Killing is not the only npc interaction in video games. Especially rpgs or adventure type games have lots of animated scenes and dialogue.
That said does anybody remember the npc deaths from "Crusader - no remorse / no regret" with violence turned on? That turned a nice isometric shooter into something disturbing.
It's common knowledge that once mathematics comes into contact with reality things get complicated and prone to error. Mathematics usually is an exact science and could for a complete (good luck with that) input set give a complete and 100% correct answer. Reality and especially human behavior can only be approached withing some error margins. Once you accept that, it can be pretty useful though.
I dare say that religion is much more important than race in an election. A faithful follower will use his religion as a moral guideline. It is an integral part of his/her personality. If this is good or bad depends on your own views and how close they match.
The whole concept is very interesting and should be mandatory reading for vr/cgi/games designers. The implications while focused on robotics also hold true for computer generated humans (and creatures) in movies and video games.
There are three options that come to mind:
1) First come, first serve (though this requires that you don't mess up the registration process) (fair, if done right)
2) Highest Bidder (profitable)
3) Lottery / Random process (fair)
The third requires an audit/verification process to prove it was truly random, but it's not that difficult to do. If done right, this is the fairest option.
What you don't want to do, is leave the impression that this is just a joke for you and let your customers play (rather silly) games for it (like ican did).
This officially answers the question if icann are out of their minds. How does anyone even remotely sober come up with such an utterly stupid idea? IF this would be for some gaming site handing out free beta keys it would OK, even fun. But if you are talking about business in the 6 figure range something a little more sophisticated should be used. Unless of course you want to look like a bunch of script kiddies far out of their league.
Very interesting line of thinking. Reminds me of what the Bavarian government did with the book of a certain "author" whose soon expiring copyright they inherited in 1945.
The where four variations on that scheme common in our university (at least for cs, math and physics). 1) Folder placed in library with current script for copying (cost of photocopies) 2) Common book list most of which where available from the library in large (though not always large enough) quantities (free) 3) Printed and bound script available through the secretary roughly at printing cost (5-10 bucks) 4) Regular books written by the professor available in the bookstore (40-80 bucks plus).
The fourth happened rarely and every time it did happen you could get a discount card from the professor. That card reduced the book's price by his share (and some more I guess), so he made no extra money by requiring his book(s).
the same argument could have been made about many other services, including the internet itself.... some people still believe the web is just a porn service, and refuse to use it, well... their problem. everything can be used for good and bad, but i get your point, tor DOES seem to be attracting more illicit usage than what it was initially intended for, what it actually needs, is more legal users to out-shadow the bad ones, most people don't even bother with tor, leaving mostly the criminals to use it.
When I first heard of tor I considered it a very great idea because helping the oppressed is a good thing to do. But the more I think about it, the more I get the idea, that by hosting a node you entering a morally questionable area. Activists in "oppressed" countries will probably not run tor. While the government can't read what they said, they know you have something to hide and will pay them a visit. The traffic is easy to distinguish and even to block, so this intended use doesn't happen in reality. This leaves places where it is legal to have cryptography (so probably not very oppressed) but not legal to engage in certain activities. Most people don't feel the need to encrypt their conversations and therefore don't bother installing tor. That leaves idealists and people who indeed have something to hide as a usage base. Some of that might be political views (though not many, see above), common porn and in a higher percentage than I would still be ok with it, criminals exchanging data (drugs, cp).
So where is the point (with the current usage) to run a node? Free speech and unmonitored political discussion is important, but tor doesn't really provide that to actually oppressed people. I would have no problems with a completely encrypted unmonitored internet, even though there would be some abuse, but tor right now has a far to larger abuserbase and just feels tainted and dirty.
Unless, just maybe you look at the percentage of acceptable vs not acceptable (conscience wise) use.
I'm doubtful any of your examples gets even a single percent of cp usage, while tor...
Of course you can opt out. Move to a different country with low taxation (like Somalia maybe) and revoke your US citizenship. Of course this will limit access to all those nice things that taxes buy you in a civilized country but who needs those anyway. It is very likely that people paying taxes enabled you to make money in the first place. Infrastructure, a reliable legal system, education and even military all pay off by providing a stable place to do business.
The "individual American" isn't really such a big problem. There might be room for improvement (more efficient cars, better insulation, eating less meat, recycling) but nothing really live changing. The big problem is that America (as a nation) undermined, ignored crippled almost every attempt for a binding international treaty to reduce CO2 emissions. This of course resulted in a collective "well then why should we?" from developing nations especially China and India. Also other highly developed places (Europe, Japan) now face the choice of either being at an economic disadvantage by implementing these measures unilaterally or to do nothing and further nurture climate change.
The question is, do we continue to act like fermenting yeast in a jar, or do we use our brains and do something about it?
Yeast. We might at some point realize that we are in deep shit, but by then it will be very deep and anything even remotely helpful will be rather drastic. Conveniently for the first world, it will hit the poorer nations first and hardest. </sarcasm>
Oh you can do very good business with Russians, but you should know what you are doing and be careful. Also be very careful once the drinking starts. No matter how much you thought you can stomach, they will probably still be driving home while you are already under the table.
A classic case of "Si vis pacem, para bellum". If you want to do serious businesses do not ever expect your customer to be "nice". Hoping for it and to a degree acting like it is ok, but be prepared if they are not. The above list is a very good start.
Not that the RIAA and their siblings ever would let facts get in their way. Most of the piracy discussion resolved around protecting existing (but somewhat outdated) business models and increasing the power over the consumer.
Well as we claim to be well informed techno nerds, we should have known that there are no more flying (and fueled up) shuttles around. There where only to options left: 1) Oversized truck not quite making a turn and doing some (minor) damage to the shuttle. 2)Shuttle on a ship with a lot more options on the scale of the damage to the shuttle.
That said, at least in the US, we regularly put ours back in their place - The churches, not the schools or courts. I'd suggest doing the same if you don't want the rest of the planet to view you as a nation of 3rd-world savages going around burning witches for stealing your penises and such.
That is not exactly the impression I get, especially when it's about politics.
Slashdot Mirror
Killing is not the only npc interaction in video games. Especially rpgs or adventure type games have lots of animated scenes and dialogue. That said does anybody remember the npc deaths from "Crusader - no remorse / no regret" with violence turned on? That turned a nice isometric shooter into something disturbing.
It's common knowledge that once mathematics comes into contact with reality things get complicated and prone to error. Mathematics usually is an exact science and could for a complete (good luck with that) input set give a complete and 100% correct answer. Reality and especially human behavior can only be approached withing some error margins. Once you accept that, it can be pretty useful though.
I dare say that religion is much more important than race in an election. A faithful follower will use his religion as a moral guideline. It is an integral part of his/her personality. If this is good or bad depends on your own views and how close they match.
I'm not sure if a person like Abraham Lincoln would still be electable today. The game has changed.
The whole concept is very interesting and should be mandatory reading for vr/cgi/games designers. The implications while focused on robotics also hold true for computer generated humans (and creatures) in movies and video games.
There are three options that come to mind:
1) First come, first serve (though this requires that you don't mess up the registration process) (fair, if done right)
2) Highest Bidder (profitable)
3) Lottery / Random process (fair)
The third requires an audit/verification process to prove it was truly random, but it's not that difficult to do. If done right, this is the fairest option.
What you don't want to do, is leave the impression that this is just a joke for you and let your customers play (rather silly) games for it (like ican did).
This officially answers the question if icann are out of their minds. How does anyone even remotely sober come up with such an utterly stupid idea? IF this would be for some gaming site handing out free beta keys it would OK, even fun. But if you are talking about business in the 6 figure range something a little more sophisticated should be used. Unless of course you want to look like a bunch of script kiddies far out of their league.
or "gaming the system"
Very interesting line of thinking. Reminds me of what the Bavarian government did with the book of a certain "author" whose soon expiring copyright they inherited in 1945.
The where four variations on that scheme common in our university (at least for cs, math and physics). 1) Folder placed in library with current script for copying (cost of photocopies) 2) Common book list most of which where available from the library in large (though not always large enough) quantities (free) 3) Printed and bound script available through the secretary roughly at printing cost (5-10 bucks) 4) Regular books written by the professor available in the bookstore (40-80 bucks plus). The fourth happened rarely and every time it did happen you could get a discount card from the professor. That card reduced the book's price by his share (and some more I guess), so he made no extra money by requiring his book(s).
you do know, that you fell for a particular lazy troll?
the same argument could have been made about many other services, including the internet itself.... some people still believe the web is just a porn service, and refuse to use it, well... their problem. everything can be used for good and bad, but i get your point, tor DOES seem to be attracting more illicit usage than what it was initially intended for, what it actually needs, is more legal users to out-shadow the bad ones, most people don't even bother with tor, leaving mostly the criminals to use it.
When I first heard of tor I considered it a very great idea because helping the oppressed is a good thing to do. But the more I think about it, the more I get the idea, that by hosting a node you entering a morally questionable area. Activists in "oppressed" countries will probably not run tor. While the government can't read what they said, they know you have something to hide and will pay them a visit. The traffic is easy to distinguish and even to block, so this intended use doesn't happen in reality. This leaves places where it is legal to have cryptography (so probably not very oppressed) but not legal to engage in certain activities. Most people don't feel the need to encrypt their conversations and therefore don't bother installing tor. That leaves idealists and people who indeed have something to hide as a usage base. Some of that might be political views (though not many, see above), common porn and in a higher percentage than I would still be ok with it, criminals exchanging data (drugs, cp).
So where is the point (with the current usage) to run a node? Free speech and unmonitored political discussion is important, but tor doesn't really provide that to actually oppressed people. I would have no problems with a completely encrypted unmonitored internet, even though there would be some abuse, but tor right now has a far to larger abuserbase and just feels tainted and dirty.
Wouldn't that be a little bit against the foundation of any decent legal system out there? After all he hasn't done anything yet...
Unless, just maybe you look at the percentage of acceptable vs not acceptable (conscience wise) use. I'm doubtful any of your examples gets even a single percent of cp usage, while tor...
Of course you can opt out. Move to a different country with low taxation (like Somalia maybe) and revoke your US citizenship. Of course this will limit access to all those nice things that taxes buy you in a civilized country but who needs those anyway. It is very likely that people paying taxes enabled you to make money in the first place. Infrastructure, a reliable legal system, education and even military all pay off by providing a stable place to do business.
I'm pretty sure the parent wasn't exactly politically correct, but on the other hand sums it up quite nicely.
What about retiring your dogs because they are expensive even so more and more people have seen wolves in the neighboring hills?
The "individual American" isn't really such a big problem. There might be room for improvement (more efficient cars, better insulation, eating less meat, recycling) but nothing really live changing. The big problem is that America (as a nation) undermined, ignored crippled almost every attempt for a binding international treaty to reduce CO2 emissions. This of course resulted in a collective "well then why should we?" from developing nations especially China and India. Also other highly developed places (Europe, Japan) now face the choice of either being at an economic disadvantage by implementing these measures unilaterally or to do nothing and further nurture climate change.
The question is, do we continue to act like fermenting yeast in a jar, or do we use our brains and do something about it?
Yeast. We might at some point realize that we are in deep shit, but by then it will be very deep and anything even remotely helpful will be rather drastic. Conveniently for the first world, it will hit the poorer nations first and hardest. </sarcasm>
The good news seems to be, that more and more people loose their jobs and can't afford to pollute as much as they used to.
Oh you can do very good business with Russians, but you should know what you are doing and be careful. Also be very careful once the drinking starts. No matter how much you thought you can stomach, they will probably still be driving home while you are already under the table.
A classic case of "Si vis pacem, para bellum". If you want to do serious businesses do not ever expect your customer to be "nice". Hoping for it and to a degree acting like it is ok, but be prepared if they are not. The above list is a very good start.
Not that the RIAA and their siblings ever would let facts get in their way. Most of the piracy discussion resolved around protecting existing (but somewhat outdated) business models and increasing the power over the consumer.
Well as we claim to be well informed techno nerds, we should have known that there are no more flying (and fueled up) shuttles around. There where only to options left: 1) Oversized truck not quite making a turn and doing some (minor) damage to the shuttle. 2)Shuttle on a ship with a lot more options on the scale of the damage to the shuttle.
That said, at least in the US, we regularly put ours back in their place - The churches, not the schools or courts. I'd suggest doing the same if you don't want the rest of the planet to view you as a nation of 3rd-world savages going around burning witches for stealing your penises and such.
That is not exactly the impression I get, especially when it's about politics.