I love how you "have to shell out $49.99 for a 'new' version of Madden" If it sucks so bad, why don't you just keep playing Madden NFL 2004 for the rest of your days?
"it's amazing that competition is helping lower prices" ???
I wouldn't say that in an economics classroom - you'd just get blank stares and dirty looks.
Of course competition lowers pricing - it almost always does. I say "It's about damn time," because the pricing of video games just doesn't make any sense. There aren't enough video game publishers for there to be true free market conditions.
You can't use software as an indicator of lower pricing, because the method of distributing and pricing software is really screwed up. The idea that outsourcing an employee makes the CEO a "money hat" isn't really accurate. If a coporation sees an increased profit as a result of reducing its labor costs, it's generally the shareholders that benefit, not the CEO. I know CEO's are making a ton of money, but that's a whole different story we're talking about.
Even if the CEO wants to make money, so what? Is there something wrong with making money? Suppose you buy your groceries at a mom'n'pop shop, but then a new grocery store opens up near you. This store is run by a corporation but has much lower prices than the mom'n'pop shop. Is there something wrong with you doing your shopping at the new store? Of course not - you're trying to save money, which is the exact same thing the coporations are trying to do.
You say it's "most likely very quickly" untill it helps catch criminals. Others have said it won't really help at all. Personally, I'd like to see some evidence on this one way or the other. Speculation doesn't get us anywhere.
Slashdotters are playing protectionist, because unfortunately many of them fall into the category of people who believe in "rights for me but not for you."
Ask a slashdotter what they think about the USA PATRIOT act, and you'll definately get an earful. "Keep the federal governemnt out of my own buisness; that gives them too much power!"
But then float the idea of taxing corporations so that they'll keep jobs in america, and a lot of those same slashdotters will say it's insightfull; that it's got merit and should be considered. Here's an idea - why don't we just raise taxes on companies that fire anyone, companies that don't make cheap products, companies that smell funny... etc etc. It dosen't seem to bother the slashdotters because it isn't their freedom we're talking about; it's somebody else's.
Hear, Hear!
I'm sick of hearing protectionist garbage, particularly on slashdot. I like to think of this as a place where intelligent people can debate ideas. It discourages me enough when some guy says that we should tax the hell out of companies who think about outsourcing, but then when people go and say this sort of thinking is Insightful? Give me a break! It makes me think of a bunch of Neanderthals with clubs sitting around in a cave. One of them stands up and says "GROG SMASH," and the others point and grunt approvingly - "Grog Insightfull!" they chant, and Mod him a notch.
"Comapnies that do this should be taxed to hell and back for doing it?"
This post betrays an utter lack of economic sense, and a complete disregard for individual rights. So you think companies should be taxed to hell for hiring employees outside of the U.S., and then Slashdotters think this idea is insightfull? What the hell happened to keeping the federal government out of private buisness? I see now that most of you slashdotters are all about personal rights, so long as those rights are yours and rights aren't given to other people who might use them in ways that you don't like
Your idea that "zero jobs" should be lost to workers overseas is completely, utterly, assinine. Anyone who thinks this sort of thinking is "insightful" needs to learn some basic economics. Everyone benefits when companies become more productive because their products are made cheaper. We have seen a net increase in the number of americans employed as a result of international trade, because those people in foreign countries who get jobs will now be able to purchase more expensive American jobs.
You really piss me off. Saying that we should tax the hell out of companies so that they keep all their workers here is mindlessly stupid from an economic viewpoint, and utterly unamerican. Is there any consitutional basis for controlling whom private companies wish to have for employees? No! Mind your own god-damned buisness. If you think too many companies are outsourcing, then start your own company with only american workers and american inputs, and see how long you last in a free market. The truth of the matter is that it's the American People who are pushing for outsourcing becuase they demand cheaper products. And why shouldn't they?
The PATRIOT act doesn't force anyone to spy on you. It allows the government, after obtaining getting a search warrant, to look at what you've been reading at your local library. You can call this 'spying' all you want, but guess how many times it's been used. 1,000 since inception? Nope, way too high. 100? Nope. 10? Nope. 1? Not even. This thing has Never been used, not once. And yet we've got all of these/.er's hyperventilating about the government "spying" on them. No one is spying on you.
Your claim that there is "No Judicial Oversight" is absolutely spurious. Try reading Section 215 of the PATRIOT act:
"`(b) Each application under this section--
`(1) shall be made to--
`(A) a judge of the court established by section 103(a); or
`(B) a United States Magistrate Judge under chapter 43 of title 28, United States Code, who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to have the power to hear applications and grant orders for the production of tangible things under this section on behalf of a judge of that court;..."
Just think of it this way: Suppose there's some dude walking about portland talking about how nonbeleivers will feel the wrath of allah. The feds get a warrant, and see that he's been checking out books on explosives and bombs, and then look over his credit card records and see that he's bought a large bag of fertilizer. They can easily use this evidence to get a warrant to dig a little further. Without the PATRIOT act, they would probably have suspected him of being up to something, but would have lacked any evidence and wouldn't have been able to obtain a warrant to even watch him and see what he was doing.
If you think the scenario just described is unlikely, consider how the Unabomber was caught. When he published his manifesto, his brother recognized the rhetoric. The police did a little investigation, and by looking at Ted Kaczynski's library records, they found that he had checked out three arcane books referrenced in his manifesto, a pretty strong bit of evidence.
I contend that the worst thing about the USA PATRIOT act is its idiotically orwellian name. If it were called something else such as the 'Information Gathering and Sharing Act' I'm sure it wouldn't be receiving such hostile attention.
Well fine, please tell me what exactly you are referring to that is going on right now, because I can't think of any group of people that used to be peacefull but now thinks they have a right to kill us becuase of something we did to them.
Or, it didn't happen. not even six hundred years ago. The notion that we're responsible for what's going on now because of the crusades is simply rediculous for several reasons.
First and foremost, 'we' didn't go on any crusade. I don't know about you, but I wasn't born 600 years ago in Europe. I was born but a mere 19 years ago, and the world has known terrorism longer than that.
'... which enrages the victims who start to believe' - That's just plain historially innaccurate. You mean to tell me that the Moslems were a peacefull people untill the mean ol' crusaders busted up their tea party in the holy land? I'd really beg to differ. The nation of Islam has been fighting tooth and nail since the start of the Hijrah :
Wikipedia Article.
They fought their way into northern africa and arabia, quickly amassing a large empire taken entirely through force. How else do you think the crusades started ? They tried to fight their way into Europe, and if it hadn't been for the battle of Poitiers, Western Civilization as we know it might have been destroyed.
The crusades do not at all explain the nation of islam's hatred towards the west. There were plenty of invaders, and the Crusdes were considered a minor annoyance next to the mongol invasion. Why is it that they don't hate the mongols more than they hate the west? The reason is that the mongols eventually converted to islam, but the christians didn't.
The notion that the early moslems were peacefull untill 'we' came and attacked them is an absolutely rediculous farce that stems from some fool notion that eveything that happens to us is somehow our fault. Excuse me, but rationally thinking people don't fly airplanes into buildings and blow themselves up in the hopes of 72 virgins. When things like that happen, we should start thinking 'what the hell is wrong with them and how can we stop them,' not 'Oh, this is somehow our fault.'
But all this coverage of halo 2 has me going nuts. This game looks so amazingly awesome. The addition of weilding two different weapons at the same time is going to add so many different strategies it hurts just to think about. It was so awsome to see the warthog blow up and the tire come rolling down the hit - you could even shoot off the individual hubcaps , and I just can't wait to carjack people GTA style in good game of capture the flag. I lookforward to Doom 3 and Half Life 2 and all, but for my money, Halo 2 is the "Long-Awaited-Sequel-To-A-Great-Game" of the year.
The fact that GameFAQs nominated PS2 exclusives does nothing to challenge the crux of my argument - GameFAQs is a site used mainly by gamers, the type of people who buy the PS2 for titles like Kingdom hearts. When you look at the list of the top ten best selling titles, I think you'd be forced to conclude that the NGC is popular because of its two exclusive titles on the list. When you see an atrociously medicore game like 'Medal of Honor - Rising Sun' on the list of the best selling games of 2002, I think you'll have to conclude that your rank and file PS2 owner isn't a connoisseur of games like Kingdom Hearts, but rather someone who just buys whatever they see advertised on TV. The fact that all PS2 games on the list were availible on all three consoles (with the exception of Vice City, which still availible onthe XBox) shows that there's something about the PS2 other that its fantastic library of exclusive titles that explain its staggering sales.
If you look at the top selling video games, you're certaintly not going to see japenese imports that are exclusive to the PS2 - you'll see regular, every day games, most of which are on all three systems. The PS2 Is not the best selling console because it's got the best line-up of exclusive titles - it's the best selling most likely because it came out first. Consider this list of the top 10 best selling console games of 2003:
1 PS2 - Madden NFL 2004 (Electronics Arts)
2 GBA - Pokemon Ruby (Nintendo)
3 GBA - Pokemon Sapphire (Nintendo)
4 PS2 - Need for Speed Underground (Electronics Arts)
5 NGC - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo)
6 PS2 - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar)
7 NGC - Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Nintendo)
8 PS2 - Tony Hawk's Underground (Activision)
9 PS2 - Enter the Matrix (Atari)
10 PS2 - Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (Electronics Arts)
Now, I ask you - how many are PS2 exclusives? None! The game cube, on the other hand, has two exclusive titles on the list. Based on this information, one would be hard pressed to argue that the PS2 sold the best because it has the most exclusive titles.
Why has the PS2 done so well ? My conclusion is that it's almost entirely the result of the fact that it came out first. I based this on my observation of people's video-game buying habits. My brothers were conviced by some dude at gamestop to get an Xbox instead of a PS2, so they did. I saw how much fun halo was, and I told me friend about it - so he bought an xbox. My other friend, who one an xbox in the taco bell promotion but never used it, then bought a copy of halo so that we could have LAN parties. Other friends would show up at LAN parties, see how much fun their were, and buy xboxes of their own. I'm sure similar things happened with PS2 (obviously not the LAN party bit, since it didn't have a network adapter untill long after the xbox was out)
You may personally beleive that the PS2 offers the best library of exclusive titles, which is a perfectly valid opinion. But you'd be wrong to conclude that the library of exclusive titles explains the PS2 out selling the xbox - the facts just don't support that conclusion.
At my school, Xavier University, Math and Computer Science are a single department. It makes sense, though - the study Languages and Automata is an extremely mathematical pursuit, but it's also very important to Computer Science. The same could be said of any number of different CS related topics.
Consider the idea of information and the impact computers have on the spread and sale of information. For example : Music is basically just information. Untill recently, the cost of accurately duplicating and transmitting information was expensive enough to prevent people from pirating music - but as powerful computers are now ubiquitous, it costs almost nothing to look at some information and duplicate with 100% accuracy. So, in short, It's really easy to look at someone else's song, make a copy of it, and then you've now go two copies of the same song. Cany anyone see the same thing happening with nanotechnology? Because as the price for nano-assemblers drops, anything you can imagine will simply be boiled down into two different components:
1) Information
2) Energy
Consider this: If I told you the exact type of every molecule in my toothbrush, and how those molecules were located with respect to each other (If I gave you all the information about my toothbrush) and then you supplied the necessary energy to arrange your own atoms, you could have a toothbrush exactly like mine! Would you then have 'pirated' the toothbrush? I don't think this idea is so far off in the future, because that's exactly what happens with music piracy right now - you let someone else look at your information, and they use their own device to capture and utilize the information. Can you imagine proprietary food ? McDonalds corporation designs, atom by atom, a tasty hamburger - and then sells the plans for creating such a hamburger to people who then put the plans into their nano-assemblers? If this happens, you can bet we'll start to see 'open source' products - perhaps the GCB-project (GNU-Cheeseburger) team will release an update today - I heard the new relase includes pickles!
I definately think it's going to happen.
Sorry for the lack of sources - Here's one:
http://www.letus.nwu.edu/projects/gw/pdf/6Sources- CO2.pdf
"Of all the CO2 emissions today, 96-97% come from natural phenomena, such as plant decay and respiration."
Here's a second - http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/nowarm.htm
"At 6 billion tons, humans are then responsible for a comparatively small amount - less than 5 percent - of atmospheric carbon dioxide"
I am not an 'antienvironmentalist' - I can assure you most soundly that I am for the environment - I just think we should take a calm look at things, instead of engaging in 'chicken little' panic-attacks. Have you noticed that for the past fifty years we've been hearing how the destruction of our environment is emminent? Remember the 'population bomb', as well as Erhlich's other dire predictions ?
It should be noted first and formest that C02 produced in industrial processes is wastefull - and the rich fat cats running those coprorations hate nothing more than waste. That's why, as our technology has become more developed, greenhouse gasses have dropped. [http://reason.com/hod/rb100201.shtml]
Building robots designed to 'copy human nature' might prove very difficult. Consider this:
A physicist can explain any phenomenom in the world in terms of four fundamental physical particles. Once you know their relative masses and the strengths with which the four fundamental forces of nature (not earth, air, fire water, but Nuclear Strong, Nuclear Weak, Electro-Magnetic, and Gravtiational) operate, you can use Runge-Kutta approximation to simulate anything in the world. Now imagine trying to explain the way people behave in terms of just a few fundamental constants - It's not feasible, and any theory that someone could come up with would be subject to lots of debate.
I think that the probability that we'll be able to develop robots that can emulate human behavior is very small compared to the probablilty that eventually we'll be able to have computers powerfull enough to simulate the laws of physics creating a new universe. We could guide the computer simulation to create a planet orbiting a sun, covered with water, at a distance such that natrual temperatures on the planet would span in the neighborhood of -5 C to 40C - and then just watch what happens. Let it run long enough and we could watch a whole world development. There's a whole website dedicated to this line of thought, but taken on logical step futher - If its' the case that technologically advanced civilizations will create computer simulations of worlds in order to understand themselves, then it's very likely we are living in a simulation ourselves:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
The amount of C02 being produced by human beings is miniscule. It's really very tiny compared to the amount produce in nature, by animals and natural processes such as Volcanoes. This should be evident by the dramatic drop off in C02 production since the 1870's - the client hasn't really changed all that much.
Upon first reading of this comment, I thought you were referring to your own post - and that you'd found a clever, self-referential method of getting good karma.
Using such emotionally drenched rhetoric is never a good way to win an argument. Consider a man whose wife has just been killed in a car wreck, and now wants to ban the use of all automobiles - he could very easily make the same sort of statement. If we are going to discuss things here, let us do it in a manner that is free of such emotional appeals which do little to further the spread of knowledge.
I couldn't agree more. I hate big government. I think all americans should - this country was founded by people who hated the government messing with their buisness. I abhor almost anything a government does to give itself power. But I really can't muster up any sort of 'concern' about this patriot act. The biggest government interference in my life is excessive taxation, not the patriot act. In times of war the goverment has always granted itself more power. You've got the Alien and Sedition Acts, Lincoln Suspending the writ of habeas corpus, wilson jailing dissenters, FDR shipping the japanese off to internment camps. All of these things DO go away when the conflict is over, and they've all gotten milder as time has progressed. The patriot act is nothing compared to what FDR or Wilson did, which both pale in comparison to Lincoln's doing or the Alien and Sedition acts. While the government's power to put people in jail has been fluctuatory, the one power that has never decreased has been the power of the government to tax the citizens for frivolous purposes. And it is that function of our government which i find most abhorrent and unconstitutional. It is also this power on which most of the/.ers seem to be strangely silent. The government isn't rountinely dragging people off and locking them up without trials, but it is routinely helping itself to a chunk of your paychecks.
Slashdot Mirror
I love how you "have to shell out $49.99 for a 'new' version of Madden" If it sucks so bad, why don't you just keep playing Madden NFL 2004 for the rest of your days?
"it's amazing that competition is helping lower prices" ???
I wouldn't say that in an economics classroom - you'd just get blank stares and dirty looks.
Of course competition lowers pricing - it almost always does. I say "It's about damn time," because the pricing of video games just doesn't make any sense. There aren't enough video game publishers for there to be true free market conditions.
You can't use software as an indicator of lower pricing, because the method of distributing and pricing software is really screwed up. The idea that outsourcing an employee makes the CEO a "money hat" isn't really accurate. If a coporation sees an increased profit as a result of reducing its labor costs, it's generally the shareholders that benefit, not the CEO. I know CEO's are making a ton of money, but that's a whole different story we're talking about.
Even if the CEO wants to make money, so what? Is there something wrong with making money? Suppose you buy your groceries at a mom'n'pop shop, but then a new grocery store opens up near you. This store is run by a corporation but has much lower prices than the mom'n'pop shop. Is there something wrong with you doing your shopping at the new store? Of course not - you're trying to save money, which is the exact same thing the coporations are trying to do.
You say it's "most likely very quickly" untill it helps catch criminals. Others have said it won't really help at all. Personally, I'd like to see some evidence on this one way or the other. Speculation doesn't get us anywhere.
Slashdotters are playing protectionist, because unfortunately many of them fall into the category of people who believe in "rights for me but not for you."
Ask a slashdotter what they think about the USA PATRIOT act, and you'll definately get an earful. "Keep the federal governemnt out of my own buisness; that gives them too much power!"
But then float the idea of taxing corporations so that they'll keep jobs in america, and a lot of those same slashdotters will say it's insightfull; that it's got merit and should be considered. Here's an idea - why don't we just raise taxes on companies that fire anyone, companies that don't make cheap products, companies that smell funny ... etc etc. It dosen't seem to bother the slashdotters because it isn't their freedom we're talking about; it's somebody else's.
Hear, Hear! I'm sick of hearing protectionist garbage, particularly on slashdot. I like to think of this as a place where intelligent people can debate ideas. It discourages me enough when some guy says that we should tax the hell out of companies who think about outsourcing, but then when people go and say this sort of thinking is Insightful? Give me a break! It makes me think of a bunch of Neanderthals with clubs sitting around in a cave. One of them stands up and says "GROG SMASH," and the others point and grunt approvingly - "Grog Insightfull!" they chant, and Mod him a notch.
"Comapnies that do this should be taxed to hell and back for doing it?"
This post betrays an utter lack of economic sense, and a complete disregard for individual rights. So you think companies should be taxed to hell for hiring employees outside of the U.S., and then Slashdotters think this idea is insightfull? What the hell happened to keeping the federal government out of private buisness? I see now that most of you slashdotters are all about personal rights, so long as those rights are yours and rights aren't given to other people who might use them in ways that you don't like
Your idea that "zero jobs" should be lost to workers overseas is completely, utterly, assinine. Anyone who thinks this sort of thinking is "insightful" needs to learn some basic economics. Everyone benefits when companies become more productive because their products are made cheaper. We have seen a net increase in the number of americans employed as a result of international trade, because those people in foreign countries who get jobs will now be able to purchase more expensive American jobs.
You really piss me off. Saying that we should tax the hell out of companies so that they keep all their workers here is mindlessly stupid from an economic viewpoint, and utterly unamerican. Is there any consitutional basis for controlling whom private companies wish to have for employees? No! Mind your own god-damned buisness. If you think too many companies are outsourcing, then start your own company with only american workers and american inputs, and see how long you last in a free market. The truth of the matter is that it's the American People who are pushing for outsourcing becuase they demand cheaper products. And why shouldn't they?The PATRIOT act doesn't force anyone to spy on you. It allows the government, after obtaining getting a search warrant, to look at what you've been reading at your local library. You can call this 'spying' all you want, but guess how many times it's been used. 1,000 since inception? Nope, way too high. 100? Nope. 10? Nope. 1? Not even. This thing has Never been used, not once. And yet we've got all of these /.er's hyperventilating about the government "spying" on them. No one is spying on you.
Your claim that there is "No Judicial Oversight" is absolutely spurious. Try reading Section 215 of the PATRIOT act :
"`(b) Each application under this section-- `(1) shall be made to-- `(A) a judge of the court established by section 103(a); or `(B) a United States Magistrate Judge under chapter 43 of title 28, United States Code, who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to have the power to hear applications and grant orders for the production of tangible things under this section on behalf of a judge of that court;..."
Just think of it this way: Suppose there's some dude walking about portland talking about how nonbeleivers will feel the wrath of allah. The feds get a warrant, and see that he's been checking out books on explosives and bombs, and then look over his credit card records and see that he's bought a large bag of fertilizer. They can easily use this evidence to get a warrant to dig a little further. Without the PATRIOT act, they would probably have suspected him of being up to something, but would have lacked any evidence and wouldn't have been able to obtain a warrant to even watch him and see what he was doing.
If you think the scenario just described is unlikely, consider how the Unabomber was caught. When he published his manifesto, his brother recognized the rhetoric. The police did a little investigation, and by looking at Ted Kaczynski's library records, they found that he had checked out three arcane books referrenced in his manifesto, a pretty strong bit of evidence.
I contend that the worst thing about the USA PATRIOT act is its idiotically orwellian name. If it were called something else such as the 'Information Gathering and Sharing Act' I'm sure it wouldn't be receiving such hostile attention.
Insightfull? This is supposed to be sarcasm, right? Please for the love of god say yes.
That's because the majority of things in that map were just arbitrarily placed : "While the placement of most locations is arbitrary"
IBM Is like America during the Iran-Iraq war.
Well fine, please tell me what exactly you are referring to that is going on right now, because I can't think of any group of people that used to be peacefull but now thinks they have a right to kill us becuase of something we did to them.
First and foremost, 'we' didn't go on any crusade. I don't know about you, but I wasn't born 600 years ago in Europe. I was born but a mere 19 years ago, and the world has known terrorism longer than that.
'... which enrages the victims who start to believe' - That's just plain historially innaccurate. You mean to tell me that the Moslems were a peacefull people untill the mean ol' crusaders busted up their tea party in the holy land? I'd really beg to differ. The nation of Islam has been fighting tooth and nail since the start of the Hijrah : Wikipedia Article.
They fought their way into northern africa and arabia, quickly amassing a large empire taken entirely through force. How else do you think the crusades started ? They tried to fight their way into Europe, and if it hadn't been for the battle of Poitiers, Western Civilization as we know it might have been destroyed.
The crusades do not at all explain the nation of islam's hatred towards the west. There were plenty of invaders, and the Crusdes were considered a minor annoyance next to the mongol invasion. Why is it that they don't hate the mongols more than they hate the west? The reason is that the mongols eventually converted to islam, but the christians didn't.
The notion that the early moslems were peacefull untill 'we' came and attacked them is an absolutely rediculous farce that stems from some fool notion that eveything that happens to us is somehow our fault. Excuse me, but rationally thinking people don't fly airplanes into buildings and blow themselves up in the hopes of 72 virgins. When things like that happen, we should start thinking 'what the hell is wrong with them and how can we stop them,' not 'Oh, this is somehow our fault.'
But all this coverage of halo 2 has me going nuts. This game looks so amazingly awesome. The addition of weilding two different weapons at the same time is going to add so many different strategies it hurts just to think about. It was so awsome to see the warthog blow up and the tire come rolling down the hit - you could even shoot off the individual hubcaps , and I just can't wait to carjack people GTA style in good game of capture the flag. I lookforward to Doom 3 and Half Life 2 and all, but for my money, Halo 2 is the "Long-Awaited-Sequel-To-A-Great-Game" of the year.
The fact that GameFAQs nominated PS2 exclusives does nothing to challenge the crux of my argument - GameFAQs is a site used mainly by gamers, the type of people who buy the PS2 for titles like Kingdom hearts. When you look at the list of the top ten best selling titles, I think you'd be forced to conclude that the NGC is popular because of its two exclusive titles on the list. When you see an atrociously medicore game like 'Medal of Honor - Rising Sun' on the list of the best selling games of 2002, I think you'll have to conclude that your rank and file PS2 owner isn't a connoisseur of games like Kingdom Hearts, but rather someone who just buys whatever they see advertised on TV. The fact that all PS2 games on the list were availible on all three consoles (with the exception of Vice City, which still availible onthe XBox) shows that there's something about the PS2 other that its fantastic library of exclusive titles that explain its staggering sales.
If you look at the top selling video games, you're certaintly not going to see japenese imports that are exclusive to the PS2 - you'll see regular, every day games, most of which are on all three systems. The PS2 Is not the best selling console because it's got the best line-up of exclusive titles - it's the best selling most likely because it came out first. Consider this list of the top 10 best selling console games of 2003: 1 PS2 - Madden NFL 2004 (Electronics Arts) 2 GBA - Pokemon Ruby (Nintendo) 3 GBA - Pokemon Sapphire (Nintendo) 4 PS2 - Need for Speed Underground (Electronics Arts) 5 NGC - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo) 6 PS2 - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar) 7 NGC - Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Nintendo) 8 PS2 - Tony Hawk's Underground (Activision) 9 PS2 - Enter the Matrix (Atari) 10 PS2 - Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (Electronics Arts) Now, I ask you - how many are PS2 exclusives? None! The game cube, on the other hand, has two exclusive titles on the list. Based on this information, one would be hard pressed to argue that the PS2 sold the best because it has the most exclusive titles. Why has the PS2 done so well ? My conclusion is that it's almost entirely the result of the fact that it came out first. I based this on my observation of people's video-game buying habits. My brothers were conviced by some dude at gamestop to get an Xbox instead of a PS2, so they did. I saw how much fun halo was, and I told me friend about it - so he bought an xbox. My other friend, who one an xbox in the taco bell promotion but never used it, then bought a copy of halo so that we could have LAN parties. Other friends would show up at LAN parties, see how much fun their were, and buy xboxes of their own. I'm sure similar things happened with PS2 (obviously not the LAN party bit, since it didn't have a network adapter untill long after the xbox was out) You may personally beleive that the PS2 offers the best library of exclusive titles, which is a perfectly valid opinion. But you'd be wrong to conclude that the library of exclusive titles explains the PS2 out selling the xbox - the facts just don't support that conclusion.
At my school, Xavier University, Math and Computer Science are a single department. It makes sense, though - the study Languages and Automata is an extremely mathematical pursuit, but it's also very important to Computer Science. The same could be said of any number of different CS related topics.
Consider the idea of information and the impact computers have on the spread and sale of information. For example : Music is basically just information. Untill recently, the cost of accurately duplicating and transmitting information was expensive enough to prevent people from pirating music - but as powerful computers are now ubiquitous, it costs almost nothing to look at some information and duplicate with 100% accuracy. So, in short, It's really easy to look at someone else's song, make a copy of it, and then you've now go two copies of the same song. Cany anyone see the same thing happening with nanotechnology? Because as the price for nano-assemblers drops, anything you can imagine will simply be boiled down into two different components: 1) Information 2) Energy Consider this: If I told you the exact type of every molecule in my toothbrush, and how those molecules were located with respect to each other (If I gave you all the information about my toothbrush) and then you supplied the necessary energy to arrange your own atoms, you could have a toothbrush exactly like mine! Would you then have 'pirated' the toothbrush? I don't think this idea is so far off in the future, because that's exactly what happens with music piracy right now - you let someone else look at your information, and they use their own device to capture and utilize the information. Can you imagine proprietary food ? McDonalds corporation designs, atom by atom, a tasty hamburger - and then sells the plans for creating such a hamburger to people who then put the plans into their nano-assemblers? If this happens, you can bet we'll start to see 'open source' products - perhaps the GCB-project (GNU-Cheeseburger) team will release an update today - I heard the new relase includes pickles! I definately think it's going to happen.
Sorry for the lack of sources - Here's one: http://www.letus.nwu.edu/projects/gw/pdf/6Sources- CO2.pdf
"Of all the CO2 emissions today, 96-97% come from natural phenomena, such as plant decay and respiration."
Here's a second - http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/nowarm.htm
"At 6 billion tons, humans are then responsible for a comparatively small amount - less than 5 percent - of atmospheric carbon dioxide"
I am not an 'antienvironmentalist' - I can assure you most soundly that I am for the environment - I just think we should take a calm look at things, instead of engaging in 'chicken little' panic-attacks. Have you noticed that for the past fifty years we've been hearing how the destruction of our environment is emminent? Remember the 'population bomb', as well as Erhlich's other dire predictions ?
It should be noted first and formest that C02 produced in industrial processes is wastefull - and the rich fat cats running those coprorations hate nothing more than waste. That's why, as our technology has become more developed, greenhouse gasses have dropped. [http://reason.com/hod/rb100201.shtml]
Building robots designed to 'copy human nature' might prove very difficult. Consider this: A physicist can explain any phenomenom in the world in terms of four fundamental physical particles. Once you know their relative masses and the strengths with which the four fundamental forces of nature (not earth, air, fire water, but Nuclear Strong, Nuclear Weak, Electro-Magnetic, and Gravtiational) operate, you can use Runge-Kutta approximation to simulate anything in the world. Now imagine trying to explain the way people behave in terms of just a few fundamental constants - It's not feasible, and any theory that someone could come up with would be subject to lots of debate. I think that the probability that we'll be able to develop robots that can emulate human behavior is very small compared to the probablilty that eventually we'll be able to have computers powerfull enough to simulate the laws of physics creating a new universe. We could guide the computer simulation to create a planet orbiting a sun, covered with water, at a distance such that natrual temperatures on the planet would span in the neighborhood of -5 C to 40C - and then just watch what happens. Let it run long enough and we could watch a whole world development. There's a whole website dedicated to this line of thought, but taken on logical step futher - If its' the case that technologically advanced civilizations will create computer simulations of worlds in order to understand themselves, then it's very likely we are living in a simulation ourselves: http://www.simulation-argument.com/
The amount of C02 being produced by human beings is miniscule. It's really very tiny compared to the amount produce in nature, by animals and natural processes such as Volcanoes. This should be evident by the dramatic drop off in C02 production since the 1870's - the client hasn't really changed all that much.
Upon first reading of this comment, I thought you were referring to your own post - and that you'd found a clever, self-referential method of getting good karma.
Using such emotionally drenched rhetoric is never a good way to win an argument. Consider a man whose wife has just been killed in a car wreck, and now wants to ban the use of all automobiles - he could very easily make the same sort of statement. If we are going to discuss things here, let us do it in a manner that is free of such emotional appeals which do little to further the spread of knowledge.
I couldn't agree more. I hate big government. I think all americans should - this country was founded by people who hated the government messing with their buisness. I abhor almost anything a government does to give itself power. But I really can't muster up any sort of 'concern' about this patriot act. The biggest government interference in my life is excessive taxation, not the patriot act. In times of war the goverment has always granted itself more power. You've got the Alien and Sedition Acts, Lincoln Suspending the writ of habeas corpus, wilson jailing dissenters, FDR shipping the japanese off to internment camps. All of these things DO go away when the conflict is over, and they've all gotten milder as time has progressed. The patriot act is nothing compared to what FDR or Wilson did, which both pale in comparison to Lincoln's doing or the Alien and Sedition acts. While the government's power to put people in jail has been fluctuatory, the one power that has never decreased has been the power of the government to tax the citizens for frivolous purposes. And it is that function of our government which i find most abhorrent and unconstitutional. It is also this power on which most of the /.ers seem to be strangely silent. The government isn't rountinely dragging people off and locking them up without trials, but it is routinely helping itself to a chunk of your paychecks.
I want to send this lady money via paypal, to help cover lawyer's fees. Does anyone know her paypal account?