As I recall, the twin towers were famously designed to withstand being hit by a jet. Problem is, you cant do accurate crash tests with buildings and real 747s. As I recall, the twin towers design promise turned out to be incorrect, and 3000 people died. The difference is, The building can be rebuilt, and the area is still livable. If that had been a nuclear power station instead, I'd imagine the whole city would be permnantly evacuated. Even if you would argue that there still wouldnt be a radiation release, i cant see local house prices and the economy doing well afterwards can you? By comparison, I'd rather risk terrorists attacking a few wind turbines. *oh the fear!*
Excellent post. It can be depressing to see the slashdot groupthink on nuclear power. The unbelieveable arrogance with which most slashdotters deride anyone who has concerns about nuclear, or dares even mention the fact that nobody has any idea what to do with the waste is staggering. Id imagine you will also be called a stinking hippy or a grass-eating *green* by some of the mob here. Its funny really, because its exactly that level of arrogance and dismissiveness on the topic that persuades the majority of voters in the UK that they do NOT want nuclear power.
u think nuclear is cheap? you need to take a real look at the books then. here in the UK, the taxpayer had to bail out our nuclear corp with 400 million pounds, and thats AFTER the govt agreed to oay 100% of the security and decommissioning costs for the whole industry. In the UK at least, solar and wind are WAY cheaper. And it cant be because of safety standards, sellafield (our most notorious plant) leaks like a sieve.
Im not sure past residents of 3 mile island or chernobyl would agree. I'm glad you are willing to trust private companies to build safe power stations, but as someone who has kept track of the numerous breaches of safety and security at british plants, I wouldnt be in such a hurry to build more. Having a nuke plant next to your house is also equiviliant to painting a big target on it and mailing directions to osamas pals. I'be much happier with a roof full of solar panels and a wind turbine in the back garden. Decentralised, no waste, and no likelihppd of some nutter aiming a 747 at it. Sadly nuclear has better paid lobbysist than the renewables industry.
Many years ago I was given a 'greenpeace' watch. It had some clever gyroscopes in it, and it recharged itself using kinetic energy. It was awesome. Sadly I lost it and can't find another. If you really waved your arm quickly you could hear the spinny doodads recharging. Anyone know where you can get them?
jesus what twaddle. first you say someones holding a gun to your head and making you buy a new album, then you equate the copyright holder trying to prevent piracy with slavery. its you that needs to think twice before hittng submit methinks.
*sigh* look, when i make something and sell it, until you sign the contract and buy it, its mine pal. If you need to sign a contract that says you agree not to copy it, as copyright does, then you have *talked terms*, and agreed to mine. If you hate disneys attitude to copyright, nobody has a gun to your head making you buy it. As another poster has put earlier, nobody forces people to enforce their copyright, novody forces you to buy the stuff. If you dont like the copyright terms on product X, dont buy it. But advocating the whole system be changed because some people dont like the terms is bullshit. Its a free market, and in that free market, people are choosing to buy the copyrighted product knowing full well its illegal to copy it. Thers simply no excuse to buy it, then copy it anyway, in that case its YOU who have broken the terms, even though you knew them, so quit whining about it. And you can cut the arrogance as well, although its clear you may find that difficult.
You dont want your furniture stolen? dont buy it man, you have no right to stop me stealing it.
You dont behave this way with physical goods, and if you do, you end up in jail. What is so beneath you about paying for the creative works of someone rather than the physical works? When someone writes a hit song, they dont do it in 10 minutes. They might have been writing duds for 10 years and end up with one hit. You would pay them the equivilant of 10 minutes work, for that lucky bit of inspiration. So whose going to spend 10 years honing their craft as a creative person? Nobody This isnt rocket science. People write books, music and make movies hoping to one day have a hit, hoping to offset a high probability of failure. Tats a basic risk/reward situatrion. You are basically taking away the big reward. That means its all risk and no compensatory payback. Your end result is to kill the market. Or you think that this is one of those special cases where the free market magically stops working. Somehow I dont think so. You say its not mine? if I write a novel, its mine, if I make a chair, its mine. Whats so magical that means you are entitled to take my work for free, just because its not a physical object? Im so sick of people who consume creative works by other people constantly, yet reckon they are entitled to take them for nothing. you obviously dont give a toss about the people who make this stuff you consume so eagerly.
copyright is over? cool, so like I say, all bands should give up now and become lawyers instead, as they wont earn a penny from writing new music. Great plan. Really. So basically none of the softare companies in existance except freeware ones should exist by your reckoning, as they require copyright to make the business viable. I take it you are dead happy to see basically zero progress in software from now on. What a twat.
its not the same. A better comparison would be that the doctor gets paid nothing at all by 99% of his patients, and indefinitely by the one where he performs a miracle operation. Most music, books,games and films lose money. The long tail of payments over many years for the hits often is just compensating for a long long string of failures, often leading to bankruptcy by very poorly paid developers. This doesnt happen in the public eye though, so everyone assumes every musician is an overnight success and has laways been rich. It just aint so.
yeah musicians are lazy sons of bitches. and they are all mega famous after the first sis months. Its such a major gravy train for those lucky swine. I cant imagine any of them had spent 10 years learning instruments, practicing, writing songs and playing shit gigs for no money. The moment any of them write a song thats good enough to be a hit, we should punish them as much as we can and ensure they dont make any cash. Same with authors, who gives a toss if it takes someone 10 years to write a masterpiece. They dont deserve to make money from it for the same period, and as lazy ass uncreative consumers, we are ENTITLED to their product for free by then. Nobody forces you to buy music at all. if you dont like it, dont buy it, or better still, write your own.
wow that sounds cool, there will be no more new music, new software, new movies, new tv shows, ever again. great plan buddy. I spose you assume that creative people dont need to eat? get real, the ease of copying creative works means that copyright is MORE important now than before. I guess you dont work in a job where you create anything digital or easily copied, because your plan makes you a homeless tramp...
What???????? Surely you have this backwards. If I cant just re-record a beatles song for free, I'll have to write my own song, thats the whole point.If copyright lapsed right away, people would just be copying and selling other peoples creations without creating their own. Look at the casual video games market. Copyright is generally being ignored. end result is that every game is just a clone of Zuma, and there is hardly any real innovation. I'm against stupidly vague patents, and certainly against 70 year copyright (but maybe 15 years is ok, dont forget some people take 5 years to make a book or a movie), but there has to be strong enforcement of copyrights whilst the poduct still sells, because thats the only incentive for that artist to create the work in the first place. The long payback might seem cushy to others, but they forget the effort and time spent by the authors with no guarantee of payback. JRR tolkein might have wasted years of his life writing a book nobody bought, and statistically most writers and musiciians (and software devs) work for years on stuff that never makes its money back. The occasional hit has to make up for a lot of time living on potato chips.
wow what nonsense. I guess things would be different if you explained to the hypothetical non driver how much fuel was needed to power the hummer and the prius? I reckon if aliens landed and observed people filling up their tanks, they would assume that the ones driving a hummer to work were mentally ill. Especially if the aliens were vulcans, as that would be so 'illogical captain'. Ok I lost it towards the end a bit...
You can make whatever silly arguments you like to justify driving your SUV. nobody with a brain will be fooled though.
This whole 'scandal' is a cooked up piece of pathetic marketing but the middle class white boy who wishes he was a gangsta who designed this crappy game. He actually believes that ALL video games should be about graffiti, hip-hop and terrorism because 'thats what the kids dig'. He even posed on the front cover of 'Develop' magazine with a baseball cap on backwards. I reckon hes mid thrities. what a dick. And yes people DO buy games. Thankfully, otherwise nobody would be making them anymore. Thats called economics. If you think its the 'done-thing' to pirate games these days, you are just contributing to wiping out the industry or forcing even more draconian DRM in the future. If you like a game, buy it, it's not like they are a months salary FFS.
Thankyou for this excellent feedback. The two-party thing is a total fudge, but its a deliberate design decision in order to keep the focus on policies rather than electoral math. There are other games that specialise purely on the election process, whereas I wanted to get involved way more with the issues, and the compromises required to achieve balance. Maybe my website needs redoing. I think I'll have a look at some website templates. Its good to get someone 'outside' to give a warts and all opinion of it. Thanks.
I've had SOME success in getting my game: http://www.democracygame.com/ used in some politics courses, but it's been very hard work, despite the fact that the teachers and students who sue it think its a great learning tool. Theres no simple way to promote a product like a video game for use in schools accross the US, or if there is, I can't find it. I'm sure the likes of EA or Microsoft can get the attention of federal educators, but anyone know how the little guy gets his foot in the door?
Aren't these guys the people publishing 'Tycoon City - New York', thats being released this month and is made by UK company deep red? Previous deep red games have been great, and I was suprised that the current one had a rushed-out demo, and very little interest on ataris forums. Another case of a poor publisher dragging down the best efforts of a capable developer I guess.
*sigh* whats the point in "sharing the culture man!" if nobody produces any culture anymore because they know cheap-asses are gonna just steal it. great plan.
I used to copy the odd tape to 2 or three friends. these days, I can copy that tape to a queue of 2000 people accross the globe I never met, maybe 4 of them at once. And I can do this while asleep or at work. Bit of a big difference there...
Slashdot Mirror
that worked at chernobyl did it?
Nope. last I heard a HUGE swathe of land around the site was unusable.
As I recall, the twin towers were famously designed to withstand being hit by a jet. Problem is, you cant do accurate crash tests with buildings and real 747s.
As I recall, the twin towers design promise turned out to be incorrect, and 3000 people died. The difference is, The building can be rebuilt, and the area is still livable. If that had been a nuclear power station instead, I'd imagine the whole city would be permnantly evacuated. Even if you would argue that there still wouldnt be a radiation release, i cant see local house prices and the economy doing well afterwards can you?
By comparison, I'd rather risk terrorists attacking a few wind turbines. *oh the fear!*
Excellent post. It can be depressing to see the slashdot groupthink on nuclear power. The unbelieveable arrogance with which most slashdotters deride anyone who has concerns about nuclear, or dares even mention the fact that nobody has any idea what to do with the waste is staggering.
Id imagine you will also be called a stinking hippy or a grass-eating *green* by some of the mob here.
Its funny really, because its exactly that level of arrogance and dismissiveness on the topic that persuades the majority of voters in the UK that they do NOT want nuclear power.
u think nuclear is cheap? you need to take a real look at the books then. here in the UK, the taxpayer had to bail out our nuclear corp with 400 million pounds, and thats AFTER the govt agreed to oay 100% of the security and decommissioning costs for the whole industry.
In the UK at least, solar and wind are WAY cheaper. And it cant be because of safety standards, sellafield (our most notorious plant) leaks like a sieve.
the deaths arent the big problem. how much farmland becomes unusable after 35 meltdowns exactly? and how much land becomes unlivable for humans?
Im not sure past residents of 3 mile island or chernobyl would agree. I'm glad you are willing to trust private companies to build safe power stations, but as someone who has kept track of the numerous breaches of safety and security at british plants, I wouldnt be in such a hurry to build more.
Having a nuke plant next to your house is also equiviliant to painting a big target on it and mailing directions to osamas pals. I'be much happier with a roof full of solar panels and a wind turbine in the back garden. Decentralised, no waste, and no likelihppd of some nutter aiming a 747 at it. Sadly nuclear has better paid lobbysist than the renewables industry.
Many years ago I was given a 'greenpeace' watch. It had some clever gyroscopes in it, and it recharged itself using kinetic energy. It was awesome. Sadly I lost it and can't find another. If you really waved your arm quickly you could hear the spinny doodads recharging.
Anyone know where you can get them?
jesus what twaddle. first you say someones holding a gun to your head and making you buy a new album, then you equate the copyright holder trying to prevent piracy with slavery.
its you that needs to think twice before hittng submit methinks.
*sigh*
look, when i make something and sell it, until you sign the contract and buy it, its mine pal. If you need to sign a contract that says you agree not to copy it, as copyright does, then you have *talked terms*, and agreed to mine.
If you hate disneys attitude to copyright, nobody has a gun to your head making you buy it. As another poster has put earlier, nobody forces people to enforce their copyright, novody forces you to buy the stuff. If you dont like the copyright terms on product X, dont buy it. But advocating the whole system be changed because some people dont like the terms is bullshit. Its a free market, and in that free market, people are choosing to buy the copyrighted product knowing full well its illegal to copy it. Thers simply no excuse to buy it, then copy it anyway, in that case its YOU who have broken the terms, even though you knew them, so quit whining about it.
And you can cut the arrogance as well, although its clear you may find that difficult.
nice argument there, let me extend it.
You dont want your furniture stolen? dont buy it man, you have no right to stop me stealing it.
You dont behave this way with physical goods, and if you do, you end up in jail. What is so beneath you about paying for the creative works of someone rather than the physical works?
When someone writes a hit song, they dont do it in 10 minutes. They might have been writing duds for 10 years and end up with one hit. You would pay them the equivilant of 10 minutes work, for that lucky bit of inspiration.
So whose going to spend 10 years honing their craft as a creative person?
Nobody
This isnt rocket science. People write books, music and make movies hoping to one day have a hit, hoping to offset a high probability of failure. Tats a basic risk/reward situatrion. You are basically taking away the big reward. That means its all risk and no compensatory payback. Your end result is to kill the market.
Or you think that this is one of those special cases where the free market magically stops working.
Somehow I dont think so.
You say its not mine? if I write a novel, its mine, if I make a chair, its mine. Whats so magical that means you are entitled to take my work for free, just because its not a physical object?
Im so sick of people who consume creative works by other people constantly, yet reckon they are entitled to take them for nothing. you obviously dont give a toss about the people who make this stuff you consume so eagerly.
copyright is over?
cool, so like I say, all bands should give up now and become lawyers instead, as they wont earn a penny from writing new music. Great plan. Really.
So basically none of the softare companies in existance except freeware ones should exist by your reckoning, as they require copyright to make the business viable.
I take it you are dead happy to see basically zero progress in software from now on.
What a twat.
its not the same. A better comparison would be that the doctor gets paid nothing at all by 99% of his patients, and indefinitely by the one where he performs a miracle operation.
Most music, books,games and films lose money. The long tail of payments over many years for the hits often is just compensating for a long long string of failures, often leading to bankruptcy by very poorly paid developers. This doesnt happen in the public eye though, so everyone assumes every musician is an overnight success and has laways been rich. It just aint so.
yeah musicians are lazy sons of bitches. and they are all mega famous after the first sis months. Its such a major gravy train for those lucky swine. I cant imagine any of them had spent 10 years learning instruments, practicing, writing songs and playing shit gigs for no money. The moment any of them write a song thats good enough to be a hit, we should punish them as much as we can and ensure they dont make any cash.
Same with authors, who gives a toss if it takes someone 10 years to write a masterpiece. They dont deserve to make money from it for the same period, and as lazy ass uncreative consumers, we are ENTITLED to their product for free by then.
Nobody forces you to buy music at all. if you dont like it, dont buy it, or better still, write your own.
wow that sounds cool, there will be no more new music, new software, new movies, new tv shows, ever again. great plan buddy. I spose you assume that creative people dont need to eat?
get real, the ease of copying creative works means that copyright is MORE important now than before.
I guess you dont work in a job where you create anything digital or easily copied, because your plan makes you a homeless tramp...
What???????? Surely you have this backwards. If I cant just re-record a beatles song for free, I'll have to write my own song, thats the whole point.If copyright lapsed right away, people would just be copying and selling other peoples creations without creating their own.
Look at the casual video games market. Copyright is generally being ignored. end result is that every game is just a clone of Zuma, and there is hardly any real innovation.
I'm against stupidly vague patents, and certainly against 70 year copyright (but maybe 15 years is ok, dont forget some people take 5 years to make a book or a movie), but there has to be strong enforcement of copyrights whilst the poduct still sells, because thats the only incentive for that artist to create the work in the first place. The long payback might seem cushy to others, but they forget the effort and time spent by the authors with no guarantee of payback. JRR tolkein might have wasted years of his life writing a book nobody bought, and statistically most writers and musiciians (and software devs) work for years on stuff that never makes its money back. The occasional hit has to make up for a lot of time living on potato chips.
wow what nonsense. I guess things would be different if you explained to the hypothetical non driver how much fuel was needed to power the hummer and the prius? I reckon if aliens landed and observed people filling up their tanks, they would assume that the ones driving a hummer to work were mentally ill. Especially if the aliens were vulcans, as that would be so 'illogical captain'.
Ok I lost it towards the end a bit...
You can make whatever silly arguments you like to justify driving your SUV. nobody with a brain will be fooled though.
This whole 'scandal' is a cooked up piece of pathetic marketing but the middle class white boy who wishes he was a gangsta who designed this crappy game. He actually believes that ALL video games should be about graffiti, hip-hop and terrorism because 'thats what the kids dig'. He even posed on the front cover of 'Develop' magazine with a baseball cap on backwards. I reckon hes mid thrities. what a dick.
And yes people DO buy games. Thankfully, otherwise nobody would be making them anymore. Thats called economics. If you think its the 'done-thing' to pirate games these days, you are just contributing to wiping out the industry or forcing even more draconian DRM in the future. If you like a game, buy it, it's not like they are a months salary FFS.
Thankyou for this excellent feedback. The two-party thing is a total fudge, but its a deliberate design decision in order to keep the focus on policies rather than electoral math. There are other games that specialise purely on the election process, whereas I wanted to get involved way more with the issues, and the compromises required to achieve balance.
Maybe my website needs redoing. I think I'll have a look at some website templates. Its good to get someone 'outside' to give a warts and all opinion of it.
Thanks.
Yup, this is already in development (outsourced, as I have no mac experience)
I've had SOME success in getting my game:
http://www.democracygame.com/
used in some politics courses, but it's been very hard work, despite the fact that the teachers and students who sue it think its a great learning tool.
Theres no simple way to promote a product like a video game for use in schools accross the US, or if there is, I can't find it. I'm sure the likes of EA or Microsoft can get the attention of federal educators, but anyone know how the little guy gets his foot in the door?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/tax_tot_tax_we d_sin_wor
number 22 in the world, just below the USA at number 21
try changing it: http://www.democracygame.com/
Aren't these guys the people publishing 'Tycoon City - New York', thats being released this month and is made by UK company deep red?
Previous deep red games have been great, and I was suprised that the current one had a rushed-out demo, and very little interest on ataris forums. Another case of a poor publisher dragging down the best efforts of a capable developer I guess.
Thats only retail games. There are some smaller gems out there check out:
www.gametunnel.com
www.democracygame.com
*sigh*
whats the point in "sharing the culture man!" if nobody produces any culture anymore because they know cheap-asses are gonna just steal it.
great plan.
I used to copy the odd tape to 2 or three friends. these days, I can copy that tape to a queue of 2000 people accross the globe I never met, maybe 4 of them at once. And I can do this while asleep or at work.
Bit of a big difference there...