1. Make sure there is a ridiculously powerful class/race combination in the game that requires absolutely no skill but that (with only five buttons) can do 350 damage per second perpetually at enormous range against other classes that have no defense whatsoever.
2. Put a race in the game whose only purpose is to be defeated by undead. Write this into at least four storylines. Celebrate the wanton destruction of a civilization that survived millenia only to be overrun by a maggot-infested gibbering rabble.
3. Require hundreds upon hundreds of hours of effort for a chance to roll on one purple item, only to be screamed at because you win.
4. Be really clever and make your "ugly" race the good guys (Cairne is Obi Wan Kenobi, Thrall is Abraham Lincoln) and make the humans led by a deranged genocidal maniac.
5. Give spellcasters the damage mitigation equivalent of a WWII destroyer.
6. Put elves in the game only so everyone else can make fun of them.
7. Put items in the game that by themselves are more powerful than a level 15 warrior.
8. Put trade skills in the game that never advance. Ever.
9. For the holidays, put Old Man Santa Winter five feet from the most crowded place on two continents.
10. Make sure all combat is designed around "make the other guy's character stop moving."
Renting is an excellent deal in the West right now because it's far less than you pay in interest on a mortgage.
Interest is tax-deductible. Renters have no equity. Renters own nothing.
Whether interest-only adjustable rate mortgages are a good or a bad idea depends on how long you intend to stay in your home and whether you expect housing prices to rise.
Homeowners should not be encouraged to speculate on housing prices with gimmicky scam loans that cheat them out of their own homes.
As for credit cards, they're a good deal for consumers because they give you lots of purchase protections you wouldn't get otherwise.
Except for the usurious interest rates and confiscatory fees.
The slogan of every job recruiter in the business. Let's list all the education that business has made worthless, shall we?
Art Art History Chemistry (without an advanced degree) English Literature Anthropology Biology (without an MD) Business (without an MBA) Linguistics Physics (without an advanced degree) Music Geology (without an advanced degree) Psychology Sociology History Ancient History Philosophy Drama Theater Dance
Think about it. Guy shows up to apply for a job with a PhD in History. What is the recruiter going to say? "I'm terribly sorry sir, but you obviously don't have the skills to advance a Powerpoint presentation and attend meetings." Well, of course not! He had the skills to produce a Master's Thesis and graduate as a Doctor of History, but he obviously can't comprehend the phenomenal complexity of supply chain management.
Additionally, any attempt at an advanced degree other than a M.S., M.D., J.D. or an MBA is instant disqualification from any job except as a professor. Business complains that college graduates don't have the needed "skills" yet never quite explain what those skills are. Yes, I'm sure it takes great skill to wedge an ass into a molded chair in a conference room and be skeptical. It takes great skill to say "it will never work." Then again twelve publishers passed on Harry Potter, so I'm sure all those managers are brilliantly competent since their education obviously came from universities on Jupiter.
It's all about stuffing their pockets with other people's salaries. These businesses have nothing but contempt for their neighbors unless they can scoop tall dollars out of their wallets. The educations of millions are being wasted on purpose. My only question is "who you gonna sell $7000 televisions to when nobody has a job, genius?"
The employees still have to pay their healthcare costs, so they either get a higher salary and pay it themselves or a lower one and let the business pay it.
Or they get a lower salary and pay it themselves. Or they just do without. Mostly they just do without.
Here's another person with "too much time on their hands." The yuppie sophisticates will no doubt complain that people who invent "have no life" and really should be sitting in their $28,000 bought-on-credit living room watching celebrity bug-eating in high definition surround sound. [/sarcasm]
Then everyone else will bitch and gripe because the new invention didn't live up to the media hype and dismiss it all as the equivalent of a circus act. The fact they made it a circus act will, of course, be forgotten in time for the next "you could have this if you had a job" advertisement for something else to buy on credit.
People who spend their time doing anything except shoveling money into the local yuppie grill or sipping white wine while they watch prime time commercials occasionally interrupted by a screaming carnival barker are routinely criticized by our society because society has nothing but contempt for imagination and vision, unless it involves some dramatic amount of money.
I am not saying that it does not suck that the people were fired. All i am saying is that it is a part of life. SO deal with it.
No. It's not a part of life. It's wrong. It's unfair. It's unethical.
Businesses suck because management sucks. They haven't learned anything about leadership, even though they go out of their way to construct eloquent titles for themselves.
The first thing a real manager learns about leadership is that you take care of your people. You don't abandon them in the name of avarice.
But when things go wrong, like when profits drop 1%, its the employees who get fired, even though the managers probably fucked everything up. And no, they shouldn't be expected to just "deal with it" either, because it's wrong.
That 22-year old hotshot who was enthusiastic and excited about working 10-hour days might now be 28 and married, expecting his first kid, with drastically different priorities than when he was hired.
And therefore he is no longer qualified for his job, right? Is that even remotely ethical?
The equity we'd get from the sale would pay apartment rent for at least another 5 years at $1000/month.
The reason you have that luxury is because you apparently have a stable job. Other people would like to have that luxury too and have worked their asses off to get it, only to have it stolen because some management committee decided they weren't making enough profit.
That's about a decade of survival with no job, just by being smart about how we manage our money.
You have money because you have a job.
Then move.
I'm not buying a house. I can't afford a house. I can't qualify for a mortgage without a job, because the bank believes I can't make the payments.
A one-hour drive is too long, you say?
A one-hour drive? lol I drive an hour to the grocery store.
Stop blaming others and realize that sometimes, you have to make tough choices and sacrifices.
Would that middle management had to follow the same advice.
Another "executive" just discovered a half eaten donut in his shirt pocket, but was unavailable for comment due to an all-day catered meeting where lobster thermadore and steamed crab were served on a $40,000 table.
If they identify employees who are not pulling their weight
Who somehow managed to get hired after three interviews. When they were hired, they were the greatest candidates available. Now suddenly they "aren't pulling their weight?" Hmm. Management incompetence? Of course not. It must be the employee.
Quit complaining that these people owe you an ongoing free handout
Now a job is a free handout. lol
Maybe they shouldn't have overextended themselves
Yeah, maybe they should have lived in a refrigerator box and walked to work indefinitely because they will never EVER be able to depend on their job to support a mortgage.
living beyond their means an on eggshell-bed of credit that will inevitably collapse
Let's see, the average price for a home around here is about $475K So, pay cash for the house? With what income? The one they can't keep for more than two months?
You're supposed to be smarter than average, and should know better than to borrow so much money that missing a couple paychecks will send you into foreclosure.
It's called a mortgage. About 60% of people have one.
I'll tell you a little secret -- most every large company does this.
Yes. We know. We read the news.
Most of those fired would likely have been fired months ago when it was determined that they were incompetent
Isn't is amazing, truly spectacularly amazing that these exhaustively qualified people who had such sparkling resumes and fantastic employment histories only months ago when they were hired suddenly turn out to be incompetent around layoff time?
If you come across an apple tree full of apples, you'll surely pick the best ones too.
And then throw half of them in the trash? Oh, you mean they waited until after the game was done to realize these weren't the best candidates for the job? That's convenient. Why not just call it a temp job?
The cynical answer to this would be "no comment." So obvious is business' contempt for education and an honest day's work now that it becomes pointless to even discuss it.
But each time anyone attempts to emphasize the fact that business has turned its back on just about everything except its quarterly earnings, we get "nobody owes you a living so get over it."
The fact is, it is wrong to fire people like this. It is absolutely wrong. These companies are damaging, and in a lot of cases destroying the careers of people who work for a living. It isn't fair and it isn't right.
EA has no problem investing millions and tens of millions to build colossal glittering corporate edifices where they can hold meetings about whom to fire this week. But on payday they claim costs are too high.
They can unanimously vote through a bill making it a crime to criticize the Republican party, but it's not a law.
It is if the President signs it.
They may call it a law, and people may talk about it like it's a law, but it's not. Legally it is null and void.
That's two different things. If Congress passes a bill, and the President signs it, it is the law. If the Supreme Court later declares it unconstitutional, it doesn't magically go back in time and unpass/unsign it.
It is the court stating that congress did not have the power to create such a law in the first place. It was never really a law.
Now you're arguing semantics. The legal term is "argumentative."
If you think congress granted fair use by passing that law in 1976 then kindly explain why courts had spent 136 years prior to that talking about fair use
Because courts do not have the power to legislate. The fact that fair use existed as a legal doctrine or precedent prior to 1976 does not change the fact that by recognizing it, Congress made fair use part of the law, which carries far more weight than a legal precedent.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Make sure there is a ridiculously powerful class/race combination in the game that requires absolutely no skill but that (with only five buttons) can do 350 damage per second perpetually at enormous range against other classes that have no defense whatsoever.
2. Put a race in the game whose only purpose is to be defeated by undead. Write this into at least four storylines. Celebrate the wanton destruction of a civilization that survived millenia only to be overrun by a maggot-infested gibbering rabble.
3. Require hundreds upon hundreds of hours of effort for a chance to roll on one purple item, only to be screamed at because you win.
4. Be really clever and make your "ugly" race the good guys (Cairne is Obi Wan Kenobi, Thrall is Abraham Lincoln) and make the humans led by a deranged genocidal maniac.
5. Give spellcasters the damage mitigation equivalent of a WWII destroyer.
6. Put elves in the game only so everyone else can make fun of them.
7. Put items in the game that by themselves are more powerful than a level 15 warrior.
8. Put trade skills in the game that never advance. Ever.
9. For the holidays, put Old Man Santa Winter five feet from the most crowded place on two continents.
10. Make sure all combat is designed around "make the other guy's character stop moving."
Bonuses for the meeting planners and team players! Layoffs to be announced! *clap clap* There's cake in the conference room!
Will this new Space Race usher in more new technologies into our daily lives, like the previous one?
By all means, as long as DebtMart can charge 28% revolving interest to unemployed customers on them.
Renting is an excellent deal in the West right now because it's far less than you pay in interest on a mortgage.
Interest is tax-deductible. Renters have no equity. Renters own nothing.
Whether interest-only adjustable rate mortgages are a good or a bad idea depends on how long you intend to stay in your home and whether you expect housing prices to rise.
Homeowners should not be encouraged to speculate on housing prices with gimmicky scam loans that cheat them out of their own homes.
As for credit cards, they're a good deal for consumers because they give you lots of purchase protections you wouldn't get otherwise.
Except for the usurious interest rates and confiscatory fees.
"Put your degree last"
The slogan of every job recruiter in the business. Let's list all the education that business has made worthless, shall we?
Art
Art History
Chemistry (without an advanced degree)
English
Literature
Anthropology
Biology (without an MD)
Business (without an MBA)
Linguistics
Physics (without an advanced degree)
Music
Geology (without an advanced degree)
Psychology
Sociology
History
Ancient History
Philosophy
Drama
Theater
Dance
Think about it. Guy shows up to apply for a job with a PhD in History. What is the recruiter going to say? "I'm terribly sorry sir, but you obviously don't have the skills to advance a Powerpoint presentation and attend meetings." Well, of course not! He had the skills to produce a Master's Thesis and graduate as a Doctor of History, but he obviously can't comprehend the phenomenal complexity of supply chain management.
Additionally, any attempt at an advanced degree other than a M.S., M.D., J.D. or an MBA is instant disqualification from any job except as a professor. Business complains that college graduates don't have the needed "skills" yet never quite explain what those skills are. Yes, I'm sure it takes great skill to wedge an ass into a molded chair in a conference room and be skeptical. It takes great skill to say "it will never work." Then again twelve publishers passed on Harry Potter, so I'm sure all those managers are brilliantly competent since their education obviously came from universities on Jupiter.
It's all about stuffing their pockets with other people's salaries. These businesses have nothing but contempt for their neighbors unless they can scoop tall dollars out of their wallets. The educations of millions are being wasted on purpose. My only question is "who you gonna sell $7000 televisions to when nobody has a job, genius?"
"I'm entitled to a job with a 75,000+ salary which involves me just sitting at a desk"
The bank is entitled to $2800 monthly mortgage payments (for 30 years) for doing... nothing.
The landlord is entitled to $2100 monthly rent payments (perpetually) for doing... nothing.
At least the employee is actually at a desk.
Well, they were. Now they're fired. The bank is still getting paid.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were some kind of tax benefit (deduction, credit) for renters?
There's one for homeowners. Oh, wait. It's the rich people who get all the breaks. Never mind.
What does "entitled" mean to you?
Businesses are "entitled" to fire people whenever they feel like it.
How's that?
and healthcare being a service that people obtain through voluntary interaction.
And a pile of money. Don't forget the huge pile of money.
The employees still have to pay their healthcare costs, so they either get a higher salary and pay it themselves or a lower one and let the business pay it.
Or they get a lower salary and pay it themselves. Or they just do without. Mostly they just do without.
Why are we having to outsource these kinds of technical jobs?
Because the uppity workers here want electricity and food.
They don't do much more with the data than figure out general trends in purchases and adjust inventories to the updated figures.
And charge non-card-users a 60% penalty on their food.
Nobody watches television any more.
Here's another person with "too much time on their hands." The yuppie sophisticates will no doubt complain that people who invent "have no life" and really should be sitting in their $28,000 bought-on-credit living room watching celebrity bug-eating in high definition surround sound. [/sarcasm]
Then everyone else will bitch and gripe because the new invention didn't live up to the media hype and dismiss it all as the equivalent of a circus act. The fact they made it a circus act will, of course, be forgotten in time for the next "you could have this if you had a job" advertisement for something else to buy on credit.
People who spend their time doing anything except shoveling money into the local yuppie grill or sipping white wine while they watch prime time commercials occasionally interrupted by a screaming carnival barker are routinely criticized by our society because society has nothing but contempt for imagination and vision, unless it involves some dramatic amount of money.
I am not saying that it does not suck that the people were fired. All i am saying is that it is a part of life. SO deal with it.
No. It's not a part of life. It's wrong. It's unfair. It's unethical.
Businesses suck because management sucks. They haven't learned anything about leadership, even though they go out of their way to construct eloquent titles for themselves.
The first thing a real manager learns about leadership is that you take care of your people. You don't abandon them in the name of avarice.
But when things go wrong, like when profits drop 1%, its the employees who get fired, even though the managers probably fucked everything up. And no, they shouldn't be expected to just "deal with it" either, because it's wrong.
That 22-year old hotshot who was enthusiastic and excited about working 10-hour days might now be 28 and married, expecting his first kid, with drastically different priorities than when he was hired.
And therefore he is no longer qualified for his job, right? Is that even remotely ethical?
The equity we'd get from the sale would pay apartment rent for at least another 5 years at $1000/month.
The reason you have that luxury is because you apparently have a stable job. Other people would like to have that luxury too and have worked their asses off to get it, only to have it stolen because some management committee decided they weren't making enough profit.
That's about a decade of survival with no job, just by being smart about how we manage our money.
You have money because you have a job.
Then move.
I'm not buying a house. I can't afford a house. I can't qualify for a mortgage without a job, because the bank believes I can't make the payments.
A one-hour drive is too long, you say?
A one-hour drive? lol I drive an hour to the grocery store.
Stop blaming others and realize that sometimes, you have to make tough choices and sacrifices.
Would that middle management had to follow the same advice.
Another "executive" just discovered a half eaten donut in his shirt pocket, but was unavailable for comment due to an all-day catered meeting where lobster thermadore and steamed crab were served on a $40,000 table.
More news as it becomes available.
You should prolly be paying a bit more attention to your finances if you are having problems with getting your car reposessed and your house taken.
Yes, I'm sure people who lost their jobs for no reason at all are ignoring their finances.
If they identify employees who are not pulling their weight
Who somehow managed to get hired after three interviews. When they were hired, they were the greatest candidates available. Now suddenly they "aren't pulling their weight?" Hmm. Management incompetence? Of course not. It must be the employee.
Quit complaining that these people owe you an ongoing free handout
Now a job is a free handout. lol
Maybe they shouldn't have overextended themselves
Yeah, maybe they should have lived in a refrigerator box and walked to work indefinitely because they will never EVER be able to depend on their job to support a mortgage.
living beyond their means an on eggshell-bed of credit that will inevitably collapse
Let's see, the average price for a home around here is about $475K So, pay cash for the house? With what income? The one they can't keep for more than two months?
You're supposed to be smarter than average, and should know better than to borrow so much money that missing a couple paychecks will send you into foreclosure.
It's called a mortgage. About 60% of people have one.
I'll tell you a little secret -- most every large company does this.
Yes. We know. We read the news.
Most of those fired would likely have been fired months ago when it was determined that they were incompetent
Isn't is amazing, truly spectacularly amazing that these exhaustively qualified people who had such sparkling resumes and fantastic employment histories only months ago when they were hired suddenly turn out to be incompetent around layoff time?
Absolutely incredible.
They didn't "wait until after the game was done."
Oh, and that's better?
60 out of 380 is 'half?'
Oh, we should feel better they only screwed 60 people out of their jobs for no reason at all.
Losing your job is a fact of (American) life.
Fine. Then say so. Don't tell people "work hard, get an education and get a good job." Tell people the American dream is "they'll fire your ass."
If not, then maybe they don't belong in their current field?
And who makes that decision? Oh, the same people who just got through firing several dozen employees? Yeah. No problem there.
There are thousands of thousands of average companies that hire average employees to do average jobs.
But I thought they had to be talented?
If their car got reposessed and their house foreclosed, whos fault is that?
Hey, they showed up and did their job. They held up THEIR END OF THE BARGAIN.
It behooves a person to ensure he/she can afford an item they own, be it a car, house, motorcycle or television.
That's why they worked their ass off to get a good job.
Companies have to make profits. If they don't, then they won't be able to employ anyone.
They are making profits.
If they're talented, they'll find new employment.
So they can get fired again. I gotta ask: when do we get real jobs? Not bullshit temp work, but a REAL FUCKING JOB?
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, until their car gets reposessed and the bank forecloses on the house.
Nothing at all.
If you come across an apple tree full of apples, you'll surely pick the best ones too.
And then throw half of them in the trash? Oh, you mean they waited until after the game was done to realize these weren't the best candidates for the job? That's convenient. Why not just call it a temp job?
The cynical answer to this would be "no comment." So obvious is business' contempt for education and an honest day's work now that it becomes pointless to even discuss it.
But each time anyone attempts to emphasize the fact that business has turned its back on just about everything except its quarterly earnings, we get "nobody owes you a living so get over it."
The fact is, it is wrong to fire people like this. It is absolutely wrong. These companies are damaging, and in a lot of cases destroying the careers of people who work for a living. It isn't fair and it isn't right.
EA has no problem investing millions and tens of millions to build colossal glittering corporate edifices where they can hold meetings about whom to fire this week. But on payday they claim costs are too high.
W-4 employment is obsolete.
They can unanimously vote through a bill making it a crime to criticize the Republican party, but it's not a law.
It is if the President signs it.
They may call it a law, and people may talk about it like it's a law, but it's not. Legally it is null and void.
That's two different things. If Congress passes a bill, and the President signs it, it is the law. If the Supreme Court later declares it unconstitutional, it doesn't magically go back in time and unpass/unsign it.
It is the court stating that congress did not have the power to create such a law in the first place. It was never really a law.
Now you're arguing semantics. The legal term is "argumentative."
If you think congress granted fair use by passing that law in 1976 then kindly explain why courts had spent 136 years prior to that talking about fair use
Because courts do not have the power to legislate. The fact that fair use existed as a legal doctrine or precedent prior to 1976 does not change the fact that by recognizing it, Congress made fair use part of the law, which carries far more weight than a legal precedent.