My favorite aspect of Wal-mart is how all my friends complain about their evil work practices, but when I mention that nobody is forcing you to work at Wal-mart and you do have a choice to leave, I'm cut off and hit with some example of their evil. It's annoying when people argue emotion instead of facts. If you don't like Wal-mart don't shop or work there. But I know it's cool and hip, especially on Slashdot, to hate popular things like Wal-mart. I guess it makes you enlightened or something.
And that's typically the other side of the fence, right? "If you don't like it, don't go there."
Now, admittedly, I haven't done my research to answer a singular Slashdot comment in such a way that would both blow and change your mind about Wal-Mart. I can give you, however, an anecdote that is less emotion and what I know about where I live. Take it however you like, but I assure you that I'm not just making this up as I go along:
I live in a relatively small Southern town (~20K in population) that was built around and experienced growth largely through the textile and manufacturing industries. It is populated largely by high school graduates and dropouts who were able to work effectively as blue-collar laborers, but not much more. This has been going on for a couple of generations. When Wal-Mart left its former home in our town, moving to a new location to house its new SuperCenter, the business remaining in the strip mall of its past home eventually all went out of business (6-9 retail establishments, including grocery store, drug store, clothing store and 1-2 shoe stores, others), save for maybe one. That in itself is not "evil," nor terribly surprising.
But we know what happened to American manufacturing and textiles: they were offsourced. Plant after plant switched hands, and switched hands, and now the vast majority of them have shut down. Yes, you could say "well, that's the town's fault for building itself around manufacturing," but that'd be about as emotive as saying "Wal-Mart is evil because of this or this alleged offense," right? So we won't say that.
Now, we have lots and lots of blue-collar workers who are looking around for a job, used to being machine operators or other types of grunt workers with little education. But lo and behold, we have a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, and not only that, but a Wal-Mart regional distribution center, too. It's either one of those two places, some fast-food or other retail store, or a crapshoot application to the city government which will likely have 3-5 dozen applicants with similar qualifications, if not more.
Where do you think they go?
These are still people, taking the provider role to bring money home to keep the cars running, to keep food and clothes for the kids, and etc. In towns like mine? Where Wal-Mart makes up a significant percentage of employment opportunities for the people that relied on a section of the economy that largely doesn't exist anymore? It's -very- important not to poo-poo allegations like the ones that have been mentioned in previous comments and in Wikipedia. You're right in that they -should- be able to leave, and then magically pick up a job somewhere else. But for blue-collar workers that can't readily afford to take the time away or pay the tuition for community college classes or even a GED course...leaving is an ideal, and not so much a viable option.
Yes, I know that the connection between site design arteest and content editor is pretty limited, but given that the winner will be wholly responsible for the redesign of a site seen by bajillions of people every day, why not give them some level of status indicative of the kind of effort they've made, and given some appropriate statement of commitment, bring them on board?
Personally I think this is all totally within the rights of their editors to choose content however they like.
...sure, but it would be nice if such latitude was mentioned upfront.
Yeah yeah, I know, all of the relevant statements are in place here in the TOS to let us know that it can be done.
But look. Talking up a "power to the proleteriat" angle, only to have stories that question Digg's editorial practices get removed is more like talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
That's a good point, but I'm pretty sure it would be seen as a private club and not a public accomodation. You pay for the privilege of being in that virtual space, of participating in the activities that the other paying members participate in, and it isn't in meatspace.
The ambiguity of this depends on who you ask. It appears that, at least in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the internet and sites on it are not public accomodations. Given that the basis surrounds the fact that it isn't in meatspace (not to mention the open nature of the internet versus the closed nature of an MMORPG), I don't think WoW qualifies as anything close to public accomodation status.
If you think that sort of mischaracterization is bad, then I'm sure you'd pale even more than myself at the thought of all of this becoming the subject of Congressional debate. =)
Legal definitions haven't kept pace, and as in the mythical Wild Western frontier the Internet is often likened to, law and order are sometimes meted out in squeaky-wheel fashion.
Opinions about bringing sociopolitical et al. issues into WoW aside, I think the last thing that needs to happen is to have this sent to court.
To have some U.S. court decide what kind of speech is or is not acceptable in privately-run MMORPGs is counterproductive. I don't think it's the kind of thing a court needs to arbitrate, as much as individual game companies do, with customers deciding that if being able to mention Christians, GLBTers, or Bull Moose party members is of paramount importance for the enjoyment of an MMORPG, then 1) It would seem then that the quality of the game is secondary anyway, so 2) they can take their cash and their time to some other game.
And yes, we can crow as idealists about free-as-in-speech and about how this applies, but if the notion of GLBT guild-theming went to court under the challenge of free speech, I bet that no matter the outcome, the vulgar nature of the chat channels would be next.
Then do you know what would happen? Enter a big mess, as legislators take notice of kids above the age of 13 exposed to areas where profanity and sexually suggestive material runs absolutely rampant, "won't somebody save the children" and before we know it, we're force-fed a bunch of new regulations for "open" chat channels that had once been so gleefully populated by homophobes, misogynists, and decent people.
I agree that subscriber action is the best action for situations like this, and that getting courts involved is going to open a can of worms that would make a great big PITA for MMORPGs and MMORPGers.
Microsoft has more than 50,000 people, so when I'm thinking, "Hey, what's the future of the online payment system?" or "What's a great way to keep track of your memories of your kid?" or any neat new thing, I write it down. Then people can see it and say, "No, you're wrong" or "Did you know about this work being done at such-and-such a place?"
Well, gee, Bill, isn't that a funny coincedence. Slashdot has well over 500,000 people, and I think most any of them would tell you "No, you're wrong" just about anytime y'want!:D
In the same vein, I think Slashdot editors ought to collect up the usual 10-15 of the top modded comments and send them off as a collective parcel to this group....they did ask for comments, after all. =D
I think the connection between Pelosi and George W. is even better than you're indicating.
Bush Sr. and even Reagan had a lot of old policy buddies that Bush Jr. brought back into the fold; I think most/nearly every Slashdotter knows that they didn't invent the idea of finishing off Iraq overnight as a good idea in the War on Terror. It had been in the minds of Rumsfeld, Cheney and others, and naturally, the stage had already been set with the events of the first Persian Gulf War, as well as the fact that sanctions and Oil-For-Food had turned into pretty big blunders. And yet, here was this platform of the War on Terror and WMDs that could be used to package up the notion with shiny paper and a big, pretty bow in a limited attempt to sell to the American people. And face it: no matter how many people disapprove the war now, whatever we find or didn't find, it was much better received back when it began.
Now you say "That's fine well and good, Mr. Frail, but what on earth does this have to do with Nancy Pelosi and her free-broadband-for-all idea?"
Easy. This isn't new, either. We've been talking about free-as-in-beer broadband for everyone, probably since wardriving was all the rage. From dark fiber buyouts to phone companies producing broadband services for metropolitan areas, all Pelosi & company have to do is figure out a way to 1) get this broadband out into rural areas that only satellites serve, and at a premium price (like my old house) and 2) keep telcos, cable co's and etc. from screaming bloody murder about losing all but their premium-tier business.
While it might seem like an innovative idea (and in the political arena, I suppose it could be), it might not be quite as novel as one might think. Just really neat, and I hope it can come to pass.
(All we need now are some $100 computers to go along with it!)
Besides the (already made) jokes about 'TurdOS', the fact that the last three letters of the name are 'D', 'O' and 'S' might lead people to pronounce it "Two DOS", and think it's a DOS clone like FreeDOS...
Well hey, with multiple microkernels and a name like TUDOS, it'll surely beat the pants off of any one DOS you've got!
Given how strongly the slashdot commenting body seems to be railing against it right now, would that indicate that all it was heading towards was a head-on battle with Corel's (once Jasc's) knock-off, Paint Shop Pro?
I think, then, some of the most informative previews come out when the writers comment on the previewed game like my parents used to talk about me. You've seen it before, the guilty eyes, the sheepish smile, and the "Well, maybe his features will actually be a little refined when he gets older..."
Granted, I haven't seen it often, but in cruising IGN I've seen at least a couple of previews (though, now that I think about it, this could've been 3-4 years ago) where you could tell the writers had that same look on their faces, and while they desperately want to be able to generate some positive hype about this feature or that, all they can offer is hope that things improve in the future.
And really? Truth be told, who wants to read any more than the rare preview to say "omg this game is gonna sucks bad?"
Honesty in previews, candid words and recognizing both the positive and negative in an upcoming game is, indeed, pretty much a dead breed.
Borg references aside, would you sooner rehire someone who was openly dissatisfied with the perceived stigma inside your work environment against contractors? Or would you take a chance on someone you don't know to have sounded off in such a way?
Maybe there isn't so much benefit for the potential union members, now that I think about it, but for Microsoft? Resistance makes them futile; they'll find some other temps to assimilate.
Wu claiming that he doesn't want to try to unionize contractors to Microsoft rings hollow. If he's building a site that encourages community, couldn't any other member in the community just as easily make a big push to unionize as he could? I suspect that if enough buzz was drawn around the idea, it wouldn't necessarily matter what the founder thought, unless said founder quashed notions of the idea, an action I find unlikely.
"On the third day, and after three weeks of continuous warning sirens..."
Whoah. It took them THREE DAYS? I'm glad this wasn't (obviously) a really serious problem. If it were some sort of radiation based bomb, they'd get fried.
Questions are begged:
Was it the robot that had been used for three days?
Or was that just how long the cobalt had been in there?
...either way, what in the hell is triggering warning sirens for three weeks straight in a big-time radiation lab?
Macromedia and Adobe both have histories of understandably bundling some of their related/popular products together into sets with rather high price tags so that we consumers can gag over the steep prices, and then wheedle our bosses into thinking that yes, we do need Flash MX Professional (while all of your fellow web designers sigh with disdainful looks).
One would expect some sort of bundle to pop out of this merger that would combine Adobe and Macromedia products...anyone have any ideas on what it might include? Anything you can think of aside from the "obvious" suspects? (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator)
Slashdot Mirror
And that's typically the other side of the fence, right? "If you don't like it, don't go there."
Now, admittedly, I haven't done my research to answer a singular Slashdot comment in such a way that would both blow and change your mind about Wal-Mart. I can give you, however, an anecdote that is less emotion and what I know about where I live. Take it however you like, but I assure you that I'm not just making this up as I go along:
I live in a relatively small Southern town (~20K in population) that was built around and experienced growth largely through the textile and manufacturing industries. It is populated largely by high school graduates and dropouts who were able to work effectively as blue-collar laborers, but not much more. This has been going on for a couple of generations. When Wal-Mart left its former home in our town, moving to a new location to house its new SuperCenter, the business remaining in the strip mall of its past home eventually all went out of business (6-9 retail establishments, including grocery store, drug store, clothing store and 1-2 shoe stores, others), save for maybe one. That in itself is not "evil," nor terribly surprising.
But we know what happened to American manufacturing and textiles: they were offsourced. Plant after plant switched hands, and switched hands, and now the vast majority of them have shut down. Yes, you could say "well, that's the town's fault for building itself around manufacturing," but that'd be about as emotive as saying "Wal-Mart is evil because of this or this alleged offense," right? So we won't say that.
Now, we have lots and lots of blue-collar workers who are looking around for a job, used to being machine operators or other types of grunt workers with little education. But lo and behold, we have a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, and not only that, but a Wal-Mart regional distribution center, too. It's either one of those two places, some fast-food or other retail store, or a crapshoot application to the city government which will likely have 3-5 dozen applicants with similar qualifications, if not more.
Where do you think they go?
These are still people, taking the provider role to bring money home to keep the cars running, to keep food and clothes for the kids, and etc. In towns like mine? Where Wal-Mart makes up a significant percentage of employment opportunities for the people that relied on a section of the economy that largely doesn't exist anymore? It's -very- important not to poo-poo allegations like the ones that have been mentioned in previous comments and in Wikipedia. You're right in that they -should- be able to leave, and then magically pick up a job somewhere else. But for blue-collar workers that can't readily afford to take the time away or pay the tuition for community college classes or even a GED course...leaving is an ideal, and not so much a viable option.
Yes, I know that the connection between site design arteest and content editor is pretty limited, but given that the winner will be wholly responsible for the redesign of a site seen by bajillions of people every day, why not give them some level of status indicative of the kind of effort they've made, and given some appropriate statement of commitment, bring them on board?
Yeah yeah, I know, all of the relevant statements are in place here in the TOS to let us know that it can be done.
But look. Talking up a "power to the proleteriat" angle, only to have stories that question Digg's editorial practices get removed is more like talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
That's a good point, but I'm pretty sure it would be seen as a private club and not a public accomodation. You pay for the privilege of being in that virtual space, of participating in the activities that the other paying members participate in, and it isn't in meatspace.
The ambiguity of this depends on who you ask. It appears that, at least in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the internet and sites on it are not public accomodations. Given that the basis surrounds the fact that it isn't in meatspace (not to mention the open nature of the internet versus the closed nature of an MMORPG), I don't think WoW qualifies as anything close to public accomodation status.
If you think that sort of mischaracterization is bad, then I'm sure you'd pale even more than myself at the thought of all of this becoming the subject of Congressional debate. =)
Opinions about bringing sociopolitical et al. issues into WoW aside, I think the last thing that needs to happen is to have this sent to court.
To have some U.S. court decide what kind of speech is or is not acceptable in privately-run MMORPGs is counterproductive. I don't think it's the kind of thing a court needs to arbitrate, as much as individual game companies do, with customers deciding that if being able to mention Christians, GLBTers, or Bull Moose party members is of paramount importance for the enjoyment of an MMORPG, then 1) It would seem then that the quality of the game is secondary anyway, so 2) they can take their cash and their time to some other game.
And yes, we can crow as idealists about free-as-in-speech and about how this applies, but if the notion of GLBT guild-theming went to court under the challenge of free speech, I bet that no matter the outcome, the vulgar nature of the chat channels would be next.
Then do you know what would happen? Enter a big mess, as legislators take notice of kids above the age of 13 exposed to areas where profanity and sexually suggestive material runs absolutely rampant, "won't somebody save the children" and before we know it, we're force-fed a bunch of new regulations for "open" chat channels that had once been so gleefully populated by homophobes, misogynists, and decent people.
I agree that subscriber action is the best action for situations like this, and that getting courts involved is going to open a can of worms that would make a great big PITA for MMORPGs and MMORPGers.
We Magic geeks were wondering where the U.S. Army got all the mana to repel these projectiles, too.
Well, gee, Bill, isn't that a funny coincedence. Slashdot has well over 500,000 people, and I think most any of them would tell you "No, you're wrong" just about anytime y'want!
In the same vein, I think Slashdot editors ought to collect up the usual 10-15 of the top modded comments and send them off as a collective parcel to this group. ...they did ask for comments, after all. =D
I think the connection between Pelosi and George W. is even better than you're indicating.
Bush Sr. and even Reagan had a lot of old policy buddies that Bush Jr. brought back into the fold; I think most/nearly every Slashdotter knows that they didn't invent the idea of finishing off Iraq overnight as a good idea in the War on Terror. It had been in the minds of Rumsfeld, Cheney and others, and naturally, the stage had already been set with the events of the first Persian Gulf War, as well as the fact that sanctions and Oil-For-Food had turned into pretty big blunders. And yet, here was this platform of the War on Terror and WMDs that could be used to package up the notion with shiny paper and a big, pretty bow in a limited attempt to sell to the American people. And face it: no matter how many people disapprove the war now, whatever we find or didn't find, it was much better received back when it began.
Now you say "That's fine well and good, Mr. Frail, but what on earth does this have to do with Nancy Pelosi and her free-broadband-for-all idea?"
Easy. This isn't new, either. We've been talking about free-as-in-beer broadband for everyone, probably since wardriving was all the rage. From dark fiber buyouts to phone companies producing broadband services for metropolitan areas, all Pelosi & company have to do is figure out a way to 1) get this broadband out into rural areas that only satellites serve, and at a premium price (like my old house) and 2) keep telcos, cable co's and etc. from screaming bloody murder about losing all but their premium-tier business.
While it might seem like an innovative idea (and in the political arena, I suppose it could be), it might not be quite as novel as one might think. Just really neat, and I hope it can come to pass.
(All we need now are some $100 computers to go along with it!)
Now that we have "robots" with machine guns, I eagerly await the arrival of sharks with frickin' lasers.
Well hey, with multiple microkernels and a name like TUDOS, it'll surely beat the pants off of any one DOS you've got!
Given how strongly the slashdot commenting body seems to be railing against it right now, would that indicate that all it was heading towards was a head-on battle with Corel's (once Jasc's) knock-off, Paint Shop Pro?
I think, then, some of the most informative previews come out when the writers comment on the previewed game like my parents used to talk about me. You've seen it before, the guilty eyes, the sheepish smile, and the "Well, maybe his features will actually be a little refined when he gets older..."
Granted, I haven't seen it often, but in cruising IGN I've seen at least a couple of previews (though, now that I think about it, this could've been 3-4 years ago) where you could tell the writers had that same look on their faces, and while they desperately want to be able to generate some positive hype about this feature or that, all they can offer is hope that things improve in the future.
And really? Truth be told, who wants to read any more than the rare preview to say "omg this game is gonna sucks bad?"
Honesty in previews, candid words and recognizing both the positive and negative in an upcoming game is, indeed, pretty much a dead breed.
Borg references aside, would you sooner rehire someone who was openly dissatisfied with the perceived stigma inside your work environment against contractors? Or would you take a chance on someone you don't know to have sounded off in such a way?
Maybe there isn't so much benefit for the potential union members, now that I think about it, but for Microsoft? Resistance makes them futile; they'll find some other temps to assimilate.
Or maybe he's interested in only making anion.
Wu claiming that he doesn't want to try to unionize contractors to Microsoft rings hollow. If he's building a site that encourages community, couldn't any other member in the community just as easily make a big push to unionize as he could? I suspect that if enough buzz was drawn around the idea, it wouldn't necessarily matter what the founder thought, unless said founder quashed notions of the idea, an action I find unlikely.
In a modern, controversial, and generally false way, sure it does. =D
Questions are begged:
Macromedia and Adobe both have histories of understandably bundling some of their related/popular products together into sets with rather high price tags so that we consumers can gag over the steep prices, and then wheedle our bosses into thinking that yes, we do need Flash MX Professional (while all of your fellow web designers sigh with disdainful looks).
One would expect some sort of bundle to pop out of this merger that would combine Adobe and Macromedia products...anyone have any ideas on what it might include? Anything you can think of aside from the "obvious" suspects? (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator)
And you will make us strong!
This is a public beta for First Post, and I'd appreciate it if you could report any placement-related or other bugs.