Government spending accounts for 25% of the US GDP. While this is stageringly large, the 75% of non compulsory spending is much bigger.
Hey math wizard, what one entity does the 75% belong to?
...... yeah, none. "bullshit" yourself. The federal government is the single biggest spender as they alone have 1/4th of the whole pie. The remaining 3/4 is DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE REST of the country.
What I want to see are Windows/Linux "hybrid" game CDs, like the Windows/Mac hybrids we used to see more often.
Unreal Tournament 2003 does this, and it worked nicely. For publishers, the great thing is that you don't have to worry about putting your "other" version of the game on the shelves, as it's built right into your "regular" product.
I think that's the only viable way of putting "Linux games" on the shelves. Trying to publish Linux-only versions just ain't gonna work.
Well, in general, centralized anything works better on smaller levels (compare how small dictatorships often stand while large ones topple). The larger a body that a centralized entity addresses, the further removed it is from any individual point in that body. In US government, that is why we are broken up into states, and have those regional bodies of government to address issues that the federal whole is too removed from. There may be other factors as well that I am not privy to, but looking at the results, the above factors do seem to be in play.
A number of people on the right look at national health care and write the entire idea off as "socialist" and thus a bad idea. Likewise, a number of people on the left take national health as the be-all end-all fix to health care. I think it is a bad idea, but not because of "socialist" rhetoric. The factors that national health has succeeded in are not the same factors it would face in the US. I do think health care is in BAD need of revision (my care is crap, for one).
As Slashdot should know, a cluster is better than just a single server.:)
I would like to know your theory on how to strengthen education while decreasing spending on it. I'm sure many parents and school board members would like to hear it too.
First step is to realize that lack of money is not the source of the problem.
1) Socialism could be improved here. Higher taxes are a small loss compared to the gains in education, health benefits, and social security. Capitalism is beginning to corrupt.
We continue to throw money at education and have no results. Raising taxes and throwing even more is not the answer. But God help you if you dare cut the money that's not doing any good - if you do that, you must hate children.
National health is a bad idea in a country this large. I support the idea in smaller countries, and in fact there are some countries that I would like to move to after college that have national health. But the larger the country is, the less effective national health is. Compare Scandinavian countries to Canada. Re-thinking the country's health care would be a good idea, but a socialist approach to it would not be.
NFL2K3 is available on GameCube. NFL2K4, however, will not be. If you're into sports gaming, you're on the wrong console.:) (I love my GameCube, but it is the worst out of the three as a sports gaming console).
I can't speak as to what the reviewers say, but as someone that was on the Top 40 board (out of thousands) for NFL2K3 on Xbox Live before I stopped playing, I'd say my opinion is fairly well informed. I played against some of Xbox Live's very top players. Many of them played with a heavy emphasis on the run that smashed lesser men's defenses and broke their spirits. I'd argue pretty strongly against the notion of NFL2K3 emphasizing pass more. It took me (and many others) a long time to be able to pass effectively at all.
FRANCOIS: Hey Jerome!
JEROME:.... ey f-f-f-rancois...
FRANCOIS: This crap is lagging, eh!
JEROME:...it'sss ok what's up?
FRANCOIS: It's aboot the SARS! The SARS is coming, eh!
JEROME: not our big...st problem.....eline returning from L...s..egas... run away...
FRANCOIS: Oh shit, eh! I'm oot of here!
Do videogames cause violence? No, I don't think so. The capacity for violence must already exist within a person; I don't think a videogame is capable of creating that in you. But it is possible for videogames to bring out the violence in someone. A person with a capacity for violence might play a computer game such as Counter-Strike and go out on a CS-inspired killing spree. Did CS cause the violence? No. But without CS, perhaps they'd just go out on a baseball bat killing spree if they only happen to play sports games.
You're dumb. I'm gonna kill you with an shotgun like Tommy Vercetti!
Madden is a more polished overall product, with lots of cool features.
NFL2K is a better pure on-the-field game.
NFL2K has a much more deeply developed running game. Madden is very pass-heavy (not like the joke that is NFL Fever, but still more than reality). NFL2K has the best running game on the market, especially between-the-tackles.
NFL2K is generally more influenced by the player's actions than Madden. Madden relies a bit less on player intervention.
NFL2K requires a knowledge of football. A lot of Madden converts have floundered in online NFL2K play because they don't actually understand man-vs-zone, player matchups, and other dynamics of the game. (Not a blanket statement - some Madden players are very knowledgable and have played great ball in NFL2K - but the point is that the button mashers get by a lot easier in Madden than in NFL2K).
I'm no Madden basher. Madden is a fine product, and I wish NFL2K had more of Madden's spit-and-polish throughout the entire package. But things like a better dynasty mode isn't as important to me as a better on-the-field game. I spend most of my playing time online anyway. And NFL2K isn't perfect on the field either. But I find it to generally be a step above in the gameplay department.
As someone that has enjoyed the NFL2K series (which has routinely been a better game than Madden, but lots of people just love the fat guy on the box), I'm wary of these moves.
At the same time, it may be pure hype. Maybe you can go into a first person mode, but if you choose not to, everything is just like the NFL2K games of the past few years. That would be a good idea. If someone wants to use the gimmick, they can. Hey, maybe they can even pull it off nicely. If they don't want to use it, they can avoid it.
That's how I imagine the implementation. It would be a grave mistake to do otherwise.
I think people miss Stallman's point with the whole GNU/Linux thing more often than not. He started a project to assemble together a operating system called GNU in 1984. When Linux came around, thanks to the GNU projects efforts there was _everything_ ready to make a complete free operating system except the kernel. People then grabbed all the GNU tools and the ones GNU hadn't had to develop because they already were there and combined them with Linux to get an operating system. They then continued to call this Linux. Stallman had been working to achieve this from the 80's and now his project wasn't getting any kind of credit even though it had been a main player in making this possible.
Maybe if he had named it Bitchslap or Plankton or Trogdor or SOMETHING that's actually a name, people wouldn't do everything possible to avoid using the project name.
*We* were making money? Yeah, the economy was riding high and we made even more money than was taken away from us, true. I don't think that serves your point very well, though.
I'll flat out ignore your nice round number percentages that are obviously products of your imagination.
Funny thing though. You claim that "most of the tax increase was on corporations". And then that most of the tax cut is for the corporations. Which pretty much corroborates my statement about one undoing the other. The portion of the tax hikes that made it our way, though, was still painfully substantial.
We were making money during the previous administration, and we had balanced the budget.
Yeah. And this was achieved not by moderating government spending, but by hiking up the taxes. Robbery spotted.
Believe me, I am in no way totally satisfied with the current administration in economic terms, but the previous administration's "balance the budget by pillaging the people" sat worse with me.
These same guys are seriously looking at trying the Flat Tax, next. At which point they may end up being paid a subsidy by the government to be richer than God.
A pure flat tax would eliminate deductions and, by extension, shelters, that you so complain about in the lines before the above quote. Now, a "flat tax" that allows a few select exemptions (like on investments) could be a different story. But condeming the Flat Tax totally is ill-advised. A true implementation would eliminate many of the very things you singled out. A half-assed implementation, however, could well be damaging as you describe. The best we can probably hope for is a not-too-badly-compromised flat tax, which hopefully would retain most of the core benefits. You're way off in thinking the flat tax is a boon for corporations, though. It's the opposite. And that's why it's not happening with any rapid speed.
What I find funny is that the Republicans have been criticized for backing off of tax reform and backing away from the flat tax idea - criticized from the left. And the criticism is totally fair. I'd like to see the administration do more than just pay lip service to the idea. The tax cut is nice, but basically is just a step in undoing the taxation of the last administration. It's not a solution, it's a step. I want to see motion towards a solution.
This project could do with some marketing. I genuinely had no idea that it was even comparable to Excel in terms of features...
Agreed.
My mother is an accountant and uses Excel for everything. She's generally not totally opposed to using Linux, except she does not enjoy OpenOffice's spreadsheet.
I've never heard of Gnumeric until now. So I'm currently emerging it on my Gentoo box, and if it looks good, it goes on my parents' computer's Red Hat install before the box gets sent back their way.
We weren't being robbed when the previous administration had some wonderful tax increases for us, but we are being robbed because the tax cut we're getting might not be all it's cracked up to be.
Sure can - Steve Samuelian's the local state assemblyman. George Radanovich is the district representative in the US House.
Samuelian's new - 2002 elected.
And while I agree that it's easy to pin blame on the Governor. However, in this case, it's not uncalled for. The governor's budget plans (past and present) have crippled this state. His current budget attempts, to get us out of this "budget crisis"... do you think they involve and real cuts in spending? Nope, they involve a shitload of tax increases! California is already taxed out the nose, but of course all we need is HIGHER taxes to fix everything, right?
Why aren't you outraged? Potable water is a basic human need. What are you paying taxes for anyway?
I *am* outraged.
The biggest problem is that our useless governor, Governor Davis, has pretty much jacked the state budget and has a hiring freeze for state government agencies... so the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board is littered with open positions that can only be filled by existing state or regional board employees. Soooo, the only people that can replace them are their equally-incompetant peers.
The state's money, of course, has been pissed away elsewhere.
I am outraged at the state government. I am more outraged at every absolute moron that RE-ELECTED Governor Davis. Worst governor in state history.
Might want to try a reverse-osmosis system. A cheap one will run not much more than $100. Have to replace the carbon filters every 6 months, at abour $40 each time, and the reverse-osmosis filter itself every couple of years; not sure how much that is. Not too hard to set up, especially if your kitchen sink has some pre-made accessory holes.
Could be a good idea. I don't recall if my sink has holes or not (moved here just recently) and if it doesn't, I won't be adding them since this is a rented apartment. But if it does, I'll look into this.
It is psychological behaviour and water-distributing mafia knows this. Historically homo-sapiens always had the need to carry around something. Whether it was a rock, a spear, sword, etc; later became smoking and morphed into the idiotic bottled water trend.
OR, perhaps California's tap water is so bad (here in Fresno, our tap water is actually illegal) that the idea of drinking water that doesn't take like sand and pollutants is worth paying for?
I drink bottled water at home. No "carrying around as an accessory" nonsense. Just water that doesn't cause my body to revolt.
I have a filter on my kitchen sink, which helps a bit. But buying bottled water by the case instead of by the bottle makes the price not so terrible. Certainly comparable to other store-bought beverages.
Straw man. For most products, it's difficult if not impossible. Scouring eBay for a few rare table scraps is NOT "a way" by any reasonable distinction.
2. So you know every publisher's strategy forever? Point 2 out.
Straw man. This in no way counters the fact that the IP for most of those games aren't in use. The argument that maybe someday a handful will be put into use doesn't change that.
3. So cost and state of repair are factors? I can then justify stealing a car because I can't afford the one I want, the original producer will not profit, and you can't be sure a used one purchased is in factory condition? Point 3 out.
Straw man. The argument has nothing to do with not being able to afford the product. If your argument was equal to mine, then mine would have to be advocating ROMs when you can't afford to buy the real thing. That's not my argument. Hence, yours is another bullshit Straw Man.
4. Your opinion. You don't know what they intend for the life of their business. I just bought a PS2 title called Activision Anthology. It contained MANY Atari era Activision games.
And there's the solution to the problem.
Use it, or let someone else use it.
I recently bought Lucasarts's adventure game collection (with stuff like Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle). They released it, I bought it. What a concept! Unfortunately, getting the first two Monkey Island games in a legit form has proven much more difficult. I played through those games with "abandonwarez" downloads, and yet I'm still looking for them on CD (they were bundled with a particular release of Curse of Monkey Island, but it's hard to determine what vendor has the "right" version).
Has iTunes taught you nothing? Legit releasing at reasonable prices of normally "pirated" material turns a lot of "piracy" into "business".
And companies ARE able to license the material.
And unfortunately, most don't bother.
It does happen, but ROM proliferation makes it less profitable. You create a chicked and egg situation here. You download the ROMs because you claim noone sells the games, but noone will sell the games because you download the ROMs. Point 4, WAY out.
I didn't create the situation. And one came well before the other. "Classic" games were shoved into the vaults long before ROMs proliferated. No chicken or egg here, just cause-and-effect.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey math wizard, what one entity does the 75% belong to?
In some places, one can live very well on $50k. In others, it is much harder to live quite so nicely.
SOS!
(8) Pay $1500 a month to live in an apartment half the size of your current bedroom.
Unreal Tournament 2003 does this, and it worked nicely. For publishers, the great thing is that you don't have to worry about putting your "other" version of the game on the shelves, as it's built right into your "regular" product.
I think that's the only viable way of putting "Linux games" on the shelves. Trying to publish Linux-only versions just ain't gonna work.
Well, in general, centralized anything works better on smaller levels (compare how small dictatorships often stand while large ones topple). The larger a body that a centralized entity addresses, the further removed it is from any individual point in that body. In US government, that is why we are broken up into states, and have those regional bodies of government to address issues that the federal whole is too removed from. There may be other factors as well that I am not privy to, but looking at the results, the above factors do seem to be in play.
A number of people on the right look at national health care and write the entire idea off as "socialist" and thus a bad idea. Likewise, a number of people on the left take national health as the be-all end-all fix to health care. I think it is a bad idea, but not because of "socialist" rhetoric. The factors that national health has succeeded in are not the same factors it would face in the US. I do think health care is in BAD need of revision (my care is crap, for one).
As Slashdot should know, a cluster is better than just a single server. :)
First step is to realize that lack of money is not the source of the problem.
Crunch that for a while, and then we'll continue.
We continue to throw money at education and have no results. Raising taxes and throwing even more is not the answer. But God help you if you dare cut the money that's not doing any good - if you do that, you must hate children.
National health is a bad idea in a country this large. I support the idea in smaller countries, and in fact there are some countries that I would like to move to after college that have national health. But the larger the country is, the less effective national health is. Compare Scandinavian countries to Canada. Re-thinking the country's health care would be a good idea, but a socialist approach to it would not be.
Funniest thing I've read on Slashdot.
I can't speak as to what the reviewers say, but as someone that was on the Top 40 board (out of thousands) for NFL2K3 on Xbox Live before I stopped playing, I'd say my opinion is fairly well informed. I played against some of Xbox Live's very top players. Many of them played with a heavy emphasis on the run that smashed lesser men's defenses and broke their spirits. I'd argue pretty strongly against the notion of NFL2K3 emphasizing pass more. It took me (and many others) a long time to be able to pass effectively at all.
FRANCOIS: Hey Jerome! .... ey f-f-f-rancois... ...it'sss ok what's up?
JEROME:
FRANCOIS: This crap is lagging, eh!
JEROME:
FRANCOIS: It's aboot the SARS! The SARS is coming, eh!
JEROME: not our big...st problem.....eline returning from L...s..egas... run away...
FRANCOIS: Oh shit, eh! I'm oot of here!
You're dumb. I'm gonna kill you with an shotgun like Tommy Vercetti!
Madden is a more polished overall product, with lots of cool features. NFL2K is a better pure on-the-field game. NFL2K has a much more deeply developed running game. Madden is very pass-heavy (not like the joke that is NFL Fever, but still more than reality). NFL2K has the best running game on the market, especially between-the-tackles. NFL2K is generally more influenced by the player's actions than Madden. Madden relies a bit less on player intervention. NFL2K requires a knowledge of football. A lot of Madden converts have floundered in online NFL2K play because they don't actually understand man-vs-zone, player matchups, and other dynamics of the game. (Not a blanket statement - some Madden players are very knowledgable and have played great ball in NFL2K - but the point is that the button mashers get by a lot easier in Madden than in NFL2K). I'm no Madden basher. Madden is a fine product, and I wish NFL2K had more of Madden's spit-and-polish throughout the entire package. But things like a better dynasty mode isn't as important to me as a better on-the-field game. I spend most of my playing time online anyway. And NFL2K isn't perfect on the field either. But I find it to generally be a step above in the gameplay department.
At the same time, it may be pure hype. Maybe you can go into a first person mode, but if you choose not to, everything is just like the NFL2K games of the past few years. That would be a good idea. If someone wants to use the gimmick, they can. Hey, maybe they can even pull it off nicely. If they don't want to use it, they can avoid it.
That's how I imagine the implementation. It would be a grave mistake to do otherwise.
Maybe if he had named it Bitchslap or Plankton or Trogdor or SOMETHING that's actually a name, people wouldn't do everything possible to avoid using the project name.
I'll flat out ignore your nice round number percentages that are obviously products of your imagination.
Funny thing though. You claim that "most of the tax increase was on corporations". And then that most of the tax cut is for the corporations. Which pretty much corroborates my statement about one undoing the other. The portion of the tax hikes that made it our way, though, was still painfully substantial.
Yeah. And this was achieved not by moderating government spending, but by hiking up the taxes. Robbery spotted.
Believe me, I am in no way totally satisfied with the current administration in economic terms, but the previous administration's "balance the budget by pillaging the people" sat worse with me.
A pure flat tax would eliminate deductions and, by extension, shelters, that you so complain about in the lines before the above quote. Now, a "flat tax" that allows a few select exemptions (like on investments) could be a different story. But condeming the Flat Tax totally is ill-advised. A true implementation would eliminate many of the very things you singled out. A half-assed implementation, however, could well be damaging as you describe. The best we can probably hope for is a not-too-badly-compromised flat tax, which hopefully would retain most of the core benefits. You're way off in thinking the flat tax is a boon for corporations, though. It's the opposite. And that's why it's not happening with any rapid speed.
What I find funny is that the Republicans have been criticized for backing off of tax reform and backing away from the flat tax idea - criticized from the left. And the criticism is totally fair. I'd like to see the administration do more than just pay lip service to the idea. The tax cut is nice, but basically is just a step in undoing the taxation of the last administration. It's not a solution, it's a step. I want to see motion towards a solution.
Agreed.
My mother is an accountant and uses Excel for everything. She's generally not totally opposed to using Linux, except she does not enjoy OpenOffice's spreadsheet.
I've never heard of Gnumeric until now. So I'm currently emerging it on my Gentoo box, and if it looks good, it goes on my parents' computer's Red Hat install before the box gets sent back their way.
We weren't being robbed when the previous administration had some wonderful tax increases for us, but we are being robbed because the tax cut we're getting might not be all it's cracked up to be.
Hmm.
Samuelian's new - 2002 elected.
And while I agree that it's easy to pin blame on the Governor. However, in this case, it's not uncalled for. The governor's budget plans (past and present) have crippled this state. His current budget attempts, to get us out of this "budget crisis"... do you think they involve and real cuts in spending? Nope, they involve a shitload of tax increases! California is already taxed out the nose, but of course all we need is HIGHER taxes to fix everything, right?
I *am* outraged.
The biggest problem is that our useless governor, Governor Davis, has pretty much jacked the state budget and has a hiring freeze for state government agencies... so the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board is littered with open positions that can only be filled by existing state or regional board employees. Soooo, the only people that can replace them are their equally-incompetant peers.
The state's money, of course, has been pissed away elsewhere.
I am outraged at the state government. I am more outraged at every absolute moron that RE-ELECTED Governor Davis. Worst governor in state history.
Could be a good idea. I don't recall if my sink has holes or not (moved here just recently) and if it doesn't, I won't be adding them since this is a rented apartment. But if it does, I'll look into this.
OR, perhaps California's tap water is so bad (here in Fresno, our tap water is actually illegal) that the idea of drinking water that doesn't take like sand and pollutants is worth paying for?
I drink bottled water at home. No "carrying around as an accessory" nonsense. Just water that doesn't cause my body to revolt.
I have a filter on my kitchen sink, which helps a bit. But buying bottled water by the case instead of by the bottle makes the price not so terrible. Certainly comparable to other store-bought beverages.
No popups.
No spam.
It's great.
Straw man. For most products, it's difficult if not impossible. Scouring eBay for a few rare table scraps is NOT "a way" by any reasonable distinction.
Straw man. This in no way counters the fact that the IP for most of those games aren't in use. The argument that maybe someday a handful will be put into use doesn't change that.
Straw man. The argument has nothing to do with not being able to afford the product. If your argument was equal to mine, then mine would have to be advocating ROMs when you can't afford to buy the real thing. That's not my argument. Hence, yours is another bullshit Straw Man.
And there's the solution to the problem.
Use it, or let someone else use it.
I recently bought Lucasarts's adventure game collection (with stuff like Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle). They released it, I bought it. What a concept! Unfortunately, getting the first two Monkey Island games in a legit form has proven much more difficult. I played through those games with "abandonwarez" downloads, and yet I'm still looking for them on CD (they were bundled with a particular release of Curse of Monkey Island, but it's hard to determine what vendor has the "right" version).
Has iTunes taught you nothing? Legit releasing at reasonable prices of normally "pirated" material turns a lot of "piracy" into "business".
And unfortunately, most don't bother.
I didn't create the situation. And one came well before the other. "Classic" games were shoved into the vaults long before ROMs proliferated. No chicken or egg here, just cause-and-effect.