I presume someone being a liar, and a seriously committed one at that, is not irrelevant on Wikipedia.
So the argument about credentials being irrelevant, is in fact itself irrelevant, as it is the deception that is the issue, not the perceived effects of it in influencing Wikipedia editing.
Bizarrely, Wales appears to think the latter is the most important thing, and that up until he found out about that, was perfectly happy with the deception.
This suggests a very big disconnection from reality for the figurehead (indeed more than that) of a project like Wikipedia.
Yes - but my point was that certain types of adventure game are not now prevalent. I mean, my comments apply not just to Monkey Island, but Simon the Sorcerer, Discworld, etc.
That's not just childhood nostalgia as the gp was attempting to say. It's about wanting something similar again, because its good fun in a way that even other adventure games aren't.
I think that if you simply had good enough writers, artists, what have you, you could do another Monkey Island. I've played The Longest Journey through (and will play Dreamfall once I figure out how to avoid installing Starforce or downloading the entire cracked US version).
But nothing other than Monkey Island has the same quirky humour, laid back style, and well, MONKEYS AND PIRATES! OK - so it doesn't have to be monkeys and pirates. But seriously, TLJ wasn't exactly a light-hearted amusing little romp.
Or even 21% VAT here in Ireland, where unfortunately we don't quite have pots of gold despite all the tall tales.
The bigger question is what the package deals will be priced at. Even now you would be hard pushed to get a decent Xbox 360 full package (HDD etc.) with a game or two for much less than €500. Unsurprisingly, although there are buyers, it's not a must-have item that everyone is going for.
The one thing that people have been going for like rabid ferrets is the DS lite, those sold out again a couple of times before Christmas - esp. the black ones. In fact, the prices are now far higher than back in late Autumn - profiteering shops.
Getting consumer items in Ireland can be expensive too because of moron distributors insisting on routing things through the UK, despite our using the euro here. Generally this costs more as there are more agents who have to take a cut. Also UK companies have a belittling attitude to Ireland and seem to regard it as an annoying exception - heck, half of them even have problems sending stuff in their own country to Scotland or Northern Ireland, or even odder places like, oh no, Channel Islands (OK so technically that last place isn't in the EU).
NOTE: WHEN WILL SLASHDOT ALLOW EURO SYMBOL DIRECTLY TYPED INTO POSTS?! ARGH!
Hah - I didn't know that US pints were different to British pints.
Then again, we weren't even taught conversion to non-metric units in school here in Ireland; we only learnt metric units. That's despite the fact that our metrication only properly finished with our conversion to km/h for speed limits a year or two ago (prior to that we had km for distance, and mph for speed, with no units on speed limit signs!)
Anyways - we still have pints here in Ireland, good old 568ml beer glasses rather than the continental 500ml. Although I believe the glasses used in Germany are the same ones we have in Ireland - because the head of the beer does not count in the measurement there, but does here in Ireland.
I don't know why soft drinks cans are 330ml though.
> don't you think that the bringing Christians into it was a little gratuitous?
Not really, I'm a Christian, and find attitudes of some *Christians* in the US very hard to reconcile with even a cursory glance of say, the gospels. It's not even a matter of interpretation, there is no possible way that some views of stereotypical US evangelical Christians stand up to any form of reconciliation with the Bible.
Note too that I am not saying these people aren't Christian. I'm reasonably convinced that even Bush is a Christian, though it is not my place to judge. I'm nevertheless appalled at what he has overseen in the last number of years. It's akin to being certain that some of those partaking in the violent excesses of the Crusades were nevertheless indeed Christians.
I am well aware of the statistics wrt. giving. But that should not in fact be a source of pride. It is a failure for only a segment of the population to be giving so much, and the government to be performing poorly. I do not understand the US evangelical Christian attitudes towards government; i.e. supporting individualism and anarchistic principles as opposed to strong governance. They don't seem to follow the clear reasoning in the Bible (OT & NT) for having strong government, even if said government is oftimes flawed. Christians should be supporting authority, praying for it and seeking to better it, in fact, doing everything for the government apart from that which would be disobeying God. Just because a government acts in ways that Christians cannot condone does not mean Christians shouldn't respect their authority. They should not be seeking to lessen the governments influence in society. Government is just about the only thing holding society together; it's why God instituted government in the first place.
Yes, but it's also human to take care of the nations minorities. Nevermind that they are a substantial minority, anyone could be added to the group at any time, and the measures taken to help them, help everyone. If you don't believe me, see how much easier streetscapes, buildings, public transport or in fact money is in European countries for everyone because of measures to help the disabled.
Talk about inhuman and unfeeling - I find it shocking that a country with such a large Christian population continues to have such draconian and uncaring policies not just at government level, but supported as a ideology by most of the population. No wonder there are so many leftists and socialist radicals in South America, Europe, etc. when they look at what goes on in the Capitalist USA. I don't agree with that either; I believe Social Democracy (of a brand somewhat between the extremes in IRL/UK and continental Europe) can have the right balance between economic prosperity and social welfare. Besides, if you really have economic prosperity, surely the government can afford to care for its citizens who are lacking not only opportunity, but basic human rights and needs?
OK, there are other countries that have as idiotic banknote design as the US - the Euro however is fantastically done, and a comparable scale (i.e. not off by orders of magnitude) to the US. Plus its introduction was insane compared to what would have to be done in the US for some new banknotes. Vastly simpler for the US to do so than it was for European countries to changeover on various exchange rates to a new currency and get all the old banknotes and money withdrawn in a short timescale.
Even in the US you introduce new banknote versions anyway for upgraded anti-countfeit measures etc. Apart from design costs there isn't much issue besides vending machines. The latter issue is far far from a showstopper for something so essential - unless your politicians or public are a slave to the lobbying by those responsible for vending machines.
Last time I checked, the US doesn't seem to mind spending billions of dollars they don't even have; and for things around the world that will probably made worse for their actions. How much better to actually care for her own citizens for once.
How about just using a wacky scheme like other countries; have each note in a different colour (helps partially sighted "blind" people who can distinguish colour, not to mention helping everyone else distinguish quickly), have each note a different size (helps everyone even if not the only measure to be taken), have tactile surfaces (helps blind and is another non-trivial mechanism that counterfeiters have to copy), have the numbers written large and clearly (again, helps everyone, and helps a lot of partially sighted, incl. even just longsighted).
Seriously, this stuff is not rocket science. I sincerely hope that this judgement means the US govt. will stop living in past centuries, at least when it comes to banknotes. The US is so *old* when it comes to so many things - I was astonished when I visited there! "Old Europe" is nothing like old, so much upheaval in the last century.
In my country, Ireland, anyone can observe the election counts.
All the political parties involved in an election will be watching to see what's marked on the ballots. Sure there is quibbling on a recount when poorly marked ballots come into play (we have STV, so people voting have to attempt to write legible numbers beside candidates), but that's a lot better than trusting some buggy machine.
Yet our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) calls it a "silly aul system" and wants us to use e-voting equipment that has been discounted already (it's the stuff those Dutch hackers showed up as being insecure). Plus last time I heard, they wanted to store vote results of general elections in a MS Access Database!!!
It may be built on hype, but you have to do a bit more than that for people *still* to be buying Playstation 2s (even right now, today, even with the Xbox 360 there and Wii and PS3 around the corner). And that's not to mention the success of the predecessor.
Yeah, except that you poor Americans don't have real democracy. You have a voting system that inevitably favors a two-party system (and despite the overall more liberal or conservative bias each allegedly represents; they are of course both populist/centrist except both varying degrees of right of centre economically).
The sad thing is, that if one of your parties screws up really badly, and no-one else breaks into the scene, you will end up with a democracy that is a one-party state.
My mistake. Evidently I saw the 50% figure somewhere else, but it was referring to the "discretionary funding" (i.e. money that is free for the govt. to choose to allocate as they decide). It's still obscene, and how it can be condoned and continued by Christians is beyond me (speaking as a Christian).
I live in Ireland. Seems like a rather good idea not to plunder corporations, but rather have low taxes for them, and offer various benefits for setting up.
However, in real terms, our income taxes aren't that high either (tax free up to a certain allowance, then 21%, and if you're well paid, the top amount of your income gets 40% tax or so... but you can claim back for all kinds of things, like paying rent, or a mortgage, or having paid tax on other things, or who knows what! An average worker might effectively pay about 7-10% tax).
Where a lot of money comes in here is VAT (tax on buying; 21%), motor (21% VAT on buying a car, whopping huge "vehicle registration tax", motor tax, excise duty on fuel), and drink (we drink lots and there is huge excise). This is reasonably good (cause you have all the money from happy companies and high pay with low real income tax) but it doesn't work so well for those who are poor (they don't pay income tax, but can't as easily afford to pay 21% tax on purchases or afford to drive, and like anyone else in Ireland they drink lots). We have a problem with nearly full employment that there are people on more than minimum wage (not much under $10 an hour) who are "poor" in real terms (cause of the high cost of living here from indirect taxation, particularly on motoring). However, you can live like a king if you drink little, don't drive a car, don't live in Dublin, and aren't buying a house. And to be fair, none are must haves. Even with poor public transport you can afford to get a poorer job (outside Dublin), pay the costs of buses, trains and taxis, etc. And you can save money to make getting a house easier when you move up in pay/career (and when the housing market/bubble bursts).
Perhaps the US tax system would be fine too if you didn't spend half the budget on "Defence" and spent more on healthcare, jobs, etc.
I have a 20" screen. Even with its native resolution of 1600x1200, pixels are quite large. Turn off AA, and particularly AF, and any game looks pretty poor (jagged edges and un-merged texture edges look abysmal when magnified).
Particularly looks awful if my poor vanilla 6800 won't let me do more than 1024x768 for a game (e.g. the monster that Bethesda created which is Oblivion); generally this looks awful scaled to fill the screen (esp. with AA low or turned off). If I'm using 1280x1024 the screen is large enough that I can just run it centred and it doesn't look silly/too small.
For most people who have a more down-to-earth screen, I'd agree, there's no need to upgrade so frequently. Even in my case, I'm not going to change from my 6800 anytime soon unless I see a real bargain in the lower high-end bracket (about €300, and something more powerful than say 7950GT). MMMmmmm... I'd love one of these 8800 series cards though...
Nevermind that, if you set up your system properly, keep it clean, and don't have to start crazy amounts of processes at boot, you can boot even Windows XP in not much more than that amount of time on a recent PC.
I find Gillette Blue II to be the cheapest "non-cut-your-face-off" razors. They do the job, and if you really want to, you can re-use them. I don't care so much about the price these days as when a broke student, so meh.
Sometimes the supermarket is badly stocked and I end up with the same thign but with tilting heads, or with a "balm strip". I don't like the latter as it makes a gooey mess over ones face when shaving and doesn't help avoiding slips.
Here in Ireland though, it is something like €6 for 10 Gillette Blue II razors.
Don't they make artificial diamonds themselves? I was under the impression that a company called "Element 6" (catchy) based in Shannon here in Ireland was a subsidiary of DeBeers, and that they made artificial diamonds.
> Thus I was (despite some doubts) in favor of taking out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But the invasion of Iraq is an unmitigated disaster.
Sorry to disillusion you, but things are not going well in Afghanistan. Very good, the govt. was toppled and a new one put in. Unfortunately, that doesn't by default leave things in a stable condition; in fact things could be worse than they were before in the future.
Sure staying the course might help - but it is untenable to do so, the more soldiers die. It is unlikely to be so very long now before the British are forced to withdraw; and this is partly *because* they have put more troops in and made a huge effort. There have been a lot (as far as the UK are concerned) of British soldiers dying in Afghanistan in the last while. And other countries are having a tough time and didn't even want to put more troops in.
Pakistan is right to be worried about the Taleban just coming back in again, stronger than ever.
You can't just go around the world willy-nilly toppling governments by force just because they are awful govts, or allow a base of operations for terrorists (poor/unsupported govt. or lack of govt. allows this too). And it for sure is not Christian (look up Christian teachings on govt. and authority - or just look at Jesus' take on the Roman occupation of Israel) - which is ironic considering Bush and a particular segment of his support.
Slashdot Mirror
I presume someone being a liar, and a seriously committed one at that, is not irrelevant on Wikipedia.
So the argument about credentials being irrelevant, is in fact itself irrelevant, as it is the deception that is the issue, not the perceived effects of it in influencing Wikipedia editing.
Bizarrely, Wales appears to think the latter is the most important thing, and that up until he found out about that, was perfectly happy with the deception.
This suggests a very big disconnection from reality for the figurehead (indeed more than that) of a project like Wikipedia.
NTSC is noticeably lower resolution than PAL.
Give them a bigger pair of scissors...
Yes - but my point was that certain types of adventure game are not now prevalent. I mean, my comments apply not just to Monkey Island, but Simon the Sorcerer, Discworld, etc.
That's not just childhood nostalgia as the gp was attempting to say. It's about wanting something similar again, because its good fun in a way that even other adventure games aren't.
I think that if you simply had good enough writers, artists, what have you, you could do another Monkey Island. I've played The Longest Journey through (and will play Dreamfall once I figure out how to avoid installing Starforce or downloading the entire cracked US version).
But nothing other than Monkey Island has the same quirky humour, laid back style, and well, MONKEYS AND PIRATES! OK - so it doesn't have to be monkeys and pirates. But seriously, TLJ wasn't exactly a light-hearted amusing little romp.
Or even 21% VAT here in Ireland, where unfortunately we don't quite have pots of gold despite all the tall tales.
The bigger question is what the package deals will be priced at. Even now you would be hard pushed to get a decent Xbox 360 full package (HDD etc.) with a game or two for much less than €500. Unsurprisingly, although there are buyers, it's not a must-have item that everyone is going for.
The one thing that people have been going for like rabid ferrets is the DS lite, those sold out again a couple of times before Christmas - esp. the black ones. In fact, the prices are now far higher than back in late Autumn - profiteering shops.
Getting consumer items in Ireland can be expensive too because of moron distributors insisting on routing things through the UK, despite our using the euro here. Generally this costs more as there are more agents who have to take a cut. Also UK companies have a belittling attitude to Ireland and seem to regard it as an annoying exception - heck, half of them even have problems sending stuff in their own country to Scotland or Northern Ireland, or even odder places like, oh no, Channel Islands (OK so technically that last place isn't in the EU).
NOTE: WHEN WILL SLASHDOT ALLOW EURO SYMBOL DIRECTLY TYPED INTO POSTS?! ARGH!
Hah - I didn't know that US pints were different to British pints.
Then again, we weren't even taught conversion to non-metric units in school here in Ireland; we only learnt metric units. That's despite the fact that our metrication only properly finished with our conversion to km/h for speed limits a year or two ago (prior to that we had km for distance, and mph for speed, with no units on speed limit signs!)
Anyways - we still have pints here in Ireland, good old 568ml beer glasses rather than the continental 500ml. Although I believe the glasses used in Germany are the same ones we have in Ireland - because the head of the beer does not count in the measurement there, but does here in Ireland.
I don't know why soft drinks cans are 330ml though.
I don't think death by public stoning would be particularly preferable to 40 years in prison.
Many people don't believe this book with all of their being. Most of them have never read it.
> don't you think that the bringing Christians into it was a little gratuitous?
Not really, I'm a Christian, and find attitudes of some *Christians* in the US very hard to reconcile with even a cursory glance of say, the gospels. It's not even a matter of interpretation, there is no possible way that some views of stereotypical US evangelical Christians stand up to any form of reconciliation with the Bible.
Note too that I am not saying these people aren't Christian. I'm reasonably convinced that even Bush is a Christian, though it is not my place to judge. I'm nevertheless appalled at what he has overseen in the last number of years. It's akin to being certain that some of those partaking in the violent excesses of the Crusades were nevertheless indeed Christians.
I am well aware of the statistics wrt. giving. But that should not in fact be a source of pride. It is a failure for only a segment of the population to be giving so much, and the government to be performing poorly. I do not understand the US evangelical Christian attitudes towards government; i.e. supporting individualism and anarchistic principles as opposed to strong governance. They don't seem to follow the clear reasoning in the Bible (OT & NT) for having strong government, even if said government is oftimes flawed. Christians should be supporting authority, praying for it and seeking to better it, in fact, doing everything for the government apart from that which would be disobeying God. Just because a government acts in ways that Christians cannot condone does not mean Christians shouldn't respect their authority. They should not be seeking to lessen the governments influence in society. Government is just about the only thing holding society together; it's why God instituted government in the first place.
Yes, but it's also human to take care of the nations minorities. Nevermind that they are a substantial minority, anyone could be added to the group at any time, and the measures taken to help them, help everyone. If you don't believe me, see how much easier streetscapes, buildings, public transport or in fact money is in European countries for everyone because of measures to help the disabled.
Talk about inhuman and unfeeling - I find it shocking that a country with such a large Christian population continues to have such draconian and uncaring policies not just at government level, but supported as a ideology by most of the population. No wonder there are so many leftists and socialist radicals in South America, Europe, etc. when they look at what goes on in the Capitalist USA. I don't agree with that either; I believe Social Democracy (of a brand somewhat between the extremes in IRL/UK and continental Europe) can have the right balance between economic prosperity and social welfare. Besides, if you really have economic prosperity, surely the government can afford to care for its citizens who are lacking not only opportunity, but basic human rights and needs?
OK, there are other countries that have as idiotic banknote design as the US - the Euro however is fantastically done, and a comparable scale (i.e. not off by orders of magnitude) to the US. Plus its introduction was insane compared to what would have to be done in the US for some new banknotes. Vastly simpler for the US to do so than it was for European countries to changeover on various exchange rates to a new currency and get all the old banknotes and money withdrawn in a short timescale.
Even in the US you introduce new banknote versions anyway for upgraded anti-countfeit measures etc. Apart from design costs there isn't much issue besides vending machines. The latter issue is far far from a showstopper for something so essential - unless your politicians or public are a slave to the lobbying by those responsible for vending machines.
Last time I checked, the US doesn't seem to mind spending billions of dollars they don't even have; and for things around the world that will probably made worse for their actions. How much better to actually care for her own citizens for once.
How about just using a wacky scheme like other countries; have each note in a different colour (helps partially sighted "blind" people who can distinguish colour, not to mention helping everyone else distinguish quickly), have each note a different size (helps everyone even if not the only measure to be taken), have tactile surfaces (helps blind and is another non-trivial mechanism that counterfeiters have to copy), have the numbers written large and clearly (again, helps everyone, and helps a lot of partially sighted, incl. even just longsighted).
Seriously, this stuff is not rocket science. I sincerely hope that this judgement means the US govt. will stop living in past centuries, at least when it comes to banknotes. The US is so *old* when it comes to so many things - I was astonished when I visited there! "Old Europe" is nothing like old, so much upheaval in the last century.
Which is pretty absurd, considering the actions of atheists and atheist states. Look at French Revolution, Communist Russia, China, etc.
Nevermind that the way some atheists talk, they seem to be in favour of violence against the religious.
In my country, Ireland, anyone can observe the election counts.
All the political parties involved in an election will be watching to see what's marked on the ballots. Sure there is quibbling on a recount when poorly marked ballots come into play (we have STV, so people voting have to attempt to write legible numbers beside candidates), but that's a lot better than trusting some buggy machine.
Yet our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) calls it a "silly aul system" and wants us to use e-voting equipment that has been discounted already (it's the stuff those Dutch hackers showed up as being insecure). Plus last time I heard, they wanted to store vote results of general elections in a MS Access Database!!!
It may be built on hype, but you have to do a bit more than that for people *still* to be buying Playstation 2s (even right now, today, even with the Xbox 360 there and Wii and PS3 around the corner). And that's not to mention the success of the predecessor.
Yeah, except that you poor Americans don't have real democracy. You have a voting system that inevitably favors a two-party system (and despite the overall more liberal or conservative bias each allegedly represents; they are of course both populist/centrist except both varying degrees of right of centre economically).
The sad thing is, that if one of your parties screws up really badly, and no-one else breaks into the scene, you will end up with a democracy that is a one-party state.
My mistake. Evidently I saw the 50% figure somewhere else, but it was referring to the "discretionary funding" (i.e. money that is free for the govt. to choose to allocate as they decide). It's still obscene, and how it can be condoned and continued by Christians is beyond me (speaking as a Christian).
I live in Ireland. Seems like a rather good idea not to plunder corporations, but rather have low taxes for them, and offer various benefits for setting up.
However, in real terms, our income taxes aren't that high either (tax free up to a certain allowance, then 21%, and if you're well paid, the top amount of your income gets 40% tax or so... but you can claim back for all kinds of things, like paying rent, or a mortgage, or having paid tax on other things, or who knows what! An average worker might effectively pay about 7-10% tax).
Where a lot of money comes in here is VAT (tax on buying; 21%), motor (21% VAT on buying a car, whopping huge "vehicle registration tax", motor tax, excise duty on fuel), and drink (we drink lots and there is huge excise). This is reasonably good (cause you have all the money from happy companies and high pay with low real income tax) but it doesn't work so well for those who are poor (they don't pay income tax, but can't as easily afford to pay 21% tax on purchases or afford to drive, and like anyone else in Ireland they drink lots). We have a problem with nearly full employment that there are people on more than minimum wage (not much under $10 an hour) who are "poor" in real terms (cause of the high cost of living here from indirect taxation, particularly on motoring). However, you can live like a king if you drink little, don't drive a car, don't live in Dublin, and aren't buying a house. And to be fair, none are must haves. Even with poor public transport you can afford to get a poorer job (outside Dublin), pay the costs of buses, trains and taxis, etc. And you can save money to make getting a house easier when you move up in pay/career (and when the housing market/bubble bursts).
Perhaps the US tax system would be fine too if you didn't spend half the budget on "Defence" and spent more on healthcare, jobs, etc.
> AA or AF (=useless gimmicks)
I have a 20" screen. Even with its native resolution of 1600x1200, pixels are quite large. Turn off AA, and particularly AF, and any game looks pretty poor (jagged edges and un-merged texture edges look abysmal when magnified).
Particularly looks awful if my poor vanilla 6800 won't let me do more than 1024x768 for a game (e.g. the monster that Bethesda created which is Oblivion); generally this looks awful scaled to fill the screen (esp. with AA low or turned off). If I'm using 1280x1024 the screen is large enough that I can just run it centred and it doesn't look silly/too small.
For most people who have a more down-to-earth screen, I'd agree, there's no need to upgrade so frequently. Even in my case, I'm not going to change from my 6800 anytime soon unless I see a real bargain in the lower high-end bracket (about €300, and something more powerful than say 7950GT). MMMmmmm... I'd love one of these 8800 series cards though...
Nevermind that, if you set up your system properly, keep it clean, and don't have to start crazy amounts of processes at boot, you can boot even Windows XP in not much more than that amount of time on a recent PC.
I find Gillette Blue II to be the cheapest "non-cut-your-face-off" razors. They do the job, and if you really want to, you can re-use them. I don't care so much about the price these days as when a broke student, so meh.
Sometimes the supermarket is badly stocked and I end up with the same thign but with tilting heads, or with a "balm strip". I don't like the latter as it makes a gooey mess over ones face when shaving and doesn't help avoiding slips.
Here in Ireland though, it is something like €6 for 10 Gillette Blue II razors.
Don't they make artificial diamonds themselves? I was under the impression that a company called "Element 6" (catchy) based in Shannon here in Ireland was a subsidiary of DeBeers, and that they made artificial diamonds.
> Thus I was (despite some doubts) in favor of taking out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But the invasion of Iraq is an unmitigated disaster.
Sorry to disillusion you, but things are not going well in Afghanistan. Very good, the govt. was toppled and a new one put in. Unfortunately, that doesn't by default leave things in a stable condition; in fact things could be worse than they were before in the future.
Sure staying the course might help - but it is untenable to do so, the more soldiers die. It is unlikely to be so very long now before the British are forced to withdraw; and this is partly *because* they have put more troops in and made a huge effort. There have been a lot (as far as the UK are concerned) of British soldiers dying in Afghanistan in the last while. And other countries are having a tough time and didn't even want to put more troops in.
Pakistan is right to be worried about the Taleban just coming back in again, stronger than ever.
You can't just go around the world willy-nilly toppling governments by force just because they are awful govts, or allow a base of operations for terrorists (poor/unsupported govt. or lack of govt. allows this too). And it for sure is not Christian (look up Christian teachings on govt. and authority - or just look at Jesus' take on the Roman occupation of Israel) - which is ironic considering Bush and a particular segment of his support.