I mentioned this possibility to an Israeli friend of mine who replied that election day was made a holiday in Israel and because of the time off, many people were travelling and thus didn't cast votes. I don't think he mentioned if it actually increased or decreased turnout. Anyone know?
I doubt that. Disney will continue lobbying for longer and longer terms and, if successful, nothing will ever enter the public domain again. All for Steamboat Willie.
"domaindoorman could have pulled the domain if they got wind of the story before it was published. Ideally the Post would have used archive.org to spider the page before they even wrote the story."
This is the Washington Post, not Wired. I don't imagine they know how to do that. Perhaps if it is relatively straightforward and you send them that as a suggestion in the future, they will.
I've heard other (European? Japanese?) workers are more productive per hour then America's so often that it's sort of become an ingrained assumption for me. However, I find your numbers persuasive. I think the difference is that your numbers are for the whole economy and specific studies are done in, say, the auto industry or something.
If both you and the studies I've heard are correct, it would seem Americans choose to work in more productive fields, on average.
I'm not an economist - but the people I've heard from are. I'm suggesting a way both you and what I've heard could both be correct.
Next time I run into any of my macroeconomist friends, I'll run your argument by them.
Even if all gold is gone, people can pay others to level up their characters. Even if all loot is non-tradable, you could pay others (real life money) to help you get an item. I know people in real life who have done both (in Everquest - years ago).
In principle, if enough salespeople are online, they can swamp limited resources and allow only people who pay them the rights to an item.
At some point, MMO's will need online "government" to deal with these online "crimes".
" that wont work, for 2 main reasons...1. people will no longer have any competition for the unique items. thus the unique item will be more attainable, making that unique item less valuable."
Your reason #2 just repeats #1, that it makes the item less unique.
What I would say is that it allows big raids to all "do" a certain raid mob at any time they like. They can all be raiding the Orc King at 9pm EST if that is when they are all online. There can be 30 copies of the Orc King at once, but none at 3AM EST, perhaps, whereas in the past, in Eq, some guilds were forced to raid then because it was the only time said content is "open", or that is when the MoB is computed to respawn. (Dunno what Eq is like now).
Real uberloot would simply have really hard keys to get and/or really unblievably hard Orc Kings to kill. Make it challenging, not boring. Require really good groups with good gear to even kill the random mobs to get the keys, or really great strategy to kill the Orc King.
It can still be as rare or rarer then now. Rare content and instanced content are totally orthogonal.
Not only will it work, but I think the alternative: having mobs which spawn once per week on a server with thousands of players and tens of guilds capable of taking said mob out, worked great for Eq when people had limited choices, but simply is unacceptable in more modern games.
Have uberloot, but have more lesser loot leading up to it. The true uberloot can be just as rare, if that is really what you want...
I'm not sure anyone wants to go back to the literally 3-5 month long waitlists for epic quest components that Everquest had. It simply creates far too much pressure to ninjaloot. However, even if you want to do that, why not instance it to prevent the ninjalooting capability?
"If you think you have to kill for a long time to get a unique item in modern MMORPGs, imagine how long it would take if the drop rate chance was divided by the number of other players also looking for that item."
It already *is* divided by the number of people who want the item, of course, but in reality some people simply have more time to spend online waiting and they have an edge. In my system, these people will get the keys faster, but it will not forbid others who have limited time from keyhunting whenever they can. Further, they can raid whenever they get thier guild together.
Not only will it work, I think something like what I'm talking about is the only realistic way forward for MMORPGs. Asking your customers to wake up at 3am because that is when the mob is supposed to spawn, having the guild arrive and getting ninjaed by others simply are not sustainable customer service models.
Instancing the whole world, as Guild Wars does, makes the world (outside cities) seem empty and basically one is playing a single player game with perhaps some friends. However, with no instancing, such as in Everquest (before Lost Dungeons and others) there are serious problems. Players compete for rare "camps" where the good mobs spawn and can negatively interact with others: people who could take down a dragon simply cannot because that dragon is not "up" - and in reality prime targets had waiting lists on them. Further, classic Everquest dungeons were rife with players intentionally or unintentionally causing grief to others by causing mobs to attack them (training mobs to them). (A glance at Vanguard's forums reveal the people McQuaid is used to talking with: people who love these old classics - even with the camping/training problems).
What is the happy medium?
Perhaps only the really significant parts could be instanced - e.g. where unique mobs are fought and unique items are dropped. Personally, I would want no interference (positive or negative) while my group or raid takes on the big nasty. I don't want to loose because some random guy trains us. I don't want to win because someone has their level 99 cleric healing us all.
The biggest problem with Eq that GuildWars (and WoW and maybe others I don't know) overcome is that the game remembers what quests I have done: thus they give me a big reward for completing the quests, but I cannot simply repeat the quest endlessly. In Everquest, unless the quest was broken (there were some) the money and exp rewards from the quests were generally not wotht the time spent. Often nice gear could be quested, but virtually none of a persons exp bar was filled by quests. As opposed to WoW, where perhaps half is.
So instance the big, final mobs - but remember which I've killed so I don't get the big reward for simply killing the same one over and over again.
This kind of one time big reward encourages people to use all the content available to them and not become an expert at one zone (or one camp in one zone!) to minimize the risk.
Many other thoughts on MMORPGs in general are in my journal.
All these games WoW, Eq, etc. Could outsource the name validation system to a third party who would allow people to register specific usernames across all such (participating) games. Ask people to pay US$1/month (US$12/year) to maintain a username, password protected, on all participating systems. That way, people who *really* want their names get them. Any violations (copywright, foul language, famous people) would be dealt with by this 3rd party - at the time of creation of the name. Perhaps it takes two weeks, or whatever, to reserve the name - and maybe there is some kind of setup fee I don't know - but once you have it, they stand by it. Appeal to them. If they reject your name, you pay nothing. If you don't want to pay for a reserved name, you deal with (a) your name not available, (b) your name accepted then rejected later - but you pay nothing (extra) and it's handeled by blizard/SOE/whomever.
This Page links to the 8th page of the report where patent reform is discussed (closely followed by a bunch of tax incentives). The text specifically mentions IT patents hurting innovation. This is under the fourth major recommendation section, (D), and the first one listed (D-1) under that section. D-4 might also be of interest to the/. crowd: ubiquitious broad band internet access.
In my home state, our electorate voted in favor of our state proposition 69 by about 62%. Prop 69 allowed the (mandatory) collection of DNA samples from accused felons. Note: these people have not been convicted. There was some debate as to how easy it would be (and, since we voted for it, how easy it now is) to have such DNA information expunged from the database if one were to be found innocent. As I recall, there would be a hearing before a judge. This is kind of crazy, right? Why isn't it automatic?
Unlike the number of total students in graduate school, the number of postdocs has been increasing monotonically over the past 10 years and is 50% higher then in 1993. (Total number of grad students rose only about 9% over that time period).
Were there a serious shortage of "geeks" in companies, many of these people could have been recruited away from the postdoc with money. Naturally, some only want to stay in academia and are willing to endure temporary work and the low pay of the postdoc position for a better shot at their ultimate goal.
In physics, there are far more PhDs being generated then permenant "traditional" physics research positions. (I'm using "traditional" here to exclude really applied research like transistors or batteries or golf club heads - there may be a booming business there - I simply don't know as I have not looked). Thus physicists who want to follow a traditional physics career mostly do postdocs and the time spent in postdoc positions is rising precipitously.
The 4% rise in graduate science and engineering students seems to be the continuation of a rather erratic past: decline till 1998, rise thereafter. Probably correlates to the economy: jobs look good, why continue for an advanced degree? Job outlook poor, why not stay in school? Looking back since 1993, there has only been about a 9% rise on the whole. Clearly looking at the undergraduate picture would be more informative for any statement about the overall number of geeks.
parent wrote: "As a rule, rihc and powerful people tend to hang out with other rich and powerful people. I suspect this is more about giving the appearance of impropriety rather than any impropriety itself. Political opponents will try to make hay from this."
But the moment you are elected or appointed to represent the interests of the people of your nation, you give up the right to associate freely with anyone you like. You have to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.
It just sounds like Mandelson doesn't take his job seriously. If Allen was the second largest investor in a giant multinational organization under investigation for drug smuggling, and Mandelson was in charge of prosecuting drug smugglers, it would be taken more seriously - and probably he would be fired.
Perhaps drug smuggling is more serious then patent abuse but it is Mandelson's job to take patent abuse just as seriously.
I don't care if there was no impropriety - the true damage is to the confidence people have in their government and to the morale of all the employees of that government. If people at the top can dance with the devil's financial backers and not get burned they can line their own pockets with the goodwill of the accused.
Mandelson should be repremanded and asked to pay, personally, for his share of what I'm sure was a very expensive party. Then he should get back to work. As long as he pays his own way to these parties and is up front about any potential conflict of interest, he can go associating with whomever he wants.
Same goes for Tom DeLay: ask him to personally pay for his trip, repremand him, and move on. Tying up the government on these sorts of issues is a crime.
I think the word is "influence". Every action has moral influence - most of it very minor, or beyond the scope of the view of a child (we buy from amazon.com -> it is okay to buy from amazon -> amazon's business practices are, tacitly, acceptable).
Responsibility is: "Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden." So says a dictionary.
Everyone seems to be discussing the influence on children although influence on adults could also be discussed, let us consider children.
If we claim (movies, TV, books, games) are even somewhat responsible we are taking responsibility away from parents and passing some small part of the obligation to actually raise children on to the authors. (The total ammount of responsibility cannot be increased - it can only be partitioned).
Certainly the authors have influence - but that does not make them responsible.
In our society, we take steps to make it easier for parents to know what is in the author's content - historically it was less of a problem as there was just less content available and it was easier to access portions at random (think a novel versus an involved video game). So we pretty much have to have some kind of content guide (at least for child-targeted media). Yet this is a guide not a surrogate - we're responsible for making sure the guide is accurate.
Yet this can so easily be abused: how many films were *almost* rated X before they changed content? Further, we have labels for violence or nudity but we just (in the USA) had a de facto label for gay lifestyle (not sexuality, just the existance of gays). What if every flim/TV show/video game had to disclose if any gay lifestyle was portraied? What about Jewish lifestyle? What about progressive political ideals? What about inaccurate science?
Just the act of rating influences media - thus it is our responsibility to use rating power sensibly. Even this attempt to make parental responsibility a bit easier is, itself, the responsibility of all society to monitor.
Nice post on Ultima IV. Great game. I've never heard that story before.
Ultima IV had solid morals in addition to great gameplay. The eight virtues of the game are: Compassion, Justice, Humility, Honesty, Sacrifice, Valor, Honor and Spirituality. I was about twelve when I started to play and the game made me think about these issues.
One great example was at the beginning of the game, you were asked questions in which one virtue was pitted against another: do you honestly claim your reward (for a good deed) or compassionatly allow another (more needy) person to claim it (what if they really think they did it first?) etc. (Note: I know this is not bulletproof - nor are the ones in the game - it is the actual thinking required which makes it noteworthey).
The values are pretty solid and general. Contrast with Ultima VII in which every little detail is examined for some kind of "moral" element: I recall one character specifically mentioning the statues of females in the city didn't have enough clothes on them. It became rather preachy in a "politically correct" sort of direction and was just annoying.
If there are game programmers out there interested in introducing some kind of morality within their games, the contract between how these two Ultimas handeled the issue may be of interest.
I suppose you can't envision a part of the country where any job, even at Wal-Mart, is highly competitive? A place where minimum wage is enough to get by (survive, probably not with health care)? There are really poor areas within America. If the poster lives in one, I'd recommend for the grandparent poster to move elsewhere first, then, if that doesn't help, blame themselves.
I didn't mean to imply the parent flippently wrote off anything. I was more meaning dozens of other posters who were clearly doing so.
This is not isolated to slashdot. Physics Today last month had a book review where the reviewer was bemoning the lack of statistical knoweldge of the physics community and the public at large. He implied there was no statistical way secondhand smoke can cause cancer.
Or the doctor appointed to the EPA Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning who thought lead just isn't a problem for children anymore. See www.thislife.org show number 265, act 2. ____________________________________________
tgibbs wrote: "It is an extraordinary claim that electromagnetic radiation of energy that is too low to damage any biological material can nevertheless cause biological damage."
This really assumes the conclusion (energy is too low to damage), and we can actually do better then that:
Photon energy = h*f. Energy of a typical hydrogen bond: on the order of 10 kcal/mol = 1.7x10^(-20) cal per bond. Dividing by Plank's constant, we find a frequency of 1x10^(14) Hz. Wavelength of 3x10^(-6)m which is 300nm which is just into the ultraviolet range. Ultraviolet light exposure seems to correlate with skin cancer. For immediate evidence, just look at getting a tan (or a sunburn) - but this is because of the energy per photon not the total energy of *all* the photons.
It seems very unlikely the really low energies (long wavelength, gigahertz cell phone/cordless phones are around 3x10^(-2)m) would do much - except that they can penetrate much deeper into the body. We didn't evolve with this much gigahertz radiation around - and it really hasn't been around very long. We are currently doing the experiments on long term (multi-decade) exposure. Certainly they couldn't be breaking typical hydrogen bonds. Power transmission lines are at what? 60Hz? AM radio is around a megahertz? Is the frequency different in Korea? (Probably not very different - but who knows?)
Different frequency EM waves are totally different animals. Comparing watts is misleading.
There are immediate biological effects of cell phone use: slight measureable temperature increases (usually in the head as that is where they are placed next to). Humans have had feavors forever far more severe then this, yet probably not on a daily basis for decades. We are about to find out how bad this is. This known effect can be alleviated by the use of a cable from the phone to the head (and no, your 3cm wavelength microwaves aren't channeled to your head by the ~3mm diameter cable).
I think it very likely this whole discussion is a red herring. Why are we worrying about the cell phone or as a potential carcinigon when *known* problems like what comes out of our cars and power plants are very serious? Research them? Certainly.
It's like SARS - it did kill a few people but the flu kills thousands. SARS got the attention because it was new.
Correlative studies are fine. We don't have to know the cause to take action. Certainly, the action we happen to take (perhaps moving everyone from the power lines) may not be the right one, but *if the danger is serious enough* or the solution is minor enough, why not try it?
For example, perhaps Korea could change their AM radio frequencies to correspond to those of a nation where the problem doesn't occur? Or perhaps children shouldn't grow up near the lines, as IIRC lieukemia is a childhood disease, mostly?
In the end: (1) make the public aware, so they have the choice (2) its a democracy: take action if the people demand it, even if the risk *is* low and: (2b) ensure the funds could not be better spent.
If you can save one life by moving all those people, but could save a million by investing in cleaner burning powerplants...yep - that one kid's life is going to suck - and we know we could have prevented it - but it underscores the seriousness of public policy. That is the result....and that is why you don't just flippently write off this kind of an issue. ______________________________________
90% of the respondants who play games had an online capable system - including PC/Mac. Thus at least 10% of the respondants who do play video games do not have a PC.
I assume they replied to the email from work/school?
Anyhow, you are absolutly right that doing an online survey about online gaming is going to skew the results. Immediately you are eliminating anyone who doesn't have email, or who check their email very infrequently (although the survey lasted 18 days).
I'm sure it is far cheaper to survey via email, but if they even want to talk about online/offline gaming ratios they would have to find a way to include people who are not online, at all.
For example, there are only about 30 million broadband subscriptions in the US, with about 280 million people, according to http://www.in-sourced.com/article/articleview/2056/1/1/. Yet if you surveyed slashdot's US visitors, what fraction of them are going to have broadband? Let's assume each subscription serves 2.5 Americans and ignore the fact some subscriptions are for businesses. We get 75 million US residents with broadband which is about 27%.
A 2002-2003 UCLA survey found about 60% of Americans had some kind of internet access from home, and apparently the number wasn't rising much from the previous year. http://www.theisociety.net/archives/000381.html. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone has a PC or everyone has internet access. Perhaps if the survey authors only wanted to find out information about people who play online using email would be OK but once they start talking about offline vs. online gaming I'm not sure they can really say anything. _______________________________________ ___________
The average online game time played was 6.1 hours per week, but the average offline time was 5 - thus totalling 11.1 hours per week.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the average is that high - I would like to know the median (and the standard deviation of the mean...) because I imagine a few young people playing huge hours drive up the average significantly (don't forget, the survay was done in June when many young students are on summer vacation and thus have more time to devote to gaming).
Actually, re-reading carefully, only 90% of respondants have an online capable system (including PC) and only 60% of them actually play online at all. Thus the 5 hours per week average offline gaming must reflect the habits of the 44% of the respondants who said they do no online gaming at all. _______________________________
In Common Sense, Paine writes: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us: it affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names." (10 Jan. 1776 Life 2:162--63)
His will begins: "Reposing confidence in my Creator, God." ends "I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God." and he was a founder and active member of the Society of Theophilanthropists (lovers of God and man).
This is my evidence he was a diest.
Is your claim that most all his writings appear deist, but deep down he was really an athiest? Can you offer any evidence of that or whatever your claim is?
You can look up many of his famous quotes about religion here.
I'd love to know if I'm wrong, but in order to do so you'd have to offer evidence. Insulting me has no baring on the matter. A man could be an arrogant, uneducated fool who happens to believe the world is round. Neither his arrogance, lack or education, nor lack of intelligence would be argument for the world to be anything but.
I find it particularly ironic that in your original reply you said "Bull" to my comment encyclopeidas were rife with misinformation yet now you are going against what Britannica.com says about Paine.
Go see britanica.com, or better yet read Age of Reason. I'm not saying he could not, elsewhere, have been a rabid athiest but Britannica says Deist and "Age of Reason" is a diest manafesto, at least the copy I read.
One source of the athiest myth is Teddy Rosevelt's famous quote that Paine was "a bloody atheist", but this is caused by my first claim.
Have you read Age of Reason? The first section is entitled "CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH." (not my capitals). You can find it here.
Are you claiming: (a) Age of Reason doesn't advocate deism (b) Paine didn't write it (c) Paine did write it, did advocate deism, but later changed his mind?
Perhaps you ment agnostic?
Who are these "most historians"? I have a bridge to sell them:) ______________________________________________ _
mahulth wrote: The goal I would like to see is for Wikipedia to be interchangeable with any other source for a refereed paper. And to get to that stage you need to follow certain protocol. I'd hate to see them never make it that far...
Why? That is what refereed papers are for.
In order to ensure complete accuracy, you'd have to make it expensive or inflexible - and probably both.
In the physics sections I have read I have not encountered misinformation and if there were I would correct it.
It's just my opinion, but I don't see a problem large enough to require dire change. We should know to take things with a grain of salt, even carefully picked over facts - even peer reviewed papers. Besides, anyone can take the Wiki architecture (I think) and make their own wiki.
Slashdot Mirror
I mentioned this possibility to an Israeli friend of mine who replied that election day was made a holiday in Israel and because of the time off, many people were travelling and thus didn't cast votes. I don't think he mentioned if it actually increased or decreased turnout. Anyone know?
I doubt that. Disney will continue lobbying for longer and longer terms and, if successful, nothing will ever enter the public domain again. All for Steamboat Willie.
"domaindoorman could have pulled the domain if they got wind of the story before it was published. Ideally the Post would have used archive.org to spider the page before they even wrote the story."
This is the Washington Post, not Wired. I don't imagine they know how to do that. Perhaps if it is relatively straightforward and you send them that as a suggestion in the future, they will.
I've heard other (European? Japanese?) workers are more productive per hour then America's so often that it's sort of become an ingrained assumption for me. However, I find your numbers persuasive. I think the difference is that your numbers are for the whole economy and specific studies are done in, say, the auto industry or something.
If both you and the studies I've heard are correct, it would seem Americans choose to work in more productive fields, on average.
I'm not an economist - but the people I've heard from are. I'm suggesting a way both you and what I've heard could both be correct.
Next time I run into any of my macroeconomist friends, I'll run your argument by them.
I think you've hit on a good point.
Even if all gold is gone, people can pay others to level up their characters. Even if all loot is non-tradable, you could pay others (real life money) to help you get an item. I know people in real life who have done both (in Everquest - years ago).
In principle, if enough salespeople are online, they can swamp limited resources and allow only people who pay them the rights to an item.
At some point, MMO's will need online "government" to deal with these online "crimes".
" that wont work, for 2 main reasons...1. people will no longer have any competition for the unique items. thus the unique item will be more attainable, making that unique item less valuable."
Your reason #2 just repeats #1, that it makes the item less unique.
What I would say is that it allows big raids to all "do" a certain raid mob at any time they like. They can all be raiding the Orc King at 9pm EST if that is when they are all online. There can be 30 copies of the Orc King at once, but none at 3AM EST, perhaps, whereas in the past, in Eq, some guilds were forced to raid then because it was the only time said content is "open", or that is when the MoB is computed to respawn. (Dunno what Eq is like now).
Real uberloot would simply have really hard keys to get and/or really unblievably hard Orc Kings to kill. Make it challenging, not boring. Require really good groups with good gear to even kill the random mobs to get the keys, or really great strategy to kill the Orc King.
It can still be as rare or rarer then now. Rare content and instanced content are totally orthogonal.
Not only will it work, but I think the alternative: having mobs which spawn once per week on a server with thousands of players and tens of guilds capable of taking said mob out, worked great for Eq when people had limited choices, but simply is unacceptable in more modern games.
Have uberloot, but have more lesser loot leading up to it. The true uberloot can be just as rare, if that is really what you want...
I'm not sure anyone wants to go back to the literally 3-5 month long waitlists for epic quest components that Everquest had. It simply creates far too much pressure to ninjaloot. However, even if you want to do that, why not instance it to prevent the ninjalooting capability?
"If you think you have to kill for a long time to get a unique item in modern MMORPGs, imagine how long it would take if the drop rate chance was divided by the number of other players also looking for that item."
It already *is* divided by the number of people who want the item, of course, but in reality some people simply have more time to spend online waiting and they have an edge. In my system, these people will get the keys faster, but it will not forbid others who have limited time from keyhunting whenever they can. Further, they can raid whenever they get thier guild together.
Not only will it work, I think something like what I'm talking about is the only realistic way forward for MMORPGs. Asking your customers to wake up at 3am because that is when the mob is supposed to spawn, having the guild arrive and getting ninjaed by others simply are not sustainable customer service models.
Instancing the whole world, as Guild Wars does, makes the world (outside cities) seem empty and basically one is playing a single player game with perhaps some friends. However, with no instancing, such as in Everquest (before Lost Dungeons and others) there are serious problems. Players compete for rare "camps" where the good mobs spawn and can negatively interact with others: people who could take down a dragon simply cannot because that dragon is not "up" - and in reality prime targets had waiting lists on them. Further, classic Everquest dungeons were rife with players intentionally or unintentionally causing grief to others by causing mobs to attack them (training mobs to them). (A glance at Vanguard's forums reveal the people McQuaid is used to talking with: people who love these old classics - even with the camping/training problems).
What is the happy medium?
Perhaps only the really significant parts could be instanced - e.g. where unique mobs are fought and unique items are dropped. Personally, I would want no interference (positive or negative) while my group or raid takes on the big nasty. I don't want to loose because some random guy trains us. I don't want to win because someone has their level 99 cleric healing us all.
The biggest problem with Eq that GuildWars (and WoW and maybe others I don't know) overcome is that the game remembers what quests I have done: thus they give me a big reward for completing the quests, but I cannot simply repeat the quest endlessly. In Everquest, unless the quest was broken (there were some) the money and exp rewards from the quests were generally not wotht the time spent. Often nice gear could be quested, but virtually none of a persons exp bar was filled by quests. As opposed to WoW, where perhaps half is.
So instance the big, final mobs - but remember which I've killed so I don't get the big reward for simply killing the same one over and over again.
This kind of one time big reward encourages people to use all the content available to them and not become an expert at one zone (or one camp in one zone!) to minimize the risk.
Many other thoughts on MMORPGs in general are in my journal.
There is an attempt at a jargon-free explanation here.
All these games WoW, Eq, etc. Could outsource the name validation system to a third party who would allow people to register specific usernames across all such (participating) games. Ask people to pay US$1/month (US$12/year) to maintain a username, password protected, on all participating systems. That way, people who *really* want their names get them. Any violations (copywright, foul language, famous people) would be dealt with by this 3rd party - at the time of creation of the name. Perhaps it takes two weeks, or whatever, to reserve the name - and maybe there is some kind of setup fee I don't know - but once you have it, they stand by it. Appeal to them. If they reject your name, you pay nothing. If you don't want to pay for a reserved name, you deal with (a) your name not available, (b) your name accepted then rejected later - but you pay nothing (extra) and it's handeled by blizard/SOE/whomever.
This Page links to the 8th page of the report where patent reform is discussed (closely followed by a bunch of tax incentives). The text specifically mentions IT patents hurting innovation. This is under the fourth major recommendation section, (D), and the first one listed (D-1) under that section. D-4 might also be of interest to the /. crowd: ubiquitious broad band internet access.
In my home state, our electorate voted in favor of our state proposition 69 by about 62%. Prop 69 allowed the (mandatory) collection of DNA samples from accused felons. Note: these people have not been convicted. There was some debate as to how easy it would be (and, since we voted for it, how easy it now is) to have such DNA information expunged from the database if one were to be found innocent. As I recall, there would be a hearing before a judge. This is kind of crazy, right? Why isn't it automatic?
Unlike the number of total students in graduate school, the number of postdocs has been increasing monotonically over the past 10 years and is 50% higher then in 1993. (Total number of grad students rose only about 9% over that time period).
Were there a serious shortage of "geeks" in companies, many of these people could have been recruited away from the postdoc with money. Naturally, some only want to stay in academia and are willing to endure temporary work and the low pay of the postdoc position for a better shot at their ultimate goal.
In physics, there are far more PhDs being generated then permenant "traditional" physics research positions. (I'm using "traditional" here to exclude really applied research like transistors or batteries or golf club heads - there may be a booming business there - I simply don't know as I have not looked). Thus physicists who want to follow a traditional physics career mostly do postdocs and the time spent in postdoc positions is rising precipitously.
The 4% rise in graduate science and engineering students seems to be the continuation of a rather erratic past: decline till 1998, rise thereafter. Probably correlates to the economy: jobs look good, why continue for an advanced degree? Job outlook poor, why not stay in school? Looking back since 1993, there has only been about a 9% rise on the whole. Clearly looking at the undergraduate picture would be more informative for any statement about the overall number of geeks.
parent wrote: "As a rule, rihc and powerful people tend to hang out with other rich and powerful people. I suspect this is more about giving the appearance of impropriety rather than any impropriety itself. Political opponents will try to make hay from this."
But the moment you are elected or appointed to represent the interests of the people of your nation, you give up the right to associate freely with anyone you like. You have to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.
It just sounds like Mandelson doesn't take his job seriously. If Allen was the second largest investor in a giant multinational organization under investigation for drug smuggling, and Mandelson was in charge of prosecuting drug smugglers, it would be taken more seriously - and probably he would be fired.
Perhaps drug smuggling is more serious then patent abuse but it is Mandelson's job to take patent abuse just as seriously.
I don't care if there was no impropriety - the true damage is to the confidence people have in their government and to the morale of all the employees of that government. If people at the top can dance with the devil's financial backers and not get burned they can line their own pockets with the goodwill of the accused.
Mandelson should be repremanded and asked to pay, personally, for his share of what I'm sure was a very expensive party. Then he should get back to work. As long as he pays his own way to these parties and is up front about any potential conflict of interest, he can go associating with whomever he wants.
Same goes for Tom DeLay: ask him to personally pay for his trip, repremand him, and move on. Tying up the government on these sorts of issues is a crime.
I think the word is "influence". Every action has moral influence - most of it very minor, or beyond the scope of the view of a child (we buy from amazon.com -> it is okay to buy from amazon -> amazon's business practices are, tacitly, acceptable).
Responsibility is: "Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden." So says a dictionary.
Everyone seems to be discussing the influence on children although influence on adults could also be discussed, let us consider children.
If we claim (movies, TV, books, games) are even somewhat responsible we are taking responsibility away from parents and passing some small part of the obligation to actually raise children on to the authors. (The total ammount of responsibility cannot be increased - it can only be partitioned).
Certainly the authors have influence - but that does not make them responsible.
In our society, we take steps to make it easier for parents to know what is in the author's content - historically it was less of a problem as there was just less content available and it was easier to access portions at random (think a novel versus an involved video game). So we pretty much have to have some kind of content guide (at least for child-targeted media). Yet this is a guide not a surrogate - we're responsible for making sure the guide is accurate.
Yet this can so easily be abused: how many films were *almost* rated X before they changed content? Further, we have labels for violence or nudity but we just (in the USA) had a de facto label for gay lifestyle (not sexuality, just the existance of gays). What if every flim/TV show/video game had to disclose if any gay lifestyle was portraied? What about Jewish lifestyle? What about progressive political ideals? What about inaccurate science?
Just the act of rating influences media - thus it is our responsibility to use rating power sensibly. Even this attempt to make parental responsibility a bit easier is, itself, the responsibility of all society to monitor.
Nice post on Ultima IV. Great game. I've never heard that story before.
Ultima IV had solid morals in addition to great gameplay. The eight virtues of the game are: Compassion, Justice, Humility, Honesty, Sacrifice, Valor, Honor and Spirituality. I was about twelve when I started to play and the game made me think about these issues.
One great example was at the beginning of the game, you were asked questions in which one virtue was pitted against another: do you honestly claim your reward (for a good deed) or compassionatly allow another (more needy) person to claim it (what if they really think they did it first?) etc. (Note: I know this is not bulletproof - nor are the ones in the game - it is the actual thinking required which makes it noteworthey).
The values are pretty solid and general. Contrast with Ultima VII in which every little detail is examined for some kind of "moral" element: I recall one character specifically mentioning the statues of females in the city didn't have enough clothes on them. It became rather preachy in a "politically correct" sort of direction and was just annoying.
If there are game programmers out there interested in introducing some kind of morality within their games, the contract between how these two Ultimas handeled the issue may be of interest.
"I live in CA "
I suppose you can't envision a part of the country where any job, even at Wal-Mart, is highly competitive? A place where minimum wage is enough to get by (survive, probably not with health care)? There are really poor areas within America. If the poster lives in one, I'd recommend for the grandparent poster to move elsewhere first, then, if that doesn't help, blame themselves.
I didn't mean to imply the parent flippently wrote off anything. I was more meaning dozens of other posters who were clearly doing so.
This is not isolated to slashdot. Physics Today last month had a book review where the reviewer was bemoning the lack of statistical knoweldge of the physics community and the public at large. He implied there was no statistical way secondhand smoke can cause cancer.
Or the doctor appointed to the EPA Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning who thought lead just isn't a problem for children anymore. See www.thislife.org show number 265, act 2.
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tgibbs wrote: "It is an extraordinary claim that electromagnetic radiation of energy that is too low to damage any biological material can nevertheless cause biological damage."
...and that is why you don't just flippently write off this kind of an issue.
This really assumes the conclusion (energy is too low to damage), and we can actually do better then that:
Photon energy = h*f. Energy of a typical hydrogen bond: on the order of 10 kcal/mol = 1.7x10^(-20) cal per bond. Dividing by Plank's constant, we find a frequency of 1x10^(14) Hz. Wavelength of 3x10^(-6)m which is 300nm which is just into the ultraviolet range. Ultraviolet light exposure seems to correlate with skin cancer. For immediate evidence, just look at getting a tan (or a sunburn) - but this is because of the energy per photon not the total energy of *all* the photons.
It seems very unlikely the really low energies (long wavelength, gigahertz cell phone/cordless phones are around 3x10^(-2)m) would do much - except that they can penetrate much deeper into the body. We didn't evolve with this much gigahertz radiation around - and it really hasn't been around very long. We are currently doing the experiments on long term (multi-decade) exposure. Certainly they couldn't be breaking typical hydrogen bonds. Power transmission lines are at what? 60Hz? AM radio is around a megahertz? Is the frequency different in Korea? (Probably not very different - but who knows?)
Different frequency EM waves are totally different animals. Comparing watts is misleading.
There are immediate biological effects of cell phone use: slight measureable temperature increases (usually in the head as that is where they are placed next to). Humans have had feavors forever far more severe then this, yet probably not on a daily basis for decades. We are about to find out how bad this is. This known effect can be alleviated by the use of a cable from the phone to the head (and no, your 3cm wavelength microwaves aren't channeled to your head by the ~3mm diameter cable).
I think it very likely this whole discussion is a red herring. Why are we worrying about the cell phone or as a potential carcinigon when *known* problems like what comes out of our cars and power plants are very serious? Research them? Certainly.
It's like SARS - it did kill a few people but the flu kills thousands. SARS got the attention because it was new.
Correlative studies are fine. We don't have to know the cause to take action. Certainly, the action we happen to take (perhaps moving everyone from the power lines) may not be the right one, but *if the danger is serious enough* or the solution is minor enough, why not try it?
For example, perhaps Korea could change their AM radio frequencies to correspond to those of a nation where the problem doesn't occur? Or perhaps children shouldn't grow up near the lines, as IIRC lieukemia is a childhood disease, mostly?
In the end:
(1) make the public aware, so they have the choice
(2) its a democracy: take action if the people demand it, even if the risk *is* low and:
(2b) ensure the funds could not be better spent.
If you can save one life by moving all those people, but could save a million by investing in cleaner burning powerplants...yep - that one kid's life is going to suck - and we know we could have prevented it - but it underscores the seriousness of public policy. That is the result.
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90% of the respondants who play games had an online capable system - including PC/Mac. Thus at least 10% of the respondants who do play video games do not have a PC.
6 /1/1/.
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I assume they replied to the email from work/school?
Anyhow, you are absolutly right that doing an online survey about online gaming is going to skew the results. Immediately you are eliminating anyone who doesn't have email, or who check their email very infrequently (although the survey lasted 18 days).
I'm sure it is far cheaper to survey via email, but if they even want to talk about online/offline gaming ratios they would have to find a way to include people who are not online, at all.
For example, there are only about 30 million broadband subscriptions in the US, with about 280 million people, according to http://www.in-sourced.com/article/articleview/205
Yet if you surveyed slashdot's US visitors, what fraction of them are going to have broadband? Let's assume each subscription serves 2.5 Americans and ignore the fact some subscriptions are for businesses. We get 75 million US residents with broadband which is about 27%.
A 2002-2003 UCLA survey found about 60% of Americans had some kind of internet access from home, and apparently the number wasn't rising much from the previous year. http://www.theisociety.net/archives/000381.html.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone has a PC or everyone has internet access. Perhaps if the survey authors only wanted to find out information about people who play online using email would be OK but once they start talking about offline vs. online gaming I'm not sure they can really say anything.
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The average online game time played was 6.1 hours per week, but the average offline time was 5 - thus totalling 11.1 hours per week.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the average is that high - I would like to know the median (and the standard deviation of the mean...) because I imagine a few young people playing huge hours drive up the average significantly (don't forget, the survay was done in June when many young students are on summer vacation and thus have more time to devote to gaming).
Actually, re-reading carefully, only 90% of respondants have an online capable system (including PC) and only 60% of them actually play online at all. Thus the 5 hours per week average offline gaming must reflect the habits of the 44% of the respondants who said they do no online gaming at all.
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and they can fly hundreds of kilometers. See Daedalus project here, for example.
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In Common Sense, Paine writes: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us: it affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names." (10 Jan. 1776 Life 2:162--63)
His will begins: "Reposing confidence in my Creator, God." ends "I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God." and he was a founder and active member of the Society of Theophilanthropists (lovers of God and man).
This is my evidence he was a diest.
Is your claim that most all his writings appear deist, but deep down he was really an athiest? Can you offer any evidence of that or whatever your claim is?
You can look up many of his famous quotes about religion here.
I'd love to know if I'm wrong, but in order to do so you'd have to offer evidence. Insulting me has no baring on the matter. A man could be an arrogant, uneducated fool who happens to believe the world is round. Neither his arrogance, lack or education, nor lack of intelligence would be argument for the world to be anything but.
I find it particularly ironic that in your original reply you said "Bull" to my comment encyclopeidas were rife with misinformation yet now you are going against what Britannica.com says about Paine.
Go see britanica.com, or better yet read Age of Reason. I'm not saying he could not, elsewhere, have been a rabid athiest but Britannica says Deist and "Age of Reason" is a diest manafesto, at least the copy I read.
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One source of the athiest myth is Teddy Rosevelt's famous quote that Paine was "a bloody atheist", but this is caused by my first claim.
Have you read Age of Reason? The first section is entitled "CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH." (not my capitals). You can find it here.
Are you claiming:
(a) Age of Reason doesn't advocate deism
(b) Paine didn't write it
(c) Paine did write it, did advocate deism, but later changed his mind?
Perhaps you ment agnostic?
Who are these "most historians"? I have a bridge to sell them
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mahulth wrote: The goal I would like to see is for Wikipedia to be interchangeable with any other source for a refereed paper. And to get to that stage you need to follow certain protocol. I'd hate to see them never make it that far...
Why? That is what refereed papers are for.
In order to ensure complete accuracy, you'd have to make it expensive or inflexible - and probably both.
In the physics sections I have read I have not encountered misinformation and if there were I would correct it.
It's just my opinion, but I don't see a problem large enough to require dire change. We should know to take things with a grain of salt, even carefully picked over facts - even peer reviewed papers. Besides, anyone can take the Wiki architecture (I think) and make their own wiki.