A good coder should write clean code that is easy to understand.
But when the variable's names are written with meanings you can't understand, and comments (or worse, none) in another language, you might as well be reading assembly.
they probably recognized that the DRM actually encouraged us to seek out and download cracked versions....
They wouldn't have cared the slightest about that. The only reason they will have done this will be because of money. Plain and simple.
Now perhaps they have realised that their DRM efforts are repelling people from buying their games. I know i refused to purchase RA3 the moment i heard it had super restrictive DRM put on it
It could also be a ploy to get cheaper licensing deals with the makers of securerom.
Or perhaps its just an experiment to see what less DRM does to sales.
If you purchased the game and got it cracked later, they already got your money and couldn't care less. It is after all EA, they aren't exactly known for having customer satisfaction as a priority
The GPL doesn't force you to distribute your source code unless you've distributed a derived work (ie: binary executable).
In other words when you distribute anything based on the GPL, you distribute ALL of your work, holding nothing back.
Its still your right to not distribute anything
To give a further example. If I've built some killer utility application, and I decide I want to licence it under the GPL I can.
A friend comes to be, lets call him Adam, and he asks for the software, since he's a friend I give it to him. I can even SELL the distribution to him.
Its now his copy to use and redistribute as he likes, under the restrictions of the GPL. (He can even redistribute it for free or for more if he likes)
Later tosspot Bob comes along from a competitor's company and decides he needs it, and asks for it. I can refuse to distribute to him. He can ask my friend Adam, and Adam can choose to distribute or not.
In this case, since no one has distributed to Bob, he has no recourse for acquiring the source code or even derived works. He can't demand it from either of us since we never distributed to him in the first place.
If he steals the code/binaries from Bob its copyright infringement, as he was never given a licence to use the software from anyone.
Now if you understand that you only need to supply source code to those you've distributed to, the fact that you can be restricted from distributing to places and people has little effect on the integrity of the GPL.
If you can't release source code to Cuba, you can't release anything to Cuba, the GPL forbids it. But that does not invalidate or contradict the licence in any form or way.
Probably the biggest misconception with the GPL is that people think once its licensed under the GPL you have no control over who you distribute it to. That's just not the case, you can distribute nothing, or everything. There is no in-between however.
You think gaming can be done without paying attention to accuracy?
You jump up a ledge, your computed land zone is 0.5 units below the ledge itself. You fall through the world and die
Texture wise you'd see all kind of errors, which given how graphics have evolved to look more realistic, seeing doors hang mid-air would be going a few steps back.
Finally bugs. When you encounter a bug that caused the game to crash, you'll never be sure what caused it.
As for scientific research, the Intel pentium had a bug that could cause a division to return inaccurate results. The result, Intel processors were shunned for research purposes.
Nearly all of the operations done on a computer/console are used in future calculations, and require 100% accuracy. This chip will be of no use at all.
What this chip could be useful in, is primitive applications that don't have anything like an operating system and perfect accuracy isn't required.
I can see a lot of mechanical applications, pretty much anything that runs off AA batteries and thinks a little. Anything with lithium ion or a wall socket probably won't find a use from it
There is no spike. There is a surge at the end of the Clinton administration, which lasts the entire duration of the bush administration. The national debt nearly doubles under his term.
Considering how big a hole was dug in the US economy (which has spread globally now), i don't expect any US government can truly recover from it in a matter of a few years. I honestly doubt they ever will, and instead will continue their slide into national debt until their debt explodes in another global crisis (if it doesn't go off this time)
Its written in java, and like most LARGE java apps, it runs like a 3 legged dog.
You can say that because its java, its more compatible and runs on all platforms. But only if the platform is supported.
Linux 64 with Java 64bit. That didn't happen for a very long time. As a work around, i tried compiling 32bit OO.org for my gentoo linux, compiling failed, the package notes basically suggested that black voodoo was required to get it to compile, and to use the provided binary packages instead.
As for OS compatibility, if you used a nice framework like say QT, you would get it while avoiding the instability and performance hit caused by java in the process.
Now for all the people that are thinking that i'm just flamebaiting consider this. Every time i used koffice, as primitive and lacklustre as it was, it appealed to me. I WANTED to get involved and help make it the greatest. It was fast, sleak, and attempted to be (but failed) what i wanted.
I never once felt that way with OO.org because the thing that needed most fixing was both its cleanness of source code and its dependence on java.
Yes i'm still an OO.o user, its still the most powerful free office software... But i'm not interested in improving it, just trying to fix what can't be.
The purpose of the cyberbullying was to use Meganâ(TM)s e-mails with Josh Evans to later humiliate Megan in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Sarah Drew
What we see here is someone seeking their own kind of justice. It unfortunately resulted in the death of Megan.
For all those treating Lori as a murderer, probably aren't taking into account that wasn't her intention. If we punish her for being mean to another person, shouldn't we also look at punishing her mother as well, after all they had a huge fight right before Megan hung herself. I'd say that was a large contributing factor as well.
What are laws, when justice is not spoken?
What are laws, when Justice is not spoken? Incomplete, Incorrect, or out of date. But what is Justice when laws are not followed? Injustice.
Laws can be changed to affect everyone equally. But when 'justice' is applied only to a select individual, it is no longer fair to that individual.
Unfairness is the antonym to Justice. For all those that would see 'justice' done to Lori, best live a benevolent life. Because if they have ever treated anyone like shit (even if they deserved it), they are equally guilty of the same crime.
The links don't say that 18% can't tell the Difference
Just that 18% can't tell if what their seeing is HD
An analogy would be playing mp3's, and asking people if it was 320kbps, or 64kbps.
Most people won't be able to tell the encoding rate just by hearing it, but if you play two different versions side by side they should be able to pick out the difference.
They probably can tell the difference, but they can't spot HD just by looking at it.
Give them an HD Content for a month and they'll quickly learn however.
When you try to imagine the game without the graphics, you realize how little gameplay there actually is.
As opposed to say first-person shooters, you remove the graphics from that game, and your left with what?
You are in a room with 3 first-aid kits, a player Zero is camping the Quad power up and has spotted you entering the room Quake> Kill Zero Zero was killed by Bazar, your score is now 5 Quake> Camp Quad
Ultimately most people play games to have fun. Not everyone appreciates a game where to kill a target you have to have done computations in calculus to plot the best path of attack, or in the case of nethack, play such a perfect game as a tiny screwup can result in death. Some people want to just be able to run up to something and press the kill button.
For those seeking a greater challenge, they can do PvP or raids.
PvP is where your fighting another player, its as complex as it can get as its a game of attacks and counters. Success is usually a mixture of gear and skill.
Or you could raid with other players, the encounters are more challenging and require things like good timing. You could also pick up a leadership, helping coordinate members of the team. Someone needs to lead the raid, the tanks, the healers, and the dps.
Ultimately what I'm trying to say is there is there IS a rich tapestry of gameplay. But if your just out killing stuff by yourself, you not likely to see much of it.
Do some raiding, or enter some battlegrounds for pvp. Most of all MMORPG games are a social game, make/get some friends and/or join a guild, and you'll be having far more fun.
So, again, I ask, what's the problem? If I'm hungry, can I get food? Yes. If I need a place to stay, is there one? Yes. If I'm sick is there a hospital mandated by law to provide care for me? Yes. So, what's the problem?
The problem is where the money is being allocated. In the US, money was funneled into people buying homes they couldn't afford. This had a few effects, being that the price of homes were valued higher then they should of, and sold at an unreal value.
Those that couldn't afford their loan repayments had to default on their loans. The money they were entrusted with, 'lost' when the housing boom crashed. (Redistrbuted to the seller of the inflated home).
Those that invested/deposited the money in the bank (that poorly invested in the home owner), have lost out on that money.
Banks also create money, the fact that they can lend out money they don't actually have. But its not real money, they work off the assumption that at most they only need to pay off 10% of their debt at any point in time, 90% can be invested elsewhere in long/short term investments.
So if more then 10% of the people want their money back in a short period, the bank unable to comply fails, a run on the bank occurs, the available cash is withdrawn and the rest of the money becomes locked up.
Now if you use a locked up bank as your company bank, and its payday for your 50 employers, and your bank has just said it has no money on hand to lend out. You have 50 employers that want blood.
The bank can't make infinite money out of thin air, only about 10 times its net-worth. Anything more and an audit of the books will land their executives/accountants in jail.
So back to the real question, what has changed? The confidence that banks can do their job. They have failed so far, squandering funds where they shouldn't have. People with real savings have potentially lost a lot of money due to their incompetence.
The market as such is re-evaluating itself. Innocent people/depositors are going to be hurt by the revaluation, but it has to happen, the bubble needs to burst. The bailout package in the US was simply a way of spreading the pain away from a few bankers and depositors into a more sufferable pain shared by the entire nation.
Again, what has changed? The market, and its readjusting itself to reflect more accurate values, what that means depends on how people and governments react more then anything.
They don't play the game better. You'll never see one in a group or raid, their too stupid to manage even basic teamwork.
All they ever do is that the owner finds a patch of land where there are mobs of such a low level that they can hardly harm the player, yet still grant experience.
It will then spam a series of buttons, move to target, attack, kill, loot, heal, and repeat.
If the bot ever encounters trouble, it'll usually not notice until its far too late, and get itself killed (usually because its pathed itself into a wall/fence/ditch)
As for calling it a badly designed game, that's not very well thought out. You'll want rewards for achieving massive kills, kills that require the aid of 4, 9, even 24 other players. But what about those people that don't want to group up, or want a quick simple kill, with quick simple rewards.
There is a demand for such rewards, and to exclude it because it can be automated or because you don't find it fun is naive.
If you've ever wanted to do mindless killing in a game, and FPS games excel at such choirs, then you can't say its bad game play.
Put simply, bots do harm the economy because they dilute the rewards earned by those who do the tedious tasks, and there are plenty of people who enjoy doing such solo tasks, just are there are plenty of people who enjoy doing group tasks.
A company could, in principle, contract with an oilsands plant near Fort McMurray to remove CO2 from the air and could build its air capture plant wherever itâ(TM)s cheapest -- China
I had to laugh at that, for once its not because of cheap labour that the jobs are being outsourced.
It does raise the issue however, china is already let off the Kyoto treaty as its considered a developing nation, now are they are going to reap economical benefits of other developed nations by outsourcing their CO2.
Seems like a double win for China for all the wrong reasons.
Consumers are for the most part too ignorant to care about dvd based DRM.
DRM on music is enough to concern them, since many have an mp3 player they would like to use with their CD's/Downloads.
However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Put simply, don't fool yourself into wishful thinking that consumers have suddenly woken up to DRM. Its far more likely to be a more simpler reason, like the recession.
I think you have that the wrong way around If the rate of piracy increases to sales of RA3, it'll at the very best suggest that DRM has had no effect, and at worst suggest that its forcing potental sales into piracy.
Now if the rate of piracy decreases, it'll suggest to the executives that DRM is working to convert piracy to sales, and that'll only encourage them to create more abusive DRM.
But regardless, this is designed to kill off the resale value. (Proven by the fact that they disabled multiple profiles per account) They could have the same effect designed by simply limiting it to 3 activations of the same key with different IPs a week's period. That way any keys posted online would be worthless to the vast majority. Yet it would allow the vast majority of users to continue to reinstall without issues.
The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous...
There is no such right. You don't own the internet, and you don't have any rights, other then perhaps consumer rights from your ISP (minimum level of acceptable service, etc).
Its like suggesting we have a right to force power companies to supply power to anonymous homes. Theres no such thing. You can ask to remain anonymous to your power company, but thats upto the power companies to decide, otherwise they can decline (which they almost always would)
Being anonymous on the internet isn't a right, its not even a privildge, its simply how the internet works.
If the internet changes so that you can no longer be anonymous, your rights haven't been effected. Your options for anonymous outlets have been been reduced.
The only rights people have (unless they own a telecommuntion company that might be affected by this) are the rights of a consumer.
My understanding that at least in New Zealand, that once a price has been established, unless explicitly stated otherwise, cash must be accepted as payment for the price.
Conditions can be applied at, and before the point of sale, but not after. This is why you often see things like "3% discount for cash payments". Its because they can't set the price higher because your paying through CC, as the price has already been tallied.
There are however restrictions in that you can't pay more then a few dollars in coins alone, and low denomation notes are only allowed to go so far, otherwise merchant has the right to refuse payment your payment.
Inventory Shrinkage accounts for more then just theft.
Its simply writing off missing or damaged goods that aren't worth accounting for on an individual basis. Did some get inventory get broken while in storage, or damaged by staff.
Small thefts can be included in the costs, but its not just an alternate name for thievery.
but to 90% of the market it's irrelevant since they don't run Vista and therefore don't have DX10, OpenGL is competing with DX9, not 10, and winning.
<sarcasm>Yes, because game developers look to the now and not the future.
When FPS Games take multiple years to develop, its a well known fact game designers program it with current generation graphics in mind. They never plan ahead 1-3 years so that at release they have a game that will push grahpics to the limit</sarcasm>
Honestly, the biggest supporters of OpenGL i can think of have been ID Software and Epic MegaGames, and i expect even Carmack would be getting tired of working around a primitive framework with minimal support for modern and future graphical features.
The civil courts are more then happy to award judgment on evidence that is less then concrete. As such loosing a letter that exonerates you could cost your company quite badly in the pockets.
From the article, the solar panels are rated to generate at least 90% their rated potential within 10 years and at least 80% within 25 years
So although the power generation will decline slowly over time, i don't see any replacement being needed, only expansion.
As for adjusting for inflation, its about a 10% return per year, and as power costs increase, so will the savings. So it can be likened to a 10% PA investment fund, which isn't bad at all.
The methods this prosecutor used is a method any lawyer can use.
Its not too hard to picture a case where the defense uses a facebook profile that portrays their client in a good light, or the prosecution in a bad light.
There are certain advantages to being lightweight, but protection isn't one of them.
I expect that any serious commercial adaption will have something like a roll bar built into it for additional protection to offset its light weight, as i expect it would get flung around a fair bit, even strong winds could present dangers if its too light.
Saying that, i doubt there is anything you can do to justify it currently. The good news is that SUVs are a dieing breed currently, and as more people shift into lighter vehicles, the safety concerns of driving in such light weigh vehicles will be alleviated.
A point to note for international readers, America is unfortunately a nation that love their SUVs. It'll be quite a while before anyone with safety concerns drives that around there. As much as i hate SUVs, even i wanted to drive one so i had protection from the other SUV drivers while i was visiting there. In my experience, about every other vehicle is an SUV or equivalent there. (as opposed to about 1/10 here in New Zealand)
There was no down side to saying no to questionable requests. NONE. Other then the threat of loosing government contracts worth possibly hundreds of millions of dollars.
Which is what happened to QWest when they turned the goverment down. The government just canceled a contract that was just about finalized.
Nice to see how their actions have been vindicated. With companies, its money speaks. That's why we have punitive damages, so that we can tell them they did wrong.
What this message has told them is to give the government what they want, failure to comply will result in punishment, regardless of if its legal or not.
When the air pressure is low (known as a "high" in weather reports), there is plenty of room for water. We get low air pressure when things warm up, as matter expands when it becomes hot, thus on sunny days we get low air pressure.
As water evaporates into the "high", it becomes more humid, as well as building up water.
Now when a "low" comes in (aka, a wave of dense/cold air pressure), the air compresses and there isn't enough space for water, so any water there is forced out, if there is only a tiny amount of water in the air, it'll simply manifest itself as precipitation (morning dew) on the ground, if there is more it'll be as rain or snow.
If the temperature shift is gradual, it'll simply be rain, if its sudden, the rain will be frozen before it reaches the ground, thus we get snow.
But if it only stops casual piracy what's the point? The point is to get cheapskates to pay up. I'd argue that a reasonable amount of money is lost because people would rather pirate instead of pay.
If they couldn't pirate, then one would assume sales would go up. Thats the theory behind it all.
The theory falls short because its always remained easy to pirate the game. Download the game, then crack the exe. For some this will be out of their league, and its those people that casual DRM is most effective on. Taking an arms race on DRM on those that know how to crack a game will achieve nothing, because game publishers are far too outnumbered to put up a real fight.
However in their attempt, a lot of innocent customers are getting are getting caught in the cross-fire. From having CD's fail to be read due to improper FAT tables, system instabilities from malware running in the background, and now license key lockouts.
The sad part is, DRM on games just isn't effective, and whats worse, for all those pirates that don't/won't purchase a game, i strongly suspect they boost the legal sales of the game indirectly (viral marketing)
I've been forced to cracking games I've legally purchased just to get around their DRM lockouts. And the more DRM they add to the games, the faster I'll resort to cracking.
Moral of this rant was best said by vader: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"
Slashdot Mirror
A good coder should write clean code that is easy to understand.
But when the variable's names are written with meanings you can't understand, and comments (or worse, none) in another language, you might as well be reading assembly.
they probably recognized that the DRM actually encouraged us to seek out and download cracked versions....
They wouldn't have cared the slightest about that. The only reason they will have done this will be because of money. Plain and simple.
Now perhaps they have realised that their DRM efforts are repelling people from buying their games. I know i refused to purchase RA3 the moment i heard it had super restrictive DRM put on it
It could also be a ploy to get cheaper licensing deals with the makers of securerom.
Or perhaps its just an experiment to see what less DRM does to sales.
If you purchased the game and got it cracked later, they already got your money and couldn't care less. It is after all EA, they aren't exactly known for having customer satisfaction as a priority
A few thoughts here.
The GPL doesn't force you to distribute your source code unless you've distributed a derived work (ie: binary executable).
In other words when you distribute anything based on the GPL, you distribute ALL of your work, holding nothing back.
Its still your right to not distribute anything
To give a further example.
If I've built some killer utility application, and I decide I want to licence it under the GPL I can.
A friend comes to be, lets call him Adam, and he asks for the software, since he's a friend I give it to him. I can even SELL the distribution to him.
Its now his copy to use and redistribute as he likes, under the restrictions of the GPL. (He can even redistribute it for free or for more if he likes)
Later tosspot Bob comes along from a competitor's company and decides he needs it, and asks for it. I can refuse to distribute to him.
He can ask my friend Adam, and Adam can choose to distribute or not.
In this case, since no one has distributed to Bob, he has no recourse for acquiring the source code or even derived works. He can't demand it from either of us since we never distributed to him in the first place.
If he steals the code/binaries from Bob its copyright infringement, as he was never given a licence to use the software from anyone.
Now if you understand that you only need to supply source code to those you've distributed to, the fact that you can be restricted from distributing to places and people has little effect on the integrity of the GPL.
If you can't release source code to Cuba, you can't release anything to Cuba, the GPL forbids it. But that does not invalidate or contradict the licence in any form or way.
Probably the biggest misconception with the GPL is that people think once its licensed under the GPL you have no control over who you distribute it to. That's just not the case, you can distribute nothing, or everything. There is no in-between however.
You think gaming can be done without paying attention to accuracy?
You jump up a ledge, your computed land zone is 0.5 units below the ledge itself. You fall through the world and die
Texture wise you'd see all kind of errors, which given how graphics have evolved to look more realistic, seeing doors hang mid-air would be going a few steps back.
Finally bugs. When you encounter a bug that caused the game to crash, you'll never be sure what caused it.
As for scientific research, the Intel pentium had a bug that could cause a division to return inaccurate results. The result, Intel processors were shunned for research purposes.
Nearly all of the operations done on a computer/console are used in future calculations, and require 100% accuracy. This chip will be of no use at all.
What this chip could be useful in, is primitive applications that don't have anything like an operating system and perfect accuracy isn't required.
I can see a lot of mechanical applications, pretty much anything that runs off AA batteries and thinks a little.
Anything with lithium ion or a wall socket probably won't find a use from it
Here's a chart showing the US National debt with a nice timeline showing the president in charge, and any wars.
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
There is no spike. There is a surge at the end of the Clinton administration, which lasts the entire duration of the bush administration. The national debt nearly doubles under his term.
Considering how big a hole was dug in the US economy (which has spread globally now), i don't expect any US government can truly recover from it in a matter of a few years. I honestly doubt they ever will, and instead will continue their slide into national debt until their debt explodes in another global crisis (if it doesn't go off this time)
Heres what bothers me about OO.o
Its written in java, and like most LARGE java apps, it runs like a 3 legged dog.
You can say that because its java, its more compatible and runs on all platforms. But only if the platform is supported.
Linux 64 with Java 64bit. That didn't happen for a very long time. As a work around, i tried compiling 32bit OO.org for my gentoo linux, compiling failed, the package notes basically suggested that black voodoo was required to get it to compile, and to use the provided binary packages instead.
As for OS compatibility, if you used a nice framework like say QT, you would get it while avoiding the instability and performance hit caused by java in the process.
Now for all the people that are thinking that i'm just flamebaiting consider this. Every time i used koffice, as primitive and lacklustre as it was, it appealed to me. I WANTED to get involved and help make it the greatest. It was fast, sleak, and attempted to be (but failed) what i wanted.
I never once felt that way with OO.org because the thing that needed most fixing was both its cleanness of source code and its dependence on java.
Yes i'm still an OO.o user, its still the most powerful free office software... But i'm not interested in improving it, just trying to fix what can't be.
The purpose of the cyberbullying was to use Meganâ(TM)s e-mails with Josh Evans to later humiliate Megan in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Sarah Drew
What we see here is someone seeking their own kind of justice. It unfortunately resulted in the death of Megan.
For all those treating Lori as a murderer, probably aren't taking into account that wasn't her intention. If we punish her for being mean to another person, shouldn't we also look at punishing her mother as well, after all they had a huge fight right before Megan hung herself.
I'd say that was a large contributing factor as well.
What are laws, when justice is not spoken?
What are laws, when Justice is not spoken? Incomplete, Incorrect, or out of date.
But what is Justice when laws are not followed? Injustice.
Laws can be changed to affect everyone equally.
But when 'justice' is applied only to a select individual, it is no longer fair to that individual.
Unfairness is the antonym to Justice.
For all those that would see 'justice' done to Lori, best live a benevolent life. Because if they have ever treated anyone like shit (even if they deserved it), they are equally guilty of the same crime.
The links don't say that 18% can't tell the Difference
Just that 18% can't tell if what their seeing is HD
An analogy would be playing mp3's, and asking people if it was 320kbps, or 64kbps.
Most people won't be able to tell the encoding rate just by hearing it, but if you play two different versions side by side they should be able to pick out the difference.
They probably can tell the difference, but they can't spot HD just by looking at it.
Give them an HD Content for a month and they'll quickly learn however.
When you try to imagine the game without the graphics, you realize how little gameplay there actually is.
As opposed to say first-person shooters, you remove the graphics from that game, and your left with what?
You are in a room with 3 first-aid kits, a player Zero is camping the Quad power up and has spotted you entering the room
Quake> Kill Zero
Zero was killed by Bazar, your score is now 5
Quake> Camp Quad
Ultimately most people play games to have fun. Not everyone appreciates a game where to kill a target you have to have done computations in calculus to plot the best path of attack, or in the case of nethack, play such a perfect game as a tiny screwup can result in death.
Some people want to just be able to run up to something and press the kill button.
For those seeking a greater challenge, they can do PvP or raids.
PvP is where your fighting another player, its as complex as it can get as its a game of attacks and counters. Success is usually a mixture of gear and skill.
Or you could raid with other players, the encounters are more challenging and require things like good timing. You could also pick up a leadership, helping coordinate members of the team. Someone needs to lead the raid, the tanks, the healers, and the dps.
Ultimately what I'm trying to say is there is there IS a rich tapestry of gameplay. But if your just out killing stuff by yourself, you not likely to see much of it.
Do some raiding, or enter some battlegrounds for pvp.
Most of all MMORPG games are a social game, make/get some friends and/or join a guild, and you'll be having far more fun.
So, again, I ask, what's the problem? If I'm hungry, can I get food? Yes. If I need a place to stay, is there one? Yes. If I'm sick is there a hospital mandated by law to provide care for me? Yes. So, what's the problem?
The problem is where the money is being allocated.
In the US, money was funneled into people buying homes they couldn't afford.
This had a few effects, being that the price of homes were valued higher then they should of, and sold at an unreal value.
Those that couldn't afford their loan repayments had to default on their loans. The money they were entrusted with, 'lost' when the housing boom crashed. (Redistrbuted to the seller of the inflated home).
Those that invested/deposited the money in the bank (that poorly invested in the home owner), have lost out on that money.
Banks also create money, the fact that they can lend out money they don't actually have. But its not real money, they work off the assumption that at most they only need to pay off 10% of their debt at any point in time, 90% can be invested elsewhere in long/short term investments.
So if more then 10% of the people want their money back in a short period, the bank unable to comply fails, a run on the bank occurs, the available cash is withdrawn and the rest of the money becomes locked up.
Now if you use a locked up bank as your company bank, and its payday for your 50 employers, and your bank has just said it has no money on hand to lend out. You have 50 employers that want blood.
The bank can't make infinite money out of thin air, only about 10 times its net-worth. Anything more and an audit of the books will land their executives/accountants in jail.
So back to the real question, what has changed?
The confidence that banks can do their job. They have failed so far, squandering funds where they shouldn't have. People with real savings have potentially lost a lot of money due to their incompetence.
The market as such is re-evaluating itself. Innocent people/depositors are going to be hurt by the revaluation, but it has to happen, the bubble needs to burst. The bailout package in the US was simply a way of spreading the pain away from a few bankers and depositors into a more sufferable pain shared by the entire nation.
Again, what has changed?
The market, and its readjusting itself to reflect more accurate values, what that means depends on how people and governments react more then anything.
Have you ever seen the glider bots in action.
They don't play the game better.
You'll never see one in a group or raid, their too stupid to manage even basic teamwork.
All they ever do is that the owner finds a patch of land where there are mobs of such a low level that they can hardly harm the player, yet still grant experience.
It will then spam a series of buttons, move to target, attack, kill, loot, heal, and repeat.
If the bot ever encounters trouble, it'll usually not notice until its far too late, and get itself killed (usually because its pathed itself into a wall/fence/ditch)
As for calling it a badly designed game, that's not very well thought out.
You'll want rewards for achieving massive kills, kills that require the aid of 4, 9, even 24 other players.
But what about those people that don't want to group up, or want a quick simple kill, with quick simple rewards.
There is a demand for such rewards, and to exclude it because it can be automated or because you don't find it fun is naive.
If you've ever wanted to do mindless killing in a game, and FPS games excel at such choirs, then you can't say its bad game play.
Put simply, bots do harm the economy because they dilute the rewards earned by those who do the tedious tasks, and there are plenty of people who enjoy doing such solo tasks, just are there are plenty of people who enjoy doing group tasks.
A company could, in principle, contract with an oilsands plant near Fort McMurray to remove CO2 from the air and could build its air capture plant wherever itâ(TM)s cheapest -- China
I had to laugh at that, for once its not because of cheap labour that the jobs are being outsourced.
It does raise the issue however, china is already let off the Kyoto treaty as its considered a developing nation, now are they are going to reap economical benefits of other developed nations by outsourcing their CO2.
Seems like a double win for China for all the wrong reasons.
Consumers are for the most part too ignorant to care about dvd based DRM.
DRM on music is enough to concern them, since many have an mp3 player they would like to use with their CD's/Downloads.
However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Put simply, don't fool yourself into wishful thinking that consumers have suddenly woken up to DRM. Its far more likely to be a more simpler reason, like the recession.
I think you have that the wrong way around
If the rate of piracy increases to sales of RA3, it'll at the very best suggest that DRM has had no effect, and at worst suggest that its forcing potental sales into piracy.
Now if the rate of piracy decreases, it'll suggest to the executives that DRM is working to convert piracy to sales, and that'll only encourage them to create more abusive DRM.
But regardless, this is designed to kill off the resale value. (Proven by the fact that they disabled multiple profiles per account)
They could have the same effect designed by simply limiting it to 3 activations of the same key with different IPs a week's period. That way any keys posted online would be worthless to the vast majority.
Yet it would allow the vast majority of users to continue to reinstall without issues.
The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous...
There is no such right.
You don't own the internet, and you don't have any rights, other then perhaps consumer rights from your ISP (minimum level of acceptable service, etc).
Its like suggesting we have a right to force power companies to supply power to anonymous homes. Theres no such thing. You can ask to remain anonymous to your power company, but thats upto the power companies to decide, otherwise they can decline (which they almost always would)
Being anonymous on the internet isn't a right, its not even a privildge, its simply how the internet works.
If the internet changes so that you can no longer be anonymous, your rights haven't been effected. Your options for anonymous outlets have been been reduced.
The only rights people have (unless they own a telecommuntion company that might be affected by this) are the rights of a consumer.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer
My understanding that at least in New Zealand, that once a price has been established, unless explicitly stated otherwise, cash must be accepted as payment for the price.
Conditions can be applied at, and before the point of sale, but not after.
This is why you often see things like "3% discount for cash payments". Its because they can't set the price higher because your paying through CC, as the price has already been tallied.
There are however restrictions in that you can't pay more then a few dollars in coins alone, and low denomation notes are only allowed to go so far, otherwise merchant has the right to refuse payment your payment.
Inventory Shrinkage accounts for more then just theft.
Its simply writing off missing or damaged goods that aren't worth accounting for on an individual basis. Did some get inventory get broken while in storage, or damaged by staff.
Small thefts can be included in the costs, but its not just an alternate name for thievery.
but to 90% of the market it's irrelevant since they don't run Vista and therefore don't have DX10, OpenGL is competing with DX9, not 10, and winning.
<sarcasm>Yes, because game developers look to the now and not the future.
When FPS Games take multiple years to develop, its a well known fact game designers program it with current generation graphics in mind. They never plan ahead 1-3 years so that at release they have a game that will push grahpics to the limit</sarcasm>
Honestly, the biggest supporters of OpenGL i can think of have been ID Software and Epic MegaGames, and i expect even Carmack would be getting tired of working around a primitive framework with minimal support for modern and future graphical features.
That's the criminal courts your thinking about.
The civil courts are more then happy to award judgment on evidence that is less then concrete. As such loosing a letter that exonerates you could cost your company quite badly in the pockets.
From the article, the solar panels are rated to generate at least 90% their rated potential within 10 years and at least 80% within 25 years
So although the power generation will decline slowly over time, i don't see any replacement being needed, only expansion.
As for adjusting for inflation, its about a 10% return per year, and as power costs increase, so will the savings.
So it can be likened to a 10% PA investment fund, which isn't bad at all.
The methods this prosecutor used is a method any lawyer can use.
Its not too hard to picture a case where the defense uses a facebook profile that portrays their client in a good light, or the prosecution in a bad light.
So the title is suitable
There are certain advantages to being lightweight, but protection isn't one of them.
I expect that any serious commercial adaption will have something like a roll bar built into it for additional protection to offset its light weight, as i expect it would get flung around a fair bit, even strong winds could present dangers if its too light.
Saying that, i doubt there is anything you can do to justify it currently. The good news is that SUVs are a dieing breed currently, and as more people shift into lighter vehicles, the safety concerns of driving in such light weigh vehicles will be alleviated.
A point to note for international readers, America is unfortunately a nation that love their SUVs. It'll be quite a while before anyone with safety concerns drives that around there. As much as i hate SUVs, even i wanted to drive one so i had protection from the other SUV drivers while i was visiting there. In my experience, about every other vehicle is an SUV or equivalent there. (as opposed to about 1/10 here in New Zealand)
Which is what happened to QWest when they turned the goverment down. The government just canceled a contract that was just about finalized.
Nice to see how their actions have been vindicated.
With companies, its money speaks. That's why we have punitive damages, so that we can tell them they did wrong.
What this message has told them is to give the government what they want, failure to comply will result in punishment, regardless of if its legal or not.
My limited understanding of how snow happens:
When the air pressure is low (known as a "high" in weather reports), there is plenty of room for water.
We get low air pressure when things warm up, as matter expands when it becomes hot, thus on sunny days we get low air pressure.
As water evaporates into the "high", it becomes more humid, as well as building up water.
Now when a "low" comes in (aka, a wave of dense/cold air pressure), the air compresses and there isn't enough space for water, so any water there is forced out, if there is only a tiny amount of water in the air, it'll simply manifest itself as precipitation (morning dew) on the ground, if there is more it'll be as rain or snow.
If the temperature shift is gradual, it'll simply be rain, if its sudden, the rain will be frozen before it reaches the ground, thus we get snow.
If they couldn't pirate, then one would assume sales would go up.
Thats the theory behind it all.
The theory falls short because its always remained easy to pirate the game. Download the game, then crack the exe. For some this will be out of their league, and its those people that casual DRM is most effective on.
Taking an arms race on DRM on those that know how to crack a game will achieve nothing, because game publishers are far too outnumbered to put up a real fight.
However in their attempt, a lot of innocent customers are getting are getting caught in the cross-fire. From having CD's fail to be read due to improper FAT tables, system instabilities from malware running in the background, and now license key lockouts.
The sad part is, DRM on games just isn't effective, and whats worse, for all those pirates that don't/won't purchase a game, i strongly suspect they boost the legal sales of the game indirectly (viral marketing)
I've been forced to cracking games I've legally purchased just to get around their DRM lockouts. And the more DRM they add to the games, the faster I'll resort to cracking.
Moral of this rant was best said by vader:
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"