If they vote against what the corporations want, then they get fewer donations to their re-election campaigns. Less money means less advertising. And since not all voters will find the same issues to be of equal importance to them, it is much more effective for your politicians to pander to the corporations, get the money and use negative advertising to blast their opponent(s).
1 vote, 100 votes, 1,000 votes lost on this issue? How many more votes can be gained or at least taken away from their rivals with advertising? It's the money they fear losing, because enough people stay uninformed enough that advertising works on them.
Further, this isn't really that large of a market. I'll be surprised if they've got that much to gain by controlling another market.
Low number of sales isn't a problem at all. As it says above "low volume/high margin high-end gaming market". You don't need to sell a lot of units to make as much as you do selling lots of low profit margin budget PCs.
The high margin is very attractive to Dell, because profit margins seem to be continually decreasing on most computer systems sold. Profit margins for gaming systems only seem to be going up as gamers expect more in the way of extra stuff that most buyers simply don't care about, like case mods and LED lighting. Why would there be nothing to gain from controlling a highly profitable and expanding new market? I would say there is PROFIT to be gained, and the possibility of much more profit ahead.
Of course part of the reason why the prices for gaming PCs is so high is the very label of the seller. Alienware and Voodoo are well known for the quality/performance of their machines among the gamers you'd meet at a LAN party. Dell... not so much.
And when will we have the lawyer claiming that he is trying to save the moral fabric of our society by claiming that this game will result in increased malpractice rates by doctors desensitized to surgery?
Or more likely, some kid will take a knife to his pet or smaller sibling and then someone will suggest they learned it from the game.
Terrorists will concentrate on building EMP bombs.
Why would they? Targetting more vulnerable groups (civilians, noncombatants etc.) results in higher casualties and more actual terror. Creating EMP weapons would be more expensive, would be mainly used against soldiers (who would presumably still have basic guns to fire back with) and would be much less lethal. A basic truckbomb costs little, uses materials you can find anywhere and kills quite effectively. If your goal is to spread terror, then this is much more effective.
I don't know how effective this new armour will be, but I imagine that a regular truck bomb (or any kind of powerful explosive) would still kill its wearer pretty effectively.
If you are talking about insurgents, or other militaries and people whose targets will primarily be military units, then yes it may make some sense to develop EMP weapons. Terrorists go for maximum "bang for the buck", as much damage and death as possible for as little cost as possible.
Acclaim (with The Red Star and 100 bullets from the report) has been facing a number of difficulties, and is pretty damn close to being totally bankrupt. They are pretty screwed since they can't really afford to advertise much; they can't afford to have their titles be overshadowed at Christmas and they also can't afford to delay very long (if at all) either.
Which kind of sucks since The Red Star and 100 Bullets are pretty damn good comics. Still, I'd rather have Acclaim go under and not release bad games on licenses I like (hopefully selling the rights to a publisher that can make them into GOOD games) than have Acclaim do it's usual mediocre job.
By asking for specs, you imply that there is some sort of limit to the lengths you are willing to go to obtain 60 fps at full settings. This is simply unacceptable!
Frame Rate before food!
Re:Hey, yet another way to make MREs more disgusti
on
Just Add, Umm, Water
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I would suggest that urine would probably help the taste of MREs quite a bit...
There is the artistic merit defence. If it can be shown to have "artistic merit" (and only if it does not involve an ACTUAL child), then it is fine. There have been calls by the Conservative Party to have this protection removed, and then we would be left with I believe the Judge's decision on whether the piece is beneficial or not to society being the basis on whether it should be ruled child porn or not.
When I argued in class that Romeo and Juliet could be considered child porn under the law, I got laughed at and told that no judge would consider it child porn. Probably not, but it does raise the question of if the police think you are guilty of some other offence and they can't prove it, they could haul out any number of things that could be classified as child porn (like Romeo and Juliet, though probably something less well known), and use it against you. I still think that the determining factor should be if a child was actually harmed to make the story, image, video etc. If yes, then it should be considered child porn. If no, then it is a work of imagination.
Currently, Canadians can make and keep works of imagination, but can not distribute them.
As I understand it, a camera uses RGB to record images. Most lasers (cheap readily available ones) are red and would only overwhelm the red scale part of the image. If they shift it to either the green scale or blue scale part of the data, they can see just fine. If you want to go to the trouble of setting up a red, blue and green laser combo to hit a camera, then you could be relatively sure.
Of course, if I am very wrong, I would like to know that and why. Thanks.
Actually, I do believe that's supposed to be the very defintion of a Canadian... We did just elect a minority government here (where to survive the governing party MUST work with others). And it was the Liberals too, who are the most centrist of all the current parties.
The sooner you realize that both wings of ideology are not rational in their beliefs, the sooner you can realize that both have some very valid portions in their arguements, and you can start sifting out the bullshit without having to assume left = hippy and right = nazi.
rejecting "leftism wholesale" is exactly the kind of unthinking, superstitious, emotional response you are attacking.
Bravo! An excellent post. I think the problem with people disregarding one side or the other's arguments is that they forget that both sides (but not necessarily every individual on both sides) have the same goal. They all want America to be better or the world to be better or whatever sphere it is applied to. People from one perspective or another believe their way is correct. But in truth, the reality is usually somewhere between the extremes of either argument.
This is why free speech is important, because even extreme views can be useful if they get other people thinking on their own position and perhaps improve on their own ideas and concepts. It is the interplay of ideas that creates useful insights, which incidentally is why I come here to Slashdot. The biggest problem is when we get to labelling each other and the labels come to mean more than the message. Disregard anyone's ideas out of hand and you do yourself and anyone who wants better for this world/country/etc. a disservice.
... isn't it nice that, for a change, people (at least one person) don't go totally moral-panic, demanding censorship and warning labels on everything?
You fool, do you know how many young lives are effected every year by elephant tusk impalement? How much longer will we needlessly allow tiny cute and innocent little children be gored by inanimate tusks? Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering could be prevented by a "WARNING: Do not use to impale self" or even a "WARNING: Impalement Risk" label? Won't you PLEASE think of the children?
Solid Snake's radar came from! I was always curious to know how I/Snake knew which way guys behind walls were moving and looking. Snake's must've had a smaller version and be really good at interpreting blobs...
You go try to take care of the causes. But until and unless you can invent a magical happy ray that can keep people content no matter how poor they are, or how rich other people are, or how long other people's beards are, or what God I worship if any, you're not going to enjoy much success.
There is a "magical happy ray" type solution. It's prosperity. When people are more or less content, there is less violence and it becomes that much harder to persuade them to take radical and extreme courses of action. Will there always be psychopaths and extremists? Probably. But they get the support they need to commit terrorist acts from other normal people who are disenfrachised. People that are poor and powerless.
Maybe you think that's hippy talk. Well, why do you think that no Western democracies declare war on each other? I'd say it is because they are prospering. Unfortunately, we prosper on the backs of others. We take their resources (oil, metals, minerals, jewels) and give them shit wages to do and make things for us and justify it by saying that their costs of living are lower. Yes, because their standards of living are also lower and won't get better by getting inadequate compensation for what they give us.
Yeah, this is a hippy rant. Yeah, I am a hypocrite because I am sitting here in front of a computer that costs more than probably any 3rd world worker makes in a year or years. But I still think that without the anger that comes from suffering in squalor and impotence while seeing those who prosper so greatly, terrorism would not be the problem it has become. Not everyone needs to be rich, but being poor makes people desperate. I believe the only true solution to terrorism is not violence, but prosperity.
I guess Civil Rights Action Panel was on the list of rejected titles?
Believe it or not, a merger of Canada's Reform Party and Alliance Party became the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party. Yes, all too briefly, the big right wing party here in Canada was known as CCRAP. Go here for a few lines from Canadian politicians after seeing the unfortunate acronym. Canadian politics are just more fun! (Mainly because we can't do anything that would lead to severe global consequences.)
"Father" is maybe less appropriate than "midwife" -- he didn't invent anything, he just convinced the industry bigwigs to adopt it...
Yeah, but that's the hard part. Dear god, can you imagine what it takes to get "industry bigwigs" to agree on anything? Say what you will about creating technology, at least there's logic involved. This is the industry that decided it was absolutely necessary to create and foist Gigli on an unsuspecting public. I can only imagine that the insanity gets worse the higher up you go...
You shouldn't be. The Liberals were making noises about changing the copyright law to cater to the record industry. Go here for more info, as well as stuff like petitions. As far as I know none of the parties has stated their position on changes to the copyright law, but now even though I don't want the "Conservatives" running the country, I'm not sure I want the Liberals either.
Unfortunately that doesn't mean that my vote goes to the NDP either, since their stance on the issue is uncomfortably vague. Back to the point: Don't be so carefree. It might not be so legal for us forever.
You're right! I have seen the error of my ways and now wish to also have a girlfriend with 36E breasts to mend my ways. Show me how, fellow non-small breastist!
That said I also think that the US (or WTO or whoever) needs to force China play fair. With the free trade should come the obligation to play by the rules, and that includes not manipulating currency, and not getting unfair advantages from human rights violations.
There is something so darkly comic about using the idea of "unfair advantages" (in the economic sense) as an argument against human rights abuses. Or actually the argument wasn't against human rights abuses, just that they shouldn't be allowed when they grant an "unfair advantage". We really are just productions units, I suppose.
But the videogame market was growing (though I believe just recently there has been a slight decline). Most of the other usual tie-ins are pretty much at saturation. It's a predictable but not new or growing revenue stream. Videogames offer, in their eyes, a new and growing market for them to exploit.
Frankly, I think we're better off with their crap. This is of course an industry that takes multi-millions of dollars to make each repeated predictable, formulaic 1.5 hour romantic comedies. We get enough copycats and retreads in games already. (Witness the surge of "women in bikinis playing volleyball" after the success of Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.)
It's not--religion addresses a very different set of questions.
Ok, that made more sense to me. Too bad that historically, religions just hasn't been used to address those different questions properly. What I'm getting at is that historically, it's been used by those in power to justify their actions after the fact instead of actually guiding their actions, such as some of those in the church and say... the White House.
But science is the answer to all of the world's ill's, isn't it? Why is it that science has come up with all kinds of wonderful and useful technology that could be used to combat poverty (medicine, genetically engineered crops, advanced agricultural methods), but the Third World is worse off today than ever?
He wasn't saying anything about science, he was attacking the idea that scientists are less compassionate. From the great-grandparent poster: Religion is about suppressing your own ego and having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.
He was assuming that scientists are necessarily less compassionate than people who are religious (never mind that those groups are not mututally exclusive). As for why the Third World is worse off, do you seriously want to blame that on science or scientists? Scientists have come up with many ways to solve many of the world's problems, but it is those who hold power that control how their discoveries and inventions are used. WE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED THE ENTIRE WORLD. It's just that not enough of us with power (especially political and financial power) are willing to sacrifice to do so.
There are many, many scientists that want to use their abilities to help people. Do you really think that all of the good things that science has done came about from scientists who had no compassion for their fellow man? You're right that science can't deal with moral problems, but even science has an ethical code that is supposed to be followed. If a scientist doesn't follow those ethical guidelines, is it any different than a religious person not following the ethical guidelines of their religion? Finally, if science isn't being used to do all the good it could do, is that really the scientist's fault?
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If they vote against what the corporations want, then they get fewer donations to their re-election campaigns. Less money means less advertising. And since not all voters will find the same issues to be of equal importance to them, it is much more effective for your politicians to pander to the corporations, get the money and use negative advertising to blast their opponent(s).
1 vote, 100 votes, 1,000 votes lost on this issue? How many more votes can be gained or at least taken away from their rivals with advertising? It's the money they fear losing, because enough people stay uninformed enough that advertising works on them.
you can use a Nintendo 64 as an expensive DVD Player out of the box as well as a game machine
I am guessing you meant Playstation 2? Just a bit of nitpicking...
Further, this isn't really that large of a market. I'll be surprised if they've got that much to gain by controlling another market.
Low number of sales isn't a problem at all. As it says above "low volume/high margin high-end gaming market". You don't need to sell a lot of units to make as much as you do selling lots of low profit margin budget PCs.
The high margin is very attractive to Dell, because profit margins seem to be continually decreasing on most computer systems sold. Profit margins for gaming systems only seem to be going up as gamers expect more in the way of extra stuff that most buyers simply don't care about, like case mods and LED lighting. Why would there be nothing to gain from controlling a highly profitable and expanding new market? I would say there is PROFIT to be gained, and the possibility of much more profit ahead.
Of course part of the reason why the prices for gaming PCs is so high is the very label of the seller. Alienware and Voodoo are well known for the quality/performance of their machines among the gamers you'd meet at a LAN party. Dell... not so much.
And when will we have the lawyer claiming that he is trying to save the moral fabric of our society by claiming that this game will result in increased malpractice rates by doctors desensitized to surgery?
Or more likely, some kid will take a knife to his pet or smaller sibling and then someone will suggest they learned it from the game.
Terrorists will concentrate on building EMP bombs.
Why would they? Targetting more vulnerable groups (civilians, noncombatants etc.) results in higher casualties and more actual terror. Creating EMP weapons would be more expensive, would be mainly used against soldiers (who would presumably still have basic guns to fire back with) and would be much less lethal. A basic truckbomb costs little, uses materials you can find anywhere and kills quite effectively. If your goal is to spread terror, then this is much more effective.
I don't know how effective this new armour will be, but I imagine that a regular truck bomb (or any kind of powerful explosive) would still kill its wearer pretty effectively.
If you are talking about insurgents, or other militaries and people whose targets will primarily be military units, then yes it may make some sense to develop EMP weapons. Terrorists go for maximum "bang for the buck", as much damage and death as possible for as little cost as possible.
Acclaim (with The Red Star and 100 bullets from the report) has been facing a number of difficulties, and is pretty damn close to being totally bankrupt. They are pretty screwed since they can't really afford to advertise much; they can't afford to have their titles be overshadowed at Christmas and they also can't afford to delay very long (if at all) either.
Which kind of sucks since The Red Star and 100 Bullets are pretty damn good comics. Still, I'd rather have Acclaim go under and not release bad games on licenses I like (hopefully selling the rights to a publisher that can make them into GOOD games) than have Acclaim do it's usual mediocre job.
By asking for specs, you imply that there is some sort of limit to the lengths you are willing to go to obtain 60 fps at full settings. This is simply unacceptable!
Frame Rate before food!
I would suggest that urine would probably help the taste of MREs quite a bit...
There is the artistic merit defence. If it can be shown to have "artistic merit" (and only if it does not involve an ACTUAL child), then it is fine. There have been calls by the Conservative Party to have this protection removed, and then we would be left with I believe the Judge's decision on whether the piece is beneficial or not to society being the basis on whether it should be ruled child porn or not.
When I argued in class that Romeo and Juliet could be considered child porn under the law, I got laughed at and told that no judge would consider it child porn. Probably not, but it does raise the question of if the police think you are guilty of some other offence and they can't prove it, they could haul out any number of things that could be classified as child porn (like Romeo and Juliet, though probably something less well known), and use it against you. I still think that the determining factor should be if a child was actually harmed to make the story, image, video etc. If yes, then it should be considered child porn. If no, then it is a work of imagination.
Currently, Canadians can make and keep works of imagination, but can not distribute them.
As I understand it, a camera uses RGB to record images. Most lasers (cheap readily available ones) are red and would only overwhelm the red scale part of the image. If they shift it to either the green scale or blue scale part of the data, they can see just fine. If you want to go to the trouble of setting up a red, blue and green laser combo to hit a camera, then you could be relatively sure.
Of course, if I am very wrong, I would like to know that and why. Thanks.
You, you, you CENTRIST FENCE SITTER!
Actually, I do believe that's supposed to be the very defintion of a Canadian... We did just elect a minority government here (where to survive the governing party MUST work with others). And it was the Liberals too, who are the most centrist of all the current parties.
The sooner you realize that both wings of ideology are not rational in their beliefs, the sooner you can realize that both have some very valid portions in their arguements, and you can start sifting out the bullshit without having to assume left = hippy and right = nazi.
rejecting "leftism wholesale" is exactly the kind of unthinking, superstitious, emotional response you are attacking.
Bravo! An excellent post. I think the problem with people disregarding one side or the other's arguments is that they forget that both sides (but not necessarily every individual on both sides) have the same goal. They all want America to be better or the world to be better or whatever sphere it is applied to. People from one perspective or another believe their way is correct. But in truth, the reality is usually somewhere between the extremes of either argument.
This is why free speech is important, because even extreme views can be useful if they get other people thinking on their own position and perhaps improve on their own ideas and concepts. It is the interplay of ideas that creates useful insights, which incidentally is why I come here to Slashdot. The biggest problem is when we get to labelling each other and the labels come to mean more than the message. Disregard anyone's ideas out of hand and you do yourself and anyone who wants better for this world/country/etc. a disservice.
... isn't it nice that, for a change, people (at least one person) don't go totally moral-panic, demanding censorship and warning labels on everything?
You fool, do you know how many young lives are effected every year by elephant tusk impalement? How much longer will we needlessly allow tiny cute and innocent little children be gored by inanimate tusks? Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering could be prevented by a "WARNING: Do not use to impale self" or even a "WARNING: Impalement Risk" label? Won't you PLEASE think of the children?
Solid Snake's radar came from! I was always curious to know how I/Snake knew which way guys behind walls were moving and looking. Snake's must've had a smaller version and be really good at interpreting blobs...
You go try to take care of the causes. But until and unless you can invent a magical happy ray that can keep people content no matter how poor they are, or how rich other people are, or how long other people's beards are, or what God I worship if any, you're not going to enjoy much success.
There is a "magical happy ray" type solution. It's prosperity. When people are more or less content, there is less violence and it becomes that much harder to persuade them to take radical and extreme courses of action. Will there always be psychopaths and extremists? Probably. But they get the support they need to commit terrorist acts from other normal people who are disenfrachised. People that are poor and powerless.
Maybe you think that's hippy talk. Well, why do you think that no Western democracies declare war on each other? I'd say it is because they are prospering. Unfortunately, we prosper on the backs of others. We take their resources (oil, metals, minerals, jewels) and give them shit wages to do and make things for us and justify it by saying that their costs of living are lower. Yes, because their standards of living are also lower and won't get better by getting inadequate compensation for what they give us.
Yeah, this is a hippy rant. Yeah, I am a hypocrite because I am sitting here in front of a computer that costs more than probably any 3rd world worker makes in a year or years. But I still think that without the anger that comes from suffering in squalor and impotence while seeing those who prosper so greatly, terrorism would not be the problem it has become. Not everyone needs to be rich, but being poor makes people desperate. I believe the only true solution to terrorism is not violence, but prosperity.
I guess Civil Rights Action Panel was on the list of rejected titles?
Believe it or not, a merger of Canada's Reform Party and Alliance Party became the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party. Yes, all too briefly, the big right wing party here in Canada was known as CCRAP. Go here for a few lines from Canadian politicians after seeing the unfortunate acronym. Canadian politics are just more fun! (Mainly because we can't do anything that would lead to severe global consequences.)
"Father" is maybe less appropriate than "midwife" -- he didn't invent anything, he just convinced the industry bigwigs to adopt it...
Yeah, but that's the hard part. Dear god, can you imagine what it takes to get "industry bigwigs" to agree on anything? Say what you will about creating technology, at least there's logic involved. This is the industry that decided it was absolutely necessary to create and foist Gigli on an unsuspecting public. I can only imagine that the insanity gets worse the higher up you go...
You shouldn't be. The Liberals were making noises about changing the copyright law to cater to the record industry. Go here for more info, as well as stuff like petitions. As far as I know none of the parties has stated their position on changes to the copyright law, but now even though I don't want the "Conservatives" running the country, I'm not sure I want the Liberals either.
Unfortunately that doesn't mean that my vote goes to the NDP either, since their stance on the issue is uncomfortably vague. Back to the point: Don't be so carefree. It might not be so legal for us forever.
Hmmmm... developing games in Hyrule doesn't seem so bad.
You are all intolerant small-breastists!
You're right! I have seen the error of my ways and now wish to also have a girlfriend with 36E breasts to mend my ways. Show me how, fellow non-small breastist!
I don't know what's more impressive, the case mod, or the way his server has thus far withstood the slashdotting with so many images on that page.
That said I also think that the US (or WTO or whoever) needs to force China play fair. With the free trade should come the obligation to play by the rules, and that includes not manipulating currency, and not getting unfair advantages from human rights violations.
There is something so darkly comic about using the idea of "unfair advantages" (in the economic sense) as an argument against human rights abuses. Or actually the argument wasn't against human rights abuses, just that they shouldn't be allowed when they grant an "unfair advantage". We really are just productions units, I suppose.
But the videogame market was growing (though I believe just recently there has been a slight decline). Most of the other usual tie-ins are pretty much at saturation. It's a predictable but not new or growing revenue stream. Videogames offer, in their eyes, a new and growing market for them to exploit.
Frankly, I think we're better off with their crap. This is of course an industry that takes multi-millions of dollars to make each repeated predictable, formulaic 1.5 hour romantic comedies. We get enough copycats and retreads in games already. (Witness the surge of "women in bikinis playing volleyball" after the success of Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.)
It's not--religion addresses a very different set of questions.
Ok, that made more sense to me. Too bad that historically, religions just hasn't been used to address those different questions properly. What I'm getting at is that historically, it's been used by those in power to justify their actions after the fact instead of actually guiding their actions, such as some of those in the church and say... the White House.
But science is the answer to all of the world's ill's, isn't it? Why is it that science has come up with all kinds of wonderful and useful technology that could be used to combat poverty (medicine, genetically engineered crops, advanced agricultural methods), but the Third World is worse off today than ever?
He wasn't saying anything about science, he was attacking the idea that scientists are less compassionate.
From the great-grandparent poster: Religion is about suppressing your own ego and having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.
He was assuming that scientists are necessarily less compassionate than people who are religious (never mind that those groups are not mututally exclusive). As for why the Third World is worse off, do you seriously want to blame that on science or scientists? Scientists have come up with many ways to solve many of the world's problems, but it is those who hold power that control how their discoveries and inventions are used. WE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED THE ENTIRE WORLD. It's just that not enough of us with power (especially political and financial power) are willing to sacrifice to do so.
There are many, many scientists that want to use their abilities to help people. Do you really think that all of the good things that science has done came about from scientists who had no compassion for their fellow man? You're right that science can't deal with moral problems, but even science has an ethical code that is supposed to be followed. If a scientist doesn't follow those ethical guidelines, is it any different than a religious person not following the ethical guidelines of their religion? Finally, if science isn't being used to do all the good it could do, is that really the scientist's fault?