The article talks about the possibility of monitoring large transfers of currency between players. Why not just eliminate currency transfers? It would have the additional benefit of eliminating all the begging in cities.
No doubt the farmers would find a way around this, like setting up auctions where they bid enormous amounts for commonplace items...but then something like that would be easy to spot.
There's another way to discourage this, by taking a tip from The Untouchables. When they couldn't get Capone for his blatant crimes, they resorted to nabbing him for income tax evasion. I would guess that a good percentage of these top farmers aren't paying taxes on their eBay incomes. Call the IRS and sic 'em, boys!
I'm glad that SOE is taking great pains to appeal to the female gamers it counts among its customers. A contest tie-in with that fountainhead of female sensibility, Stuff, is sure to expose EQ to even more progressively-minded women.
You can't attack, for example, DS9 on the same grounds as ST:TOS.
The only conclusion I can reach is that OSC is speaking out of bitterness...maybe he has been burned one too many times by television or something. Really, his article is simply a statement of his inability to understand why TOS became such a cult hit and inspired such extreme fan loyalty. I've read better assessments of ST shortcomings on fan sites.
And then he really goes overboard by calling Being John Malcovich one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. He's trolling, of course, just dying for you to write in and say Hey, that's not science fiction!. Sure, Being was a fun ride, but a little too clever for its own pants, and certainly one of the most overrated films of all time.
I never read the first biography the guy wrote, which the CNN/Money article link notes ended negatively; I imagine if someone did the same thing about me, I would savor the chance to get back at them.
More relevant, though, is the dubious realm of unauthorized-while-they're-still-alive biography. I feel it belongs to the age of cheap celebrity. I'm not interested in Ashton Kuchar's remarkable life, thank you very much. Let's give people a chance to die before we start worshipping them.
Disclosure statement: I hate SOE for making Mac players eat the leftover crumbs off a very cold plate. That being said...
The statement I find most damning by SOE's Smedley is this one:
It is clear to us that we have many loyal and honest players who simply don't have the time to take multiple characters through the game's higher levels of play and want a sanctioned, secure means to broaden their play experience.
Look, if you made those levels and the time spent attaining them worthwhile, instead of just grinding, then "loyal and honest" players would want to experience them.
In my mind, the IGE-type solution sucks because
It encourages farmers, and a true farmer is not someone experiencing game for the entertainment value that most players are. That creates imbalances in the game universe.
It betrays a deficiency in gameplay. It creates the equation paying for weapon X is more desirable then spending Y amount of time attaining it. This is because, in the case of SOE, you're more than likely required to grind to obtain weapon X, senseless and boring.
Make the game only a game. Don't allow people to buy their way through it.
Either improve gameplay or accept that some people are not going to be willing to expend hundreds of hours in mindless grinding. I think the real problem is that SOE is not willing to lose customers who aren't happy with gameplay, and they think that by allowing said customers to buy content, they'll keep them in the fold.
Agreed; with bluetooth and iSync I don't need any other third-party, breakable synch applications.
Internet synching is pretty much useless to me, as the only time I need to synch is when I make changes on my home computer; by definition, that means I'm at the computer and bluetooth is convenient to use.
I suppose if you primarily used internet-based scheduling and address books you might feel differently.
Both of you (the reasonable one and the unreasonable one) are ignoring one more reason why it doesn't make sense to include ~4 CD's along with every DVD:
it's a waste of resources.
Most people don't need the CD's, so why waste the disks? I'm sure this isn't why Apple is doing it--it IS a financial decision--but I'm happy about it anyway.
As someone who knows a little about China, has lived there for a bit, speaks Chinese etc etc I get really fed up with the ignorant bashing. It's SO uninformed, SO missing the point and SO carbon-copied from a few sources and spoon-fed to the American masses.
But the most frustrating thing is that, having experience with China, I know that in fact there is a LOT to criticize...it's a seriously WACKED country and political system and the pent-up rage of the people is scary--witness the Japanese in China now hiding under rocks because of those revisionist history texts.
So the dilemma I find myself in is this: is it really worth it to argue with a bunch of uninformed Americans about what is wrong with China only to then let them know what I think is wrong with China? "No, that's not why China sucks, this is why China sucks!"
Writing for soap operas is a fairly unique proposition as it is a very limited form. You have to have an ever-changing array of relationships and situations within a rarely-changing group of people.
And you have to do it five days a week.
When soaps are written well, their dedicated audiences listen to every word; moreover, they talk back to the television.
...when you could fire workers for getting injured on the job, open discharge pipes directly into rivers and implement a system of nuclear power plants without getting a viable plan in place and approved for waste disposal.
Seriously, this guy is holding up Monsanto and GMO's as the "victims" of regulation he is afraid that nanotech will also suffer.
My feelings about this are pretty simple, admittedly, but based on the situation with GMO's, it seems that there is a lot of money to be made in creating and patenting and selling GMO's, and not a heck of a lot of money to be made finding out if they could pose a problem for us some time down the road. Sure, there's some funding that will be available for that kind of research, but it's minimal when you compare it to the other side of the equation.
When we're talking about this magnitude of profit incentive, as a worker bee I WANT the regulation, because there will be no natural roadblocks to misuse and irresponsibility.
The reason the green "gangs" are so adamant on these issues is that once you let it out, it's too late--the harm has already been done.
Many scientists' primary experience with ethics is a course in college and administrative personnel who require them to fill out a lot of forms. It's left to others, in this case the Government, to try and look at the big picture.
As someone who has a great interest in science, I also get pretty pissed off when critics of regulation start throwing around the "Luddite" accusation. We need a term for scientists who have no real concern for the possible consequences of their research; or more specifically, a term for the financiers of said research.
The 32MB i was referring to is on the mac mini video card. It's nice that it works for you for WoW...I've had other people tell me basically the opposite.
Yeah, tell me about it. I just ended my WoW subscription and trashed the files--after leveling my toon up to lvl 60, I've found that my performance on a 933mhz G4 (1.5 gigs RAM) with an upgraded video card to a Radeon 9000 is too crappy to enable me to enjoy the game experience. 9.5 FPS in instance dungeons (and if a bunch of mobs spawn/rush forward at the same time, that drops to under 5 FPS, aka unplayable).
And I wouldn't think that a mini would be up to the task, either--not with the 9200 card and 32mb.
Not being able to play WoW isn't a big enough justification for the thousands I would need to upgrade...especially since everything else is working fine.
This should have been your first post, not the third one after I badgered you into it.
I don't really see where the world is falling apart because of pedants...there aren't many speeches attacking pedants for the way they're destroying our way of life, etc. etc. So I'll take the term without a problem. I usually hesitate to call people on things like that because it is slashdot and who cares, but in your case I felt like your attention to words was as imprecise as your comment. I apologize.
I miss your point over why it was so laughable, though...of course I understood your meaning, just like you could understand my meaning if I were to leave out most of the vowels in my post. Doesn't mean it's the best way to express myself, however.
In truth, I don't think this is such a nightmare and I doubt it will amount to much, but I think you're off-base saying it's business, and guess we'll just have to disagree. Look at the ideological climate right now with wardrobe malfunctions, etc. etc.
More and more it seems to me that the complaints of a few are effecting (har, har) changes in places where freedom of speech was originally the rule of thumb.
It's unfortunate that the article was written in a way that you feel was vague or lacking in specifics. I fear, though, that this is a consequence of the nature of self-censorship. You won't have people picketing about evolution if the film doesn't show in their community. This can't be the first crappy movie made for IMAX...and it can't be the first that talked about evolution. So why are these issues being raised all of a sudden?
My answer is obvious. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your answer is that alarmist intellectuals are yelling "Help, help, I'm being repressed!" a la The Holy Grail.
My opening insult was in response to your "pay attention yourself" tone. My initial "no let's pay attention here" was not insulting, but was an echo of your call to "let's be honest here."
Most people who use "effect" when they mean "affect" aren't doing so because of typos--it's because they don't realize there is a difference in meaning between the two. Similarly, you don't realize that the issue this article raised isn't a business issue and isn't insignificant just because of the relatively small number of theaters involved.
This is a development that is scary because it involves self-censorship that can have effects down the line.
How long will it be before fundamentalists start to insist that their taxes not fund evolution-based research? It's not a crazy jump, either--these people consider the theory of evolution to be a negation of the existence of (their) god. Never mind that there are plenty of god-fearing, church-going scientists who accept the theory of evolution and can understand that the speedy creation of man in the Old Testament just might be metaphorical.
Dude, you really have to learn how to argue an issue.
First of all, the word is "affected," not "effected."
More importantly, your first post focused on the business aspects of the situation--that businesses need to make money and they have a right to avoid films that their audiences don't like.
So I called you on that claim, that this was a matter of playing what the audience will pay for. I pointed out that some of the theaters caving in to this pressure are science centers. What's the point of my saying that? The fact that as science centers it's not unusual that they play some programming that is scientific and educational. In other words, these few theaters are catering to a slightly different audience and audience expectations.
This isn't a matter of a science film playing and customers boycotting science, shouting they don't want to learn about undersea worlds. "Cosmic Voyage" and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" aren't primarily about evolution but because their makers make the mistake of mentioning evolution, the theater owners are afraid that they'll get hell for showing them. Never mind that there may be lots of people who will really enjoy these films.
You yourself undermine your second argument: you have 3 close IMAX theaters and only ONE shows science programming. So when the theater owners bow to the pressure brought by a few to not show the "Volcano" film, the only theater in the area probably wouldn't show it, if you were in the area of the south they're discussing. And keep in mind not everyone has such a selection as you.
Yes, this phenomenon is only involving a few theaters. But there are STILL fewer theaters that would ever consider showing the film in the first place. So anything that would lessen the chance of the film showing would have a SUBSTANTIAL influence on its potential audience. And, if you read the article to the end, it will be obvious that the impact of such films not being shown naturally will eventually translate into such films not being MADE.
No, let's pay attention here: the article takes pains to mention that there are "science centers" and "science museums" among those rejecting the films. Sure, they need to have people buy tickets to survive just like a business, but the point here is that SCIENCE institutions are feeling public pressure to censor SCIENCE.
Well, now you're getting into another problem. But I don't mean non-Latin scripts. I mean active versus passive skills. I speak Chinese very well and read Chinese very well. But writing Chinese is a problem for me. Not the actual creation of a Chinese character, but the accurate and idiomatic production of written, literate Chinese. It's a lot different from speaking and if you don't have lots of practice in it, with feedback, it's hard.
Your Japanese friends being able to read and write English but barely speak it is a natural consequence of the way they were taught it. It used to be a common joke among me and my Chinese friends that their knowledge of English grammar was better than many Americans...because of the way it was drilled into them in school. But they were barely afforded any conversational opportunities.
Generally speaking, your point is well-taken: if you are a native English speaker and you are trying to learn a language like Chinese or Japanese, technology can offer a substantial advantage in your learning process. When I learned Chinese almost 20 years ago, we were making flashcards by hand to drill our vocabulary; it worked okay in beginning and intermediate levels, but if you continued trying to make your own cards in the advanced level, you soon found that the process of making flash cards was taking up more time than the actual drilling of those cards! Now you have reading programs that can provide you with automatic lookup, etc. It's a great time-saver.
Flashcard programs are for vocabulary acquisition.
So when s/he talks about learning 3 dead languages, s/he learned to read 3 languages, probably also by learning some grammar.
When I talk about learning a language, I mean learning to speak in a language and being able to understand others speaking...put the two together and you're talking about a conversation. That's not something you learn from flashcard programs. The way you successfully learn languages, meaning speaking and aural comprehension, is by engaging in conversational practice after preparation and study with things like flashcards and audio materials, or computer programs.
And you do that by living in the country, taking a class, or both. There is a world of difference between studying dead languages and studying living languages.
I read the article on griefers. It was okay, actually, considering a lot of parents don't have a clue about this kind of stuff.
I'm just not very sure about how they expect this information to be used. Do they think that Johnny will go crying to his parents about griefing, and this will clue them in to the problem? I don't really see children complaining to their parents about something that they in many ways sees as THEIR domain, exclusive of parents.
One thing I thought was missing was some ideas for parents of griefers themselves. How do you know your kid is griefing? What do you say to your child when you find out he is a full-time griefer?
It seemed more of a parody which could of been named "Hicks in space".
Well, before you accuse people of being hicks just because their English sounds different than your English, perhaps you should hit the books. There is no such phrase "could of"; what you mean is "could have," usually contracted as "could've" and thus sounding like "could of."
Agreed. Your explanation is the only way I can understand how Voyager will outlast this show. I like Bakula but I think one problem is that he was too identified with other sci-fi roles...he came with some baggage and maybe the regulars couldn't accept him as easy as someone more unknown.
What I think sucks is that if ST:TNG had been cancelled this early, just think of all the great shows we would have missed out on...even though Enterprise and the writing team etc reviled Braga have serious problems, I had hope for it. DS9 was one of my favorites but I HATED Sisko (sp?) until a couple seasons in.
All that being said, what a dumb idea to go BACK in time to pre-TOS LOL. I wouldn't have suggested that in a million years. Not on the enterprise at least...it might have been interesting to do it from the misc. aliens point of view in that time period, and have them occasionally interact with earthlings.
Slashdot Mirror
The article talks about the possibility of monitoring large transfers of currency between players. Why not just eliminate currency transfers? It would have the additional benefit of eliminating all the begging in cities.
No doubt the farmers would find a way around this, like setting up auctions where they bid enormous amounts for commonplace items...but then something like that would be easy to spot.
There's another way to discourage this, by taking a tip from The Untouchables. When they couldn't get Capone for his blatant crimes, they resorted to nabbing him for income tax evasion. I would guess that a good percentage of these top farmers aren't paying taxes on their eBay incomes. Call the IRS and sic 'em, boys!
I'm glad that SOE is taking great pains to appeal to the female gamers it counts among its customers. A contest tie-in with that fountainhead of female sensibility, Stuff, is sure to expose EQ to even more progressively-minded women.
You can't attack, for example, DS9 on the same grounds as ST:TOS.
The only conclusion I can reach is that OSC is speaking out of bitterness...maybe he has been burned one too many times by television or something. Really, his article is simply a statement of his inability to understand why TOS became such a cult hit and inspired such extreme fan loyalty. I've read better assessments of ST shortcomings on fan sites.
And then he really goes overboard by calling Being John Malcovich one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. He's trolling, of course, just dying for you to write in and say Hey, that's not science fiction!. Sure, Being was a fun ride, but a little too clever for its own pants, and certainly one of the most overrated films of all time.
More relevant, though, is the dubious realm of unauthorized-while-they're-still-alive biography. I feel it belongs to the age of cheap celebrity. I'm not interested in Ashton Kuchar's remarkable life, thank you very much. Let's give people a chance to die before we start worshipping them.
The statement I find most damning by SOE's Smedley is this one:
Look, if you made those levels and the time spent attaining them worthwhile, instead of just grinding, then "loyal and honest" players would want to experience them.In my mind, the IGE-type solution sucks because
- It encourages farmers, and a true farmer is not someone experiencing game for the entertainment value that most players are. That creates imbalances in the game universe.
- It betrays a deficiency in gameplay. It creates the equation paying for weapon X is more desirable then spending Y amount of time attaining it. This is because, in the case of SOE, you're more than likely required to grind to obtain weapon X, senseless and boring.
Make the game only a game. Don't allow people to buy their way through it.Either improve gameplay or accept that some people are not going to be willing to expend hundreds of hours in mindless grinding. I think the real problem is that SOE is not willing to lose customers who aren't happy with gameplay, and they think that by allowing said customers to buy content, they'll keep them in the fold.
Internet synching is pretty much useless to me, as the only time I need to synch is when I make changes on my home computer; by definition, that means I'm at the computer and bluetooth is convenient to use.
I suppose if you primarily used internet-based scheduling and address books you might feel differently.
it's a waste of resources.
Most people don't need the CD's, so why waste the disks? I'm sure this isn't why Apple is doing it--it IS a financial decision--but I'm happy about it anyway.
As someone who knows a little about China, has lived there for a bit, speaks Chinese etc etc I get really fed up with the ignorant bashing. It's SO uninformed, SO missing the point and SO carbon-copied from a few sources and spoon-fed to the American masses.
But the most frustrating thing is that, having experience with China, I know that in fact there is a LOT to criticize...it's a seriously WACKED country and political system and the pent-up rage of the people is scary--witness the Japanese in China now hiding under rocks because of those revisionist history texts.
So the dilemma I find myself in is this: is it really worth it to argue with a bunch of uninformed Americans about what is wrong with China only to then let them know what I think is wrong with China? "No, that's not why China sucks, this is why China sucks!"
Writing for soap operas is a fairly unique proposition as it is a very limited form. You have to have an ever-changing array of relationships and situations within a rarely-changing group of people.
And you have to do it five days a week.
When soaps are written well, their dedicated audiences listen to every word; moreover, they talk back to the television.
Seriously, this guy is holding up Monsanto and GMO's as the "victims" of regulation he is afraid that nanotech will also suffer.
My feelings about this are pretty simple, admittedly, but based on the situation with GMO's, it seems that there is a lot of money to be made in creating and patenting and selling GMO's, and not a heck of a lot of money to be made finding out if they could pose a problem for us some time down the road. Sure, there's some funding that will be available for that kind of research, but it's minimal when you compare it to the other side of the equation.
When we're talking about this magnitude of profit incentive, as a worker bee I WANT the regulation, because there will be no natural roadblocks to misuse and irresponsibility.
The reason the green "gangs" are so adamant on these issues is that once you let it out, it's too late--the harm has already been done.
Many scientists' primary experience with ethics is a course in college and administrative personnel who require them to fill out a lot of forms. It's left to others, in this case the Government, to try and look at the big picture.
As someone who has a great interest in science, I also get pretty pissed off when critics of regulation start throwing around the "Luddite" accusation. We need a term for scientists who have no real concern for the possible consequences of their research; or more specifically, a term for the financiers of said research.
You know how much resources it takes to keep those slaves in line? Not to mention the price of slop!
Argh, don't tempt me to go this route...I was just starting to get stuff done now that WoW has been eliminated from my daily schedule.
The 32MB i was referring to is on the mac mini video card. It's nice that it works for you for WoW...I've had other people tell me basically the opposite.
And I wouldn't think that a mini would be up to the task, either--not with the 9200 card and 32mb.
Not being able to play WoW isn't a big enough justification for the thousands I would need to upgrade...especially since everything else is working fine.
Fast-forward to 2008: Sony announces EQ2 for the Macintosh and begins to consolidate EQ2 PC servers.
Hell, Sony ignores Mac users so utterly that even the damn web site brings Safari to its knees, LOL.
I don't really see where the world is falling apart because of pedants...there aren't many speeches attacking pedants for the way they're destroying our way of life, etc. etc. So I'll take the term without a problem. I usually hesitate to call people on things like that because it is slashdot and who cares, but in your case I felt like your attention to words was as imprecise as your comment. I apologize.
I miss your point over why it was so laughable, though...of course I understood your meaning, just like you could understand my meaning if I were to leave out most of the vowels in my post. Doesn't mean it's the best way to express myself, however.
In truth, I don't think this is such a nightmare and I doubt it will amount to much, but I think you're off-base saying it's business, and guess we'll just have to disagree. Look at the ideological climate right now with wardrobe malfunctions, etc. etc.
More and more it seems to me that the complaints of a few are effecting (har, har) changes in places where freedom of speech was originally the rule of thumb.
It's unfortunate that the article was written in a way that you feel was vague or lacking in specifics. I fear, though, that this is a consequence of the nature of self-censorship. You won't have people picketing about evolution if the film doesn't show in their community. This can't be the first crappy movie made for IMAX...and it can't be the first that talked about evolution. So why are these issues being raised all of a sudden?
My answer is obvious. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your answer is that alarmist intellectuals are yelling "Help, help, I'm being repressed!" a la The Holy Grail.
1. Sorry for being impolite.
2. Get that sign off my ass.
Most people who use "effect" when they mean "affect" aren't doing so because of typos--it's because they don't realize there is a difference in meaning between the two. Similarly, you don't realize that the issue this article raised isn't a business issue and isn't insignificant just because of the relatively small number of theaters involved.
This is a development that is scary because it involves self-censorship that can have effects down the line.
How long will it be before fundamentalists start to insist that their taxes not fund evolution-based research? It's not a crazy jump, either--these people consider the theory of evolution to be a negation of the existence of (their) god. Never mind that there are plenty of god-fearing, church-going scientists who accept the theory of evolution and can understand that the speedy creation of man in the Old Testament just might be metaphorical.
First of all, the word is "affected," not "effected."
More importantly, your first post focused on the business aspects of the situation--that businesses need to make money and they have a right to avoid films that their audiences don't like.
So I called you on that claim, that this was a matter of playing what the audience will pay for. I pointed out that some of the theaters caving in to this pressure are science centers. What's the point of my saying that? The fact that as science centers it's not unusual that they play some programming that is scientific and educational. In other words, these few theaters are catering to a slightly different audience and audience expectations.
This isn't a matter of a science film playing and customers boycotting science, shouting they don't want to learn about undersea worlds. "Cosmic Voyage" and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" aren't primarily about evolution but because their makers make the mistake of mentioning evolution, the theater owners are afraid that they'll get hell for showing them. Never mind that there may be lots of people who will really enjoy these films.
You yourself undermine your second argument: you have 3 close IMAX theaters and only ONE shows science programming. So when the theater owners bow to the pressure brought by a few to not show the "Volcano" film, the only theater in the area probably wouldn't show it, if you were in the area of the south they're discussing. And keep in mind not everyone has such a selection as you.
Yes, this phenomenon is only involving a few theaters. But there are STILL fewer theaters that would ever consider showing the film in the first place. So anything that would lessen the chance of the film showing would have a SUBSTANTIAL influence on its potential audience. And, if you read the article to the end, it will be obvious that the impact of such films not being shown naturally will eventually translate into such films not being MADE.
No, let's pay attention here: the article takes pains to mention that there are "science centers" and "science museums" among those rejecting the films. Sure, they need to have people buy tickets to survive just like a business, but the point here is that SCIENCE institutions are feeling public pressure to censor SCIENCE.
Your Japanese friends being able to read and write English but barely speak it is a natural consequence of the way they were taught it. It used to be a common joke among me and my Chinese friends that their knowledge of English grammar was better than many Americans...because of the way it was drilled into them in school. But they were barely afforded any conversational opportunities.
Generally speaking, your point is well-taken: if you are a native English speaker and you are trying to learn a language like Chinese or Japanese, technology can offer a substantial advantage in your learning process. When I learned Chinese almost 20 years ago, we were making flashcards by hand to drill our vocabulary; it worked okay in beginning and intermediate levels, but if you continued trying to make your own cards in the advanced level, you soon found that the process of making flash cards was taking up more time than the actual drilling of those cards! Now you have reading programs that can provide you with automatic lookup, etc. It's a great time-saver.
So when s/he talks about learning 3 dead languages, s/he learned to read 3 languages, probably also by learning some grammar.
When I talk about learning a language, I mean learning to speak in a language and being able to understand others speaking...put the two together and you're talking about a conversation. That's not something you learn from flashcard programs. The way you successfully learn languages, meaning speaking and aural comprehension, is by engaging in conversational practice after preparation and study with things like flashcards and audio materials, or computer programs.
And you do that by living in the country, taking a class, or both. There is a world of difference between studying dead languages and studying living languages.
Hey, you have my sympathies, but this is an off-topic hijack...which makes me think that your post in Apple Discussions may have been the same.
I'm just not very sure about how they expect this information to be used. Do they think that Johnny will go crying to his parents about griefing, and this will clue them in to the problem? I don't really see children complaining to their parents about something that they in many ways sees as THEIR domain, exclusive of parents.
One thing I thought was missing was some ideas for parents of griefers themselves. How do you know your kid is griefing? What do you say to your child when you find out he is a full-time griefer?
What I think sucks is that if ST:TNG had been cancelled this early, just think of all the great shows we would have missed out on...even though Enterprise and the writing team etc reviled Braga have serious problems, I had hope for it. DS9 was one of my favorites but I HATED Sisko (sp?) until a couple seasons in.
All that being said, what a dumb idea to go BACK in time to pre-TOS LOL. I wouldn't have suggested that in a million years. Not on the enterprise at least...it might have been interesting to do it from the misc. aliens point of view in that time period, and have them occasionally interact with earthlings.