I'm not worried about having magnetic substances injected into my bloodstream - I get enough EM radiation from my PC's monitor, not to mention sunlight. What I'm curious about is the article's discussion of heating the molecules once they're inside my body. I know one of the researchers mentioned that this carbon nanofoam is a piss-poor conductor of heat, but I'm still a bit wary of that.
Also, it's been a few years since high-school chemistry - why would this nanofoam lose its magnetic properties after a few hours, rather than immediately upon cooldown? That just strikes me as weird. (Fascinating and cool, but weird.)
By that definition, you'd end up banning imports - which would completely destroy the economy of the United States and its trading partners (i.e. the industrialized world.) A better way to handle it would be to crack down hard on overseas tax shelters and then provide tax benefits for companies keeping their labor in the US (or your appropriate nation, international/.ers. I'm not greedy.)
I'm going to have to disagree with the idea that globalization will prove Karl Marx's theories of capitalism correct; I think it will, in fact, prove exactly the opposite. After all, Marx predicted that capitalism would eventually become communism through a massive worker revolt - and I certainly see no signs of that. That said, I think there is a political backlash against outsourcing that's going to become stronger and stronger in the next year or so. (Just look at the role it's playing in US presidential politics, seven-and-a-half months before the actual election.)
And to be honest, the huge surge in videogame popularity over the past decade - and the recognition that gaming is a "mainstream" activity - is what's pushing this wave of outsourcing. Companies have to have cheaper labor, or they simply won't survive in the highly competitive environment. Would I like to see my games get cheaper? Sure. And that will happen - but the price wars haven't started yet.
"Engagements -- whether sporting or gaming -- have rules. They have rules so that everybody can compete on an even footing, know what they are up against, and most of all have fun."
In fact, this is the fundamental basis of game theory: a situation with two or more participants and a limited (i.e. non-infinite) set of available actions, with all participants trying to achieve the best outcome for themselves. Cheating breaks the whole concept of the "game" apart.
I wonder if cheaters know this? My guess is that they just can't recognize that disrupting fair competition is not a measure of their skill.
The only problem with that, of course, is that your Congressman (or other representative to your national parliamentary body) hasn't yet realized just how much money is present in the videogame industry, and so is more likely to write a bill banning videogames... but more importantly, and all humor aside, I really don't think you'll stop seeing "omg u f***ing h4x0r!" and its associate idiocies anytime soon. The problem doesn't devolve on game companies, either - although it would be nice if they could release cleaner code on launch day, I don't think most hacks depend much on bug exploits.*
The real problem lies with the immaturity of the gamer community. (Don't get me wrong here, I don't mean physical age; I know fourteen-year-old geeks that play games with more honor and respect than some college-age gamers I coexist with.) People can afford to cheat, annoy, PK, etc. because there aren't any real disadvantages to it. (This is one reason I've completely ceased to play on Bnet.) Sure, a company can occasionally run a check for duped items, like Blizzard does with Diablo II; but what can Epic do for UT2K4 beyond banning an IP? And games like Counterstrike, which has no central authority to ban people, are even worse.
I don't really see a solution for the latter, but the former might be solved (in part!) by a peer-driven system of 'honor' rankings. (This idea is shamelessly stolen from a MUD I used to play.) Players give positive or negative rankings to various accounts - not nicks - with the record stored in a central list; a game's host can choose to set a threshold for players to meet before they can join their game. Obviously there's room for abuse here, but the overall idea could be sound with some improvement (that I'm too brain-dead to think up tonight.)
*Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm a gaming politics geek, not a gaming code geek.
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I'm not worried about having magnetic substances injected into my bloodstream - I get enough EM radiation from my PC's monitor, not to mention sunlight. What I'm curious about is the article's discussion of heating the molecules once they're inside my body. I know one of the researchers mentioned that this carbon nanofoam is a piss-poor conductor of heat, but I'm still a bit wary of that.
Also, it's been a few years since high-school chemistry - why would this nanofoam lose its magnetic properties after a few hours, rather than immediately upon cooldown? That just strikes me as weird. (Fascinating and cool, but weird.)
Peculiar how every song thus far mentioned as appropriate to the MS Music Store has been a Rolling Stones song...
By that definition, you'd end up banning imports - which would completely destroy the economy of the United States and its trading partners (i.e. the industrialized world.) A better way to handle it would be to crack down hard on overseas tax shelters and then provide tax benefits for companies keeping their labor in the US (or your appropriate nation, international /.ers. I'm not greedy.)
NPR's All Things Considered had an article on this a few months ago - it's outsourced to Thailand, as I recall.
I'm going to have to disagree with the idea that globalization will prove Karl Marx's theories of capitalism correct; I think it will, in fact, prove exactly the opposite. After all, Marx predicted that capitalism would eventually become communism through a massive worker revolt - and I certainly see no signs of that. That said, I think there is a political backlash against outsourcing that's going to become stronger and stronger in the next year or so. (Just look at the role it's playing in US presidential politics, seven-and-a-half months before the actual election.)
And to be honest, the huge surge in videogame popularity over the past decade - and the recognition that gaming is a "mainstream" activity - is what's pushing this wave of outsourcing. Companies have to have cheaper labor, or they simply won't survive in the highly competitive environment. Would I like to see my games get cheaper? Sure. And that will happen - but the price wars haven't started yet.
"Engagements -- whether sporting or gaming -- have rules. They have rules so that everybody can compete on an even footing, know what they are up against, and most of all have fun."
In fact, this is the fundamental basis of game theory: a situation with two or more participants and a limited (i.e. non-infinite) set of available actions, with all participants trying to achieve the best outcome for themselves. Cheating breaks the whole concept of the "game" apart.
I wonder if cheaters know this? My guess is that they just can't recognize that disrupting fair competition is not a measure of their skill.
The only problem with that, of course, is that your Congressman (or other representative to your national parliamentary body) hasn't yet realized just how much money is present in the videogame industry, and so is more likely to write a bill banning videogames... but more importantly, and all humor aside, I really don't think you'll stop seeing "omg u f***ing h4x0r!" and its associate idiocies anytime soon. The problem doesn't devolve on game companies, either - although it would be nice if they could release cleaner code on launch day, I don't think most hacks depend much on bug exploits.* The real problem lies with the immaturity of the gamer community. (Don't get me wrong here, I don't mean physical age; I know fourteen-year-old geeks that play games with more honor and respect than some college-age gamers I coexist with.) People can afford to cheat, annoy, PK, etc. because there aren't any real disadvantages to it. (This is one reason I've completely ceased to play on Bnet.) Sure, a company can occasionally run a check for duped items, like Blizzard does with Diablo II; but what can Epic do for UT2K4 beyond banning an IP? And games like Counterstrike, which has no central authority to ban people, are even worse. I don't really see a solution for the latter, but the former might be solved (in part!) by a peer-driven system of 'honor' rankings. (This idea is shamelessly stolen from a MUD I used to play.) Players give positive or negative rankings to various accounts - not nicks - with the record stored in a central list; a game's host can choose to set a threshold for players to meet before they can join their game. Obviously there's room for abuse here, but the overall idea could be sound with some improvement (that I'm too brain-dead to think up tonight.) *Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm a gaming politics geek, not a gaming code geek.