I thought they should have put a earth "death counter" on the solo game, so the longer you take gathering war assets the more people on earth die, which would make sense. I mean I couldn't help thinking "I wonder how many people just died on earth while I was fetching cheeseburgers for some alien side quest"... Might balance the play for re-playability of war assets VS earth survivors. Could produce a variety of endings that way as well...
This went on for a few months? This still happens today. It has been going on for years. Online the difference has come together more, because they don't actually usually sell for what is printed on the cover... in a brick and mortar store however you are still paying the 10.99 Canadian over the 6.99 US... which is just a cash grab as the Canada dollar is, and has been at par for some time. Magazines have the same problem though easier to adjust, funny they haven't either... Ticks me off.
Do they constantly seem to come up with calculations that seemingly don't make any sense, and then just randomly without any evidence other then their own calculation that doesn't make any sense, explain it away as something else.
Oh that's dark matter... or super fluid... or nomad planets... Maybe there is an invisible bearded magical being out there that needs to go on a diet? Have you thought of that yet?
I have heard that there are plenty of rare earths in the US, only the extraction of which is very dirty in the pollute the heck out of your environment kind of way, and that the US is more than happy to buy their stock from China and let them poison their own country. (and of course the environmental concerns would raise the costs to make the US option not feasible)
Corporations run US government. US government make laws to enable Corporate profits. They Extradite anyone who breaks said laws. They Pressure any country that doesn't support those laws. They Throw all guilty into massive privatized prison system. They Use Super Prisons as source of slave labor. They Use slave labor to kill all unions and competition. Arrest the poor, and unemployed, who cannot afford to be free.
The year is 2062, you are either part of the wealthy elite "Managers" who make up 1% of the population or one of the slave-peons serving a lifetime prison sentence for circumventing DRM. But out of the pens there will arise a hero, one that refuses to submit to his corporate masters or their thugs. His name is John Galt. Who is John Galt?
They get around this by paying royalties on profit to the patent company.
Bottom line, R&D done by the west sold to the west is too cost prohibitive for most other countries. This is not limited to drugs or R&D either. This is why a copy of music, DVD, or Windows 7, or whatever costs X in the USA, and Y in say India. They simply cannot afford X, period. Those that due make up maybe 0.000000001% of the country (3 people apparently). So the reduce the price.
In this particular case the Government is allowing another company to make a generic version of the drug to sell for a profit within India (which breaks a patent really), so long as 6% of their profit goes to Bayer the company that did the R&D and has the Patent to the brand name drug. This way Indians get to have drugs and Bayer still gets paid. Otherwise realistically Indians do not get drugs and Bayer makes nothing anyway.
The only risky part of this business, is if people start "exporting" the generic drug out of the region and into a region that Bayer does sell the expensive brand name drug, in which case they would most certainly loose money (figuratively sort of) and market share. This would be the same as that DVD from China coming back to the US for sale. At least they could try to region code the things etc... Drugs, not so much.
If history has taught us nothing, if you make en expensive drug and divergent markets there will be smuggling. At least in this case the profiteers can have a bit of moral high ground as they might be saving western poor peoples lives with cheap cancer treatments, VS feeding some addicts habit. Anyway should be interesting to see what happens. This already happens to a certain extent, however 97% is a heavy savings, and temptation for smugglers.
Although I agree with the outcome. It is simply common sense. Prices at a brick and mortar store will be higher, you are paying for the convenience of buying something immediately. Online prices will of course be lower, they don't have the overhead, however you have to wait days, weeks for your order, as well as pay for shipping.
So no I don't feel bad for the dinosaurs of industry that think they can legislate profits. @%$#^! you. If the market says we want more online stores than brick and mortar, then so be it. Quit saying the market is king on one hand and with the other lobbying government to legislate monopoly powers to manipulate the market!
I wouldn't go that far, at least in Canada. Regulators walk a fine line between the public and industry. Usually they have one master (whatever the political party of the day is, which can change things), and two focuses one of the public and one of the industry. Usually the idea behind the industry support is to ensure that they are strong and vital, so that the industry is available to the public, producing jobs, services, goods or whatever. The public of course is looking out for what is it the best interest of the public.
In the case of CRTC they have defiantly crossed that line, and stayed crossed for some time. The same can't be said of all regulators, as there are a ton that do very good work across Canada. The trouble with some however is how they hire their staff. This is the same problem of the lobbyists going back and forth between the US political parties. The CRTC would argue that they are simply hiring those with the most skill and knowlege in telecommunications, which of course ALL come from Bell or Rogers more less. They all come from the same side of the fence. They all have likely the same perspective and outlook of what is in the best interest of Canadians. So I think they probably believe they are doing the right thing. It has to do with the systemic hiring practices, if got some new blood in there I am sure it would make all the difference. Have some contesting opinions, etc... As as much as they might like to make the argument that being an executive at both Bell and Rogers makes you perfect for the job as the chair of the CTRC, one could also make the pretty good argument that there is a conflict of interest. Because really to do the jobs at CRTC, you need some legal or policy back ground, some idea how the industry works and is set up (which can be taught), and some technical knowlege. You don't need all that much technical knowlege either. I guess what I am saying is all your staff shouldn't be coming from private industry you regulate.
So anyway, while yes the CRTC is in need of reform, I don't think it is fair to say that all regulators are in bed with industry, as I don't believe it.
Also when an yellow bulger dragon from the planet rubelon who is friends with a vulture riding kitten with two heads tells you to quit drinking, you quit drinking.
Um, I am pretty sure that might be the definition of insane, when people act counter to what might be the accepted norms of self preservation and interest. Which was the argument I was making.
Some day Xbox or PS will sell a multiplayer game, but simulate all the other players. When no one notices, I will say we have achieved the pinnacle of gaming AI. Of course we may have to train an AI to chronically swear and make racist slurs, but if that is what progress takes so be it!
When I worked as a coop student at Acadia University, the old room filling UNIX server which the tie dyed t-shirt wearing balding beard toting admins would turn the lights out and show all the pretty flickering lights was called "Gandalf"....
Insane might be better. Observance to logic isn't a big thing for crazy religious nutjobs.
One can only hope that their love for power, money, position, and breathing are more important than whatever crazy nutball religious idea is currently passing behind their eyeballs.
Though I have heard that it is all just a big political act to keep the religious hardliners in the public and positions of power happy and contented, and that action isn't really all that likely.
Question is how much faith are you willing to put into all of that considering the consequences.
Soooo, you built a CPU that barely runs faster than the previous generation CPU. However the integrated graphics are 20-50% better.
Integrated graphics for anything other than the most basic tasks are horrible by several degrees of magnitude. You can buy a 130$ discrete video card that will deliver 1000% time graphics.
In real world terms this is like taking a game that runs at say 12FPS and making it run at 14-18 FPS which is still unplayable. More realistically you will take a game that is completely unplayable because the graphics won't even run, to making it barely run, but still being unplayable.
The 30W less of heat is more interesting, may make for a better overclock or at least safer.
I guess this does advance the bar for integrated graphics, which academically is good. Realistically however no one will care for years, as the people that upgrade to the newest hardware are also the same people NOT using integrated graphics at all.
Good I suppose for that laptop market, though I didn't see a distinction here between desktop and mobile versions of the chip, so I assume they tested the desktop version.
As for the AMD quip, quit being stupid. So you buy a CPU solution that has slightly better integrated GPU but gets its ass handed to it in CPU? Makes sense.
There used to be a great website based in the Au that did to 100 and 200 book lists for Science fiction and Fantasy. It also did movies and TV shows. Later on it used to allow for user voting. I tried to find it on the interweb just now and couldn't find it. I am not sure if that is because it is gone, or if there are just too much other crap out there getting better Google rankings. Anyway it used to be a wonderful resource. I pretty much would go through it and just pick out the ones I haven't read yet. Most were older books. In my opinion much of the best science fiction was the older stuff, most of the new stuff is garbage (and has been for awhile). Less people actually writing and more people selling. Few exceptions out there, I really liked John Scalzi's "Old Mans War".
Anyway I have seen some good recommendations so far. I would second Stephen R.R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series for fantasy, as well as Joe Haldman's Forever War, as well as Canticle for Leibowitz. Dune was great, but I think most people would agree with that, however Frank Herbert has a ton of other books, most of which are also quite good. There are plenty of classics out there, one I was surprised to see not mentioned yet is Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury. I have Day of the Triffids on my nightstand right now to read, and Wrinkle in Time is also a classic. Anything by Ursla L. Guin like "Left Had of Darkness" is also good.
The easy thing about older good science fiction is that books used to be a lot shorter back then. You can destroy a lot of good books in a short period of time. The not so easy part, is that unless you want to pay a bunch for new copies from a Chapters or an Amazon, it is HARD to find a lot of these at a used book store. I have YET to find a Stanilaw Lem book anywhere. People tend to get rid of the crap, and keep the good. So some authors you just don't see all that often as people tend to hold on to them (likely because they are favorite books also). Some older but not ancient fantasy might be the Terry Broks Sword of Shanara series, or David Eddings The Elenium and The Tamuli. I can list a ton of Fantasy, but none of it is particularly old. I like my old science fiction a lot more than old Fantasy. David Brin was also a favorite from the Uplift War series.
Much depends like anything on personal preference. Some of Heinlein's stuff is really good, however sometimes I get sort of sick of some of his protagonists, same with Ben Bova. Some are a bit to over the top Anne Ryndian caricatures. Anyway there is a host of great old Science fiction out there, it is just a matter of finding it. As I said it is too bad I can't find that website, as it was a great resource. Also Aldus Huxley and George Orwell, Phillip K. Dick. Used to read a lot of Pohl, Sagan, and Asimov...
Depends on what you define as old and obscure also. Anything by Neal Stevenson is good, Snow Crash being one of the highlights or Cryptonomicon, but neither are particularly old to me. Particularly if you are mentioning ones like E.R. Eddison The Worm Ouroboros which was done in the early 1900's. Which by the way I hated. I only got through a few chapters before I threw it down in disgust. Reading the old englishly phrasing drove me batty. If you want REAL old science fiction, the two big ones of course are Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
Anyway that should give you a lot to chew on for awhile.
Slashdot Mirror
Nikola Tesla VS Thomas Edison
FIGHT!
I thought they should have put a earth "death counter" on the solo game, so the longer you take gathering war assets the more people on earth die, which would make sense. I mean I couldn't help thinking "I wonder how many people just died on earth while I was fetching cheeseburgers for some alien side quest"... Might balance the play for re-playability of war assets VS earth survivors. Could produce a variety of endings that way as well...
Um what planet are you on?
This went on for a few months? This still happens today. It has been going on for years. Online the difference has come together more, because they don't actually usually sell for what is printed on the cover... in a brick and mortar store however you are still paying the 10.99 Canadian over the 6.99 US... which is just a cash grab as the Canada dollar is, and has been at par for some time. Magazines have the same problem though easier to adjust, funny they haven't either... Ticks me off.
Do they constantly seem to come up with calculations that seemingly don't make any sense, and then just randomly without any evidence other then their own calculation that doesn't make any sense, explain it away as something else.
Oh that's dark matter... or super fluid... or nomad planets... Maybe there is an invisible bearded magical being out there that needs to go on a diet? Have you thought of that yet?
I have heard that there are plenty of rare earths in the US, only the extraction of which is very dirty in the pollute the heck out of your environment kind of way, and that the US is more than happy to buy their stock from China and let them poison their own country. (and of course the environmental concerns would raise the costs to make the US option not feasible)
Mandatory quota based training no doubt. Click, click, click, done. Manager gets a gold star.
Corporations run US government.
US government make laws to enable Corporate profits.
They Extradite anyone who breaks said laws.
They Pressure any country that doesn't support those laws.
They Throw all guilty into massive privatized prison system.
They Use Super Prisons as source of slave labor.
They Use slave labor to kill all unions and competition.
Arrest the poor, and unemployed, who cannot afford to be free.
The year is 2062, you are either part of the wealthy elite "Managers" who make up 1% of the population or one of the slave-peons serving a lifetime prison sentence for circumventing DRM. But out of the pens there will arise a hero, one that refuses to submit to his corporate masters or their thugs. His name is John Galt. Who is John Galt?
They get around this by paying royalties on profit to the patent company.
Bottom line, R&D done by the west sold to the west is too cost prohibitive for most other countries. This is not limited to drugs or R&D either. This is why a copy of music, DVD, or Windows 7, or whatever costs X in the USA, and Y in say India. They simply cannot afford X, period. Those that due make up maybe 0.000000001% of the country (3 people apparently). So the reduce the price.
In this particular case the Government is allowing another company to make a generic version of the drug to sell for a profit within India (which breaks a patent really), so long as 6% of their profit goes to Bayer the company that did the R&D and has the Patent to the brand name drug. This way Indians get to have drugs and Bayer still gets paid. Otherwise realistically Indians do not get drugs and Bayer makes nothing anyway.
The only risky part of this business, is if people start "exporting" the generic drug out of the region and into a region that Bayer does sell the expensive brand name drug, in which case they would most certainly loose money (figuratively sort of) and market share. This would be the same as that DVD from China coming back to the US for sale. At least they could try to region code the things etc... Drugs, not so much.
If history has taught us nothing, if you make en expensive drug and divergent markets there will be smuggling. At least in this case the profiteers can have a bit of moral high ground as they might be saving western poor peoples lives with cheap cancer treatments, VS feeding some addicts habit. Anyway should be interesting to see what happens. This already happens to a certain extent, however 97% is a heavy savings, and temptation for smugglers.
Not that I am Swiss or anything...
However it does show the legitimate and responsible use of power by the "Pirate Party". Hopefully this will translate elsewhere.
"...a majority of 56%"
Still sounds pretty divided to me.
Although I agree with the outcome. It is simply common sense. Prices at a brick and mortar store will be higher, you are paying for the convenience of buying something immediately. Online prices will of course be lower, they don't have the overhead, however you have to wait days, weeks for your order, as well as pay for shipping.
So no I don't feel bad for the dinosaurs of industry that think they can legislate profits. @%$#^! you. If the market says we want more online stores than brick and mortar, then so be it. Quit saying the market is king on one hand and with the other lobbying government to legislate monopoly powers to manipulate the market!
I wouldn't go that far, at least in Canada. Regulators walk a fine line between the public and industry. Usually they have one master (whatever the political party of the day is, which can change things), and two focuses one of the public and one of the industry. Usually the idea behind the industry support is to ensure that they are strong and vital, so that the industry is available to the public, producing jobs, services, goods or whatever. The public of course is looking out for what is it the best interest of the public.
In the case of CRTC they have defiantly crossed that line, and stayed crossed for some time. The same can't be said of all regulators, as there are a ton that do very good work across Canada. The trouble with some however is how they hire their staff. This is the same problem of the lobbyists going back and forth between the US political parties. The CRTC would argue that they are simply hiring those with the most skill and knowlege in telecommunications, which of course ALL come from Bell or Rogers more less. They all come from the same side of the fence. They all have likely the same perspective and outlook of what is in the best interest of Canadians. So I think they probably believe they are doing the right thing. It has to do with the systemic hiring practices, if got some new blood in there I am sure it would make all the difference. Have some contesting opinions, etc... As as much as they might like to make the argument that being an executive at both Bell and Rogers makes you perfect for the job as the chair of the CTRC, one could also make the pretty good argument that there is a conflict of interest. Because really to do the jobs at CRTC, you need some legal or policy back ground, some idea how the industry works and is set up (which can be taught), and some technical knowlege. You don't need all that much technical knowlege either. I guess what I am saying is all your staff shouldn't be coming from private industry you regulate.
So anyway, while yes the CRTC is in need of reform, I don't think it is fair to say that all regulators are in bed with industry, as I don't believe it.
Which I think may have been the sequel to Pools of Radiance.
Someone also mentioned Wizardry, can't believe they forgot that one.
Brings me back, kind of makes me want to find these and download them... kind of.
too fucked up!
Also when an yellow bulger dragon from the planet rubelon who is friends with a vulture riding kitten with two heads tells you to quit drinking, you quit drinking.
Cop #1: "So who did it?"
Cop #2: "Irony."
Terrorists. I thought this was all discussed earlier...
Because if you use non-transparent aluminum you can't see the fucking whales and what kind of plot device would staring at a metal wall be! :)
Like any policing system, this is saying "You better give us more money, look at the dire results we are presenting you with!" Ooooooo....
Um, I am pretty sure that might be the definition of insane, when people act counter to what might be the accepted norms of self preservation and interest. Which was the argument I was making.
Best test for gaming AI...
Some day Xbox or PS will sell a multiplayer game, but simulate all the other players. When no one notices, I will say we have achieved the pinnacle of gaming AI. Of course we may have to train an AI to chronically swear and make racist slurs, but if that is what progress takes so be it!
Oh yeah I should probably mention that was in 1995.
When I worked as a coop student at Acadia University, the old room filling UNIX server which the tie dyed t-shirt wearing balding beard toting admins would turn the lights out and show all the pretty flickering lights was called "Gandalf"....
It somehow seemed appropriate.
Insane might be better. Observance to logic isn't a big thing for crazy religious nutjobs.
One can only hope that their love for power, money, position, and breathing are more important than whatever crazy nutball religious idea is currently passing behind their eyeballs.
Though I have heard that it is all just a big political act to keep the religious hardliners in the public and positions of power happy and contented, and that action isn't really all that likely.
Question is how much faith are you willing to put into all of that considering the consequences.
Actually the proper term is Jawa, racist.
Soooo, you built a CPU that barely runs faster than the previous generation CPU. However the integrated graphics are 20-50% better.
Integrated graphics for anything other than the most basic tasks are horrible by several degrees of magnitude. You can buy a 130$ discrete video card that will deliver 1000% time graphics.
In real world terms this is like taking a game that runs at say 12FPS and making it run at 14-18 FPS which is still unplayable. More realistically you will take a game that is completely unplayable because the graphics won't even run, to making it barely run, but still being unplayable.
The 30W less of heat is more interesting, may make for a better overclock or at least safer.
I guess this does advance the bar for integrated graphics, which academically is good. Realistically however no one will care for years, as the people that upgrade to the newest hardware are also the same people NOT using integrated graphics at all.
Good I suppose for that laptop market, though I didn't see a distinction here between desktop and mobile versions of the chip, so I assume they tested the desktop version.
As for the AMD quip, quit being stupid. So you buy a CPU solution that has slightly better integrated GPU but gets its ass handed to it in CPU? Makes sense.
There used to be a great website based in the Au that did to 100 and 200 book lists for Science fiction and Fantasy. It also did movies and TV shows. Later on it used to allow for user voting. I tried to find it on the interweb just now and couldn't find it. I am not sure if that is because it is gone, or if there are just too much other crap out there getting better Google rankings. Anyway it used to be a wonderful resource. I pretty much would go through it and just pick out the ones I haven't read yet. Most were older books. In my opinion much of the best science fiction was the older stuff, most of the new stuff is garbage (and has been for awhile). Less people actually writing and more people selling. Few exceptions out there, I really liked John Scalzi's "Old Mans War".
Anyway I have seen some good recommendations so far. I would second Stephen R.R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series for fantasy, as well as Joe Haldman's Forever War, as well as Canticle for Leibowitz. Dune was great, but I think most people would agree with that, however Frank Herbert has a ton of other books, most of which are also quite good. There are plenty of classics out there, one I was surprised to see not mentioned yet is Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury. I have Day of the Triffids on my nightstand right now to read, and Wrinkle in Time is also a classic. Anything by Ursla L. Guin like "Left Had of Darkness" is also good.
The easy thing about older good science fiction is that books used to be a lot shorter back then. You can destroy a lot of good books in a short period of time. The not so easy part, is that unless you want to pay a bunch for new copies from a Chapters or an Amazon, it is HARD to find a lot of these at a used book store. I have YET to find a Stanilaw Lem book anywhere. People tend to get rid of the crap, and keep the good. So some authors you just don't see all that often as people tend to hold on to them (likely because they are favorite books also). Some older but not ancient fantasy might be the Terry Broks Sword of Shanara series, or David Eddings The Elenium and The Tamuli. I can list a ton of Fantasy, but none of it is particularly old. I like my old science fiction a lot more than old Fantasy. David Brin was also a favorite from the Uplift War series.
Much depends like anything on personal preference. Some of Heinlein's stuff is really good, however sometimes I get sort of sick of some of his protagonists, same with Ben Bova. Some are a bit to over the top Anne Ryndian caricatures. Anyway there is a host of great old Science fiction out there, it is just a matter of finding it. As I said it is too bad I can't find that website, as it was a great resource. Also Aldus Huxley and George Orwell, Phillip K. Dick. Used to read a lot of Pohl, Sagan, and Asimov...
Depends on what you define as old and obscure also. Anything by Neal Stevenson is good, Snow Crash being one of the highlights or Cryptonomicon, but neither are particularly old to me. Particularly if you are mentioning ones like E.R. Eddison The Worm Ouroboros which was done in the early 1900's. Which by the way I hated. I only got through a few chapters before I threw it down in disgust. Reading the old englishly phrasing drove me batty. If you want REAL old science fiction, the two big ones of course are Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
Anyway that should give you a lot to chew on for awhile.