And you can just bet that those contractors are giving the military the "best" deal they could too, not padding it any way. Trim those costs down a tad then:P As for Blackwater, I am just fine if all of their employees get shipped to the moon - one way:) (I don't believe in private armies)
out of the defense budget, and go do both. The US is already the dominate military power on the planet, bar none, so I am sure they could trim the military budget by a tiny percentage without anyone who doesn't wear a brass hat noticing. Whats the saying? "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon your talking real money?" Its nice to think that private enterprise will provide the means to get there (for whatever values of "there") but although its happening, its not happening overnight. NASA needs to continue doing it all themselves until business is established in orbit - otherwise we waste a few decades waiting for it. As well, think of all the scientific discoveries we might make during this moon mission series. The last one turned out pretty well didn't it?
Good luck trying to push reform of the way Corporations are defined in the modern world. Since they (collectively) have about as much power or more as the governments they dominate, that is never going to happen. You are however correct: Its corporations and their power, along with their better-than-citizen rights that are the root of the problem in the modern world. All we have at the moment in the Western world is the illusion of democracy for the most part, in reality we are becoming an almost feudal system with corporations taking on the role of the nobility. Not quite yet, but getting there - when private corporations have their own police forces and collect the taxes directly then we are there.
Go find your old SWG install disks. Visit the SWG EMU at swgemu.com and play SWG as of patch 14.1:)
Well, its in beta, so there is only the 1 server (Basilisk) plus a test server, there is no Space content, the themeparks are only in development at the moment (Rebel and Jabba's are running I believe), Creature Handler isn't working, neither is Shipwright, Bio Engineer and there are no Jedi at all yet (some will see this as a bonus). The game is playable though. Its legal, and its free. You do need the old install disks and some patience. If you are a C++ developer they are looking for volunteers to work on the code:)
As bad as Sony was and is, Verant was even worse when I played EQ. Patches would arrive with zero warning and completely change a class or some other aspect of the game. No notes, no warning, and often no logic behind changes that was apparent. Sony was actually an improvement on things. Admittedly it was early in the world of MMOs so things were less polished but it was very frustrating.
As for shutting down COH when it was a viable game, its beyond me what their thinking must have been. The game was playable, had good crowds playing it all the time, and was turning a predictable profit every month. All they had to do was have the willpower to maintain or expand it. I played it from beta right through to its 5th year steadily, then periodically after that. It had the best group combat dynamic of any of the dozen or so MMOs I have played. Brilliant design in all regards IMHO.
Also, if there is little or no market, there is little or no incentive to try to smuggle an item into a country. It is demand driven really. Why take tremendous risks just to increase your stockpile of items you can't sell ?
Which lets me post one of my favorite quotes (although I can't remember who to attribute it to):
"Computers have enabled more people to make more mistakes, faster than any other human invention - with the possible exception of Tequila and Handguns"
Except that Netflix (just like the BBC service offering their shows) hasn't studied the usage patterns of its customers. They often offer only 1 season, or sometimes a few seasons of a popular show but they never offer the whole thing unless the series is long dead it seems. When my wife and I want to watch a series, we will go through it from beginning to end. If its on Netflix (or the far superior but very limited apple BBC app), then its a no brainer. I am quite happy with Netflix generally but I get very irritated when they offer say 6 out of 10 seasons, but fail to offer the other 4 seasons at all. If they want to offer something they had better be prepared to offer the whole thing. Because the moment we run out of seasons on netflix its time to find the rest of the series. Usually we can get it at the library, but if not, then it might just be bittorrent time. In effect the 6 seasons offered with 4 missing provide an incentive to go download whats missing. If they provided it, no one would worry about downloading it when they would just watch the Netflix version. The BBC tends to be worse about this than Netflix even. I watched the pilot of an excellent show called Red Cap. They offered the pilot only. The rest of the series was not to be found, nor the second season. Off to the torrent sites - only to find its not available there either.
Agreed. Companies already have a lot of regulations that limit their activities, responsibilities etc in doing business. Its not unreasonable to assert that if a company is controlling my data, that I have a right to move that data to a different controller, and that the original data will not be retained by the first party. After all, I am required to retain certain data for a certain period of time if I am doing business. Its just another area that needs to be covered by clear regulations.
Mind you, I don't plan on ever storing anything in the cloud. I don't trust the motivations of any of these companies. That said I do have a gmail account so perhaps I need to rethink my email solution:P
Yes, in the traditional Capitalist manner: tons of money was dumped by manufacturers on producing enough reports that showed there was no hazard to using their products, and the contrary evidence was buried or questioned relentlessly until a way was found to make it seem dubious at best. Bribes were also used without doubt.
Its the same technique Big Pharma uses to ensure its products are safe:P
I am lousy with a controller. I cannot do anything meaningful with one, and have no interest in learning. I have bought and eventually sold several game consoles because I *wanted* to be able to play them, but in the end each time I got rid of it because the result (for me at least) was far worse than playing a PC game with a mouse and a keyboard (or the Joystick I have for games that utilize that).
Consoles suck ass for me. I prefer PC games and my mouse. I don't think I can adapt, nor do I want to. I can't understand how someone would drop the keyboard and mouse and pick up a console controller hooked up to their PC, when the resulting level of control seems to me to be inherently inferior.
Think of how much sooner this might have happened if someone in the know had leaked the information to a site like say Wikileaks when it first became apparent he was abusing his powers.
We need whistleblowers and we need the media. We might not always be very happy with what they uncover but in the long run they do us all a favour, more than harm.
I think this is more about setting an example to discourage anyone else from airing the US Government's dirty laundry. No way to tell just how much evil being done behind the scenes might get out if another Bradley Manning steps up to the plate. As such, I expect he will get life without parole.
I also expect it will come out in years to come that this verdict was determined before the trial began.
No, I believe we plan on selling both to China and to the US, thats why we are building 2 pipelines, one heading to the west coast and one down across the border into the US:P Our government is focused on making as much money for the Province of Alberta as possible. Any side benefits to the rest of the country, or problems such as environmental disasters are just incidental. The fact that our current Prime Minister has his strongest political base in Alberta is not related in any way of course.
Yes but when I encounter a "fictitious street" on a map - I assume its a shitty map, not that they were protecting their copyright. I then get a new map that looks up to date, or at least competently made.
They might not have "traded the information as part of some transaction". It may have been inferred as a result of various tracking schemes by advertisers and the website themselves, then aggregated with other data to produce a detailed profile of the individual - which is then sold to various marketing agencies for whatever nefarious purposes they may have. All without the user ever saying "yes" to gathering and collating all that data. This is happening all the time I am sure.
There is no privacy, there will never be any privacy any more in the future for 99.9% of the world if they interact with the net or with a corporation. The bad guys have won already.
I for one, am a member of the underclass, working at only *1* job for 60 hrs a week, so I am a superior underclass member.
Seriously, we might as well go back to the feudal system, it would better reflect the current reality. Rich people control vast amounts of the wealth, get special treatment, get the government to enact laws to suit their needs and interests, and the common public serves primarily to do all the shit labour and pay the taxes.
Dont forget National Geographic articles on Africa - because it was okay to show black tits but not white ones or something like that... When I was a kid, porn was *really hard* to get ahold of for the most part, so you hid the playboy mags well.
No, WWII was started by the German Third Reich invading countries in Europe. The Japanese followed by invading areas in the far east. The US essentially ignored that first few years of the war in Europe (while many Americans did not, joining other national militaries to participate in fighting the Fascists, and the US government did provide supplies to Britain while ostensibly remaining neutral, so its not quite clearcut). The US entered the war in the Pacific when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, that is true. They also got involved in Europe, but the war (like WWI) started years before the US got involved. Please read some history books written outside of the US:P
Make it a bit more realistic:P A few nations are wealthier than the majority, the people playing those nations get booze and a blowjob every night. Those who are poorest have to give the blowjobs to the wealthiest. Now commit the money. You have to convince the wealthiest to give up their margin of comfort and all its rewards so that the poorest nations can get enough wealth to join the wealthy ones. The only way to do this is for everyone to commit to sharing their wealth equally. The end result is no one gets booze and blowjobs, but also no one is forced to give head. Good luck convincing the rich to give up their advantage, and good luck convincing the poor that they don't need all the wealth of the richest ones so they can get the same lifestyle.
Lastly, whether you win or lose, your children and your grandchildren will be playing the same game when they grow up.
Ok, its very tasteless as an example, but I can't foresee any circumstances in which the rich and powerful will be willing to part with their riches and power (obtained at the expense of the poor people they walked all over to obtain it), or which will convince those who live in poverty that they don't deserve better treatment and a better level of living - which they can't get if they are required to spend too much of their money and effort on being ecologically responsible, particularly if the rich nations are trying to buy their way out of being equally responsible - in proportion to their contribution to the problem.
Our problem boils down to human selfishness and greed. Those will kill millions in the end if we don't do something. No politician wants to be the one that tells their electorate "Sorry but you have to reduce your quality of life", because they won't be reelected. Few wealthy and powerful people are going to give up what they have for the sake of making others more rich and more in control of their own destinies etc. Some humans are altruistic but not enough of us.
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And you can just bet that those contractors are giving the military the "best" deal they could too, not padding it any way. Trim those costs down a tad then :P :) (I don't believe in private armies)
As for Blackwater, I am just fine if all of their employees get shipped to the moon - one way
out of the defense budget, and go do both. The US is already the dominate military power on the planet, bar none, so I am sure they could trim the military budget by a tiny percentage without anyone who doesn't wear a brass hat noticing. Whats the saying? "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon your talking real money?"
Its nice to think that private enterprise will provide the means to get there (for whatever values of "there") but although its happening, its not happening overnight. NASA needs to continue doing it all themselves until business is established in orbit - otherwise we waste a few decades waiting for it. As well, think of all the scientific discoveries we might make during this moon mission series. The last one turned out pretty well didn't it?
Good luck trying to push reform of the way Corporations are defined in the modern world. Since they (collectively) have about as much power or more as the governments they dominate, that is never going to happen. You are however correct: Its corporations and their power, along with their better-than-citizen rights that are the root of the problem in the modern world.
All we have at the moment in the Western world is the illusion of democracy for the most part, in reality we are becoming an almost feudal system with corporations taking on the role of the nobility. Not quite yet, but getting there - when private corporations have their own police forces and collect the taxes directly then we are there.
Go find your old SWG install disks. Visit the SWG EMU at swgemu.com and play SWG as of patch 14.1 :)
Well, its in beta, so there is only the 1 server (Basilisk) plus a test server, there is no Space content, the themeparks are only in development at the moment (Rebel and Jabba's are running I believe), Creature Handler isn't working, neither is Shipwright, Bio Engineer and there are no Jedi at all yet (some will see this as a bonus). :)
The game is playable though. Its legal, and its free. You do need the old install disks and some patience. If you are a C++ developer they are looking for volunteers to work on the code
www.swgemu.com
As bad as Sony was and is, Verant was even worse when I played EQ. Patches would arrive with zero warning and completely change a class or some other aspect of the game. No notes, no warning, and often no logic behind changes that was apparent. Sony was actually an improvement on things. Admittedly it was early in the world of MMOs so things were less polished but it was very frustrating.
As for shutting down COH when it was a viable game, its beyond me what their thinking must have been. The game was playable, had good crowds playing it all the time, and was turning a predictable profit every month. All they had to do was have the willpower to maintain or expand it. I played it from beta right through to its 5th year steadily, then periodically after that. It had the best group combat dynamic of any of the dozen or so MMOs I have played. Brilliant design in all regards IMHO.
Also, if there is little or no market, there is little or no incentive to try to smuggle an item into a country. It is demand driven really. Why take tremendous risks just to increase your stockpile of items you can't sell ?
Which lets me post one of my favorite quotes (although I can't remember who to attribute it to):
"Computers have enabled more people to make more mistakes, faster than any other human invention - with the possible exception of Tequila and Handguns"
or something to that effect :P
Except that Netflix (just like the BBC service offering their shows) hasn't studied the usage patterns of its customers.
They often offer only 1 season, or sometimes a few seasons of a popular show but they never offer the whole thing unless the series is long dead it seems.
When my wife and I want to watch a series, we will go through it from beginning to end. If its on Netflix (or the far superior but very limited apple BBC app), then its a no brainer. I am quite happy with Netflix generally but I get very irritated when they offer say 6 out of 10 seasons, but fail to offer the other 4 seasons at all. If they want to offer something they had better be prepared to offer the whole thing.
Because the moment we run out of seasons on netflix its time to find the rest of the series. Usually we can get it at the library, but if not, then it might just be bittorrent time. In effect the 6 seasons offered with 4 missing provide an incentive to go download whats missing. If they provided it, no one would worry about downloading it when they would just watch the Netflix version.
The BBC tends to be worse about this than Netflix even. I watched the pilot of an excellent show called Red Cap. They offered the pilot only. The rest of the series was not to be found, nor the second season. Off to the torrent sites - only to find its not available there either.
This is /. :P
Many of the people here would have to *start* taking showers first before they could possibly *stop*
Agreed. Companies already have a lot of regulations that limit their activities, responsibilities etc in doing business. Its not unreasonable to assert that if a company is controlling my data, that I have a right to move that data to a different controller, and that the original data will not be retained by the first party.
After all, I am required to retain certain data for a certain period of time if I am doing business. Its just another area that needs to be covered by clear regulations.
Mind you, I don't plan on ever storing anything in the cloud. I don't trust the motivations of any of these companies. That said I do have a gmail account so perhaps I need to rethink my email solution :P
Yes, in the traditional Capitalist manner: tons of money was dumped by manufacturers on producing enough reports that showed there was no hazard to using their products, and the contrary evidence was buried or questioned relentlessly until a way was found to make it seem dubious at best. Bribes were also used without doubt.
Its the same technique Big Pharma uses to ensure its products are safe :P
Life outside of work - I call that *sleep* usually...
I am lousy with a controller. I cannot do anything meaningful with one, and have no interest in learning. I have bought and eventually sold several game consoles because I *wanted* to be able to play them, but in the end each time I got rid of it because the result (for me at least) was far worse than playing a PC game with a mouse and a keyboard (or the Joystick I have for games that utilize that).
Consoles suck ass for me. I prefer PC games and my mouse. I don't think I can adapt, nor do I want to. I can't understand how someone would drop the keyboard and mouse and pick up a console controller hooked up to their PC, when the resulting level of control seems to me to be inherently inferior.
Think of how much sooner this might have happened if someone in the know had leaked the information to a site like say Wikileaks when it first became apparent he was abusing his powers.
We need whistleblowers and we need the media. We might not always be very happy with what they uncover but in the long run they do us all a favour, more than harm.
I think this is more about setting an example to discourage anyone else from airing the US Government's dirty laundry. No way to tell just how much evil being done behind the scenes might get out if another Bradley Manning steps up to the plate. As such, I expect he will get life without parole.
I also expect it will come out in years to come that this verdict was determined before the trial began.
No, I believe we plan on selling both to China and to the US, thats why we are building 2 pipelines, one heading to the west coast and one down across the border into the US :P
Our government is focused on making as much money for the Province of Alberta as possible. Any side benefits to the rest of the country, or problems such as environmental disasters are just incidental.
The fact that our current Prime Minister has his strongest political base in Alberta is not related in any way of course.
Up here in Canada we love our beavers :P
Yes but when I encounter a "fictitious street" on a map - I assume its a shitty map, not that they were protecting their copyright.
I then get a new map that looks up to date, or at least competently made.
or perhaps ".donotbuy" :P
They might not have "traded the information as part of some transaction". It may have been inferred as a result of various tracking schemes by advertisers and the website themselves, then aggregated with other data to produce a detailed profile of the individual - which is then sold to various marketing agencies for whatever nefarious purposes they may have. All without the user ever saying "yes" to gathering and collating all that data. This is happening all the time I am sure.
There is no privacy, there will never be any privacy any more in the future for 99.9% of the world if they interact with the net or with a corporation. The bad guys have won already.
I for one, am a member of the underclass, working at only *1* job for 60 hrs a week, so I am a superior underclass member.
Seriously, we might as well go back to the feudal system, it would better reflect the current reality. Rich people control vast amounts of the wealth, get special treatment, get the government to enact laws to suit their needs and interests, and the common public serves primarily to do all the shit labour and pay the taxes.
Dont forget National Geographic articles on Africa - because it was okay to show black tits but not white ones or something like that...
When I was a kid, porn was *really hard* to get ahold of for the most part, so you hid the playboy mags well.
No, WWII was started by the German Third Reich invading countries in Europe. The Japanese followed by invading areas in the far east. The US essentially ignored that first few years of the war in Europe (while many Americans did not, joining other national militaries to participate in fighting the Fascists, and the US government did provide supplies to Britain while ostensibly remaining neutral, so its not quite clearcut). :P
The US entered the war in the Pacific when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, that is true. They also got involved in Europe, but the war (like WWI) started years before the US got involved. Please read some history books written outside of the US
Make it a bit more realistic :P
A few nations are wealthier than the majority, the people playing those nations get booze and a blowjob every night.
Those who are poorest have to give the blowjobs to the wealthiest. Now commit the money. You have to convince the wealthiest to give up their margin of comfort and all its rewards so that the poorest nations can get enough wealth to join the wealthy ones. The only way to do this is for everyone to commit to sharing their wealth equally.
The end result is no one gets booze and blowjobs, but also no one is forced to give head. Good luck convincing the rich to give up their advantage, and good luck convincing the poor that they don't need all the wealth of the richest ones so they can get the same lifestyle.
Lastly, whether you win or lose, your children and your grandchildren will be playing the same game when they grow up.
Ok, its very tasteless as an example, but I can't foresee any circumstances in which the rich and powerful will be willing to part with their riches and power (obtained at the expense of the poor people they walked all over to obtain it), or which will convince those who live in poverty that they don't deserve better treatment and a better level of living - which they can't get if they are required to spend too much of their money and effort on being ecologically responsible, particularly if the rich nations are trying to buy their way out of being equally responsible - in proportion to their contribution to the problem.
Our problem boils down to human selfishness and greed. Those will kill millions in the end if we don't do something. No politician wants to be the one that tells their electorate "Sorry but you have to reduce your quality of life", because they won't be reelected. Few wealthy and powerful people are going to give up what they have for the sake of making others more rich and more in control of their own destinies etc. Some humans are altruistic but not enough of us.