You use "mores" when I think you mean "morals". Unless there's a definition of "mores" I'm unfamiliar with.
Sounds like there is a definition of "mores" you are unfamiliar with...
From www.dictionary.com:
American Heritage Dictionary
mores pl.n.
The accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular social group.
Moral attitudes.
Manners; ways.
It basically redefines all "secondhand merchandise dealers" as pawnbrokers and holds them to all the usual restrictions and requirements that pawnbrokers must follow.
Other evidence for a historical Jesus.
Thallus (A Samaritan historian, c. A.D. 52).
Wrote attempting to give a natural explanation for the darkness which occurred at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus.
He did not deny the existence of Jesus.
He only tried to explain away the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus.
Letter of Mara-Serapion (written to his son, c. A.D. 73).
He tells of the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras, and of Jesus.
"What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their king?... Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given."
Cornelius Tacitus (Roman historian, c. A.D. 112).
Wrote of Jesus in his Annals.
"Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberias."
Pliny the Younger.
Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, c. A.D. 112.
Wrote to the emperor Trajan about Christians and their devotion to Christ.
Seutonius (court official and annalist under Hadrian, A.D. 120).
"As the Jews were making constant disturbance at the instigation of Christus, he expelled them from Rome."
Luke makes reference to this banishment in Acts 18:1-2.
Among Jewish sources:
Flavius Josephus.
A Jewish general turned Roman historian, born A.D. 37.
Makes references to Jesus in his History of the Jews.
If you are actually interested in this sort of thing, studying the bases for belief in Christ, it is known as Christian apologetics. There actually is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for almost any other historical figure
I must confess, I do not understand why you would want to order a warranty here. Nintendo tradionally already has a one-year warranty on their systems (see http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/manuals/warrantyt ext_us.jsp), and many credit cards will double that warranty for you automatically. What benefit is there to order the warranty, other than to give more profit to the store? And even if you are planning on getting a warranty, why would you pay for that before receiving the system?
If there were a chance in hell that a laser pointer could actually damage a child's eye, there would be no chance in hell that you'd be able to buy one for $2.99 at Walgreen's. Think. This is the post-Nader age, right?
No; as long as proper warnings are given, even dangerous items can still be sold in stores.
1. How old are you people when you take the SAT? Is it really that important as some make it up to be?
The tests are usually taken by high school juniors and seniors, about 17-18 years old. They are important because they allow colleges to quickly compare students from very different educational backgrounds in a standardized way. In my mind, the larger the college is that you are trying to get into, the more important the SAT score seems likely to be, because they won't be able to spend a lot of time with each applicant on their first cut. An SAT score is like a first impression for the admission officers.
2. Is there reasonably cheap/free way to take the SAT over the internet/something for foreigners? I know it's not available here atleast. It's not that I need it, but it sounds like fun:)
Most of the SAT prep books will include sample tests; if you just want to take it for fun, then I would pick up one of those and set aside a few hours in a quiet place on a Saturday morning.
Getting someone else to time you would make it more real, as well.
Fortunately, the Civ series allows you to pick which victory conditions will be available. If you want to play without the space race active, all you have to do is deactivate that check box in the game options when you start.
Among their big Gamecube titles, which were not simply another title in a twenty year old series?
Well, let's see. From a quick look at Nintendo's site, they have released:
1. Animal Crossing
2. Custom Robo
3. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - (unless you consider that a sequel to the old donkey kong platformers)
4. Donkey Konga - rhythm based drumming
5. Eternal Darkness
6. Geist (upcoming)
7. Luigi's Mansion
8. Pikmin - a new puzzle series
So that is eaight brand new games right there; plus various new Mario sports titles, Odama (upcoming pinball game), Giftpia (anew RPG if they ever finish it).
Actually, it IS the 2005 Hugo awards.
The Nebula awards are dated based on the year of publication, but Hugo awards are dated for the year they are awarded (so Ender's Game, for example, took the 1985 Nebula and the 1986 Hugo.)
Everyone writing policy for a police department should have impecable spelling and grammer on every memo that leaves their desk.
I know you asked for a break, but I just love that you misspelled "impeccable" and "grammar" in that statement.
BUT, it is perfectly reasonable, given your further elaboration--slashdot posts are not novels, to be carefully and fully thought through, edited, cleaned up, and otherwise made perfect before submission to the masses. And there I agree with you: in a world of instant communication, meaning is more important than precision of spelling and grammar.
A lot of the companies have free calling within the company. For instance, my best friend and I both have sprint. So it costs nothing for us to talk to each other as much as we want for as long as we want.
Slight quibble, but usually Sprint charges $5 per month for their PCS to PCS calling, so it would cost your friend and you $10 a month together to talk to each other as much as you want for as long as you want ($5 per line per month).
And that cost is above and beyond all the standard charges and extra fees. So not free, and not even "no additional cost" (unless they have changed that recently; after a quick glance at their web site, it looks like it is included "free' in the family plans but not in individual plans).
Of course, the other amazing thing is that people continue to use Google over other search engines despite this issue [SNIP]. I haven't used many other search engines lately - are any of them really any better?
Of course, the really amazing thing is that you freely admit there is a problem with Google, that it does not do what you want it to, and yet you still haven't checked out the alternatives.
Which shows that it isn't amazing at all; people don't perform a web search these days--they google something. The site has become synonymous with the task, and I suspect it will take a MAJOR problem (on the order of institutionalized censoring by Google) to change that.
I love games that make you feel like you're in a HUGE, diverse world. Any recommendations are very welcome.
Hopefully you have already heard of it, but Morrowind (III in The Elder Scrolls series) is exactly that, a huge world to play in, several different races with their intrigues, prejudices, etc. The main story is there, but most of the game is open exploration, joining various factions and completing missions to work your way up the guild ranks.
You'll want the Game of the year edition, which comes with both of the expansion packs. It is available for PC and Xbox; the PC version has many user mods available to expand the gameplay even further.
IIRC, you can still walk into a shop, pay cash for a printer and walk out. No way to track you further than the shop you bought from, which ultimately means nothing.
You're missing the point. Once you are under investigation, they print a test page from your printer, check the special codes, and then they can match up whatever other documents they are looking at to your printer.
They can't prove that you were the one printing it, but they CAN prove that such and such a document was printed on a particular printer. This also lets them show that a series of documents (blackmail letters in various cases, for example) were all printed on the same printer. Helps them connect separate investigations.
In Richmond, Virginia, several of the local DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) offices have taken it upon themselves to require additional verification (i.e. proof of residency) from individuals renewing licenses. (See this article from the Richmond Times Dispatch.)
The background is that some of the 9/11 hijackers were travelling under legally obtained VA driver's licenses. These DMV clerks have gotten word from on high that they need to crack down on illegals, so they have started asking to see a passport or other proof of legal residency. The problem is, by state law they aren't actually permitted to ask for that on renewals, only for a new license or a replacement for one that expired or been revoked.
The moment a lawyer shows up with the individuals, all the problems go away and they can get their license renewed.
Now, these people did not personally piss off anyone, but as a class of people there is a bit of a backlash against illegals in the US these days. You could also argue that the licenses are not really being suspended, but a lack of renewal amounts to the same thing.
Genesis... SNES'... It was the last recorded incidence of two consoles sharing the market without one shutting the other out, more or less.
The last recorded incidence? What about, for example, now? Or do you not think that XBox, PS2 and Gamecube are sharing the market?
Not to mention the N64 and original playstation in the last generation (though I guess you would say PS shut nintendo out there).
Unless you actually meant first recorded incidence, in which case you might have a valid point (but even then you've got to deal with Atari vs. Intellivision in the early days of consoles - see this site fora quick summary of most of the early console wars).
But Google already treats links from some sites as more important than others for its search results. I would predict any blog that DOESN'T do this will find have its page rank automatically lowered; it gives Google one more bullet in the gun to use against the spammers.
So it doesn't matter whether any given blog upgrades or not; either way, the links from that blog's comments shouldn't have the same importance in the future as they do now.
A focus of the Slate article was on the race of the characters, but she also commented that they completely botched the plot:
It's full of scenes from the story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they make no sense.
That comes in while she is mentioning that she signed up with the group because of a particular script writer (Phillipa Boyens of Lord of the Rings), who was subsequently dropped by a new producer.
The problem with the races is that instead of having a bit of race/culture clash (as in the books), the miniseries turned it into a conflict between believers and unbelievers. She saw the cultures as more of yin/yang complements than true competitors.
Disclaimer - I did not see the miniseries, but I did RTFAs and I have read the books.
Okay, I was going to moderate here, but I had to correct this instead.
I first learned about her when I was looking for a good sci fi book to read and came across what I think is the only book to win both the hugo and nebula awards in the same year: Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness."
The Left Hand of Darkness did win both awards, but it was not the only book to do so, and not even the first. In fact, it isn't even the only book by Le Guin to do so.
Information courtesy of Award Web. Dates listed are the year of publication, not the award year.
1965 - Dune - Frank Herbert
1969 - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
1970 - Ringworld - Larry Niven
1972 - The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov
1973 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
1974 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
1975 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
1977 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl
1978 - Dreamsnake - Vonda McIntyre
1979 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke
1983 - Startide Rising - David Brin
1984 - Neuromancer - William Gibson
1985 - Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
1986 - Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
1992 - Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
1997 - Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman
2001 - American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Two things of particular interest:
1. Card, in 1985 and 1986, was the first (and so far only) to sweep the Hugo/Nebula for novels two years in a row.
2. American Gods was the first two win three major speculative fiction awards (Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker)
All of those are worth reading; Orson Scott Card is a particular favorite of mine, but there is not a bad book in the bunch.
The problem with charging any amount of money for things like ROMS, Movies, Games, Music etc. is that for the user who knows how to get these things for free, the price better be free or they won't use the service.
Because people would never pay for anything that they could find for free on the internet.
What's that? iTunes has sold how many songs? Over a hundred million? Why don't those people just download them for free from kazaa?
Seriously, though, there are a significant number of people who would be willing to pay a nominal fee (comparable to iTunes individual download prices) for convenient access to a good, playable copies of older games.
Many, perhaps even most, don't even grade assignments themselves, they farm it out to so-called "teacher assistants".
Okay, right there you are no longer speaking of "teachers", because almost no teacher (in the usual sense of a K-12 educator, working in a classroom) has ANYONE else to grade their assignments.
It sounds like you are actually complaining about "professors", but even there you are way off the mark. MANY professors are at smaller schools that emphasize teaching and don't have graduate students or TAs to do the work for them. I wish you had some of the experiences that I enjoyed at a liberal arts university with small classes and professors who actually care about their students.
(On a side note, the school I went to is actually moving away from that toward more of a research-driven style, but that doesn't change the fact that there are still plenty of schools that match what it used to be.)
Way to be down on the US man, except you forgot one thing - 28th out of fourty just doesn't work out to being in the bottom third, no matter what country you are from!
What are you talking about?
A third of 40 works out to 13 and a third; so the last 13 countries (places 40 to 28) are definitely in the bottom third of thr group.
I think you are misunderstanding his point. He is not referring to the genre of FPS as short term, but rather the play style: FPS games are generally quick, with matches certainly less than an hour, and the character itself is disposable - you can always just reload from the last checkpoint (in single player) or wait for the round to end (counterstrike, SOCOMM), or just respawn immediately (Unreal Tournament).
The character does not change or grow over time, just your own skills as a player.
He contrasts this with a traditional MMORPG play style, where the skills of the character (which change over time) are as important as the skills of the player. Here, the game relies on a long commitment (hours for the first bit of growth, weeks or months to achieve full powers) to a single character to unlock all its capabilities.
Since it takes a lot of game play to get the most out of the character, the player needs to care about the character and its growth.
Once you understand his point, then we can start talking about whether death penalties help or hinder the player's concern for the character. Certainly, a player will be more careful with a high level character in a permadeath game (e.g. Nethack) than with a low level character that can just be recreated without much effort. Still, I think you are right about the death penalty being a side issue, not the most important factor for making players stick around and care about their characters.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot DOES include the year; the URL for a slashdot story starts with YY/MM/DD/
The post in question is from 1999.
You use "mores" when I think you mean "morals". Unless there's a definition of "mores" I'm unfamiliar with.
Sounds like there is a definition of "mores" you are unfamiliar with...
From www.dictionary.com:
American Heritage Dictionary
mores pl.n.
The accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular social group.
Moral attitudes.
Manners; ways.
I'm not 100% certain, but it looks like it is this bill: http://le.utah.gov/~2007/bills/hbillint/hb0402.htm
It basically redefines all "secondhand merchandise dealers" as pawnbrokers and holds them to all the usual restrictions and requirements that pawnbrokers must follow.
If you are actually interested in this sort of thing, studying the bases for belief in Christ, it is known as Christian apologetics. There actually is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for almost any other historical figure
$50 pre-order. $30 for a 1yr warranty.
t ext_us.jsp), and many credit cards will double that warranty for you automatically. What benefit is there to order the warranty, other than to give more profit to the store? And even if you are planning on getting a warranty, why would you pay for that before receiving the system?
I must confess, I do not understand why you would want to order a warranty here. Nintendo tradionally already has a one-year warranty on their systems (see http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/manuals/warranty
If there were a chance in hell that a laser pointer could actually damage a child's eye, there would be no chance in hell that you'd be able to buy one for $2.99 at Walgreen's. Think. This is the post-Nader age, right?
e reye.htm, an article that gives several sources showing that laser pointer can indeed damage a child's eye.
No; as long as proper warnings are given, even dangerous items can still be sold in stores.
I refer you to http://vision.about.com/od/eyesafety/a/laserpoint
1. How old are you people when you take the SAT? Is it really that important as some make it up to be?
:)
The tests are usually taken by high school juniors and seniors, about 17-18 years old. They are important because they allow colleges to quickly compare students from very different educational backgrounds in a standardized way. In my mind, the larger the college is that you are trying to get into, the more important the SAT score seems likely to be, because they won't be able to spend a lot of time with each applicant on their first cut. An SAT score is like a first impression for the admission officers.
2. Is there reasonably cheap/free way to take the SAT over the internet/something for foreigners? I know it's not available here atleast. It's not that I need it, but it sounds like fun
Most of the SAT prep books will include sample tests; if you just want to take it for fun, then I would pick up one of those and set aside a few hours in a quiet place on a Saturday morning.
Getting someone else to time you would make it more real, as well.
Fortunately, the Civ series allows you to pick which victory conditions will be available. If you want to play without the space race active, all you have to do is deactivate that check box in the game options when you start.
Among their big Gamecube titles, which were not simply another title in a twenty year old series?
Well, let's see. From a quick look at Nintendo's site, they have released:
1. Animal Crossing
2. Custom Robo
3. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - (unless you consider that a sequel to the old donkey kong platformers)
4. Donkey Konga - rhythm based drumming
5. Eternal Darkness
6. Geist (upcoming)
7. Luigi's Mansion
8. Pikmin - a new puzzle series
So that is eaight brand new games right there; plus various new Mario sports titles, Odama (upcoming pinball game), Giftpia (anew RPG if they ever finish it).
Actually, it IS the 2005 Hugo awards.
The Nebula awards are dated based on the year of publication, but Hugo awards are dated for the year they are awarded (so Ender's Game, for example, took the 1985 Nebula and the 1986 Hugo.)
Everyone writing policy for a police department should have impecable spelling and grammer on every memo that leaves their desk.
I know you asked for a break, but I just love that you misspelled "impeccable" and "grammar" in that statement.
BUT, it is perfectly reasonable, given your further elaboration--slashdot posts are not novels, to be carefully and fully thought through, edited, cleaned up, and otherwise made perfect before submission to the masses. And there I agree with you: in a world of instant communication, meaning is more important than precision of spelling and grammar.
A lot of the companies have free calling within the company. For instance, my best friend and I both have sprint. So it costs nothing for us to talk to each other as much as we want for as long as we want.
Slight quibble, but usually Sprint charges $5 per month for their PCS to PCS calling, so it would cost your friend and you $10 a month together to talk to each other as much as you want for as long as you want ($5 per line per month).
And that cost is above and beyond all the standard charges and extra fees. So not free, and not even "no additional cost" (unless they have changed that recently; after a quick glance at their web site, it looks like it is included "free' in the family plans but not in individual plans).
Of course, the other amazing thing is that people continue to use Google over other search engines despite this issue [SNIP]. I haven't used many other search engines lately - are any of them really any better?
Of course, the really amazing thing is that you freely admit there is a problem with Google, that it does not do what you want it to, and yet you still haven't checked out the alternatives.
Which shows that it isn't amazing at all; people don't perform a web search these days--they google something. The site has become synonymous with the task, and I suspect it will take a MAJOR problem (on the order of institutionalized censoring by Google) to change that.
I love games that make you feel like you're in a HUGE, diverse world. Any recommendations are very welcome.
Hopefully you have already heard of it, but Morrowind (III in The Elder Scrolls series) is exactly that, a huge world to play in, several different races with their intrigues, prejudices, etc. The main story is there, but most of the game is open exploration, joining various factions and completing missions to work your way up the guild ranks.
You'll want the Game of the year edition, which comes with both of the expansion packs. It is available for PC and Xbox; the PC version has many user mods available to expand the gameplay even further.
IIRC, you can still walk into a shop, pay cash for a printer and walk out. No way to track you further than the shop you bought from, which ultimately means nothing.
You're missing the point. Once you are under investigation, they print a test page from your printer, check the special codes, and then they can match up whatever other documents they are looking at to your printer.
They can't prove that you were the one printing it, but they CAN prove that such and such a document was printed on a particular printer. This also lets them show that a series of documents (blackmail letters in various cases, for example) were all printed on the same printer. Helps them connect separate investigations.
In Richmond, Virginia, several of the local DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) offices have taken it upon themselves to require additional verification (i.e. proof of residency) from individuals renewing licenses. (See this article from the Richmond Times Dispatch.)
The background is that some of the 9/11 hijackers were travelling under legally obtained VA driver's licenses. These DMV clerks have gotten word from on high that they need to crack down on illegals, so they have started asking to see a passport or other proof of legal residency. The problem is, by state law they aren't actually permitted to ask for that on renewals, only for a new license or a replacement for one that expired or been revoked.
The moment a lawyer shows up with the individuals, all the problems go away and they can get their license renewed.
Now, these people did not personally piss off anyone, but as a class of people there is a bit of a backlash against illegals in the US these days. You could also argue that the licenses are not really being suspended, but a lack of renewal amounts to the same thing.
Genesis ... SNES'... It was the last recorded incidence of two consoles sharing the market without one shutting the other out, more or less.
The last recorded incidence? What about, for example, now? Or do you not think that XBox, PS2 and Gamecube are sharing the market?
Not to mention the N64 and original playstation in the last generation (though I guess you would say PS shut nintendo out there).
Unless you actually meant first recorded incidence, in which case you might have a valid point (but even then you've got to deal with Atari vs. Intellivision in the early days of consoles - see this site fora quick summary of most of the early console wars).
But Google already treats links from some sites as more important than others for its search results. I would predict any blog that DOESN'T do this will find have its page rank automatically lowered; it gives Google one more bullet in the gun to use against the spammers.
So it doesn't matter whether any given blog upgrades or not; either way, the links from that blog's comments shouldn't have the same importance in the future as they do now.
A focus of the Slate article was on the race of the characters, but she also commented that they completely botched the plot:
It's full of scenes from the story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they make no sense.
That comes in while she is mentioning that she signed up with the group because of a particular script writer (Phillipa Boyens of Lord of the Rings), who was subsequently dropped by a new producer.
The problem with the races is that instead of having a bit of race/culture clash (as in the books), the miniseries turned it into a conflict between believers and unbelievers. She saw the cultures as more of yin/yang complements than true competitors.
Disclaimer - I did not see the miniseries, but I did RTFAs and I have read the books.
Okay, I was going to moderate here, but I had to correct this instead.
I first learned about her when I was looking for a good sci fi book to read and came across what I think is the only book to win both the hugo and nebula awards in the same year: Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness."
The Left Hand of Darkness did win both awards, but it was not the only book to do so, and not even the first. In fact, it isn't even the only book by Le Guin to do so.
Information courtesy of Award Web. Dates listed are the year of publication, not the award year.
1965 - Dune - Frank Herbert
1969 - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
1970 - Ringworld - Larry Niven
1972 - The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov
1973 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
1974 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
1975 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
1977 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl
1978 - Dreamsnake - Vonda McIntyre
1979 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke
1983 - Startide Rising - David Brin
1984 - Neuromancer - William Gibson
1985 - Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
1986 - Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
1992 - Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
1997 - Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman
2001 - American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Two things of particular interest:
1. Card, in 1985 and 1986, was the first (and so far only) to sweep the Hugo/Nebula for novels two years in a row.
2. American Gods was the first two win three major speculative fiction awards (Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker)
All of those are worth reading; Orson Scott Card is a particular favorite of mine, but there is not a bad book in the bunch.
The problem with charging any amount of money for things like ROMS, Movies, Games, Music etc. is that for the user who knows how to get these things for free, the price better be free or they won't use the service.
Because people would never pay for anything that they could find for free on the internet.
What's that? iTunes has sold how many songs? Over a hundred million? Why don't those people just download them for free from kazaa?
Seriously, though, there are a significant number of people who would be willing to pay a nominal fee (comparable to iTunes individual download prices) for convenient access to a good, playable copies of older games.
I think the editors meant the story summary didn't match their opinions... and the first line in the summary states that "Everquest 2 is a great game"
Many, perhaps even most, don't even grade assignments themselves, they farm it out to so-called "teacher assistants".
Okay, right there you are no longer speaking of "teachers", because almost no teacher (in the usual sense of a K-12 educator, working in a classroom) has ANYONE else to grade their assignments.
It sounds like you are actually complaining about "professors", but even there you are way off the mark. MANY professors are at smaller schools that emphasize teaching and don't have graduate students or TAs to do the work for them. I wish you had some of the experiences that I enjoyed at a liberal arts university with small classes and professors who actually care about their students.
(On a side note, the school I went to is actually moving away from that toward more of a research-driven style, but that doesn't change the fact that there are still plenty of schools that match what it used to be.)
Way to be down on the US man, except you forgot one thing - 28th out of fourty just doesn't work out to being in the bottom third, no matter what country you are from!
What are you talking about?
A third of 40 works out to 13 and a third; so the last 13 countries (places 40 to 28) are definitely in the bottom third of thr group.
I think you are misunderstanding his point. He is not referring to the genre of FPS as short term, but rather the play style: FPS games are generally quick, with matches certainly less than an hour, and the character itself is disposable - you can always just reload from the last checkpoint (in single player) or wait for the round to end (counterstrike, SOCOMM), or just respawn immediately (Unreal Tournament).
The character does not change or grow over time, just your own skills as a player.
He contrasts this with a traditional MMORPG play style, where the skills of the character (which change over time) are as important as the skills of the player. Here, the game relies on a long commitment (hours for the first bit of growth, weeks or months to achieve full powers) to a single character to unlock all its capabilities.
Since it takes a lot of game play to get the most out of the character, the player needs to care about the character and its growth.
Once you understand his point, then we can start talking about whether death penalties help or hinder the player's concern for the character. Certainly, a player will be more careful with a high level character in a permadeath game (e.g. Nethack) than with a low level character that can just be recreated without much effort.
Still, I think you are right about the death penalty being a side issue, not the most important factor for making players stick around and care about their characters.