I think what Yogibaer is asking is: why can't you switch factions and become an Orc who fights and quests for the Alliance, if that's what you really want? Or be a turncoat night elf who throws his lot in with the Blood Elves?
I think the whole level-based paradigm is a flawed (if ubiquitous) way to build an MMORPG, and I hope Blizzard manages to do away with it in their new MMO. It makes no sense to design a game so that all the fun comes after you've completed a long, gruelling level grind. An MMO should be fun and allow rich interaction with all or most other players the entire way through.
Wow may still be the best online RPG at the moment, but Blizzard really needs to get out of their current rut, a Red Queen situation in which new content does not augment the old, but entirely replaces it in practice.
But failing that, societies that value freedom and independence can and do exist, and those move to the "run by bastards" state more slowly.
With regard to the original poster's question, I recently moved to Japan; and while it is not for everyone, it is a good deal freer in the ways that matter to me than Canada was.
As an aside, most countries (including Japan where I live) do not have SSNs, and naturally in those places there is no need to provide one in order to get a cell phone.
I think we'll see more cutting-edge web designers starting to do what Apple is already doing on some pages of their own site: using HTML5 and then, for obsolete browsers like IE, loading a Javascript compatibility library that reparses the page into HTML4 elements.
To be fair, Ahmadinejad reportedly gained a lot of favour among Azeris by instituting reforms that would allow them to attend university, study, and earn degrees in their own language, Azeri. While he may have cheated in the election, Ahmadinejad's popularity is something that is very difficult to guess at if you don't live in Iran.
Maybe Microsoft wants to go download-only and nickel-and-dime its users even more, but Nintendo relies heavily on its retail ecosystem (including the used market), which provides massive amounts of free marketing for the company. This is particularly true in Japan.
Even environmentalists who attended the conference hated the Kyoto treaty. It was based entirely on political concerns and wrangling rather than actual environmental data or facts.
Yes, Google's Japanese algorithm is so poor I usually end up using Google Image Search of all things (!) for regular queries. At least I can see directly from looking at the picture thumbnails if the result is remotely relevant or not.
I disagree. For about two years, I carried my DS with me every day, everywhere I went, because of the Japanese-English dictionary software I had on it. I generally could go a week or two between charges.
At long last, I've replaced it with an iPod Touch, which includes both better dictionaries than the DS and the ability to run a lot of other software as well â" without cartridges.
Not to mention that it's 2009, but Slashdot can't even be bothered to work with Unicode yet. Here is an em-dash: â" Here is some Japanese: æ--¥æoeèzãã See?
"We" are not buying products from "fascist dictatorships". Regular businessmen -- Americans, Canadians, Japanese, Germans, etc. -- are buying products from (and selling products to) regular Chinese businessmen. They're not buying from the Chinese state, and they generally don't care what any of this world's authoritarian regimes -- whether Obama's, Jintao's, or someone else's -- are up to so long as they can make an honest living.
It's highly disingenuous of you to suggest that the Cantonese factories my clients hire to make their products have anything to do with the shmucks in Beijing who are banning Flickr. People are individuals and ought to be treated as such.
That's because "Bob from Houston" is actually Assim from Bangalore who just reads through a long list of unrelated technical questions in an unintelligible accent before putting the astronaut on hold and accidentally disconnecting him.
It's probably worth pointing out that in many (most?) European countries, tithes are treated like a tax that is extracted by force by the government and passed along to the churches as the politicians deem appropriate.
That's not really an important point. The point, regardless of the ease or difficulty of vandalizing Wikipedia, is that major mainstream news outlets no longer do fact-checking when writing articles. Instead, they just re-hash what anyone can read on the Web, whether it's correct or not.
I've only seen one episode of COPS. In each of the first two segments, cops pulled guns and *fired* on people pulled over for minor traffic infractions. The numbnuts narrator was gushing with enthusiasm for the cops' heroism in shooting at these unarmed civilians. I turned off the TV in disgust.
So what you're saying is that I shouldn't be too disappointed that my brilliant plans to harvest energy from zero-point fields using skittles and Chinese acrobats haven't met with commercial success yet?
Agreed. I love my new iPod Touch and I'm desperate to find some good games for it, but so far, only Zen Bound has been worth more than 5 minutes of my time. Honestly folks, colour-matching games are not "good". Games you can play for free online through Flash applets are not worth paying for. The iPhone platform needs DS-calibre games.
What we really need is a new version of Civilization, Master of Orion, or Sim City (and not the aging Sim City 2000 port that is currently available).
Sony and the other Japanese companies will get on this eventually. You can already buy writeable Blu-Ray discs at most Japanese convenience stores for about $9.
I suppose it's worth it if you're burning discs all day for your job, just like you might find it worth your while to choose one computer over another because its CPU is 10% faster.
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I think what Yogibaer is asking is: why can't you switch factions and become an Orc who fights and quests for the Alliance, if that's what you really want? Or be a turncoat night elf who throws his lot in with the Blood Elves?
I think the whole level-based paradigm is a flawed (if ubiquitous) way to build an MMORPG, and I hope Blizzard manages to do away with it in their new MMO. It makes no sense to design a game so that all the fun comes after you've completed a long, gruelling level grind. An MMO should be fun and allow rich interaction with all or most other players the entire way through. Wow may still be the best online RPG at the moment, but Blizzard really needs to get out of their current rut, a Red Queen situation in which new content does not augment the old, but entirely replaces it in practice.
"64 ASCII characters ought to be enough for anybody." â" Cmdr Taco, 1981
But failing that, societies that value freedom and independence can and do exist, and those move to the "run by bastards" state more slowly.
With regard to the original poster's question, I recently moved to Japan; and while it is not for everyone, it is a good deal freer in the ways that matter to me than Canada was.
Bankers seem to think this will work for changing the laws of economics, so why not?
Excellent point.
As an aside, most countries (including Japan where I live) do not have SSNs, and naturally in those places there is no need to provide one in order to get a cell phone.
I had a friend who enjoyed calling him "Linux Torvalds" to the consternation of his Linux-loving roommate.
I think we'll see more cutting-edge web designers starting to do what Apple is already doing on some pages of their own site: using HTML5 and then, for obsolete browsers like IE, loading a Javascript compatibility library that reparses the page into HTML4 elements.
To be fair, Ahmadinejad reportedly gained a lot of favour among Azeris by instituting reforms that would allow them to attend university, study, and earn degrees in their own language, Azeri. While he may have cheated in the election, Ahmadinejad's popularity is something that is very difficult to guess at if you don't live in Iran.
Maybe Microsoft wants to go download-only and nickel-and-dime its users even more, but Nintendo relies heavily on its retail ecosystem (including the used market), which provides massive amounts of free marketing for the company. This is particularly true in Japan.
Even environmentalists who attended the conference hated the Kyoto treaty. It was based entirely on political concerns and wrangling rather than actual environmental data or facts.
Yes, Google's Japanese algorithm is so poor I usually end up using Google Image Search of all things (!) for regular queries. At least I can see directly from looking at the picture thumbnails if the result is remotely relevant or not.
I disagree. For about two years, I carried my DS with me every day, everywhere I went, because of the Japanese-English dictionary software I had on it. I generally could go a week or two between charges.
At long last, I've replaced it with an iPod Touch, which includes both better dictionaries than the DS and the ability to run a lot of other software as well â" without cartridges.
Not to mention that it's 2009, but Slashdot can't even be bothered to work with Unicode yet.
Here is an em-dash: â"
Here is some Japanese: æ--¥æoeèzãã
See?
"We" are not buying products from "fascist dictatorships". Regular businessmen -- Americans, Canadians, Japanese, Germans, etc. -- are buying products from (and selling products to) regular Chinese businessmen. They're not buying from the Chinese state, and they generally don't care what any of this world's authoritarian regimes -- whether Obama's, Jintao's, or someone else's -- are up to so long as they can make an honest living.
It's highly disingenuous of you to suggest that the Cantonese factories my clients hire to make their products have anything to do with the shmucks in Beijing who are banning Flickr. People are individuals and ought to be treated as such.
Well, since it's a German company, the correct pronunciation would be "zap". :)
That's because "Bob from Houston" is actually Assim from Bangalore who just reads through a long list of unrelated technical questions in an unintelligible accent before putting the astronaut on hold and accidentally disconnecting him.
It's probably worth pointing out that in many (most?) European countries, tithes are treated like a tax that is extracted by force by the government and passed along to the churches as the politicians deem appropriate.
And he did it single-handed, too.
That's not really an important point. The point, regardless of the ease or difficulty of vandalizing Wikipedia, is that major mainstream news outlets no longer do fact-checking when writing articles. Instead, they just re-hash what anyone can read on the Web, whether it's correct or not.
I've only seen one episode of COPS. In each of the first two segments, cops pulled guns and *fired* on people pulled over for minor traffic infractions. The numbnuts narrator was gushing with enthusiasm for the cops' heroism in shooting at these unarmed civilians. I turned off the TV in disgust.
So what you're saying is that I shouldn't be too disappointed that my brilliant plans to harvest energy from zero-point fields using skittles and Chinese acrobats haven't met with commercial success yet?
Agreed. I love my new iPod Touch and I'm desperate to find some good games for it, but so far, only Zen Bound has been worth more than 5 minutes of my time. Honestly folks, colour-matching games are not "good". Games you can play for free online through Flash applets are not worth paying for. The iPhone platform needs DS-calibre games.
What we really need is a new version of Civilization, Master of Orion, or Sim City (and not the aging Sim City 2000 port that is currently available).
Sony and the other Japanese companies will get on this eventually. You can already buy writeable Blu-Ray discs at most Japanese convenience stores for about $9.
I suppose it's worth it if you're burning discs all day for your job, just like you might find it worth your while to choose one computer over another because its CPU is 10% faster.