"is why people get so concerned about "wasting money" trying to develop a system that could make a significant amount of nuclear weapons functionally obsolete."
You do realize that this is an endless and pointless race? What if one country creates a planetary bomb they drill into the earths core? At some point our capacity for destruction will be so powerful that all it will take is one device to take out the entire planet, at that point the arms race for "protecting millions of lives" is ridiculous.
If you want to protect millions of lives design better human without the backward feral psychology of current people.
Wars are about humanity and it's psyche and not much else, if I were in the military I would be spending all my money on biological sciences and nanotech it has far more long lasting and far-reaching impact then stupid missile defense programs.
"Battle.net had one ad displayed at the top of the screen. Are you not able to move your eyeballs down?"
Of course ads get ignored but think about the amount of time spent in games and the trend of collectivization of game services so there are no stand alone servers (i.w. modern warfare 2), I believe this is just a setup and eventually there will be an advertising platform slowly eased in.
"Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. "
IT's about managing eyeballs in the end, battle.net remember has ads spamming, even if many of those ads are centered around blizzard products, I imagine ad spamming will get worse in the future.
You act like what you said hasn't always been the case:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."--Max Planck
"So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?"
They are not the same, Equities are investments, I don't know of any gambling site that pays dividends, do you?
"flipping houses" is more in line with gambling but that's the fault of the house flippers, buying a place to live is what buying housing is supposed to be for, the house can be used in myriad of different useful ways. But allowing legalized gambling with what are essentially criminals what exactly does that add to society?
I'm sorry but the third party developers are the problem, most third party Wii games are not what the audience wants, the third parties attempt at "mature" games is laughable.
No one has done a serious AAA game for the Wii that takes the core audience seriously. They put experimental crap and remakes on the Wii, little wonder 3rd parties are sucking.
Yes he is really, when an MMO shuts down it takes down ONLY the mmo and anyone who gets into MMO's knows this before hand since a game can only maintain the servers for as long as there is paying customers, stand alone games are nothing like this. Hence his fallacious comparison.
"So you might want to re-think "innovators should be free from kowtowing to the market."
The two are not mutually exclusive so your argument holds no water, some companies go crap when they go public others do not. Also let's not forget apple was at one point in the toilet as well.
I believe this has a lot to do with MS being a publically traded company. A lot of innovators are privately held and don't have to kowtow to the market.
"Microsoft doesn't want you to have to have a license to use the internet. Microsoft wants you to have to pay them for a license to use the internet."
More like this is just a backdoor for DRM and "trusted computing" under the guise of legitimacy. Lets face it we all know movie, games and software industries hate the fact that people can pirate their software, they want authoritarian control over digital goods, and if they can't have that they want to deny people access to the net who don't play by their rules.
"Somalia is a pure free market," one diplomat told me.
And the central Bakara market certainly looks to be thriving. Some businesses, such as telecoms, are also doing well, with mobile phone masts and internet cafes among the few new structures in Mogadishu, a city where many buildings still bear the scars of the heavy fighting between rival militias of the early 1990s.
This large pile of notes is worth about $210 But is a pure free market a good thing?
Speaking from a theoretical point of view, some economists might say so, but in the very harsh reality of Mogadishu, it means guns and other military hardware are freely available in a market not far from the city centre.
I was advised that it was too dangerous to visit, as customers were constantly firing the weapons to make sure they work before buying them.
The cost of an AK-47 is the equivalent of a survey of business confidence in more stable countries.
Following the election of a new president in October, the price fell, as people anticipated that militias may soon no longer be able to operate with impunity.
But a month on, with a government still not named, nor a clear plan for how or when President Abdullahi Yusuf and his team will even go to Mogadishu, let alone get anything done, the price of a weapon has been creeping higher.
"Agreed. Someone who draws first would (theoretically) be the one who DIDN'T think they could win, and as such would prolly be a little more nervous than the other guy."
You could probably get around this by practice, I imagine being anxious has something to do with it, I bet someone who practiced would get the unpracticed reactor most of the time.
"If you allow the government any control over economic activity, for totally virtuous reasons, you'll end up here"
The same thing happens without government, cartels, monopolies, and corruption. You're just transfering governing power from one institution to the next, this is what is lost on free market extremists. Everything will not be ok if we just let it be. Human beings are the problem.
For console games yes, but if you want to see more of your favorite games someone has to buy them or there will be no industry tomorrow, so I voted with my dollars on developers/games I thought were worth purchasing.
I'd have to disagree, steam has been driving the price of games steadily downward. They have frequent sales, many digitial distribution sites and gaming news sites have had special deals on games. I got demigod for $8 and bought SF4 for roughly the same amount on sale off of steam.
"The target audience (teenagers) sees themselves as poor, or actually is poor, and is thus unwilling to pay for something they can get for free"
Since the article mentions cliffski, the problem is cliff's games are competing against all AAA games of yesteryear, why should an indie developer expect large sales when the competition is so fierce?
Why would I want to play space battles instead of darksiders which I can rent for $5 or less and finish then send back? Game developers forget that when we were kids we rented games and bought our favorites, if you want gamers to buy your games they have to be GOOD. I still have an old collection of SNES cartridges and all the games I bought were games worth buying, and we as kids would rent the rest... are most of todays games worth buying? Many kids who grew up to be game developers did the same thing, it would be wise if they would pay attention how they themselves acted when young (pirating/renting the crap and buying the best games)
The great irony is many developers have the least sense of the business they are in and forget their own childhood.
"some of the biggest gains in tech come during war or threat of war."
This assumes that tech could not have developed without war, the need for computers would still come from physics community, the idea that "war is great because it gives us good tech" is bullshit, war is justification to spend money and plunge the government into massive debt for the private profits of a few wealthy individuals and corporations.
The truth is the possibilities are already pre-defined by nature, every technology we now have was always possible a million years ago. It would just take time for people to develop it, just because certain technologies were developed for war does not mean technology would not have naturally developed anyway due to limitations of one sort or another.
The truth is war technology fallacy says more about the sorry state of human beings biology. War does not give birth to technology, human beings were inventing tech all along regardless of whether it is wartime or peacetime.
"It just goes to show that everyone has different taste"
More like largest market is the one for shooting games, if you got a game, turn it into a shooter for maximum sales. Has little to do with "Everyone has different tastes", they purposely took gears of war game mechanics and plopped them into mass effect universe, that's all mass effect is - mass effect universe/w gears of war shooter gameplay.
Let's face it the first person/psuedo third person shooter (ala gears of war) are the most popular gaming genre's, so much so that companies saw the success of Modern warfare 1 and MW2 and just could not stand the kind of money those games were making.
Slashdot Mirror
"is why people get so concerned about "wasting money" trying to develop a system that could make a significant amount of nuclear weapons functionally obsolete."
You do realize that this is an endless and pointless race? What if one country creates a planetary bomb they drill into the earths core? At some point our capacity for destruction will be so powerful that all it will take is one device to take out the entire planet, at that point the arms race for "protecting millions of lives" is ridiculous.
If you want to protect millions of lives design better human without the backward feral psychology of current people.
Wars are about humanity and it's psyche and not much else, if I were in the military I would be spending all my money on biological sciences and nanotech it has far more long lasting and far-reaching impact then stupid missile defense programs.
"Battle.net had one ad displayed at the top of the screen. Are you not able to move your eyeballs down?"
Of course ads get ignored but think about the amount of time spent in games and the trend of collectivization of game services so there are no stand alone servers (i.w. modern warfare 2), I believe this is just a setup and eventually there will be an advertising platform slowly eased in.
"Valve among them, are making it tougher and tougher to create player created and managed communities. "
IT's about managing eyeballs in the end, battle.net remember has ads spamming, even if many of those ads are centered around blizzard products, I imagine ad spamming will get worse in the future.
... and tax evasion IMHO is what this is really going to be about sooner or later.
Paypal allows ones to hide funds from governments of the world as a non bank institution.
You act like what you said hasn't always been the case:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."--Max Planck
He said that over 60 years ago.
"So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?"
They are not the same, Equities are investments, I don't know of any gambling site that pays dividends, do you?
"flipping houses" is more in line with gambling but that's the fault of the house flippers, buying a place to live is what buying housing is supposed to be for, the house can be used in myriad of different useful ways. But allowing legalized gambling with what are essentially criminals what exactly does that add to society?
I'm sorry but the third party developers are the problem, most third party Wii games are not what the audience wants, the third parties attempt at "mature" games is laughable.
No one has done a serious AAA game for the Wii that takes the core audience seriously. They put experimental crap and remakes on the Wii, little wonder 3rd parties are sucking.
Already made, Universal soldier but with Van damme (sp?).
Yes he is really, when an MMO shuts down it takes down ONLY the mmo and anyone who gets into MMO's knows this before hand since a game can only maintain the servers for as long as there is paying customers, stand alone games are nothing like this. Hence his fallacious comparison.
That is an MMO big difference. You're comparing apples to oranges.
"We can't sit around and hope that everything will be maintained for ever..."
You wouldn't have this problem on PC, anyone with a server or internet connection can host their own.
"So you might want to re-think "innovators should be free from kowtowing to the market."
The two are not mutually exclusive so your argument holds no water, some companies go crap when they go public others do not. Also let's not forget apple was at one point in the toilet as well.
I believe this has a lot to do with MS being a publically traded company. A lot of innovators are privately held and don't have to kowtow to the market.
"Microsoft doesn't want you to have to have a license to use the internet. Microsoft wants you to have to pay them for a license to use the internet."
More like this is just a backdoor for DRM and "trusted computing" under the guise of legitimacy. Lets face it we all know movie, games and software industries hate the fact that people can pirate their software, they want authoritarian control over digital goods, and if they can't have that they want to deny people access to the net who don't play by their rules.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4017147.stm
(quoted)
Market forces
"Somalia is a pure free market," one diplomat told me.
And the central Bakara market certainly looks to be thriving. Some businesses, such as telecoms, are also doing well, with mobile phone masts and internet cafes among the few new structures in Mogadishu, a city where many buildings still bear the scars of the heavy fighting between rival militias of the early 1990s.
This large pile of notes is worth about $210
But is a pure free market a good thing?
Speaking from a theoretical point of view, some economists might say so, but in the very harsh reality of Mogadishu, it means guns and other military hardware are freely available in a market not far from the city centre.
I was advised that it was too dangerous to visit, as customers were constantly firing the weapons to make sure they work before buying them.
The cost of an AK-47 is the equivalent of a survey of business confidence in more stable countries.
Following the election of a new president in October, the price fell, as people anticipated that militias may soon no longer be able to operate with impunity.
But a month on, with a government still not named, nor a clear plan for how or when President Abdullahi Yusuf and his team will even go to Mogadishu, let alone get anything done, the price of a weapon has been creeping higher.
"Agreed. Someone who draws first would (theoretically) be the one who DIDN'T think they could win, and as such would prolly be a little more nervous than the other guy."
You could probably get around this by practice, I imagine being anxious has something to do with it, I bet someone who practiced would get the unpracticed reactor most of the time.
"If you allow the government any control over economic activity, for totally virtuous reasons, you'll end up here"
The same thing happens without government, cartels, monopolies, and corruption. You're just transfering governing power from one institution to the next, this is what is lost on free market extremists. Everything will not be ok if we just let it be. Human beings are the problem.
Just buy their games. Go buy some copies of doom, quake or Doom 3 or wait for RAGE and buy a bunch of those.
When is the last time you've "rented" a PC game?
"Renting is normally cheaper than buying."
For console games yes, but if you want to see more of your favorite games someone has to buy them or there will be no industry tomorrow, so I voted with my dollars on developers/games I thought were worth purchasing.
"Steam was never good for customers"
I'd have to disagree, steam has been driving the price of games steadily downward. They have frequent sales, many digitial distribution sites and gaming news sites have had special deals on games. I got demigod for $8 and bought SF4 for roughly the same amount on sale off of steam.
The free market at work.
"The target audience (teenagers) sees themselves as poor, or actually is poor, and is thus unwilling to pay for something they can get for free"
Since the article mentions cliffski, the problem is cliff's games are competing against all AAA games of yesteryear, why should an indie developer expect large sales when the competition is so fierce?
Why would I want to play space battles instead of darksiders which I can rent for $5 or less and finish then send back? Game developers forget that when we were kids we rented games and bought our favorites, if you want gamers to buy your games they have to be GOOD. I still have an old collection of SNES cartridges and all the games I bought were games worth buying, and we as kids would rent the rest... are most of todays games worth buying? Many kids who grew up to be game developers did the same thing, it would be wise if they would pay attention how they themselves acted when young (pirating/renting the crap and buying the best games)
The great irony is many developers have the least sense of the business they are in and forget their own childhood.
"some of the biggest gains in tech come during war or threat of war."
This assumes that tech could not have developed without war, the need for computers would still come from physics community, the idea that "war is great because it gives us good tech" is bullshit, war is justification to spend money and plunge the government into massive debt for the private profits of a few wealthy individuals and corporations.
The truth is the possibilities are already pre-defined by nature, every technology we now have was always possible a million years ago. It would just take time for people to develop it, just because certain technologies were developed for war does not mean technology would not have naturally developed anyway due to limitations of one sort or another.
The truth is war technology fallacy says more about the sorry state of human beings biology. War does not give birth to technology, human beings were inventing tech all along regardless of whether it is wartime or peacetime.
"It just goes to show that everyone has different taste"
More like largest market is the one for shooting games, if you got a game, turn it into a shooter for maximum sales. Has little to do with "Everyone has different tastes", they purposely took gears of war game mechanics and plopped them into mass effect universe, that's all mass effect is - mass effect universe /w gears of war shooter gameplay.
Let's face it the first person/psuedo third person shooter (ala gears of war) are the most popular gaming genre's, so much so that companies saw the success of Modern warfare 1 and MW2 and just could not stand the kind of money those games were making.
You should check out Torchlight, it may be up your alley.
http://www.torchlightgame.com/