Yup, the OQO is sweet, and it looks smaller than the origami. The only problem with the OQO is the price, which is around $2000. I really want one, and have wanted one since before they came out but I doubt I'll pick one up until it's under $1000.
This is a phenominal concept.
They've just created a middle market between PDAs and laptops. And it may eventually end up pigeonholing Windows Mobile to the cellphone arena. As natural market forces push the price down (at $500 it's already close to the high-end iPod), don't be surprised if this is where portable computing goes in the future. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and it's a laptop.
I was kind of let down by this announcement, I was expecting a real all in one device, something that would run XP, but also work as a cell phone and a GPS unit. Yeah, I want too much.
American researchers have published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that reading studies about the health benifits of anything is useless since two months later another study will contradict the findings. The researchers came to the conclusion that people should just do whatever they think is right and let darwinism work out the rest.
Once you get there you can get 50g a day with just an hour or two of effort.
How? Farming in Tyr's hand? Good luck, 50G will take you awhile, a lot longer than an hour or two of effort. I suppose you could run the low end dungeons (ie UBRS and below) roll on BoE's and sell them, but that is shaky at best, and you will be lucky to get done with that inside of 2 hours if you go with a pickup group. Of course this does vary by class, and certain classes (ie rogue) have an easier time farming. 50G an hour is unrealistic if you straight up farm.
Most people have epic steeds because they put in that effort. If you don't even bother doing anything you will end up with the 800g for your epic steed after a while because at level 60 you have pretty much no use for gold after you have your epic mount.
You mean, except for repair costs (Varies by class), high level enchants, potions, and upgrading equipment via the AH?
On a reasonably mature server most of the players you see are second and third characters, they have gold because they get it from their level 60 alts.
I know one or two people who actually farm for gold. The majority of people I can pry an answer out of admit to having bought gold at least once.
Not to mention the simple fallacy that if you couldnt get enough gold for an epic there would need to be more farmers than players in order to keep them coming. When you are level 20 1000g for an epic mount seems like a huge amount of money, by the time you reach level 60 you can now buy it for 800g and you have realised that it is not at all unattainable.
The majority of players have jobs, and your idea that only one farmer can support one player is illogical.
Damn right he is stupid. This guy just sent $60 of his money to the same people who are responsible for his skins being worthless in AH. That is the problem with gold farming, it makes gathering skills worthless by having two seperate effects, first the raw materials are oversupplied so they sell very cheaply affecting people like this guy who can no longer earn any reasonable amount through skinning, secondly they artificially inflate the prices of items by giving plenty gold to clueless nabs who throw it around like theres no tomorrow.
Inflation is there on wow servers, but it's not too bad on mine (medium pop, pvp). If anything people who buy gold drive up the prices of raw tradeskill material because they buy them out at high prices to powerlevel tradeskills.
Pity this dude was too dumb to realise that he is basically rewarding the people who created his problem. Unfortunately for this guy once he gets to high level in WoW he will realise that he can not do ANYTHING without having a lot of time to invest, he has also missed the early warning signs that WoW as you go up in level becomes more and more about grinding.
Really grinding in wow is nothing until you hit 60 and have to do rep grinds or run MC. That is much worse than leveling.
He should get out now if he can't afford that time. The final thing he has done is by having a glut of gold he has turned his questing into an utter waste of time, since he can now afford better items than the quest rewards he is truly just grinding them for the xp now. He has turned the part of the game he liked into the part of the game he hated. He really didn't think it through did he?
But he will likely level quicker with his rare/epic goods gained from buying gold. An epic weapon, say a Gut Ripper with a Crusader encahnt will help you level quicker than a Uncommon "Curved Dagger of Stamina".
The problem with the WoW economy is that it often makes sense to buy gold because of the amount of time it takes to grind gold, and the large gap between epic gear and common gear in World of Warcraft. That gap becomes even larger at level 60.
As for how many people buy gold, look at all the epic mounts you see running around. Do you really think people are farming 1000 gold? Or even 570?
The majority seem to want to. In other words, if you want a democracy, you have to accept the consequences.
1. A democracy does not mean you need total free trade. Democratic nations can vote for socialist leaders, or leaders who realize that unlimited free trade is a bad idea if only you are playing by the rules.
2. Our founding fathers were for free trade between the states, but wanted tariffs to protect American workers. They also thought citizens should be armed, believed in small government, and didn't think we should go overseas looking for monsters to slay or be involved in entangling alliances.
Then again, what did they know?;)
3. As I hinted above, free trade isn't really free trade. India has Tariffs. China does as well. The only tariffs we have are to protect us against Canada (DUMB).
The free trade is going only one way, and it's not helping the middle class. This isn't all Bush, Clinton was the same way.
because if we trade with them then they will be more likely to embrace democracy.
You are kidding right? America wasn't into real 'free trade' until the 90's, but I'd say we were pretty much a democracy without it. The statement that free trade leads to democracy has to be one of the biggest lies that free traders use for propaganda. How does more money, and a better economy motivate the communist government in China to embrace democracy? Or the people? People don't revolt when they have steak on their plates.
Unless of course you are iraq, iran, syria, cuba or anyplace else that does not have lots of people or money.
See how simple that is?
So you don't think government should allow their people to 'have fun'? Or, are you saying weed is somehow BAD for you? Can you cite proof of that?
I can cite proof for Cocaine, Heroin, etc if you would like.
What makes you think they want Americans living there? In case you haven't noticed, the only people that gets to move to other countries are those with lots and lots of money in the bank.
Like the mexicans moving to America? Plenty of people move to other countries in search for a better life. I think if Americans want to move to China, they should give it a shot! If not, maybe Hugo Chavez would take them.
Americans are imprisoned in America.
Only the 48% of them that don't like America. The rest of us are happy here.
Freedom is the ability to do whatever you want. A reasonable limit to freedom is when your actions remove the freedom of others. For example, you might be free to own a gun, until you use it to injure another (removing their freedom to live their life as they choose). How does taking drugs, even drugs that may kill you remove the freedom of others? Other actions while under the influence of drugs may do that, but not the drugs themselves.
That is a good point, but what about drugs that are so destructive that they can lead people to kill others?
Also, the idea that the government's intention is to stop people from killing themselves using drugs is preposterous. More people have died from eating bacon than from all the marijuana and LSD use put together.
I have to say, I don't know the numbers behind the 'fatality by bacon' statement. It's fine that you picked LSD and marijuana, but how about cocaine and heroin?
More still have died from smoking ordinary cigarettes, which are legal. I can't even conceive of how a person could believe being locked in a cage for years for smoking marijuana is "more free" than it being legal to smoke it.
How many people get locked away for years for smoking marijuana? For selling it, sure. I don't think I've ever heard of someone getting years for using it.
This is a classic false dichotomy. It is akin claiming that the US is what it is and it is better to just leave the US than it is to work to change the US and make it better. It is not only acceptable, but commendable to point out injustices and problems with the current state of affairs so that things can get better. "Love it or leave it" has always been an asinine emotional attack, and wholly counterproductive. It is, in the most historical sense, very unamerican.
You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the socialist wanna be hippies whine about how they want America to become this nanny state, where they are free to do drugs as they wish but must give up half their incomes to the government...why don't they just move? There are plenty of countries like that in the world. Sure, none of them are as successful as the US economically, but why don't they just go instead of trying to change the most free country in the world into a third world shithole with their craptacular, illogical poltics?
I'm all for well thought out change in our criminal justice system but to try to prop up China as being 'more free' that the United States to prove a point is the type of illogical thinking that should be challenged.
If you have not done so yourself, you are not qualified to make that suggestion to him. In fact, if you have not taken the time to spend some real time there with local people, you are not qualified to talk on the subject at all.
Well then, you aren't qualified to talk about any country where you haven't 'talked to the local people'. Of course, we are talking about policy here, not what the local 'people' think.
I suspect, like most people who talk about China, you are talking based on reports you've seen in the media based on agendas pushed by people who have chosen to not live there. Go ask ex-pat Americans living in cities around the world about their opinion of life in the US. It will be equally biased.
If I bought what the media told me about China, I would think they are America's 'friendly' trade partner! Of course, I don't buy what the media tells me, I form my own conclusions from reading conflicting points of view, and from what I see and hear. If that offends you, I really don't care.
The reality of the situation is somewhere in the middle, but based on your response its clear you have no first hand experience with life in China.
You have never met me, so you have no first hand experence with me, therfor by your own logic you aren't qualified to reply to me.
First of all, on a per-capita basis the U.S is more oppressive to its citizens then the Chinese government.
Anything you compare to china on a "per-capita" basis is going to be skewed due to the sheer mass of their population.
An American is almost four times as likely to be imprisoned then a Chinese citizen.
Yet the chinese execute more Criminals than any other country.
In fact, the US has more total people in jail then the Chinese, despite the fact that china has almost four times as many people as the US.
But you don't go to jail in the US for being of a certain political view, or religion. Of course, the fact that they execute people much more liberally in China could be a reason that they have less people in jail. China executes more people than the rest of the world does...combined. China also has the second most executions per captia (since you like that stat) to singapore.
Of course, your point is only valid if you believe the numbers the Chinese government puts out. (they claim 1.4 million people in prison to the US prison population of 2 million).
Half the people in jail are there for non-violent drug offenses.
Just because you can complain all you want to doesn't mean you're not oppressed.
So why are you oppressed? Because the government tries to stop people from drugging themselves to death?
People confuse freedom of speech for actual liberty. The problems don't come from the top here (unless you're a suspicious A-rab) but from local incompetent governments jailing people without access to decent legal defense. Police abuse is rampant, etc.
Move to China and see how much better you do there.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights.'"
Fine, but why do we continue to trade with them? We make up 30% of their GDP, while they wont let our goods into their country fairly (we export less than 1% to China). We allow them to make everything you can think of, yet we aren't going to let google go there? Seems like too little too late.
Seems almost ironic doesn't it?
No, google isn't a 'human right'. If we were really doing what was 'right' we would be denying China MFN status until they cleaned up their act.
They get angry over a cartoon but when they burn an American Flag it is OK.
I really don't like to see the flag burning as an American, but I can deal with that. It's their tendancy to behead innocent civilians that I find most troubling.
SWG was a failure, and with it's licence it should have had the success world of warcraft had. I can't tell you how many WoW players I run into that never played a warcraft game before, but picked up WoW and loved it. SWG was the other side of the coin, everyone loved the star wars movies (or at least the first 3) and had played other star wars games before....It was just that star wars galaxies SUCKED at launch. Leveling was long and boring. At least in WoW from levels 1-30 you feel like you accomplish everything when you log in, and you are moving tward a goal, and you can make visible progress (a new weapon/higher level) with about an hour of playtime a night. SWG at launch was this random crapshoot at trying to figure out how to become a Jedi. In SWG you had to grind reputation points just to pvp, and it never really seemed like there was a 'war' going on. It was often said that it lacked both the 'stars' and the 'wars'. While everyone wanted to be a Jedi or bounty hunter, many were stuck being cantina dancers, or random soldiers with pistols. This was quite a letdown.
It was obvious from about 6 months in that SWG wasn't living up to the hype, and that most players just didn't think it was a good game. Sony did what they could, adding the 'stars' in the expansion pack. Finally they realized that people wanted to live out the roles on screen in game. It was way too late by then, and the NGE just ended up pissing off the small playerbase they had.
They should have kept SWG as it was, and started developing a new MMO, with a new name and the star wars licence. They should have shot for the twitch based gameplay, to the point of possibly recreating "Jedi-Knight 2" fps like mechanics while on the ground and Tie-Fighter/Xwing fighter mechanics while in space along with MMO type rewards for repeat gameplay.
Trying to fix SWG as it stands now is a waste, nobody is going to run back to it, most people are busy playing WoW. These people aren't any hidden demographic either, a lot of them are ex FPS players that were just waiting for a popular MMO with a decent pvp system.
Any starwars MMO should be based on war, and player vs player conflict. Not cantina dancing, or sightseeing in a virtual star wars disney land.
Strictly speaking, it's not possible for the system to break.
Sure it is. If you have a lot of old people, and not a lot of young people, the system breaks. It's that simple. American social security works, because current workers pay for the current retiring generation. If you have a lot more people leeching benifits than are working, either taxes have to go (way) up or you have to decrease benifits.
If social security went into a fund where you were paying for your own generations retirement it would never break. Yes social security has turned a surplus that polticians have been borrowing against to pay down the deficit (this is because it's cheaper in the long run to pay down the interest on the deficit than to leave social security alone) but eventually that tool won't be there, and neither will the money for the baby boomers benifits regardless of what has been borrowed.
The only solutions are to have more children every generation (ie each couple must have more than 2.1 children), or mass immigration. If you've ever wondered why politicians support amnisty for illegal aliens when the American people are 80% against it, there is one of your answers.
The parent exposes a point beyond political leanings. It makes sense. It's not about left or right rather, it is about demographics and ratings. The "news" are packaged to a demographic that interests advertisers, the so called 18-35 male audience.
18-35 is not what the cable newscasts shoot for, they know they can't get it. If you think fox news, or CNN is shooting for the 18-35 audience, simply watch the commercials and compare them to the commercials on spike tv. Do you still think they are shooting for (or getting) the male 18-35 audience?
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
While the majority of people probably believe in the same thing, neither party practices it. (If you are a lefty that doubts this statemetn, take a look at the military incursians while Clinton was president.)
Come election time, we usually all gravitate to only one of two camps, mostly fighting over social issues that should be decided in the states, while ignoring alternative viewpoints on foreign policy. I doubt any of this will change, but it's amusing to see people put this all on Bush, while neither party is against interventionism.
Like I said, 20 years or more ago, you would have been right, but now there are too many here who are more afraid of ourselves than of any attackers. And do you really think China would sit back and allow NK to be nuked, if it meant irradiating a chunk of their farmland or their industrial base?
Despite what most people think, China doesn't have enough nuclear weapons to attack the US and destroy command and control. It would take 250, and most independant estimates don't believe they have it.
If NK (or any other rogue state) managed to nuke the US, nuclear retalitation might not be needed, they could just carpet bomb to the point where they would wish for a nuke.
Or that Russia or France would sit back and allow their bestest buds in Iran be nuked?
The only country that would have any say is Russia.
Regardless of how much we would see ourselves in the right, if possible, there's no way the "international community" would go along with our counterstrike. Too many countries would be threatened by our "indiscriminate" use of nukes in retaliation. There would be carefully crafted communiques sent to our surviving government from those nuclear powers which would warn against "overreaction".
Depending on who is in office at the time, I would expect the reaction would be 'try to stop us'.
Believe it, we don't live in the 60's anymore, our world (and our "elites") are more "nuanced" now. The shades of gray people have taken over, and we're weaker for it.
Set off a nuke in an American city, and people will start seeing black and white again. The polticians may be more nuanced, but that has more to do with American politics than anything else.
Isn't John Carmack making an MMO also? I specifically remember from the book Masters of Doom, that both of them have always been into the MMO idea. I thought Carmack was actually more into it, talking about how he wanted to 'make the metaverse' one day.
Really, it would be cool if they were both working on it, because neither seems to make games as well without the other.
odd 43 degree F temperature change overnight, and decided to check on that again. A temperature change of such a large amount, overnight, is not normal at all during January in NY.
You haven't been living in the tri-state area for very long have you? I live in NJ, and the saying there goes "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute". We get odd swings in temperature often.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, the OQO is sweet, and it looks smaller than the origami. The only problem with the OQO is the price, which is around $2000. I really want one, and have wanted one since before they came out but I doubt I'll pick one up until it's under $1000.
This is a phenominal concept. They've just created a middle market between PDAs and laptops. And it may eventually end up pigeonholing Windows Mobile to the cellphone arena. As natural market forces push the price down (at $500 it's already close to the high-end iPod), don't be surprised if this is where portable computing goes in the future. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and it's a laptop.
These have been around for awhile, see the OQO . Oragami is just bigger, but much cheaper. I might actually buy one, I've wanted an oqo for awhile but the price is steep just to make my commute more enjoyable.
I was kind of let down by this announcement, I was expecting a real all in one device, something that would run XP, but also work as a cell phone and a GPS unit. Yeah, I want too much.
American researchers have published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that reading studies about the health benifits of anything is useless since two months later another study will contradict the findings. The researchers came to the conclusion that people should just do whatever they think is right and let darwinism work out the rest.
Have you played the game to level 60?
I have two level 60's.
Once you get there you can get 50g a day with just an hour or two of effort.
How? Farming in Tyr's hand? Good luck, 50G will take you awhile, a lot longer than an hour or two of effort. I suppose you could run the low end dungeons (ie UBRS and below) roll on BoE's and sell them, but that is shaky at best, and you will be lucky to get done with that inside of 2 hours if you go with a pickup group. Of course this does vary by class, and certain classes (ie rogue) have an easier time farming. 50G an hour is unrealistic if you straight up farm.
Most people have epic steeds because they put in that effort. If you don't even bother doing anything you will end up with the 800g for your epic steed after a while because at level 60 you have pretty much no use for gold after you have your epic mount.
You mean, except for repair costs (Varies by class), high level enchants, potions, and upgrading equipment via the AH?
On a reasonably mature server most of the players you see are second and third characters, they have gold because they get it from their level 60 alts.
I know one or two people who actually farm for gold. The majority of people I can pry an answer out of admit to having bought gold at least once.
Not to mention the simple fallacy that if you couldnt get enough gold for an epic there would need to be more farmers than players in order to keep them coming. When you are level 20 1000g for an epic mount seems like a huge amount of money, by the time you reach level 60 you can now buy it for 800g and you have realised that it is not at all unattainable.
The majority of players have jobs, and your idea that only one farmer can support one player is illogical.
More people are buying gold than you think.
Damn right he is stupid. This guy just sent $60 of his money to the same people who are responsible for his skins being worthless in AH. That is the problem with gold farming, it makes gathering skills worthless by having two seperate effects, first the raw materials are oversupplied so they sell very cheaply affecting people like this guy who can no longer earn any reasonable amount through skinning, secondly they artificially inflate the prices of items by giving plenty gold to clueless nabs who throw it around like theres no tomorrow.
Inflation is there on wow servers, but it's not too bad on mine (medium pop, pvp). If anything people who buy gold drive up the prices of raw tradeskill material because they buy them out at high prices to powerlevel tradeskills. Pity this dude was too dumb to realise that he is basically rewarding the people who created his problem. Unfortunately for this guy once he gets to high level in WoW he will realise that he can not do ANYTHING without having a lot of time to invest, he has also missed the early warning signs that WoW as you go up in level becomes more and more about grinding.
Really grinding in wow is nothing until you hit 60 and have to do rep grinds or run MC. That is much worse than leveling.
He should get out now if he can't afford that time. The final thing he has done is by having a glut of gold he has turned his questing into an utter waste of time, since he can now afford better items than the quest rewards he is truly just grinding them for the xp now. He has turned the part of the game he liked into the part of the game he hated. He really didn't think it through did he?
But he will likely level quicker with his rare/epic goods gained from buying gold. An epic weapon, say a Gut Ripper with a Crusader encahnt will help you level quicker than a Uncommon "Curved Dagger of Stamina".
The problem with the WoW economy is that it often makes sense to buy gold because of the amount of time it takes to grind gold, and the large gap between epic gear and common gear in World of Warcraft. That gap becomes even larger at level 60.
As for how many people buy gold, look at all the epic mounts you see running around. Do you really think people are farming 1000 gold? Or even 570?
The majority seem to want to. In other words, if you want a democracy, you have to accept the consequences.
;)
1. A democracy does not mean you need total free trade. Democratic nations can vote for socialist leaders, or leaders who realize that unlimited free trade is a bad idea if only you are playing by the rules.
2. Our founding fathers were for free trade between the states, but wanted tariffs to protect American workers. They also thought citizens should be armed, believed in small government, and didn't think we should go overseas looking for monsters to slay or be involved in entangling alliances. Then again, what did they know?
3. As I hinted above, free trade isn't really free trade. India has Tariffs. China does as well. The only tariffs we have are to protect us against Canada (DUMB).
The free trade is going only one way, and it's not helping the middle class. This isn't all Bush, Clinton was the same way.
because if we trade with them then they will be more likely to embrace democracy.
You are kidding right? America wasn't into real 'free trade' until the 90's, but I'd say we were pretty much a democracy without it. The statement that free trade leads to democracy has to be one of the biggest lies that free traders use for propaganda. How does more money, and a better economy motivate the communist government in China to embrace democracy? Or the people? People don't revolt when they have steak on their plates.
Unless of course you are iraq, iran, syria, cuba or anyplace else that does not have lots of people or money. See how simple that is?
In your mind? Yes.
So you don't think government should allow their people to 'have fun'? Or, are you saying weed is somehow BAD for you? Can you cite proof of that?
I can cite proof for Cocaine, Heroin, etc if you would like.
What makes you think they want Americans living there? In case you haven't noticed, the only people that gets to move to other countries are those with lots and lots of money in the bank.
Like the mexicans moving to America? Plenty of people move to other countries in search for a better life. I think if Americans want to move to China, they should give it a shot! If not, maybe Hugo Chavez would take them.
Americans are imprisoned in America.
Only the 48% of them that don't like America. The rest of us are happy here.
Freedom is the ability to do whatever you want. A reasonable limit to freedom is when your actions remove the freedom of others. For example, you might be free to own a gun, until you use it to injure another (removing their freedom to live their life as they choose). How does taking drugs, even drugs that may kill you remove the freedom of others? Other actions while under the influence of drugs may do that, but not the drugs themselves.
That is a good point, but what about drugs that are so destructive that they can lead people to kill others?
Also, the idea that the government's intention is to stop people from killing themselves using drugs is preposterous. More people have died from eating bacon than from all the marijuana and LSD use put together.
I have to say, I don't know the numbers behind the 'fatality by bacon' statement. It's fine that you picked LSD and marijuana, but how about cocaine and heroin?
More still have died from smoking ordinary cigarettes, which are legal. I can't even conceive of how a person could believe being locked in a cage for years for smoking marijuana is "more free" than it being legal to smoke it.
How many people get locked away for years for smoking marijuana? For selling it, sure. I don't think I've ever heard of someone getting years for using it.
This is a classic false dichotomy. It is akin claiming that the US is what it is and it is better to just leave the US than it is to work to change the US and make it better. It is not only acceptable, but commendable to point out injustices and problems with the current state of affairs so that things can get better. "Love it or leave it" has always been an asinine emotional attack, and wholly counterproductive. It is, in the most historical sense, very unamerican.
You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the socialist wanna be hippies whine about how they want America to become this nanny state, where they are free to do drugs as they wish but must give up half their incomes to the government...why don't they just move? There are plenty of countries like that in the world. Sure, none of them are as successful as the US economically, but why don't they just go instead of trying to change the most free country in the world into a third world shithole with their craptacular, illogical poltics?
I'm all for well thought out change in our criminal justice system but to try to prop up China as being 'more free' that the United States to prove a point is the type of illogical thinking that should be challenged.
If you have not done so yourself, you are not qualified to make that suggestion to him. In fact, if you have not taken the time to spend some real time there with local people, you are not qualified to talk on the subject at all.
Well then, you aren't qualified to talk about any country where you haven't 'talked to the local people'. Of course, we are talking about policy here, not what the local 'people' think.
I suspect, like most people who talk about China, you are talking based on reports you've seen in the media based on agendas pushed by people who have chosen to not live there. Go ask ex-pat Americans living in cities around the world about their opinion of life in the US. It will be equally biased.
If I bought what the media told me about China, I would think they are America's 'friendly' trade partner! Of course, I don't buy what the media tells me, I form my own conclusions from reading conflicting points of view, and from what I see and hear. If that offends you, I really don't care.
The reality of the situation is somewhere in the middle, but based on your response its clear you have no first hand experience with life in China.
You have never met me, so you have no first hand experence with me, therfor by your own logic you aren't qualified to reply to me.
First of all, on a per-capita basis the U.S is more oppressive to its citizens then the Chinese government.
Anything you compare to china on a "per-capita" basis is going to be skewed due to the sheer mass of their population.
An American is almost four times as likely to be imprisoned then a Chinese citizen.
Yet the chinese execute more Criminals than any other country.
In fact, the US has more total people in jail then the Chinese, despite the fact that china has almost four times as many people as the US.
But you don't go to jail in the US for being of a certain political view, or religion. Of course, the fact that they execute people much more liberally in China could be a reason that they have less people in jail. China executes more people than the rest of the world does...combined. China also has the second most executions per captia (since you like that stat) to singapore.
Of course, your point is only valid if you believe the numbers the Chinese government puts out. (they claim 1.4 million people in prison to the US prison population of 2 million).
Half the people in jail are there for non-violent drug offenses.
Just because you can complain all you want to doesn't mean you're not oppressed.
So why are you oppressed? Because the government tries to stop people from drugging themselves to death?
People confuse freedom of speech for actual liberty. The problems don't come from the top here (unless you're a suspicious A-rab) but from local incompetent governments jailing people without access to decent legal defense. Police abuse is rampant, etc.
Move to China and see how much better you do there.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights.'"
Fine, but why do we continue to trade with them? We make up 30% of their GDP, while they wont let our goods into their country fairly (we export less than 1% to China). We allow them to make everything you can think of, yet we aren't going to let google go there? Seems like too little too late.
Seems almost ironic doesn't it?
No, google isn't a 'human right'. If we were really doing what was 'right' we would be denying China MFN status until they cleaned up their act.
Wow, why can't people spell on Slashdot? Anyway, what kind of CS grad wouldn't know the difference between Steak and Quiche?
They get angry over a cartoon but when they burn an American Flag it is OK.
I really don't like to see the flag burning as an American, but I can deal with that. It's their tendancy to behead innocent civilians that I find most troubling.
SWG was a failure, and with it's licence it should have had the success world of warcraft had. I can't tell you how many WoW players I run into that never played a warcraft game before, but picked up WoW and loved it. SWG was the other side of the coin, everyone loved the star wars movies (or at least the first 3) and had played other star wars games before....It was just that star wars galaxies SUCKED at launch. Leveling was long and boring. At least in WoW from levels 1-30 you feel like you accomplish everything when you log in, and you are moving tward a goal, and you can make visible progress (a new weapon/higher level) with about an hour of playtime a night. SWG at launch was this random crapshoot at trying to figure out how to become a Jedi. In SWG you had to grind reputation points just to pvp, and it never really seemed like there was a 'war' going on. It was often said that it lacked both the 'stars' and the 'wars'. While everyone wanted to be a Jedi or bounty hunter, many were stuck being cantina dancers, or random soldiers with pistols. This was quite a letdown.
It was obvious from about 6 months in that SWG wasn't living up to the hype, and that most players just didn't think it was a good game. Sony did what they could, adding the 'stars' in the expansion pack. Finally they realized that people wanted to live out the roles on screen in game. It was way too late by then, and the NGE just ended up pissing off the small playerbase they had.
They should have kept SWG as it was, and started developing a new MMO, with a new name and the star wars licence. They should have shot for the twitch based gameplay, to the point of possibly recreating "Jedi-Knight 2" fps like mechanics while on the ground and Tie-Fighter/Xwing fighter mechanics while in space along with MMO type rewards for repeat gameplay.
Trying to fix SWG as it stands now is a waste, nobody is going to run back to it, most people are busy playing WoW. These people aren't any hidden demographic either, a lot of them are ex FPS players that were just waiting for a popular MMO with a decent pvp system.
Any starwars MMO should be based on war, and player vs player conflict. Not cantina dancing, or sightseeing in a virtual star wars disney land.
It would be like unreal tournament, if unreal tournament sucked.
Your tax money pays for this crap.
Strictly speaking, it's not possible for the system to break.
Sure it is. If you have a lot of old people, and not a lot of young people, the system breaks. It's that simple. American social security works, because current workers pay for the current retiring generation. If you have a lot more people leeching benifits than are working, either taxes have to go (way) up or you have to decrease benifits.
If social security went into a fund where you were paying for your own generations retirement it would never break. Yes social security has turned a surplus that polticians have been borrowing against to pay down the deficit (this is because it's cheaper in the long run to pay down the interest on the deficit than to leave social security alone) but eventually that tool won't be there, and neither will the money for the baby boomers benifits regardless of what has been borrowed.
The only solutions are to have more children every generation (ie each couple must have more than 2.1 children), or mass immigration. If you've ever wondered why politicians support amnisty for illegal aliens when the American people are 80% against it, there is one of your answers.
This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it
Mindlessly supported? That must be why you can't read a newspaper or watch a newscast without the war and the president being questioned.
The parent exposes a point beyond political leanings. It makes sense. It's not about left or right rather, it is about demographics and ratings. The "news" are packaged to a demographic that interests advertisers, the so called 18-35 male audience.
18-35 is not what the cable newscasts shoot for, they know they can't get it. If you think fox news, or CNN is shooting for the 18-35 audience, simply watch the commercials and compare them to the commercials on spike tv. Do you still think they are shooting for (or getting) the male 18-35 audience?
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
While the majority of people probably believe in the same thing, neither party practices it. (If you are a lefty that doubts this statemetn, take a look at the military incursians while Clinton was president.)
Come election time, we usually all gravitate to only one of two camps, mostly fighting over social issues that should be decided in the states, while ignoring alternative viewpoints on foreign policy. I doubt any of this will change, but it's amusing to see people put this all on Bush, while neither party is against interventionism.
Like I said, 20 years or more ago, you would have been right, but now there are too many here who are more afraid of ourselves than of any attackers. And do you really think China would sit back and allow NK to be nuked, if it meant irradiating a chunk of their farmland or their industrial base?
Despite what most people think, China doesn't have enough nuclear weapons to attack the US and destroy command and control. It would take 250, and most independant estimates don't believe they have it. If NK (or any other rogue state) managed to nuke the US, nuclear retalitation might not be needed, they could just carpet bomb to the point where they would wish for a nuke. Or that Russia or France would sit back and allow their bestest buds in Iran be nuked?
The only country that would have any say is Russia. Regardless of how much we would see ourselves in the right, if possible, there's no way the "international community" would go along with our counterstrike. Too many countries would be threatened by our "indiscriminate" use of nukes in retaliation. There would be carefully crafted communiques sent to our surviving government from those nuclear powers which would warn against "overreaction".
Depending on who is in office at the time, I would expect the reaction would be 'try to stop us'. Believe it, we don't live in the 60's anymore, our world (and our "elites") are more "nuanced" now. The shades of gray people have taken over, and we're weaker for it.
Set off a nuke in an American city, and people will start seeing black and white again. The polticians may be more nuanced, but that has more to do with American politics than anything else.
.100 Russian missiles...10 get through...pick 10 US cities and say goodbye.
:)
Considering the Russians had over 10,000 missles, those numbers seem a bit off.
Isn't John Carmack making an MMO also? I specifically remember from the book Masters of Doom, that both of them have always been into the MMO idea. I thought Carmack was actually more into it, talking about how he wanted to 'make the metaverse' one day.
Really, it would be cool if they were both working on it, because neither seems to make games as well without the other.
odd 43 degree F temperature change overnight, and decided to check on that again. A temperature change of such a large amount, overnight, is not normal at all during January in NY.
You haven't been living in the tri-state area for very long have you? I live in NJ, and the saying there goes "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute". We get odd swings in temperature often.