bullshit. The law sets the speed limit. there are fines for breaking the law. cameras just enforce the law cheaply and efficiently. If you break into someones house, get caught on CCTV and fined, is that a 'tax'?* I never pay this speed camera 'tax', because I drive at a sensible speed. People who complain about it being a tax must be habitually breaking the speed limit, and to be honest, should not be driving.
Thats nonsense. AOL sell a *service* which they can advertise with a CD. bands sell music, which is what's on the CD. Talk about completely and utterly different. Maybe AOL should give away free unlimited broadband access as a service? Playing gigs isn't anywhere near as profitable as people think it is. A lot of bands lose money on tour, but they tour anyway to promote album sales. If you want them to tour for nothing, and give their music away for free, they might as well go become plumbers.
actually more people die in road accidents just in the UK every year, than died on 9/11. yet the UK has many lobbyists who actively campaign to remove speed restrictions and speed cameras on british roads. The people dieing in car crashes, or of hunger in africa, do so without TV cameras filming them. I'd even wager that if only 1 plane had hit on 9/11,and there wasn't footage of the actual impact, its effect on peoples psche would be massively lower. People are so used to TV, Hollywood etc, that if it's not shown in moving pictures, they almost rationalise that it's not happening. I guess you could argue that as well as sending food to countries with extreme poverty, we should be sending prime-time TV news crews.
well said. There is a lot of talk in the UK (talk is all it is sadly) of 'turning each home into a micro-powerstation'. I love this idea. Why should I be paying so much cash to some big (often foreign-owned) evil megacorp for my power, when I could use my roofspace to generate a lot of it myself? Doing so take transmissions losses away altogether. If it was a simple matter of attaching some panels and plugging a cable into a wallsocket, I'd be there already, but the installation of solar setups is a complex enough deal for now that I think I'll wait till I move hosue, and know I'll be there long enough to get my investment back.
As someone who once had the toe-curling job of implementing in-game ads for a game (shudder), I can 100% cast-iron pledge an assurance to you, that if you had ads on loading screens, the minimum duration of that loading screen would be hardcoded in the game and written explicitly into the advertising contract, regardless of what spec your PC was. They would probably also want assurances that the art assets, sounds and code for displaying the ad was sufficiently encrypted to make it difficult to remove, AND contractually oblige the developer to automatically replace any such 'cracked' ads detected by any patches.
There are tehnical reasons why there isn't more of this. Not all rendering engines work the same way, and some are very fussy about how the polygons are arranged, and in what way special extra (no-geometry) data is added, such as placement of sound and particle emmiters, cues for AI, etc etc. Theres's a lot more to a model in a modern game than just static mesh data that can be universally implemented.
Things are different when you go lower tech. I use nothing but stock sounds and music in my stuff, and I've also bought pre-existing stock photos and pre-renderered artwork on a non-exlcusive basis. Theres a small, but I suspect growing market for assets in the way you describe. Check out turbosquid, content paradise, renderosity marketplace, istockphoto, sounddogs etc.
I think that reusing stock content is only part of the solution, there are some costs in modern games that are totally gratuitous:
Celebrity voiceovers: Do I care that patrick stuart spoke for the first 5 minutes in oblivion? It did sod all to make it a better game, but no doubt cost a fortune. Tutorial voiceovers: Like 99% of gamers, I can READ. I do NOT want a droning voice telling me what the mouse looks like, especially uf I can't turn it off. FMV: If you can provide a better visusl look that revenge of the Sith in your cutscenes, go for it. If not, please don't bother, I have the DVD right here for when I want no interaction and cool SFX. Intro Videos: A simple white text on black background saying who made the game is fine. don't waste yours and my money of 6 different hi-def movies of your company logos spinning and warpi9ng. Nobody gives a fuck.
I used to be ambivalent about the rising costs, they dont affect me, and anything that screws up the quagmire of retail dev suits me fine, but theres such a lack of quality games these days (for the PC) that I find myself wishing for a lot more, less expensive PC retail games.
agreed 100%. Im sick of this story. Foreign government secret services kills man. film at 10. Seriously why is it a big deal (apart from the fact that a mans been killed, which is obviously pretty bad for his family)? do we really think our secret service doesnt try similar stunts? We even tried to bump off ghadaffi for crying out loud, and the US govt has made more attempts to wipe out castro than I've had hot meals, and thats foreign LEADERS, not just a critic of your government.
What amazes me is that *anyone* used radiation to bump someone off. Thats just stupid, its instantly suspicious and points to who did it. Unless thats what they wanted (to warn others off) I cant see why they would do this. Far subtler to just run the guy over, or shoot him.
2000 was the peak year. in 2005 (when stats were gathered) international travel looks to have fallen 15% from 2000 levels. I'm not suprised, the having your shoes x-rayed, the nonsense about liquids and gels, and the fingerprinting does tend to spoil your holiday. Worst of all is the ban on prescription medecines without the paperwork (like they would spot forged paperwork). people don't put medicines in their cargo luggage precisely because it can be a big deal if that goes to the wrong destination. I'm not aware of many terrorists taking down airliners by using a few pills.
thats only true when they are only consuming the fuel they need. but most people don't NEED an SUV to get to work, they can happily do it in a much smaller, mroe fuel efficient car. Your suggesting that fuel is price inelastic. Im suggesting that the elasticity rises above a point where optimum fuel efficiency has been achieved. People driving gas guzzlers can happily be elastic about reducing consumption, by getting a smaller car next time.
I don't think you could possibly say that its exactly offtopic to mention a computer simulation of how governments can cut car travel with an article on cuts in car travel.:(
Why are people suprised? higher prices means less car use. I even modelled this here. But US prices are still relatively low. To fill up a 50 litre car with gas in the UK costs around £50, translating to about $90. I think you need to hit £1.50 a litre ($145 to fill up) before you get mass behaviour changes though.
I don't want the president to be charming I don't want the president to be funny I don't want the president to be good looking I don't want the president to be charismatic I don't want the president to be photogenic
I want one thing:
I want the president to make well-informed and thought out decisions.
Thats pretty much his/her job. Every thing else is fluff. They can be a rude, ugly, annoying, womanising, tongue-tied hunchback for all I care. Presidential elections aren't about picking the lead guy for a spielberg movie, or the MC for a comedy club, they are about deciding what wars are worth fighting, what laws get passd, and similar heavy-shit issues. The sooner people start realising this the better. Hitler had charisma. So did Stalin, so did Saddam (in his own way). Charisma should not be the main qualification for the job.
in the UK, politicians often said our intelligence services thought he had WMD. In fact, they did not, the evidence they gave to the politicians was widely 'sexed-up', even having entire paragraphs changed before it was shown to the press. There was a LOT of fuss about this here.
No we didn't. At least not in the UK. In fact, 2 million people amrched through central london 9the largest demonstration in the UK in living memory) to say exactly that. If Saddam had WMD we wouldnt have invaded him (see N korea for details). The best evidence to support the WMD theory was some student dissertation lifted off the web (see 'the dodgy dossier'). Don't pretend there was consensus about WMD before the war. There was not. Call Hans Blix and ask him if your still unsure.
Glad to see someone else thinking it may have an effect. I love video games, heck, I make them for a living (check the sig), and I mow down a lot of people in Battlefield 2. I'm pretty sure it *does* affect me though. Of course it does. How can we accept that a passive visual medium (advertising) massively affects the population as a whole (not only is it economically clear this is true, but I advertise myself and know it works), but assert that an interactive visual medium that often gives rewards for violent actions (games) somehow has no effect?
I'm not saying violent games should be banned, but should we prevent very young kids from playing them? I think we should. Its all very well saying 'leave it to the parents', but most parents equate games with super mario or pong, they have no idea whats in GTA and its ilk. Nor will they read any labels or warnings.
I'd much rather gamers learnt to accept that not *all* video games are suitable for *all* ages. There is no shortage of non violent (or low-violence) games that kids can enjoy, they don't have to go straight from kindergarten to soldier of fortune.
As I understood it, the artists never earned a penny from sales through this site, so it might be great for the consumers, but why on earth would you expect the music industry to embrace this? The RIAA might be bastards, but if they championed a model where the artists got zero, as opposed to 'not very much', you'd hate them even more. I'm pretty sure theres enough economists working at sony etc to decide (with all the data they have) the sweet spot for music pricing. This just means that a lot of people who won't pay that will whine that its too expensive, but thats true of pretty much every product. I think cinema tickets are too expensive, so I dont go, but you can bet that the number of people who *do* go outweigh the small loses by losing me as a customer.
Its not the 'only' real solution. I'l believe its the required solution when...
people dont drive an SUV to drop the kids off at school shops arent lit allthrough the night shops dont have heating on in winter and doors left open incandescent lightbulbs are seen as a quaint thing from yesteryear A computer doing word processing doesnt ship with a 500watt PSU Tomatoes don't travel 2000 miles (often by air) to get to my plate
Energy efficiency is an easy way to reduce carbon emmissions, and requires pretty much no huge changes to infrastructure. If the car companies and oil companies would stop liobbying the US govt (and funding the parties) to prevent them from raising fuel efficiency standards in the US, that would help too. Energy inefficiency is a big problem. I'd rather that problem was fixed, than we try and paper over the cracks by building nculear power stations, especially before the waste disposal problem is addressed.
I'm not karma whoring, I actually own one of these pieces of shit (DSC-P72). I bought a replacement camera (non-sony) 2 weeks ago. Bastards. I'm still going to ensure they fix the piece of crap.
Best answer. You shouldnt spend half your working life explaining to your higher-paid employer how he is doing his job wrong. I went one further and quit entirely and now work for myself. My employer has a perfect grasp of what I need to boost my productivity.
you are trying to champion opposition to the man-made climate change theory, and your best pin-up guy is a science fiction writer? Somehow, I'll take the majority of climate experts accross the world over the word of some sci-fi writer. No offence,
why is tidal energy so easily written off? seems to be a totally waste-free non polluting energy source, especially the undersea tide-driven turbines. The tides are predicatble and with us forever. is it not economic? and how much has been spent on R&D. In the Uk at least, nuclear has proven masively uneconomic, is there any good reason to go for nuclear and not tidal? (granted its different for the UK, we have coastline coming out of our ass).
Slashdot Mirror
"speed cameras are just another tax"
bullshit. The law sets the speed limit. there are fines for breaking the law. cameras just enforce the law cheaply and efficiently. If you break into someones house, get caught on CCTV and fined, is that a 'tax'?*
I never pay this speed camera 'tax', because I drive at a sensible speed. People who complain about it being a tax must be habitually breaking the speed limit, and to be honest, should not be driving.
Thats nonsense. AOL sell a *service* which they can advertise with a CD. bands sell music, which is what's on the CD. Talk about completely and utterly different.
Maybe AOL should give away free unlimited broadband access as a service?
Playing gigs isn't anywhere near as profitable as people think it is. A lot of bands lose money on tour, but they tour anyway to promote album sales. If you want them to tour for nothing, and give their music away for free, they might as well go become plumbers.
actually more people die in road accidents just in the UK every year, than died on 9/11.
yet the UK has many lobbyists who actively campaign to remove speed restrictions and speed cameras on british roads.
The people dieing in car crashes, or of hunger in africa, do so without TV cameras filming them.
I'd even wager that if only 1 plane had hit on 9/11,and there wasn't footage of the actual impact, its effect on peoples psche would be massively lower.
People are so used to TV, Hollywood etc, that if it's not shown in moving pictures, they almost rationalise that it's not happening.
I guess you could argue that as well as sending food to countries with extreme poverty, we should be sending prime-time TV news crews.
well said. There is a lot of talk in the UK (talk is all it is sadly) of 'turning each home into a micro-powerstation'. I love this idea. Why should I be paying so much cash to some big (often foreign-owned) evil megacorp for my power, when I could use my roofspace to generate a lot of it myself? Doing so take transmissions losses away altogether.
If it was a simple matter of attaching some panels and plugging a cable into a wallsocket, I'd be there already, but the installation of solar setups is a complex enough deal for now that I think I'll wait till I move hosue, and know I'll be there long enough to get my investment back.
As someone who once had the toe-curling job of implementing in-game ads for a game (shudder), I can 100% cast-iron pledge an assurance to you, that if you had ads on loading screens, the minimum duration of that loading screen would be hardcoded in the game and written explicitly into the advertising contract, regardless of what spec your PC was.
They would probably also want assurances that the art assets, sounds and code for displaying the ad was sufficiently encrypted to make it difficult to remove, AND contractually oblige the developer to automatically replace any such 'cracked' ads detected by any patches.
Yes, they really are that fucking evil.
There are tehnical reasons why there isn't more of this. Not all rendering engines work the same way, and some are very fussy about how the polygons are arranged, and in what way special extra (no-geometry) data is added, such as placement of sound and particle emmiters, cues for AI, etc etc. Theres's a lot more to a model in a modern game than just static mesh data that can be universally implemented.
Things are different when you go lower tech. I use nothing but stock sounds and music in my stuff, and I've also bought pre-existing stock photos and pre-renderered artwork on a non-exlcusive basis. Theres a small, but I suspect growing market for assets in the way you describe.
Check out turbosquid, content paradise, renderosity marketplace, istockphoto, sounddogs etc.
I think that reusing stock content is only part of the solution, there are some costs in modern games that are totally gratuitous:
Celebrity voiceovers: Do I care that patrick stuart spoke for the first 5 minutes in oblivion? It did sod all to make it a better game, but no doubt cost a fortune.
Tutorial voiceovers: Like 99% of gamers, I can READ. I do NOT want a droning voice telling me what the mouse looks like, especially uf I can't turn it off.
FMV: If you can provide a better visusl look that revenge of the Sith in your cutscenes, go for it. If not, please don't bother, I have the DVD right here for when I want no interaction and cool SFX.
Intro Videos: A simple white text on black background saying who made the game is fine. don't waste yours and my money of 6 different hi-def movies of your company logos spinning and warpi9ng. Nobody gives a fuck.
I used to be ambivalent about the rising costs, they dont affect me, and anything that screws up the quagmire of retail dev suits me fine, but theres such a lack of quality games these days (for the PC) that I find myself wishing for a lot more, less expensive PC retail games.
agreed 100%. Im sick of this story. Foreign government secret services kills man. film at 10. Seriously why is it a big deal (apart from the fact that a mans been killed, which is obviously pretty bad for his family)? do we really think our secret service doesnt try similar stunts? We even tried to bump off ghadaffi for crying out loud, and the US govt has made more attempts to wipe out castro than I've had hot meals, and thats foreign LEADERS, not just a critic of your government.
What amazes me is that *anyone* used radiation to bump someone off. Thats just stupid, its instantly suspicious and points to who did it. Unless thats what they wanted (to warn others off) I cant see why they would do this. Far subtler to just run the guy over, or shoot him.
Heres some statistics on international tourist travel to the USA:
l _visitor_arrivals.html
http://www.tia.org/researchpubs/ivis_internationa
(From the tourist association of america website)
2000 was the peak year. in 2005 (when stats were gathered) international travel looks to have fallen 15% from 2000 levels.
I'm not suprised, the having your shoes x-rayed, the nonsense about liquids and gels, and the fingerprinting does tend to spoil your holiday.
Worst of all is the ban on prescription medecines without the paperwork (like they would spot forged paperwork). people don't put medicines in their cargo luggage precisely because it can be a big deal if that goes to the wrong destination. I'm not aware of many terrorists taking down airliners by using a few pills.
thats only true when they are only consuming the fuel they need. but most people don't NEED an SUV to get to work, they can happily do it in a much smaller, mroe fuel efficient car. Your suggesting that fuel is price inelastic. Im suggesting that the elasticity rises above a point where optimum fuel efficiency has been achieved. People driving gas guzzlers can happily be elastic about reducing consumption, by getting a smaller car next time.
I don't think you could possibly say that its exactly offtopic to mention a computer simulation of how governments can cut car travel with an article on cuts in car travel.:(
Why are people suprised? higher prices means less car use. I even modelled this here.
But US prices are still relatively low. To fill up a 50 litre car with gas in the UK costs around £50, translating to about $90.
I think you need to hit £1.50 a litre ($145 to fill up) before you get mass behaviour changes though.
Exactly why he should be president.
I don't want the president to be charming
I don't want the president to be funny
I don't want the president to be good looking
I don't want the president to be charismatic
I don't want the president to be photogenic
I want one thing:
I want the president to make well-informed and thought out decisions.
Thats pretty much his/her job. Every thing else is fluff. They can be a rude, ugly, annoying, womanising, tongue-tied hunchback for all I care. Presidential elections aren't about picking the lead guy for a spielberg movie, or the MC for a comedy club, they are about deciding what wars are worth fighting, what laws get passd, and similar heavy-shit issues.
The sooner people start realising this the better.
Hitler had charisma. So did Stalin, so did Saddam (in his own way). Charisma should not be the main qualification for the job.
in the UK, politicians often said our intelligence services thought he had WMD. In fact, they did not, the evidence they gave to the politicians was widely 'sexed-up', even having entire paragraphs changed before it was shown to the press. There was a LOT of fuss about this here.
2) We all thought there were WMDs
No we didn't. At least not in the UK. In fact, 2 million people amrched through central london 9the largest demonstration in the UK in living memory) to say exactly that. If Saddam had WMD we wouldnt have invaded him (see N korea for details). The best evidence to support the WMD theory was some student dissertation lifted off the web (see 'the dodgy dossier').
Don't pretend there was consensus about WMD before the war. There was not. Call Hans Blix and ask him if your still unsure.
Glad to see someone else thinking it may have an effect. I love video games, heck, I make them for a living (check the sig), and I mow down a lot of people in Battlefield 2. I'm pretty sure it *does* affect me though. Of course it does. How can we accept that a passive visual medium (advertising) massively affects the population as a whole (not only is it economically clear this is true, but I advertise myself and know it works), but assert that an interactive visual medium that often gives rewards for violent actions (games) somehow has no effect?
I'm not saying violent games should be banned, but should we prevent very young kids from playing them? I think we should. Its all very well saying 'leave it to the parents', but most parents equate games with super mario or pong, they have no idea whats in GTA and its ilk. Nor will they read any labels or warnings.
I'd much rather gamers learnt to accept that not *all* video games are suitable for *all* ages. There is no shortage of non violent (or low-violence) games that kids can enjoy, they don't have to go straight from kindergarten to soldier of fortune.
As I understood it, the artists never earned a penny from sales through this site, so it might be great for the consumers, but why on earth would you expect the music industry to embrace this? The RIAA might be bastards, but if they championed a model where the artists got zero, as opposed to 'not very much', you'd hate them even more.
I'm pretty sure theres enough economists working at sony etc to decide (with all the data they have) the sweet spot for music pricing. This just means that a lot of people who won't pay that will whine that its too expensive, but thats true of pretty much every product. I think cinema tickets are too expensive, so I dont go, but you can bet that the number of people who *do* go outweigh the small loses by losing me as a customer.
Its not the 'only' real solution. I'l believe its the required solution when...
people dont drive an SUV to drop the kids off at school
shops arent lit allthrough the night
shops dont have heating on in winter and doors left open
incandescent lightbulbs are seen as a quaint thing from yesteryear
A computer doing word processing doesnt ship with a 500watt PSU
Tomatoes don't travel 2000 miles (often by air) to get to my plate
Energy efficiency is an easy way to reduce carbon emmissions, and requires pretty much no huge changes to infrastructure. If the car companies and oil companies would stop liobbying the US govt (and funding the parties) to prevent them from raising fuel efficiency standards in the US, that would help too.
Energy inefficiency is a big problem. I'd rather that problem was fixed, than we try and paper over the cracks by building nculear power stations, especially before the waste disposal problem is addressed.
it took 2 years for my camera to start to go wrong. (I own a DSC-P72, since replaced by something non-sony).
Here aqre the affected ones; (from http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?sect ion=en_GB_Support&articlesection=2&article=1128075 116465&site=odw_en_GB)
F717
DSC-M1
DSC-P10
DSC-P12
DSC-P2
DSC-P31
DSC-P32
DSC-P51
DSC-P52
DSC-P7
DSC-P71
DSC-P72
DSC-P8
DSC-P92
DSC-T1
DSC-T3
DSC-T11
DSC-T33
DSC-U10
DSC-U20
DSC-U30
DSC-U40
DSC-U50
DSC-U60
DSC-V1
MVC-CD400
MVC-CD500
MVC-FD200
I'm not karma whoring, I actually own one of these pieces of shit (DSC-P72). I bought a replacement camera (non-sony) 2 weeks ago. Bastards. I'm still going to ensure they fix the piece of crap.
Best answer. You shouldnt spend half your working life explaining to your higher-paid employer how he is doing his job wrong. I went one further and quit entirely and now work for myself. My employer has a perfect grasp of what I need to boost my productivity.
nope, my pin ups are the top climate experts around the world who have posted peer reviewed articles and not taken funding from oil companies.
how is a climate scientist who is funded by exxon mobil credible?
Nice impartial study you quoted there:
? id=2
Pity that 'think tank' is funded mostly by oil companies isn't it?
"Competitive Enterprise Institute has received $2,005,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998."
source:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php
really?
you are trying to champion opposition to the man-made climate change theory, and your best pin-up guy is a science fiction writer? Somehow, I'll take the majority of climate experts accross the world over the word of some sci-fi writer. No offence,
why is tidal energy so easily written off? seems to be a totally waste-free non polluting energy source, especially the undersea tide-driven turbines. The tides are predicatble and with us forever. is it not economic? and how much has been spent on R&D. In the Uk at least, nuclear has proven masively uneconomic, is there any good reason to go for nuclear and not tidal? (granted its different for the UK, we have coastline coming out of our ass).