In a show like the Soprano's cooking or Lamaze would be an action characters perform for either some hidden meaning or to give the characters something to do while the story is advanced via other means (like dialogue). In a game, you're either totally involved in a cooking or Lamaze mini-game, or its carried out in a non-interactive way. So, for the interactive cooking segment, the narative (if any) has to come to a stop while you focus on the task at hand. Another character could talk to you while you cook, but most people will only be able to focus on cooking or listening, or do both poorly. Not to mention the outrage your typical gamer would have at having to cook or go to Lamaze with his pregnant mistress in a GTA or Soprano's game. Whereas most viewers probably aren't bothered when Carmela is making something to eat for Tony.
Get a role that requires you to be onsite in your local office, something that means customers have to see you.
This is good advice for job security. Yet, if a large enough number of people are losing jobs due to outsourcing, what local jobs are left (I typically think the trades, mechanics, retail) will have more people competeing for those jobs. The resulting (and increasingly) larger labor pool will supress wages in even these off-shore proof jobs. This is why I think wages will fall everywhere (not just the jobs that have to compete with cheaper labor overseas).
As for your other solution, entrepreneurship, I don't think this is realistic advice for most people (for a number of reasons). Even if it were, and all or most westerners ended up as buisness owners, I question how long it would take for those doing the actual work to simply form their own competing buisness to keep the riches to themselves. In fact, I think this trend is already begining. To take one example where this is already complete, TVs are no longer designed nor manufactured in the US, that entire industry was effectively off-shored awhile ago (although in Europe, Philips and Thomson are still around).
How does one "up-skill" when the jobs that require a 4 year degree get out-sourced? When the jobs that require a masters get out-sourced? When the jobs that require a PhD get out-sourced?
While your historical view of the flow of labor is solid, I think it's clouding today's reality. Intelligent people are everywhere. When a job gets outsourced, it doesn't mean you can invest X more years in your skills and knowledge and go back to work when someone half a world away can also invest X more years in their skills/knowledge and then apply for the same jobs at 1/10th the cost.
Wages for all jobs in the western world are going to fall as globalization continues, unless you're an owner of a corporation with international reach, in which case your wage will probably continue to rise. We're already seeing stangant wage growth in combination with macro-economic growth and inflation in core goods. The western middle class is in store for some painful years.
I really enjoyed using the stylus to fly, but had to cramp up my hands in order to hold the DS, fly, and fire at the same time.
I haven't played Starfox but I had a similar problem with Metroid Prime Hunters. The solution, is fairly simple, use the thumb strap that comes with the DS. It's difficult to hit a specific spot on the touch screen with accuracy using the thumb strap but, if Starfox is anything like Metroid, it's rarely a problem.
I'm also considering getting the ActionGrip for the DS, anyone have one of these? A MadCatz (I think) grip for the GBA SP removed all hand cramping I had with that.
Excuse me for replying to my own post. If step 2 is going to be illegal anyway, I suppose the government could just skip the torture and just forge some documents to make it look like you've renounced your citizenship before a U.S. consular officer. It still doesn't matter as you'll have no recourse to dispute the forgery.
All the US government has to do is declare you a non-combatant and according to this bill you automatically loose your citizenship.
Can you point me to this part of the bill? I don't know of anything about revocation of citizenship in there.
Not that the government needs to specify a new way to loose your citizenship. All they have to do now is: 1 - Declare you a unlawful enemy combatant (with no congressional or judicial oversight). 2 - Torture you until you're coerced into renouncing your citizenship before a U.S. consular officer. 3 - Enter you into the military comission (torture) system.
Now, the torture step is currently illegal if you're a US citizen. However, once step 3 is complete you lose access to any civilian court which would hold the government accountable and find your renouncement invalid (as it was coerced).
Now it's to the point where congress has really lost any control of the executive branch.
No, congress didn't lose control of the executive branch. They willingly gave it away and keep giving it away as evidenced by the senate's passage of the "torture" bill (officially called Military Commissions Act).
If you ever get branded a "alien unlawful enemy combatant" by the President OR the Secretary of Defense OR someone acting with their authority, forget about habeas corpus, you can spend the rest of your life in a military prison.
The group of people aren't all students, so far only one is. Most of them so far are adults. One of the guy's powers only seems active when he's on heroin (I forget, which X-Man had this power?).
When the group gets a bald leader in a pimped out wheelchair and they spend half their time fighting against mutant injustice, then I'll consider it a X-Men ripoff. Until then, it's just a group of super heroes (the show could've been inspired by any number of comics). They're not even a group yet! Only a few of the characters have met.
The free market would eventually find a replacement for gasoline, but when? Would it be after $6+/gallon gas and gas shortages or before? In other words, can the free market solve the problem before (freely available) oil runs out?
In my totally uninformed opinion, the free market will not act until after the negative affects from expensive oil are causing pain in every corner of society (i.e. when it's too late). So, I think we need some sort of intervention to mitigate the pain. I don't know if propositions like the one in the article are the right answer, but I do feel something needs to be done.
One of my favorite proposed solutions so far is the worldwide Manhattan project proposed by Thomas Friedman to rapidly develop/improve alternative sources of energy.
There are two franchises which move consoles in Japan: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Were there other quality games out there for the PSX and PS2? Absolutely. Did they register any near as important as FF or DQ? Not even close, not in Japan. Without FF or DQ you basically lose the Japanese RPG genre on your console. That genre isn't nearly as important in the west, but in Japan, a console is dead without them.
You're thinking of how things work in theory, not practice. In theory, congress passes a bill with a $30 Million rider to support the perverted arts. The president, not willing to pass a bill that would fund the perverted arts, vetoes it. If congress wants their bill passed, they have to go back and detach the rider and pass it again. Life is good.
In practice what happens (or used to happen) is congress would pass a think-of-the-children bill, with the $30 million rider to support the perverted arts. When the president vetoes it, his opponents score political points for saying the president (and his party) don't support children because they didn't pass the think-of-the-children bill. So, rather than veto it, the president passes it to avoid giving his opponents political ammunition. The line item veto changes the scenario, the president can now sign the think-of-the-children bill and avoid the $30 million perverted arts rider.
Actually, a line item veto bill was passed by the house this year (not heard in the senate) that would require congressional approval of any line item vetos. In addition to that, the line item veto was limited to reducing budgetary items (and they had to be for the sole purpose of reduction, not moving the money to a different project).
Still, I didn't see Clinton nominating a whole lot of pro-lifers to cabinet positions.
I don't know if he had any pro-lifers in his cabinet or not, but he did have Republican William Cohen serve as his Sec. of Defense for most of his 2nd term. Maybe he was just a token Republican, I don't know.
I probably did leave off the "period after a terrorist attack" intentionally. So, good catch. Does it make my statement look crazy and paranoid? I don't think so.
Regardless, look at the bill to see how a "terrorist attack" is defined:
...the President submits a notification to each member of the congressional intelligence committees and a judge having jurisdiction under section 103 that--
`(1) the United States has been the subject of a terrorist attack; and
`(2) identifies the terrorist organizations or affiliates of terrorist organizations believed to be responsible for the terrorist attack.
There's nothing there to keep the president from labeling any crime he wants a terrorist act in order to prompt 90 day warrant less surveillance (although congress and a judge will at least be aware of it). A better version of the bill would require a 2/3 majority vote from congress recognizing an attack was a terrorist action. Although I still fail to see the need for 90 days of surveillance without judicial oversight.
I don't think the phenomenon is limited to the Democrats. For example the same thing that happened to the Republican congressman Schwarz from Michigan.
Powell is a poor example, I don't think he has ever held an elected office. As for McCain, I have no doubt he'd have a tough primary fight if he were up for re-election this year. He'll never win the Republican presidential primary precisely because he strays too much from the party line.
Remember those days when congress and the white house constantly fought over every piece of legislation and seemingly nothing ever got accomplished? There were a couple times the fighting got so bad, the federal govenment even shut down. I had no idea I'd miss those days so much.
If anything, I overestimated protest votes prior to the 2004 election. While protest votes certainly help the minority party, if people don't feel they have someone to vote for rather than against, they'll simply stay home on election day. That's why I have little hope for the Democrats this election.
Liberman's primary loss is not a good example of a successful protest vote in a general election. His primary loss simply shows that you stand a good chance of being voted out of your party if you're viewed as being more aligned with the opposing party's positions/leaders.
Given the time before the new congress would take office and that the Republicans control both chambers until then, they can ram through any legislation that doesn't take a 2/3 majority vote.
Also, I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if the Republicans lost control. They might lose a few seats but I don't think they're going to lose their majority in either chamber. The Democrats have shown for the past decade that they're really bad at winning elections outside of gerrymandered districts.
Actually, Mortal Kombat wasn't the first violent video game that attracted controversy, that honor probably goes to Death Race which was released 15+ years earlier.
You really should read some of their articles. Start on their Iraq section if that war interests you. I have a ton of respect for CSM as a newspaper. They have far more original content than most papers. They come off as extremely balanced (they don't have a conservative or liberal bias).
I'm an athiest and have no interest in the Christian Science church (I was raised Methodist). If I'm able to read their articles without a problem, I don't think anyone else would have an issue.
Re:aside from hurting your own sales...
on
Wii to be Region Free
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You have more trouble pricing things differently if the regions are free. A company could release their FPS in Japan for $20 and in the US for $50 because of the differences in demand. Without region restrictions, the import ends up cheaper than the domestic version. People are already doing this for 360 games that keep getting discounted in Japan but still cost $60 in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
In a show like the Soprano's cooking or Lamaze would be an action characters perform for either some hidden meaning or to give the characters something to do while the story is advanced via other means (like dialogue). In a game, you're either totally involved in a cooking or Lamaze mini-game, or its carried out in a non-interactive way. So, for the interactive cooking segment, the narative (if any) has to come to a stop while you focus on the task at hand. Another character could talk to you while you cook, but most people will only be able to focus on cooking or listening, or do both poorly. Not to mention the outrage your typical gamer would have at having to cook or go to Lamaze with his pregnant mistress in a GTA or Soprano's game. Whereas most viewers probably aren't bothered when Carmela is making something to eat for Tony.
As for your other solution, entrepreneurship, I don't think this is realistic advice for most people (for a number of reasons). Even if it were, and all or most westerners ended up as buisness owners, I question how long it would take for those doing the actual work to simply form their own competing buisness to keep the riches to themselves. In fact, I think this trend is already begining. To take one example where this is already complete, TVs are no longer designed nor manufactured in the US, that entire industry was effectively off-shored awhile ago (although in Europe, Philips and Thomson are still around).
How does one "up-skill" when the jobs that require a 4 year degree get out-sourced? When the jobs that require a masters get out-sourced? When the jobs that require a PhD get out-sourced?
While your historical view of the flow of labor is solid, I think it's clouding today's reality. Intelligent people are everywhere. When a job gets outsourced, it doesn't mean you can invest X more years in your skills and knowledge and go back to work when someone half a world away can also invest X more years in their skills/knowledge and then apply for the same jobs at 1/10th the cost.
Wages for all jobs in the western world are going to fall as globalization continues, unless you're an owner of a corporation with international reach, in which case your wage will probably continue to rise. We're already seeing stangant wage growth in combination with macro-economic growth and inflation in core goods. The western middle class is in store for some painful years.
I'm also considering getting the ActionGrip for the DS, anyone have one of these? A MadCatz (I think) grip for the GBA SP removed all hand cramping I had with that.
Excuse me for replying to my own post. If step 2 is going to be illegal anyway, I suppose the government could just skip the torture and just forge some documents to make it look like you've renounced your citizenship before a U.S. consular officer. It still doesn't matter as you'll have no recourse to dispute the forgery.
Not that the government needs to specify a new way to loose your citizenship. All they have to do now is:
1 - Declare you a unlawful enemy combatant (with no congressional or judicial oversight).
2 - Torture you until you're coerced into renouncing your citizenship before a U.S. consular officer.
3 - Enter you into the military comission (torture) system.
Now, the torture step is currently illegal if you're a US citizen. However, once step 3 is complete you lose access to any civilian court which would hold the government accountable and find your renouncement invalid (as it was coerced).
If you ever get branded a "alien unlawful enemy combatant" by the President OR the Secretary of Defense OR someone acting with their authority, forget about habeas corpus, you can spend the rest of your life in a military prison.
I agree with everything you had to say.
The group of people aren't all students, so far only one is. Most of them so far are adults. One of the guy's powers only seems active when he's on heroin (I forget, which X-Man had this power?).
When the group gets a bald leader in a pimped out wheelchair and they spend half their time fighting against mutant injustice, then I'll consider it a X-Men ripoff. Until then, it's just a group of super heroes (the show could've been inspired by any number of comics). They're not even a group yet! Only a few of the characters have met.
The free market would eventually find a replacement for gasoline, but when? Would it be after $6+/gallon gas and gas shortages or before? In other words, can the free market solve the problem before (freely available) oil runs out?
In my totally uninformed opinion, the free market will not act until after the negative affects from expensive oil are causing pain in every corner of society (i.e. when it's too late). So, I think we need some sort of intervention to mitigate the pain. I don't know if propositions like the one in the article are the right answer, but I do feel something needs to be done.
One of my favorite proposed solutions so far is the worldwide Manhattan project proposed by Thomas Friedman to rapidly develop/improve alternative sources of energy.
There are two franchises which move consoles in Japan: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Were there other quality games out there for the PSX and PS2? Absolutely. Did they register any near as important as FF or DQ? Not even close, not in Japan. Without FF or DQ you basically lose the Japanese RPG genre on your console. That genre isn't nearly as important in the west, but in Japan, a console is dead without them.
You're thinking of how things work in theory, not practice. In theory, congress passes a bill with a $30 Million rider to support the perverted arts. The president, not willing to pass a bill that would fund the perverted arts, vetoes it. If congress wants their bill passed, they have to go back and detach the rider and pass it again. Life is good.
In practice what happens (or used to happen) is congress would pass a think-of-the-children bill, with the $30 million rider to support the perverted arts. When the president vetoes it, his opponents score political points for saying the president (and his party) don't support children because they didn't pass the think-of-the-children bill. So, rather than veto it, the president passes it to avoid giving his opponents political ammunition. The line item veto changes the scenario, the president can now sign the think-of-the-children bill and avoid the $30 million perverted arts rider.
Actually, a line item veto bill was passed by the house this year (not heard in the senate) that would require congressional approval of any line item vetos. In addition to that, the line item veto was limited to reducing budgetary items (and they had to be for the sole purpose of reduction, not moving the money to a different project).
Regardless, look at the bill to see how a "terrorist attack" is defined:
There's nothing there to keep the president from labeling any crime he wants a terrorist act in order to prompt 90 day warrant less surveillance (although congress and a judge will at least be aware of it). A better version of the bill would require a 2/3 majority vote from congress recognizing an attack was a terrorist action. Although I still fail to see the need for 90 days of surveillance without judicial oversight.
Thank you for linking to the actual bill.
Secondly, the article, the bill and my comment (which, I admit, was informed only by the article) all seem to be in agreement.
I think it's clear my comment was merely a summary of a portion of the article.
I don't think the phenomenon is limited to the Democrats. For example the same thing that happened to the Republican congressman Schwarz from Michigan.
Powell is a poor example, I don't think he has ever held an elected office. As for McCain, I have no doubt he'd have a tough primary fight if he were up for re-election this year. He'll never win the Republican presidential primary precisely because he strays too much from the party line.
Remember those days when congress and the white house constantly fought over every piece of legislation and seemingly nothing ever got accomplished? There were a couple times the fighting got so bad, the federal govenment even shut down. I had no idea I'd miss those days so much.
If anything, I overestimated protest votes prior to the 2004 election. While protest votes certainly help the minority party, if people don't feel they have someone to vote for rather than against, they'll simply stay home on election day. That's why I have little hope for the Democrats this election.
Liberman's primary loss is not a good example of a successful protest vote in a general election. His primary loss simply shows that you stand a good chance of being voted out of your party if you're viewed as being more aligned with the opposing party's positions/leaders.
Given the time before the new congress would take office and that the Republicans control both chambers until then, they can ram through any legislation that doesn't take a 2/3 majority vote.
Also, I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if the Republicans lost control. They might lose a few seats but I don't think they're going to lose their majority in either chamber. The Democrats have shown for the past decade that they're really bad at winning elections outside of gerrymandered districts.
RTFA, it answers your question. Someone can monitor all of your communications (wiretaps of any type) for 90 days without a warrant.
Actually, Mortal Kombat wasn't the first violent video game that attracted controversy, that honor probably goes to Death Race which was released 15+ years earlier.
You really should read some of their articles. Start on their Iraq section if that war interests you. I have a ton of respect for CSM as a newspaper. They have far more original content than most papers. They come off as extremely balanced (they don't have a conservative or liberal bias).
I'm an athiest and have no interest in the Christian Science church (I was raised Methodist). If I'm able to read their articles without a problem, I don't think anyone else would have an issue.
You have more trouble pricing things differently if the regions are free. A company could release their FPS in Japan for $20 and in the US for $50 because of the differences in demand. Without region restrictions, the import ends up cheaper than the domestic version. People are already doing this for 360 games that keep getting discounted in Japan but still cost $60 in the US.
C'mon, you're gonna wear these jokes down to the stub.
Oops. I don't know how I got the impression of the included second controller. Scratch my original comment.
I'll probably wait until the first price drop before picking one up now.