Do you really think for a second that if Bing started really chipping away at Google's search business, that Google wouldn't find a half a dozen patents that Microsoft is infringing on?
The moment Google needs patents to fight competition is the moment they're dead. Google relies on gathering more information than anyone else, and having better algorithms to make use of that information. If they ever fall behind there, no amount of patent lawsuits can save them.
There's still one big difference between Google and all the others: Google hasn't sued anyone for violating their patents yet. And didn't they also have some initiative to share patents with anyone on the condition that they wouldn't sue anyone over patents? My impression is that Google is still on the side of Good in the patent wars. That impression will change as soon as Google sues or threatens any company not involved in stupid patent games.
You can trust Google to use absolutely everything they know about you to serve you more effective ads. You can trust them to give lots of cool stuff away for free, just so they can collect more information about you. You can also trust them to only rely on information and algorithms, rather than patents, to get their competitive edge. But they do seem to need patents to defend themselves against lawsuits from their competitors, or more accurately, from companies who don't really compete with Google at all, because they're active in a market that's threatened with destruction by Google giving stuff away for free.
The moment Google actually sues anyone over a patent (and I don't care how innovative that patent is), that's when Google has really turned evil. Google used to not believe in patents. Not so long ago, they had barely any patents for a company of that size. They only started to acquire patents because others (Oracle especially) started suing them, and they needed ammo to defend themselves. It still sucks that they're using patents as ammo at all, but unfortunately that seems to be how the system currently works, and Google may not have much choice in submitting to that system.
It seems like a neverending cycle. Sun didn't believe in patents either, until IBM sued them for violating lots of unspecified patents. Then, Sun started to patent like crazy, so they'd be able to defend themselves in the future. Sun got bought by Oracle, which now uses Sun's crazy patents to sue Google, another patent unbeliever now forced to acquire patents. And who knows what those patents will be used for in the future? It's a sucky system that we need to get out of, because it's stifling innovation and competition.
I think that a game created because the creator found some aspect lacking in other games, is likely to be a better game than a game that was created to fit a certain demographic. Broad labels like "genre" don't help to distinguish between a game that was inspired and one that was simply made to fit a formula. Plenty of games claim to be an RPG (or whatever genre you happen to prefer), but they don't explain what sets them apart. Why should I buy this game instead of any of the dozens of others in the same genre?
I admit it's also a matter of personal taste. I love reading designer's notes. Some board games have very interesting designer's notes. I clearly remember reading those of Squad Leader, which explained the philosophy behind the game, and how it was completely different from other hard core wargames. And it helps me to understand why certain game mechanics work the way they work. I love it when computer games are similarly inspired by a certain philosophy that sets it apart from other games in that genre. I haven't read explicit designer's notes for Civilization 5, but I have read articles about the ideas behind it (streamlining, less micromanagement), which helps me understand the design decisions, and that enhances my enjoyment of the game.
That's also my problem with many MMOGs: when you die, you just get back up again and go collect your stuff. It takes all the fun and meaning out of the game for me.
But being the only player in the game who deals with consequences doesn't sound very appealing either.
I'm not talking about narrative at all. I'm talking about why they made the game they did. Of course there is a story behind Tetris and PuzzleBobble. They didn't magically drop out of the sky, they were created for a reason. I have no idea what it is, because the creators didn't tell me, but I think they should, because then I have some idea of what to expect from the game, and what to judge it on.
While Liberals today like to pretend otherwise, the Nazi's were the National Socialist Party and were, therefore, leftist by definition.
No. What really defines whether you're left or right, is where you want to sit in parliament. And Hitler sat with the conservatives. He hated socialists and communists, yet didn't mind the conservatives, aristocrats and industrialists so much.
You realize they came into power by allying with conservatives, don't you? If not, read some history. Hitler hated socialists. He was all about traditionalism and a hierarchically structured society.
Nazi's hated communist, Hitler did what he could to dissociate the similarities between Socialism and Communism, much as today's Progressives try to disassociate social programs from socialism.
Did he? I think he threw socialists and communists on one big heap as a danger to the country. He allied with conservatives in order to grab power. His national socialism had nothing in common with socialist ideals: it was corporatist and aristocratic.
The spending Obama did was in the present, and it most certainly created jobs, and the money to do so came from China and from the Federal Reserve. At some time in the future it might hurt, but right now it certainly did not.
How can that be said when days ago we just had a downgrade in credit and the market is bleeding?
The stimulus is only a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the US's financial problems. The two big ones are the Bush tax cuts and the increased military spending (Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly). These didn't benefit anyone except the millionaires and the military-industrial complex. I'm not claiming that the stimulus was money well-spent, but there are far, far bigger issues that need to be addressed, and the US government is refusing to do so. That is why the credit rating was downgraded.
I fully agree! I don't want to play games designed by businessmen, I want to play games designed by gamers. By people who love the hobby, the craft, who know their classics, who love some really obscure cult hits, who care about the games themselves, instead of merely the market, the demographics and the money that goes around in it.
Every game should have a story behind it: what inspired it? What are the main influences? What is it that you really wanted to do differently? What is the core of what you're trying to accomplish with this game?
Unfortunately, most games are just a list of bullet points that's identical to every other game out there. Boring, and a good reason not to buy them. Though good guys do exist.
But unlike films, where the creators are in complete control, how do you not violate rules in a game without making it unplayable? One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way
Nethack and other roguelikes are pretty popular despite their harsh no save-scumming policy. The trick is to give the game replay value. Don't make the game exactly the same every time you play it, and it won't be so bad to start over. And if you bend the rules a bit to allow reloading a save game after death, then I think the majority of games out there give you only one life.
Whether it's viable depends entirely on the kind of gameplay you want.
Nothing wrong with that. They want to focus on the actual flying itself and not the boring paperwork surrounding it. I suspect real flight simulators for real pilot training do the same thing, and they really have to be as realistic as possible.
Counterstrike realistic? I haven't played it much, but my impression was that everybody moved at insane ridiculous speeds. I'm no FPS fan, but I did like America's Army somewhat, exactly because it was pretty realistic.
The problem isn't realism, the problem is half-hearted realism. A thin veneer of realism over gameplay that is very unrealistic. That mismatch spoils the experience. But a game that honestly tries to make the gameplay as realistic as possible can be a lot of fun. At least to people who appreciate realism, which I do. I liked Frontier/First Encounter's Newtonian physics, even if it made space combat ridiculously hard. I don't mind a challenge if there's a good reason for it.
But if you don't want realism, then don't pretend it's realistic. I like wacky over-the-top stuff too. Or gameplay that's designed with a very specific kind of gameplay or balance in mind. Just pick what your goal is, and do it right.
They are poor. No doubt non-whites are overrepresented, but there's a fair share of whites too. It's not a race thing. From what I understand, it;s mostly a gang thing.
who are these people? I mean, white? black? muslim?
It's not a race/religion issue.. the rioters are multicultural of every skin color.. What most of them have in common (other than the urge for a good round of fistycuffs) is belonging to a lower social class without much hope for the future. The UK government have been cutting cost lately, with the result that school is now 3 times as expensive as it used to be. Funding to social services has been reduced.. etc.. So these people find themselves at the bottom without any real ladders to get out of there.
But I guess a bunch of them are hooligans that just use it as an excuse to go rampaging too..
Don't make it more political than it is. Yes, they are from the lowest social classes, but mostly, they're just itching for a fight. They want to have some impact, even if the only thing they can accomplish is to burn the place down. As I understand it, they're mostly gang members who set aside their differences to fight a common enemy: the police and society in general. They're definitely not representative for the regular (also poor) people in these neighbourhoods; if anything, those are their victims.
Though my impression is that the Met police isn't free from blame either. They seem to have a tendency to forget that normal citizens have rights, and seem to have a knack for making a really big mess out of relatively small issues.
It is the summary, not the story, that inserted the word "mercenary" into the discussion. A discussion revolving around that word won't be very useful unless we at least define it.
I don't think Blackwater (Xe) counts as a mercenary force, because, although they fight for profit, they do not remain neutral politically and simply fight for whatever side pays the best.
They do fight for the side that pays best. What do you think will happen when that side will stop paying. Will Blackwater cease their operations, or will they look for a new customer? Roman mercenaries also fought just for the Romans, and not for anybody else. Until the time came to change allegiance. The Middle Ages also saw many mercenaries who almost always fought for the same lords. They're still mercenaries.
And that's exactly the problem with mercenaries. You create a shadowy area with a serious lack of accountability. Where soldiers would get court-martialled, Blacwater just gets a slap on the wrist.
If it were up to me, whenever mercenaries misbehave, the person who hired them needs to be held fully accountable for every single thing the mercenaries did. That should stop people from dodging their responsibilities like that.
And more importantly, when you don't hire them, they look for employment elsewhere.
I thought the use of mercenaries was universally considered unacceptable in the civilized world. How come the US likes them so much? Isn't it better for a country to have soldiers fight out of loyalty instead of greed? Isn't it better to have some serious accountability for the people you send out to kill or harm others?
I thought there were very good reasons why nowadays only African warlords rely on mercenaries. So why is the US using similar methods?
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really think for a second that if Bing started really chipping away at Google's search business, that Google wouldn't find a half a dozen patents that Microsoft is infringing on?
The moment Google needs patents to fight competition is the moment they're dead. Google relies on gathering more information than anyone else, and having better algorithms to make use of that information. If they ever fall behind there, no amount of patent lawsuits can save them.
There's still one big difference between Google and all the others: Google hasn't sued anyone for violating their patents yet. And didn't they also have some initiative to share patents with anyone on the condition that they wouldn't sue anyone over patents? My impression is that Google is still on the side of Good in the patent wars. That impression will change as soon as Google sues or threatens any company not involved in stupid patent games.
You can trust Google to use absolutely everything they know about you to serve you more effective ads. You can trust them to give lots of cool stuff away for free, just so they can collect more information about you. You can also trust them to only rely on information and algorithms, rather than patents, to get their competitive edge. But they do seem to need patents to defend themselves against lawsuits from their competitors, or more accurately, from companies who don't really compete with Google at all, because they're active in a market that's threatened with destruction by Google giving stuff away for free.
The moment Google actually sues anyone over a patent (and I don't care how innovative that patent is), that's when Google has really turned evil. Google used to not believe in patents. Not so long ago, they had barely any patents for a company of that size. They only started to acquire patents because others (Oracle especially) started suing them, and they needed ammo to defend themselves. It still sucks that they're using patents as ammo at all, but unfortunately that seems to be how the system currently works, and Google may not have much choice in submitting to that system.
It seems like a neverending cycle. Sun didn't believe in patents either, until IBM sued them for violating lots of unspecified patents. Then, Sun started to patent like crazy, so they'd be able to defend themselves in the future. Sun got bought by Oracle, which now uses Sun's crazy patents to sue Google, another patent unbeliever now forced to acquire patents. And who knows what those patents will be used for in the future? It's a sucky system that we need to get out of, because it's stifling innovation and competition.
I think that a game created because the creator found some aspect lacking in other games, is likely to be a better game than a game that was created to fit a certain demographic. Broad labels like "genre" don't help to distinguish between a game that was inspired and one that was simply made to fit a formula. Plenty of games claim to be an RPG (or whatever genre you happen to prefer), but they don't explain what sets them apart. Why should I buy this game instead of any of the dozens of others in the same genre?
I admit it's also a matter of personal taste. I love reading designer's notes. Some board games have very interesting designer's notes. I clearly remember reading those of Squad Leader, which explained the philosophy behind the game, and how it was completely different from other hard core wargames. And it helps me to understand why certain game mechanics work the way they work. I love it when computer games are similarly inspired by a certain philosophy that sets it apart from other games in that genre. I haven't read explicit designer's notes for Civilization 5, but I have read articles about the ideas behind it (streamlining, less micromanagement), which helps me understand the design decisions, and that enhances my enjoyment of the game.
That's also my problem with many MMOGs: when you die, you just get back up again and go collect your stuff. It takes all the fun and meaning out of the game for me.
But being the only player in the game who deals with consequences doesn't sound very appealing either.
The solution is simple: don't buy games that are not fun, do buy games that are fun.
I'm not talking about narrative at all. I'm talking about why they made the game they did. Of course there is a story behind Tetris and PuzzleBobble. They didn't magically drop out of the sky, they were created for a reason. I have no idea what it is, because the creators didn't tell me, but I think they should, because then I have some idea of what to expect from the game, and what to judge it on.
While Liberals today like to pretend otherwise, the Nazi's were the National Socialist Party and were, therefore, leftist by definition.
No. What really defines whether you're left or right, is where you want to sit in parliament. And Hitler sat with the conservatives. He hated socialists and communists, yet didn't mind the conservatives, aristocrats and industrialists so much.
You realize they came into power by allying with conservatives, don't you? If not, read some history. Hitler hated socialists. He was all about traditionalism and a hierarchically structured society.
Nazi's hated communist, Hitler did what he could to dissociate the similarities between Socialism and Communism, much as today's Progressives try to disassociate social programs from socialism.
Did he? I think he threw socialists and communists on one big heap as a danger to the country. He allied with conservatives in order to grab power. His national socialism had nothing in common with socialist ideals: it was corporatist and aristocratic.
How can that be said when days ago we just had a downgrade in credit and the market is bleeding?
The stimulus is only a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the US's financial problems. The two big ones are the Bush tax cuts and the increased military spending (Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly). These didn't benefit anyone except the millionaires and the military-industrial complex. I'm not claiming that the stimulus was money well-spent, but there are far, far bigger issues that need to be addressed, and the US government is refusing to do so. That is why the credit rating was downgraded.
The Dutch are getting increasingly intolerant of other cultures, unfortunately. A growing group is even intolerant of much of Dutch culture.
I fully agree! I don't want to play games designed by businessmen, I want to play games designed by gamers. By people who love the hobby, the craft, who know their classics, who love some really obscure cult hits, who care about the games themselves, instead of merely the market, the demographics and the money that goes around in it.
Every game should have a story behind it: what inspired it? What are the main influences? What is it that you really wanted to do differently? What is the core of what you're trying to accomplish with this game?
Unfortunately, most games are just a list of bullet points that's identical to every other game out there. Boring, and a good reason not to buy them. Though good guys do exist.
But unlike films, where the creators are in complete control, how do you not violate rules in a game without making it unplayable? One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way
Nethack and other roguelikes are pretty popular despite their harsh no save-scumming policy. The trick is to give the game replay value. Don't make the game exactly the same every time you play it, and it won't be so bad to start over. And if you bend the rules a bit to allow reloading a save game after death, then I think the majority of games out there give you only one life.
Whether it's viable depends entirely on the kind of gameplay you want.
Nothing wrong with that. They want to focus on the actual flying itself and not the boring paperwork surrounding it. I suspect real flight simulators for real pilot training do the same thing, and they really have to be as realistic as possible.
Counterstrike realistic? I haven't played it much, but my impression was that everybody moved at insane ridiculous speeds. I'm no FPS fan, but I did like America's Army somewhat, exactly because it was pretty realistic.
The problem isn't realism, the problem is half-hearted realism. A thin veneer of realism over gameplay that is very unrealistic. That mismatch spoils the experience. But a game that honestly tries to make the gameplay as realistic as possible can be a lot of fun. At least to people who appreciate realism, which I do. I liked Frontier/First Encounter's Newtonian physics, even if it made space combat ridiculously hard. I don't mind a challenge if there's a good reason for it.
But if you don't want realism, then don't pretend it's realistic. I like wacky over-the-top stuff too. Or gameplay that's designed with a very specific kind of gameplay or balance in mind. Just pick what your goal is, and do it right.
They are poor. No doubt non-whites are overrepresented, but there's a fair share of whites too. It's not a race thing. From what I understand, it;s mostly a gang thing.
who are these people? I mean, white? black? muslim?
It's not a race/religion issue.. the rioters are multicultural of every skin color..
What most of them have in common (other than the urge for a good round of fistycuffs) is belonging to a lower social class without much hope for the future. The UK government have been cutting cost lately, with the result that school is now 3 times as expensive as it used to be. Funding to social services has been reduced.. etc.. So these people find themselves at the bottom without any real ladders to get out of there.
But I guess a bunch of them are hooligans that just use it as an excuse to go rampaging too..
Don't make it more political than it is. Yes, they are from the lowest social classes, but mostly, they're just itching for a fight. They want to have some impact, even if the only thing they can accomplish is to burn the place down. As I understand it, they're mostly gang members who set aside their differences to fight a common enemy: the police and society in general. They're definitely not representative for the regular (also poor) people in these neighbourhoods; if anything, those are their victims.
Though my impression is that the Met police isn't free from blame either. They seem to have a tendency to forget that normal citizens have rights, and seem to have a knack for making a really big mess out of relatively small issues.
There are plenty of profitable things a government could do that are wrong. Why pick this one?
If the government pay scale is a problem, then change it. Don't use it as an excuse to circumvent accountability.
It is the summary, not the story, that inserted the word "mercenary" into the discussion. A discussion revolving around that word won't be very useful unless we at least define it.
I don't think Blackwater (Xe) counts as a mercenary force, because, although they fight for profit, they do not remain neutral politically and simply fight for whatever side pays the best.
They do fight for the side that pays best. What do you think will happen when that side will stop paying. Will Blackwater cease their operations, or will they look for a new customer? Roman mercenaries also fought just for the Romans, and not for anybody else. Until the time came to change allegiance. The Middle Ages also saw many mercenaries who almost always fought for the same lords. They're still mercenaries.
And that's exactly the problem with mercenaries. You create a shadowy area with a serious lack of accountability. Where soldiers would get court-martialled, Blacwater just gets a slap on the wrist.
If it were up to me, whenever mercenaries misbehave, the person who hired them needs to be held fully accountable for every single thing the mercenaries did. That should stop people from dodging their responsibilities like that.
And more importantly, when you don't hire them, they look for employment elsewhere.
I thought the use of mercenaries was universally considered unacceptable in the civilized world. How come the US likes them so much? Isn't it better for a country to have soldiers fight out of loyalty instead of greed? Isn't it better to have some serious accountability for the people you send out to kill or harm others?
I thought there were very good reasons why nowadays only African warlords rely on mercenaries. So why is the US using similar methods?
Wow. I don't know if that's supposed to be anti-Semitic or some kind of joke about Germany passing this law (I'm Irish-American).
It's not. It's a joke about Google's previous CEO, who has also declared privacy dead.