And they'll do just that. If doing the ecologically sane, socially responsible, or ethical thing would cause 1% less profits, it's their legal _duty_ to _not_ do it.
That's an excessively literal reading of responsibility to shareholders, and frankly just isn't true. If it were true, then companies would get sued every time they donated money to a charity. It's ridiculous in principle, since it implies that any action which doesn't maximize profits is illegal, when what will maximize profits is only known post-facto.
The fact is that you can get sued by shareholders for being negligent in your duty to them, but not for having hypothetically lost 1% profits, especially if you can say that 1% profits bought you some good PR (which is all a company ever gets out of charitable donations).
Being "green" may cost more, but there are definite benefits. There are companies who have based their entire business plan around their green reputation -- look at all the 'environmentally friendly' products at Whole Foods or what not that aren't getting sued by shareholders. You could easily imagine a "green" construction company that differentiated themselves by building the most environmentally friendly buildings possible. Not hard to imagine since that kind of construction does already exist.
Yet it's true that industry in general will never buy into using a product that costs 30% more if the only benefit is that a bunch of people who aren't signing the checks get cleaner air. Your examples of past corporate irresponsibility are very telling. And the law may not be much help here; I don't see much in the way of political momentum to force everyone to switch to pollution-absorbing concrete at 30% greater cost, it's just too big a hit to a basic cost of growth. Maybe if the above-mentioned "green" builders take to it, and the premium goes down to less than 5%, then it might be feasible to require it. Assuming in the meantime we don't discover that locking up pollution in our building material isn't a bad idea...
But anyway, my main point is: Do not allow the mantra "shareholder responsibility" to make the CEOs of irresponsible companies seem like helpless victims of the law. They are required to seek a return on investment. They are not required to be amoral in the process. They're already amoral, and 'shareholder responsibility' is their excuse which they use without blinking because, well, they're amoral.
This doesn't sound right. If this assertion is correct, it implies that as an organism is developing, its evolution is not only based on its perception of the environment, but on the exact biological constitution of it. How can a tarantula, for example, "know" of the existence of such receptors in its predators?
I would imagine it works the other way around: predators developed a common sensory receptor to detect specific chemical threats, and trigger an immediate physical response in order to prevent further consumption.
I'd say it's probably both -- the predators developing a more or less generic sensor for various threats, and the spiders/plants developing toxins that triggor the recptors in the predators.
As to how the tarantula "knew" of the existence of the receptors, the answer is easy: tarantulas whose toxins did not target the pain receptors of predators did not have a deterrent effect and were eaten, tarantulas whose toxins did target the receptors discouraged predators and were eaten less.
Evolution never "knows" that a particular trait is going to be good or bad, it just happens and then it either works or it doesn't. Whether a particular trait works or not will, in many cases, depend on the exact biological constitution of the environment around the organism, and so you shouldn't be surprised at all.
The second statement doesn't support the first. You may be right that there was a disparity in the composition of forces, but what about the conduct of the "hot war" made it "mediocre?"
The initial invasion was Rumsfeld's attempt to start a new war doctrine for U.S. forces, and thus leave his stamp on the military. He envisioned a lighter, faster U.S. force that could be deployed cheaper, a modern equivalent of Blitzkrieg. Apparently he forgot that much of the strength of the U.S. military came from logistics and having solid supply lines. As our forces raced up the highway towards Baghdad, they became too stretched out, our supply lines weakened, and the flanks started to come under attack by Iraqi forces. This forced us to stop and regroup and replace the strategy with a more conventional buildup and advance. Basically, the doctrine failed.
The disparity in forces was such that the victory in the conventional war was a guarantee, even with a foolhardy start to things we were easily able to pull it together. Of course, the fact that Rumsfeld was unable to see the flaw in his brilliant new doctrine and the fact that he was unable to see that the end of the "hot" war would only be the beginning are related. The man is incompetent at his job. Always had been, always will be. I would be a better defense secretary. A terrible secretary to be sure, but I'd at least be able to accept the advice of those better versed in war than myself. Rumsfeld thought ideology would trump reality, and he was wrong.
Everyone please read NSArchive article
on
Rumsfeld Stepping Down
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· Score: 2, Informative
Please read the entire article, which includes links to documents showing that the U.S. intelligence new about Saddam using chemical weapons against "kurdish insurgents". The document in question was written in Nov. 1983. They had known about Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Iranians for longer. Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam in Dec. 1983.
Which is not to imply that Rumsfeld necessarily knew what Hussein doing, him being an envoy at the time not the Defense Secretary as he was yesterday. Our government did know, though, and sent Rumsfeld on his make-nice mission anyway. Never forget that -- when it was expedient, the government welcomed a genocidal maniac as an ally, and then turned on them when it was convenient. Try to remember when in twenty years you're hearing about the evils of Uzbekistan and the need for 'liberation'.
Sigh... how is it than, despite this so called scientific objectivity, that the scientific community has so many long standing disputes? As well, how often is one "objective truth" supplanted by another "objective truth"?
First, "objective evidence", i.e. data, is NOT the same as "objective truth", particularly if I may infer that by "truth" you mean "theory". A theory is formulated to account for data. There can be multiple theories that explain the data, and further data is thus required to distinguish between them. This data is not always readily aquired, and thus you have long-standing disputes. When further data arrives, it may demonstrate that a previous theory was wrong and thus require a new one.
It is fairly infrequently that "objective evidence" is supplanted, except by a more accurate and precise measurement. Theories are supplanted all the time, to account for new data. Objectivity demands that if the data invalidates your theory, you find a new one.
It is only the dogmatic who never change theories even if new evidence contradicts them.
It would be the absence of what you describe -- disputes and new theories -- that would make science dogmatic.
In fact, history is littered with the dogmas of science.
Could you perhaps give an example?
I gave an example of bias, and how it interacts with what I'm talking about above. Michelson was strongly biased towards the Ether, as was the scientific community in general, but due to collecting objective evidence he and the scientific community had to conclude that there was another explanation. This is not dogma.
The truth is, we as humans have only a limited and subjective perspective. I'm afraid you simply presume too much, given that we hardly possess a complete understanding as to the nature of reality.
And yet we are able to make measurements that can be realiably repeated by anyone anywhere in the world regardless of their own subjectivity and biases. We are able to overcome our limitations in order to investigate the nature of reality. The extent to which we understand it is in large part due to this ability.
However, I suspect you will continue to believe that academia, science and yourself have a good grasp of the "truth".
I suspect that you don't understand the difference between the scientific method and "truth", one being a process and the other a dogmatic belief. I believe that academia, science, and myself have a good grasp of the former, and moreover I don't think you do.
Comparing the ps3 to a farrari doesn't make sense.
It does for illustrating the difference in "overpriced" as in "costs more than what you get (ignoring whether you need what you get)", and "costs more than what you can afford". Which is all I was doing.
in the console market, there are only 4 options (one being the pc). You simply can't take the farari approach to marketing, because the biggest sell point is the games available. To get a large library of games, you simply must have a huge install base.
Yep. You're dang right that Ferrari marketing/sales tactics won't work. With Sony's rather limited launch the install base issue would be there regardless of price (though obviously factors limiting launch supplies and price are related in this case). The high price will continue to limit demand after the supply issues are solved and make it into a long-term issue.
I doubt it will be so bad that the PS3 will be a paperweight. However there is really no way that a $600 console is going to enjoy the same dominance as the PS2 which debuted at half the price. My bet for this generation is a much more balanced market without a clear "winner" (except IBM) and two also-rans duking it out for second place. Whether this results in a healthy, vibrant market where each competitor seeks to define their own identity, or just every game being ported to three different consoles, I don't know.
Yes, you bring up the ether experiments as an example- but that wasn't exactly held as dogma by any of the scientists involved, now was it?
It was the prevailing belief at the time* and something both experimenters did believe in enough to continue experimenting on for years after their initial failure to find the ether. They were convinced that they just needed higher accuracy equipment, or that some effect was obscuring the effects of the ether which they could correct for. However, because they performed their experiments as correctly as they knew and because they did not falsify their results, they were unable to conclude that the ether exists, with every increase in precision simply reducing the maximum effect the ether could have were it to exist.
So it wasn't "dogma", but it was definitely a "bias". Which is my point: bias/no-bias is not a binary property. There is a whole scale of human bias that ranges from favoring one result but being willing to admit error, to dogmatic faith-based beliefs that will reject any evidence against them, even to the point of suppressing that evidence. There is a huge difference not just in degree of bias but in the practical effects of such, and arguing otherwise is to fail to see the incredibly important difference.
Try this one on for size: objective evidence is impossible for human beings to gather because of imperfections in the human nervous system that makes eyewitness accounts unreliable even when repeatable.
Nope, I disagree even more strongly than this. Obtaining objective evidence is very possible for human beings. We've done it to an amazing degree of precision for a wide variety of phenomenon. The reading of a scale is objective, as long as you understand how the scale works and what it is measuring and what its error is. Eye witness accounts are unreliable for reasons involving human memory (which is why you write experimental results down), and repeatability is the definition of realiable. It is true that humans are imperfect, and we can do things like write down the wrong number into the log, or set up the experiment wrong, or draw a faulty conclusion from the data. The possibility of these things occuring is not the same as it being impossible for them not to happen. So try this one on for size:
Objective evidence is possible for a human being to gather, however human error can be introduced at any point in the collection process and the likelyhood of such happening increases with the bias of the gatherer.
Now having said that- I believe global warming exists. I believe it's a dire problem. I'm not sure I believe mankind has that huge of an effect- but I also believe it doesn't matter what caused it, the real engineering problem is how to deal with it. And thus my answer- plant biomass.
The effect of humans on global warming I can't say, but I haven't heard a single decent argument against the current CO2 levels being caused by mankind, and I believe the evidence is clear that CO2 is part of a feedback cycle involved in warming. So we're contributing one way or another, and by impacting the feedback loop we may end up having a much larger effect than we think we are.
I like your answer, even though it is silly.
* Based on the at-the-time reasonable assumption that since every other kind of wave we knew about needed a medium to propagate through then so must light.
I find your signature to be incorrect. The first example that sprang to mind was the Michelson-Morley experiment, designed to prove whether the Luminiferous Ether existed as the medium through which light travelled. The experimentors were quite biased in favor of the ether's existence, and continued to experiment in order to find it. Despite running many experiments with many devices designed to eliminate sources of error that might hide the ether's existence, they never measured an effect larger than their experimental error, and were thus unable to conclude that the ether existed.
Everyone has a bias, but not everyone allows their bias to cloud their scientific judgement, or cause them to make false claims. Human beings are perfectly capable of admitting they are wrong, even if we all may be reluctant to do so to varying degrees.
I think this is an important point to make in an article about global warming, because many have decided that since all scientists are fallable and biased and their results thus possibly wrong, it is okay to pick whatever scientist you prefer as they are all equal.
Sales will be good, but profits will be poor until they can ramp up production.
I've known sales teams that didn't care one woof about profit, but I've never heard of one that thought in terms of percentage of units sold, rather than total number. Only the most retarded of salesman would think selling 100% of one unit was good sales, unless it was a nuclear reactor or an island or something. When your sales numbers are low because production levels are low, that's still poor sales.
I think you misinterpret the comic if you think it's saying that Mr. Kutarchini is correct when says he has the fastest selling toy ever.
Well, anything that completely failed to achieve any of its potential. The XBox was never going to be profitable. It existed to promote Microsoft as a player in the console market. The Jaguar did well at the start, but lost popularity when the playstation was around the corner. The N64 was by no means a failure. It was a profitable console for Nintendo. The neo-geo did okay even though it never hit the top spot. The 3D0 was a bit of a failure.
Just a bit?
It's starting to sound like your first question could be rephrased: "How often has any console been a total market failure?" with the answer "never".
Overpriced? Nope, it's a better value than the XBox 360 when it comes to technology and cost of manufacturing.
Is a Ferrari overpriced? Depends on what you mean by "overpriced". Priced over what?
If you mean priced over the cost of materials, research, manufacturing, and a reasonable percentage of profit margin, then no.
If you mean priced over what most people buying a car -- even a sports car -- can afford, then hell yes it's overpriced.
The Ferrari is not overpriced one way, but is in another, and that second way very much limits the sales of Ferraris. Is the Ferrari "worth" every penny? Sure, but that doesn't matter at all if you don't have sufficient pennies.
I'm not sure what the logic is behind saying the price is not a legitimate negative for the console. A "legitimate negative" is any rational reason why I or anyone else would choose not to buy the console. You better believe price is such a reason. I sure hope Sony, behind closed doors, believes it.
But they changed the core game mechanics to turn based, which then remove the hard requirement for a stylus/point and click interface (it's still much better with it, but it's no longer life or death, unlike how an RTS absolutely needs mouse control), yet still obviously felt compelled to use it.
So you're saying that the developers of AoE for DS felt "compelled" to use the stylus for no reason other than it being "much better", not "life or death"?
Sounds like a pretty good reason to use it to me. Who wouldn't like a much better interface?
There's certainly instances of "it's there so we have to use it for something" in DS-land. Yet when you combine the new game types that only exist due to the stylus, then add in the games which don't absolutely require a stylus but which play much better with the stylus, then I think you're out of gimmick land.
It looks like this confirms the "full switch to right-handedness" of the game. With no option to swap for lefties (unless I missed that somewhere else in the article), that's going to steepen the learning curve for us southpaws.
The thing is, since the actual motion you perform doesn't translate into sword motion, it's just the same horizontal, vertical, thrust sword moves Link has had in previous games, I don't see why the switch to right-handedness was even needed.
Did it bother anyone that in Wind Waker you'd hit the button with your right hand and Link swung with his left? I don't see this as being all that different. If it was closer to actual swordplay I could see it mattering, but that isn't the case.
Copyright only prevents non originators from wanton sharing; you are free to loan a book or movie to a friend.
Well, it only prevents distribution, and passing around a single copy isn't distribution. So yeah, you can loan, and that's a good thing. Copyright law in the U.S. is actually a pretty reasonable tradeoff, at least before the Sony Bono Never Let Micky Free infinite extensions regime began, and until the DMCA criminalized things like loaning if the copyright holder didn't want you to. Roll back the changes to the original copyright terms, and roll back most of the DMCA provisions, and I think copyright law is pretty good.
Patent law's problems have as much to do with the USPO as the actual law, though I also think software patents should not be allowed on the basis that they are patents on math.
We are just another species of primate. Some of the stuff we do is pretty neat, but me eat banana.
No, we aren't just another species of primate. Sure, we're animals, but we are also the animal whose works can be seen from space, and who has been to space in order to see them. As a direct result of the sharing of ideas.
That was my point, how do we know that what we do is anything other than natural, in the comes-from-nature way.
Because it was working that way until we agreed to change it, and we have to actively maintain the state of non-sharability. This isn't about what we do, this is about the information. The natural state of information is that it is shareable. Only by agreeing not to share it, and by prosecuting those who don't abide by this artificial rule, do we change this natural state.
Intellectual property was originally designed to encourage sharing, not to restrict it. Perhaps because the default action was not to share, out of paranoia.
You might chose not to share. However if you do chose to share, then those you share with are also capable of making the choice to share or not share. The whole point of IP law is to prohibit what other's do with information after you have shared it with them.
The mechanism by which intellectually property is intended to encourage sharing is fine. My whole point is that we must see this as what it is: an artificial mechanism that inhibits information's natural state. Information-as-property should not be seen as the default, natural state of information, because it isn't. If we mutually agree to allow information to be owned, that's fine, but the fact is that it is an agreement, not a right.
OK, but the sharing ideas is more or less the foundation of culture, not the species. I'm pretty sure that humans could exist without culture, until they developed it anyway.
Without culture and accumulated knowledge, we'd be just another species of primate.
Natural is a pretty loaded word to be using. Natural in what context, etc. At the moment, if I have a momentous idea, given that we have a patent system, the most natural thing for me to do is patent it and try to profit from it. Perhaps it isn't the ideal thing to do, but I am pretty sure it is the most natural.
In the context you are using it, "natural" would mean "rational".
I mean "natural" as in "as it would be without artificial limitations", or "as it is in nature". Patent laws, like all human laws, are an artificial restriction that exists only due to mutual agreement by a bunch of humans living in a society.
Before laws like that existed, before law existed, if you told me something, I could tell anyone else, and so on. This is what I mean by "natural" -- the way something works unless you decide to limit yourself. The natural state of information is that it can be shared. You must go to great lengths, in fact, to prevent it from being shared.
Copyright laws do NOT lock up knowledge, they grant the creator specific rights to the expression of an idea in a fixed medium for a limited time, not brief, limited. Quit spreading FUD that knowledge is being locked up forever. It's bullshit and you know it (or you do now).
So, you don't think that there is knowledge contained in expression, beyond the idea expressed? I'd say there's a lot of knowledge locked up in the expression, otherwise the exercise of creating a specific expression of knowledge would be meaningless and we wouldn't have degree programs that teach one how to do it, and we wouldn't study the works of authors for the sole purpose of studying not the conveyed idea, but how it is expressed. Copyright law keeps me from sharing that expression, and thus from conveying the knowledge contained therein.
As far as it being locked up forever, as a practical matter it is. As long as copyright is extended every time the copyright on a certain existing work threatens to expire, then it is infinite.
Nah, fucking the most hot chicks is the foundation of human existence. That we have gotten to the point of arguing about how to handle sharing of abstract ideas is nothing short of astounding.
That's the foundation of every animal's existence (details of mating behaviors of every animal intentionally glossed over). It's the sharing of ideas that makes us different.
By the way, arguing about how to handle sharing of abstract ideas necessarily involves the sharing of abstract ideas, thus as part of the process revealing the most natural way to handle it.
If you believe that ideas are generated from individuals and that thinking and ideas are hard work, you should probably be opposed to the change.
Anyone who has ever had a truly original, individual thought uninspired by having learned of the thoughts of others, raise your hand.
Put your hand down, you liar.
Thinking is hard work, but the nature of human beings, our power, is that our thoughts are built up from the thoughts of others, and our thoughts will further inspire others to have new, but necessarily derivative, thought.
We know from developmental psychology that were it not for a massive influx of ideas received from others when we are young you would be physically incapable of anything approaching the kinds of thought we are discussing. Only by learning from others do the mental pathways that enable thought come into being. Thus every thought you have you owe to someone else.
Human beings learn, and communicate what we've learned, and others build on what is communicated to learn more, and so on. That's our power. That's why we rule the earth. Because we can share knowledge. Newton, perhaps one of the most qualified to claim original thought for himself, was wise enough to understand that he only had great thoughts because of the great thoughts of those before him. Then again, he was a genius.
Slashdot Mirror
And they'll do just that. If doing the ecologically sane, socially responsible, or ethical thing would cause 1% less profits, it's their legal _duty_ to _not_ do it.
That's an excessively literal reading of responsibility to shareholders, and frankly just isn't true. If it were true, then companies would get sued every time they donated money to a charity. It's ridiculous in principle, since it implies that any action which doesn't maximize profits is illegal, when what will maximize profits is only known post-facto.
The fact is that you can get sued by shareholders for being negligent in your duty to them, but not for having hypothetically lost 1% profits, especially if you can say that 1% profits bought you some good PR (which is all a company ever gets out of charitable donations).
Being "green" may cost more, but there are definite benefits. There are companies who have based their entire business plan around their green reputation -- look at all the 'environmentally friendly' products at Whole Foods or what not that aren't getting sued by shareholders. You could easily imagine a "green" construction company that differentiated themselves by building the most environmentally friendly buildings possible. Not hard to imagine since that kind of construction does already exist.
Yet it's true that industry in general will never buy into using a product that costs 30% more if the only benefit is that a bunch of people who aren't signing the checks get cleaner air. Your examples of past corporate irresponsibility are very telling. And the law may not be much help here; I don't see much in the way of political momentum to force everyone to switch to pollution-absorbing concrete at 30% greater cost, it's just too big a hit to a basic cost of growth. Maybe if the above-mentioned "green" builders take to it, and the premium goes down to less than 5%, then it might be feasible to require it. Assuming in the meantime we don't discover that locking up pollution in our building material isn't a bad idea...
But anyway, my main point is: Do not allow the mantra "shareholder responsibility" to make the CEOs of irresponsible companies seem like helpless victims of the law. They are required to seek a return on investment. They are not required to be amoral in the process. They're already amoral, and 'shareholder responsibility' is their excuse which they use without blinking because, well, they're amoral.
This doesn't sound right. If this assertion is correct, it implies that as an organism is developing, its evolution is not only based on its perception of the environment, but on the exact biological constitution of it. How can a tarantula, for example, "know" of the existence of such receptors in its predators?
I would imagine it works the other way around: predators developed a common sensory receptor to detect specific chemical threats, and trigger an immediate physical response in order to prevent further consumption.
I'd say it's probably both -- the predators developing a more or less generic sensor for various threats, and the spiders/plants developing toxins that triggor the recptors in the predators.
As to how the tarantula "knew" of the existence of the receptors, the answer is easy: tarantulas whose toxins did not target the pain receptors of predators did not have a deterrent effect and were eaten, tarantulas whose toxins did target the receptors discouraged predators and were eaten less.
Evolution never "knows" that a particular trait is going to be good or bad, it just happens and then it either works or it doesn't. Whether a particular trait works or not will, in many cases, depend on the exact biological constitution of the environment around the organism, and so you shouldn't be surprised at all.
Zelda 2 and Ultima 5 were released in the US the same year. Ultima 4 predates all Zelda games.
See, I said I needed to check on release dates. That pretty much settles it.
He said if you knew half of went what on, you'd keep your money buried in jars.
And to think people called me a fool...
Now if I could just remember where my jars are buried...
The same way we knew they were blind in the first place.
It's not that tough to judge whether an animal is blind or not. Just expose it to something you know mice would react to visually.
The second statement doesn't support the first. You may be right that there was a disparity in the composition of forces, but what about the conduct of the "hot war" made it "mediocre?"
The initial invasion was Rumsfeld's attempt to start a new war doctrine for U.S. forces, and thus leave his stamp on the military. He envisioned a lighter, faster U.S. force that could be deployed cheaper, a modern equivalent of Blitzkrieg. Apparently he forgot that much of the strength of the U.S. military came from logistics and having solid supply lines. As our forces raced up the highway towards Baghdad, they became too stretched out, our supply lines weakened, and the flanks started to come under attack by Iraqi forces. This forced us to stop and regroup and replace the strategy with a more conventional buildup and advance. Basically, the doctrine failed.
The disparity in forces was such that the victory in the conventional war was a guarantee, even with a foolhardy start to things we were easily able to pull it together. Of course, the fact that Rumsfeld was unable to see the flaw in his brilliant new doctrine and the fact that he was unable to see that the end of the "hot" war would only be the beginning are related. The man is incompetent at his job. Always had been, always will be. I would be a better defense secretary. A terrible secretary to be sure, but I'd at least be able to accept the advice of those better versed in war than myself. Rumsfeld thought ideology would trump reality, and he was wrong.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Please read the entire article, which includes links to documents showing that the U.S. intelligence new about Saddam using chemical weapons against "kurdish insurgents". The document in question was written in Nov. 1983. They had known about Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Iranians for longer. Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam in Dec. 1983.
Which is not to imply that Rumsfeld necessarily knew what Hussein doing, him being an envoy at the time not the Defense Secretary as he was yesterday. Our government did know, though, and sent Rumsfeld on his make-nice mission anyway. Never forget that -- when it was expedient, the government welcomed a genocidal maniac as an ally, and then turned on them when it was convenient. Try to remember when in twenty years you're hearing about the evils of Uzbekistan and the need for 'liberation'.
Sigh ... how is it than, despite this so called scientific objectivity, that the scientific community has so many long standing disputes? As well, how often is one "objective truth" supplanted by another "objective truth"?
First, "objective evidence", i.e. data, is NOT the same as "objective truth", particularly if I may infer that by "truth" you mean "theory". A theory is formulated to account for data. There can be multiple theories that explain the data, and further data is thus required to distinguish between them. This data is not always readily aquired, and thus you have long-standing disputes. When further data arrives, it may demonstrate that a previous theory was wrong and thus require a new one.
It is fairly infrequently that "objective evidence" is supplanted, except by a more accurate and precise measurement. Theories are supplanted all the time, to account for new data. Objectivity demands that if the data invalidates your theory, you find a new one.
It is only the dogmatic who never change theories even if new evidence contradicts them.
It would be the absence of what you describe -- disputes and new theories -- that would make science dogmatic.
In fact, history is littered with the dogmas of science.
Could you perhaps give an example?
I gave an example of bias, and how it interacts with what I'm talking about above. Michelson was strongly biased towards the Ether, as was the scientific community in general, but due to collecting objective evidence he and the scientific community had to conclude that there was another explanation. This is not dogma.
The truth is, we as humans have only a limited and subjective perspective. I'm afraid you simply presume too much, given that we hardly possess a complete understanding as to the nature of reality.
And yet we are able to make measurements that can be realiably repeated by anyone anywhere in the world regardless of their own subjectivity and biases. We are able to overcome our limitations in order to investigate the nature of reality. The extent to which we understand it is in large part due to this ability.
However, I suspect you will continue to believe that academia, science and yourself have a good grasp of the "truth".
I suspect that you don't understand the difference between the scientific method and "truth", one being a process and the other a dogmatic belief. I believe that academia, science, and myself have a good grasp of the former, and moreover I don't think you do.
Man, things are getting really weird when people on both sides of the aisle are starting to agree with Alex Jones.
Not really, because "the aisle" is just an illusion created by The Conspiracy!
Comparing the ps3 to a farrari doesn't make sense.
It does for illustrating the difference in "overpriced" as in "costs more than what you get (ignoring whether you need what you get)", and "costs more than what you can afford". Which is all I was doing.
in the console market, there are only 4 options (one being the pc). You simply can't take the farari approach to marketing, because the biggest sell point is the games available. To get a large library of games, you simply must have a huge install base.
Yep. You're dang right that Ferrari marketing/sales tactics won't work. With Sony's rather limited launch the install base issue would be there regardless of price (though obviously factors limiting launch supplies and price are related in this case). The high price will continue to limit demand after the supply issues are solved and make it into a long-term issue.
I doubt it will be so bad that the PS3 will be a paperweight. However there is really no way that a $600 console is going to enjoy the same dominance as the PS2 which debuted at half the price. My bet for this generation is a much more balanced market without a clear "winner" (except IBM) and two also-rans duking it out for second place. Whether this results in a healthy, vibrant market where each competitor seeks to define their own identity, or just every game being ported to three different consoles, I don't know.
Yes, you bring up the ether experiments as an example- but that wasn't exactly held as dogma by any of the scientists involved, now was it?
It was the prevailing belief at the time* and something both experimenters did believe in enough to continue experimenting on for years after their initial failure to find the ether. They were convinced that they just needed higher accuracy equipment, or that some effect was obscuring the effects of the ether which they could correct for. However, because they performed their experiments as correctly as they knew and because they did not falsify their results, they were unable to conclude that the ether exists, with every increase in precision simply reducing the maximum effect the ether could have were it to exist.
So it wasn't "dogma", but it was definitely a "bias". Which is my point: bias/no-bias is not a binary property. There is a whole scale of human bias that ranges from favoring one result but being willing to admit error, to dogmatic faith-based beliefs that will reject any evidence against them, even to the point of suppressing that evidence. There is a huge difference not just in degree of bias but in the practical effects of such, and arguing otherwise is to fail to see the incredibly important difference.
Try this one on for size: objective evidence is impossible for human beings to gather because of imperfections in the human nervous system that makes eyewitness accounts unreliable even when repeatable.
Nope, I disagree even more strongly than this. Obtaining objective evidence is very possible for human beings. We've done it to an amazing degree of precision for a wide variety of phenomenon. The reading of a scale is objective, as long as you understand how the scale works and what it is measuring and what its error is. Eye witness accounts are unreliable for reasons involving human memory (which is why you write experimental results down), and repeatability is the definition of realiable. It is true that humans are imperfect, and we can do things like write down the wrong number into the log, or set up the experiment wrong, or draw a faulty conclusion from the data. The possibility of these things occuring is not the same as it being impossible for them not to happen. So try this one on for size:
Objective evidence is possible for a human being to gather, however human error can be introduced at any point in the collection process and the likelyhood of such happening increases with the bias of the gatherer.
Now having said that- I believe global warming exists. I believe it's a dire problem. I'm not sure I believe mankind has that huge of an effect- but I also believe it doesn't matter what caused it, the real engineering problem is how to deal with it. And thus my answer- plant biomass.
The effect of humans on global warming I can't say, but I haven't heard a single decent argument against the current CO2 levels being caused by mankind, and I believe the evidence is clear that CO2 is part of a feedback cycle involved in warming. So we're contributing one way or another, and by impacting the feedback loop we may end up having a much larger effect than we think we are.
I like your answer, even though it is silly.
* Based on the at-the-time reasonable assumption that since every other kind of wave we knew about needed a medium to propagate through then so must light.
I find your signature to be incorrect. The first example that sprang to mind was the Michelson-Morley experiment, designed to prove whether the Luminiferous Ether existed as the medium through which light travelled. The experimentors were quite biased in favor of the ether's existence, and continued to experiment in order to find it. Despite running many experiments with many devices designed to eliminate sources of error that might hide the ether's existence, they never measured an effect larger than their experimental error, and were thus unable to conclude that the ether existed.
Everyone has a bias, but not everyone allows their bias to cloud their scientific judgement, or cause them to make false claims. Human beings are perfectly capable of admitting they are wrong, even if we all may be reluctant to do so to varying degrees.
I think this is an important point to make in an article about global warming, because many have decided that since all scientists are fallable and biased and their results thus possibly wrong, it is okay to pick whatever scientist you prefer as they are all equal.
Sales will be good, but profits will be poor until they can ramp up production.
I've known sales teams that didn't care one woof about profit, but I've never heard of one that thought in terms of percentage of units sold, rather than total number. Only the most retarded of salesman would think selling 100% of one unit was good sales, unless it was a nuclear reactor or an island or something. When your sales numbers are low because production levels are low, that's still poor sales.
I think you misinterpret the comic if you think it's saying that Mr. Kutarchini is correct when says he has the fastest selling toy ever.
Well, anything that completely failed to achieve any of its potential. The XBox was never going to be profitable. It existed to promote Microsoft as a player in the console market. The Jaguar did well at the start, but lost popularity when the playstation was around the corner. The N64 was by no means a failure. It was a profitable console for Nintendo. The neo-geo did okay even though it never hit the top spot. The 3D0 was a bit of a failure.
Just a bit?
It's starting to sound like your first question could be rephrased: "How often has any console been a total market failure?" with the answer "never".
Not terribly useful question then.
Overpriced? Nope, it's a better value than the XBox 360 when it comes to technology and cost of manufacturing.
Is a Ferrari overpriced? Depends on what you mean by "overpriced". Priced over what?
If you mean priced over the cost of materials, research, manufacturing, and a reasonable percentage of profit margin, then no.
If you mean priced over what most people buying a car -- even a sports car -- can afford, then hell yes it's overpriced.
The Ferrari is not overpriced one way, but is in another, and that second way very much limits the sales of Ferraris. Is the Ferrari "worth" every penny? Sure, but that doesn't matter at all if you don't have sufficient pennies.
I'm not sure what the logic is behind saying the price is not a legitimate negative for the console. A "legitimate negative" is any rational reason why I or anyone else would choose not to buy the console. You better believe price is such a reason. I sure hope Sony, behind closed doors, believes it.
But they changed the core game mechanics to turn based, which then remove the hard requirement for a stylus/point and click interface (it's still much better with it, but it's no longer life or death, unlike how an RTS absolutely needs mouse control), yet still obviously felt compelled to use it.
So you're saying that the developers of AoE for DS felt "compelled" to use the stylus for no reason other than it being "much better", not "life or death"?
Sounds like a pretty good reason to use it to me. Who wouldn't like a much better interface?
There's certainly instances of "it's there so we have to use it for something" in DS-land. Yet when you combine the new game types that only exist due to the stylus, then add in the games which don't absolutely require a stylus but which play much better with the stylus, then I think you're out of gimmick land.
I'm sure the passenger pigeons will be comforted by your unwavering faith in free markets.
Lack of faith in free markets is why the passenger pigeon went extinct! Tuna, take heed, and believe in the Invisible Hand!
It looks like this confirms the "full switch to right-handedness" of the game. With no option to swap for lefties (unless I missed that somewhere else in the article), that's going to steepen the learning curve for us southpaws.
The thing is, since the actual motion you perform doesn't translate into sword motion, it's just the same horizontal, vertical, thrust sword moves Link has had in previous games, I don't see why the switch to right-handedness was even needed.
Did it bother anyone that in Wind Waker you'd hit the button with your right hand and Link swung with his left? I don't see this as being all that different. If it was closer to actual swordplay I could see it mattering, but that isn't the case.
Copyright only prevents non originators from wanton sharing; you are free to loan a book or movie to a friend.
Well, it only prevents distribution, and passing around a single copy isn't distribution. So yeah, you can loan, and that's a good thing. Copyright law in the U.S. is actually a pretty reasonable tradeoff, at least before the Sony Bono Never Let Micky Free infinite extensions regime began, and until the DMCA criminalized things like loaning if the copyright holder didn't want you to. Roll back the changes to the original copyright terms, and roll back most of the DMCA provisions, and I think copyright law is pretty good.
Patent law's problems have as much to do with the USPO as the actual law, though I also think software patents should not be allowed on the basis that they are patents on math.
We are just another species of primate. Some of the stuff we do is pretty neat, but me eat banana.
No, we aren't just another species of primate. Sure, we're animals, but we are also the animal whose works can be seen from space, and who has been to space in order to see them. As a direct result of the sharing of ideas.
That was my point, how do we know that what we do is anything other than natural, in the comes-from-nature way.
Because it was working that way until we agreed to change it, and we have to actively maintain the state of non-sharability. This isn't about what we do, this is about the information. The natural state of information is that it is shareable. Only by agreeing not to share it, and by prosecuting those who don't abide by this artificial rule, do we change this natural state.
Intellectual property was originally designed to encourage sharing, not to restrict it. Perhaps because the default action was not to share, out of paranoia.
You might chose not to share. However if you do chose to share, then those you share with are also capable of making the choice to share or not share. The whole point of IP law is to prohibit what other's do with information after you have shared it with them.
The mechanism by which intellectually property is intended to encourage sharing is fine. My whole point is that we must see this as what it is: an artificial mechanism that inhibits information's natural state. Information-as-property should not be seen as the default, natural state of information, because it isn't. If we mutually agree to allow information to be owned, that's fine, but the fact is that it is an agreement, not a right.
OK, but the sharing ideas is more or less the foundation of culture, not the species. I'm pretty sure that humans could exist without culture, until they developed it anyway.
Without culture and accumulated knowledge, we'd be just another species of primate.
Natural is a pretty loaded word to be using. Natural in what context, etc. At the moment, if I have a momentous idea, given that we have a patent system, the most natural thing for me to do is patent it and try to profit from it. Perhaps it isn't the ideal thing to do, but I am pretty sure it is the most natural.
In the context you are using it, "natural" would mean "rational".
I mean "natural" as in "as it would be without artificial limitations", or "as it is in nature". Patent laws, like all human laws, are an artificial restriction that exists only due to mutual agreement by a bunch of humans living in a society.
Before laws like that existed, before law existed, if you told me something, I could tell anyone else, and so on. This is what I mean by "natural" -- the way something works unless you decide to limit yourself. The natural state of information is that it can be shared. You must go to great lengths, in fact, to prevent it from being shared.
Well on the one hand I agree with you, but on the other hand language is a shared idea, so causality is not so easily stated.
Copyright laws do NOT lock up knowledge, they grant the creator specific rights to the expression of an idea in a fixed medium for a limited time, not brief, limited. Quit spreading FUD that knowledge is being locked up forever. It's bullshit and you know it (or you do now).
So, you don't think that there is knowledge contained in expression, beyond the idea expressed? I'd say there's a lot of knowledge locked up in the expression, otherwise the exercise of creating a specific expression of knowledge would be meaningless and we wouldn't have degree programs that teach one how to do it, and we wouldn't study the works of authors for the sole purpose of studying not the conveyed idea, but how it is expressed. Copyright law keeps me from sharing that expression, and thus from conveying the knowledge contained therein.
As far as it being locked up forever, as a practical matter it is. As long as copyright is extended every time the copyright on a certain existing work threatens to expire, then it is infinite.
Nah, fucking the most hot chicks is the foundation of human existence. That we have gotten to the point of arguing about how to handle sharing of abstract ideas is nothing short of astounding.
That's the foundation of every animal's existence (details of mating behaviors of every animal intentionally glossed over). It's the sharing of ideas that makes us different.
By the way, arguing about how to handle sharing of abstract ideas necessarily involves the sharing of abstract ideas, thus as part of the process revealing the most natural way to handle it.
If you believe that ideas are generated from individuals and that thinking and ideas are hard work, you should probably be opposed to the change.
Anyone who has ever had a truly original, individual thought uninspired by having learned of the thoughts of others, raise your hand.
Put your hand down, you liar.
Thinking is hard work, but the nature of human beings, our power, is that our thoughts are built up from the thoughts of others, and our thoughts will further inspire others to have new, but necessarily derivative, thought.
We know from developmental psychology that were it not for a massive influx of ideas received from others when we are young you would be physically incapable of anything approaching the kinds of thought we are discussing. Only by learning from others do the mental pathways that enable thought come into being. Thus every thought you have you owe to someone else.
Human beings learn, and communicate what we've learned, and others build on what is communicated to learn more, and so on. That's our power. That's why we rule the earth. Because we can share knowledge. Newton, perhaps one of the most qualified to claim original thought for himself, was wise enough to understand that he only had great thoughts because of the great thoughts of those before him. Then again, he was a genius.