In one of those strange coincidences between science and mysticism, Buddhists (and perhaps Hindus as well) posit that reality began as sound alone -- the drone of ohm. That sound is the lowest hum that a human can produce -- and if you ever hear a large group of people do it in concert, it will resonate in every cell of your body, physic-ally speaking.
Not that this clip sounds anything like an ohm. But it's a fun connection all the same.
....due to the simple fact of human nature. Whenever someone claims the rest of the world is doing something ("Everyone steals from their employer" "All guys treat women like trash" "Everyone is lazy and incompetent" "Money money money, that's all anybody cares about these days") it is because they themselves do it. Or at least think about it compulsively.
So since this handy piece of pop psychology validates your claim, you are probably dead on.
Or with the case of Revolutionary New Jersey, switch sides depending on the color of the 'coats in the village square. Pragmatic, those old-time Jersey residents were.....they didn't care who was in charge, as long as they could keep making money.
The problem is that city's and to a larger extent suburbs are designed for cars.
This is increasingly true as you look back at the growth rates of the place in question. Anything built after, say, 1950 is going to be increasingly car-focused. Walking and biking is really only feasable in hypercompact old cities (like New York), and in 'suburban' developments built before the car was commonly affordable (a few communities in New Jersey come to mind here).
Since much of this expansive country was built up in the last 50 years, much of it is totally ill-built for anything except automobiles. Only newly-developing cities like Portland, OR are steering away from that city-planner's nightmare; the rest of the country is going to be stuck with a terrible infrastructure for a very long time.
Helios takes offense at your heathen blashpheming. Cease immediately!
(Fortunately for you Ra is not paying attention, or he would certainly mod you down).
SCO, for instance, can use the jargon dictionary just fine, and he doesn't HAVE to like it!
Correct. He is also free to state his displeasure, as he did in the above-mentioned quote. BUT as he was stating an opinion ("...observing...") his speech is protected.
An example: In my opinion, you are a reactionary fool who trolls worse than a four year old; you also enjoy murdering minorities and sodomizing infants. Vile words! Go ahead, take them to a lawyer and see if ya can charge me.
I disagree, and I will explain why: It is more important to illuminate abstract concepts to those who might not understand their full import; in this case, that every mile driven by every car uses x tons of biomass. This sort of imagery will make it through even the thickest math-phobic skull on the planet.
Remember how the stuff you learned in grade-school and high-school were shown to be false or simplistic, and then explained correctly at the college level? This is no different -- or should high-school physics include air viscosity into future calculations? We are misleding the youth of tomorrow, after all.......
In Manhattan, I would think the primary problem facing ERTs is congestion, not traffic lights. I've seen many a firetruck stranded in midtown gridlock with no way to move (and no place for the surrounding motorists to move to, either). This device would be a complete waste of money here.
Okay, it's fraudulent. Let's just ignore the valid point the article was making, and instead argue about plant-matter-to-oil ratios. Who the hell cares what happens to the human race after we step out of it, eh?
The whole idea of MMO's is being able to band together with your friends to be able to do things you yourself would be unable to do alone.
Yes, good. But why have another 200 players who are not friends on the server? What enjoyment or depth do they add to the game, besides scrolling auction messages and hanging around the edges of zones? Is it worth supporting this massive bloated structure for something that can be done much more straightforwardly? If there is no chance of real interaction with a massive crowd, why not just scale down to something like a Neverwinter Nights server -- for free?
Interesting that you enjoy MMORPGs more than a type of game you have not played. That's one open mind you got there!
"You can sit where you are, or walk out the door. If you walk out the door, your family will be tortured, your friends killed, and you will be severely beaten. If you remain sitting nothing shall happen."
That's pure coercion. By your logic, residents of a dictatorship are in fact free because they can hold elections; they will be shot afterwads, but they CAN hold them. And you don't see the problem here?
A classic tactic of pyramid sales organizations is to make the newly-brainwashed employees fork over $20 to $100 on the first day, for application fees and the like. Then come mandatory conventions, which cost participants $400-$1000 to attend (which, again, is compulsory). The point of this is not only revenue generation, but psychological; if you put down money for something, you are going to want to have something to show for it. "Just a little more time/money, and my efforts will be rewarded."
In this case, you spend $50 on a game, you are going to naturally want $50 of enjoyment as a result. You do not receive that much enjoyment before the monthly charge kicks in, and lo! another $14.95 that must be enjoyed. It's an obligation, so cunningly constructed that most are not even aware of the manipulation.
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Re:Playing a multiplayer game singleplayer.
on
The Trouble with MMORPGs
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Dude, you missed the forest for the trees. The experience is not worth hanging around for. Paying $80 and waiting four months to do even something remotely interesting is not fun. That is not play. It's boring work, and anyone who enjoys it is, basically, a pathetic no-life.
And if you've ever played a REAL multiplayer RPG (i.e., with pen and paper) you would realize that MMORPGs are not multiplayer at all: rather, they are a bunch of people playing solo, really close to one another. It would be funny, if the developers weren't getting filthy rich in the process.
For the people on top, who essentially have free run of the game, it is fun, but to get to their level you have to spend ungodly amounts of time in the game, to the point where it is overwhelming your entire life. But that's the only way to get there. If they didn't do it, someone else would. Remember what I said about status in-game being the result of a competition between all the players, with those who spend the most time winning?
Gee, that sounds suspiciously similar to the capitalist society of the real world. No wonder I dislike it.
Today's game developers are trying to create novels out of short story material. Grand worlds that take 72 real-world hours to cross, epic plot lines that never enter the player's experience, characters that take months of play to be useful in the world. They are designing games that they think are going to be played indefinately.
Why not scale things down a bit? Why not have a finite plotline that runs for a few months, at which point the game is over? When the game is over, the next plotline begins -- think of the serial adventures of Hurcules and Xena to know what I mean. Limit the game to a reasonable amount of players (fork multiple smaller worlds if need be), so everyone has a chance for involvement.
As long as developers are working on a hollywood style of production, backed by marketeers who want to lock-in subscriptions (guess why leveling up takes 1.5 pay cycles......), we are going to be playing some seriously boring games. Someone needs to break out of the mold.....without the big-studio budget that destroys innovation.
If more people do this, there will be no point to the Internet, because everyone will be blocked from everyone else. We can rename it the "Consumer Content Delivery System," or something nice like that.
.....and working in a clean room will substantially reduce the risk of getting sick at work. Both make awful working environments, however -- especially for users who do more than consume web pages.
Also note in my example that outgoing FTP was left open. A simple port renumbering, and poof, full outgoing access. All this does is hamper legitimate useage.
A network application can create a security risk? Best firewall off every port!
Don't laugh -- many incompetent managers think this way. I am sitting behind a firewall that blocks all outbound traffic, with the exception of ports 80 and 21. This, I am told, will help prevent viruses from entering the network. Moreso, I might add, than any kind of coherent patching strategy.
Last time I checked, those are called applications. Separate from the Operating System. OSX does not force you use iTunes for your music, you know. iTunes and Napster also did not get a monopoly-ruling from the federal government.
So, in essence: You have no idea what you are talking about.
The only good IT worker is one who is masterful in all Operating Systems, patient with ignorant strangers, and has no opinion on relevant technical issues other than pure pragmatism. Advocacy of any sort, polite or otherwise, gets one instantly labelled as a misguided pseudoreligious fool.
Well now. Such a rigid world-view sounds downright......extremist to me. How ironic.
A real "abuse of power" would be a closed-source vendor that provides a service to one of the States -- say, by computerizing their elections, and then running the process so secretively that no one knows if the elections are even valid anymore. I think the States may be a little weary of mercenary IT vendors in general, and not just the largest one out of the pack.
To hell with short people AND tall people. Yeah, that's right. It's just like in school, where the smart and the dumb get all the attention. We sit comfortably in the bell curve (and indeed, sustain It's pleasing shape), but we receive not a whit of credit. Let's end this black-white duality once and for all: there are many shades of grey!
I know someone at Columbia University who is good friend with a UN Administrator -- so realize that this is tenuous heresay at best. But, back when the war with Iraq was being planned, there were many discussions between the US, Britian, and the Secretary General's staff over what was to come. Basically, the long, long range planners in Anglo administrations forsee the new power balance will be between those who speak English.....and those who speak Chinese. We are talking a 'war' of culture, here, to see who's voice is preemminent on our planet.
The war in Iraq is a step-stone, really, to securing the oil supply to use as a limiter for Chinese expansion . As China explodes into the postindustrial world, the only thing that will prevent economies of scale from shifting into their favor will be direct intervention by the string-holders of today. Say, by making the fuel of industry very, very expensive for them. It's a modern (future?) version of the whole Opium War situation, in which Britian basically enslaved all of China for immense profit.
Why do I give this rumor any merit whatsoever? Because it dovetails uncomfortably well with the stated aims of influential Neoconservatives. Dismiss it if you will, for the truth of the matter will not emerge until after we are all dead (probably). But do not underestimate the cunning of the English-speaking dominators.....that is why they rule today.
Or ask your parents. Does the term 'Red Scare' ring any bells? 'McCarthyism'? 'Commie Witch Hunts'? How about the internment of japanese-americans because of their 'disloyalty'? Let's not even get into what happened during World War I.
If that isn't enough, check out what the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, did to the Bill of Rights during the Civil War. Revoked Habus Corpus, he did! Also check out the Alien & Sedition acts of 1798 and 1799, respectively.
The point is, we Americans have been deeply paranoid since the founding of the country. It's basically ingrained into the national consciousness.
Will Icann actually get off their ass and sanction Network solutions for allowing this type of registration?
What -- so the moment you register a domain your email, telephone, and mailbox get flooded with spam? Or so the lurker who doesn't like the political views posted on said domain knows where to find the owner? Thanks, but no thanks. Keep it "broken."
Slashdot Mirror
Not that this clip sounds anything like an ohm. But it's a fun connection all the same.
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So since this handy piece of pop psychology validates your claim, you are probably dead on.
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This is increasingly true as you look back at the growth rates of the place in question. Anything built after, say, 1950 is going to be increasingly car-focused. Walking and biking is really only feasable in hypercompact old cities (like New York), and in 'suburban' developments built before the car was commonly affordable (a few communities in New Jersey come to mind here).
Since much of this expansive country was built up in the last 50 years, much of it is totally ill-built for anything except automobiles. Only newly-developing cities like Portland, OR are steering away from that city-planner's nightmare; the rest of the country is going to be stuck with a terrible infrastructure for a very long time.
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(Fortunately for you Ra is not paying attention, or he would certainly mod you down).
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Correct. He is also free to state his displeasure, as he did in the above-mentioned quote. BUT as he was stating an opinion ("...observing...") his speech is protected.
An example:
In my opinion, you are a reactionary fool who trolls worse than a four year old; you also enjoy murdering minorities and sodomizing infants.
Vile words! Go ahead, take them to a lawyer and see if ya can charge me.
=============
Remember how the stuff you learned in grade-school and high-school were shown to be false or simplistic, and then explained correctly at the college level? This is no different -- or should high-school physics include air viscosity into future calculations? We are misleding the youth of tomorrow, after all.......
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Yes, good. But why have another 200 players who are not friends on the server? What enjoyment or depth do they add to the game, besides scrolling auction messages and hanging around the edges of zones? Is it worth supporting this massive bloated structure for something that can be done much more straightforwardly? If there is no chance of real interaction with a massive crowd, why not just scale down to something like a Neverwinter Nights server -- for free?
Interesting that you enjoy MMORPGs more than a type of game you have not played. That's one open mind you got there!
=========
"You can sit where you are, or walk out the door. If you walk out the door, your family will be tortured, your friends killed, and you will be severely beaten. If you remain sitting nothing shall happen."
That's pure coercion. By your logic, residents of a dictatorship are in fact free because they can hold elections; they will be shot afterwads, but they CAN hold them. And you don't see the problem here?
==========
In this case, you spend $50 on a game, you are going to naturally want $50 of enjoyment as a result. You do not receive that much enjoyment before the monthly charge kicks in, and lo! another $14.95 that must be enjoyed. It's an obligation, so cunningly constructed that most are not even aware of the manipulation.
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Gee, that sounds suspiciously similar to the capitalist society of the real world. No wonder I dislike it.
=======
Why not scale things down a bit? Why not have a finite plotline that runs for a few months, at which point the game is over? When the game is over, the next plotline begins -- think of the serial adventures of Hurcules and Xena to know what I mean. Limit the game to a reasonable amount of players (fork multiple smaller worlds if need be), so everyone has a chance for involvement.
As long as developers are working on a hollywood style of production, backed by marketeers who want to lock-in subscriptions (guess why leveling up takes 1.5 pay cycles......), we are going to be playing some seriously boring games. Someone needs to break out of the mold.....without the big-studio budget that destroys innovation.
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Patch machines in advance instead.
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Also note in my example that outgoing FTP was left open. A simple port renumbering, and poof, full outgoing access. All this does is hamper legitimate useage.
=============
Don't laugh -- many incompetent managers think this way. I am sitting behind a firewall that blocks all outbound traffic, with the exception of ports 80 and 21. This, I am told, will help prevent viruses from entering the network. Moreso, I might add, than any kind of coherent patching strategy.
============
So, in essence: You have no idea what you are talking about.
============
Well now. Such a rigid world-view sounds downright......extremist to me. How ironic.
=========
A real "abuse of power" would be a closed-source vendor that provides a service to one of the States -- say, by computerizing their elections, and then running the process so secretively that no one knows if the elections are even valid anymore. I think the States may be a little weary of mercenary IT vendors in general, and not just the largest one out of the pack.
==============
============
The war in Iraq is a step-stone, really, to securing the oil supply to use as a limiter for Chinese expansion . As China explodes into the postindustrial world, the only thing that will prevent economies of scale from shifting into their favor will be direct intervention by the string-holders of today. Say, by making the fuel of industry very, very expensive for them. It's a modern (future?) version of the whole Opium War situation, in which Britian basically enslaved all of China for immense profit.
Why do I give this rumor any merit whatsoever? Because it dovetails uncomfortably well with the stated aims of influential Neoconservatives. Dismiss it if you will, for the truth of the matter will not emerge until after we are all dead (probably). But do not underestimate the cunning of the English-speaking dominators.....that is why they rule today.
===========
If that isn't enough, check out what the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, did to the Bill of Rights during the Civil War. Revoked Habus Corpus, he did! Also check out the Alien & Sedition acts of 1798 and 1799, respectively.
The point is, we Americans have been deeply paranoid since the founding of the country. It's basically ingrained into the national consciousness.
============
What -- so the moment you register a domain your email, telephone, and mailbox get flooded with spam? Or so the lurker who doesn't like the political views posted on said domain knows where to find the owner? Thanks, but no thanks. Keep it "broken."
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