Ultima VII has nothing to do with a MMORPG. Back before Origin was smacked down into a game factory by EA, they made good games. Ultima VII was one of the best (and the last good one, sadly).
Debeers (sp?) has a monopoly over diamonds. Verizon (where I live) pretty much has a monopoly over telephones. Two different markets but both monopolies.
Similarly Microsoft has a monopoly over x86 desktops. Apple has a different, totally incompatible platform. The costs of changing from x86->Apple platforms are incredibly high to end users. In many economics texts that implies monopoly.
If someone made an os (like DR-DOS was to MS-DOS back when) that was compatible with 3rd party applications that ran on Windows, and was a viable alternative to Windows, then I coudln't rightly say MS was a monopoly. No such product exists (eitehr for x86 or Apple), thus both companies have monopolies on their markets.
Those who advocate ditching Windows + x86 in favor of OS X + Mac are deluded. Both are Evil (tm), the only difference is that the smaller of the two will try harder, until he's not smaller anymore.
...Yes and no. Yes, you can't get cheap Macs, but for what you get...
I agree to some extent, but it's like the Ford model: sell a cheap car with lots of gadgets in the basic package, and charge more for it. Sure it appears to be a better value, but then if you take the subset of features I need or use, then it's not so good....Again, this depends on your criteria. The hardware is closed, but most of the components are standard off-the-shelf ones...
So I agree, you can but a plethora of USB, Firewire devices, and I think these days you can buy your own video card. It's a good start, but I want to be able to buy every part of a Mac from at least 2 other sources, as I can for a PC (sorta, only 1 real alternate for a processor on high end machines right now). I think this is what makes PCs great (and also is it's greatest weakness, but I can tolerate that, some can't).... You and millions of others... But it won't happen, for two reasons. First, economic: unlike MS, Apple is basically a hardware company; their software is...
And that right there is the problem. There are lots of hardware companies: SGI and Sun being the front runners. SGI more or less still has a niche market in high end video/graphics, it's slipped a bit but it still exists. They can operate on this business model and do OK. Having their own hardware makes sense.
Sun had the "backroom server" market, but a combination of a failing economy, bad customers and the penetration of cheap, faster, linux/x86 rackmount machines has put them in big trouble. I think their best bet is to play on the reliability of their individual machines and hold on to the small niche market that still requires a solid server. Their software wasn't that great anyway with the possible exception of Java, which they should sell or open source and get behind linux. They can be smaller, leaner and cater to their niche. In their case, having their own hardware but no software makes sense.
Apple on the other hand ideally should have the Desktop PC market. But PC hardware costs are hard to turn down, and the arguments of "costs of ownership" are as weak on Apple vs. PC as they are on Windows vs. Linux...no one is sure what it means and what is true. That coupled with the insurmountable problem of people having invested lots of money in PC HW & SW, makes a switch over almost totally unlikely.
The PC market is however literally DYING for a good, stable, easy to use but flexible operating system, which OS X almost is (certainly better than windows period, and easier to use but less flexible than linux). Everyone wants something better, but not enough to forklift upgrade. I realize Apple has traditionally made money from hardware, but it's not the right product the market as it stands. They have a good product in OS X it's what everone needs, they could do great things if they'd just be willing to change a little bit.
The only good argument right now against Macs are that they are a) expensive because b) they're pretty much closed systems. Only Apple can produce a Mac. There are advantages here of course, but I'd not like to assist one monopoly by running from another.
If you remember back when Apple was still a real contender in the desktop biz, they were as slothy and greedy as Microsoft has been since 95. People were begging for something like OS X, but Apple didn't see profit. If they had released the OS around 1995, probably we'd be in an Apple world. Instead they released it years late, and it was good, but maybe too little too late.
Doing anything to the excess that it is harmful to you is a bad thing. But what is harmful? Certainly cocaine and heroin is clearly "a bad thing". Gambling too much? Yeah that can get bad. Playing games too much? Only if as a direct result of excess gaming you lose your job or flunk out of school etc. Working too much? Never seen anyone work so much they died or were unable to hold their own in society. At worst are the ones who married but shouldn't have, and don't consider their spouse (or children) a responsibility that competes with work.
To me the mom was unhappy the kid was playing Socom instead of...playing basketball and going to football games? Because he wasn't socializing enough? Huh? Let's break this down: he was happy, he was not {getting drunk, doing drugs, making babies, killing, thieving, raping, pillaging}. It didn't even say his grades were slipping, which is a more common video game problem. So her problem was that he wasn't socializing? Man we should all have such problems.
So now he's on the road to being cured, and playing basketball and going to football games. Assuming he doesn't make the NBA (and probably won't), he can obsess about healhty things like football and go be the guy at the football stadium with no shirt, and a big beer gut wearing the clown wig and body paint with the letter "U" emblazoned on his stomach, but, he's ok, because he's standing next to his similarly clad friend who we'll call "F". I'm not saying that's necessarily bad/evil, just what makes that better than games?
It seems people who obsess about solitary activities certainly get into/cause a lot less trouble...
Once upon a time Saddamn had a million man army (with outdated equipment) and he got destroyed miserably. Most of his troops disappeared or "got captured". North Korea has the same problems just far worse.
We can and should smack North Korea, the question is what will China do if we try. I'm not at all enthusiastic about starting a war with them. On the other hand, it may stop the labor outsourcing...hmm.
Time out, I know we're in to government criticism but read your emphasis again. The "government's interests" can be read as "the will of the people". Some things "the people" cannot will, like making protestors go away. I agree sometimes the government acts on the will of an individual in charge, but not always, not even often.
The government has interests in protecting your personal safety, thus we have policemen, traffic laws, etc., preventing you or others from doing any thing that pleases you.
The government has interests in protecting your personal privacy, thus you can't walk in off the street and grab someone's tax return (you can probably get the return with references to the filer blocked out).
I'm all for free speech, but one's freedom ends where my front door begins. I do not have to suffer from someone's freedom of speech, the ruling states this government is allowed to protect me from that, if I want.
...write a game in a week (or hell a month and a half)?
I volunteer to be the giant publishing exec who will beat around "my" coders and artists with a large spiked club. I need a few coders, artists and middle managers to man-handle. Pay is optional (my option), and if I make any money on the product, I reserve the right to obligate you to another year.
If interested let me know.
(Attention Electronic Arts Exec's, I would really like to work for you. Consider this post my cover letter!)
I should have not used "military service" and used "compulsory service". No one should be forced to in to mandatory service except when dire situations arise.
I can't fathom how a "cattle mentality" would be fixed by forced service in a government institution of any kind. The only "cattle mentality" I am aware of could be solved by turning off the TV, radio, internet and social contact for a year or so. I'm not sure this would be a good thing either. If people want to follow the herd, let them, but they will always be at the mercy of whoever is at the head of the herd.
I'm sorry, no one should be forced by law to serve in the military unless our own borders are at stake. I realize that's a grey area and subject to judgement, but cross that bridge when we get to it. It's part of the irrational belief I keep that we're in a free country, i.e. that we can make choices.
The poor have a choice, not one I'd like to have to decide, but it's a choice. We all are born with various deficiencies we have to deal with, and not all are equal and it's not fair. It's not the job of society to make things fair. We can provide enough support to help the unfortunate have a running shot, but we can't equalize.
I still can't see why any company would want to "upgrade" to xp, especially larger companies for which such an investment would be a huge amount of money.
As far as Windows' go, 2000 is the lightest and most stable. XP is bloat, and seems to have more bugs in my experience. It also has that nasty DRM shit which no one, corporate or private, truly wants.
I often vote republican but I would not vote for this man based solely on the answers he submitted. Whatever world he wants to create, I am not wealthy enough to benefit from.
Further it seems democrats and republicans have an equal track record of susceptibility to corporate influence. They simply couch this support in different terms: republicans talk about the morality and principles that justifies their corruption, the democrats talk about the people and the dream that justifies their corruption. Either way the wrong things seem to happen, at least it would appear that way once the bullshit clears.
In the event you weren't joking (I'm sure lots of people don't know what he means), I believe it means that there will never be a magic equation to 4th order polynomials and above like one learned in algebra to the 2nd order polynomial: ax^2+bx+c =0 which is: x= (-b +- sqrt(b^2-4ac))/2a (aka the quadratic equation)
Instead you can get VALUES for the roots by using algorithmic approaches, but you cannot come up with a generalized equation like the quadratic equation above.
If it still doesn't make sense, then it probably doesn't matter, but some lines of engineering require finding roots of high order polynomials. I haven't done it since school, so my whole post may be wrong, but there's your explanation =)
Showing your papers doesn't make your plane ride safer...
I agree with everything you said, even the sig. The problem isn't reality, it's the perception of reality. There are a lot of people who feel comforted by the requirement to show papers, and the feeling that all this extra security is adding something.
Most of the effective extra security actually happens behind the scenes really. But that doesn't make the same visual impact. We can pontificate about right and wrong and what it means to be free, and bring out our best Benjamin Franklin quotes on the subject, and they're all right.
In the end people (even those that know better but want your job) will ask, "What did you do to increase national security". If you said you bought better xray machines, put an agent in each terminal, performed audits on security agents, you run into the problem that people don't believe you. They can't see that. If you say all those things AND put armed guards in terminals and required identification for travellers etc. it lends some credibility to your cause, everyone saw that, it stood out because it doesn't belong.
The upside of democracy is that everyone gets a vote, the downside of democracy is that the majority usually wins the vote, not those that are correct.
I think we all agree on the pricipal. Yet this "secret" law does seem to serve the interest of putting asses back in airplane seats and helping the process of getting back to "normal" economically and psychologically. It's a crime thousands of people die in an act of terrorism, it's a bigger crime if the infrastructure of the country falls apart due to induced fear. As long as this condition is temprary and fades away, I see no real harm done.
I agree it's very scary to have to show your papers, and have guys with big machine guns standing in train stations (visit Penn station at some point), and I would support any and all alternatives that could accomplish the same effect. I just can't think of any off hand except give in to the many and varied demands of anyone who waves a bomb in our collective faces, and I think that will just cause more trouble, not less.
I'm glad I tell the truth and get modded down as a troll, and you use the words "double nitwit fuckwad" and get modded up as funny, pretty much only because somehow you misconstrue my post to be pro-Bush.
So, you've made 2 posts accusing me of being a stupid troll. Here's reports from legit news sources.
This one happened to be on the same block where I was: http://www.nydailynews.com/08-28-2004/news/s tory/2 26519p-194587c.html
This one glosses over the conduct but gives you the idea that it wasn't a peaceful protest: http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=ht tp://www.n ytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/campaign/28protest. html
Actually, I DID RTFA and I was a bit irate, because in my opinion it is a highly biased and told you part of the story. It told you of the one "calm", "polite" guy spraying crap from his bike, and his particular interaction with one of the cops, who as the article pointed out, was not exactly trying to oppress him.
He was not a "lone biker", there were perhaps 100 people in that particular protest on bikes, many of which were being not only distruptive but bordering on violent. They WERE throwing stuff on the police (such as wet spaghetti) and it was totally uncalled for. MANY people were arrested from that protest. This guy proclaimed himself to be the leader, which is probably why he was arrested.
Doesn't this make just a bit more sense to you than some lone guy on a bike arrested because some "unseen" superior ordered it? Don't you think something ELSE might have been going on that he associated with? Do you REALLY think the police are out to get him? Give me a break.
Call me names if you like, but I was there. I question the intelligence of anyone who could read that article and believe it at face value. It took events way out of context and was completely unfair.
Mod me down because you think I'm lying if you like, but don't mod me down because I don't agree with your politics. You guys not only have to RTFA but you have to filter it with the goggles of people who live in the real world. If you continually believe everything someone who calls himself a reporter puts in print, at face value, then you're going to be used.
I was there, he and his cohorts where throwing spaghetti and other crap on police and everywhere else and generally going way outside their right to a peaceful demonstration. Arrests were in order, and if he loses his bike it might help him remember that throwing crap all over the place isn't helping those of us who live here. On top of that, I don't think anyone "got it". I didn't until I happened to see it here on/.
Most of us natives have been watching the protestors with the eye of free entertainment in our backyard. So far we've had bikers, naked people and last night a bunch of bell ringers. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when the anarchists get in to town personally, though I don't want to get too close they're a bit dangerous. I forget what we have today, I can't remember if it's war protestors or reproductive rights women. It's 90, so I'm hoping it's the college girls and they're dressed appropriately.
I guess very few of them have made a clear statement to the effect of "Bush, do xyz and we'll vote for you". Most are generally of the form, "We don't like Bush or republicans". I guess that's just not in my mind a very effective way to gain support or convince anyone to change policy. Points are taken away from people who dirty up the city futher...I don't care what their goals are, they suck.
The public library should never be in a position to deny adults access to any given book, ever. No matter what the content.
Children however are not considered adults legally or socially. Parents should be able to set restrictions for what their children see and do not see. If sufficient concern about a particular book is raised, and the means and finances for enforcing a ban or request exist, then I think it's absolutely fine to ban books. A more ideal solution would be library cards being flagged with stuff a particular parent doesn't want. Maybe one day... Still, even the choice of required class reading is subject to community whim, and it should be respected.
It does pay however, to live in a community with ideals similar to your own, or give your own child whatever content you feel he is missing. It's brainwashing either way.
Drop the elitist crap, it makes you sound like a teenager. I almost don't even want to read your post because it's so wrong.
You had a valid point in there somewhere, I think it is that Java does not have a niche application where it actually makes development faster.
Java's one "best" is portability. Neither Perl or C natively move from platform to platform with the same ease Java allows.
However, the vast majority of programming out there is custom stuff that is particular to an environment. Either embedded stuff that goes directly on some random processor, or custom application layer stuff that takes one big hunk of software that someone else wrote and makes it work with another big hunk of software, with a lot of your own in between. That in itself is almost always specific to an environment.
The only niche i see for Java is the graphical front end for "Office" applications, "EDA/CAD" tools, etc. However in terms of people working, these represent a smaller chunk of development. Most of those that use Java to date, tend to use it only for the graphical front end.
I dunno, I have a level 9 scrapper (claws/regen) and in 30 minutes I can't make any real progress. I could up to level 6 but now....
It feels just like EverQuest did long ago when I made a wizard, solo'd until level 13 and started to get munched on more and more. I ultimately had to give up on soloing, made a cleric, and always got a group. But my 65 cleric took a LOT of time and money and I guess I can't pick up CoH unless it offers something different.
If you could really, truly solo CoH, make some nightly progress (like 1 level) I'd not be thinking of cancelling.
I'm a human in real life, I'm kinda bored with it. If I'm going to play a fantasy game I want to play something exciting.
The only thing that could differentiate this game from EverCrack would be that there is the potential for a great storyline, instead of killing A_Giant_Wasp00 a half million times.
Slashdot Mirror
Ultima VII has nothing to do with a MMORPG. Back before Origin was smacked down into a game factory by EA, they made good games. Ultima VII was one of the best (and the last good one, sadly).
Debeers (sp?) has a monopoly over diamonds. Verizon (where I live) pretty much has a monopoly over telephones. Two different markets but both monopolies.
Similarly Microsoft has a monopoly over x86 desktops. Apple has a different, totally incompatible platform. The costs of changing from x86->Apple platforms are incredibly high to end users. In many economics texts that implies monopoly.
If someone made an os (like DR-DOS was to MS-DOS back when) that was compatible with 3rd party applications that ran on Windows, and was a viable alternative to Windows, then I coudln't rightly say MS was a monopoly. No such product exists (eitehr for x86 or Apple), thus both companies have monopolies on their markets.
Those who advocate ditching Windows + x86 in favor of OS X + Mac are deluded. Both are Evil (tm), the only difference is that the smaller of the two will try harder, until he's not smaller anymore.
...Yes and no. Yes, you can't get cheap Macs, but for what you get...
...Again, this depends on your criteria. The hardware is closed, but most of the components are standard off-the-shelf ones ...
... You and millions of others... But it won't happen, for two reasons. First, economic: unlike MS, Apple is basically a hardware company; their software is...
I agree to some extent, but it's like the Ford model: sell a cheap car with lots of gadgets in the basic package, and charge more for it. Sure it appears to be a better value, but then if you take the subset of features I need or use, then it's not so good.
So I agree, you can but a plethora of USB, Firewire devices, and I think these days you can buy your own video card. It's a good start, but I want to be able to buy every part of a Mac from at least 2 other sources, as I can for a PC (sorta, only 1 real alternate for a processor on high end machines right now). I think this is what makes PCs great (and also is it's greatest weakness, but I can tolerate that, some can't).
And that right there is the problem. There are lots of hardware companies: SGI and Sun being the front runners. SGI more or less still has a niche market in high end video/graphics, it's slipped a bit but it still exists. They can operate on this business model and do OK. Having their own hardware makes sense.
Sun had the "backroom server" market, but a combination of a failing economy, bad customers and the penetration of cheap, faster, linux/x86 rackmount machines has put them in big trouble. I think their best bet is to play on the reliability of their individual machines and hold on to the small niche market that still requires a solid server. Their software wasn't that great anyway with the possible exception of Java, which they should sell or open source and get behind linux. They can be smaller, leaner and cater to their niche. In their case, having their own hardware but no software makes sense.
Apple on the other hand ideally should have the Desktop PC market. But PC hardware costs are hard to turn down, and the arguments of "costs of ownership" are as weak on Apple vs. PC as they are on Windows vs. Linux...no one is sure what it means and what is true. That coupled with the insurmountable problem of people having invested lots of money in PC HW & SW, makes a switch over almost totally unlikely.
The PC market is however literally DYING for a good, stable, easy to use but flexible operating system, which OS X almost is (certainly better than windows period, and easier to use but less flexible than linux). Everyone wants something better, but not enough to forklift upgrade. I realize Apple has traditionally made money from hardware, but it's not the right product the market as it stands. They have a good product in OS X it's what everone needs, they could do great things if they'd just be willing to change a little bit.
The only good argument right now against Macs are that they are a) expensive because b) they're pretty much closed systems. Only Apple can produce a Mac. There are advantages here of course, but I'd not like to assist one monopoly by running from another.
If you remember back when Apple was still a real contender in the desktop biz, they were as slothy and greedy as Microsoft has been since 95. People were begging for something like OS X, but Apple didn't see profit. If they had released the OS around 1995, probably we'd be in an Apple world. Instead they released it years late, and it was good, but maybe too little too late.
I only wish I could get OS X for PC hardware.
Doing anything to the excess that it is harmful to you is a bad thing. But what is harmful? Certainly cocaine and heroin is clearly "a bad thing". Gambling too much? Yeah that can get bad. Playing games too much? Only if as a direct result of excess gaming you lose your job or flunk out of school etc. Working too much? Never seen anyone work so much they died or were unable to hold their own in society. At worst are the ones who married but shouldn't have, and don't consider their spouse (or children) a responsibility that competes with work.
To me the mom was unhappy the kid was playing Socom instead of...playing basketball and going to football games? Because he wasn't socializing enough? Huh? Let's break this down: he was happy, he was not {getting drunk, doing drugs, making babies, killing, thieving, raping, pillaging}. It didn't even say his grades were slipping, which is a more common video game problem. So her problem was that he wasn't socializing? Man we should all have such problems.
So now he's on the road to being cured, and playing basketball and going to football games. Assuming he doesn't make the NBA (and probably won't), he can obsess about healhty things like football and go be the guy at the football stadium with no shirt, and a big beer gut wearing the clown wig and body paint with the letter "U" emblazoned on his stomach, but, he's ok, because he's standing next to his similarly clad friend who we'll call "F". I'm not saying that's necessarily bad/evil, just what makes that better than games?
It seems people who obsess about solitary activities certainly get into/cause a lot less trouble...
Once upon a time Saddamn had a million man army (with outdated equipment) and he got destroyed miserably. Most of his troops disappeared or "got captured". North Korea has the same problems just far worse.
We can and should smack North Korea, the question is what will China do if we try. I'm not at all enthusiastic about starting a war with them. On the other hand, it may stop the labor outsourcing...hmm.
Time out, I know we're in to government criticism but read your emphasis again. The "government's interests" can be read as "the will of the people". Some things "the people" cannot will, like making protestors go away. I agree sometimes the government acts on the will of an individual in charge, but not always, not even often.
The government has interests in protecting your personal safety, thus we have policemen, traffic laws, etc., preventing you or others from doing any thing that pleases you.
The government has interests in protecting your personal privacy, thus you can't walk in off the street and grab someone's tax return (you can probably get the return with references to the filer blocked out).
I'm all for free speech, but one's freedom ends where my front door begins. I do not have to suffer from someone's freedom of speech, the ruling states this government is allowed to protect me from that, if I want.
...write a game in a week (or hell a month and a half)?
I volunteer to be the giant publishing exec who will beat around "my" coders and artists with a large spiked club. I need a few coders, artists and middle managers to man-handle. Pay is optional (my option), and if I make any money on the product, I reserve the right to obligate you to another year.
If interested let me know.
(Attention Electronic Arts Exec's, I would really like to work for you. Consider this post my cover letter!)
I should have not used "military service" and used "compulsory service". No one should be forced to in to mandatory service except when dire situations arise.
I can't fathom how a "cattle mentality" would be fixed by forced service in a government institution of any kind. The only "cattle mentality" I am aware of could be solved by turning off the TV, radio, internet and social contact for a year or so. I'm not sure this would be a good thing either. If people want to follow the herd, let them, but they will always be at the mercy of whoever is at the head of the herd.
No, clearly Strange stole secrets of Mr. Norrell's magic and is simply wishes to spread them to the masses without authorization.
-Darl
More like +5 Troll.
I'm sorry, no one should be forced by law to serve in the military unless our own borders are at stake. I realize that's a grey area and subject to judgement, but cross that bridge when we get to it. It's part of the irrational belief I keep that we're in a free country, i.e. that we can make choices.
The poor have a choice, not one I'd like to have to decide, but it's a choice. We all are born with various deficiencies we have to deal with, and not all are equal and it's not fair. It's not the job of society to make things fair. We can provide enough support to help the unfortunate have a running shot, but we can't equalize.
I still can't see why any company would want to "upgrade" to xp, especially larger companies for which such an investment would be a huge amount of money.
As far as Windows' go, 2000 is the lightest and most stable. XP is bloat, and seems to have more bugs in my experience. It also has that nasty DRM shit which no one, corporate or private, truly wants.
Bah that's nothin', back when I was a young geek we didn't have "kisses", we had a wet toilet plunger and we LIKD IT! We had to...
Oh never mind, I don't think anyone wants to know more about unrepentant geeks.
I often vote republican but I would not vote for this man based solely on the answers he submitted. Whatever world he wants to create, I am not wealthy enough to benefit from.
Further it seems democrats and republicans have an equal track record of susceptibility to corporate influence. They simply couch this support in different terms: republicans talk about the morality and principles that justifies their corruption, the democrats talk about the people and the dream that justifies their corruption. Either way the wrong things seem to happen, at least it would appear that way once the bullshit clears.
In the event you weren't joking (I'm sure lots of people don't know what he means), I believe it means that there will never be a magic equation to 4th order polynomials and above like one learned in algebra to the 2nd order polynomial:
ax^2+bx+c =0
which is:
x= (-b +- sqrt(b^2-4ac))/2a
(aka the quadratic equation)
Instead you can get VALUES for the roots by using algorithmic approaches, but you cannot come up with a generalized equation like the quadratic equation above.
If it still doesn't make sense, then it probably doesn't matter, but some lines of engineering require finding roots of high order polynomials. I haven't done it since school, so my whole post may be wrong, but there's your explanation =)
I agree with everything you said, even the sig. The problem isn't reality, it's the perception of reality. There are a lot of people who feel comforted by the requirement to show papers, and the feeling that all this extra security is adding something.
Most of the effective extra security actually happens behind the scenes really. But that doesn't make the same visual impact. We can pontificate about right and wrong and what it means to be free, and bring out our best Benjamin Franklin quotes on the subject, and they're all right.
In the end people (even those that know better but want your job) will ask, "What did you do to increase national security". If you said you bought better xray machines, put an agent in each terminal, performed audits on security agents, you run into the problem that people don't believe you. They can't see that. If you say all those things AND put armed guards in terminals and required identification for travellers etc. it lends some credibility to your cause, everyone saw that, it stood out because it doesn't belong.
The upside of democracy is that everyone gets a vote, the downside of democracy is that the majority usually wins the vote, not those that are correct.
I think we all agree on the pricipal. Yet this "secret" law does seem to serve the interest of putting asses back in airplane seats and helping the process of getting back to "normal" economically and psychologically. It's a crime thousands of people die in an act of terrorism, it's a bigger crime if the infrastructure of the country falls apart due to induced fear. As long as this condition is temprary and fades away, I see no real harm done.
I agree it's very scary to have to show your papers, and have guys with big machine guns standing in train stations (visit Penn station at some point), and I would support any and all alternatives that could accomplish the same effect. I just can't think of any off hand except give in to the many and varied demands of anyone who waves a bomb in our collective faces, and I think that will just cause more trouble, not less.
Conservative Republican, Agnostic
I'm glad I tell the truth and get modded down as a troll, and you use the words "double nitwit fuckwad" and get modded up as funny, pretty much only because somehow you misconstrue my post to be pro-Bush.
s tory/2 26519p-194587c.html
t tp://www.n ytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/campaign/28protest. html
So, you've made 2 posts accusing me of being a stupid troll. Here's reports from legit news sources.
This one happened to be on the same block where I was:
http://www.nydailynews.com/08-28-2004/news/
This one glosses over the conduct but gives you the idea that it wasn't a peaceful protest:
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=h
Actually, I DID RTFA and I was a bit irate, because in my opinion it is a highly biased and told you part of the story. It told you of the one "calm", "polite" guy spraying crap from his bike, and his particular interaction with one of the cops, who as the article pointed out, was not exactly trying to oppress him.
He was not a "lone biker", there were perhaps 100 people in that particular protest on bikes, many of which were being not only distruptive but bordering on violent. They WERE throwing stuff on the police (such as wet spaghetti) and it was totally uncalled for. MANY people were arrested from that protest. This guy proclaimed himself to be the leader, which is probably why he was arrested.
Doesn't this make just a bit more sense to you than some lone guy on a bike arrested because some "unseen" superior ordered it? Don't you think something ELSE might have been going on that he associated with? Do you REALLY think the police are out to get him? Give me a break.
Call me names if you like, but I was there. I question the intelligence of anyone who could read that article and believe it at face value. It took events way out of context and was completely unfair.
Mod me down because you think I'm lying if you like, but don't mod me down because I don't agree with your politics. You guys not only have to RTFA but you have to filter it with the goggles of people who live in the real world. If you continually believe everything someone who calls himself a reporter puts in print, at face value, then you're going to be used.
I was there, he and his cohorts where throwing spaghetti and other crap on police and everywhere else and generally going way outside their right to a peaceful demonstration. Arrests were in order, and if he loses his bike it might help him remember that throwing crap all over the place isn't helping those of us who live here. On top of that, I don't think anyone "got it". I didn't until I happened to see it here on /.
Most of us natives have been watching the protestors with the eye of free entertainment in our backyard. So far we've had bikers, naked people and last night a bunch of bell ringers. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when the anarchists get in to town personally, though I don't want to get too close they're a bit dangerous. I forget what we have today, I can't remember if it's war protestors or reproductive rights women. It's 90, so I'm hoping it's the college girls and they're dressed appropriately.
I guess very few of them have made a clear statement to the effect of "Bush, do xyz and we'll vote for you". Most are generally of the form, "We don't like Bush or republicans". I guess that's just not in my mind a very effective way to gain support or convince anyone to change policy. Points are taken away from people who dirty up the city futher...I don't care what their goals are, they suck.
The public library should never be in a position to deny adults access to any given book, ever. No matter what the content.
Children however are not considered adults legally or socially. Parents should be able to set restrictions for what their children see and do not see. If sufficient concern about a particular book is raised, and the means and finances for enforcing a ban or request exist, then I think it's absolutely fine to ban books. A more ideal solution would be library cards being flagged with stuff a particular parent doesn't want. Maybe one day... Still, even the choice of required class reading is subject to community whim, and it should be respected.
It does pay however, to live in a community with ideals similar to your own, or give your own child whatever content you feel he is missing. It's brainwashing either way.
Drop the elitist crap, it makes you sound like a teenager. I almost don't even want to read your post because it's so wrong.
You had a valid point in there somewhere, I think it is that Java does not have a niche application where it actually makes development faster.
Java's one "best" is portability. Neither Perl or C natively move from platform to platform with the same ease Java allows.
However, the vast majority of programming out there is custom stuff that is particular to an environment. Either embedded stuff that goes directly on some random processor, or custom application layer stuff that takes one big hunk of software that someone else wrote and makes it work with another big hunk of software, with a lot of your own in between. That in itself is almost always specific to an environment.
The only niche i see for Java is the graphical front end for "Office" applications, "EDA/CAD" tools, etc. However in terms of people working, these represent a smaller chunk of development. Most of those that use Java to date, tend to use it only for the graphical front end.
I dunno, I have a level 9 scrapper (claws/regen) and in 30 minutes I can't make any real progress. I could up to level 6 but now....
It feels just like EverQuest did long ago when I made a wizard, solo'd until level 13 and started to get munched on more and more. I ultimately had to give up on soloing, made a cleric, and always got a group. But my 65 cleric took a LOT of time and money and I guess I can't pick up CoH unless it offers something different.
If you could really, truly solo CoH, make some nightly progress (like 1 level) I'd not be thinking of cancelling.
I'm a human in real life, I'm kinda bored with it. If I'm going to play a fantasy game I want to play something exciting.
The only thing that could differentiate this game from EverCrack would be that there is the potential for a great storyline, instead of killing A_Giant_Wasp00 a half million times.