Of course there's potential for evil! However, they have a really good reputation for not going down those kinds of paths. As I said, I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt that they won't deliberately screw us all over. Certainly more benefit of a doubt than Microsoft.
Take a deep breath... Integration by itself is not a bad thing. As I said before, it's something thing I give Microsoft a lot of credit for getting right, at least conceptually.
Who here likes the Search box in Firefox? (raises hand.)
Yes, and the idea is a pretty good one, if done right. It's one of the few things that I give Microsoft a lot of credit for. That's one of the things that make Linux generally frustrating. (Yes, I know that some people argue that it's one of the good things about it.) Generally speaking, most applications are blissfully ignorant of everything else running, or provide some really basic (i.e. barely useful) level of communication.
By "standard," I didn't mean to imply that it would be any more or less official than any other version, or that people wouldn't still use alternative distributions. What I meant was that it would have the vast majority of "market share" (or installations, or whatever measure you want to use).
You're absolutely right. I love my GMail account, and I've gotten a whole bunch of other folks using it, too. If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. Oh, wait, I do have mod points! (But since I've posted, I can't mod this particular thread...)
Oh, I dunno, but some must have also wondered what they could have done to make a search engine so special. After all, they certainly weren't the first folks to tread in that area.
I can think of a few things right off that Google can add to the mix:
Standardization. What is the current standard distribution of Linux? Wow, take your pick, because there is none. If a company that specializes in the consumer market such as Google adds their name to a specific distribution and configured it for mass use, it would, I predict, stand a really good chance of becoming the Linux of Choice(TM) for most average desktop users.
Improvements. Unlike most volunteer efforts and companies that have tried to date, Google has the financial power to throw as much money into their Linux distribution as Microsoft has to throw into Windows. All of those little things that drive average users absolutely batty in Linux could, in the very near future, disappear.
Integration. Google has arguably made the computer usage experience massively better through such tools as the Google toolbar, the Google Desktop, Google Maps, Google Video, the search engine itself (duh), and other such stuff. Now imagine if a whole operating system is geared towards bringing all of these tools together into an integrated, easy-to-use package. Wow.
There's lots of other opportunities there as well. Google has a history of taking stuff that kinda sorta is already out there in some form and pumping it up on steriods to the point that it's really cool. I'm willing to think that they can do the same with their own OS as well. At the very least, I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt that it won't be just the same ol' Linux.
The worst case scenario is that they put out something that absolutely sucks ass, and we all stick with our existing favorite distribution. No matter how you look at it, this is win for us.
There's an organization called the Open Voting Consortium whose mission is "the development, maintenance, and delivery of open voting systems for use in public elections." They are directly opposed to the shenanigans that Diebold has engaged in.
Problem is, they spend their donations on actually developing the system, not in paying off Congressmen to give them lucrative exclusive contracts. Still, one can hope that it changes someday. (And donate to support the effort...)
Well, I *am* a paying customer (witness the star by my ID, though it's more of a token of support than an insatiable desire not to see ads), and I haven't seen them before. I'm guessing they're a new feature.
Although, it's weird, because I don't see how this story relates to the one it's "attached" to in any way.
I'm not saying that performing captures and/or copies will be impossible, I'm just saying that to normal people, it won't be very practical, and what a normal person can get will be of extremely questionable quality, probably useless.
Unless, of course, you leave the job up to non-normal people with equipment and rooms like you're talking about and just copy the stuff as a pirate. It's just sad that in order for us to exercise our fair use rights, we have to break the law.
This is covered, which is part of what makes this so evil:
The "secure moving technology" ensures that whatever you do with the signal that leaves the digital broadcast receiver, it definitely won't be anything you can't already do right now. Furthermore, even some things that you can currently do will be outlawed if those things could facilitate piracy. This probably means that such devices won't have much in the way of hi-fi analog outs.
In other words, since analog capture could possibly lead to piracy, new devices will be required to not have analog outputs any more.
The draft states that GPL software cannot use "digital restrictions" on copyright material unless users can control them.
Or how about this?
"Having a personal video recorder which reports every button you push to headquarters when you use the remote control -- and which won't run software if you modify the box so it snoops on you a little less -- is not user-respecting conduct," he said.
While I agree with the sentiment, if I did want to write a piece of open source software under GPL3 that records its users button-presses and phones home, it makes no difference whether or not the user agrees to this. It's going to be flat out illegal under the license? Yeah, that's freedom.
I hope that the GPL was never intended to dictate to me what kind of software I can and I can't write under it. If so, then it looks like I'm going to be passing it up, thank you. (That may not be of much concern to you, but when everyone else starts passing it up because of its harsh restrictions, maybe you'll start getting it.)
Chew on this:
Moglen said the license includes anti-DRM provisions that could put it in conflict with movie studios and even digital video recorder maker TiVo.
So what exactly do you think will happen? These companies will say, "Gosh, I guess we're going to have to start cooperating"? You're fooling yourself. What will happen is that companies will stop using any software that is licensed using GPL3 (and probably GPL period, by extension, and possibly even all open source software) cold.
Among other things, this is a Microsoft marketing dream! I can see the pitch now from Bill and his crew: "Use Microsoft. We don't put those nasty restrictions on what software you can and can't develop!" The sad thing is, he'll be right.
I have no problem interacting with Chinese people socially outside of WOW.
And my late grandmother had no problem interacting with blacks at work, but she still called them "niggers" until the day she died. She used to say, "Some of them are nice people, but that doesn't mean I have to like them." I can't tell you how worried she was when I was assigned to live with a black roommate in college. She actually was going to call the housing department and try to have me assigned to a different room because of it. I remember what she said as she left to go home: "Just be sure to watch all of your stuff." (For the record, George was a great roommate, and we got along really well for the two quarters we lived together.) What you said is typical racistspeak. Believe me, I've seen it at work in issues a lot more serious than gold farming, but it's no less recognizable. You're trying to justify your prejudice by talking about other ways in which you feel you're not racist. It doesn't work, and it's very, very ugly.
The simple fact is, when nearly everyone you meet that acts in a certain way steals, you stop associating with them.
And thus we get to the heart of the matter. 1) You're making gross generalization about a race of people based on your limited experience with them in a certain context, with absolutely no factual basis for such a generalization and selectively ignoring any positive experience you've had with said race in your consideration. This by itself is plenty enough to make you a racist, but you even go further. 2) You're taking specific actions (i.e. avoiding associating with said race) based on your gross generalization. You're not taking into account at all an idividual's motive or actions; you're merely associating those individuals with their race and acting on that fact alone. One can even argue that 3) you're encouring other people to do the same thing you are, thus spreading such erroneous preconceived notions about the race.
Anyone with half a brain sees you for exactly who you are. Hopefully, you'll be able to look back on this someday and realize just how stupid you're being. I myself was raised in a racist household, and for the first twelve years or so of my life, I used the same tired excuses you are to justify my own racism. It took someone showing me what a idiot I was to change my ways. I got smarter and grew up, something you obviously haven't done yet. Whether or not you eventually realize it, there's no doubting that right now, you're being an idiot, too.
That's all I have to say about the matter. If you want to continue being an idiot and passing up playing with some of the coolest people in the world because of your stupid narrowmindedness, well, that's your choice. If you are American, that's one of the beauties of living here: You're free to be racist in your own personal life if you want. I don't really care to read any of your further pathetic attempts at rationalization, but if you feel the need to, go ahead and have your final word. Honestly though, I think what you've said so far stands pefectly well on its own.
There is no difference when race = language. Or more specifically, nationality (Chinese, though I'm certain he was referring to Asians in general) = family of languages.
Whether or not there's a "correlation" (something that I'm not convinced of, since in my personal experience, the vast majority of Asian players I've met have been very nice and competent players), it's no excuse to make such a broad-based generalization of an entire race (or, if you prefer, linguistic class) of people.
There's a huge difference between saying, "I know some lazy black folks" and "I won't hire a black person because all of 'em are lazy." And guess what, it's the same difference (at least, morally) between saying, "I know some Asian players are gold farmers" and "I won't play with Asian players because all of 'em ninja loot." The first quote makes me think duh, I've run across gold farmers of many nationalities. The later makes me think (do I have to say it again?) you're a racist. (Well, not you, hopefully, but definitely the GP.)
And the GP obviously still has no clue what the word racism means, even after I gave him the definition. It just goes to show how all Americans are stupid bigots, they don't even know how to use a frickin' dictionary. No wonder all your kids get their asses kicked every time when compared to other countries' kids. It's just a good thing I don't depend on any of you to solve simple math problems or to know the difference between Osama bin Laden and the entire country of Iraq. (Not so much fun now, is it?)
I wouldn't say nothing, because it underestimates how clever programmers can be. If someone told me years ago that there would someday be a way for someone to listen to a complete two-way conversation between computers capturing every single byte, and to have a detailed specification of what type of encryption was used and still be unable to decipher the message, I would have really scratched my head. Yet here were are, using secure connections today that exactly fit that description.
First of all, let me state for the record that I loathe DRM.
That said, I'm not sure this is a good idea. What they're saying is that there is absolutely, positively no good use for DRM, and there never will be, in free software.
To me, there's a huge difference between free software and free content, and it seems to me that this stance in GPL3 is essentailly saying that if you want to make the former, you've got to embrace the latter as well. It seems to me that it is forcing developers who would otherwise want to release their software under GPL3 to unnecessarily put restrictions (no DRM) on the content (i.e. the data) that their code may use, and I just can't see that as a good thing. What if Microsoft started programming Word so that you could never save a document that contained profanity? To me, this is pretty much the same thing. It bans the use of digital restrictions on the content? I thought the GPL was about freedom, but now it's imposing some of the very restrictions that it has traditionally railed against!
I've thought for some time that if there were some way for free software to somehow manage to be able to protect DRM'ed content without compromising the freeness of the software code itself, that organizations such as the **AA would be at least a little more willing to work with the community instead of being so hostile. I think that one of the reasons they're so belligerent right now is because even though the open source community is right about a lot of things, they're also generally insistent that the industries give away their content for free. In other words, the two sides are both extremist points of view, with no one willing to meet somewhere in the middle.
This article shows that those who wrote the GPL3 are simply digging in on one of the extremist sides, which will undoubtedly force the content industries to dig in yet further and commit further atrocities to harm consumers. The shame of it is that in the end, it is the users who will suffer. The content is owned by the content industry, after all, and if it is not conducive to them to work within the GPL3, they will simply not work within the GPL3, end of story. That means that all GPL3 software users and developers will forever needlessly be relegated to either continuing to operate within the fringe or living without popular content.
Discriminating against chinese in WOW is not racist
Wow (not the abbreviation, the exclamation), what an (oxy)moron. You obviously have no clue want the word racism means. Let me throw out a few definitions from the wiktionary:
The belief that capability or behavior can be racially defined.
Aggression or discriminatory behavior towards members of a certain race or races.
Aggression or discriminatory behavior based upon differences in ethnicity.
Opportunity inequality resulting from preferential treatment towards others of a similar cultural background.
I'm sure a few others probably fit, also. Don't like the community definition? Let me give you Webster's (italics are mine):
a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority [or inferiority] of a particular race
racial prejudice or discrimination
Your statements definitely fit both of those definitions. I hate to say it, but 1) you're wrong, and 2) you're a racist. I always find it funny how many people are racist and don't even know it. But then, that's one of the worst kinds of racism: the kind that hides behind the old "But I'm justified!" excuse. It is also sad how those people's justfication breaks down when you look at their hideously racist characterizations such as:
the fact is that a bunch of people whose only unifying characteristic is bad chinglish steal.
God, you really are pathetic. Definitely one of the worst excuses for an American that I've ever seen. It's people like you that make people like me ashamed when we're in the company of foreigners. I'm just glad that generally speaking, they aren't as narrowminded as you are, and realize that we're not all such tiny-brained little bigots.
I apologize on behalf of my (sometimes twisted and shameful) country to all Asians out there who might have read this. I assure you that most of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen actually like playing online with you, and we do not regard you as this idiot does.
Maybe he or she wants to play with his or her friend who lives in America.
Maybe he or she wants to play on a more/less populated server.
Maybe Americans/Europeans are better roleplayers or otherwise generally play more in a style he or she likes.
Maybe he or she has a nighttime job, and can only play when Americans are generally awake and playing.
Maybe he or she hopes to move to America or Europe someday and is using the game to also help practice English. (Two birds with one stone!)
Maybe he or she just likes Americans/Europeans. I know I always think it's pretty neat when I get in a group with a lot of foreigners, and often, I ponder the possibility of trying out a foreign server.
Like I said, those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty more.
So if you're a gold farmer, hanging around with your gold farming buddies at the gold farming office, wouldn't you just team up with them instead of trying to solicit groups with American players, who are likely to just slow you down?
And if you are a non-gold farming player, and someone wants to team up with you to help accomplish missions, what difference does it make what their motive is? Given that gold (or influence or whatever) is required to get stuff, to some extent, aren't we all gold farmers? For your practical gaming purposes, what makes a player who is accruing it to sell different from a player who is accruing it to buy a neat new sword (or new enhancements or whatever)?
If someone doesn't want to team up with foreigners, I'm guessing that there's something going on other than not wanting to support gold farming. It's probably because either a) for roleplaying purposes, you need to be able to communicate with your teammates (optimism), b) the farmer is not playing they way the group leader wishes and puts high pressure on him or her to rush through the missions (neutral), or c) they just don't like foreigners (pessimism).
I actually had a discussion on this topic very recently.
There's a difference between power gaming and power levelling. The former is playing a game intensely with the intention of quickly getting to a high level. The latter implies that you're doing something to get ahead without earning your status.
In City of Heroes, for example, if you just stand in a mission entrance and let other people do the work for you, you're power levelling (a bad thing). If your contribution to the team is totally inconsequential, you're power levelling (a bad thing).
If, however, you're taking on higher level mobs in earnest, risking experience debt from dying, and making a positive contribution to your team and earning LOTS of experience in doing so, you're power gaming (not a bad thing).
Sometimes it can be a fine line that's a little blurry. What if you're contributing, but not very much? What if you "farm" high-experience missions by deliberately not completing them so that you can repeat them?
Most of the time, though, it's very obvious. In City of Heroes again, for example, if you're just standing inside a mission entrance letting the experience rain on you with no risk at all, you're power levelling, plain and simple. (And IMHO being pretty stupid. If you're not going to play the game, why did you even bother to buy it and continue to pay a monthly fee for it?)
The reason the author discusses it is because even if it's not cheating per se, it is harmful to the game. The underlying idea behind these games (and most games of skill) is that if you're willing to put in some time and effort, you will receive rewards for it. That's part of the "crack" of playing these games: If you play for a few more hours, you'll get one more level. If you short-circuit this process by getting all your rewards with no risk or effort, then you pretty much take away what keeps people coming back to these games and playing them for months and months.
Since monthly fees are how most of these companies make most of their money, well, you can see why they don't want that to happen. But even as a player, you know deep down you don't want it to happen, either. Using City of Heroes again as an example (can you guess what MMORPG I play?), there are badges that should in theory take players weeks or even months to earn. Some players post strategies for getting them in a few hours or days instead. This kind of activity demeans those badges. Even if a player did put in solid months of play to get one, when other players see that he or she has it, they'll be thinking, "Ah, he (or she) probably just used the shortcut." This, of course, makes players less eager to pursue those kinds of rewards and turns something that was supposed to be special into something ho-hum.
Or, in other words, everyone in these games wants to feel a bit special and unique. If everyone is a level $MAXLEVEL character, with all the bells and whistles, it makes the game rather boring and meaningless. Power levelling is bad because it is designed to make players who don't deserve to be $MAXLEVEL level characters.
Unless they destroy it, like they did with Sliders. I used to like that show. I thought it was moderately intelligent and had a great premise. When the Sci Fi channel started making it, though, it got sooooo bad.
I'd rather have no Firefly at all than have it become really bad. And that says a lot, because I really want more Firefly.
...are they? I mean, they advertise them as "Sci Fi world premieres," but I've just been assuming that these were B movies that studios make to go straight to video but that get picked up by Sci-Fi as filler material to avoid showing yet another rerun of some old series. (Not that there's anything wrong with old series, unless you've watched them a million times already.)
In most of them, you can tell that the dirty words have been silenced out. Why would Sci-Fi make a movie that they know they'll be airing with language they know they can't use? Sometimes I'll even see a bare breast blurred out and such.
Sometimes, I'll even see one of these crapfests (and I mean the term in a flattering way;-) on a premium movie channel a few months before Sci Fi airs it.
Nah, I don't think they're actually making these movies. Okay, maybe sometimes financing part of them, but not making them specifically for the network. These kinds of movies have been made since the video market started booming, and will still be around long after the Sci Fi channel is a distant memory.
I mean, really, there always has to be a little Jerry Springer mixed in with the Masterpiece Theater, you know? And yes, I also like vegging out once in a while by partaking of some of the mind-numbing entertainment they show.:-)
At first glance, this sounds kind of trivial, but from TFA:
The scientists said the findings could lead to a model for designing aircraft that could hover in place and carry loads for many purposes such as diaster surveillance after earthquakes and tsunamis.
Now, if the ID advocates had their way, we would have just said, "Hey, God makes bees fly. Since I already know the real reason, there's no real reason to keep studying it." In fact, some of them will probably even go so far as to dismiss the findings as false because it conflicts with their notion that God must be responsible. If we listened to them, we wouldn't have possible future scientific and engineering discoveries, discoveries that could possibly lead to even more important work on truly world-changing devices.
If they have their way and we stop studying other things that are presumably more important like evolution, stem cells, the origin of the universe, and so on, what else may we be missing out on?
I never cease to be amazed at how science has consistently managed to explain everything ID advocates have thrown at it. Is it always right? No. Is it complete? No. But when it comes to explaining how things work, it has a record that beats non-science every time. As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your "It must be God" explanations to yourself and in your churches. Maybe you want your kids to grow up dumb, but I'd rather my kids study stuff that is real and that can actually contribute to our progress.
I'd kill for a mod point right now. I'm so glad that SOMEONE finally pointed out the obvious.
This is a source of some frustration to me. People buy an MMORPG, then complain that it's not soloable. If I wanted a soloable game, I wouldn't be buying an MMORPG! I guess these folks' reason for wanting an MMORPG is just so that they can see other avatars running around, not actually interact with them.
Jeez, as a computer geek, I'm about as antisocial as the rest of you, but at least I have the gumption to fire off an invitation to team up every once in a while. Frankly, this is precisely why one should want an MMORPG! I've met many cool strangers through MMORPGs, people I now consider new friends. There's hardly ever a shortage of these folks I know now online to team up with, and I enjoy doing so immensely.
So seriously, folks, stop complaining that your MMORPG is not conducive to solo play. Stop trying to convince the developers of MMORPGs that they should make your solo character so very powerful that you can accomplish anything in the game without having to (gasp!) talk to anyone else. As the parent said, if that's what you want, go buy a single-player RPG.
Have any of you complainers actually ever even played the old paper-and-pencil Dungeons and Dragons game? If so, how fun was it to solo that?
Okay, let's say that a German investor invests $100 in the $10 million movie (I like simple numbers), and it makes $1 million back. The investor gets his $10 and claims a tax writeoff of $90. How much is that writeoff? Let's say it's a 30% tax rate, so he pays $27 less in taxes.
So the investor's investment of $100 has earned the investor $10, plus a $27 tax break. He's still lost $63.
Instead, let's say that Uwe actually did a good job, and the movie makes $200 million. Even if the investor is soaked with, say, a 70% tax rate, he has made $130 on his $100 investment, which is, I would think, infinitely preferable to losing $63.
I'm always amused at how folks think that investors do things to deliberately lose money for a tax writeoff. Unless you're cooking your books, you will never get a larger credit than the loss you took, which means that making money is always a better choice than losing it. If someone invested in Uwe Boll's movie, it's because they hope it will, in the end, make money. (Or who knows? Maybe they're just a huge Uwe Boll fan, but having seen some of his movies, I think the other reason is much more likely.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, you left out Coke's new product, Tab Energy!
It's as if millions of Y-chromosomes suddenly cried out in terror...
Of course there's potential for evil! However, they have a really good reputation for not going down those kinds of paths. As I said, I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt that they won't deliberately screw us all over. Certainly more benefit of a doubt than Microsoft.
Take a deep breath... Integration by itself is not a bad thing. As I said before, it's something thing I give Microsoft a lot of credit for getting right, at least conceptually.
Who here likes the Search box in Firefox? (raises hand.)
Yes, and the idea is a pretty good one, if done right. It's one of the few things that I give Microsoft a lot of credit for. That's one of the things that make Linux generally frustrating. (Yes, I know that some people argue that it's one of the good things about it.) Generally speaking, most applications are blissfully ignorant of everything else running, or provide some really basic (i.e. barely useful) level of communication.
By "standard," I didn't mean to imply that it would be any more or less official than any other version, or that people wouldn't still use alternative distributions. What I meant was that it would have the vast majority of "market share" (or installations, or whatever measure you want to use).
You're absolutely right. I love my GMail account, and I've gotten a whole bunch of other folks using it, too. If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. Oh, wait, I do have mod points! (But since I've posted, I can't mod this particular thread...)
Oh, I dunno, but some must have also wondered what they could have done to make a search engine so special. After all, they certainly weren't the first folks to tread in that area.
I can think of a few things right off that Google can add to the mix:
There's lots of other opportunities there as well. Google has a history of taking stuff that kinda sorta is already out there in some form and pumping it up on steriods to the point that it's really cool. I'm willing to think that they can do the same with their own OS as well. At the very least, I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt that it won't be just the same ol' Linux.
The worst case scenario is that they put out something that absolutely sucks ass, and we all stick with our existing favorite distribution. No matter how you look at it, this is win for us.
There's an organization called the Open Voting Consortium whose mission is "the development, maintenance, and delivery of open voting systems for use in public elections." They are directly opposed to the shenanigans that Diebold has engaged in.
Problem is, they spend their donations on actually developing the system, not in paying off Congressmen to give them lucrative exclusive contracts. Still, one can hope that it changes someday. (And donate to support the effort...)
Well, I *am* a paying customer (witness the star by my ID, though it's more of a token of support than an insatiable desire not to see ads), and I haven't seen them before. I'm guessing they're a new feature.
Although, it's weird, because I don't see how this story relates to the one it's "attached" to in any way.
Oh well, guess we'll find out at some point.
I'm not saying that performing captures and/or copies will be impossible, I'm just saying that to normal people, it won't be very practical, and what a normal person can get will be of extremely questionable quality, probably useless.
Unless, of course, you leave the job up to non-normal people with equipment and rooms like you're talking about and just copy the stuff as a pirate. It's just sad that in order for us to exercise our fair use rights, we have to break the law.
This is covered, which is part of what makes this so evil:
In other words, since analog capture could possibly lead to piracy, new devices will be required to not have analog outputs any more.
I'm sorry, am I misreading this, from TFA?
Or how about this?
While I agree with the sentiment, if I did want to write a piece of open source software under GPL3 that records its users button-presses and phones home, it makes no difference whether or not the user agrees to this. It's going to be flat out illegal under the license? Yeah, that's freedom.
I hope that the GPL was never intended to dictate to me what kind of software I can and I can't write under it. If so, then it looks like I'm going to be passing it up, thank you. (That may not be of much concern to you, but when everyone else starts passing it up because of its harsh restrictions, maybe you'll start getting it.)
Chew on this:
So what exactly do you think will happen? These companies will say, "Gosh, I guess we're going to have to start cooperating"? You're fooling yourself. What will happen is that companies will stop using any software that is licensed using GPL3 (and probably GPL period, by extension, and possibly even all open source software) cold.
Among other things, this is a Microsoft marketing dream! I can see the pitch now from Bill and his crew: "Use Microsoft. We don't put those nasty restrictions on what software you can and can't develop!" The sad thing is, he'll be right.
And my late grandmother had no problem interacting with blacks at work, but she still called them "niggers" until the day she died. She used to say, "Some of them are nice people, but that doesn't mean I have to like them." I can't tell you how worried she was when I was assigned to live with a black roommate in college. She actually was going to call the housing department and try to have me assigned to a different room because of it. I remember what she said as she left to go home: "Just be sure to watch all of your stuff." (For the record, George was a great roommate, and we got along really well for the two quarters we lived together.) What you said is typical racistspeak. Believe me, I've seen it at work in issues a lot more serious than gold farming, but it's no less recognizable. You're trying to justify your prejudice by talking about other ways in which you feel you're not racist. It doesn't work, and it's very, very ugly.
And thus we get to the heart of the matter. 1) You're making gross generalization about a race of people based on your limited experience with them in a certain context, with absolutely no factual basis for such a generalization and selectively ignoring any positive experience you've had with said race in your consideration. This by itself is plenty enough to make you a racist, but you even go further. 2) You're taking specific actions (i.e. avoiding associating with said race) based on your gross generalization. You're not taking into account at all an idividual's motive or actions; you're merely associating those individuals with their race and acting on that fact alone. One can even argue that 3) you're encouring other people to do the same thing you are, thus spreading such erroneous preconceived notions about the race.
Anyone with half a brain sees you for exactly who you are. Hopefully, you'll be able to look back on this someday and realize just how stupid you're being. I myself was raised in a racist household, and for the first twelve years or so of my life, I used the same tired excuses you are to justify my own racism. It took someone showing me what a idiot I was to change my ways. I got smarter and grew up, something you obviously haven't done yet. Whether or not you eventually realize it, there's no doubting that right now, you're being an idiot, too.
That's all I have to say about the matter. If you want to continue being an idiot and passing up playing with some of the coolest people in the world because of your stupid narrowmindedness, well, that's your choice. If you are American, that's one of the beauties of living here: You're free to be racist in your own personal life if you want. I don't really care to read any of your further pathetic attempts at rationalization, but if you feel the need to, go ahead and have your final word. Honestly though, I think what you've said so far stands pefectly well on its own.
There is no difference when race = language. Or more specifically, nationality (Chinese, though I'm certain he was referring to Asians in general) = family of languages.
Whether or not there's a "correlation" (something that I'm not convinced of, since in my personal experience, the vast majority of Asian players I've met have been very nice and competent players), it's no excuse to make such a broad-based generalization of an entire race (or, if you prefer, linguistic class) of people.
There's a huge difference between saying, "I know some lazy black folks" and "I won't hire a black person because all of 'em are lazy." And guess what, it's the same difference (at least, morally) between saying, "I know some Asian players are gold farmers" and "I won't play with Asian players because all of 'em ninja loot." The first quote makes me think duh, I've run across gold farmers of many nationalities. The later makes me think (do I have to say it again?) you're a racist. (Well, not you, hopefully, but definitely the GP.)
And the GP obviously still has no clue what the word racism means, even after I gave him the definition. It just goes to show how all Americans are stupid bigots, they don't even know how to use a frickin' dictionary. No wonder all your kids get their asses kicked every time when compared to other countries' kids. It's just a good thing I don't depend on any of you to solve simple math problems or to know the difference between Osama bin Laden and the entire country of Iraq. (Not so much fun now, is it?)
I wouldn't say nothing, because it underestimates how clever programmers can be. If someone told me years ago that there would someday be a way for someone to listen to a complete two-way conversation between computers capturing every single byte, and to have a detailed specification of what type of encryption was used and still be unable to decipher the message, I would have really scratched my head. Yet here were are, using secure connections today that exactly fit that description.
Never say never!
First of all, let me state for the record that I loathe DRM.
That said, I'm not sure this is a good idea. What they're saying is that there is absolutely, positively no good use for DRM, and there never will be, in free software.
To me, there's a huge difference between free software and free content, and it seems to me that this stance in GPL3 is essentailly saying that if you want to make the former, you've got to embrace the latter as well. It seems to me that it is forcing developers who would otherwise want to release their software under GPL3 to unnecessarily put restrictions (no DRM) on the content (i.e. the data) that their code may use, and I just can't see that as a good thing. What if Microsoft started programming Word so that you could never save a document that contained profanity? To me, this is pretty much the same thing. It bans the use of digital restrictions on the content? I thought the GPL was about freedom, but now it's imposing some of the very restrictions that it has traditionally railed against!
I've thought for some time that if there were some way for free software to somehow manage to be able to protect DRM'ed content without compromising the freeness of the software code itself, that organizations such as the **AA would be at least a little more willing to work with the community instead of being so hostile. I think that one of the reasons they're so belligerent right now is because even though the open source community is right about a lot of things, they're also generally insistent that the industries give away their content for free. In other words, the two sides are both extremist points of view, with no one willing to meet somewhere in the middle.
This article shows that those who wrote the GPL3 are simply digging in on one of the extremist sides, which will undoubtedly force the content industries to dig in yet further and commit further atrocities to harm consumers. The shame of it is that in the end, it is the users who will suffer. The content is owned by the content industry, after all, and if it is not conducive to them to work within the GPL3, they will simply not work within the GPL3, end of story. That means that all GPL3 software users and developers will forever needlessly be relegated to either continuing to operate within the fringe or living without popular content.
Wow (not the abbreviation, the exclamation), what an (oxy)moron. You obviously have no clue want the word racism means. Let me throw out a few definitions from the wiktionary:
I'm sure a few others probably fit, also. Don't like the community definition? Let me give you Webster's (italics are mine):
Your statements definitely fit both of those definitions. I hate to say it, but 1) you're wrong, and 2) you're a racist. I always find it funny how many people are racist and don't even know it. But then, that's one of the worst kinds of racism: the kind that hides behind the old "But I'm justified!" excuse. It is also sad how those people's justfication breaks down when you look at their hideously racist characterizations such as:
God, you really are pathetic. Definitely one of the worst excuses for an American that I've ever seen. It's people like you that make people like me ashamed when we're in the company of foreigners. I'm just glad that generally speaking, they aren't as narrowminded as you are, and realize that we're not all such tiny-brained little bigots.
I apologize on behalf of my (sometimes twisted and shameful) country to all Asians out there who might have read this. I assure you that most of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen actually like playing online with you, and we do not regard you as this idiot does.
Gosh, I can think of at least a few good reasons.
Like I said, those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty more.
So if you're a gold farmer, hanging around with your gold farming buddies at the gold farming office, wouldn't you just team up with them instead of trying to solicit groups with American players, who are likely to just slow you down?
And if you are a non-gold farming player, and someone wants to team up with you to help accomplish missions, what difference does it make what their motive is? Given that gold (or influence or whatever) is required to get stuff, to some extent, aren't we all gold farmers? For your practical gaming purposes, what makes a player who is accruing it to sell different from a player who is accruing it to buy a neat new sword (or new enhancements or whatever)?
If someone doesn't want to team up with foreigners, I'm guessing that there's something going on other than not wanting to support gold farming. It's probably because either a) for roleplaying purposes, you need to be able to communicate with your teammates (optimism), b) the farmer is not playing they way the group leader wishes and puts high pressure on him or her to rush through the missions (neutral), or c) they just don't like foreigners (pessimism).
I actually had a discussion on this topic very recently.
There's a difference between power gaming and power levelling. The former is playing a game intensely with the intention of quickly getting to a high level. The latter implies that you're doing something to get ahead without earning your status.
In City of Heroes, for example, if you just stand in a mission entrance and let other people do the work for you, you're power levelling (a bad thing). If your contribution to the team is totally inconsequential, you're power levelling (a bad thing).
If, however, you're taking on higher level mobs in earnest, risking experience debt from dying, and making a positive contribution to your team and earning LOTS of experience in doing so, you're power gaming (not a bad thing).
Sometimes it can be a fine line that's a little blurry. What if you're contributing, but not very much? What if you "farm" high-experience missions by deliberately not completing them so that you can repeat them?
Most of the time, though, it's very obvious. In City of Heroes again, for example, if you're just standing inside a mission entrance letting the experience rain on you with no risk at all, you're power levelling, plain and simple. (And IMHO being pretty stupid. If you're not going to play the game, why did you even bother to buy it and continue to pay a monthly fee for it?)
The reason the author discusses it is because even if it's not cheating per se, it is harmful to the game. The underlying idea behind these games (and most games of skill) is that if you're willing to put in some time and effort, you will receive rewards for it. That's part of the "crack" of playing these games: If you play for a few more hours, you'll get one more level. If you short-circuit this process by getting all your rewards with no risk or effort, then you pretty much take away what keeps people coming back to these games and playing them for months and months.
Since monthly fees are how most of these companies make most of their money, well, you can see why they don't want that to happen. But even as a player, you know deep down you don't want it to happen, either. Using City of Heroes again as an example (can you guess what MMORPG I play?), there are badges that should in theory take players weeks or even months to earn. Some players post strategies for getting them in a few hours or days instead. This kind of activity demeans those badges. Even if a player did put in solid months of play to get one, when other players see that he or she has it, they'll be thinking, "Ah, he (or she) probably just used the shortcut." This, of course, makes players less eager to pursue those kinds of rewards and turns something that was supposed to be special into something ho-hum.
Or, in other words, everyone in these games wants to feel a bit special and unique. If everyone is a level $MAXLEVEL character, with all the bells and whistles, it makes the game rather boring and meaningless. Power levelling is bad because it is designed to make players who don't deserve to be $MAXLEVEL level characters.
Unless they destroy it, like they did with Sliders. I used to like that show. I thought it was moderately intelligent and had a great premise. When the Sci Fi channel started making it, though, it got sooooo bad.
I'd rather have no Firefly at all than have it become really bad. And that says a lot, because I really want more Firefly.
...are they? I mean, they advertise them as "Sci Fi world premieres," but I've just been assuming that these were B movies that studios make to go straight to video but that get picked up by Sci-Fi as filler material to avoid showing yet another rerun of some old series. (Not that there's anything wrong with old series, unless you've watched them a million times already.)
In most of them, you can tell that the dirty words have been silenced out. Why would Sci-Fi make a movie that they know they'll be airing with language they know they can't use? Sometimes I'll even see a bare breast blurred out and such.
Sometimes, I'll even see one of these crapfests (and I mean the term in a flattering way ;-) on a premium movie channel a few months before Sci Fi airs it.
Nah, I don't think they're actually making these movies. Okay, maybe sometimes financing part of them, but not making them specifically for the network. These kinds of movies have been made since the video market started booming, and will still be around long after the Sci Fi channel is a distant memory.
I mean, really, there always has to be a little Jerry Springer mixed in with the Masterpiece Theater, you know? And yes, I also like vegging out once in a while by partaking of some of the mind-numbing entertainment they show. :-)
At first glance, this sounds kind of trivial, but from TFA:
Now, if the ID advocates had their way, we would have just said, "Hey, God makes bees fly. Since I already know the real reason, there's no real reason to keep studying it." In fact, some of them will probably even go so far as to dismiss the findings as false because it conflicts with their notion that God must be responsible. If we listened to them, we wouldn't have possible future scientific and engineering discoveries, discoveries that could possibly lead to even more important work on truly world-changing devices.
If they have their way and we stop studying other things that are presumably more important like evolution, stem cells, the origin of the universe, and so on, what else may we be missing out on?
I never cease to be amazed at how science has consistently managed to explain everything ID advocates have thrown at it. Is it always right? No. Is it complete? No. But when it comes to explaining how things work, it has a record that beats non-science every time. As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your "It must be God" explanations to yourself and in your churches. Maybe you want your kids to grow up dumb, but I'd rather my kids study stuff that is real and that can actually contribute to our progress.
I'd kill for a mod point right now. I'm so glad that SOMEONE finally pointed out the obvious.
This is a source of some frustration to me. People buy an MMORPG, then complain that it's not soloable. If I wanted a soloable game, I wouldn't be buying an MMORPG! I guess these folks' reason for wanting an MMORPG is just so that they can see other avatars running around, not actually interact with them.
Jeez, as a computer geek, I'm about as antisocial as the rest of you, but at least I have the gumption to fire off an invitation to team up every once in a while. Frankly, this is precisely why one should want an MMORPG! I've met many cool strangers through MMORPGs, people I now consider new friends. There's hardly ever a shortage of these folks I know now online to team up with, and I enjoy doing so immensely.
So seriously, folks, stop complaining that your MMORPG is not conducive to solo play. Stop trying to convince the developers of MMORPGs that they should make your solo character so very powerful that you can accomplish anything in the game without having to (gasp!) talk to anyone else. As the parent said, if that's what you want, go buy a single-player RPG.
Have any of you complainers actually ever even played the old paper-and-pencil Dungeons and Dragons game? If so, how fun was it to solo that?
(sigh)
Okay, let's say that a German investor invests $100 in the $10 million movie (I like simple numbers), and it makes $1 million back. The investor gets his $10 and claims a tax writeoff of $90. How much is that writeoff? Let's say it's a 30% tax rate, so he pays $27 less in taxes.
So the investor's investment of $100 has earned the investor $10, plus a $27 tax break. He's still lost $63.
Instead, let's say that Uwe actually did a good job, and the movie makes $200 million. Even if the investor is soaked with, say, a 70% tax rate, he has made $130 on his $100 investment, which is, I would think, infinitely preferable to losing $63.
I'm always amused at how folks think that investors do things to deliberately lose money for a tax writeoff. Unless you're cooking your books, you will never get a larger credit than the loss you took, which means that making money is always a better choice than losing it. If someone invested in Uwe Boll's movie, it's because they hope it will, in the end, make money. (Or who knows? Maybe they're just a huge Uwe Boll fan, but having seen some of his movies, I think the other reason is much more likely.)