WotC or Tops dont have any power over the cards once they are sold
Not quite. They can cheaply publish an unbounded quanity of new copies of established cards, reducing the market value of old collections.
That's not much of a possibility with Topps, where later cards would at least have a newer date as a stamp of "inauthenticity"- but if the items are valued for gameplay effects, then WotC running off new Black Lotuses could erode someone's existing investments.
(Actually, the time they banned Black Lotus from tournaments corresponds to Blizzard nerfing a powerful item. Both actions improved game balace, at the expense of players who depended on that power)
This is a playerplayer issue, not a playerGM issue.
Your analogy is not much better. Player-player in a tabletop game is totally different from an MMORPG, because there's a hard limit to maybe 4-6 other players. If 1-2 of those players are intentionally spoiling your fun, then you don't continue to play with them: either the GM disinvites the offenders, or you simply move on to a better group.
In MMORPGs you don't have the choice. Each WoW server has 1000s of accounts, so you can't discriminate about who you play with. There will be spoilers on every server.
And, creating a game environment where play objects are directly comprable to real-world money will certainly spoil the fun for a big percentage of players. What happens to children and non-rich players when mega-heal potions level off at $0.8 each? An even playing field is replaced with resentful disparity. You can't group with wealthier players, because they out-level you simply by out-spending.
Blizzard absolutely might want to sue some players. Suppose somebody reverse engineers the WoW protocol and writes their own server software, then sells subscriptions competing with Bliz?
By USA law, that's legal- even the DMCA allows an exception for the purposes of compatibility. But Blizzard obviously will want to prevent this, so they will use the force of an EULA to sue someone for heavy damages. Sometimes corporations want much more than simply terminating your account!
(Of course, it should be noted that MMORPG agreements are much stronger than simple EULAs, and have an entirely different legal foundation)
Re:Hi I use IRC legitimately for business purposes
on
Is IRC All Bad?
·
· Score: 1
On friday/saturday nights I run a karaoke show where I stream video live over the internet
Roughly how big are your annual checks to BMI and ASCAP? If you answer zero, or if you don't know what I'm talking about, then your usage is not legal.
Hey kids! Try the exciting Ratecalc(tm) to find out how much your free, amateur streaming service owes to Music, Inc. And don't forget the best part: even if you only play selections from the Vienna Philharmonic, the bulk of your payment goes to Eminem, Linkin Park, and Ludacris!
You don't have any data. Your position makes about as much sense as assuming you're bulletproof because you've never been killed by gunfire. (Or more seriously, like those people who won't believe global warming is possible until it's already happened...)
Aha, so when there are 1,000 companies selling entirely amongst each other, they would of course shut down immediately.
Wow, you don't even know the theoretical advantages of capitalism. Start with "competition", and think about why Coke + Pepsi is better than Coke alone, even though they sell the same product.
Sure it is, but as I said before - an economic base of poor scientists is as useless as an economic base of poor janitors.
If you can't even figure out how wrong that is on your own, then there's no point to my trying to educate you. (Hint: scientists are ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY, janitors are MAINTAINING TOILETS. One of those jobs contributes slightly more to world PROGRESS)
Which explains why CD sales and movie revenues are down...oh, wait....
That's another invalid argument: even if it holds true today, it won't continue forever, and that's what matters. Two factors against it:
1) A DVD can contain data equivalent to 4+ gigabytes. Few of today's users can download that much in a convenient time- but as time goes by, network speeds will rise and rise, until downloading a movie will be quicker than driving to the local Blockbuster.
2) Anti-file-sharing enforcement is effective and ongoing. Last month, supernova.org was shut down, just the latest in a series of closures going back to Napster. And the stories of lawsuits pressed against occasional users creates a chilling effect over millions of other potential traders. If not for these threats, there probably would be enough file sharing freeloaders to actually hurt the publisher's revenues.
If you are like me and believe that sites which simply trade hashes of illegal files should not themselves be illegal,
Lokitorrent does far more than just exchange hashes. It's primary purpose is to distribute the ip addresses of trackers for the desired files, and also to run some trackers itself. Bittorrent could be made to basically work without hashes, but not without addresses.
I've had fun with this before, myself having the haste rune + a friend using the GL also...but i never heard anyone say it was unbalanced.
There was no haste rune in Quake, so you must mean threewave CTF. But the GL was unbalanced in certain situations in original Quake, because it could make a narrow passage completely impassable due to bouncing indirect shots. (Most DM maps were circular and had multiple entrances to each room, so that's not a problem).
Only if the other player is injured already (or you had quad or a rune).
No. A direct hit from the original Quake rocket launcher did 120 damage, out of a basic 100 health. They are unfailingly lethal unless the target has picked up armor or super health.
It would seem that some innovative cinematography would have to come into play here; it would take a truly talented team of artists to accomplish this.
No special innovation is needed, as PKD laid out the visual clues to the different personalities quite explicitly. The criminal persona looks like a normal person, while the "real" police officer is covered by an audio-visual distortion field.
This brings up an important aspect of the book that you didn't mention: for most of the story, the reader was unaware of exactly which druggie was actually the undercover cop. And, as things develop, the cop eventually forgets this himself...
You don't think separate entities with common goals and interests should be allowed to pool their resources and remove inefficiencies in simultaneously advocating said goals and interests? Darn, I guess now we have to disband the FSF, EFF, etc.
You deliberately use "entities" to obfuscate the difference between humans and corporations.
The membership of the BSA and RIAA are corporations, while the FSF and EFF are composed of humans. Which of those deserve more protection? Corporations, by principle, should only continue to exist at the pleasure of the public.
AC: Okay, run a descent package management system like Portage then
Package management is completely irrelevant to the capabilities (or lack thereof) in the distribution's default kernel. How exactly would portage fix a shortcoming in network driver support if it can't access the network to download source code?
The US auto industry increased efficiency to deal with competition and eradicated the concept of the American auto industry factory worker who is well paid and can afford to buy a new American car every 3 years.
Democracy eradicated the concept of the English crown prince who was well paid and can afford to buy a new country estate every 3 years.
to uneducated and unskilled workers in other sectors, most of which paid considerably less generously.
The net effect for humanity was positive. The living standards for USA car builders fell by less than that of Japanese ones rose.
Is it better to sell an inefficiently produced product to an eager market or to sell an efficiently produced product to a market less capable of making the purchase?
I've already answered that twice, so do you really need to read it again?
Being more efficient is always better. If the factory is more efficient, then the owner can simply mail the underemployed workers generous gifts covering the salary they've lost.
True, in that case, the capitalist is unlikely to feel so generous as to give out money for no reason... but that's exactly what you're advocating with continued inefficiency. In my choice, however, the descion to give out free money to create customers has been decoupled so she can rationally weigh the benefits. And one you can look at it distinctly, giving someone $100 to create they possibility that he'll pay you some fraction of it back is a fool's errand.
I'm not advocating deliberate inefficiency,
If not, then what are you trying to say?
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency by replacing labor with automated machinery has got to be the route closest to outright self destruction.
No it isn't. The idea that your own employees may be your own important customers just doesn't hold up. If a company sold 100% to its own employees (or similarly, if 2 companies sold only to each other), then it would of course shut down immediately. The closer a company is to that (absurd) extreme, the more useless it is as a whole.
If a firm actually goes bankrupt because it lost it's own employees' patronage, then the world is better off without it.
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency by replacing labor with automated machinery
Even if your thesis was correct, that wouldn't be true. "Replacing labor with machinery" is only one of many ways to increase efficiency, and it's one with high outlay and maintenance costs, which go into the pockets of other potential customers. By your theory, less expensive improvements ("work smarter!") which also boost productivity would be even more damaging.
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency
Given that a company exists in a mature market, efficieny is virtually the ONLY way to raise profit. Increasing total sales of the profit category is basically impossible (as anyone who wants them is already buying), and while it's possible to boost your proportion of marketshare with canny marketing, that too is an overall negative to the world at large. Lesser costs is really the only path forward.
(Note that cost savings can either be held as profits, or passed to the customer as reduced prices, which could concievibly boost profit if enough new patrons can now afford to buy. Again, efficiency lets the capitalist make that choice explicitly)
I don't think you understand what security through obscurity is,
Ah, an early contentder for the 2005 Twirp-Pudge Award for auto-crimination.
"Security through obscurity" means that you survive because nobody's attacking you. Keeping closed source is one way to temporarily stave off attacks (only functioning until someone gets the motivation to reverse engineer), but having a low user base is another.
I can have the buggiest, hole-ridden code imaginable, published under the GPL, and as long as only 2 or 3 people use it on the entire internet, it's safe. Popularity will destroy that obscurity more effectively than open source ever would (although it's also a factor, but at a ar lesser scale)
that linux has a better security record only because it has a smaller user base than microsoft windows.
A huge proportion of Window's effective flaws- the ones that are actually exploited to in rapid, worldwide blowouts- are mostly due to inept users clicking on things that should obviously be suspect. What we often call "Windows vulnerabilities" are usually not actually in Windows (the OS), but applications hosted on Windows. The motivation for stupid people to run bad applications won't go away if they move to Linux.
By virtue of being non-default, Linux is only used by users who've already crossed a high threshold of attentiveness and involvement (or who are under the care of a pro-active administrator). Popularity will take all that away.
I've seen flaws in Linux mailreaders just as bad as anything in Microsoft Outlook, yet there were no devastating epidemics- and the reason really was smaller target population.
What does the broken window fallacy have to say about the American defense industry and wars of convenience?
Oh, it's true that nonessential wars can boost the economy just like fixing windows, building pyramids, or rolling highways... but it must be remembered that improving economic metrics is not always a good thing.
"Economics" is defined as the study of the application of finite resources to infinite desires, but virtually all practicing economists ignore that overall meaning in their work, instead focusing on details that are only locally beneficial. "Growth" in particular is quite often a bad thing, especially for the human ecology, as it correlates to the speed with which irreplacable resources are depleted.
paying over $20 an hour to almost every assembly plant worker, and those workers were buying US made automobiles
Correlation isn't causation. To imagine that feedback cycle has any significant effect is akin to a belief in perpetual motion. The error should be intuitive, so I have trouble describing it concisely...
Barely completing high school is reason for celebration to a great many people, now you expect them to be scientists, educators, or maintain order?
If you're accusing those people of being simpletons who can only ape procedures they've been carefully taught, then don't be surprised when corporations decide to replace them with machines.
The number scale but poor is still poor, lack of health care in 2005 is the same as a lack of health care in 1705, and all the trappings of poverty seem to persist despite the latest trend in revolution.
How can one be so ignorant as to actually believe that? Even the very poorest in the USA can live to 60 bouncing around shelters, when in 1700 they'd die before 30. And the percentage of the population that is truely poor (instead of "I can't afford a 2nd car" lower-class) has sunk dramatically.
Honestly, the food (fresh fruit and meat year round), housing (including heat and AC!), medical care, and luxury entertainment experienced by even a poor $25k/year earner in the USA far surpass what the King of England enjoyed in 1600. They have fewer household servants, but modern poor beat ancient royalty in every other category. Elevating the rest of the world to the status of USA povery would be a worthy achievement.
A world where there are no jobs for everyone isn't necessarily a bad thing,
Get off it. It's been done before. The people were called peasants or serfs or comrades.
Ok, that makes zero sense. The whole point of peasants and serfs is they have ALL the important jobs. In a feudal society, you have 50% serf, 40% peasant, 5% tradesman (smiths, carpenters...) and 5% idle parasite (nobles and the rich merchants who serve them).
Serfs, by definition, have lots of work an substandard living. You totally misunderstand the parent poster: on the horizon is coming a time when the majority of humans will be USELESS. Within 200 years or so, only exceptional people will be smart enough to do a job that couldn't be better handled by a robot or computer. (that's assuming we continue to improve technology, and don't kill ourselves in the meantime). The question of what do to with everyone else will someday be important.
Any comparison between the hyperautomated world of the future and past slave-based economies is ludicrous.
you stand to lose roughly 130 households of potential customers... per factory. Brilliant!
That common refrain is similar to the broken window fallacy, and of course is the philosophical justifaction for sabotage. Although even some major industrialists have said otherwise, it is not overall sensible to give people money (employ them) in the hope that they give some of it back (be customers).
That's like operating a boat by installing an electric fan on the deck, aimed at the sail: the needless extra step just reduces overall efficiency.
If a factory owner has a generous soul and wants to do something good for the larger economy, then he should automate production, fire the 130, and rehire them as something totally different, like scientists, schoolteachers, or policemen.
MS's marketing has about as much dazzle as Bill Gates' personality.
You are conflating "advertising" with the much broader term "marketing", which includes many more aspects of making a sale. For example, exclusive OEM bundle agreements are one aspect of aggressive marketing.
For high-budget corporate customers, an impression of "dazzlement" can be a negative, as it signals a product meant for artists and radicals.
: you go ahead and try to whip up a "quick perl script" to spread like wildfire through the linux systems on the net, and report back on your success, OK mr anonymous coward?
The reason that's not possible TODAY is security through obscurity, which isn't something you should be proud to rely upon. The only thing you can prove through that line of argument is that Linux has no significant desktop marketshare.
In a future where Linux desktops dominate, it's entirely possible that an email client exactly as insecure as the current Microsoft Outlook will also become widely used.
Furthermore, Disney probably wouldn't have any comment on the GBA version of Monsters, Inc. because THQ created it.
Wrong. Disney, like most serious character-franchise corporations, is highly involved in approving the details of anything they authorize.
Disney would, at minimum, respond with a boilerplate promise to "Investigate very seriously every allegation of misconduct by our licensees". That's just part of "protecting the brand"!
Disney probably wouldn't have any comment on the GBA version of Monsters, Inc.
Disney might plausibly have no comment because they didn't create Monsters, Inc either- that was all Pixar. But, I don't know if Disney bought the copyright or not.
Words like Nigger... are clearly meant to be hurtful.
Absolutely untrue. Television can provide you with multiple examples of positive connotation. (Also, capitalizing non-proper nouns is an error).
Just as it is rude to show the soles of your feet to people in many middle eastern countries or for a woman to touch a man that she is not married to among strict orthodox Jews,
Grouping your position alongside a few religious wack-jobs doesn't win you any points.
To use it show a lack of cultural sensitivity and to not understand why it is offensive is just dumb.
That's an example of a circular argument: "Because the word is bad, people would be upset to hear it, so using it would make you bad".
Sorry, but that kind of reasoning tells us NOTHING.
Slashdot Mirror
WotC or Tops dont have any power over the cards once they are sold
Not quite. They can cheaply publish an unbounded quanity of new copies of established cards, reducing the market value of old collections.
That's not much of a possibility with Topps, where later cards would at least have a newer date as a stamp of "inauthenticity"- but if the items are valued for gameplay effects, then WotC running off new Black Lotuses could erode someone's existing investments.
(Actually, the time they banned Black Lotus from tournaments corresponds to Blizzard nerfing a powerful item. Both actions improved game balace, at the expense of players who depended on that power)
This is a playerplayer issue, not a playerGM issue.
Your analogy is not much better. Player-player in a tabletop game is totally different from an MMORPG, because there's a hard limit to maybe 4-6 other players. If 1-2 of those players are intentionally spoiling your fun, then you don't continue to play with them: either the GM disinvites the offenders, or you simply move on to a better group.
In MMORPGs you don't have the choice. Each WoW server has 1000s of accounts, so you can't discriminate about who you play with. There will be spoilers on every server.
And, creating a game environment where play objects are directly comprable to real-world money will certainly spoil the fun for a big percentage of players. What happens to children and non-rich players when mega-heal potions level off at $0.8 each? An even playing field is replaced with resentful disparity. You can't group with wealthier players, because they out-level you simply by out-spending.
Blizzard won't have to sue anyone.
Blizzard absolutely might want to sue some players. Suppose somebody reverse engineers the WoW protocol and writes their own server software, then sells subscriptions competing with Bliz?
By USA law, that's legal- even the DMCA allows an exception for the purposes of compatibility. But Blizzard obviously will want to prevent this, so they will use the force of an EULA to sue someone for heavy damages. Sometimes corporations want much more than simply terminating your account!
(Of course, it should be noted that MMORPG agreements are much stronger than simple EULAs, and have an entirely different legal foundation)
On friday/saturday nights I run a karaoke show where I stream video live over the internet
Roughly how big are your annual checks to BMI and ASCAP? If you answer zero, or if you don't know what I'm talking about, then your usage is not legal.
Hey kids! Try the exciting Ratecalc(tm) to find out how much your free, amateur streaming service owes to Music, Inc. And don't forget the best part: even if you only play selections from the Vienna Philharmonic, the bulk of your payment goes to Eminem, Linkin Park, and Ludacris!
Think I'll stick with the data.
You don't have any data. Your position makes about as much sense as assuming you're bulletproof because you've never been killed by gunfire. (Or more seriously, like those people who won't believe global warming is possible until it's already happened...)
Aha, so when there are 1,000 companies selling entirely amongst each other, they would of course shut down immediately.
Wow, you don't even know the theoretical advantages of capitalism. Start with "competition", and think about why Coke + Pepsi is better than Coke alone, even though they sell the same product.
Sure it is, but as I said before - an economic base of poor scientists is as useless as an economic base of poor janitors.
If you can't even figure out how wrong that is on your own, then there's no point to my trying to educate you. (Hint: scientists are ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY, janitors are MAINTAINING TOILETS. One of those jobs contributes slightly more to world PROGRESS)
Which explains why CD sales and movie revenues are down...oh, wait....
That's another invalid argument: even if it holds true today, it won't continue forever, and that's what matters. Two factors against it:
1) A DVD can contain data equivalent to 4+ gigabytes. Few of today's users can download that much in a convenient time- but as time goes by, network speeds will rise and rise, until downloading a movie will be quicker than driving to the local Blockbuster.
2) Anti-file-sharing enforcement is effective and ongoing. Last month, supernova.org was shut down, just the latest in a series of closures going back to Napster. And the stories of lawsuits pressed against occasional users creates a chilling effect over millions of other potential traders. If not for these threats, there probably would be enough file sharing freeloaders to actually hurt the publisher's revenues.
If you are like me and believe that sites which simply trade hashes of illegal files should not themselves be illegal,
Lokitorrent does far more than just exchange hashes. It's primary purpose is to distribute the ip addresses of trackers for the desired files, and also to run some trackers itself. Bittorrent could be made to basically work without hashes, but not without addresses.
I've had fun with this before, myself having the haste rune + a friend using the GL also...but i never heard anyone say it was unbalanced.
There was no haste rune in Quake, so you must mean threewave CTF. But the GL was unbalanced in certain situations in original Quake, because it could make a narrow passage completely impassable due to bouncing indirect shots. (Most DM maps were circular and had multiple entrances to each room, so that's not a problem).
Only if the other player is injured already (or you had quad or a rune).
No. A direct hit from the original Quake rocket launcher did 120 damage, out of a basic 100 health. They are unfailingly lethal unless the target has picked up armor or super health.
The game engine for Doom 3 is Free Software?
Per their traditional schedule, idsoftware will release Doom3 under GPL in 2009. That's more that 20x faster than copyright expiration.
It would seem that some innovative cinematography would have to come into play here; it would take a truly talented team of artists to accomplish this.
No special innovation is needed, as PKD laid out the visual clues to the different personalities quite explicitly. The criminal persona looks like a normal person, while the "real" police officer is covered by an audio-visual distortion field.
This brings up an important aspect of the book that you didn't mention: for most of the story, the reader was unaware of exactly which druggie was actually the undercover cop. And, as things develop, the cop eventually forgets this himself...
You don't think separate entities with common goals and interests should be allowed to pool their resources and remove inefficiencies in simultaneously advocating said goals and interests? Darn, I guess now we have to disband the FSF, EFF, etc.
You deliberately use "entities" to obfuscate the difference between humans and corporations.
The membership of the BSA and RIAA are corporations, while the FSF and EFF are composed of humans. Which of those deserve more protection? Corporations, by principle, should only continue to exist at the pleasure of the public.
AC: Okay, run a descent package management system like Portage then
Package management is completely irrelevant to the capabilities (or lack thereof) in the distribution's default kernel. How exactly would portage fix a shortcoming in network driver support if it can't access the network to download source code?
The US auto industry increased efficiency to deal with competition and eradicated the concept of the American auto industry factory worker who is well paid and can afford to buy a new American car every 3 years.
Democracy eradicated the concept of the English crown prince who was well paid and can afford to buy a new country estate every 3 years.
to uneducated and unskilled workers in other sectors, most of which paid considerably less generously.
The net effect for humanity was positive. The living standards for USA car builders fell by less than that of Japanese ones rose.
Is it better to sell an inefficiently produced product to an eager market or to sell an efficiently produced product to a market less capable of making the purchase?
I've already answered that twice, so do you really need to read it again?
Being more efficient is always better. If the factory is more efficient, then the owner can simply mail the underemployed workers generous gifts covering the salary they've lost.
True, in that case, the capitalist is unlikely to feel so generous as to give out money for no reason... but that's exactly what you're advocating with continued inefficiency. In my choice, however, the descion to give out free money to create customers has been decoupled so she can rationally weigh the benefits. And one you can look at it distinctly, giving someone $100 to create they possibility that he'll pay you some fraction of it back is a fool's errand.
I'm not advocating deliberate inefficiency,
If not, then what are you trying to say?
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency by replacing labor with automated machinery has got to be the route closest to outright self destruction.
No it isn't. The idea that your own employees may be your own important customers just doesn't hold up. If a company sold 100% to its own employees (or similarly, if 2 companies sold only to each other), then it would of course shut down immediately. The closer a company is to that (absurd) extreme, the more useless it is as a whole.
If a firm actually goes bankrupt because it lost it's own employees' patronage, then the world is better off without it.
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency by replacing labor with automated machinery
Even if your thesis was correct, that wouldn't be true. "Replacing labor with machinery" is only one of many ways to increase efficiency, and it's one with high outlay and maintenance costs, which go into the pockets of other potential customers. By your theory, less expensive improvements ("work smarter!") which also boost productivity would be even more damaging.
of all the conceivable ways to raise profits, increasing efficiency
Given that a company exists in a mature market, efficieny is virtually the ONLY way to raise profit. Increasing total sales of the profit category is basically impossible (as anyone who wants them is already buying), and while it's possible to boost your proportion of marketshare with canny marketing, that too is an overall negative to the world at large. Lesser costs is really the only path forward.
(Note that cost savings can either be held as profits, or passed to the customer as reduced prices, which could concievibly boost profit if enough new patrons can now afford to buy. Again, efficiency lets the capitalist make that choice explicitly)
I don't think you understand what security through obscurity is,
Ah, an early contentder for the 2005 Twirp-Pudge Award for auto-crimination.
"Security through obscurity" means that you survive because nobody's attacking you. Keeping closed source is one way to temporarily stave off attacks (only functioning until someone gets the motivation to reverse engineer), but having a low user base is another.
I can have the buggiest, hole-ridden code imaginable, published under the GPL, and as long as only 2 or 3 people use it on the entire internet, it's safe. Popularity will destroy that obscurity more effectively than open source ever would (although it's also a factor, but at a ar lesser scale)
that linux has a better security record only because it has a smaller user base than microsoft windows.
A huge proportion of Window's effective flaws- the ones that are actually exploited to in rapid, worldwide blowouts- are mostly due to inept users clicking on things that should obviously be suspect. What we often call "Windows vulnerabilities" are usually not actually in Windows (the OS), but applications hosted on Windows. The motivation for stupid people to run bad applications won't go away if they move to Linux.
By virtue of being non-default, Linux is only used by users who've already crossed a high threshold of attentiveness and involvement (or who are under the care of a pro-active administrator). Popularity will take all that away.
I've seen flaws in Linux mailreaders just as bad as anything in Microsoft Outlook, yet there were no devastating epidemics- and the reason really was smaller target population.
What does the broken window fallacy have to say about the American defense industry and wars of convenience?
Oh, it's true that nonessential wars can boost the economy just like fixing windows, building pyramids, or rolling highways... but it must be remembered that improving economic metrics is not always a good thing.
"Economics" is defined as the study of the application of finite resources to infinite desires, but virtually all practicing economists ignore that overall meaning in their work, instead focusing on details that are only locally beneficial. "Growth" in particular is quite often a bad thing, especially for the human ecology, as it correlates to the speed with which irreplacable resources are depleted.
paying over $20 an hour to almost every assembly plant worker, and those workers were buying US made automobiles
Correlation isn't causation. To imagine that feedback cycle has any significant effect is akin to a belief in perpetual motion. The error should be intuitive, so I have trouble describing it concisely...
Barely completing high school is reason for celebration to a great many people, now you expect them to be scientists, educators, or maintain order?
If you're accusing those people of being simpletons who can only ape procedures they've been carefully taught, then don't be surprised when corporations decide to replace them with machines.
The number scale but poor is still poor, lack of health care in 2005 is the same as a lack of health care in 1705, and all the trappings of poverty seem to persist despite the latest trend in revolution.
How can one be so ignorant as to actually believe that? Even the very poorest in the USA can live to 60 bouncing around shelters, when in 1700 they'd die before 30. And the percentage of the population that is truely poor (instead of "I can't afford a 2nd car" lower-class) has sunk dramatically.
Honestly, the food (fresh fruit and meat year round), housing (including heat and AC!), medical care, and luxury entertainment experienced by even a poor $25k/year earner in the USA far surpass what the King of England enjoyed in 1600. They have fewer household servants, but modern poor beat ancient royalty in every other category. Elevating the rest of the world to the status of USA povery would be a worthy achievement.
- A world where there are no jobs for everyone isn't necessarily a bad thing,
Get off it. It's been done before. The people were called peasants or serfs or comrades.Ok, that makes zero sense. The whole point of peasants and serfs is they have ALL the important jobs. In a feudal society, you have 50% serf, 40% peasant, 5% tradesman (smiths, carpenters...) and 5% idle parasite (nobles and the rich merchants who serve them).
Serfs, by definition, have lots of work an substandard living. You totally misunderstand the parent poster: on the horizon is coming a time when the majority of humans will be USELESS. Within 200 years or so, only exceptional people will be smart enough to do a job that couldn't be better handled by a robot or computer. (that's assuming we continue to improve technology, and don't kill ourselves in the meantime). The question of what do to with everyone else will someday be important.
Any comparison between the hyperautomated world of the future and past slave-based economies is ludicrous.
North American cars have felt like they're under-engineered and playing catch-up to Japanese cars for quite some time now.
Good of you to notice- that happened in 1972!
you stand to lose roughly 130 households of potential customers... per factory. Brilliant!
That common refrain is similar to the broken window fallacy, and of course is the philosophical justifaction for sabotage. Although even some major industrialists have said otherwise, it is not overall sensible to give people money (employ them) in the hope that they give some of it back (be customers).
That's like operating a boat by installing an electric fan on the deck, aimed at the sail: the needless extra step just reduces overall efficiency.
If a factory owner has a generous soul and wants to do something good for the larger economy, then he should automate production, fire the 130, and rehire them as something totally different, like scientists, schoolteachers, or policemen.
MS's marketing has about as much dazzle as Bill Gates' personality.
You are conflating "advertising" with the much broader term "marketing", which includes many more aspects of making a sale. For example, exclusive OEM bundle agreements are one aspect of aggressive marketing.
For high-budget corporate customers, an impression of "dazzlement" can be a negative, as it signals a product meant for artists and radicals.
: you go ahead and try to whip up a "quick perl script" to spread like wildfire through the linux systems on the net, and report back on your success, OK mr anonymous coward?
The reason that's not possible TODAY is security through obscurity, which isn't something you should be proud to rely upon. The only thing you can prove through that line of argument is that Linux has no significant desktop marketshare.
In a future where Linux desktops dominate, it's entirely possible that an email client exactly as insecure as the current Microsoft Outlook will also become widely used.
(unless you need something special of course)
Where "something special" includes such oddities as support for 10-year-old PCI Ethernet cards...
Furthermore, Disney probably wouldn't have any comment on the GBA version of Monsters, Inc. because THQ created it.
Wrong. Disney, like most serious character-franchise corporations, is highly involved in approving the details of anything they authorize.
Disney would, at minimum, respond with a boilerplate promise to "Investigate very seriously every allegation of misconduct by our licensees". That's just part of "protecting the brand"!
Disney probably wouldn't have any comment on the GBA version of Monsters, Inc.
Disney might plausibly have no comment because they didn't create Monsters, Inc either- that was all Pixar. But, I don't know if Disney bought the copyright or not.
Words like Nigger ... are clearly meant to be hurtful.
Absolutely untrue. Television can provide you with multiple examples of positive connotation. (Also, capitalizing non-proper nouns is an error).
Just as it is rude to show the soles of your feet to people in many middle eastern countries or for a woman to touch a man that she is not married to among strict orthodox Jews,
Grouping your position alongside a few religious wack-jobs doesn't win you any points.
To use it show a lack of cultural sensitivity and to not understand why it is offensive is just dumb.
That's an example of a circular argument: "Because the word is bad, people would be upset to hear it, so using it would make you bad".
Sorry, but that kind of reasoning tells us NOTHING.