Because if you don't tax something, it'll be used as a loophole by all those people who want to avoid paying tax. That is, everyone. Good for Blizzard, not so good for the government.
And tax is justified in a free market economy because the government is the regulator of the free market. There's ongoing confusion that 'free market' means that the market can do what it wants, which isn't true: 'free market' means that anyone can *enter* the market and set up shop without having to kowtow to the guilds or, nowadays, the big corporations. Unfettered markets are bad because it means that the market leaders have free reign to stifle competition. Free markets are good because it means that the market leaders can be taken down by anyone, so long as that anyone can serve the market better than the market leaders. Making sure that the free market ticks along smoothly and competition flourishes is the government's primary job in a capitalist system, and it requires money to do that (and all the other things the government does). If you've got a better way to do that without giving control of the market to Microsoft and the RIAA, we're all ears.
You're assuming that everyone who criticises Wikipedia hasn't had much to do with it. This isn't exactly the case.
There's communities that have had articles deleted for 'notability' reasons when they've been notable to the community, while articles on similar subjects have stayed intact. They start to wonder that if it happens to them, how many other subjects does it happen to? Is notability defined by how much that one editor cares about a subject?
There are people who have seen Wikipedia arguments spill out into their little corners of the Internet, and people who have read Lore's excellent sendup of Wikipedia, and others who have had edits reverted for no apparent reason other than the editor in question didn't like it, leaving a big blank space in the article that your paragraph used to fill.
There are people who have found that 'consensus' comes not from two factions settling their differences and finding common ground, but when one faction gives up and lets the other faction put their 'truth' on the page. There are those that have watched featured articles degrade in quality until they stop being worthy of feature status as all the truth leaks out.
There's plenty of criticisms of Wikipedia that only become apparent when you've had something to do with Wikipedia. A lot of them, though, wouldn't have been so bad if Wikipedia wasn't striving to be accurate. If it was called "WikiTrivia: The Internet's largest resource of interesting information" then it would have been a rousing success and probably would have served the same purpose it does now, without people being so concerned about Wikipedia being correct.
In the webcomics world, they've butted heads over notability so much that most commentators have advocated abandoning Wikipedia for a dedicated webcomic wiki.
The problem appears to be that a webcomic is usually considered notable by reputation and influence, things that traditionally are hard to provide sources for (not least because the first response when someone asks about it is "you don't know Girly?!") This has led to several entries of exceedingly notable webcomics being deleted from Wikipedia, including a well-regarded satirical webcomic about webcomics that got major attention when it riffed on another webcomic's joke, something that doesn't translate well to a source; and an old hand in webcomics who doesn't have a huge amount of readers but is a significant influence on other artists, which again doesn't translate well as a source because webcomic creators are not in the habit of talking about their influences other than Calvin and Hobbes.
One could say, "well, why don't you get in and help and make sure the notable comics don't get deleted?" It's simple: we don't have time to babysit the Internet. The webcomics community have made it quite clear to the editors involved that they're doing these comics a wrong, and they keep putting up important comics for deletion. Fights on Wikipedia go to the most persistent, not who's right, and these editors are particularly persistent. It's disheartening to spend our time writing about something that's notable to us, like Checkerboard Nightmare or Girly, only to have it trashed by the people 'in charge' as soon as our backs are turned. It's better in the long run to throw up our hands and go somewhere where Wikipedia's endemic problems don't get in the way of having an accurate picture of webcomics, even at the expense of Google position.
"If you don't spend a significant amount of your time refactoring then A) you are not doing anything remotely agile and B) it's entirely your fault."
"It's not in any way lying, cheating or being sneaky--it is, in fact, just programming well. If you are not constantly refactoring your code... then you're really not much of a programmer."
Correct me if I'm out of line here, but what you appear to be saying is that you're a good programmer if you keep rewriting your code instead of getting it right the first time. Is that the case?
Although you're correct in that you need to communicate with your team and the people who pay your company the moneys to do your job well.
The key difference between the PS3 and the C64 is that the C64 didn't cost the 80's equivalent of $600. It's too overpriced for a cheapy machine for the kids, especially when you can get your aunt's old computer for free and that does the job just fine.
And Linux can't even win the desktop, what makes you think the average consumer will care about installing Linux on the PS3?
"In fact, for Peter Pan, the inverse situation exists; here in the US, it's in the public domain, but in the UK it's (very stupidly) still copyrighted."
That's a special case: the stage play copyright of Peter Pan, and only the stage play copyright, is perpetually owned by a British hospital at the wishes of the play's author. For all other intents and purposes it's out of copyright. (This doesn't stop the hospital suing people for infringing on copyright they don't actually own, however.)
Well, I'm all for something that will develop a new version of space food sticks. Those things are awesome, but some R&D could make them even more awesome.
There is a theory going around that everyone wants out of their virtual worlds the features they saw in their first game, even if it was those features that eventually drove them from the game.
I agree with the article's premise, but not with its conclusion.
"It is only meant as a retort to jackass e-zine writers who don't have the desire to give it a try and have no faith in the concept of community."
Linux is not a community, it is an operating system. People do not want to have to join a community just to use their computer, especially one filled with (let's face it) nerds.
"Companies like Microsoft usually don't try to allow people be smart"
This doesn't mean that smart people can't find a place with Microsoft, quite the reverse. Microsoft, by design and neglect, leave a whole bunch of holes in their landscape for smart people to slot into into. There's no room for the idiot in the Linux world.
If you want to build a system that's foolproof, though, you're going to need some fools. And the average joe is annoyed by a system that isn't foolproof (insert the old joke about programming VCRs here). Which is basically why the world will never be ready for Linux: people want the safety net, especially when they're trying to just get things done.
"The unix way (besides do one thing and do it well) however is to allow beginners and experts in, and help them leverage themselves so that they can be intelligent and productive in how they work."
And the Unix way is not to provide a safety net, but to give people the freedom to fall.
With no Google, you know that there's an absence, but with a filtered Google, who's to say that the filter is taking effect? And isn't doing good all about standing up for one's principles?
And besides, if the PS3 crashes and burns it'll hit the only profitable part of Sony where it hurts. Sony will have to offload most of its entertainment content to stay afloat, so all you need to do is boycott the PS3. That's not so hard to do because it costs $600.
"Just like Visual Studio and Office it's yet another thing that props up Windows."
Clearly a workable strategy. End users don't care one jot about the OS, but what they can do with it, and Microsoft have been very good at pouncing on those opportunities and communicating what you can do with Windows.
"what is so special about windows that makes DX infeasible to implement for other platforms?"
90% of gamers use Windows?
Microsoft owns both Windows and DirectX and wants gaming on PC to stay a going concern, and is the only company in a position to make a sizable difference. Microsoft has made gamers an active priority, while their competitors in the OS market haven't.
I've noticed the same thing on a couple of other MMOs I've played - Puzzle Pirates and AT Tale In The Desert both seem not to have a lot of men playing women. It probably has a lot to do with the gender imbalance - YPP and ATITD both have pretty even male/female splits, whereas WoW, not so much, and if there are actually women in the game it's going to be more likely you'll be mistaken for a woman. Often guys who want a nice ass to look at won't bother in that case.
And I can do even better: by invoking Lore Sjöberg: "Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history... As an unexpected side effect of being the perfect argument space, it's also a pretty good place to find information about all the characters from Battlestar: Galactica."
Slashdot Mirror
Sin was okay for its time, but unfortunately Half-Life came out at the same time and Sin dated quick.
Because if you don't tax something, it'll be used as a loophole by all those people who want to avoid paying tax. That is, everyone. Good for Blizzard, not so good for the government.
And tax is justified in a free market economy because the government is the regulator of the free market. There's ongoing confusion that 'free market' means that the market can do what it wants, which isn't true: 'free market' means that anyone can *enter* the market and set up shop without having to kowtow to the guilds or, nowadays, the big corporations. Unfettered markets are bad because it means that the market leaders have free reign to stifle competition. Free markets are good because it means that the market leaders can be taken down by anyone, so long as that anyone can serve the market better than the market leaders. Making sure that the free market ticks along smoothly and competition flourishes is the government's primary job in a capitalist system, and it requires money to do that (and all the other things the government does). If you've got a better way to do that without giving control of the market to Microsoft and the RIAA, we're all ears.
You're assuming that everyone who criticises Wikipedia hasn't had much to do with it. This isn't exactly the case.
There's communities that have had articles deleted for 'notability' reasons when they've been notable to the community, while articles on similar subjects have stayed intact. They start to wonder that if it happens to them, how many other subjects does it happen to? Is notability defined by how much that one editor cares about a subject?
There are people who have seen Wikipedia arguments spill out into their little corners of the Internet, and people who have read Lore's excellent sendup of Wikipedia, and others who have had edits reverted for no apparent reason other than the editor in question didn't like it, leaving a big blank space in the article that your paragraph used to fill.
There are people who have found that 'consensus' comes not from two factions settling their differences and finding common ground, but when one faction gives up and lets the other faction put their 'truth' on the page. There are those that have watched featured articles degrade in quality until they stop being worthy of feature status as all the truth leaks out.
There's plenty of criticisms of Wikipedia that only become apparent when you've had something to do with Wikipedia. A lot of them, though, wouldn't have been so bad if Wikipedia wasn't striving to be accurate. If it was called "WikiTrivia: The Internet's largest resource of interesting information" then it would have been a rousing success and probably would have served the same purpose it does now, without people being so concerned about Wikipedia being correct.
In the webcomics world, they've butted heads over notability so much that most commentators have advocated abandoning Wikipedia for a dedicated webcomic wiki.
The problem appears to be that a webcomic is usually considered notable by reputation and influence, things that traditionally are hard to provide sources for (not least because the first response when someone asks about it is "you don't know Girly?!") This has led to several entries of exceedingly notable webcomics being deleted from Wikipedia, including a well-regarded satirical webcomic about webcomics that got major attention when it riffed on another webcomic's joke, something that doesn't translate well to a source; and an old hand in webcomics who doesn't have a huge amount of readers but is a significant influence on other artists, which again doesn't translate well as a source because webcomic creators are not in the habit of talking about their influences other than Calvin and Hobbes.
One could say, "well, why don't you get in and help and make sure the notable comics don't get deleted?" It's simple: we don't have time to babysit the Internet. The webcomics community have made it quite clear to the editors involved that they're doing these comics a wrong, and they keep putting up important comics for deletion. Fights on Wikipedia go to the most persistent, not who's right, and these editors are particularly persistent. It's disheartening to spend our time writing about something that's notable to us, like Checkerboard Nightmare or Girly, only to have it trashed by the people 'in charge' as soon as our backs are turned. It's better in the long run to throw up our hands and go somewhere where Wikipedia's endemic problems don't get in the way of having an accurate picture of webcomics, even at the expense of Google position.
"If you don't spend a significant amount of your time refactoring then A) you are not doing anything remotely agile and B) it's entirely your fault." "It's not in any way lying, cheating or being sneaky--it is, in fact, just programming well. If you are not constantly refactoring your code... then you're really not much of a programmer." Correct me if I'm out of line here, but what you appear to be saying is that you're a good programmer if you keep rewriting your code instead of getting it right the first time. Is that the case? Although you're correct in that you need to communicate with your team and the people who pay your company the moneys to do your job well.
The key difference between the PS3 and the C64 is that the C64 didn't cost the 80's equivalent of $600. It's too overpriced for a cheapy machine for the kids, especially when you can get your aunt's old computer for free and that does the job just fine.
And Linux can't even win the desktop, what makes you think the average consumer will care about installing Linux on the PS3?
"In fact, for Peter Pan, the inverse situation exists; here in the US, it's in the public domain, but in the UK it's (very stupidly) still copyrighted."
That's a special case: the stage play copyright of Peter Pan, and only the stage play copyright, is perpetually owned by a British hospital at the wishes of the play's author. For all other intents and purposes it's out of copyright. (This doesn't stop the hospital suing people for infringing on copyright they don't actually own, however.)
Well, I'm all for something that will develop a new version of space food sticks. Those things are awesome, but some R&D could make them even more awesome.
There is a theory going around that everyone wants out of their virtual worlds the features they saw in their first game, even if it was those features that eventually drove them from the game.
I agree with the article's premise, but not with its conclusion.
Huh. The annual 'Linux is poised to take over the desktop' post has come early this year.
Sony doesn't have to pay people to make sure they sell out in five minutes! They only made enough consoles for five minutes of sales.
"It is only meant as a retort to jackass e-zine writers who don't have the desire to give it a try and have no faith in the concept of community."
Linux is not a community, it is an operating system. People do not want to have to join a community just to use their computer, especially one filled with (let's face it) nerds.
"Companies like Microsoft usually don't try to allow people be smart"
This doesn't mean that smart people can't find a place with Microsoft, quite the reverse. Microsoft, by design and neglect, leave a whole bunch of holes in their landscape for smart people to slot into into. There's no room for the idiot in the Linux world.
If you want to build a system that's foolproof, though, you're going to need some fools. And the average joe is annoyed by a system that isn't foolproof (insert the old joke about programming VCRs here). Which is basically why the world will never be ready for Linux: people want the safety net, especially when they're trying to just get things done.
"The unix way (besides do one thing and do it well) however is to allow beginners and experts in, and help them leverage themselves so that they can be intelligent and productive in how they work."
And the Unix way is not to provide a safety net, but to give people the freedom to fall.
With no Google, you know that there's an absence, but with a filtered Google, who's to say that the filter is taking effect? And isn't doing good all about standing up for one's principles?
Unless it's IE, in which case it's yet another example of Microsoft's shoddy coding?
And besides, if the PS3 crashes and burns it'll hit the only profitable part of Sony where it hurts. Sony will have to offload most of its entertainment content to stay afloat, so all you need to do is boycott the PS3. That's not so hard to do because it costs $600.
I'd buy the copyrights on Steamboat Willie with that sort of money.
Not quite.
The formula you use is actually a checklist of features from Ocarina of Time, and then you apply the ad revenue co-efficient.
Because saying it'll come out at the same time as Duke Nukum Forever is too unprofessional.
No, no, what he means is why is Slashdot prioritising Windows news over Linux news, when half of Slashdot would have Linus' babies if they could?
"Google's worth about a hundred billion dollars? It's impossible to nail that figure and not be evil."
Not any more, they just bought YouTube and are about to be sued out of existence.
Yeah, if anything nature abhors Amelia Earheart. Which just goes to show that Mother Nature is in fact a misogynist.
"Just like Visual Studio and Office it's yet another thing that props up Windows."
Clearly a workable strategy. End users don't care one jot about the OS, but what they can do with it, and Microsoft have been very good at pouncing on those opportunities and communicating what you can do with Windows.
"what is so special about windows that makes DX infeasible to implement for other platforms?"
90% of gamers use Windows?
Microsoft owns both Windows and DirectX and wants gaming on PC to stay a going concern, and is the only company in a position to make a sizable difference. Microsoft has made gamers an active priority, while their competitors in the OS market haven't.
I've noticed the same thing on a couple of other MMOs I've played - Puzzle Pirates and AT Tale In The Desert both seem not to have a lot of men playing women. It probably has a lot to do with the gender imbalance - YPP and ATITD both have pretty even male/female splits, whereas WoW, not so much, and if there are actually women in the game it's going to be more likely you'll be mistaken for a woman. Often guys who want a nice ass to look at won't bother in that case.
And I can do even better: by invoking Lore Sjöberg: "Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history... As an unexpected side effect of being the perfect argument space, it's also a pretty good place to find information about all the characters from Battlestar: Galactica."
I'd say it's because the game is open source, and this is Slashdot.
I'd say more, but I'd just say the same two things, over and over again.