but the moat important point you mentioned is "general acceptance".
"General acceptance" is a relative term. There is a sufficiently large community that accepts virtual property such that it exists as a sub-economy of several million dollars. You're right I can't exchange a virtual sword for a burger, except maybe at a gaming convention. At the same time in Japan I couldn't pay for a burger with dollars. The difference between something like dollars and virtual items is just the size of the community which recognizes its value.
I just don't see the point in shelling out money to get +10 against Orcs.
Same reason you would spend $400 to get a +25 yards driving distance golf club. You could argue that with the golf club you get a physical item, but in realistic terms the premium price tag is directly linked to playing golf. You would be hard pressed to find somebody willing to pay $400 for what is essentially a finely crafted stick, unless they were a golfer or thought they could turn around and sell it to a golfer.
When I pay my bills online, I am paying for a good or service that exists in the real world
When you buy virtual property you are paying for a real service. The ability for you to use such property (acording to the rules/T&Cs).
While I do not get paid in physical bills, the number which represents how much money I can spend on physical goods increases.
Money is just a representation of a value unit. Real or electronic it only has value because it is rare and is accepted by others in exchange for other goods and services. Think that money in your bank account really exists? The reserve rate dictates how much actual money the bank must keep. If everybody went to get their money at once, they'd find most of it isn't there.
In the case of so-called "virtual items" there is no tie-in with the real world
The tie-in with the real world is that virtual goods are in demand, considered sufficiently rare, and can be exchanged for money, or other goods and services. Just like money, virtual goods rely on general acceptance and trust.
Opening up the market to sales of their software will increase their revenue tremendously
It's like saying Porsche can increase their revenues by letting Ford use their engines. It puts them in direct competition with Dell on the hardware side and Microsoft on the OS side. They lose a lot of their power to leverage the OS to increase margins on their hardware. Not an easy business situation. From a branding standpoint the hardware will just become stylish boxes. The OS will lose it's luster with increased driver problems, as well as beige box dealers putting it on underpowered hardware.
Apple is a platform company. Apple brand is based on a user "experience". Both the hardware and software are designed as complimentary components to an integrated platform. Seperating the hardware and software will hurt the Apple brand as a whole.
He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.
So Steve went to college, he just didn't pursue a specific degree. You still need an education, whether through college classes or learning out in the field; you just don't need the piece of paper.
Poker is strictly about winning money. Chess is a game of strategy that many never end.
The mechanics of chess mean that the game ending can theoretically be determined. By being able to follow every branch of the tree an AI could be setup to guarantee a win or tie similar to Tic-Tac-Toe, or checkers. The randomness and deception of poker means that you can not absolutely determine the ending of the game.
Poker is strictly about winning money.
Poker is about statistics and psychology. This makes it far more complex to create good algorithms than chess.
Chess is worthy enough for IBM and other bigname companies to build super high performance chess simulators for.
More likely chess is easy enough to "brute force". Poker cannot be brute forced, randomness of the cards means at best an AI can play the odds. Add in the nebulous nature of betting, and attempting to predict your opponent, and it becomes more difficult to program
Same in US there are special provisions for educational use of copyright material. You can't just watch a movie, but you can use clips or excerpts in an educational context. For example watching clips to see the various interpretations of a scene in Hamlet over the years.
Really, and I suppose you have data which backs that statement up?
Read through the literature. Unless an experiment is high profile or makes bold claims (ie cold fusion), rarely are experiments reproduced. Most research is very limited in scope and have the caveats of certain equipment, under certain conditions. You won't make a name for yourself (at least a positive name) in the scientific community by validating people's experiments. The emphasis is to go out on a limb and look at something nobody else has done before. Of course because nobody has done what you have, and most likely nobody will check, it comes down to the individual to "do the right thing." Typically the only peer review done would be ensuring the data supports the conclusions and there are no great conflicts with generally accepted knowledge (if there is a conflict then that brings up the red flags of validation). If you want to get a paper in under the radar just make sure your data is "massaged" so that your conclusions agree with what everybody else thinks is right.
That's a perfect example of the intellectual laziness I was refering to.
Sometimes people just want emotional support. The problem itself doesn't matter, it's just an excuse to get reassurance. Not every problem is one that needs to be solved.
Right now the situation is that any party that has more than 50% can basically run the country as it sees fit regardless of the objections of the oppositon even if is 49.9%
In your design any party that has more than 33% can basically run the country. Who cares about what the 2/3 majority does since the 1/3 minority can just repeal it. The check to the 50% majority is judicial review, and presidential veto. The republicans control goverment because 1)Most voters, voted for the president, 2) Most states have republican senators, 3) Most congressional districts have republican representatives... like it or not, unfortunately the republican party represents the will of the majority of voters in the US. That's the way democracy should work.
I guess the question is, what kind of person would rather whine about something wrong than stop the wrong thing from happening to them?
Most people from time to time, and in my experience it occurs more often with women. It doesn't have to do with mental illness, there is probably an emotional approval/validation component to it. Men go to a bar and complain about how their wife nags them to fix up the house. They don't want their friends to tell them to leave their wife or how to negotiate a working schedule. They want them to say, "man that sux,. women... can't live with them, but who the hell else will sleep with us, right, hahaha i'll get you another beer." Sometimes people look for validation, that we are not alone in our problems, and it's nice for somebody to say you are not the cause (even if in your own mind you know it's your fault). For men typically it's their job, boss, wife/girlfriend. For women they seem to look for validation on a much wider range of topics, which is confusing for men. Since many of those topics would be "problem solving" issues for them.
Don't turn it into a gender issue. It's not. It has to do with maturity.
I've found for most women they aren't looking for a solution, they are looking for empathy. When they start complaining about so-and-so at work is so difficult to work with, they don't want you to start asking questions and trying to figure out how they can work together better. They just want you to say, "they are just a bad person, I mean everybody else loves working with you." In their mind they already have a solution, they don't want to hear yours, they just want to know they are supported.
Letting a Congress full of lawyers make the laws is like putting the drug companies in charge of creating diseases
Don't like lawyers don't vote them in.
One branch should be in charge of making laws, and the other repealing laws. AND it should take a 2/3s majority to create a law, but only a 1/3 vote to repeal a law.
Great, so a 1/3 minority of representatives can control the legislature, that's democracy. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, people should be more involved in the political system. One of the biggest enemies of democracy is apathy; because it gives the opportunity of the outspoken minority to control the silent majority.
The Illinois State Police has basically said that they have better things to do than waste their time busting video game retailers when they should be busting drug dealers and murderers.
They also have better things to do than bust convenience stores for selling cigarettes or alcohol to minors. What they will do is every so often is bust a few stores to keep the rest honest. Even though the rhetoric of the supporters is over the top, I have no issues with the bill. Why shouldn't the default for a minor trying to purchase a mature title be "no"?
Yes the promotion of mediocrity is always a good thing. Besides unless you extend that to maximum to companies as well, people will find loop holes. Like turn themselves into consulting companies. You're not hiring a CEO, you're hiring a 1 man consulting company that fills the role of a CEO.
Anakin - You said I killed Padme
Palpatine - When Padme saw you had turned to the darkside, she lost the will to live. So what I said was true... from a certain point of view.
I agree. Luck probably isn't the best term. I was just referring to people who follow their passion lead special lives. They realize it isn't about money, it's about doing things with passion. Often times if you are great at something, money will follow.
There are, say, 20 qualified people willing to do the same executive job. According to your reasoning, the one willing to do the job for the least pay should be selected
Yes that would happen if all 20 were equally qualified. Rarely, if ever, would there be that many people equally qualified for a specific executive position. The hiring company may emphasize revenue growth, or stability, or leadership towards innovation. So maybe, you have 2 or 3 candidates. Of course because the labor pool is so small; and employees are conversely wage maximizers, the executive salary would be inflated. Average lighting guys have lower salary because there are many of them (actors getting cash between gigs, people just trying to get into the biz, etc). I'm sure there are some who have extended their abilities not only lighting, but have shown artistic ability using lighting to create particular effects. This makes them more valuable, as a director may want a certain "look." Since the pool of candidates who have demonstrated that ability is smaller those people would command higher salaries.
What makes executives more deserving of an inflated paycheck than a worker?
The value added of that person's abilities. Same reason a foreman gets more money, the ability to lead a group of workers is more rare and valuable than simply the ability to work.
You think that you "pulled yourself up by the bootstraps" and "made yourself what you are today" because you went to college on your parent's dime and/or government-provided scholarship, grant, and/or student loan programs
If you went to college on goverment provided scholarship, you earned that money through hard work studying; if you went the student loan route you took a risk invested in yourself. It is self righteous blue collar nonsense that college kids don't know what it's like to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. Many people when they go to college basically have 2 jobs, except they only get paid for one of them
I'm not saying the executives don't work hard, because a lot do. But they like to think that their sixty to eighty hours a week somehow entitles them to the lion's share of profit. Guess what: Sixty to eighty hours a weeks is a normal work week for a LOT of people who are barely making ends meet. In fact, some of the people in the corporate trenches would consider a sixty hour week a vacation.
Yes but what that executive accomplishes in 60 hours produces much more results than what a waiter accomplishes in 60 hours.
It's not like executives sit down with the grunts on the line and work out what everyone thinks is fair compensation for all employees
They put your salary on a piece of paper, if you agree you take the job, if not you don't take it. They don't force you to work.
Their job is to maximize profit and minimize costs (i.e. things like salary and benefits for average schmoes). Being fair to the employees isn't part of the equation; in fact, it is a significant hinderance.
Yeah and the employee just wants to maximize his salary. Another job down the street offers him more he is going to take it. Identify areas where you can invest in yourself to become more valuable.
Bringing it back on-topic, most of the people working on the film AREN'T being paid what they're "supposed" to be paid.
This is just a sense of entitlement, a lighting guy says he deserve $X, except that there are like 20 others who will accept less than $X, why should he get paid what he wants... just because he said so? Why should he even be able to make a good living in lighting just because that's the job he wanted? Work out of love for the job or work for money, if you can get both you're very lucky.
The only people these new laws and forms of control will stop are folks like my dad. It is no different than using software protection to help stop piracy; only average joes are affected.
That's the point. Same as putting a lock on your door won't stop a thief who really wants your TV from breaking in; laws and DRM type protections are there to curb widespread infringement. That's why the *AA goes after P2P and not newsgroups.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people like to ask questions before they shoot.
:)
I prefer to ask while reloading
but the moat important point you mentioned is "general acceptance".
"General acceptance" is a relative term. There is a sufficiently large community that accepts virtual property such that it exists as a sub-economy of several million dollars.
You're right I can't exchange a virtual sword for a burger, except maybe at a gaming convention. At the same time in Japan I couldn't pay for a burger with dollars.
The difference between something like dollars and virtual items is just the size of the community which recognizes its value.
I just don't see the point in shelling out money to get +10 against Orcs.
Same reason you would spend $400 to get a +25 yards driving distance golf club.
You could argue that with the golf club you get a physical item, but in realistic terms the premium price tag is directly linked to playing golf. You would be hard pressed to find somebody willing to pay $400 for what is essentially a finely crafted stick, unless they were a golfer or thought they could turn around and sell it to a golfer.
When I pay my bills online, I am paying for a good or service that exists in the real world
When you buy virtual property you are paying for a real service. The ability for you to use such property (acording to the rules/T&Cs).
While I do not get paid in physical bills, the number which represents how much money I can spend on physical goods increases.
Money is just a representation of a value unit. Real or electronic it only has value because it is rare and is accepted by others in exchange for other goods and services.
Think that money in your bank account really exists? The reserve rate dictates how much actual money the bank must keep. If everybody went to get their money at once, they'd find most of it isn't there.
In the case of so-called "virtual items" there is no tie-in with the real world
The tie-in with the real world is that virtual goods are in demand, considered sufficiently rare, and can be exchanged for money, or other goods and services. Just like money, virtual goods rely on general acceptance and trust.
Opening up the market to sales of their software will increase their revenue tremendously
It's like saying Porsche can increase their revenues by letting Ford use their engines. It puts them in direct competition with Dell on the hardware side and Microsoft on the OS side. They lose a lot of their power to leverage the OS to increase margins on their hardware. Not an easy business situation.
From a branding standpoint the hardware will just become stylish boxes. The OS will lose it's luster with increased driver problems, as well as beige box dealers putting it on underpowered hardware.
apple is a hardware company
Apple is a platform company. Apple brand is based on a user "experience". Both the hardware and software are designed as complimentary components to an integrated platform. Seperating the hardware and software will hurt the Apple brand as a whole.
He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.
So Steve went to college, he just didn't pursue a specific degree. You still need an education, whether through college classes or learning out in the field; you just don't need the piece of paper.
Poker is strictly about winning money. Chess is a game of strategy that many never end.
The mechanics of chess mean that the game ending can theoretically be determined. By being able to follow every branch of the tree an AI could be setup to guarantee a win or tie similar to Tic-Tac-Toe, or checkers.
The randomness and deception of poker means that you can not absolutely determine the ending of the game.
Poker is strictly about winning money.
Poker is about statistics and psychology. This makes it far more complex to create good algorithms than chess.
Chess is worthy enough for IBM and other bigname companies to build super high performance chess simulators for.
More likely chess is easy enough to "brute force". Poker cannot be brute forced, randomness of the cards means at best an AI can play the odds. Add in the nebulous nature of betting, and attempting to predict your opponent, and it becomes more difficult to program
Clearly, the benefit for American citizens is cheap products. Benefit for American corporations: higher margins.
You forgot to mention the freeing of labor and capital to use cheap products for higher value activities; which is a long term effect.
Same in US there are special provisions for educational use of copyright material. You can't just watch a movie, but you can use clips or excerpts in an educational context. For example watching clips to see the various interpretations of a scene in Hamlet over the years.
Hey didn't HAN SHOOT FIRST!?
So while the ESB ending was spoiled, he doesn't face the permanent scar of knowing how GL so blatantly changed the original movies.
Really, and I suppose you have data which backs that statement up?
Read through the literature. Unless an experiment is high profile or makes bold claims (ie cold fusion), rarely are experiments reproduced.
Most research is very limited in scope and have the caveats of certain equipment, under certain conditions. You won't make a name for yourself (at least a positive name) in the scientific community by validating people's experiments. The emphasis is to go out on a limb and look at something nobody else has done before. Of course because nobody has done what you have, and most likely nobody will check, it comes down to the individual to "do the right thing."
Typically the only peer review done would be ensuring the data supports the conclusions and there are no great conflicts with generally accepted knowledge (if there is a conflict then that brings up the red flags of validation). If you want to get a paper in under the radar just make sure your data is "massaged" so that your conclusions agree with what everybody else thinks is right.
That's a perfect example of the intellectual laziness I was refering to.
Sometimes people just want emotional support. The problem itself doesn't matter, it's just an excuse to get reassurance.
Not every problem is one that needs to be solved.
Right now the situation is that any party that has more than 50% can basically run the country as it sees fit regardless of the objections of the oppositon even if is 49.9%
In your design any party that has more than 33% can basically run the country. Who cares about what the 2/3 majority does since the 1/3 minority can just repeal it. The check to the 50% majority is judicial review, and presidential veto.
The republicans control goverment because 1)Most voters, voted for the president, 2) Most states have republican senators, 3) Most congressional districts have republican representatives... like it or not, unfortunately the republican party represents the will of the majority of voters in the US. That's the way democracy should work.
I guess the question is, what kind of person would rather whine about something wrong than stop the wrong thing from happening to them?
Most people from time to time, and in my experience it occurs more often with women. It doesn't have to do with mental illness, there is probably an emotional approval/validation component to it.
Men go to a bar and complain about how their wife nags them to fix up the house. They don't want their friends to tell them to leave their wife or how to negotiate a working schedule. They want them to say, "man that sux,. women... can't live with them, but who the hell else will sleep with us, right, hahaha i'll get you another beer."
Sometimes people look for validation, that we are not alone in our problems, and it's nice for somebody to say you are not the cause (even if in your own mind you know it's your fault). For men typically it's their job, boss, wife/girlfriend. For women they seem to look for validation on a much wider range of topics, which is confusing for men. Since many of those topics would be "problem solving" issues for them.
Don't turn it into a gender issue. It's not. It has to do with maturity.
I've found for most women they aren't looking for a solution, they are looking for empathy. When they start complaining about so-and-so at work is so difficult to work with, they don't want you to start asking questions and trying to figure out how they can work together better. They just want you to say, "they are just a bad person, I mean everybody else loves working with you."
In their mind they already have a solution, they don't want to hear yours, they just want to know they are supported.
Letting a Congress full of lawyers make the laws is like putting the drug companies in charge of creating diseases
Don't like lawyers don't vote them in.
One branch should be in charge of making laws, and the other repealing laws. AND it should take a 2/3s majority to create a law, but only a 1/3 vote to repeal a law.
Great, so a 1/3 minority of representatives can control the legislature, that's democracy. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, people should be more involved in the political system. One of the biggest enemies of democracy is apathy; because it gives the opportunity of the outspoken minority to control the silent majority.
The Illinois State Police has basically said that they have better things to do than waste their time busting video game retailers when they should be busting drug dealers and murderers.
They also have better things to do than bust convenience stores for selling cigarettes or alcohol to minors. What they will do is every so often is bust a few stores to keep the rest honest.
Even though the rhetoric of the supporters is over the top, I have no issues with the bill. Why shouldn't the default for a minor trying to purchase a mature title be "no"?
If I had a 13 year old, for example, I might let it play a 15+ game, but would not allow it to play an 18+ game.
The law doesn't stop you from doing that. What it does is prevent the clerk behind the counter from making that decision for you.
Yes the promotion of mediocrity is always a good thing. Besides unless you extend that to maximum to companies as well, people will find loop holes. Like turn themselves into consulting companies. You're not hiring a CEO, you're hiring a 1 man consulting company that fills the role of a CEO.
Anakin - You said I killed Padme
Palpatine - When Padme saw you had turned to the darkside, she lost the will to live. So what I said was true... from a certain point of view.
I agree. Luck probably isn't the best term. I was just referring to people who follow their passion lead special lives. They realize it isn't about money, it's about doing things with passion. Often times if you are great at something, money will follow.
There are, say, 20 qualified people willing to do the same executive job. According to your reasoning, the one willing to do the job for the least pay should be selected
Yes that would happen if all 20 were equally qualified. Rarely, if ever, would there be that many people equally qualified for a specific executive position. The hiring company may emphasize revenue growth, or stability, or leadership towards innovation. So maybe, you have 2 or 3 candidates. Of course because the labor pool is so small; and employees are conversely wage maximizers, the executive salary would be inflated.
Average lighting guys have lower salary because there are many of them (actors getting cash between gigs, people just trying to get into the biz, etc). I'm sure there are some who have extended their abilities not only lighting, but have shown artistic ability using lighting to create particular effects. This makes them more valuable, as a director may want a certain "look." Since the pool of candidates who have demonstrated that ability is smaller those people would command higher salaries.
What makes executives more deserving of an inflated paycheck than a worker?
The value added of that person's abilities. Same reason a foreman gets more money, the ability to lead a group of workers is more rare and valuable than simply the ability to work.
You think that you "pulled yourself up by the bootstraps" and "made yourself what you are today" because you went to college on your parent's dime and/or government-provided scholarship, grant, and/or student loan programs
If you went to college on goverment provided scholarship, you earned that money through hard work studying; if you went the student loan route you took a risk invested in yourself.
It is self righteous blue collar nonsense that college kids don't know what it's like to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. Many people when they go to college basically have 2 jobs, except they only get paid for one of them
I'm not saying the executives don't work hard, because a lot do. But they like to think that their sixty to eighty hours a week somehow entitles them to the lion's share of profit. Guess what: Sixty to eighty hours a weeks is a normal work week for a LOT of people who are barely making ends meet. In fact, some of the people in the corporate trenches would consider a sixty hour week a vacation.
Yes but what that executive accomplishes in 60 hours produces much more results than what a waiter accomplishes in 60 hours.
It's not like executives sit down with the grunts on the line and work out what everyone thinks is fair compensation for all employees
They put your salary on a piece of paper, if you agree you take the job, if not you don't take it. They don't force you to work.
Their job is to maximize profit and minimize costs (i.e. things like salary and benefits for average schmoes). Being fair to the employees isn't part of the equation; in fact, it is a significant hinderance.
Yeah and the employee just wants to maximize his salary. Another job down the street offers him more he is going to take it. Identify areas where you can invest in yourself to become more valuable.
Bringing it back on-topic, most of the people working on the film AREN'T being paid what they're "supposed" to be paid.
This is just a sense of entitlement, a lighting guy says he deserve $X, except that there are like 20 others who will accept less than $X, why should he get paid what he wants... just because he said so? Why should he even be able to make a good living in lighting just because that's the job he wanted? Work out of love for the job or work for money, if you can get both you're very lucky.
The only people these new laws and forms of control will stop are folks like my dad. It is no different than using software protection to help stop piracy; only average joes are affected.
That's the point. Same as putting a lock on your door won't stop a thief who really wants your TV from breaking in; laws and DRM type protections are there to curb widespread infringement. That's why the *AA goes after P2P and not newsgroups.