Without touching your "violent, coercive" monopoly categorizations, most people's problem with Microsoft isn't so much that they are a monopoly, but that they use their monopoly in one market to (illegally!) lock out the competition in separate markets. Being a monopoly isn't illegal; leveraging a monopoly across markets is.
A former musicology prof of mine got his doctorate during the sixties, when a lot of people thought electronic music would be the Music of the Future. He once told me about a conference he attended in the seventies, where he spoke to one of the guys who helped develop the technology that led to the drum machine. He said if he had known his work would lead to disco he never would have started.
Ugh, I think Powerpoint is the worst of them -- not even in terms of the quality of the software, but in terms of the evil it has unleashed on the world.
But let's say a small community gets together and agrees to provide "free" service (not really free, but supported through a yearly fee or other taxes). Why shouldn't they be able to do so? Is their democratic rights to make such decisions surpassed by the principle of private profit?
I generally agree with you, but I think there is a bit of a difference between an employee dealing with spam and an employee otherwise being nonproductive. The thing is, most office jobs these days are *dependent* on e-mail -- in other words, an employee *needs* to deal with spam in order to do their job. Imagine if you had to run through an obstacle course in order to do your job. It's not really the same as surfing/. or playing Solitaire because you could still do your job if you didn't do those things -- you couldn't do your job if you didn't deal with spam.
I think you are confusing government with bureaucracy. I agree that bureaucracies are inherently conservative and promote butt-covering more than getting anything done; however, that is not a condition unique to governments! Large corporations are also extremely bureaurocratic (and some fool in middle management with try to pass the buck along just as much as a petty bureaurocrat!). To single out governments is to perpetuate the neo-con myth that private business is always more efficient than public government.
I can understand your confusion, but I don't think it's the complexity of the plot itself in Episode II that is the problem; it's the sheer incompetancy with which it was executed.
That's just bloody crazy. Society *needs* a strong and healthy public domain to function. Do you have any idea how much great art out there would never have been created if everything had historically been as tied down to copyright as it is now? Otherwise all you're talking about is the privitization of culture.
Because controlling oil isn't just about controlling energy -- it's about controlling the *economy*. America is able to support itself (and its monstrous trade deficit) largely because the dollar is the de facto international currency, ie, other governments use it as their reserves...*and oil is traded internationally in dollars.* Now, if the oil markets were to move over to the Euro (which Russia, for example, threatened to do a while ago to their oil production in order to get some concessions from the US)...well, the shit in the US would *really* hit the fan.
Guess what currency Iraq is going to be selling its oil in. The fact that it will be sold in dollars is more important than whether or not any of it actually ends up in the States.
Okay, I'm sick of that particular whine. Corruption and waste is CRUCIAL in Civ. Otherwise the *only* style of play that makes any sense is massive empire building, ie non-stop war. Corruption/waste encourages players to acutally *think* about how to manage their empire, and to pursue strategies other than warmongering. And you know what? Even with corruption and waste, you can *still* warmonger effectively if you actually manage your empire intelligently. Know your Optimal City Limit. Know how wonders/city improvements/governments modify that. Use your Forbidden Palace wisely!
People who whine about the corruption just want to be able to run a massive warmongering democracy all the time. TOUGH. Corruption and waste doesn't RUIN the game, it MAKES it.
That was genuinely informative. My father is an accountant, and still makes heavy use of his ancient tape adding machine. He can use it by touch -- it would be crazy for a computer number pad to be designed any differently. Thanks for explaining why.
The problem usually comes from vague definitions -- what exactly constitutes a significant portion of a work, for example? This ambiguity has real repurcussions. For example, scholarly articles and research in popular music are often unable to quote the lyrics of the songs under examination, even though one would think that would fall under comment and criticism.
I'm no editor, but I do TA and mark undergrad papers, and I think you're spot on. I've handed in papers before that have had typos and ambiguous sentences in them, even after proofreading, but when I mark I catch everything. When you read your own stuff, you really are reconstructing it -- memory is doing half the work.
Higher education can be vital even for writers and other artsy types (I study music at the graduate level) -- how? The environment. Being surrounded by other students, learning from profs you respect (if you don't, you're at the wrong school) -- it's almost impossible to get that level of critique and even competition outside of the university system. There's also the simple element of being *forced* to do stuff you might not otherwise. You're absolutely right about a writer needing to do a lot of reading and writing, and a formal education often exposes people to genres/historical periods/etc that they wouldn't otherwise actually go through.
Besides, a big part of the point of an undergrad education is simply learning how to jump through hoops. It can suck to go through it, but it is important in and of itself.
When have corporations lacked nerve? It is common practice for many corporations, not only those in the entertainment business, to use creative accounting to make it look like they're only breaking even (they pay taxes on profit, not revenue).
There's not too much anyone can do as long as Broadcom keeps on acting like jerks. I'm suffering from the same problem as you on my laptop, but it's important to recognise that it's purely Broadcom's fault.
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Without touching your "violent, coercive" monopoly categorizations, most people's problem with Microsoft isn't so much that they are a monopoly, but that they use their monopoly in one market to (illegally!) lock out the competition in separate markets. Being a monopoly isn't illegal; leveraging a monopoly across markets is.
A former musicology prof of mine got his doctorate during the sixties, when a lot of people thought electronic music would be the Music of the Future. He once told me about a conference he attended in the seventies, where he spoke to one of the guys who helped develop the technology that led to the drum machine. He said if he had known his work would lead to disco he never would have started.
Cage? Dada? I dunno, not really -- in terms of their aesthetics they're quite different.
Ugh, I think Powerpoint is the worst of them -- not even in terms of the quality of the software, but in terms of the evil it has unleashed on the world.
But let's say a small community gets together and agrees to provide "free" service (not really free, but supported through a yearly fee or other taxes). Why shouldn't they be able to do so? Is their democratic rights to make such decisions surpassed by the principle of private profit?
I generally agree with you, but I think there is a bit of a difference between an employee dealing with spam and an employee otherwise being nonproductive. The thing is, most office jobs these days are *dependent* on e-mail -- in other words, an employee *needs* to deal with spam in order to do their job. Imagine if you had to run through an obstacle course in order to do your job. It's not really the same as surfing /. or playing Solitaire because you could still do your job if you didn't do those things -- you couldn't do your job if you didn't deal with spam.
The two students may also get different marks because the TA who marked the papers marked the first while sober, and the second while hung over.
I think you are confusing government with bureaucracy. I agree that bureaucracies are inherently conservative and promote butt-covering more than getting anything done; however, that is not a condition unique to governments! Large corporations are also extremely bureaurocratic (and some fool in middle management with try to pass the buck along just as much as a petty bureaurocrat!). To single out governments is to perpetuate the neo-con myth that private business is always more efficient than public government.
I can understand your confusion, but I don't think it's the complexity of the plot itself in Episode II that is the problem; it's the sheer incompetancy with which it was executed.
That's just bloody crazy. Society *needs* a strong and healthy public domain to function. Do you have any idea how much great art out there would never have been created if everything had historically been as tied down to copyright as it is now? Otherwise all you're talking about is the privitization of culture.
Guess what currency Iraq is going to be selling its oil in. The fact that it will be sold in dollars is more important than whether or not any of it actually ends up in the States.
People who whine about the corruption just want to be able to run a massive warmongering democracy all the time. TOUGH. Corruption and waste doesn't RUIN the game, it MAKES it.
I really, really hope that changes, though, as CivIII is the only reason I keep my Windows partition.
Check out the use of quotation marks in the summary -- yet another great example of the high standards the "editors" hold themselves to here.
That was genuinely informative. My father is an accountant, and still makes heavy use of his ancient tape adding machine. He can use it by touch -- it would be crazy for a computer number pad to be designed any differently. Thanks for explaining why.
When you find him, kick his ass for me.
The problem usually comes from vague definitions -- what exactly constitutes a significant portion of a work, for example? This ambiguity has real repurcussions. For example, scholarly articles and research in popular music are often unable to quote the lyrics of the songs under examination, even though one would think that would fall under comment and criticism.
I'm no editor, but I do TA and mark undergrad papers, and I think you're spot on. I've handed in papers before that have had typos and ambiguous sentences in them, even after proofreading, but when I mark I catch everything. When you read your own stuff, you really are reconstructing it -- memory is doing half the work.
Besides, a big part of the point of an undergrad education is simply learning how to jump through hoops. It can suck to go through it, but it is important in and of itself.
You got me thinking that this would be a perfect time for a new Blood Bowl game! Man, that was sweet stuff.
Nuts to the shot across the bow, this is a full on broadside.
I played Legend of the Red Dragon. I think it encouraged my dragon-slaying spirit.
According to the logic of the market, one wonders who really has the brains.
(Please note that I'm criticising the logic of the market, not you!)
When have corporations lacked nerve? It is common practice for many corporations, not only those in the entertainment business, to use creative accounting to make it look like they're only breaking even (they pay taxes on profit, not revenue).
There's not too much anyone can do as long as Broadcom keeps on acting like jerks. I'm suffering from the same problem as you on my laptop, but it's important to recognise that it's purely Broadcom's fault.