Merriam adds new words every year to drum up new sales, it's an advertising gimmick. Most dictionaries are descriptivist, meaning they add whatever the fuck for whatever reason. They list how words are USED, not just what they mean. The downside of this is some semi-educated twat will point to entry 5 for "source"... and people become just a little bit dumber. English becomes a little bit less expressive.
Impact means collide, not change. Its meaning is independent of the ignorance of journalists and politicians who don't know the difference.
The 'languages evolve/change' bit is an excuse for the ignorant or by marketeers and MBAs to justify their buzzwords. Instead of correcting children when they make a mistake, we let it slide lest we hurt their feewings. A gross example of this is Ebonics. By not requiring black kids to learn English, they are automatically regarded as stupid. Condemned to what is effectively baby talk, because whites are either too evil to fund the schools properly, or too culturally thenthative to correct them. Obama would not be president if he hadn't mastered subject verb agreement.
It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. - George Orwell
Go back to making excuses for your ignorance and laziness.
i would love to switch to OO.o, but it just isn't up to what Word has been able to do for years. Maybe someday... but it's just not a competitor for the corporate world yet.
Assuming an unsupportive Administration, assuming the teachers are monitoring the kids on Saturday suspension and that we can't get anyone else to do it... yes.
Suspend students who use their cell phones during class. And not the weak ass day off from school suspension... i'm talking Saturday suspension picking up trash. Make it clear using their phones during class is forbidden. After losing a Saturday or two, they'll stop.
i'm planning on not allowing any kids i have (poor things) to have a cell phone or neural implant until they can pay for it, or i'd get them a phone that can only send and receive between family members.
i hope to get to try it. i also hope it doesn't have a Gygaxian power curve. Steep power curve = ganking/n00b st0mping. i hope the run player trade such that it doesn't cause gold farming and twinking.
As for niches, you're right on. EVE filled or created a niche, and did it well. It might not be as big as WoW, but it has a loyal base. The description of it never appealed to me, personally. WoW and it's ilk turn me off with the problems mentioned above. Once again i'll brag on my favorite niche game: PlanetSide.
Shallow Power Curve - My 6 year character gets the same Lasher rifle as your one day character. We have the same HP and amount of Stamina. The difference is that my high level character has more choices. We can both have a Lasher, but i switch to a tank. You could switch to the tank too, but you'd have to give up your Lasher.
No Grinding - You play to play. Leveling just happens as you go along. What you're doing has some bearing on the global battle, you don't have to go kill stuff just to get the next widgets. If you want to make levels... play. Join a squad/outfit and start a fight.
No Inane Quests - You might have to capture a remote tower, but once you have it, it's yours. It stays yours until an enemy comes and takes it. You can defend it if you want. But there's no one telling you to bring him Five Golden Rat Spleens.
Player Skill Matters - Eye hand coordination is a major factor. Most gamers have better coordination than i do, and i found my niche in the game. So even if you aren't an uber twitcher, you can still be competitive. Skilled players can hold their own against several n00bs. But the experienced player can still fall to the n00bs if their get their shit together. The shallow power curve means that no one is god like in relation to anyone else.
Pure PvP - There are a few automated turrets that shoot at you, but they are relatively ineffective. More of a deterrent really. Otherwise, if it's moving, it's another player.
No Gold Farming - There is no economy, no gold, no Chinese guys in sweatshops. If you want something, you go to the free vending machine. i suppose you could buy a high level character, but i've never heard of anyone doing that in 6 years. It wouldn't buy you much that you couldn't get on your own.
No Twinking (No player trade) - There's no player trade worth mentioning. Since you can get anything for free (if you have the certification for it), there is no economy. Supply is infinite, so price is 0. The only trading that happens might be for enemy equipment. Even so, it's a minor thing. "Oo, look i have a chain gun."
Team Work Rules the Day - Organized teams can beat larger disorganized teams. My outfit (guild/clan) isn't the biggest, but by using team speak and having a command structure, we can defeat enemy zerglings most of the time.
Strategy Rules the Day - Having the twitch will win the battle, but not the war. The empire that allocates its power wisely usually wins. Knowing where to attack or defend is the other half of the battle.
No Gygaxian Straitjacket Classes - You can unlearn one certification per 6 hours. If you don't like the sniper rifle, unlearn it, and buy something else.
They built it for Asian players and are translating into Western culture and language. As of the last round of Beta, all the voices are still Japanese (sounding). So the female avatars all sound like 13 year old girls. i suspect that will change soon. There's also a rather anime style to the game.
"Fuck no. Nobody wants to play with someone who constantly tries to bribe the DM. And nobody wants to play with a DM who can be bribed."
Agreed. Well... i don't like those. Some people might not care as long as they can exploit the system too.
"WoW everyone is equal"
Unless you have money/time to burn. Gold farming and twinking are rampant in WoW. Until they have a server where player trade is forbidden, no... it's not equal. Then there is the matter of the Gygaxian power curve that allows instagibbing with no chance of survival no matter what. If i'm X levels above you, nothing you do will save you. i don't need skill to do that either... all i need is my mommy's credit card or having no life. You are right that it is the working business model... it's a license to print money.
If you want to see something more equal, look at PlanetSide. It's an MFPS with a shallow power curve. Skill, strategy and teamwork rule the day. A skilled player can hold off against 3 to 1 odds or worse. There's no n00bstomping. A day old character can go toe to toe with my 6 year character. Your Lasher is just as powerful as my Lasher. My experience might give me an advantage in that i know how to use the Lash effect around corners, but you can learn that too. It's an FPS which means that eye hand coordination is a factor, however i SUCK at FPSes. i can't aim, drive or fly for shit. But i have friends who do all of those very well. i found a niche as a cloaker (invisible saboteur) where that doesn't matter. It's all about trade offs. i'm mostly invisible, but i have no armor. You might have heavy armor, but you're slow. There's no grinding and it's PURE PvP. No inane quests for 5 golden rat spleens. What you conquer does not reset at the end of the round, it stays yours for as long as you defend it.
A condition of disappointment with a sequel caused by a missing the feelings provoked by the first movie. In the case of the Matrix, we were amazed by the virtual camera and wire-fu and the deep story over a hard action movie. By the time the sequels arrived we had seen virtual camera and wire-fu played to death by commercials, sit coms, cartoons and other movies. We also saw the Matrix several times in the theater and on video before the sequels. When i first saw The Matrix and Trinity did that run up the wall thing, i nearly jumped out of my seat. By part two, we were seeing no new awesomeness (i think they toned down the wire-fu and virtual camera for the last two), just a story unfolding. Also, in the first movie, we are learning about the Matrix WITH Neo. In the following films, it's not new to him or us. Solution? 'Splosions!
This of course fed into Haterism. The people who didn't get The Matrix, or who insisted on their misery having company. If they failed to enjoy it, they're going to try to suck the joy out of it for EVERYONE! They took this a chance to gloat, leaving the people liked the first movie with the choice of agreeing (trading your own experience in favor of the Haters) or being defensive.
You were bothered by humans as batteries, but not the jack into the matrix and load up some kung-fu? Or that humans could live anywhere near the core... without being found and having time to build a city? The Warshowski(sp?) Siblings should have gone with 'humans as CPUs'. That would have made way more sense. But bringing you brain to the theater is usually more trouble than it is worth.
i find it helpful to not think of films as good or bad, either you got something for your time, or you thought you were too cool to enjoy it. i don't understand the benefit of NOT enjoying a movie, aside from looking down on those who did. Sit down, shut up, eat popcorn and enjoy the ride!
---
Closer to the topic:
SOE had a hand in buggering my favorite game, PlanetSide. Some choices on their part hurt the game. i'm still having a great time playing though.
i'd get rid of TLDs altogether. There's no reason for allowing WhiteHouse.gov and WhiteHouse.com. WhiteHouse should lead to whoever registered it first unless there is a trademark involved. Only Coca Cola should be able to own CocaCola or c0cac0la.
Wow. i'm about as pedantic as they come, but this is just silly.
You've hit the nail on the head. One tenth the size and ten times smaller mean the same thing, neither is confusing. The latter might even be easier for both listener and speaker when you deal with non-round numbers. It's easier to think in whole numbers than fractions.
Together, the major companies are a monopoly in that they don't allow competition. They're effectively one company, they all offer the same crappy service and weak sauce features for the SAME PRICE. They agree between each other how deep to stick it in our asses. Try paying less than 30$ a month for a cell phone service.
i'd LOVE to have a service that charges me based on my use. i make two or three calls a WEEK, all to my girlfriend and all about 1 minute long. "I'm ready", "OK, i'm on my way". i send a text message every two or three days. i'm not a twelve year old girl who has to yammer constantly. Now that i have an iPhone provided my my employer, my usage has changed little. It's not a matter of cost anymore, it's just how i use the tool. When i was paying, i had over 10,000 rollover minutes from a minimal plan. Fuck that. It was a huge waste of money. Here's where you're make another purely argumentative comment like "but you didn't have to have a cell phone".
The pay-as-you-go phones are set up so that you have to keep paying to keep your number. The amount you could spend on a busy week can quickly outstrip that of a monthly plan. It wouldn't kill them to offer a monthly plan for 10$ a month.
Other countries have more competition so they strive to offer better services, more services and better prices. Japan's cell phone system puts ours to shame. They pay less and "get more". We can attribute some of that to Japanese technophilia, but most of it comes from competition. As much as the US obsesses about competition and free market, we don't do it. Powerful companies buy politicians to make laws so that no one else can play.
1. Build an OS that needs to run on a few hundred mobos 2.... in combination with dozens of CPUs 3.... run on out of date (slow) hardware 4.... run a thousand or so applications you have no control over 5.... be used by a billion or so people 6.... play nice with hundreds of peripherals 7.... be able to play nice with other OSes and across the net 8.... will be under constant attack by many many many crackers because it's the tall poppy 9. ??? 10. have constant patches to address these issues within budget and time frame 11. people will still bitch!!!
i figure Obama isn't black, as black suggests being a descendant of slaves. He's a child of an immigrant who arrived way after slavery ended. He's closer to something like a dual citizen African-American. As you point out, he was raised in an affluent mostly white community. i'm as white a sour cream, but his upbringing was way more "privileged" than mine. Obama is culturally white, afaict. Hand a white baby to a poor black woman in the ghetto and that child will have a rough time of it, despite their color. Race is less of an issue in one's outcome in life than class. Being born into a poor family of any race is a bigger hindrance than being born brown. Accepting victim status is even worse. Once you start thinking of yourself as a victim, you surrender control/responsibility/power to those who hurt you. It's much harder to overcome a problem while you think it's someone else's fault or responsibility to fix. Granted, there are some fuckers out there who will ruin you for any number of reasons. But until you chose to be a survivor, rather than a victim, you're helpless.
i think it's wrong to treat minorities as children who simultaneously expect protection from their supposed oppressors AND to demand equality. Children get away with it because we don't expect them to live up to adult responsibilities. We give them protection and assistance, but we don't give them equal status to adults. If you're treated like a child after childhood, you'll be a child forever.
It would be far better to work against the root causes of poverty. If we could fix those problems (interest, inflation, fractional reserve ratios of 12 to 1 etc), we could get rid or seriously reduce "entitlement" programs, which would give racist whites less to bitch about. i'm frustrated to no end that so many conservatives bitch about entitlement programs for brown/poor people, while ignoring the programs that benefit the rich. The latter are vastly more costly. For what it cost to bail AIG we could have educated a generation. Meanwhile the root causes remain and we'll have to do this all over again./voted for Obama//there i go, bringing class into it again/way off topic
Slashdot Mirror
He has RAS Syndrome!
"Langwidges morfph get ust 2 it"?
Merriam adds new words every year to drum up new sales, it's an advertising gimmick. Most dictionaries are descriptivist, meaning they add whatever the fuck for whatever reason. They list how words are USED, not just what they mean. The downside of this is some semi-educated twat will point to entry 5 for "source"... and people become just a little bit dumber. English becomes a little bit less expressive.
Impact means collide, not change. Its meaning is independent of the ignorance of journalists and politicians who don't know the difference.
The 'languages evolve/change' bit is an excuse for the ignorant or by marketeers and MBAs to justify their buzzwords. Instead of correcting children when they make a mistake, we let it slide lest we hurt their feewings. A gross example of this is Ebonics. By not requiring black kids to learn English, they are automatically regarded as stupid. Condemned to what is effectively baby talk, because whites are either too evil to fund the schools properly, or too culturally thenthative to correct them. Obama would not be president if he hadn't mastered subject verb agreement.
It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or
hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
- George Orwell
Go back to making excuses for your ignorance and laziness.
And stay off my lawn.
Source isn't a verb. Crowdsource isn't a word. It's linguisticing clusterfuckery.
Thinktank aims to take advantage of... to use.... *groan*.
English ownership's so many precise and eloquent cloudwords there's littleish reason to recreation them or inventize more at.
This should be modded Insightful.
__
i would love to switch to OO.o, but it just isn't up to what Word has been able to do for years. Maybe someday... but it's just not a competitor for the corporate world yet.
This isn't a new bacteria! This creature was invented by God and was on the Ark with Noah six thousand years ago!
Rover captured image of possible meteorite. /hates passive voice //won't read your whiny ass reply, save your time
i'm going the The Shack to buy an antenna so i can watch SyFy.
RAS Syndrome strikes again!
RAS Syndrome stikes again!
How many times to Jesse and Oprah have to tell you? Only WHITES can be racist!
And only men can be sexist.
Assuming an unsupportive Administration, assuming the teachers are monitoring the kids on Saturday suspension and that we can't get anyone else to do it... yes.
Suspend students who use their cell phones during class. And not the weak ass day off from school suspension... i'm talking Saturday suspension picking up trash. Make it clear using their phones during class is forbidden. After losing a Saturday or two, they'll stop.
i'm planning on not allowing any kids i have (poor things) to have a cell phone or neural implant until they can pay for it, or i'd get them a phone that can only send and receive between family members.
We'd have no right to complain if they did.
i hope to get to try it. i also hope it doesn't have a Gygaxian power curve. Steep power curve = ganking/n00b st0mping. i hope the run player trade such that it doesn't cause gold farming and twinking.
As for niches, you're right on. EVE filled or created a niche, and did it well. It might not be as big as WoW, but it has a loyal base. The description of it never appealed to me, personally. WoW and it's ilk turn me off with the problems mentioned above. Once again i'll brag on my favorite niche game: PlanetSide.
Shallow Power Curve - My 6 year character gets the same Lasher rifle as your one day character. We have the same HP and amount of Stamina. The difference is that my high level character has more choices. We can both have a Lasher, but i switch to a tank. You could switch to the tank too, but you'd have to give up your Lasher.
No Grinding - You play to play. Leveling just happens as you go along. What you're doing has some bearing on the global battle, you don't have to go kill stuff just to get the next widgets. If you want to make levels... play. Join a squad/outfit and start a fight.
No Inane Quests - You might have to capture a remote tower, but once you have it, it's yours. It stays yours until an enemy comes and takes it. You can defend it if you want. But there's no one telling you to bring him Five Golden Rat Spleens.
Player Skill Matters - Eye hand coordination is a major factor. Most gamers have better coordination than i do, and i found my niche in the game. So even if you aren't an uber twitcher, you can still be competitive. Skilled players can hold their own against several n00bs. But the experienced player can still fall to the n00bs if their get their shit together. The shallow power curve means that no one is god like in relation to anyone else.
Pure PvP - There are a few automated turrets that shoot at you, but they are relatively ineffective. More of a deterrent really. Otherwise, if it's moving, it's another player.
No Gold Farming - There is no economy, no gold, no Chinese guys in sweatshops. If you want something, you go to the free vending machine. i suppose you could buy a high level character, but i've never heard of anyone doing that in 6 years. It wouldn't buy you much that you couldn't get on your own.
No Twinking (No player trade) - There's no player trade worth mentioning. Since you can get anything for free (if you have the certification for it), there is no economy. Supply is infinite, so price is 0. The only trading that happens might be for enemy equipment. Even so, it's a minor thing. "Oo, look i have a chain gun."
Team Work Rules the Day - Organized teams can beat larger disorganized teams. My outfit (guild/clan) isn't the biggest, but by using team speak and having a command structure, we can defeat enemy zerglings most of the time.
Strategy Rules the Day - Having the twitch will win the battle, but not the war. The empire that allocates its power wisely usually wins. Knowing where to attack or defend is the other half of the battle.
No Gygaxian Straitjacket Classes - You can unlearn one certification per 6 hours. If you don't like the sniper rifle, unlearn it, and buy something else.
They built it for Asian players and are translating into Western culture and language. As of the last round of Beta, all the voices are still Japanese (sounding). So the female avatars all sound like 13 year old girls. i suspect that will change soon. There's also a rather anime style to the game.
"Fuck no. Nobody wants to play with someone who constantly tries to bribe the DM. And nobody wants to play with a DM who can be bribed."
Agreed. Well... i don't like those. Some people might not care as long as they can exploit the system too.
"WoW everyone is equal"
Unless you have money/time to burn. Gold farming and twinking are rampant in WoW. Until they have a server where player trade is forbidden, no... it's not equal. Then there is the matter of the Gygaxian power curve that allows instagibbing with no chance of survival no matter what. If i'm X levels above you, nothing you do will save you. i don't need skill to do that either... all i need is my mommy's credit card or having no life. You are right that it is the working business model... it's a license to print money.
If you want to see something more equal, look at PlanetSide. It's an MFPS with a shallow power curve. Skill, strategy and teamwork rule the day. A skilled player can hold off against 3 to 1 odds or worse. There's no n00bstomping. A day old character can go toe to toe with my 6 year character. Your Lasher is just as powerful as my Lasher. My experience might give me an advantage in that i know how to use the Lash effect around corners, but you can learn that too. It's an FPS which means that eye hand coordination is a factor, however i SUCK at FPSes. i can't aim, drive or fly for shit. But i have friends who do all of those very well. i found a niche as a cloaker (invisible saboteur) where that doesn't matter. It's all about trade offs. i'm mostly invisible, but i have no armor. You might have heavy armor, but you're slow. There's no grinding and it's PURE PvP. No inane quests for 5 golden rat spleens. What you conquer does not reset at the end of the round, it stays yours for as long as you defend it.
Sequelitis: Irritation of the sequel(s).
A condition of disappointment with a sequel caused by a missing the feelings provoked by the first movie. In the case of the Matrix, we were amazed by the virtual camera and wire-fu and the deep story over a hard action movie. By the time the sequels arrived we had seen virtual camera and wire-fu played to death by commercials, sit coms, cartoons and other movies. We also saw the Matrix several times in the theater and on video before the sequels. When i first saw The Matrix and Trinity did that run up the wall thing, i nearly jumped out of my seat. By part two, we were seeing no new awesomeness (i think they toned down the wire-fu and virtual camera for the last two), just a story unfolding. Also, in the first movie, we are learning about the Matrix WITH Neo. In the following films, it's not new to him or us. Solution? 'Splosions!
This of course fed into Haterism. The people who didn't get The Matrix, or who insisted on their misery having company. If they failed to enjoy it, they're going to try to suck the joy out of it for EVERYONE! They took this a chance to gloat, leaving the people liked the first movie with the choice of agreeing (trading your own experience in favor of the Haters) or being defensive.
You were bothered by humans as batteries, but not the jack into the matrix and load up some kung-fu? Or that humans could live anywhere near the core... without being found and having time to build a city? The Warshowski(sp?) Siblings should have gone with 'humans as CPUs'. That would have made way more sense. But bringing you brain to the theater is usually more trouble than it is worth.
i find it helpful to not think of films as good or bad, either you got something for your time, or you thought you were too cool to enjoy it. i don't understand the benefit of NOT enjoying a movie, aside from looking down on those who did. Sit down, shut up, eat popcorn and enjoy the ride!
---
Closer to the topic:
SOE had a hand in buggering my favorite game, PlanetSide. Some choices on their part hurt the game. i'm still having a great time playing though.
This isn't terrorism you twat. It's not even a hate crime. It's trespassing and vandalism.
i'd get rid of TLDs altogether. There's no reason for allowing WhiteHouse.gov and WhiteHouse.com. WhiteHouse should lead to whoever registered it first unless there is a trademark involved. Only Coca Cola should be able to own CocaCola or c0cac0la.
Wow. i'm about as pedantic as they come, but this is just silly.
You've hit the nail on the head. One tenth the size and ten times smaller mean the same thing, neither is confusing. The latter might even be easier for both listener and speaker when you deal with non-round numbers. It's easier to think in whole numbers than fractions.
2nd Law of Thermal Dynamics.
Things go from together/nice to dissipated/shitty unless you continuously maintain and improve. This is true of relationships, CARS, houses....
All kidding aside, that bit broke my suspension of disbelief before even picking up the book. Ambrose? Jerusalem? Beautiful AND loving???
Together, the major companies are a monopoly in that they don't allow competition. They're effectively one company, they all offer the same crappy service and weak sauce features for the SAME PRICE. They agree between each other how deep to stick it in our asses. Try paying less than 30$ a month for a cell phone service.
i'd LOVE to have a service that charges me based on my use. i make two or three calls a WEEK, all to my girlfriend and all about 1 minute long. "I'm ready", "OK, i'm on my way". i send a text message every two or three days. i'm not a twelve year old girl who has to yammer constantly. Now that i have an iPhone provided my my employer, my usage has changed little. It's not a matter of cost anymore, it's just how i use the tool. When i was paying, i had over 10,000 rollover minutes from a minimal plan. Fuck that. It was a huge waste of money. Here's where you're make another purely argumentative comment like "but you didn't have to have a cell phone".
The pay-as-you-go phones are set up so that you have to keep paying to keep your number. The amount you could spend on a busy week can quickly outstrip that of a monthly plan. It wouldn't kill them to offer a monthly plan for 10$ a month.
Other countries have more competition so they strive to offer better services, more services and better prices. Japan's cell phone system puts ours to shame. They pay less and "get more". We can attribute some of that to Japanese technophilia, but most of it comes from competition. As much as the US obsesses about competition and free market, we don't do it. Powerful companies buy politicians to make laws so that no one else can play.
1. Build an OS that needs to run on a few hundred mobos ... in combination with dozens of CPUs ... run on out of date (slow) hardware ... run a thousand or so applications you have no control over ... be used by a billion or so people ... play nice with hundreds of peripherals ... be able to play nice with other OSes and across the net ... will be under constant attack by many many many crackers because it's the tall poppy
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. ???
10. have constant patches to address these issues within budget and time frame
11. people will still bitch!!!
i figure Obama isn't black, as black suggests being a descendant of slaves. He's a child of an immigrant who arrived way after slavery ended. He's closer to something like a dual citizen African-American. As you point out, he was raised in an affluent mostly white community. i'm as white a sour cream, but his upbringing was way more "privileged" than mine. Obama is culturally white, afaict. Hand a white baby to a poor black woman in the ghetto and that child will have a rough time of it, despite their color. Race is less of an issue in one's outcome in life than class. Being born into a poor family of any race is a bigger hindrance than being born brown. Accepting victim status is even worse. Once you start thinking of yourself as a victim, you surrender control/responsibility/power to those who hurt you. It's much harder to overcome a problem while you think it's someone else's fault or responsibility to fix. Granted, there are some fuckers out there who will ruin you for any number of reasons. But until you chose to be a survivor, rather than a victim, you're helpless.
i think it's wrong to treat minorities as children who simultaneously expect protection from their supposed oppressors AND to demand equality. Children get away with it because we don't expect them to live up to adult responsibilities. We give them protection and assistance, but we don't give them equal status to adults. If you're treated like a child after childhood, you'll be a child forever.
It would be far better to work against the root causes of poverty. If we could fix those problems (interest, inflation, fractional reserve ratios of 12 to 1 etc), we could get rid or seriously reduce "entitlement" programs, which would give racist whites less to bitch about. i'm frustrated to no end that so many conservatives bitch about entitlement programs for brown/poor people, while ignoring the programs that benefit the rich. The latter are vastly more costly. For what it cost to bail AIG we could have educated a generation. Meanwhile the root causes remain and we'll have to do this all over again. /voted for Obama //there i go, bringing class into it again /way off topic