centuries ago and so are very narrow.
Yes, you guessed it. They went UP.
There is a certain type of person who votes for tax cuts then complains about cuts in services, buys the biggest car, then complains it don't fit and costs a fortune in fuel. Wants speed bumps in his road, then complains about speed bumps. Complains about medevac helicopts and ambulances making to much noise, but wants the army to deploy for his twisted angle.
Humanity, if we left it to the average person, we would still be in the trees because getting out would mean giving up the big branch they kicked everyone else off.
So victims of drunk drivers shouldn't get involved in the discussion, but drunk drivers can?
Why don't we only let the slave owners talk about slavery?
Only rapers talk about rape?
You just basically don't want to get hassled to prevent harm to others. Basically you are saying , "I don't want to be troubled because it doesn't affect me". Nice attitude.
Gosh, I wonder why Fox News owned by Ruport Murdoch isn't tearing Mr Ruport Murdoch a new one over this.
And if you wonder why the BBC isn't reporting? Same deal. Us knows us.
Don't expect unbiased reporting on the news, by the news.
Depening on the mainstream news for news about mainstream news companies is like allowing politicians to vote on their own salaries. Board members to vote on board of director salaries. VVD members (dutch right wing party) to examine VVD members who mismanged a bank and werent overseen by the regulator who is a member of the VVD.
Politics, maybe if we shot everyone who watches Idols, we would have a bit more scrutiny.
That is how much the company behind farmville makes. I don't care how much of that goes to facebook, they are still rolling in it.
WoW? 10 million paying subscribers.
Star Craft 2? Biggest seller.
So? PC gaming is dying because of piracy? Don't think so.
It is dying because there are companies fleecing customers. HOW DARE YOU release a PUZZLE game and expect to get rich of it? The times are changing. Now such puzzle games are everywhere on free to play flash sites. Sure sure, your puzzle game is different, it is more. Well fuck that, nobody cares. Casual gamers need CASUAL games for CASUAL prices. You want to serve that market, you play by its rules.
And if you don't? Then get 100 million dollars somewhere and make a triple A title that people are dying to play.
Yes, once a guy with an idea could create a game. The last one to do it was Chris Sawyer, from * Tycoon fame and he stopped doing it.
Game publishers are like horse breeders complaining about cars. If you no longer can make a living with your craft, then though titties. Switch. Yeah, so maybe copyright infringement will mean the end of game and music and movie and book production. We will see it when it happens and deal with it.
Stop whining about the fact that the world changes. Either change with it, or become a fossil.
Slashdot Mirror
Gosh, first reaction so far that puts the shoe on the other foot. Uptil this post everyone complains basically that their criminal record can come back to haunt them. Oh noes! Being held accountable for your actions! What will the world turn into.
Don't think that your dream will happen AC. Notice you yourself don't even dare to post it under your own account and face the karma burn.
People learning to accept the consequences of their actions and therefor restrain themselves from actions that might hurt them? Nah.
Sure, you think that, right now when you have zero responsibility. But wait till it is your own company and you got to choose between hiring the person with an alcohol problem and the one that goes to bed early enough to be awake at work.
Gosh, which do you choose? And I don't care what nonsense you spout now. When it is your own money you put in a company, you will be whistling a different tune.
Mind you, most employers who have something to loose have a simpler remedy for it. Don't hire young people. Really, I have been worried about finding jobs as programmer as I got older, but in fact it has been gotten easier. When asked almost all employers answer that age is in fact a benefit to them. They know you don't think some rock concert is more important then your job. You can still take days off for events, but they know you will not drink yourself in to a stupor the last evening so you can actually show up fresh for work when your employer is paying for your hours ago.
Archive your post, and read it again in 20 years, when you have moved up from the fryer to head fryer and say what you think then.
But on the whole, I wouldn't hire the guy who somehow thinks throwing in your neighbors windows is "acceptable" no matter your age.
Gosh, I expected an example like a kid caught skipping school, or listening to some really bad music or being drunk. Not serious crime.
Oh, I set an orphanage on fire at 16, but that is just kids being kids.
Somewhere there is a level between stuff you shouldn't have done but you grew out of it AND serious warning signs that this person has trouble separating right from wrong. And the OP crossed.
What he wants is the "no consequences" society. Where nothing is ever your fault and you should never be made to face the consequences of your actions. The kind of world Amnesty International wants were not a single criminal would ever do time because it is just to hard on them.
Sorry, but the majority says NO.
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. And the time is the rest of your fucking life. On behalf of everyone who did NOT throw in their neighbors windows. GET STUFFED.
If Americans could look into the future, then would they have supported the rebels against the soviet union that ended up biting them instead?
Or supported Adolf Hitler to stop communism?
Your argument falls flat as it relies on Americans having the foresight to think of the consequences of their actions. They do not.
Society is a pendulum, it swings one way, then as a counter reaction swings the other way and NEVER EVER just settles down properly. And TV LOVES it all.
The idea of sugar causing hyperactive kids. Know that one? Sitcoms LOVE the idea. But it is absolute 100% bullshit. Sugar does NOT make you hyperactive. Kids whose parents EXPECT the kid to become hyperactive, get hyperactive kids. Normal kids, don't.
ADHD and ADD has become the medical term for every "bad parents". It might have started out as a genuine medical diagnosis for people that have something very wrong with the make up of their brain BUT it no longer is. "Little Jimmie is a bit excited today, lets shoot him up". According to analyst the upcoming new handbook for the profession will make such diagnosis even more common. Even just being happy is wrong then.
The problem is that we want everyone to be the same. The no child left behind idea is one of the most horrid ideas ever to emerge from the human race. VERY close to the master race idea.
Rather then accept that some are better and some are worse, we pump everyone in the same mold and cut of the bits that don't fit.
Autisme, one of the old catch-alls. Bad? The tax office don't think so. They LOVE them. They hire them because everyone else, "normal" people, go insane checking forms over and over again. But that is what a lot of jobs, very important jobs need. Your son can't concentrate on more then one thing at the time? So? Why ask him to do so?
In olden days he would have gone to a special school were people knew how to deal with it and not demand he do more the one thing at the time. And he would have been employed as an accountant, made a highly decent job, married a wive who could multi-task and be reasonably content or even, god forbid, happy.
How do I know this? Because I worked for the taxman years ago in Holland and you couldn't move in the cantine for the weirdos who needed their lunch to be seperated or the flavors not mixing or god knows what more. Insane the lot of them, but highly productive nonetheless.
AH, but calling your son insane is unacceptable isn't it. He is bright you say BUT only on YOUR terms, as a person who can multi-task. If he can't, then there is somethingwrong that needs to be fixed at all costs. WHY did he cry? Because HE was upset or because he was upset you were upset?
No child left behind... no indeed. We just drag them along kicking and screaming. Everyone marching to the same drummer. Yuch.
Why should every kid be able to function in the same school system. Have you BEEN to school? Have you SEEN what counts as a success in regular school? Does our society only need Jocks and Cheerleaders? Sure, burgers always need to be flipped, but who is going to check their tax return?
Sigh... burning WHISKY is terrible. It is too good for whiskey.
One is Scottish. The other Irish or worse... Your engine would spit out the American stuff. Although to be fair, it makes a better solvent. American whiskey is a close relative to vodka, but without the taste.
The code is simple.
Simulate_Brain();
Now just find the compiler with the right set of libraries that can compile it. And yes, I am NOT just being anal. Half a million lines of code is MEANINGLESS. Quickly, how many lines do you need for a "Hello World" program? In assembly? C? Java? PHP?
If one day someone designs a cpu with a built in Hello World function, then it would require what? 2 instructions in assembly? Meanwhile the java guy will be pounding out yet another page of code.
I for god sakes hope AM radio equipment is not portable, or the logical feedback loop could explode the universe!
Some USB sticks can do more. Do they count? Does every mobile phone, no matter how simple now have to have a FM radio inside? What about official equipment. Walkie Talkie? GPS device?
Insanity, thy name is the entertainment industry. Guess they did their job, I am quite entertained. If you can't laugh at the programs, then at least you can laugh at the people who make them.
Men use Gentoo. REAL Men use Linux from scratch. REALLY REAL MEN, write their own OS.
Debian is for wussies. Ubuntu is for wussies who at least have the balls to admit they are wussies.
He won't be satisfied until 3D distance perception turns Chewbacca into the Ewok he always intended?
I tend to agree BUT am also reminded that smoking used to be recommended by doctors... well people in lab coats anyway.
DDT? Perfectly harmless.
History has shown time and time again that mankind has been perfectly capable of doing harmfull stuff claiming there was no scienfitic evidence against it by stomping very hard on scientists trying to proof it.
Are you just a smoker who denies the existence of lung cancer? Hard to say isn't it? 50 years from now, you might be as laughible as the people who claimed smoking was good for your health.
We saw the video. It showed very clearly how the US deals with unarmed civilians. Only a total fool would deny it.
The truth, it hurts doesn't it?
gosh, go undercover with the US army. You mean emigrate to the US, enlist, be assigned to afghanistan, film? Oh you mean go with some US troops who know they got a reporter with them and capture them on video behaving as if there was a reporter present?
Just how big a fool are you?
Hijack it and crash it into a swedish landmark.
Bit silly to say Afghanistan isn't a threat when it has been unable to stop its citizens from starting wars.
This might sound odd, but a real villain is FAR more constrained in what he can or cannot do, then the hero.
Darth Vader does not go about killing kids. That is pathetic. You got two kinds of villains, the intresting bond type and the nazi type. Nobody likes the nazi type. The Bond villain who kills 006, well, 006 had a shot, now it is time for the prime time hero to show the villain his place, but we don't hate him since he is not mean, just evil. Intresting evil.
Killing kids ain't intresting, it is despicable. Darth Vader the unstoppable right hand of the emperor who even his own troops face kills a captured soldier but at least a soldier. He doesn't stomp into the ships kindern garden and starts slaughtering them. It is the same reason the ewoks are so hated. Because to many they made the already bumbling imperial soldiers look even worse. Granted Lucas might have meant it as a clever stab at future tech vs human spirit (remember an old proper sci-fi story that follow a super powerful race in battle armour withstanding countless attacks, only to be killed by wooden spear thrown by a monkey like race) but the public saw teddy bears killing of this army of terror.
Villains are very hard to do. You constantly walk the line between making them intresting and making them to nasty. Take "Mulan". When they pick up the little childs doll, showing the devastated village, the movie hits a sour note. This is NOT FUNNY. The witch in Snowwhite might be scarier, but the huns in Mulan are to nasty.
So with Anakin. He is no longer the 2 meter tall black force of darkness, but a child killer. Your no longer rooting for the hero because he is the hero, you are rooting for the hero because the bad guy must die. And knowing all that there is to know about Anakin, seeing him redeemed looses all meaning. For some things, there is no redemption. You wouldn't accept a WW2 movie with a hitler cyring for mercy in the bunker at the end would you?
There is a reason the faceless horror, the unexplored horror is so common. Because making evil evil but acceptable is bloody hard. You don't do it by getting a kid who people never cared about going insane in a kinder garden.
But your entire argument falls flat on ONE important point. Where is the F2P behemot? WHERE is the Blizzard equivalent?
This is the amusing thing in most MMO debates. People talk about how succesfull PvP is, but not a single PvP game is a financial success. And F2P games are surefire money machines, yet none of them do all that well.
Simply put, the number of idiots that spend as much as the parent on a single game are few. Ther is more money in the masses then the niche. And F2P payers are niche. You get F2P fans arguing about the success for their game with a whole 2 servers and a third might be coming any day now!!!
The real reason for the geographic difference is that original american MMO's were run by dumb americans unable to provide any other payment scheme then credit cards. SOE was the first to sign up with global payment companies to provide world wide payment solutions. No credit card, no Ultima Online or Meridian 59. And you could forget about localisation.
The asian MMO developers operated in a vacuum, they had an audience that wasn't being catered to.
This has changed and WoW is played around the world.
Even today, most western MMO subscription companies are horrible about payment solutions. Don't underestimate the difficulty of selling to customer who can't pay you money.
But in the end, F2P tends to be more expensive. For 1000 bucks you could have bought 3 lifetime editions of Lotro. Why pay more for lesser games?
F2P only appeals to the cheap skates and the mathematically challenged.
No that isn't a typo. What is Star Trek?
Is it Kirk? Is it Janeway? Is it Picard? Is it Archer?
The question depends on who you ask. The soap lovers probably thought DS9 was the bomb, they LOVED the long story arcs. To the old timers, that was the beginning of the end, when Star Trek became a soap.
What is Star Trek depends on who you are. You see to SOME people, unworthy people, the conversion of Darth Vader was all the drama they ever wanted.
There is a certain amount of outrage about Twilight and its sparkly vampires. So what do the haters trod out? Buffy... Buffy as the example of true vampires... the mind boggles.
But people get very defensive about this, after all if I say Buffy sucked, then anyone who liked it by association also sucks. People don't want to hear their favorite entertainment is drivel.
This is not saying that the prequels were meant for young kids, because that is just another cop out. Old people liked the original movies well enough. But it is saying that those who liked the prequels simply have different expectations. If you look at the movies honestly then you notice they are fundamentally different. They have to be.
Jedi's: In the prequel they are a massive force, original there is one last master remaining. Prequels are a cop movie, original is a master teaches student movie, Lord of the Rings, the karate kid type.
The empire: Original faceless baddy who slowly turns human as he is replaced by an even worse baddy. The prequels, scheming person seeking to overthrow the good guess but remaining unknown... this is actually the biggest failing of the prequels. We are following the wrong guys. In hero movies, the heroes win. They don't in the prequels and yet we barely know anything about the villain. In the art of story telling, this is a major no-no. The unknown villain only works if he is defeated anyway. The turning of Anakin in part 3 is so bad because we don't know anything about what he is being turned into. If you want to make a movie about someone selling his sole to the devil, you got to explain the devil. Else it is just seems silly. You can't expect us to care about a heroine addict throwing his life away if you don't explain heroine. Show the desire, to explain the temptation.
The battles: One against many in the originals, many against many in the prequels. We can forgive the half dozen escaping from the deathstar because hero movies don't have to make sense. But we expect more from a war movie. Tactics. Strategy. It is why Pearl Harbour sucked so much compared to Tora! Tora! Tora! We need MORE from the bigger story.
Kids and women: The original had only a SINGLE adult female. The prequels had a kid, young jedi's, young females... that is just asking for trouble. Neither kids nor young (child) women are interesting. Think about it, recall the best movie/tv moments and ask, how many had kids or women? Especially the light entertainment stuff that Star Wars most definitely is.
George Lucas made a mistake with the prequels. He should have been able to clean-up with it. It was the perfect IP. Attractive to pretty much the entire planet. The prequels did okay but they should have blown the box office records apart. The originals did, for YEARS, no DECADES they were at the absolute top. Nobody else came close. The prequels? Just another box office hit. When Titanic does better then Star Wars, you know you got a problem.
The mistakes are plenty, he removed the grime from the universe. Gave us unintresting leads and didn't bother to give us an insight into their motivations. But worsed of all, he made an anti-hero story. Lets be honest. That is HARD. Lord of the Rings (the movies) BARELY get away with the snivelling Bilbo but at least he redeems himself in the end... well sorta... be honest how many would pay for a Lotr movie with the hobbits cut out? Anakin just never becomes known enough to feel/understand WHY the darkside is so appealing and that is because Palpatine himself is never explored. He is just
He has a valid point. More information != better informed. I could spend all day following celeb drivel and not know what days it is.
BUT I object to the "caring about some victim in Pakistan". I can be very well informed, and still not give a shit. Why does being informed having to mean I should care? There are plenty of rich muslim nations, let them donate some for a change. They wanted their own Red Cross, let it take care of their own. You see, being well informed means knowing that the Red Moon isn't all that well organized and Muslim nations that insisted it be created are very poor donors (pledges mean nothing, money actually paid out counts).
So, if Iran doesn't care, why should I?
Being well informed I also know that any money I donate personally in such a country will not reach the people I intend it to go to. An uninformed person might think ten bucks goes to feed a starving family. An informed person knows it goes to some tribal chiefs new car.
It is tricky isn't it? An uninformed person doesn't have a bleeding heart because they don't know about it. An informed person heart isn't bleeding because he knows the background.
Perhaps what the article writer wants is to have people informed JUST enough so they agree with his vision of the world. After all, someone who thinks exactly like me must be very well informed and highly intelligent. If a person who thinks exactly like me was a blittering idiot... well that just isn't possible. I might be thought to be a blittering idiot and clearly I am not!
Just what is living a life. What is an accomplishment? If a person enjoys twittering, then isn't that living the life he wants to life? Some say an achievement is to go forth and reproduce. If you haven't got a dozen kids or more, you are failing. But because someone else thinks that, does that mean everyone should think that.
Life is futile. No matter what you do, you die and the way our society works we need more passive people then revolutionaries. If everyone made a difference in the world, we would never get done reading the newspaper.
99% of people life in their own small part of the world, barely touching the rest of it. They collect matchboxes or know every soccer match ever played and then they die and it is gone. They mattered in their own little world but in the global scheme of things? Not so much. That is life. Learn to accept it or run for president... and what will Clinton and Bush be known for? Getting bush in and global war. I think someone scoring 1000 tweets is a lot less harmful.
If Mexico simply closed the border, with force. Stopped ALL americans from entering, the problem would be solved.
Because it is the US that is the problem, not Mexico. The US taste for drugs causes problems around the globe. Isolate the US and the drug trade ceases. The US are clearly to incompetent and to poor to patrol their own borders, so someone else should do it for them. Maybe the UN should blokkade the US :P
And the US could hardly protest, after all, they are against drugs aren't they? So UN ships blokkading their harbours would be a powerful move in the war on drugs.
Unless of course the war on drugs is merely a ruse for a different agenda... but that couldn't be, could it?
Basically the problem is that small countries cannot fight the endless stream of money that the American drug users generate. Similar problem to Iraq/Iran being able to wield large armies in a poor region from western oil money.
You can't stop the flow of drugs, so stop the flow of money.
for an audience that can't read.
Well, at least that is close to the segment of the market were Apple tends to be popular. The hipsters.
Lets face it, a book with an audience of 1 will be a major hit with hipsters
It just goes to show, the average human being is not that bright.
In Holland we got even higher prices. was at one point over 3 euro, per LITER... for americans, that is a quarter gallon.
So, what do you think, did SUV sales go UP or DOWN?
Remember, this is in a small cold country where many streets were designed centuries ago and so are very narrow.
Yes, you guessed it. They went UP.
There is a certain type of person who votes for tax cuts then complains about cuts in services, buys the biggest car, then complains it don't fit and costs a fortune in fuel. Wants speed bumps in his road, then complains about speed bumps. Complains about medevac helicopts and ambulances making to much noise, but wants the army to deploy for his twisted angle.
Humanity, if we left it to the average person, we would still be in the trees because getting out would mean giving up the big branch they kicked everyone else off.
So victims of drunk drivers shouldn't get involved in the discussion, but drunk drivers can?
Why don't we only let the slave owners talk about slavery?
Only rapers talk about rape?
You just basically don't want to get hassled to prevent harm to others. Basically you are saying , "I don't want to be troubled because it doesn't affect me". Nice attitude.
Gosh, I wonder why Fox News owned by Ruport Murdoch isn't tearing Mr Ruport Murdoch a new one over this.
And if you wonder why the BBC isn't reporting? Same deal. Us knows us.
Don't expect unbiased reporting on the news, by the news.
Depening on the mainstream news for news about mainstream news companies is like allowing politicians to vote on their own salaries. Board members to vote on board of director salaries. VVD members (dutch right wing party) to examine VVD members who mismanged a bank and werent overseen by the regulator who is a member of the VVD.
Politics, maybe if we shot everyone who watches Idols, we would have a bit more scrutiny.
X is used for this, not (), not ?. X
Before you question someone elses math, learn it yourself (not talking about parent, but the article submitter.
There is a reason we use X and the reason is because it doesn't clash with anything else.
() is for grouping.
Really, calling kids out because they don't understand = and then not getting X yourself... how is that for irony.
The guy was a corrupt moron who never cared about anyone else. Why should we care then about him?
Stop your bleeding heart for a moment and be glad an evil man is dead. Or perhaps not evil. Just one with no morals whatsoever.
When a good man dies, I will show sensitivity. Ted Stevens? Joke time!
That is how much the company behind farmville makes. I don't care how much of that goes to facebook, they are still rolling in it.
WoW? 10 million paying subscribers.
Star Craft 2? Biggest seller.
So? PC gaming is dying because of piracy? Don't think so.
It is dying because there are companies fleecing customers. HOW DARE YOU release a PUZZLE game and expect to get rich of it? The times are changing. Now such puzzle games are everywhere on free to play flash sites. Sure sure, your puzzle game is different, it is more. Well fuck that, nobody cares. Casual gamers need CASUAL games for CASUAL prices. You want to serve that market, you play by its rules.
And if you don't? Then get 100 million dollars somewhere and make a triple A title that people are dying to play.
Yes, once a guy with an idea could create a game. The last one to do it was Chris Sawyer, from * Tycoon fame and he stopped doing it.
Game publishers are like horse breeders complaining about cars. If you no longer can make a living with your craft, then though titties. Switch. Yeah, so maybe copyright infringement will mean the end of game and music and movie and book production. We will see it when it happens and deal with it.
Stop whining about the fact that the world changes. Either change with it, or become a fossil.