Not reading the article = Fail. They acknowledge their math is off and give reasons it would be off - such as static/dynamic ips and people who choose not to check the box. They're saying it's around 82% after that is taken into account.
They don't know the values of several variables, but can nonetheless take them into account to arrive to a figure accurate to within a single percent. And you believe that. Epic fail.
Far too many companies assume one pirated copy is one lost sale. (Unless you work for Starforce who once claimed one pirated copy was MULTIPLE lost sales.)
Well, since you're giving a negative review of the game here, it seems they were correct. Of course, you'd likely give a similar review even if had bought the game. That rises a philosophical question: if a single sold game means multiple lost sales, are you in fact selling a negative number of them ? Obviously, this would only be a concern for really shitty games, but then again, that includes most of them.
No one is going to look out for you. You are responsible for yourself. The government is there only to provide protection of your property.
I've been wondering about this for a while now: why do the people who are so big on personal responsibility nonetheless require that someone else protects their property ? I mean, shouldn't that be your responsibility too, rather than something you'll call Big Brother to help you with ?
Is "link spam" illegal? No. Despite your not liking it, they're completely within their rights to pay somebody to setup a "link farm" for them. If that person rips them off, they have the right to sue. Whether or not *you* like their choice doesn't matter - it's their decision.
And the grandparent is completely within his rights to look down on them for choosing this option, call them crooks, and say they got what they fucking deserved. I agree with him: these bastards deserved to get their hands burned for making search engines less useful.
That's how it works: if you are an asshole, don't expect any sympathy from the people you are being an asshole to, even if you are a law-abiding asshole.
No, I'm acknowledging the ability to persuade people to give you power as indicative of intelligence. Is there any particular reason I shouldn't ?
Being able to schmooze well is not the same thing as having great knowledge and abilities.
Actually yes, it is, specifically the ability to schmooze well. Which, apparently, can compensate quite well for the lack of other abilities, as far as personal gain is concerned.
Having good connections has nothing to do with intelligence.
Of course it does. Creating, maintaining and using social connections for your advantage is presumably the very thing human intelligence evolved for.
You sound like a highschooler who thinks social standing is the most important criteria for human worth.
Perhaps you should analyze that statement a bit closer. Are you not essentially using a threat of a perceived loss of social status as an argument there ? A bit of a cognitive dissonance between your words and actions, there:).
And while it might not indicate human worth, social standing does indeed hold tremendous importance to humans living in human society. Just see your own note about connections and how they can be used for great gain above.
There were a bunch of schools that had 11 passenger vans and used them, with parents or teachers driving, to take kids on various trips. The schools all got rid of those vans. Why? Because a bunch of them crashed. The fault probably wasn't actually the van, but rather the drivers who weren't trained to drive larger vehicles.
That's why we license cabs and bus companies.
Here in Finland, we have driving license "classes" for different vehicles, going from personal cars (class B, up to 3.5 tons) to trucks (class C) and busses (class D), and separate classes for towing large trailers (BE, CE and DE, respectively) with them.
Wouldn't that system - rating drivers, rather than whoever hires them - make much more sense ?
Try anarchy, now with extra helpings of freedom, and fuck off corporations, state, capitalism and tyranny. We don't need you to tell us what to do.
No, your local warlord is more than happy to do that instead: fight in his army against other warlords or die.
Anarchy sound nice, until you realize that Joe Gang Leader no longer has anyone keeping him from looting your house and gang-pressing you into service - unless you and your neighbours band together for mutual protection, at which point you no longer have anarchy, but rather the beginnings of a new government, which since it lacks any safeguards against it will become a dictatorship of whoever is best at gaining followers really fast.
Don't take my word for it, just look at any country where the government has collapsed. Somalia is far from Heaven.
And for God's sake, read Personal Finance for Dummies. If you haven't read it, stop trying to convince yourself you already know how money works. The book costs 15 bucks...just freaking READ IT!
I have to admit, that was a very good setup. Did you write the book, or do you simply get paid to astroturf it ?
There is no way that I will ever believe that 75% of the population is dumber than Bush or Palin. Those two people are practically the definition of below average intelligence.
Bush managed to get himself elected to be the most powerful human on Earth - twice. How does your theory explain that ?
Palin would get seriously spanked on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?".
And yet she seems to have quite a nice career and plenty of power too. Perhaps it is you who is fooled here ?
She isn't. It would be impossible for her to do so. Conveying information from one human to another is part of human species survival strategy, and arguably the one that has let us conquer the world.
I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it.:)
You are wrong, it is a bad thing. Moral considerations aside, scams force people to be on guard against them, which not only consumes mental resources which could be used in a more productive fashion, but also makes it harder for legitimate businesses to get funding - after all, the possibility that they're a scam weights against giving them money. This is especially true for startups. This, in turn, makes us all poorer than we could be.
You are, however, right in that it's happening, even if I don't like it. That rises the question: how to stop it ?
That isn't necessarily bad as they offer a service that people actually like, and means if you are going to get advertising you will probably see more that is based on what you are interested in and less in the random stuff.
Which is a bad thing because it is harder to resist an advert for something you're interested in than for random stuff. "Targeted advertizing" is another way of saying "hit the weak spot for massive damage".
The most common portrayal of the Devil in folk tales is as a salesman, trying to get people to buy something. The difference between modern day salesmen is that in those stories, the Devil usually delivered on his end of the bargain. That's something for all the "marketers" to thing about.
I know plenty of people over 30 on MySpace... Most 25+/-, same as me...
Yes, most people are indeed either over or under 25 years old. Even more shockingly, most people who are over 30 are also over 25. I think you're on to something here, and should get a federal research grant or approach venture capitalists to further research these amazing phenomenoms:).
First of all, there is a huge difference between skirting the law for an occasional high, and making your living off of entirely criminal activities. In the first case, you weigh the crime against the rest of the persons life, and figure the minor infraction is innocuous enough not to put a taint on everything else. In the second case, the person's life is defined by committing crime.
Crimes, such as copyright violation ? Is that person's life defined by crime ?
I don't care if we all decide that even the worst aspects of dealing--like peddling to children--are 'victimless', that doesn't make an honorable living.
Peddling to children is not victimless, due to children's assumed inability to make informed choices. It seems you agree, since you put the word victimless in quotes. Thus your example is inapplicable to the matter at hand.
It all comes down to this: is breaking laws inherently bad ?
It's not illegal, nor should it be. After all, if it were illegal, why would it be illegal? Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property? I have not. If people came and wasted their time, they did so voluntarily.
So it's OK for me to sell you a deed to a piece of land I don't own ? I mean, you gave me your money voluntarily, so I have not deprived you of anything, right ?
Coming to think of it, since breaking a contract does not deprive anyone of life, liberty or property, I think we should annul all contract law ASAP.
You need to get out of this mindset that something "ought to be illegal" just because you don't like it.
And you need to understand that libertarianism and related ideologies lead to an aristocracy, which would screw up almost everyone. I, for one, do not want a return to the Dark Ages, where the local land-owner was a de facto despot due to being able to afford to hire an army, and the central government was too weak to stop him.
The ONLY thing preventing this are various treaties, and other political niceties; but at the end of the day, if China wants you bad enough, and is willing to take the political fallout over the issue, the moment you step into China, you are finished.
So the lesson here is to never, ever, under any circumstances or for any reason whatsoever, go to either China or the United States. Got it.
"Think Chaotic evil.. Saving Rand's life so he could be sacrificed to the dark one"
That's Lawful Evil - or perhaps Neutral Evil, if there's a prize to it. Chaotic Evil character would say "screw the Dark One" and kill Rand, then try to push the blame on Ishamael. Or, if he were a smarter CE, he'd try to get Rand and Dark One to kill each other.
Chaotic evil doesn't want riches, positions or favour - it just wants to watch the world burn.
IMO, what made the old school MUDs better than MMORPGs is that players (when they hit a certain level) were oftentimes allowed to make new dungeons. So as your playerbase went up, so did the amount of content available. It's an idea that I'd love to see get transferred to one of the major MMOs.
It's not going to happen. Having user-generated content risks some of it not being kid-friendly. Remember the hubalaloo about Hot Coffee ? Can't risk someone making a quest about retrieving the Seed of Fertility from Penis Mountain and delivering it to the Sacred Eggs in the Vagina Caverns. Not unless you want to risk facing the Guardians of Morality - their Moral Panic Incite is a terrifying special ability indeed. And I heard there's an even darker figure, a shadowy demagogue, behind them.
What they should really do is set a game earlier than what is described in detail in the books, say when one of the false dragons was around. That way there is plenty of conflict, but the game designers have much more leeway on the events and story in the game.
Or set it during the War of Power. You must lead your unit during the war; then, when the Dark One is imprisoned and the Breaking of the World begins, it becomes a desperate race to safe as much of the civilization as possible before it's destroyed by the maddened Aes Sedai. Slashdot archives must not perish !
Or make it "Populous: the Dark Side" - you play the Dark One and need to sow as much destruction as possible to feed your power, break free, and remake the world. I wonder what Jack Thompson would say about a game where you do get points for rape and murder ?-)
"Survival of the fittest" is a tautology. The very definition of fitness in the Darwinian sense is that you survive, so the saying is really saying: "That which survives survives".
And Darwinian evolution is indeed random, in that it is impossible to predict what kind of species will exist a billion years from now, nor would it been possible to take a look at Earth at the time of dinosaurs and predict that humans would evolve.
a world where flying cars, jetpacks and sophisticated sex robots are just around the corner
Jetpacks and sex robots already exist. It's simply that a jetpack makes it really easy to kill yourself in a spectacular fashion, and sex robots have as much to do with their fictional counterparts as welding robots used in factories do.
I'd give 20 years, tops, before we have scifi-like sexbots. Since they'll likely come from Japan, they'll be shaped like six-year old girls with tentacles. Whether this is a plus or minus depends on your tastes, I suppose;).
Slashdot Mirror
Download the game from Pirate Bay now, and send money when possible. It's not that tough ;).
They don't know the values of several variables, but can nonetheless take them into account to arrive to a figure accurate to within a single percent. And you believe that. Epic fail.
That some scum might let their friends play on their console, or even sell it used. The nerve of that filth !
They could also be assembled from nanoparticle mist in the Steam version.
Well, since you're giving a negative review of the game here, it seems they were correct. Of course, you'd likely give a similar review even if had bought the game. That rises a philosophical question: if a single sold game means multiple lost sales, are you in fact selling a negative number of them ? Obviously, this would only be a concern for really shitty games, but then again, that includes most of them.
I've been wondering about this for a while now: why do the people who are so big on personal responsibility nonetheless require that someone else protects their property ? I mean, shouldn't that be your responsibility too, rather than something you'll call Big Brother to help you with ?
And the grandparent is completely within his rights to look down on them for choosing this option, call them crooks, and say they got what they fucking deserved. I agree with him: these bastards deserved to get their hands burned for making search engines less useful.
That's how it works: if you are an asshole, don't expect any sympathy from the people you are being an asshole to, even if you are a law-abiding asshole.
No, I'm acknowledging the ability to persuade people to give you power as indicative of intelligence. Is there any particular reason I shouldn't ?
Actually yes, it is, specifically the ability to schmooze well. Which, apparently, can compensate quite well for the lack of other abilities, as far as personal gain is concerned.
Of course it does. Creating, maintaining and using social connections for your advantage is presumably the very thing human intelligence evolved for.
Perhaps you should analyze that statement a bit closer. Are you not essentially using a threat of a perceived loss of social status as an argument there ? A bit of a cognitive dissonance between your words and actions, there :).
And while it might not indicate human worth, social standing does indeed hold tremendous importance to humans living in human society. Just see your own note about connections and how they can be used for great gain above.
Here in Finland, we have driving license "classes" for different vehicles, going from personal cars (class B, up to 3.5 tons) to trucks (class C) and busses (class D), and separate classes for towing large trailers (BE, CE and DE, respectively) with them.
Wouldn't that system - rating drivers, rather than whoever hires them - make much more sense ?
No, your local warlord is more than happy to do that instead: fight in his army against other warlords or die.
Anarchy sound nice, until you realize that Joe Gang Leader no longer has anyone keeping him from looting your house and gang-pressing you into service - unless you and your neighbours band together for mutual protection, at which point you no longer have anarchy, but rather the beginnings of a new government, which since it lacks any safeguards against it will become a dictatorship of whoever is best at gaining followers really fast.
Don't take my word for it, just look at any country where the government has collapsed. Somalia is far from Heaven.
So liberty means that the majority either starves or gets shot for the benefit of the minority. Not a bad analogy, actually...
I have to admit, that was a very good setup. Did you write the book, or do you simply get paid to astroturf it ?
Bush managed to get himself elected to be the most powerful human on Earth - twice. How does your theory explain that ?
And yet she seems to have quite a nice career and plenty of power too. Perhaps it is you who is fooled here ?
She isn't. It would be impossible for her to do so. Conveying information from one human to another is part of human species survival strategy, and arguably the one that has let us conquer the world.
You are wrong, it is a bad thing. Moral considerations aside, scams force people to be on guard against them, which not only consumes mental resources which could be used in a more productive fashion, but also makes it harder for legitimate businesses to get funding - after all, the possibility that they're a scam weights against giving them money. This is especially true for startups. This, in turn, makes us all poorer than we could be.
You are, however, right in that it's happening, even if I don't like it. That rises the question: how to stop it ?
Which is a bad thing because it is harder to resist an advert for something you're interested in than for random stuff. "Targeted advertizing" is another way of saying "hit the weak spot for massive damage".
The most common portrayal of the Devil in folk tales is as a salesman, trying to get people to buy something. The difference between modern day salesmen is that in those stories, the Devil usually delivered on his end of the bargain. That's something for all the "marketers" to thing about.
Yes, most people are indeed either over or under 25 years old. Even more shockingly, most people who are over 30 are also over 25. I think you're on to something here, and should get a federal research grant or approach venture capitalists to further research these amazing phenomenoms :).
Crimes, such as copyright violation ? Is that person's life defined by crime ?
Peddling to children is not victimless, due to children's assumed inability to make informed choices. It seems you agree, since you put the word victimless in quotes. Thus your example is inapplicable to the matter at hand.
It all comes down to this: is breaking laws inherently bad ?
So it's OK for me to sell you a deed to a piece of land I don't own ? I mean, you gave me your money voluntarily, so I have not deprived you of anything, right ?
Coming to think of it, since breaking a contract does not deprive anyone of life, liberty or property, I think we should annul all contract law ASAP.
And you need to understand that libertarianism and related ideologies lead to an aristocracy, which would screw up almost everyone. I, for one, do not want a return to the Dark Ages, where the local land-owner was a de facto despot due to being able to afford to hire an army, and the central government was too weak to stop him.
So the lesson here is to never, ever, under any circumstances or for any reason whatsoever, go to either China or the United States. Got it.
That's Lawful Evil - or perhaps Neutral Evil, if there's a prize to it. Chaotic Evil character would say "screw the Dark One" and kill Rand, then try to push the blame on Ishamael. Or, if he were a smarter CE, he'd try to get Rand and Dark One to kill each other.
Chaotic evil doesn't want riches, positions or favour - it just wants to watch the world burn.
Ba'alzamon is actually Rand's father, and in the final fight throws the Dark One into the Pit of Doom ?-)
And Mat shot first.
It's not going to happen. Having user-generated content risks some of it not being kid-friendly. Remember the hubalaloo about Hot Coffee ? Can't risk someone making a quest about retrieving the Seed of Fertility from Penis Mountain and delivering it to the Sacred Eggs in the Vagina Caverns. Not unless you want to risk facing the Guardians of Morality - their Moral Panic Incite is a terrifying special ability indeed. And I heard there's an even darker figure, a shadowy demagogue, behind them.
Or set it during the War of Power. You must lead your unit during the war; then, when the Dark One is imprisoned and the Breaking of the World begins, it becomes a desperate race to safe as much of the civilization as possible before it's destroyed by the maddened Aes Sedai. Slashdot archives must not perish !
Or make it "Populous: the Dark Side" - you play the Dark One and need to sow as much destruction as possible to feed your power, break free, and remake the world. I wonder what Jack Thompson would say about a game where you do get points for rape and murder ?-)
"Survival of the fittest" is a tautology. The very definition of fitness in the Darwinian sense is that you survive, so the saying is really saying: "That which survives survives".
And Darwinian evolution is indeed random, in that it is impossible to predict what kind of species will exist a billion years from now, nor would it been possible to take a look at Earth at the time of dinosaurs and predict that humans would evolve.
Jetpacks and sex robots already exist. It's simply that a jetpack makes it really easy to kill yourself in a spectacular fashion, and sex robots have as much to do with their fictional counterparts as welding robots used in factories do.
I'd give 20 years, tops, before we have scifi-like sexbots. Since they'll likely come from Japan, they'll be shaped like six-year old girls with tentacles. Whether this is a plus or minus depends on your tastes, I suppose ;).