That information (being 2 months old) is prior to Clinton's withdrawal. Up to that point, telecoms had donated more than 125% as much to the two major Democratic candidates than they donated to McCain's. If you look back further, you will see that more recent donations seem to flow to Obama over Clinton.
What does this mean? It means that telecoms will donate to all candidates and the proportion is more closely tied to "likelyhood of election" than candidate viewpoint. Over the next few months, you will probably see an equal amount of money going to McCain and Obama.
Please don't try to reverse things by implying that likelyhood of election at this level of politics is going to be impacted by a difference of a few thousand dollars.
For those who don't remember the Verizon Math issue, there's a hillarious (and also scary) display of ignorance where a poor blogger spent over 30 minutes on the phone with Verizon customer service trying to get them to admit that 0.002 Dollars is not the same as 0.002 Cents.
I don't really see how you came to this conclusion. Did you play Warcraft III or the other games? They are far from alliance-centric.
If anything, the most compelling story of the third game was the Orc's struggle against the burning legion. Granted, the night-elf story was given similar weight, but the final battle was cooperative against the Burning Legion and the Scourge.
The thing they should be worried about is splintering their currently (mostly) consoladated customer base, not legality.
How is this different from:
"If you want to work here, you can't compete with us."
or
"If you want the free Pepsi soda fountains, you can't sell Coke products."
They obviously want to sell 4e products and encourage the transition. This may be an overly ambitious plan and somewhat of a strongarming tactic (hard to say for a product that's not even remotely monopolistic), but it's certainly legal.
Scott Rouse (The Rouse) commented on their motivation recently:
We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?
This is not spite, malice or some evil scorched earth policy. Yes, we want people to make 4e books and stop making 3.x. Does that surprise you?
$1.70 Label profit -
$0.70 Exhorbitant insider party costs to impress other record labels.
$0.50 Lobbyist costs to convince stupid polititians to vote for unfair laws.
$0.90 Bribe costs to convince smart politicians to vote for unfair laws.
$0.30 Kickbacks to radio, television and movie studios to not play competition. $2.91 Label overhead -
$0.70 Bounties for guilty or innocent file sharing identities.
$0.60 Extortion overhead prior to frivolous lawsuits.
$1.30 Frivolous legal fees associated with bringing bogus lawsuits.
$0.30 Evaluation of when a legal case is lost to avoid paying opposing legal fees.
$0.01 Extra-sharp fountain pens for signing blood contracts with Satan.
I am extremely concerned regarding the response to the question on Character Builder customizations. One of the most compelling reasons to play a Pen and Paper game over another media is largely one of customizations and options. I have played D&D in every edition since I first colored in my dice with a white crayon in 1981 and I cannot recall a single campaign that stuck to "content from the D&D database".
The canned response to Coppro's question either failed to answer his question or implied a complete lack of interest in meeting the customized needs of the playerbase.
Either is disheartening.
To say a vote for a third party or losing candidate doesn't matter is to express your ignorance of our system.
A two-party system has many flaws, but one of its advantages is the way it smoothes over rash political changes and movements. Over the years, the parties try to maximize their popularity by taking a geometrically median position on issues (think multidimensionally).
When a party is out of skew with that concept, votes for third party (or in this case, non-traditional) candidates are carefully monitored indicators of a need for change.
Unless you live in one of the few 'purple' states that have roughly a 50/50 distribution between the major parties, a vote for someone else has the biggest impact per vote.
Think of any Blizzard game, but specifically Diablo II. They use cutscenes to accent their games and provide complex plots that might otherwise be lost in their simple gameplay. While this might seem like a shortcut, I always come away amazed at the power behind their work.
Final Fantasy is brought up by many on both sides of the arguement, but no one plugs the game into their system and is surprised by the amount of cinema they find. It caters to their customer base.
Personally, I can't stand the gameplay by Square, but to this day I will maintain that Final Fantasy VII is the best game I've ever watched.
If you think back to the beginning of Magic: The Gathering, the card balance was horrible and similarly lacked finesse. WotC handled this by banning cards and creating structured competitive environments.
Eventually, any collectable game can become popular enough that the 'top tier' collectors are not limited by availability. If you want to encourage them to continue playing, you have to develope the game into one that rewards tactics and/or strategy.
The only flaw in the 'Monopolist' system is that there is no barrier to competitive entry. The only way they can make money on this system is if they purchase at a price lower than the 'fair market value'. While this might sound unlikely, there are actually quite a few ways for goods to drop below an equalibrium price and this is just a capitolistic way of reestablishing equialibrium.
The statement was that the game is based upon Blizzard's [I]Warcraft series[/I] which did in fact depict a war between four unique races (though the human alliance really included elves/dwarves, and god knows how you would describe the scourge).
As for the 'recent steps' you reference, training mobs into other players hasn't worked in WoW at least since alpha unless they were already in combat with the mob or it's friends.
The change made with a rogue stealthing in, gaining aggro and being summoned out via a Warlock was a fix to an entirely unrelated bug used to 'split' a boss monster from its underlings and guards.
Hard to say whether they will innovate as right now they have mainly evolved existing games. The real advantage I see for WoW *is* in fact the long term as they have gone to pain to incorperate the end games of the two most popular mmorpgs: Raiding and RvR.
EQ definately has the best PvE raiding environment of any game on the market. The vast majority of the developement focus has been on creating challenging end bosses and ph4t l3wt to keep the high level characters occupied.
DAoC focused more on the PvP aspect in their realm wars at the expense of their raid content. Sure there are bosses and dragons, but they're more incidental when compared to EQ.
WoW already has some of the most innovative and well developed raid content available in game despite the fact that players wont be ready for it for months and they have stated that battlegrounds with quest-based and scenerio-driven pvp is at the top of their priority lists. While you may say it is silly to give them credit for this before it is implemented, I believe the majority of the implementation is in the class and realm balance that is already in the game.
Both types of content appeal to different groups, but there is a universal appeal from both that I suspect will have even the die-hard PvE players venturing into the battlefields to be slaughtered like kittens and the PvP gankers stumbling around shamefully to ruin well coordinated raids on occasion. Both of these are good things in the long run and will vastly multiply the long-term appeal of the game.
Warcraft III was one of those games that took a hit from high expectations and low patience. Most people who got it were expecting the larger-scale battles of Total Annihilation and even Starcraft, but were disappointed when they experienced a game that centered around 8-16 units.
I find this a shame as the game has a wonderfully intricate play-style and meta-game for those who stuck around to master it.
For those who just couldn't wrap themselves around the gameplay, but still have the box hidden in a closet somewhere, the modding/mapmaking community has done some incredible work that produced entirely different games.
These days, you can download a new RPG, RTS, FPS or any number of uncategorizable games each day off of BNet which keeps things incredibly fresh.
While he didn't willingly concede a game, he was warned that if he kept making silly demands (such as removing the first 7 rows of spectators, changing the lighting, de-glossing the chessboard, etc) the game would be forfeit.
He continued, and the second game of the match was awarded to Spassky.
The third game (and his first win of the match) was played in a secluded room to placate him.
After the third match, he stopped being the one making insane demands and the Russians started taking apart light fixtures, filling bags with 'air samples' and accusing Fischer of using electronics to interfere with Spassky's brainwaves.
Though the concept of power leveling is nauseating to most hard core gamers, I don't necessarily see how it would be detrimental in the long run. While you may be a bit more selective about your party/guild-mates, it is unlikely to be a major factor in what percent of the non-spenders continue their subscriptions.
The use of "first degree price discrimination" (the term sounds evil/illegal, but it's just a term) is what economists use to describe the process of pricing a product based upon how much each consumer values it. It is present in all auctions and many other forms of transactions and can be quite beneficial to all involved parties. By allowing players to spend money to save time, it effectively takes advantage of this tactic by allowing the user to gauge the value of his time and respond accordingly.
Obviously this system has some appeal or ebay wouldn't be filled with mmorpg characters/accounts for sale.
The fact is that "Big Oil" wouldn't disappear even if everyone stopped using oil and oil-based products today. Who do you think will take over these alternative energy industries? British Petroleum (BP) has already changed its official name to Beyond Petroleum. It is now the world's largest provider of solar energy cells and petroleum alternatives.
While eliminating 2 million jobs might be legal for private industry, there may be a constitutional basis for the suit based upon deprivation of property without due process.
Personally I'd rather see them strip telemarketers of life and liberty.
Been using an HP-20s for about as long as you've used that one and I think it covers pretty much all your needs from base conversions to shift functions. Unlike alot of the older HP models, it doesn't default to RPN entry, but supports it for those who think that saving an occasional keystroke is worth losing your mind.
On top of that, I've always preferred the look and feel of it over anything else out there. It's got some extra bells and whistles, but fewer than most and they're mostly 'behind the scenes'.
The aspect you mentioned it lacks is solar power. A single set of batteries will last quite a while, but you won't make it through 2 decades without a switch:)
Hope this helps
http://products.hp-at-home.com/products/detail.php ?high_level_category_id=1&category_id=8&sub_catego ry_id=24&sub_category_id=24&prodnum=20S
Slashdot Mirror
Considering it uses p2p for patches.
That information (being 2 months old) is prior to Clinton's withdrawal. Up to that point, telecoms had donated more than 125% as much to the two major Democratic candidates than they donated to McCain's. If you look back further, you will see that more recent donations seem to flow to Obama over Clinton.
What does this mean? It means that telecoms will donate to all candidates and the proportion is more closely tied to "likelyhood of election" than candidate viewpoint. Over the next few months, you will probably see an equal amount of money going to McCain and Obama.
Please don't try to reverse things by implying that likelyhood of election at this level of politics is going to be impacted by a difference of a few thousand dollars.
The original Rubik's Cube was 4-dimensional.
The problem was that (depending upon its owner) it could sometimes have multiple solutions.
On the bright side, it always had at least one solution...the state it was shipped.
Recording can be had here:
http://media.putfile.com/Verizon-Bad-Math
Guess we know where /. gets its editors!
I don't really see how you came to this conclusion. Did you play Warcraft III or the other games? They are far from alliance-centric. If anything, the most compelling story of the third game was the Orc's struggle against the burning legion. Granted, the night-elf story was given similar weight, but the final battle was cooperative against the Burning Legion and the Scourge.
How is this different from:
"If you want to work here, you can't compete with us."
or
"If you want the free Pepsi soda fountains, you can't sell Coke products."
They obviously want to sell 4e products and encourage the transition. This may be an overly ambitious plan and somewhat of a strongarming tactic (hard to say for a product that's not even remotely monopolistic), but it's certainly legal.
Scott Rouse (The Rouse) commented on their motivation recently: We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?
This is not spite, malice or some evil scorched earth policy. Yes, we want people to make 4e books and stop making 3.x. Does that surprise you?
Where be they?
For a further breakdown of specific charges:
$1.70 Label profit -
$0.70 Exhorbitant insider party costs to impress other record labels.
$0.50 Lobbyist costs to convince stupid polititians to vote for unfair laws.
$0.90 Bribe costs to convince smart politicians to vote for unfair laws.
$0.30 Kickbacks to radio, television and movie studios to not play competition.
$2.91 Label overhead -
$0.70 Bounties for guilty or innocent file sharing identities.
$0.60 Extortion overhead prior to frivolous lawsuits.
$1.30 Frivolous legal fees associated with bringing bogus lawsuits.
$0.30 Evaluation of when a legal case is lost to avoid paying opposing legal fees.
$0.01 Extra-sharp fountain pens for signing blood contracts with Satan.
I am extremely concerned regarding the response to the question on Character Builder customizations. One of the most compelling reasons to play a Pen and Paper game over another media is largely one of customizations and options. I have played D&D in every edition since I first colored in my dice with a white crayon in 1981 and I cannot recall a single campaign that stuck to "content from the D&D database". The canned response to Coppro's question either failed to answer his question or implied a complete lack of interest in meeting the customized needs of the playerbase. Either is disheartening.
To say a vote for a third party or losing candidate doesn't matter is to express your ignorance of our system.
A two-party system has many flaws, but one of its advantages is the way it smoothes over rash political changes and movements. Over the years, the parties try to maximize their popularity by taking a geometrically median position on issues (think multidimensionally).
When a party is out of skew with that concept, votes for third party (or in this case, non-traditional) candidates are carefully monitored indicators of a need for change.
Unless you live in one of the few 'purple' states that have roughly a 50/50 distribution between the major parties, a vote for someone else has the biggest impact per vote.
Think of any Blizzard game, but specifically Diablo II. They use cutscenes to accent their games and provide complex plots that might otherwise be lost in their simple gameplay. While this might seem like a shortcut, I always come away amazed at the power behind their work.
Final Fantasy is brought up by many on both sides of the arguement, but no one plugs the game into their system and is surprised by the amount of cinema they find. It caters to their customer base.
Personally, I can't stand the gameplay by Square, but to this day I will maintain that Final Fantasy VII is the best game I've ever watched.
If you think back to the beginning of Magic: The Gathering, the card balance was horrible and similarly lacked finesse. WotC handled this by banning cards and creating structured competitive environments.
Eventually, any collectable game can become popular enough that the 'top tier' collectors are not limited by availability. If you want to encourage them to continue playing, you have to develope the game into one that rewards tactics and/or strategy.
Keylogger.
The only flaw in the 'Monopolist' system is that there is no barrier to competitive entry. The only way they can make money on this system is if they purchase at a price lower than the 'fair market value'. While this might sound unlikely, there are actually quite a few ways for goods to drop below an equalibrium price and this is just a capitolistic way of reestablishing equialibrium.
The statement was that the game is based upon Blizzard's [I]Warcraft series[/I] which did in fact depict a war between four unique races (though the human alliance really included elves/dwarves, and god knows how you would describe the scourge).
Most MMORPGs limit monster chase time.
As for the 'recent steps' you reference, training mobs into other players hasn't worked in WoW at least since alpha unless they were already in combat with the mob or it's friends.
The change made with a rogue stealthing in, gaining aggro and being summoned out via a Warlock was a fix to an entirely unrelated bug used to 'split' a boss monster from its underlings and guards.
Anyone willing to fish for 36 hours strait in an online game deserves to be banned if not shot. The former for their own good, the latter for ours.
Is it a great game in the long run?
Hard to say whether they will innovate as right now they have mainly evolved existing games. The real advantage I see for WoW *is* in fact the long term as they have gone to pain to incorperate the end games of the two most popular mmorpgs: Raiding and RvR.
EQ definately has the best PvE raiding environment of any game on the market. The vast majority of the developement focus has been on creating challenging end bosses and ph4t l3wt to keep the high level characters occupied.
DAoC focused more on the PvP aspect in their realm wars at the expense of their raid content. Sure there are bosses and dragons, but they're more incidental when compared to EQ.
WoW already has some of the most innovative and well developed raid content available in game despite the fact that players wont be ready for it for months and they have stated that battlegrounds with quest-based and scenerio-driven pvp is at the top of their priority lists. While you may say it is silly to give them credit for this before it is implemented, I believe the majority of the implementation is in the class and realm balance that is already in the game.
Both types of content appeal to different groups, but there is a universal appeal from both that I suspect will have even the die-hard PvE players venturing into the battlefields to be slaughtered like kittens and the PvP gankers stumbling around shamefully to ruin well coordinated raids on occasion. Both of these are good things in the long run and will vastly multiply the long-term appeal of the game.
I find this a shame as the game has a wonderfully intricate play-style and meta-game for those who stuck around to master it.
For those who just couldn't wrap themselves around the gameplay, but still have the box hidden in a closet somewhere, the modding/mapmaking community has done some incredible work that produced entirely different games.
These days, you can download a new RPG, RTS, FPS or any number of uncategorizable games each day off of BNet which keeps things incredibly fresh.
While he didn't willingly concede a game, he was warned that if he kept making silly demands (such as removing the first 7 rows of spectators, changing the lighting, de-glossing the chessboard, etc) the game would be forfeit. He continued, and the second game of the match was awarded to Spassky. The third game (and his first win of the match) was played in a secluded room to placate him. After the third match, he stopped being the one making insane demands and the Russians started taking apart light fixtures, filling bags with 'air samples' and accusing Fischer of using electronics to interfere with Spassky's brainwaves.
of the term 'sold out'. Once you cash the check, ya gotta hand over the keys.
Though the concept of power leveling is nauseating to most hard core gamers, I don't necessarily see how it would be detrimental in the long run. While you may be a bit more selective about your party/guild-mates, it is unlikely to be a major factor in what percent of the non-spenders continue their subscriptions. The use of "first degree price discrimination" (the term sounds evil/illegal, but it's just a term) is what economists use to describe the process of pricing a product based upon how much each consumer values it. It is present in all auctions and many other forms of transactions and can be quite beneficial to all involved parties. By allowing players to spend money to save time, it effectively takes advantage of this tactic by allowing the user to gauge the value of his time and respond accordingly. Obviously this system has some appeal or ebay wouldn't be filled with mmorpg characters/accounts for sale.
The fact is that "Big Oil" wouldn't disappear even if everyone stopped using oil and oil-based products today. Who do you think will take over these alternative energy industries? British Petroleum (BP) has already changed its official name to Beyond Petroleum. It is now the world's largest provider of solar energy cells and petroleum alternatives.
While eliminating 2 million jobs might be legal for private industry, there may be a constitutional basis for the suit based upon deprivation of property without due process.
Personally I'd rather see them strip telemarketers of life and liberty.
Been using an HP-20s for about as long as you've used that one and I think it covers pretty much all your needs from base conversions to shift functions. Unlike alot of the older HP models, it doesn't default to RPN entry, but supports it for those who think that saving an occasional keystroke is worth losing your mind. On top of that, I've always preferred the look and feel of it over anything else out there. It's got some extra bells and whistles, but fewer than most and they're mostly 'behind the scenes'. The aspect you mentioned it lacks is solar power. A single set of batteries will last quite a while, but you won't make it through 2 decades without a switch :)
Hope this helps
http://products.hp-at-home.com/products/detail.php ?high_level_category_id=1&category_id=8&sub_catego ry_id=24&sub_category_id=24&prodnum=20S