The question is whether or not doing business with such a government and censoring is, in fact, "evil". I would argue it's not... in the sense that it's not immoral. It may be somewhat unethical, but since they are informing users of the censorship, at least that's somewhat absolving of Google. I don't fault Google for this decision; it's just good business, and potentially good public policy, if it helps the society advance in the long run.
Is any form of government censorship automatically "evil"? It's easy enough for us to denounce China's censorship as being "too much", but although some of us here also object to, say, Germany's anti-Nazi censorship laws, I don't think anyone would claim that was really "evil"; at least, not in the same category. Misguided, perhaps, but evil?
It's ironic that many of the posters here are of a Liberal stripe who think certain things like censorship and capital punishment are absolutely wrong. So Google shouldn't do business with China because China is "evil"? And yet it's the Liberal politicians these people support who have urged engagement with countries like China, Cub, etc., not judging the morals of other countries but rather doing business with them in any way possible, making whatever concessions necessary, to avoid confrontration and to work for change slowly from within. Meanwhile, they ridicule Conservative politicians who use such "simplistic" terms as "evil" when it comes to radical islamic terrorists.
The bottom line is, even if what China is doing is evil, it doesn't make Google's complicity evil, and you can't go to war over every dispute over morality. At this stage, slow cooperation with China seems to be the better course of action; we've been doing it for 30 years now and there has been substantial change. We revisited the debate 15 years ago and decided to continue engagement and we've gotten further results. The day may come when we draw the line and tell China it's time to shape up, but that day is not today. We don't have the resources for such a conflict.
See, your reply wasn't helpful. I asked a simple question, and instead you gave a snarky comment, making a bunch of assumptions that I should just buy a new motherboard anyway. That's not really what I want to do right now, because that would ALSO require me to buy a new processor and some other changes. Which I will do in the future, AS I ALREADY SAID, but IN THE MEANTIME I was hoping to get an AGP version of this card. Rather than wait 9 months to buy a new MB+CPU+X1900 PCIE, I'd rather buy a X1900 AGP in the meantime, and that's why I asked about one.
You mention other AGP cards I could buy, but cheap isn't the issue for me. I was something almost-as-fast-regardless-of-cost-but-still-an-AGP card. Or, preferably, an AGP version of the X1900. Which is what I asked about. If you have any info on that, please, let us know.
Yes, I know AGP is nearly dead, but I'm saddled with it until I upgrade my motherboard, and I don't want to do that just yet. But getting a new graphics card in the meantime would be helpful. Is there any chance a vendor will make an AGP version of this new card?
My former employer is still the best when it comes to Network Attached Storage - Network Appliance
However, even a low-end system would be pretty pricey for home use, and you'll probably balk because it's many times more expensive than a cheap and easy linux box with a samba, some cheap disk drives, and a raid controller. However, the features and performance that a Netapp server provides more than make it for it.
Still, you might be better off trying to find an used, older Netapp model that's still supported and buying it second-hand. You'll still have to license the software, but you might be able to find a system that's more in-line with your needs.
However, you're correct that it hasn't been done since 1989-1990, and it's unlikely to happen again, since all future STS flights (save perhaps one for HST) are tasked with ISS construction and support.
Actually, this is not true. The Shuttle has indeed been used to launch some interplanetary missions; Magellan and Galileo spring to mind. Now, these payloads also had additional stages to get them there, but as the old saying goes, Earth orbit is halfway to anywhere in the universe. The Shuttle certainly helped get them that far.
I got to see the early concept work on this game and hear their pitch. I think their ideas certainly had a lot of potential. The problem wasn't that they underestimated their costs; it's just they couldn't get any investors actually interested in the project. (I tried myself, but couldn't get anyone who was actually willing to commit more money to the MMOG space.) It's too bad. At least my Twilight War posters are now collector's items.
Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, in his emotional Hurrican Katrina tirade on NBC's Meet the Press:
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home, and every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, `And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday' - and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday night," Broussard said.
"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences - I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
Of course, it turned out the above story was a complete lie.
For four-legged runners, having all four feet off the ground is called the double-suspension gallop. This was the subject of a famous bet in 1892, and was proven via the first know example of high-speed time-lapse photography. Some canines and felines are also capable of this.
Assuming these contestants really are just stupid, then they should sue the makers of the show afterwards for the hoax, and force them to either keep their contract to send them into space or to give them equivalent monetary compensation. Not to mention damages for the pain and suffering from being humiliating in front of millions of people.
Unless, of course, it says clearly in the contracts they signed that this is all a hoax. But then they'd have noticed that, wouldn't they? Unless they're really, REALLY stupid.
Another possibility that springs to mind is that human chldren are actually "experienced" with high-tech gadgetry of the modern age, and so don't make the assumptions the chimps do.
The study said the chimps, when they saw the clear box and the fact the bolt did not appear to do anything, went straight for the food. But that's purely mechanical thinking. Human children have probably seen all sorts of devices that mechanically don't seem important but due to electronics actually produce a "magical" effect. It would be interesting to see what would happen if said bolt actually DID prevent them from opening the box, even though it didn't see to. My bet is a bunch of the chimps would have trouble at first because they (falsely) assumed it had no purpose. Human children probably figure it's there for a reason, even if that reason is not immediately obvious to them. Indeed, the bolt may have second or third-order effects -- maybe it doesn't stop you from getting the food, but if you don't move it, your mom will cry. That sort of thing.
It has nothing to do with comic books. It has to do with obscenity.
Yes, the lawyer used a "comic books are for kids" argument, but that's just for the jury. Legally, local communities can indeed declare anything they want obscene, not just comic books, but books, movies, etc. Yes, it would be more difficult to convince juries on those points, but there's nothing to prevent it.
Yes, it's a travesty of justice. Blame our lawmakers for allowing local communities to set obscenity standards.
Bruce
1. Good luck. You're probably better off getting your stores big enough so you can SELL OUT to another major chain, and get them to keep you employed there.
2. As others have said, learn how to make money via the used games business. Buy them cheap and re-sell them for 50% over.
3. You say "lastly, kids come in with piles of junk games (Madden 2001, etc..), and get enough store credit to buy the latest greatest game that we only mark up like 5%-10%". Well, there you go; you're giving too much credit for those junk games. If they're really junk, then don't take them for credit. If they're something you can re-sell at 50% over, then do that; that'll pay for itself in the long run.
4. Promotions - These are only effective if they are cheap. An old retailer I knew used to use the "beer and a t-shirt rule". He claimed he could vastly increase store traffic simply by offering a beer and a t-shirt to every customer, so any promotion that cost more than that was probably not cost-effective.
5. Since you can't compete with the big stores on price, you have to have some sort of differentiator that make people come to your store instead. Arcades might be a solution, I dunno. I actually think the idea of an "Adults Only" section is worth a try; you can stock it with a bunch of Japanese adult "dating sim" titles and charge high prices for them.
I should probably be emailing this to John, but maybe he'll read it here.:)
I think SOE deserves some applause for doing this. If my research has told me anything, it's that it's very difficult for a MMOG to vastly grow their userbase after they've reached the "maturity" and gotten their initial core audience. Yes, churn keeps new people coming in, but people are also going out, and as time goes on, those numbers eventually start to dwindle. I don't think any MMOG, no matter how much you update it, can stay popular "forever".
But if you really want to extend its life and grow your playerbase, then you have to take drastic steps. And SOE has some cajones to do this with SWG, and we should applaud them for at least being willing to try to change things. Trying to fix the current system to the satisfaction of a small subset of existing players is ultimately a losing proposition. This type of overhaul, combined with a new marketing campaign, just MIGHT bring in some new players to the game.
Sadly, I have to be honest when I say I doubt I'll be one of them. I gave SWG its chance. I was in beta. I was ready to "move in" at release. But everyone was telling SOE the game wasn't ready, and they released anyway. Now, after all those revamps later, was it worth it? I suspect that extra revenue and extra cost got eaten up by the endless revamps that have been going on since the day after release. Later, when other people who worked on the game said there needed to be drastic changes and they weren't listened to, you guys missed another opportunity. And now, there are too many other products competing for my attention, so I can't go back to SWG. It's too late for a jaded gamer like me.
But I do think you're right in doing SOMETHING, although it may turn out what you're doing wasn't exactly the right way to go. In any case, I do wish SWG success, if only to see what the new numbers look like on my MMOG charts.:)
You make a good point, but it's moot in this case. UO may be successful from a long-term business standpoint as a self-contained product, but it has not helped EA's broader business objectives. Every other EA MMOG has been a failure; The Sims Online, which I neglected to mention before, got far, far fewer subscribers than they had anticipated for the title. EA's reputation has done nothing but decline, and the value of its Origin franchises (Ultima and Wing Commander) is far less than it was in 1997.
Yes, a small company with modest goals that runs a small MMOG for years and makes more than it spends should certainly be acknowledged as a success in their own right. But these are not the circumstances in the case of Electronic Arts.
Turbine has certainly been "fading" as far as market share goes, but having the IP for Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings still makes them big players. If either one is a big hit, Turbine is right back in the top-tier along with Blizzard, SOE, and NCSoft. Mythic's DAoC has certainly been a bigger success than either Asheron's Call, but their inability to follow it up with Imperator (cancelled) has left them, IMHO, in second-tier status, at least until Warhammer Online comes out.
The big loser has been EA. UO pioneered the modern MMOG, and yet they have nothing to show for it. The Ultima franchise is essentially dead, and they've canned no less than three "sequel" Ultima MMOGs in development. They also cancelled Privateer Online (thus killing the Wing Commander franchise), Harry Potter Online, and Battletech 3025. And the MMOGs they did put out instead? Majestic, Motor City Online, and Earth & Beyond, all of which were also cancelled. UO survives as a dying shadow of its former self.
In my experience, most end-users don't run WHQL certified drivers. This is usually because certification takes a long time. In the case of graphics drivers (which is what is commonly the problem), there will be many updates that relate that improve performance or fix a specific game-related bug that are installed by power users long before such fixes make it into an updated driver that's officially certified.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is whether or not doing business with such a government and censoring is, in fact, "evil". I would argue it's not... in the sense that it's not immoral. It may be somewhat unethical, but since they are informing users of the censorship, at least that's somewhat absolving of Google. I don't fault Google for this decision; it's just good business, and potentially good public policy, if it helps the society advance in the long run.
Is any form of government censorship automatically "evil"? It's easy enough for us to denounce China's censorship as being "too much", but although some of us here also object to, say, Germany's anti-Nazi censorship laws, I don't think anyone would claim that was really "evil"; at least, not in the same category. Misguided, perhaps, but evil?
It's ironic that many of the posters here are of a Liberal stripe who think certain things like censorship and capital punishment are absolutely wrong. So Google shouldn't do business with China because China is "evil"? And yet it's the Liberal politicians these people support who have urged engagement with countries like China, Cub, etc., not judging the morals of other countries but rather doing business with them in any way possible, making whatever concessions necessary, to avoid confrontration and to work for change slowly from within. Meanwhile, they ridicule Conservative politicians who use such "simplistic" terms as "evil" when it comes to radical islamic terrorists.
The bottom line is, even if what China is doing is evil, it doesn't make Google's complicity evil, and you can't go to war over every dispute over morality. At this stage, slow cooperation with China seems to be the better course of action; we've been doing it for 30 years now and there has been substantial change. We revisited the debate 15 years ago and decided to continue engagement and we've gotten further results. The day may come when we draw the line and tell China it's time to shape up, but that day is not today. We don't have the resources for such a conflict.
Bruce
See, your reply wasn't helpful. I asked a simple question, and instead you gave a snarky comment, making a bunch of assumptions that I should just buy a new motherboard anyway. That's not really what I want to do right now, because that would ALSO require me to buy a new processor and some other changes. Which I will do in the future, AS I ALREADY SAID, but IN THE MEANTIME I was hoping to get an AGP version of this card. Rather than wait 9 months to buy a new MB+CPU+X1900 PCIE, I'd rather buy a X1900 AGP in the meantime, and that's why I asked about one.
P card. Or, preferably, an AGP version of the X1900. Which is what I asked about. If you have any info on that, please, let us know.
You mention other AGP cards I could buy, but cheap isn't the issue for me. I was something almost-as-fast-regardless-of-cost-but-still-an-AG
Bruce
Yes, I know AGP is nearly dead, but I'm saddled with it until I upgrade my motherboard, and I don't want to do that just yet. But getting a new graphics card in the meantime would be helpful. Is there any chance a vendor will make an AGP version of this new card?
Bruce
However, even a low-end system would be pretty pricey for home use, and you'll probably balk because it's many times more expensive than a cheap and easy linux box with a samba, some cheap disk drives, and a raid controller. However, the features and performance that a Netapp server provides more than make it for it.
Still, you might be better off trying to find an used, older Netapp model that's still supported and buying it second-hand. You'll still have to license the software, but you might be able to find a system that's more in-line with your needs.
Bruce
"Print is dead." -- Dr. Egon Spengler, 1984
Bruce
Bruce
Actually, I should add Ulysses also to that list.
However, you're correct that it hasn't been done since 1989-1990, and it's unlikely to happen again, since all future STS flights (save perhaps one for HST) are tasked with ISS construction and support.
Bruce
Actually, this is not true. The Shuttle has indeed been used to launch some interplanetary missions; Magellan and Galileo spring to mind. Now, these payloads also had additional stages to get them there, but as the old saying goes, Earth orbit is halfway to anywhere in the universe. The Shuttle certainly helped get them that far.
Bruce
I got to see the early concept work on this game and hear their pitch. I think their ideas certainly had a lot of potential. The problem wasn't that they underestimated their costs; it's just they couldn't get any investors actually interested in the project. (I tried myself, but couldn't get anyone who was actually willing to commit more money to the MMOG space.) It's too bad. At least my Twilight War posters are now collector's items.
Bruce
Ziggy estimates there's a 99.99% chance this new slogan will be a failure.
Bruce
The story Aaron Broussard gave was the lie. The whole point is he put his foot in his mouth.
Bruce
No mention of the new season of Dr. Who, which was easily the best thing I saw all year. Although House is a close second.
Bruce
Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, in his emotional Hurrican Katrina tirade on NBC's Meet the Press:
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home, and every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, `And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday' - and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday night," Broussard said.
"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences - I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
Of course, it turned out the above story was a complete lie.
Bruce
This is a fake!
Bruce
For four-legged runners, having all four feet off the ground is called the double-suspension gallop. This was the subject of a famous bet in 1892, and was proven via the first know example of high-speed time-lapse photography. Some canines and felines are also capable of this.
Bruce
Assuming these contestants really are just stupid, then they should sue the makers of the show afterwards for the hoax, and force them to either keep their contract to send them into space or to give them equivalent monetary compensation. Not to mention damages for the pain and suffering from being humiliating in front of millions of people.
Unless, of course, it says clearly in the contracts they signed that this is all a hoax. But then they'd have noticed that, wouldn't they? Unless they're really, REALLY stupid.
Bruce
Another possibility that springs to mind is that human chldren are actually "experienced" with high-tech gadgetry of the modern age, and so don't make the assumptions the chimps do.
The study said the chimps, when they saw the clear box and the fact the bolt did not appear to do anything, went straight for the food. But that's purely mechanical thinking. Human children have probably seen all sorts of devices that mechanically don't seem important but due to electronics actually produce a "magical" effect. It would be interesting to see what would happen if said bolt actually DID prevent them from opening the box, even though it didn't see to. My bet is a bunch of the chimps would have trouble at first because they (falsely) assumed it had no purpose. Human children probably figure it's there for a reason, even if that reason is not immediately obvious to them. Indeed, the bolt may have second or third-order effects -- maybe it doesn't stop you from getting the food, but if you don't move it, your mom will cry. That sort of thing.
Bruce
It has nothing to do with comic books. It has to do with obscenity. Yes, the lawyer used a "comic books are for kids" argument, but that's just for the jury. Legally, local communities can indeed declare anything they want obscene, not just comic books, but books, movies, etc. Yes, it would be more difficult to convince juries on those points, but there's nothing to prevent it. Yes, it's a travesty of justice. Blame our lawmakers for allowing local communities to set obscenity standards. Bruce
1. Good luck. You're probably better off getting your stores big enough so you can SELL OUT to another major chain, and get them to keep you employed there.
2. As others have said, learn how to make money via the used games business. Buy them cheap and re-sell them for 50% over.
3. You say "lastly, kids come in with piles of junk games (Madden 2001, etc..), and get enough store credit to buy the latest greatest game that we only mark up like 5%-10%". Well, there you go; you're giving too much credit for those junk games. If they're really junk, then don't take them for credit. If they're something you can re-sell at 50% over, then do that; that'll pay for itself in the long run.
4. Promotions - These are only effective if they are cheap. An old retailer I knew used to use the "beer and a t-shirt rule". He claimed he could vastly increase store traffic simply by offering a beer and a t-shirt to every customer, so any promotion that cost more than that was probably not cost-effective.
5. Since you can't compete with the big stores on price, you have to have some sort of differentiator that make people come to your store instead. Arcades might be a solution, I dunno. I actually think the idea of an "Adults Only" section is worth a try; you can stock it with a bunch of Japanese adult "dating sim" titles and charge high prices for them.
Bruce
I should probably be emailing this to John, but maybe he'll read it here. :)
:)
I think SOE deserves some applause for doing this. If my research has told me anything, it's that it's very difficult for a MMOG to vastly grow their userbase after they've reached the "maturity" and gotten their initial core audience. Yes, churn keeps new people coming in, but people are also going out, and as time goes on, those numbers eventually start to dwindle. I don't think any MMOG, no matter how much you update it, can stay popular "forever".
But if you really want to extend its life and grow your playerbase, then you have to take drastic steps. And SOE has some cajones to do this with SWG, and we should applaud them for at least being willing to try to change things. Trying to fix the current system to the satisfaction of a small subset of existing players is ultimately a losing proposition. This type of overhaul, combined with a new marketing campaign, just MIGHT bring in some new players to the game.
Sadly, I have to be honest when I say I doubt I'll be one of them. I gave SWG its chance. I was in beta. I was ready to "move in" at release. But everyone was telling SOE the game wasn't ready, and they released anyway. Now, after all those revamps later, was it worth it? I suspect that extra revenue and extra cost got eaten up by the endless revamps that have been going on since the day after release. Later, when other people who worked on the game said there needed to be drastic changes and they weren't listened to, you guys missed another opportunity. And now, there are too many other products competing for my attention, so I can't go back to SWG. It's too late for a jaded gamer like me.
But I do think you're right in doing SOMETHING, although it may turn out what you're doing wasn't exactly the right way to go. In any case, I do wish SWG success, if only to see what the new numbers look like on my MMOG charts.
Bruce
MMOG Analyst
I have the hologram mouse pad of that game. :)
Bruce
You make a good point, but it's moot in this case. UO may be successful from a long-term business standpoint as a self-contained product, but it has not helped EA's broader business objectives. Every other EA MMOG has been a failure; The Sims Online, which I neglected to mention before, got far, far fewer subscribers than they had anticipated for the title. EA's reputation has done nothing but decline, and the value of its Origin franchises (Ultima and Wing Commander) is far less than it was in 1997.
Yes, a small company with modest goals that runs a small MMOG for years and makes more than it spends should certainly be acknowledged as a success in their own right. But these are not the circumstances in the case of Electronic Arts.
Bruce
Turbine has certainly been "fading" as far as market share goes, but having the IP for Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings still makes them big players. If either one is a big hit, Turbine is right back in the top-tier along with Blizzard, SOE, and NCSoft. Mythic's DAoC has certainly been a bigger success than either Asheron's Call, but their inability to follow it up with Imperator (cancelled) has left them, IMHO, in second-tier status, at least until Warhammer Online comes out.
The big loser has been EA. UO pioneered the modern MMOG, and yet they have nothing to show for it. The Ultima franchise is essentially dead, and they've canned no less than three "sequel" Ultima MMOGs in development. They also cancelled Privateer Online (thus killing the Wing Commander franchise), Harry Potter Online, and Battletech 3025. And the MMOGs they did put out instead? Majestic, Motor City Online, and Earth & Beyond, all of which were also cancelled. UO survives as a dying shadow of its former self.
Bruce
In my experience, most end-users don't run WHQL certified drivers. This is usually because certification takes a long time. In the case of graphics drivers (which is what is commonly the problem), there will be many updates that relate that improve performance or fix a specific game-related bug that are installed by power users long before such fixes make it into an updated driver that's officially certified.
Bruce
... which one of you guys left the laser on?
Bruce