I'm defining "the force of law" here as literally that, by the way - the exact effect of a law. One does not literally have to be a law-making entity to enact such force. If you are part of a corporate cabal with total control over a major part of the broadcast spectrum, then your decisions have the force of law in that domain.
This. This is what we are talking about, and we can discuss the many and varied ways that "corruption" has been bent by world leaders to mean "anti-me" until the chickens come home to roost. If you can't think of any examples, I'd suggest reading some early 20th century history.
Censorship isn't the tool of choice in that situation. Criminal codes deal with child predation far more effectively.
Don't know if you missed that part or what. Criminal action is typically considerably more involved than simple censorship, as it should be. Censors are involved at a much more facile level than criminal prosecutors, and have nothing to do with means of removing "the truly vile" from broadcast. Nobody is broadcasting child porn on mainstream channels, because nobody wants to get prosecuted. It is a trade conducted in secret because it is highly illegal in client states. You don't need a censor's office to act against it because law enforcement will do terrible things to anyone stupid enough to conduct the broadcast of child porn in the open.
The office of censor has nothing to do with removing child porn from circulation.
Censorship isn't the tool of choice in that situation. Criminal codes deal with child predation far more effectively. Censorship refers to a much broader activity based around filtering on a much broader spectrum. Should I not be allowed to view porn which portrays of-age actors as under-age? Should I be barred from viewing naked pictures of people my own age, no matter what age I might happen to be? Do family shots showing me in the nude at some ridiculously young age count as child pornography? In a typical censor context, the answer to all of the above might be a straight "yes". A criminal court would give different answers and would in general have considerably more difficulty deciding the matter, with just cause.
No. Not everyone has the power of censorship - it is inherently an asymmetric ability. Only those with a great deal of power can harness censorship, and often as not (in many cases, more often than not) the incentive will be towards using it for some other purpose than protecting innocents (assuming you believe the "protection" afforded by censorship is anything of the sort). Anyone can use a "hammer", even if the hammer in question is just a big hard rock, and the incentives are much more balanced between all users.
After all, if roleplay was all we wanted, with no "physical" consequences, why bother with a game? We can do that on IRC, or on a tabletop, for that matter.
I think this is a red herring - people want to roleplay in these settings; the very presence of RP servers is indicative of such, because their appearance is often preceded by a significant community outcry for RP-only servers.
You haven't talked much about the rewards for RP in the game you've described. What does it mean for a specialization (talent trees are similar but not identical in WoW, btw) to be "player-run"? What are the limitations on the custom areas, how large are they, and how much of interest occurs within them? Are they little more than guild houses, or are they areas requiring significant exploration and adventuring? Is there loot involved in each path? How different is it, and what are the mechanisms that ensure it is available through normal and specialized play? What other kinds of play focus on the specializations?
There's also the question of how representative this game is of the "interesting" MMOGs - the estimate of player count puts it at 3000, with a normal active load of 700 at a time, which falls below the size of a single server for most games, and that's not beginning to consider whether the systems for the game generate similar server-side processing loads to more mainstream games.
There are lore and unlock rewards in several other big MMOs, and some of them are tied to class (the death knight area in WoW is a natural example). This doesn't qualify in terms of the usual definition of "reward" in those games, however. Rewards typically refer specifically to cash and items given specifically for a behaviour. What you've described, although it sounds somewhat interesting on its own, does not really fit into that definition.
You don't really get any good RP there either. Simple reason: No reward for good RP.
It seems game designers eventually realize that providing a reward for an activity in a MMOG turns into that reward being the reason to do that activity. That would be absolutely counterproductive for RP servers. RP is a playstyle, and not providing rewards for it means the filter is towards those who prefer that playstyle rather than towards those who prefer to load up on loot. That's exactly the situation the designers want to set up, so they have no incentive to provide RP reward systems.
The couple of research articles on the topic I've read on the topic suggest that there aren't vast profits for the people doing most of the shooting. Drug dealing at the street level is apparently frequently a below-the-poverty-line activity. It is *just* possible that legalizing drugs would simply close off this line of work and force these individuals into a different line of criminal activity without affecting the level of violence involved significantly.
They have the right to some extent, but regulators certainly have every right to examine their role in the market (near-monopoly), the impact of the decision (may severely reduce electronic sales and market access for many small-press publishers and authors) and their reasons for censoring said content (no idea) (given the conservatism of the home nation, they probably won't examine it anyway).
Sorry, I forgot where I was posting. Would it satisfy you to say "a sun which, under many common natural color-filtered scenarios, leaves a trace of yellow light reflecting from the ground"? I mean, I know the sun's light is white, but that doesn't change the fact that it casts a yellow hue in many common circumstances.
More likely you simply don't do well with blue/white light. The light from incandescent bulbs is yellow, and can appear more powerful because it is perceived as warmer at an instinctual level for humans who have been using fire for tens of thousands of years. The illuminating power reaching your eyes can be the same without feeling the same.
SSD drives pay for themselves in power saving in about 5 years, well past their expected longevity.
The paper specifically states that they do not consider wear to be a factor in the case for or against SSD use, precisely because drive life is expected to be at least 5-100 years. What you said here is not a conclusion at all.
Luckily there's a nice ECC mechanism called (for historical reasons) "proofreading" and a similarly robust mechanism for restoring data called "printing".
I think many cities go to that kind of effort, at least in Canada. I contested a ticket for parking on the sidewalk for my sister. The officer attending showed me a photograph of the car she was driving with all 4 tires on the sidewalk. Case closed, albeit with a reduced fine and extended payment period.
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I'm defining "the force of law" here as literally that, by the way - the exact effect of a law. One does not literally have to be a law-making entity to enact such force. If you are part of a corporate cabal with total control over a major part of the broadcast spectrum, then your decisions have the force of law in that domain.
it has the force of law
This. This is what we are talking about, and we can discuss the many and varied ways that "corruption" has been bent by world leaders to mean "anti-me" until the chickens come home to roost. If you can't think of any examples, I'd suggest reading some early 20th century history.
Censorship isn't the tool of choice in that situation. Criminal codes deal with child predation far more effectively.
Don't know if you missed that part or what. Criminal action is typically considerably more involved than simple censorship, as it should be. Censors are involved at a much more facile level than criminal prosecutors, and have nothing to do with means of removing "the truly vile" from broadcast. Nobody is broadcasting child porn on mainstream channels, because nobody wants to get prosecuted. It is a trade conducted in secret because it is highly illegal in client states. You don't need a censor's office to act against it because law enforcement will do terrible things to anyone stupid enough to conduct the broadcast of child porn in the open.
The office of censor has nothing to do with removing child porn from circulation.
Censorship isn't the tool of choice in that situation. Criminal codes deal with child predation far more effectively. Censorship refers to a much broader activity based around filtering on a much broader spectrum. Should I not be allowed to view porn which portrays of-age actors as under-age? Should I be barred from viewing naked pictures of people my own age, no matter what age I might happen to be? Do family shots showing me in the nude at some ridiculously young age count as child pornography? In a typical censor context, the answer to all of the above might be a straight "yes". A criminal court would give different answers and would in general have considerably more difficulty deciding the matter, with just cause.
No. Not everyone has the power of censorship - it is inherently an asymmetric ability. Only those with a great deal of power can harness censorship, and often as not (in many cases, more often than not) the incentive will be towards using it for some other purpose than protecting innocents (assuming you believe the "protection" afforded by censorship is anything of the sort). Anyone can use a "hammer", even if the hammer in question is just a big hard rock, and the incentives are much more balanced between all users.
After all, if roleplay was all we wanted, with no "physical" consequences, why bother with a game? We can do that on IRC, or on a tabletop, for that matter.
I think this is a red herring - people want to roleplay in these settings; the very presence of RP servers is indicative of such, because their appearance is often preceded by a significant community outcry for RP-only servers.
You haven't talked much about the rewards for RP in the game you've described. What does it mean for a specialization (talent trees are similar but not identical in WoW, btw) to be "player-run"? What are the limitations on the custom areas, how large are they, and how much of interest occurs within them? Are they little more than guild houses, or are they areas requiring significant exploration and adventuring? Is there loot involved in each path? How different is it, and what are the mechanisms that ensure it is available through normal and specialized play? What other kinds of play focus on the specializations?
There's also the question of how representative this game is of the "interesting" MMOGs - the estimate of player count puts it at 3000, with a normal active load of 700 at a time, which falls below the size of a single server for most games, and that's not beginning to consider whether the systems for the game generate similar server-side processing loads to more mainstream games.
There are lore and unlock rewards in several other big MMOs, and some of them are tied to class (the death knight area in WoW is a natural example). This doesn't qualify in terms of the usual definition of "reward" in those games, however. Rewards typically refer specifically to cash and items given specifically for a behaviour. What you've described, although it sounds somewhat interesting on its own, does not really fit into that definition.
You don't really get any good RP there either. Simple reason: No reward for good RP.
It seems game designers eventually realize that providing a reward for an activity in a MMOG turns into that reward being the reason to do that activity. That would be absolutely counterproductive for RP servers. RP is a playstyle, and not providing rewards for it means the filter is towards those who prefer that playstyle rather than towards those who prefer to load up on loot. That's exactly the situation the designers want to set up, so they have no incentive to provide RP reward systems.
I think this is more like banning the plus sign for its vague resemblance to a swastika.
The couple of research articles on the topic I've read on the topic suggest that there aren't vast profits for the people doing most of the shooting. Drug dealing at the street level is apparently frequently a below-the-poverty-line activity. It is *just* possible that legalizing drugs would simply close off this line of work and force these individuals into a different line of criminal activity without affecting the level of violence involved significantly.
They have the right to some extent, but regulators certainly have every right to examine their role in the market (near-monopoly), the impact of the decision (may severely reduce electronic sales and market access for many small-press publishers and authors) and their reasons for censoring said content (no idea) (given the conservatism of the home nation, they probably won't examine it anyway).
If they were really quantum you could never be certain if you'd have syrup.
Who needs step 2 or step 4 to make a profit?
And never mind what happens to the country and its citizens!
Because that's what people are worried about seeing removed.
So that's a no.
Sorry, I forgot where I was posting. Would it satisfy you to say "a sun which, under many common natural color-filtered scenarios, leaves a trace of yellow light reflecting from the ground"? I mean, I know the sun's light is white, but that doesn't change the fact that it casts a yellow hue in many common circumstances.
The americium problem has already come up.
Using red/yellow fire and living under a yellow sun, that is.
More likely you simply don't do well with blue/white light. The light from incandescent bulbs is yellow, and can appear more powerful because it is perceived as warmer at an instinctual level for humans who have been using fire for tens of thousands of years. The illuminating power reaching your eyes can be the same without feeling the same.
SSD drives pay for themselves in power saving in about 5 years, well past their expected longevity.
The paper specifically states that they do not consider wear to be a factor in the case for or against SSD use, precisely because drive life is expected to be at least 5-100 years. What you said here is not a conclusion at all.
Come on now, Ballmer's not going to use chairs to plug holes. He's going to use developers, developers, developers.
Methinks you've missed the hundred or so embedded Windows error screens on TDWTF.
Luckily by that time we'll have been bred to be not only too stupid to care but Totally Fucking Delicious.
Luckily there's a nice ECC mechanism called (for historical reasons) "proofreading" and a similarly robust mechanism for restoring data called "printing".
I think many cities go to that kind of effort, at least in Canada. I contested a ticket for parking on the sidewalk for my sister. The officer attending showed me a photograph of the car she was driving with all 4 tires on the sidewalk. Case closed, albeit with a reduced fine and extended payment period.