But they didn't. You said they only sold their time, which, unless they're employed by the game company, the game company has no control over. They got banned for giving items away. That's just wrong. They didn't break any rules of the game, considering that there isn't any way to exchange real-world currency within the game. Any exchange of currency happened OUTSIDE the game which means that those transactions can hardly be subject to the rules of the game. You're just a dick, I think. You enjoy other people's misfortune, even when it's unwarranted. That's just mean.
Thankfully? I suppose you made your own clothes, right? And grew your own food? Built your own house? Made your own car? No? You could have. I mean, buying things is a shortcut, isn't it? Trading your time spent accruing money for somoene else's time spent getting or making something. Why shouldn't people be allowed to play the game the way they want to? How could it affect you? If you don't want to buy in-game items, here's a helpful hint for you: don't buy them. I wouldn't pay good money for virtual items, but then I don't play MMORPGs either. Just because I think it's stupid to either spend 15 hours grinding for a virtual Giant Sword of Nerdiness OR pay $50 bucks for one on eBay doesn't mean that I think other people should be banned from doing either. You're thankful that other people lost their money for no good reason. Sounds pretty dickish to me.
If they say you cannot *give* any item to another person, maybe you'd be correct. But since they are not charging for the item itself, they are in the clear. No software company can control what you charge for your time as part of their terms of service or their license agreement. For example, if you are playing their game at work, you are charging your company for your time. However, you are spending that time playing a game. That doesn't mean you're breaking the terms of service of that game. Similarly, while you cannot charge money for an in-game item, the company cannot stop you for charging for your time, and throwing the in-game item in for free. That is, unless giving items to others period violates the terms of service.
Your point is invalid. If one is simply selling one's time, what happens to the item later doesn't matter. Not to mention that there is a HUGE difference between not being able to stop something and being held liable for it. What do you think a license is, anyhow? 'License agreement' and 'terms of use' are two different ways to say the same thing. Also, various parts of the games already have values. They aren't set by the company, usually, but that is immaterial. I'm sure somewhere in the same license agreement they have stated that they have the right to change any game feature at any time. I understand that the game company may not *want* you to make money off their game, but then again many software companies may not *want* you to make a backup copy of your original CD, either. That doesn't make doing so illegal.
They'd have to make it so that people cannot give items to others. That's the only way to stop it, and it would be extremely hard to make a game that worked like that. It would be difficult to keep people happy if they can't even trade items among friends. Other than that, I don't think they have any real legal recourse. "No, your Honor, I was just giving him that Greater Axe of Nerdiness out of the goodness of my heart. It's completely coincidental that I got a $5 paypal from him earlier that day." As has been suggested before, the optimal solution probably involves an in-game marketplace, so that the developer gets a piece of the action. People are going to want to buy their way into games, as people with means have always done. People with time to spare will trade that for money with people who have money to spare. You can't stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
How can a company prohibit you selling your time? Just because something is in a license agreement, that doesn't make it automatically valid. There are companies which provide thousands of driver files online, available for download. They charge you, not for the driver itself, but for their time to find it, test it, categorize it, and make it available. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. Look at real life: most people have to work hard to get things, but some people can 'cheat' and just buy them straight out. Why should a game world be different? For some people, it's all about grinding your way through a game. For some others, it's all about having the most fun actually playing the game. A subset of the latter would prefer to just buy stuff so they can get right to the fun. If you aren't that kind of person, I have some advice for you: Don't buy or sell things on the secondary market. Wow, that was difficult, huh?
Stupid bastards, taking advantage of peoples' gullibility
I have a completely different perspective. Mine is, "Stupid gullible idiots, thinking they're going to get something for nothing." I hate most ads, too. Not because they're lying, though. I assume that. No, I hate them because they're usually garish and stupid. What *I* wish is that those stupid, gullible people would stop being quite so damn stupid. Then, the advertisers would stop making money and the ads would go away. Here's a hint, you gullible morons: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. (Or, as Heinlein put it, TANSTAAFL.) How can they possibly send you a free iPod with just your zip code? Come on, people, don't be such fucking idiots. Also, 'people' is already plural so you need to put the apostrophe before the 's'.
"Question (From an N.C. State staff member): Where in heaven's name did the habit of putting a punctuation mark within a quote become policy? When quoting something that does not especially end with a period it seems unnatural to put a period wit hin the quotation marks just because it ends a sentence. (". . . to take the food away from the cat is not always. . .." To my way of thinking this is wrong and should be ". . . to take the food away from the cat is not always . ..". But, perhaps, I jus t don't see the logic.
Answer: You're right. American English is consistent in this punctuation policy. You can look for relief in British publications, which follow the rule you find more logical.
You are not alone in objecting to the American convention. A whole group of kindred spirits is lurking on one of the links from the N.C. State Online Writing Lab homepage. The "Frequently Asked Questions" link (on the bulleted list at the bottom of the page or directly at http://www.rt66.com/ telp/styfaq1.htm#q1) puts this question to a vote of copyeditors. The American system wins out, but the British system has surprising support. The analysis covers the reasons for the opinions."
(Note that since the passage I quoted had a full stop at the end, I put it inside the quotation marks.)
"Finally, there remains the problem of whether to put other punctuation marks inside or outside the quotation marks. There are two schools of thought on this, which I shall call the logical view and the conventional view.
The logical view holds that the only punctuation marks which should be placed inside the quotation marks are those that form part of the quotation, while all others should be placed outside. The conventional view, in contrast, insists on placing most other punctuation marks inside a closing quote, regardless of whether they form part of the quotation. Here are two sentences punctuated according to the logical view:
"The only thing we have to fear", said Franklin Roosevelt, "is fear itself."
The Prime Minister condemned what he called "simple-minded solutions".
And here they are punctuated according to the conventional view:
"The only thing we have to fear," said Franklin Roosevelt, "is fear itself."
The Prime Minister condemned what he called "simple-minded solutions."
Note the placing of the comma after fear in the first example and of the final full stop in the second. These are not part of their quotations, and so the logical view places them outside the quote marks, while the conventional view places them inside, on the theory that a closing quote should always follow another punctuation mark."
I quoted the comma because the sentence had one there. I then put a period after the end of the quote because sentences require stops, and a comma is not one. I'm surprised you weren't aware of that. Had I not quoted the comma, instead inserting a full stop as you suggested, that would imply that the sentence I was quoting was "Well, as long as we're being pedantic." That is not a complete sentence. Why on Earth would you consider that "right"?
Care to have another go at being more pedantic than I am?
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
in IT you are tought truth. in the legal profession you are tought to lie your ass off at every chance you get.
In English class, you are taught to spell. Well, you should have been.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Well as long as we're being pedantic,
You forgot a comma. Your sentence should begin like this: "Well, as long as we're being pedantic,".
Dude, if there was no slavery in the south, there would be no secession
So what? The fact is that secession was written in to the Constitution and so it doesn't really matter what the issue that caused secession was. What matters is that the voters of the Southern states excercised their supposed rights and had a war declared on them for it. I'm sure it isn't at all relevant that the majority of the tax revenue collected in the US came from the South and flowed to the North. Funny how the North had no problems selling slaves, spending tax money collected from selling slaves, and returning runaway slaves to their owners, yet supposedly the war was all about slavery. Right.
That's funny, the Southern representatives walked out in protest, and THEN a vote was taken about whether they could seceed. Then, when they did so after being told that they couldn't, the North started a war. The war was expressly and specifically to 'preserve the union' and no matter how much you claim otherwise, you're wrong. Had the Southern states not seceeded, the North wouldn't have fought a war over slavery. The War of Norhtern Agression was fought over secession. Period. It may have been *sold* as a war over slavery, even. But that isn't why the people who started it started it. I'm sorry if that's too radical a concept for you to wrap your mind around.
How on Earth does that logically follow? Should the voters of the state not be able to decide that they don't want to be one of the "United States"? If they are kept in by force, that's not very "united", is it? You're saying that thousands of American lives lost and billions in property lost is a preferable alternative to letting the voters of a state express their will? That's sick. As for the 'slavery would still exist' fallacy, back this up with something, please. There was an abolition movement in the South, too, you know. The underground railroad didn't START in the North. Whatever. You declare what would have happened as if it actually did, back it up with some fact, please. As to "If it weren't for the civil war, a minority wouldn't be allowed to walk down the street in the southern US without risking a (perfectly legal) lynch mob coming down on them because some white girl said they looked at her the wrong way.", these days, it's any man can be accused by any woman no matter the evidence.
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." - Abraham Lincoln.
Um...right because he should've let the states secede...yeah that would've been great.
Considering that they ostensibly had that power, yes, he should have. It was better to fight the bloodiest war in American history? It was better to have Americans fighting each other, looting, burning, pillaging, destroying good people and good land? Rights of the state are supposed to trump the rights of The State. The War of Northern Agression proved the lie of that concept once and for all.
How on Earth did 3rd rock not beat out Dark Angel? That's unpossible. This list is obviously shit. Great job, whoever wrote this list. You don't know a fucking thing about sci-fi. You're shit.
I don't see why they're worried. People think they have no choice but to vote for one head of the bifactional ruling party. Either that, or they really think there's a meaningful difference between those two heads. Odd how they can always seem to agree on making things harder for third-party candidates, huh? They disagree on growing the government only in terms of how much and how fast, and bizarrely it's the "conservative" half that seems to want more government faster. Good thing a small percentage of us is represented in our government. That's how it was intended, right?
It creates nothing of beauty or pleasure,' he writes. 'It simply helps someone get a bigger slice of the pie.
I bet the ones getting that bigger slice think it's a beautiful pleasure. It all depends on perspective. I mean, I find it repulsive, but then again, I don't think that everyone on Earth should share my exact values on beauty and pleasure. Maybe that's why I'm not a journalist. Zing!
Saying that campaign finance regulation unintentionally dampers free speech is kind of analagous to saying (bear with me here) that fossil fuel consumption unintentionally causes global warming.
In other words, sometimes your assumptions can be used to support or not support the same consequence.
Except that while science shows that global warming *may* exist, there is no hard evidence that it is not part of a natural cycle. Reliable data does not extend too far into the past, and any models made could have huge inaccuracies. However, the effects mentioned above are measurable. The power of the FedGov has increased. The power of the bifactional ruling party has increased. The power of the average citizen has decreased. Not really the same thing.
(sigh) Oh well, it was a good Constitution for the 200 years or so while it lasted...
Our Constitution died during the War of Northern Aggression. It didn't last nearly 200 years. However, its dessicated shell has served as a symbol since then. Now, it's starting to fail at even that. You're right about it being a sad reflection on our country, though. I doubt our founding fathers would want to be associated with what this country has become.
Slashdot Mirror
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
When your conculsions don't agree with reality, it's time to check your premise.
But they didn't. You said they only sold their time, which, unless they're employed by the game company, the game company has no control over. They got banned for giving items away. That's just wrong. They didn't break any rules of the game, considering that there isn't any way to exchange real-world currency within the game. Any exchange of currency happened OUTSIDE the game which means that those transactions can hardly be subject to the rules of the game. You're just a dick, I think. You enjoy other people's misfortune, even when it's unwarranted. That's just mean.
Thankfully? I suppose you made your own clothes, right? And grew your own food? Built your own house? Made your own car? No? You could have. I mean, buying things is a shortcut, isn't it? Trading your time spent accruing money for somoene else's time spent getting or making something. Why shouldn't people be allowed to play the game the way they want to? How could it affect you? If you don't want to buy in-game items, here's a helpful hint for you: don't buy them. I wouldn't pay good money for virtual items, but then I don't play MMORPGs either. Just because I think it's stupid to either spend 15 hours grinding for a virtual Giant Sword of Nerdiness OR pay $50 bucks for one on eBay doesn't mean that I think other people should be banned from doing either. You're thankful that other people lost their money for no good reason. Sounds pretty dickish to me.
If they say you cannot *give* any item to another person, maybe you'd be correct. But since they are not charging for the item itself, they are in the clear. No software company can control what you charge for your time as part of their terms of service or their license agreement. For example, if you are playing their game at work, you are charging your company for your time. However, you are spending that time playing a game. That doesn't mean you're breaking the terms of service of that game. Similarly, while you cannot charge money for an in-game item, the company cannot stop you for charging for your time, and throwing the in-game item in for free. That is, unless giving items to others period violates the terms of service.
Your point is invalid. If one is simply selling one's time, what happens to the item later doesn't matter. Not to mention that there is a HUGE difference between not being able to stop something and being held liable for it. What do you think a license is, anyhow? 'License agreement' and 'terms of use' are two different ways to say the same thing. Also, various parts of the games already have values. They aren't set by the company, usually, but that is immaterial. I'm sure somewhere in the same license agreement they have stated that they have the right to change any game feature at any time. I understand that the game company may not *want* you to make money off their game, but then again many software companies may not *want* you to make a backup copy of your original CD, either. That doesn't make doing so illegal.
They'd have to make it so that people cannot give items to others. That's the only way to stop it, and it would be extremely hard to make a game that worked like that. It would be difficult to keep people happy if they can't even trade items among friends. Other than that, I don't think they have any real legal recourse. "No, your Honor, I was just giving him that Greater Axe of Nerdiness out of the goodness of my heart. It's completely coincidental that I got a $5 paypal from him earlier that day."
As has been suggested before, the optimal solution probably involves an in-game marketplace, so that the developer gets a piece of the action. People are going to want to buy their way into games, as people with means have always done. People with time to spare will trade that for money with people who have money to spare. You can't stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
How can a company prohibit you selling your time? Just because something is in a license agreement, that doesn't make it automatically valid. There are companies which provide thousands of driver files online, available for download. They charge you, not for the driver itself, but for their time to find it, test it, categorize it, and make it available. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. Look at real life: most people have to work hard to get things, but some people can 'cheat' and just buy them straight out. Why should a game world be different? For some people, it's all about grinding your way through a game. For some others, it's all about having the most fun actually playing the game. A subset of the latter would prefer to just buy stuff so they can get right to the fun. If you aren't that kind of person, I have some advice for you: Don't buy or sell things on the secondary market. Wow, that was difficult, huh?
Stupid bastards, taking advantage of peoples' gullibility
I have a completely different perspective. Mine is, "Stupid gullible idiots, thinking they're going to get something for nothing."
I hate most ads, too. Not because they're lying, though. I assume that. No, I hate them because they're usually garish and stupid. What *I* wish is that those stupid, gullible people would stop being quite so damn stupid. Then, the advertisers would stop making money and the ads would go away. Here's a hint, you gullible morons: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. (Or, as Heinlein put it, TANSTAAFL.)
How can they possibly send you a free iPod with just your zip code? Come on, people, don't be such fucking idiots.
Also, 'people' is already plural so you need to put the apostrophe before the 's'.
From http://www2.ncsu.edu:8010/ncsu/grammar/Quotes3.ht
(Note that since the passage I quoted had a full stop at the end, I put it inside the quotation marks.)
From http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation
I quoted the comma because the sentence had one there. I then put a period after the end of the quote because sentences require stops, and a comma is not one. I'm surprised you weren't aware of that.
Had I not quoted the comma, instead inserting a full stop as you suggested, that would imply that the sentence I was quoting was "Well, as long as we're being pedantic." That is not a complete sentence. Why on Earth would you consider that "right"?
Care to have another go at being more pedantic than I am?
in IT you are tought truth. in the legal profession you are tought to lie your ass off at every chance you get.
In English class, you are taught to spell. Well, you should have been.
Well as long as we're being pedantic,
You forgot a comma. Your sentence should begin like this: "Well, as long as we're being pedantic,".
You're welcome.
Dude, if there was no slavery in the south, there would be no secession
So what? The fact is that secession was written in to the Constitution and so it doesn't really matter what the issue that caused secession was. What matters is that the voters of the Southern states excercised their supposed rights and had a war declared on them for it. I'm sure it isn't at all relevant that the majority of the tax revenue collected in the US came from the South and flowed to the North. Funny how the North had no problems selling slaves, spending tax money collected from selling slaves, and returning runaway slaves to their owners, yet supposedly the war was all about slavery. Right.
I'd say it should be more like 'Death to special priveleges'. I've never had a problem with equality, only supremacy disguised as equality.
That's funny, the Southern representatives walked out in protest, and THEN a vote was taken about whether they could seceed. Then, when they did so after being told that they couldn't, the North started a war. The war was expressly and specifically to 'preserve the union' and no matter how much you claim otherwise, you're wrong. Had the Southern states not seceeded, the North wouldn't have fought a war over slavery. The War of Norhtern Agression was fought over secession. Period. It may have been *sold* as a war over slavery, even. But that isn't why the people who started it started it. I'm sorry if that's too radical a concept for you to wrap your mind around.
How on Earth does that logically follow? Should the voters of the state not be able to decide that they don't want to be one of the "United States"? If they are kept in by force, that's not very "united", is it? You're saying that thousands of American lives lost and billions in property lost is a preferable alternative to letting the voters of a state express their will? That's sick. As for the 'slavery would still exist' fallacy, back this up with something, please. There was an abolition movement in the South, too, you know. The underground railroad didn't START in the North. Whatever. You declare what would have happened as if it actually did, back it up with some fact, please. As to "If it weren't for the civil war, a minority wouldn't be allowed to walk down the street in the southern US without risking a (perfectly legal) lynch mob coming down on them because some white girl said they looked at her the wrong way.", these days, it's any man can be accused by any woman no matter the evidence.
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." - Abraham Lincoln.
Um...right because he should've let the states secede...yeah that would've been great.
Considering that they ostensibly had that power, yes, he should have. It was better to fight the bloodiest war in American history? It was better to have Americans fighting each other, looting, burning, pillaging, destroying good people and good land? Rights of the state are supposed to trump the rights of The State. The War of Northern Agression proved the lie of that concept once and for all.
Well, you know, gotta fight those winnable wars. Like the one on drugs, the one on porn, the one in Iraq....
How on Earth did 3rd rock not beat out Dark Angel? That's unpossible.
This list is obviously shit. Great job, whoever wrote this list. You don't know a fucking thing about sci-fi. You're shit.
I don't see why they're worried. People think they have no choice but to vote for one head of the bifactional ruling party. Either that, or they really think there's a meaningful difference between those two heads. Odd how they can always seem to agree on making things harder for third-party candidates, huh? They disagree on growing the government only in terms of how much and how fast, and bizarrely it's the "conservative" half that seems to want more government faster. Good thing a small percentage of us is represented in our government. That's how it was intended, right?
It creates nothing of beauty or pleasure,' he writes. 'It simply helps someone get a bigger slice of the pie.
I bet the ones getting that bigger slice think it's a beautiful pleasure. It all depends on perspective. I mean, I find it repulsive, but then again, I don't think that everyone on Earth should share my exact values on beauty and pleasure. Maybe that's why I'm not a journalist. Zing!
Saying that campaign finance regulation unintentionally dampers free speech is kind of analagous to saying (bear with me here) that fossil fuel consumption unintentionally causes global warming.
In other words, sometimes your assumptions can be used to support or not support the same consequence.
Except that while science shows that global warming *may* exist, there is no hard evidence that it is not part of a natural cycle. Reliable data does not extend too far into the past, and any models made could have huge inaccuracies.
However, the effects mentioned above are measurable. The power of the FedGov has increased. The power of the bifactional ruling party has increased. The power of the average citizen has decreased. Not really the same thing.
However another post did show this legislation does not apply to blogs (yet), so this is probably moot.
The key word in the sentence above is parenthesized.
(sigh) Oh well, it was a good Constitution for the 200 years or so while it lasted...
Our Constitution died during the War of Northern Aggression. It didn't last nearly 200 years. However, its dessicated shell has served as a symbol since then. Now, it's starting to fail at even that. You're right about it being a sad reflection on our country, though. I doubt our founding fathers would want to be associated with what this country has become.
Thank you for a matter-of-fact reply to a tongue-in-cheeck post. Comedy gold!
It's as easy as buying a webhosting package. You have to have hosting somewhere, right? Why do you care where it is located?