This is really the tip of the iceburg to a much larger problem - you are talking about just online. But how about encompassing not just online but the entire sphere of existence - person to person, over the phone, in business transactions? How do you know who is who and who isn't - for certain?
Problems of changing address and personal information being proliferated completetly and efficiently, IDENTITY THEFT, identity confusion, citizenship status, accessibility of medical and financial information, etc. have all grown out not being able to readily prove exactly who you are and who you are not.
The solution I have come up with is for the US government to charter an organization to develop and open source, multi-biometric, voluntarily commercialy extensible citizenship database. No, this doesn't mean you would need an 'id card', but that you, or at least your retenas/fingerprint/dna would BE the id card.
Want to mail someone a package but unsure of their address? Just fill out the scantron label with their id number and the post office inprocessing will append their most recent address to the box.
Why carry a credit card anymore? Give Visa permission to extense certain fields of your record in the database and just get a retnal scan in the check-out line.
Worried about illegal aliens? Access to social services will require a biometric check - and if that person is not flagged as being an America, they get a free trip back to [home country].
Worried it will be build by a lousy private developer with no oversite? While it will probably cost some money to develop, it will be open source with multiple phases of public comment for experts to make sure that it is hack-proof with multi-million dollar prize to the first group that can hack it and reports it to the chartered organization to ensure security. And when it is no longer completely safe, time for an upgrade.
You are good at making long sentences with big words and sounding like a Lyndon Laruche (sp?)supporter.
"The major party candidates allow their hopelessly flawed, cynical and myopic view of politics as an enabler to sell a floating currency standard to prevent them from stealing a march on a reformed Bretton Woods treaty."
What some simple evidence that what I said is true? Look at games that have come out for Xbox and PS2 other than EA, and support online only from Xbox? DDR, Dead Man's Hand, MX Super Fly, Run Like Hell, Burnout 3, etc.
And EA is no longer PS2 online only. I think that proves you wrong, Mr. LaRusche.
"Readily observable facts" don't make any sense to me. BXL makes online more accessible to developers.
As a developer, do you really want to get locked in to the long time costs of handling all of the internet traffic, server costs and support, etc etc after you release your game or would you rather let MS do it? If the developers/publishers had to deal with that headache, a lot less would bother with online.
XBL makes it easy for them to get extra online revenue while using a uniform system of payment and content delivery. This way they can focus on making great games and not worry about something that isn't part of their core competency.
XBL makes it much easier for developers to make their games online enabled and to make money online with their games beyond the purchase (see DDR's for sale content.)
If it is such a failure, why have developers for PS2, with a much larger market considering the consoles sold and the potential to use broadband, only made 80 online games for the PS2 whearas the Xbox has just as many?
And only one in ten Xboxes have live? Any stats on PS2? And are you sure it's 1 in 10 for markets that live is available? I don't think they sold more than 10 million xboxes in the States, so it's probably a ratio higher than that.
Please. When were you born, 1997? High unemployment would be double digits. You know, like it is all the time in Europe. Many economists still think that full employment is 5%. Today it's at ~6.5% and jobs are being created faster than ever - luring more people from semi-retirment or non-working status to unemployed/job seeking status. Get a clue, Democrat.
I agree. I should have specified that he's just there watching TV or a DVD and making sure you don't destroy the chip when you seat the fan. You gotta do all the work - hence the fun.
And they are a LOT less expensive. You can build a SOTA machine for $2000. Only a moron buys these machines that have 2-3-4x markup on parts. Want to know how to build a machine?
First, decide what parts to use by looking at Tom's hardware or some other site you trust that builds extreme machines for testing the latest components. This is where you get your template.
Then go to Pricewatch and maybe froogle to find the lowest prices on the components while double checking the vendors reputation on Reseller Ratings.
Finally, have a friend who has a little experience come over and put that beauty together.
I spec'ed out a top of the line Alienware machine against building my own with the same or better components and cut the price by more than half.
I have that list bookmarked. Half of them aren't out. Many will die before more are released. Many of them are independent with very little market penetration. You want a list of MMO's that matter?
WoW, EQII, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, and MxO. The rest are neither here nor there.
So you criticize his list because half aren't out yet. And then you list at least three out of five as being ones that matter that aren't out yet either. Weak.
Why are Microsoft products so endlessly frustrating to use? Even techno-geeks like me get annoyed by Windows. I'm tired of spending the first 10 minutes of my day rebooting just so I can get to work. Microsoft Outlook 2003, the latest version of the company's e-mail and calendar software, hangs for me about once a day, requiring me to restart my PC. I also have a problem with Word 2003: Whenever I bullet a line of text, every line in the document gets a bullet. Asking Windows to shut down is more of a request than a command--it might, it might not. And recently, Internet Explorer stopped opening for me.
Dude. I have not reset my Windows desktop machine in weeks. Maybe months. I have all these programs. I have no problems. This guy has gotten himself infected with virii of some sort from being stupid. He is a total moron and there is nothing wrong with the software. Even the things he talks about happening within programs are easy to fix with the buttons readily available.
It's the troops within it who are actually 'stationary.' I've seen the thing. It has tracks.
Sometimes military lingo doesn't make total sense but you have to roll with it unless your the Secretary and then you can fix it, but odds are you will have your hands full with more important matters.
Tell these morons selling their games to EB to STOP. Sell it on Ebay. It sells for a higher price, the seller gets much much more than the clowns at EB pays.
The publishers would prefer this as the price of games doesn't drop off too much other than the ones that don't sell well or are really old.
And another thought - publishers could come out with new versions every year. No one buys NFL 2003 after 2004 comes out and the inventory at EB becomes worthless.
That is about the most lousy reason to decide what game system to buy EVER. I am glad not to be your kid having to listen to my nutcase parent explain to my why Santa can't bring me Halo2.
If you read The Bell Curve by Charles Murray and Rothbard, it proves as best as it possibly could be proven that IQ is the driver behind success. Forget race, income or education of your parents, whatever. IQ is the driver behind it all.
Slashdot Mirror
Problems of changing address and personal information being proliferated completetly and efficiently, IDENTITY THEFT, identity confusion, citizenship status, accessibility of medical and financial information, etc. have all grown out not being able to readily prove exactly who you are and who you are not.
The solution I have come up with is for the US government to charter an organization to develop and open source, multi-biometric, voluntarily commercialy extensible citizenship database. No, this doesn't mean you would need an 'id card', but that you, or at least your retenas/fingerprint/dna would BE the id card.
Frickin A, computer nothing. You can simply learn the optimal branches for back gammon. It's only a few steps beyond tic-tac-toe.
made me laugh.
"The major party candidates allow their hopelessly flawed, cynical and myopic view of politics as an enabler to sell a floating currency standard to prevent them from stealing a march on a reformed Bretton Woods treaty."
What some simple evidence that what I said is true? Look at games that have come out for Xbox and PS2 other than EA, and support online only from Xbox? DDR, Dead Man's Hand, MX Super Fly, Run Like Hell, Burnout 3, etc.
And EA is no longer PS2 online only. I think that proves you wrong, Mr. LaRusche.
As a developer, do you really want to get locked in to the long time costs of handling all of the internet traffic, server costs and support, etc etc after you release your game or would you rather let MS do it? If the developers/publishers had to deal with that headache, a lot less would bother with online.
XBL makes it easy for them to get extra online revenue while using a uniform system of payment and content delivery. This way they can focus on making great games and not worry about something that isn't part of their core competency.
XBL makes it much easier for developers to make their games online enabled and to make money online with their games beyond the purchase (see DDR's for sale content.)
If it is such a failure, why have developers for PS2, with a much larger market considering the consoles sold and the potential to use broadband, only made 80 online games for the PS2 whearas the Xbox has just as many?
And only one in ten Xboxes have live? Any stats on PS2? And are you sure it's 1 in 10 for markets that live is available? I don't think they sold more than 10 million xboxes in the States, so it's probably a ratio higher than that.
Please. When were you born, 1997? High unemployment would be double digits. You know, like it is all the time in Europe. Many economists still think that full employment is 5%. Today it's at ~6.5% and jobs are being created faster than ever - luring more people from semi-retirment or non-working status to unemployed/job seeking status. Get a clue, Democrat.
Regardless, my point is it is mobile. Perhaps not in the game.
I agree. I should have specified that he's just there watching TV or a DVD and making sure you don't destroy the chip when you seat the fan. You gotta do all the work - hence the fun.
First, decide what parts to use by looking at Tom's hardware or some other site you trust that builds extreme machines for testing the latest components. This is where you get your template.
Then go to Pricewatch and maybe froogle to find the lowest prices on the components while double checking the vendors reputation on Reseller Ratings.
Finally, have a friend who has a little experience come over and put that beauty together.
I spec'ed out a top of the line Alienware machine against building my own with the same or better components and cut the price by more than half.
But if you get hit in, say, the foot, you might not feel it.
For villas in Asheron's Call. There was a while when there were only a few of them. Prices got over 1000+.
When you are hit in Painball, it's pretty clear you've been hit. How do you determine this in Airsoft?
WoW, EQII, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, and MxO. The rest are neither here nor there.
So you criticize his list because half aren't out yet. And then you list at least three out of five as being ones that matter that aren't out yet either. Weak.
Dude. I have not reset my Windows desktop machine in weeks. Maybe months. I have all these programs. I have no problems. This guy has gotten himself infected with virii of some sort from being stupid. He is a total moron and there is nothing wrong with the software. Even the things he talks about happening within programs are easy to fix with the buttons readily available.
Sometimes military lingo doesn't make total sense but you have to roll with it unless your the Secretary and then you can fix it, but odds are you will have your hands full with more important matters.
Stationary means that it can deploy troops. IE - they are "stationed" within the vehicle.
HAhahahahahahah. Seems political correctness has infected the other side of the ring of fire.
I wonder why they don't just buy popular Jap developers and have them produce games exclusivly for the Xbox.
Damn straight.
Word Spy Definition
Blackberries are clunky. Get a Nokia 3650 with a Palm Keyboard and the drivers, and you are set!
The publishers would prefer this as the price of games doesn't drop off too much other than the ones that don't sell well or are really old.
And another thought - publishers could come out with new versions every year. No one buys NFL 2003 after 2004 comes out and the inventory at EB becomes worthless.
That is about the most lousy reason to decide what game system to buy EVER. I am glad not to be your kid having to listen to my nutcase parent explain to my why Santa can't bring me Halo2.
If you read The Bell Curve by Charles Murray and Rothbard, it proves as best as it possibly could be proven that IQ is the driver behind success. Forget race, income or education of your parents, whatever. IQ is the driver behind it all.