"So by helping this person, we have potentially assisted the spread of this very dangerous disease. Now, I'm not trying to sound evil but do we want to interfere with natural selection?"
I love how people try to make Natural Selection something that only occurs without technology.
WAKE UP! Technology is just as much a product of Natural Selection as anything else. Our intelligence enabled us to cure disease. This is us making progress towards eventually killing off the disease via technology.
See, that's what I'd be worried about. I mean, if I was at a department store or something when one of these things went on, the first thing I'd be doing is looking for the Sporting Goods section and making like Bruce Campbell.
Frankly, I'm shocked they weren't locked up as terrorists for trying to spread a biological disease.
Exactly. Betas for MMOs have become just another marketing gimick. Need proof? Just look at the release of City of Villains. Websites are using beta passes to drive subscribers, and the company is using it to drive preorders.
Finally someone who understands the REAL motivation behind this. Yes, they are killing two birds with one stone...but the one they're aiming for is the protection of their trademark.
Apple is a brand that relies on its coolness and brand name recognition to sell the amount of product it does (yes, design is part of it, but brand is most of it). If it loses control over its brand name, it loses the primary selling point behind its products.
" even if his whole premise is based on a contest that we haven't spent more than about 5 minutes thinking about, and is mostly just meant to be a fun way for users to contribute themes to Slashdot. If Khoi wants to enter the contest, we'll consider his designs along with everyone else's. (I'm sure we can't afford him tho)"
What they really MEANT was...
"We don't want to pay for web design so we'll just come up with a crappy contest that takes five minutes to figure out and get it all done for free.
"Perhaps this is why they are the largest advertising agency in the world?"
Correction...they are not an ad agency, they are in the business of ad sales. The difference is that while an ad agency creates ads for clients, Google sells ad space. Just a note from your friendly local ad exec.
My fear is that one day we will have faster and faster input methods up to the point of direct brain interfaces. Why? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love that for gaming.
The reason I fear it is because as it is I already get too many communications a day. Technology isn't helping us lead less stressful worklives, its just increasing the pace of business and increasing efficiency....which means you end up doing more work and much more gets done...all to stay ahead of the competition of course. If anything I yearn for old times before all this when everything was sent via post. At least you had a chance to breath rather than being reamed out because you did not check your email 2 minutes ago and JUST found out about the extremely urget request to email something somewhere.
"Now, picture that guy, but willing to pay insane amounts of money to skip past the beginning and middle parts of an online game, and then acts like he's actually earned his right to kill and grief you,"
Wow...sounds like you have some personal issues you need to work out.
Honestly..."that guy" is my little bro. And it used to be me when I was younger. And while I point out to him that he's not good just because he can cheat...ultimately, if thats what lets him enjoy the game and get what he feels is his money's worth out of it, then more power to him.
We have a finite period of time on this planet, and these people are simply trying to maximize the enjoyment they get in that brief period of time. Yes, some try to hold their power over others to try to compensate for whatever insecurities they have, but others simply don't want to sit there for 40 hrs a week grinding away to "succeed" at a game that can only be fun for them if they have X, Y and Z items.
I'm sure your response is "if you don't want to spend time playing, don't play at all", but that's just your opinion, and fortunately the games don't have rules against this (well, for the most part). If you object to it that strongly, I suggest you keep playing the ones that do have those rules in place.
The casual gamer who pays for power CAN coexist with the powergamers and the casual gamers who can't/won't pay for power, but everybody needs to recognize that everybody is in it for themselves, not you. And honestly, perhaps you should not play the game if you can't handle the fact that someone with more money might be able to do something you can't, although I regret to think what would happen if you opened your eyes and realized how similar reality is to virtual reality.
As someone who loves both cooking (particularly chinese food) and ancient history as well as evolution, I'm really curious if anybody has any info on how someone might have stumbled across the creation of noodles.
I know this may be kind of weird, but in terms of "culinary evolution"...why have they survived so long as a staple food item?
And also...is anybody here familiar with the concept of culinary evolution? I just kinda made it up for this post, but if it really exists and there is info out there on it I'd love to read it!
I don't know why you think EVE promotes the "wow I'm going to have fun with my friends bashing a couple of mean nasties" vibe more than EQ. Its the same deal, just that things are sold in game. If anything the only game that comes close is City of Heroes. Credits are pointless after a certain period of time, and its ALL about the teamwork.
'Speaking of scratched DVDs...and I guess CDs too since people inevitably store plenty of downloaded um..."free"...content on CDRs, does anybody know how reliable the toothpaste/deoderant method is for cleaning scratched discs? I have a lot of scratched ones since I keep them in spools and I think I'm just going to save myself a bunch of trouble and buy a SkipDr. Anybody ever use one of those before? Would you recommend it?"
Actually yes...I was taking my Battlefield 2 disc to a LAN party at a friends place, and it slipped out of my CD book and was rolling around in my backpack which I didn't realize until I got there. My friend had that Skip Doctor thingy though and in a couple minutes my urge to kill someone was gone and we could finally get on with killing people.
While I've never done it, I can explain why it can definitely be worth it.
You see, people make money when they work, and thus, their time becomes worth a certain amount of money. If they determine for whatever reason that it would be a better use of their money to save them time in the game, and enable them to have something or do something in game, then it can definitely be worth it.
I think the reason people have trouble understanding why it would be worth it is because society in general is still hung up on the Virtual Divide. Lets face it, for a lot of us, the internet is an integrated part of our life. People have already accepted the fact that for some games you pay a subscription fee to play, why can't they accept that some might consider paying even more to get additional value out of a game? In this case value is gained by needing less gametime to have a more fun experience...and isn't the whole point of a game to have a fun experience?
As our world becomes increasingly virtual, I think people will for the most part get over this, but it really comes down to whether the person thinks the money spent will be worth the enjoyment he receives in exchange for it. And to everybody who thinks that is stupid...well, who are you to judge the values of another person?
That kinda sounded like a mini lightsaber that can heal people.
You know...if you made the beam superheat things instead of cool them and about 3 feet longer, it would STILL kill bacteria and be a helluva lot cooler!
Or maybe you should give the marketers credit for once for coming up with a fun name that has instant recognition among geeks (the people who would most likely invest in this company at this point). Although I have to admit...naming them after sci-fi movies where the robots go nuts and kill people probably wasn't the BEST decision.
"Let me repeat: I AM PRECISELY THE TARGET AUDIENCE for this advertisement"
Unless you have seen their research and the brief they received that led them to this conclusion, how can you be so sure you are? Now...I'm not saying that this wasn't a dumb mistake on their part, but what I AM saying is that you have no proof. Ad execs aren't idiots, and there very well could have been a reason they didn't release it other ways...cost...tracking...time...etc. Contrary to what you may think, the world does NOT revolve around you.
Bingo. The only reason P2P grew the way it did is because Napster came under fire because it was a centralized host. Then P2P became decentralized. Rinse, Repeat, etc.
While it may affect me in the short term, we WILL win this war simply because too many people want this. Welcome to the wonderful world of software evolution. We are having selective pressures being applied to current software which in turn sparks the next generation of software. If people deem it a better option, they will migrate and that piece of software will become the "fittest". Its really a wonderful thing to watch if you take a step back from it all.
Slashdot Mirror
I love how people try to make Natural Selection something that only occurs without technology.
WAKE UP! Technology is just as much a product of Natural Selection as anything else. Our intelligence enabled us to cure disease. This is us making progress towards eventually killing off the disease via technology.
Frankly, I'm shocked they weren't locked up as terrorists for trying to spread a biological disease.
Looks like you've already beat us to it...
Apple is a brand that relies on its coolness and brand name recognition to sell the amount of product it does (yes, design is part of it, but brand is most of it). If it loses control over its brand name, it loses the primary selling point behind its products.
Well...he may not be entirely crazy. We really ARE out to get him. And we won't stop until we do!
What they really MEANT was...
"We don't want to pay for web design so we'll just come up with a crappy contest that takes five minutes to figure out and get it all done for free.
Correction...they are not an ad agency, they are in the business of ad sales. The difference is that while an ad agency creates ads for clients, Google sells ad space. Just a note from your friendly local ad exec.
The reason I fear it is because as it is I already get too many communications a day. Technology isn't helping us lead less stressful worklives, its just increasing the pace of business and increasing efficiency....which means you end up doing more work and much more gets done...all to stay ahead of the competition of course. If anything I yearn for old times before all this when everything was sent via post. At least you had a chance to breath rather than being reamed out because you did not check your email 2 minutes ago and JUST found out about the extremely urget request to email something somewhere.
Wow...sounds like you have some personal issues you need to work out.
Honestly..."that guy" is my little bro. And it used to be me when I was younger. And while I point out to him that he's not good just because he can cheat...ultimately, if thats what lets him enjoy the game and get what he feels is his money's worth out of it, then more power to him.
We have a finite period of time on this planet, and these people are simply trying to maximize the enjoyment they get in that brief period of time. Yes, some try to hold their power over others to try to compensate for whatever insecurities they have, but others simply don't want to sit there for 40 hrs a week grinding away to "succeed" at a game that can only be fun for them if they have X, Y and Z items.
I'm sure your response is "if you don't want to spend time playing, don't play at all", but that's just your opinion, and fortunately the games don't have rules against this (well, for the most part). If you object to it that strongly, I suggest you keep playing the ones that do have those rules in place.
The casual gamer who pays for power CAN coexist with the powergamers and the casual gamers who can't/won't pay for power, but everybody needs to recognize that everybody is in it for themselves, not you. And honestly, perhaps you should not play the game if you can't handle the fact that someone with more money might be able to do something you can't, although I regret to think what would happen if you opened your eyes and realized how similar reality is to virtual reality.
I know this may be kind of weird, but in terms of "culinary evolution"...why have they survived so long as a staple food item?
And also...is anybody here familiar with the concept of culinary evolution? I just kinda made it up for this post, but if it really exists and there is info out there on it I'd love to read it!
Actually yes...I was taking my Battlefield 2 disc to a LAN party at a friends place, and it slipped out of my CD book and was rolling around in my backpack which I didn't realize until I got there. My friend had that Skip Doctor thingy though and in a couple minutes my urge to kill someone was gone and we could finally get on with killing people.
You see, people make money when they work, and thus, their time becomes worth a certain amount of money. If they determine for whatever reason that it would be a better use of their money to save them time in the game, and enable them to have something or do something in game, then it can definitely be worth it.
I think the reason people have trouble understanding why it would be worth it is because society in general is still hung up on the Virtual Divide. Lets face it, for a lot of us, the internet is an integrated part of our life. People have already accepted the fact that for some games you pay a subscription fee to play, why can't they accept that some might consider paying even more to get additional value out of a game? In this case value is gained by needing less gametime to have a more fun experience...and isn't the whole point of a game to have a fun experience?
As our world becomes increasingly virtual, I think people will for the most part get over this, but it really comes down to whether the person thinks the money spent will be worth the enjoyment he receives in exchange for it. And to everybody who thinks that is stupid...well, who are you to judge the values of another person?
You know...if you made the beam superheat things instead of cool them and about 3 feet longer, it would STILL kill bacteria and be a helluva lot cooler!
OH GOD! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless you have seen their research and the brief they received that led them to this conclusion, how can you be so sure you are? Now...I'm not saying that this wasn't a dumb mistake on their part, but what I AM saying is that you have no proof. Ad execs aren't idiots, and there very well could have been a reason they didn't release it other ways...cost...tracking...time...etc. Contrary to what you may think, the world does NOT revolve around you.
While it may affect me in the short term, we WILL win this war simply because too many people want this. Welcome to the wonderful world of software evolution. We are having selective pressures being applied to current software which in turn sparks the next generation of software. If people deem it a better option, they will migrate and that piece of software will become the "fittest". Its really a wonderful thing to watch if you take a step back from it all.