Hmmm.. in other words, the zombie players would be looking at it maybe a bit more like an RTS, controlling armies of units. Or maybe like a deranged version of Pikmin. Interesting...
HARMANZ GAN... Er, I mean, exactly what I was thinking. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how they make the Zombie side interesting, and able to keep players. Unlike UD, I imagine that when you log out of this game, your avatar goes as well, not leaving a body for other players to attack. What happens when you have 1000 Survivor players log in, and 5 Zombies?
Even if the sides are even number-wise, part of the horror atmosphere comes from being outnumbered by the shambling undead. It will be interesting to see how they handle balancing these inequities. Perhaps they can hire some of the people behind the Natural Selection HL mod for advice?
You might want to look up the word "sequel" at some point. A sequel is a "follow-up" to a previous work. Given that all the Final Fantasy games use the same magic, items, and contain common elements with each other - they're all sequels.
I hate to be pedantic here, but by the definition you give, no, it isn't.
1. Something that follows; a continuation.
Like SW Episode one came out following SW Episode 6, right? This isn't the right usage here.. you want to look at:
2. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
By this, no, they are not sequels. For what it's worth, Wiktionary agrees. Of course, that said, you can now just edit the Wiktionary definition to fit whatever meaning you choose, but...
Consider that intelligence, strength, and agility have all been shown to have an hereditary aspect. Now, consider the case of Squirrel A and Squirrel B. Squirrel A has genetic pre-disposition to being smart, strong and agile, while you... er, I mean, Squirrel B, do not possess any of these qualities.
Squirrel A remembers where his nuts are at all times, and excels at providing nourishment for himself, his mate and his offspring. He get's all the chicks and has many, many offspring, all of which also carry his superior traits and are equally skilled at procreation.
Squirrel B, however, even if he were to be able to blindly find his way out of his mother's basement, doesn't present a very desirable mating choice. If he were to mate, he'd be lucky to have the nuts needed to keep a family fed, and any offspring that managed to survive the winter without starving to death will be weak and sickly, and they to would be poor performers when it comes to procreation. Through this, the overall squirrel population becomes more likely to survive in the ecosystem.
And that, poor Squir.. er, AC, is how Natural Selection makes the squirrel population stronger. The existence of this behaviour on Earth does not in any way exclude the existence of a supreme being as a creator.
I know that little fact isn't good for Google's market penetration, but after the joy of seeing Microsoft flood the market with non-standard tags and otherwise screwing with every other browser on the market, I just find this bit... refreshing.
It's obvious that the point of mentioning those three persons was not to argue that rich people never get sent to jail, but rather to counter the argument that rich people don't steal. True it is only anecdotal evidence, but itis in favor of countering this argument.
There is an extremely long list of examples of rich people avoiding jail time through monetory resources. It's how OJ could afford his dream team of defense lawyers. It doesn't always have to be a major affair - consider the rich kid getting away with a dui.
I grew up in the middle class, a bit above the mean, and I have had groups of frineds in several economic classes. Just from seeing how the police have dealt with them, it's obvious that the law treats them differently. A cop in a blighted neighborhood deal with a disturbance involving the poor a lot different than when responding to a disturbance amongst the wealthy in an upper-crust neighborhood. Anyone who claims differently is either truly ignorant or willingly blind.
The courts often take their cues from the police, so the treatment continues. And all most people do is shake their head at the "bad element", and wonder why they don't trust the system.
Remove race from the picture, and you are left with the following facts:
1) The poor are more likely to be in jail than the wealthy.
2) A poor person is more likely to be given a jail sentence (or at least, a longer sentence) than a wealthy person who has committed a similar crime.
Wealth can buy better legal representation, simple as that. Now, to touch on race again, a larger percentation of the black population in the US is porr than in the white population. Therefore, a black person is more likely to spend time in jail than a white man. Furthermore, a man is more likely to spend time in jail if his father has spent significant time in jail.
Now, even if we are to assume that this is not an issue of race, at least at the start, it's easy to see how this can quickly evolve into a race issue. Consider how long this has been the status quo, and can you then honestly say that race has nothing to do with this?
I don't see how you can just blow off the argument about race in your first argument, and then make a claim that the other is "blind to reality" in your second.
Actually, MicroCenter happens to be having a sale on that right now. Mac Mini, 14" LCD, keyboard, optical mouse, and Epson all-in-one printer - still $499.
I still wouldn't want to buy one personally, but...
I must be the ultimate designer... the inside of my dull, boring cubicle is filled with a frenetic mess of electronics that resembles something Borg-ish...
Yea, I know what you mean. I keep seeing articles for this "WWW" thing, but noone ever explains what it is. Ditto for PHP, RPG, and IRC. I mean, if people are just going to use these obscure terms without explaining them, what's the point?
OK, a bit more serious now. Yea, ARG is a bit more obscure than the other acronyms I've listed, but considering just how many articles have been posted on ARGs on Slashdot in the past year (I tink there were 5-10 on "I Love Bees" alone, not including dupes), it is not entirely unreasonable to expect that a bunch of intelligent geeks might have picked up on the terminology by now.
Back in the day, the only reason I picked up a copy of Half-Life was 'cause I had fun playing some of the mods. For me, a FPS is all about multiplayer - I just don't have as much interest in a single player FPS.
I think a big part of it is that developers are striving to make their games not only capable of being modded, but actually mod-friendly in the hopes of extending it's life and selling a few more copies.
In a way, this is just an extension of what we are already seeing amongst the developers - the actual content producers are becoming more seperated from the engine developers. Whereas once the person making the game engine also designed levels, wrote out scripts and made content (for better or worse), now the people who develop the engine concentrate on the game engine and on producing tools for the content developers to use. Now, which group actually made "the game"? You could take the script and all the visual goodies and stick them on a different engine (such as levels from the orginal Doom on the Doom 3 engine) - is it the same game?
Since the developers are already seperating engine from content in house, it's only reasonable that the same principle be applied out of house (?). It's odd seeing that the first game to be released utilizing a new game engine isn't the game for which the engine was designed (Didn't that happen with that last Vampire: The Masquerade game?); it just seems somehow counter-intuitive. But from a business perspective, it kind of makes sense.
And now you've learned the difference between ideality and reality.
Actually already have that nailed down. You see, I was solely arguing against the belief that we do not have a particular right if it is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. I said that, ideally, the govt. is constrained to what is explicitly detailed in the constitution. You express the opinion that anything not expressly forbidden to the govt. in the constitution is fair game. The reality is somewhere in between.
Not only is it not a matter of black and white, but neither black and white really exist - just dark and light gray.
That was the whole idea behind being able to ammend the constitution - expanding the powers of the (federal) government was not meant to be easy. That is also why several founding fathers initially resisted the idea of a "Bill of Rights" - they felt that explicitly spelling out rights would imply that any rights not stated would not exist, when it was meant to be the other way around. And actually, the "best case scenario" for my argument would involve a whole lot more amendments than we have now.
As for being technically incorrect - I had thought it was assumed that we were referring to the Federal Government, not State-level governments. That is at least the assumption I was writing under.
Personally, I believe the airlines are within their right to require identification. I just think everyone's got their reasons all screwed up.
Aside from the question about just exactly what the govt. might want to seize at this point (ewww), since we are talking about theoretical situations, say they passed a (theoretical) law that forbid people from using the bathroom in private places... say, on personal property, or inside lockable enclosures, or whatever. Still, some bizarre law that requires you to perform these functions in designated public facilities (think along the lines of Urinetown). Mission accomplished, 4th amendment not violated (at least in the eyes of the right judge, at least).
Anyways, I think that I may have to think about my analogies a bit more in the future. Not that they might be invalid, just that they may end up looking even more bizarre if called to argue them like this:)
There is NOTHING in the constitution that guarantess you can "travel anonymously". It isn't even implied. Your statement has not basis in fact or reality.
There also is nothing in the Constitution about the right to use the bathroom without the supervision of a Government agent. You don't value that, now do you? Would you be upset if that ability were taken away?
How about the ability to travel more than 15 miles away from your home with applying for special permission in front of a Federal Review Board?
The Constitution isn't just remarkable for the rights it guarantees for citizens, but also that it (supposedly) restricts the rights of the government to what is specifically stated in the Constitution. Ideally, if the Constitution does not say that the government can regulate something, then they cannot regulate that thing.
In other words, your argument "has not basis in fact or reality"
The problem: This theoretical handheld needs to appeal to both the gamer market and those looking for a portable media player, a crossover that none have yet to master. So far, every attempt has been seen as belonging decidedly to one market or the other (such as the PSP), or has simply failed altogether. Should also capitalize on Microsoft's X-Box name for brand awareness, but shouldn't be tied to it to prevent pigeonholing.
Or, you could look at the game like it was a movie. It becomes popular, and fan sites pop up all over the place filled with fanfics, and even a few videos put together by really industrious fans. This is all fine and good... but just because the studio tolerates, perhaps even condones, these guys, doesn't mean they have to roll over when some third party releases their own edition of the movie on DVD, where all the drinks in the cantina are digitally edited to bear the logos of certain companies paying that3rd party for advertising.
At this point, I realy gotta say that we can only hope to go so far arguing the cases of these analogies. Though the case at hand bears similarities to other situations, we have to acknowledge it's unique properties as well. Thing is, this situation has properties of both a good and an intellectual property, and any argument has to consider that.
Software is speech. Anyone is free to produce it and as such I will not pay for it.
Books are speech as well. So are movies, TV shows and radio programs. All cost something to make, and you usually pay something for each that you choose to consume. It need not always be money - perhaps it's 30 seconds of your time outside of the TV show to watch an ad. Why should software be any different?
The card system is odd, but I'm pretty sure you hit it on the head with "and never really knowing how much money you're putting into the machines". It's easier to keep track of how much money you have left in your wallet. Plus, the fact that the more credits you buy, the cheaper they are encourages you to buy more at a time, and having them tied to a card encourages you to keep coming back.
Still, I really like how this card also keeps track of those tickets you win. Added bonus. Plus, the credits never age (seen some of the nefarious aging schemes on some gift cards, designed to slowly drain off the value of cards?), so you can go and use them anytime. They are also easier to use than fumbling through a pocketful of change or tokens to make that continue. Plus, I remember when I was younger coming home from the arcade with a few extra tokens that I didn't use just then, but I swore I would use later, so I would put them somewhere where I would be sure to remember them next time I went to the arcade. I ended up with several such stashes of those tokens, and they never got smaller. I just put that D&B card in my wallet. So, this card system it has it's pros and cons.
I've been to 3 D&B (Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City), and each had a DDR. None of them where smack dab in the middle where they are the focus of the arcade, but off to the side (not in the "ghetto" of the arcade). Fun to watch the occasional swarm of drunks wander over and give it a shot.
Really, I have no idea what the reviewer was going on about for the most part. This isn't the type of arcade that used to be present in every mall in America, it's a bar that happens to have a restaurant and a whole lot of games.
I think the forum was hosted in Bulgaria. I didn't realize they were a land of the free, too...
And that would be a "fact" garnered from the same article that got all those other "facts" correct. A quote from the article linked in the news blurb above:
The article also claims that the site was Bulgarian, which it isn't. The company that designed the website is based on Bulgaria, but it is hosted and maintained in the US.
First they came for the low level players, and I said nothing, for I am not a noob. Then they came for the Horde, and I remained quiet, for I am Alliance. Then they came for the Paladins, and still I said nothing, for they were a bunch of assholes anyways. Then they came for me...
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm.. in other words, the zombie players would be looking at it maybe a bit more like an RTS, controlling armies of units. Or maybe like a deranged version of Pikmin. Interesting...
Even if the sides are even number-wise, part of the horror atmosphere comes from being outnumbered by the shambling undead. It will be interesting to see how they handle balancing these inequities. Perhaps they can hire some of the people behind the Natural Selection HL mod for advice?
I hate to be pedantic here, but by the definition you give, no, it isn't.
1. Something that follows; a continuation.
Like SW Episode one came out following SW Episode 6, right? This isn't the right usage here.. you want to look at:
2. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
By this, no, they are not sequels. For what it's worth, Wiktionary agrees. Of course, that said, you can now just edit the Wiktionary definition to fit whatever meaning you choose, but...
Squirrel A remembers where his nuts are at all times, and excels at providing nourishment for himself, his mate and his offspring. He get's all the chicks and has many, many offspring, all of which also carry his superior traits and are equally skilled at procreation.
Squirrel B, however, even if he were to be able to blindly find his way out of his mother's basement, doesn't present a very desirable mating choice. If he were to mate, he'd be lucky to have the nuts needed to keep a family fed, and any offspring that managed to survive the winter without starving to death will be weak and sickly, and they to would be poor performers when it comes to procreation. Through this, the overall squirrel population becomes more likely to survive in the ecosystem.
And that, poor Squir.. er, AC, is how Natural Selection makes the squirrel population stronger. The existence of this behaviour on Earth does not in any way exclude the existence of a supreme being as a creator.
I know that little fact isn't good for Google's market penetration, but after the joy of seeing Microsoft flood the market with non-standard tags and otherwise screwing with every other browser on the market, I just find this bit... refreshing.
There is an extremely long list of examples of rich people avoiding jail time through monetory resources. It's how OJ could afford his dream team of defense lawyers. It doesn't always have to be a major affair - consider the rich kid getting away with a dui.
I grew up in the middle class, a bit above the mean, and I have had groups of frineds in several economic classes. Just from seeing how the police have dealt with them, it's obvious that the law treats them differently. A cop in a blighted neighborhood deal with a disturbance involving the poor a lot different than when responding to a disturbance amongst the wealthy in an upper-crust neighborhood. Anyone who claims differently is either truly ignorant or willingly blind.
The courts often take their cues from the police, so the treatment continues. And all most people do is shake their head at the "bad element", and wonder why they don't trust the system.
1) The poor are more likely to be in jail than the wealthy.
2) A poor person is more likely to be given a jail sentence (or at least, a longer sentence) than a wealthy person who has committed a similar crime.
Wealth can buy better legal representation, simple as that. Now, to touch on race again, a larger percentation of the black population in the US is porr than in the white population. Therefore, a black person is more likely to spend time in jail than a white man. Furthermore, a man is more likely to spend time in jail if his father has spent significant time in jail.
Now, even if we are to assume that this is not an issue of race, at least at the start, it's easy to see how this can quickly evolve into a race issue. Consider how long this has been the status quo, and can you then honestly say that race has nothing to do with this?
I don't see how you can just blow off the argument about race in your first argument, and then make a claim that the other is "blind to reality" in your second.
Actually, MicroCenter happens to be having a sale on that right now. Mac Mini, 14" LCD, keyboard, optical mouse, and Epson all-in-one printer - still $499. I still wouldn't want to buy one personally, but...
He's being witty - its a smiley with a Danish on his head.
I must be the ultimate designer... the inside of my dull, boring cubicle is filled with a frenetic mess of electronics that resembles something Borg-ish...
OK, a bit more serious now. Yea, ARG is a bit more obscure than the other acronyms I've listed, but considering just how many articles have been posted on ARGs on Slashdot in the past year (I tink there were 5-10 on "I Love Bees" alone, not including dupes), it is not entirely unreasonable to expect that a bunch of intelligent geeks might have picked up on the terminology by now.
Er, um, no, I'm not new here, why do you ask?
I think a big part of it is that developers are striving to make their games not only capable of being modded, but actually mod-friendly in the hopes of extending it's life and selling a few more copies.
In a way, this is just an extension of what we are already seeing amongst the developers - the actual content producers are becoming more seperated from the engine developers. Whereas once the person making the game engine also designed levels, wrote out scripts and made content (for better or worse), now the people who develop the engine concentrate on the game engine and on producing tools for the content developers to use. Now, which group actually made "the game"? You could take the script and all the visual goodies and stick them on a different engine (such as levels from the orginal Doom on the Doom 3 engine) - is it the same game?
Since the developers are already seperating engine from content in house, it's only reasonable that the same principle be applied out of house (?). It's odd seeing that the first game to be released utilizing a new game engine isn't the game for which the engine was designed (Didn't that happen with that last Vampire: The Masquerade game?); it just seems somehow counter-intuitive. But from a business perspective, it kind of makes sense.
1) That is a point already made and addressed. Read the other replies in this thread.
2) "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur."
And now you've learned the difference between ideality and reality.
Actually already have that nailed down. You see, I was solely arguing against the belief that we do not have a particular right if it is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. I said that, ideally, the govt. is constrained to what is explicitly detailed in the constitution. You express the opinion that anything not expressly forbidden to the govt. in the constitution is fair game. The reality is somewhere in between.
Not only is it not a matter of black and white, but neither black and white really exist - just dark and light gray.
That was the whole idea behind being able to ammend the constitution - expanding the powers of the (federal) government was not meant to be easy. That is also why several founding fathers initially resisted the idea of a "Bill of Rights" - they felt that explicitly spelling out rights would imply that any rights not stated would not exist, when it was meant to be the other way around. And actually, the "best case scenario" for my argument would involve a whole lot more amendments than we have now.
As for being technically incorrect - I had thought it was assumed that we were referring to the Federal Government, not State-level governments. That is at least the assumption I was writing under.
Personally, I believe the airlines are within their right to require identification. I just think everyone's got their reasons all screwed up.
Anyways, I think that I may have to think about my analogies a bit more in the future. Not that they might be invalid, just that they may end up looking even more bizarre if called to argue them like this :)
There also is nothing in the Constitution about the right to use the bathroom without the supervision of a Government agent. You don't value that, now do you? Would you be upset if that ability were taken away?
How about the ability to travel more than 15 miles away from your home with applying for special permission in front of a Federal Review Board?
The Constitution isn't just remarkable for the rights it guarantees for citizens, but also that it (supposedly) restricts the rights of the government to what is specifically stated in the Constitution. Ideally, if the Constitution does not say that the government can regulate something, then they cannot regulate that thing.
In other words, your argument "has not basis in fact or reality"
The solution: Hello, x-Pod!
Every other usage just caused me to browse elsewhere.
At this point, I realy gotta say that we can only hope to go so far arguing the cases of these analogies. Though the case at hand bears similarities to other situations, we have to acknowledge it's unique properties as well. Thing is, this situation has properties of both a good and an intellectual property, and any argument has to consider that.
Books are speech as well. So are movies, TV shows and radio programs. All cost something to make, and you usually pay something for each that you choose to consume. It need not always be money - perhaps it's 30 seconds of your time outside of the TV show to watch an ad. Why should software be any different?
Still, I really like how this card also keeps track of those tickets you win. Added bonus. Plus, the credits never age (seen some of the nefarious aging schemes on some gift cards, designed to slowly drain off the value of cards?), so you can go and use them anytime. They are also easier to use than fumbling through a pocketful of change or tokens to make that continue. Plus, I remember when I was younger coming home from the arcade with a few extra tokens that I didn't use just then, but I swore I would use later, so I would put them somewhere where I would be sure to remember them next time I went to the arcade. I ended up with several such stashes of those tokens, and they never got smaller. I just put that D&B card in my wallet. So, this card system it has it's pros and cons.
Really, I have no idea what the reviewer was going on about for the most part. This isn't the type of arcade that used to be present in every mall in America, it's a bar that happens to have a restaurant and a whole lot of games.
I personally think Bill's just seen one to many Photoshops of himself in a Borg outfit.
And that would be a "fact" garnered from the same article that got all those other "facts" correct. A quote from the article linked in the news blurb above:
The article also claims that the site was Bulgarian, which it isn't. The company that designed the website is based on Bulgaria, but it is hosted and maintained in the US.
First they came for the low level players, and I said nothing, for I am not a noob. Then they came for the Horde, and I remained quiet, for I am Alliance. Then they came for the Paladins, and still I said nothing, for they were a bunch of assholes anyways. Then they came for me...