The Spirit of Freedom has been bought and sold to the mega-corporations and their client governments. Privacy doesn't need to be dead, but its more advantageous to the business community if it is, therefore things like this proposed legislation to "Combat Terrorism" - i.e. to combat those whom the Media Industry wants to close down and prevent from copying their copyright works.
Well, ok, what I posted was slanted. I am sure that left-wing political parties and interest groups are just as likely to be doing the same thing. The problem is I am left-wing generally, so I don't notice much of the commentary that I agree with or which seems sensible to me, as much as I notice the stuff that I *personally* consider to be right-wing batshit crazy. I was not however being even handed in my response, you are correct.
My point was that this article is pointing out the Vietnamese Communist party is using these tactics, and this seems to suggest an air of "oh how low-down and despicable" of them, when I am fairly certain that either our western political parties - or "advocacy groups" on their behalf are doing the same thing.
It seems particularly noticeable on CNN to me. Whenever Obama is mentioned, a ton of posts seem to try to redirect the readers to a different but unrelated topic, usually by massive trolling and racial insults. Now, perhaps this is just reflective of the readership on CNN, or the American people in general but it seems very consisten and very immediate.
Caveat: I am Canadian, and I am *absolutely* sure that our current Prime Minister's Conservative party would do this, they have already been caught cheating with their finances in multiple ridings and elections, and we had a huge robo-call scandal in the last election where people pretending to represent the Liberal Part (that's middle of the road politically mind you, not left wing) and the New Democratic party (they are also pretty middle of the road these days but used to be more left-wing) called voters to tell them that their poling stations had moved (to addresses that didn't exist, were the wrong location etc), deliberately trying to ensure that those supporting their opposition parties had less chances to vote. It all got blamed on 1 unauthorized staffer of course, but since it involved thousands of phone calls this seems rather unlikely.
Astroturfing articles that are critical of your political belief seems almost guaranteed as a tactic these days, here in the west, not just in foreign communist countries.
Do you really think our western democratic political parties are not doing the exact same thing - even if they refer to them as marketing consultants or something similar? I have sure noticed that some topics on various news sites and forums attract *immediate* right-wing commentary denigrating whatever the article is about. I expect every political party out there is doing something similar. After all politics is more about appearance than substance these days.
Of course the obvious answer is that no one who worked on the script had the slightest fucking idea that a "parsec" wasn't a unit of time, they probably just looked up some scientific sounding terms to spread through the script and thats all she wrote. Explanations after the fact are all fine and dandy but I suspect this one is complete bullshit to cover a very glaring error.
I would be happy to let Disney make a Death Star (which we can later destroy with a single small craft after all), if it meant Disney would not be able to make any more movies:P
But in CorporationLand, the important thing is to maximize the profits at all costs. The best way to maximize those profits is to pay the minimum possible wage with zero benefits - and if the person doesn't show up enough times, hire another desperate drone from the huddled masses of the unemployed and abuse them until they leave or find a better job. You get what you hire of course, but since its for a job that has no future and is simple enough to learn, they don't have to have high standards. Sure, if they paid a better wage and offered decent benefits they would retain more employees and have more loyal workers but suspect the current system is working better for them. Where I am living the minimum wage is $8.75/hr I believe. A study from a year or two ago determined that you need to be making at least $15/hr in order to have an acceptable minimum standard of living in the same community. The average price of a house here is $603k. Thus, the average person will never own a house here and will be stuck renting. Since there are no rent controls, rent continues to climb while wages drop.
There is no solution that is going to prevent gun violence in the US, its too late. You have too many guns already available. Any tech you can possibly invent will not affect any of the guns who do not have that tech, and in fact will only make those who own the newer "safer" guns be at more risk. The US is a violent place. Many of you practically worship the right to bear arms. I personally think that the widespread possession and availability of guns has aggravated that situation but it hardly matters whether or not that is true. The guns are there already, with a powerful lobby supporting their continued presence, and a powerful industry dedicated to producing and selling them. Its too late to fix that situation, period.
About the only thing that might help resolve the situation would be a vigorous buy-back program which saw the government purchasing any gun from any individual, for cash without questions. It would have to be sufficient cash to encourage people to actually sell their firearms, and of course with the US on the decline, where would that cash possibly come from. (and of course this would immediately spawn a black-market gun production industry making guns solely to sell them and have them be destroyed, would spawn a smuggling industry importing guns from elsewhere to sell them etc).
The real solution is of course to have a very effective socialized mental health system similar to our health system up here in Canada (although our mental health system sucks as much as is possible too). And of course, an effective healthcare system is also another bugaboo down there. To paraphrase: "Guns don't kill people, mentally ill people with guns kill people"
Well let me respond by saying I am Canadian. English Canadian. I had the French language shoved down my throat in school (required courses in high school) despite never having met a single Francophone until Grade 12 when they hired a French Canadian teacher. In the meantime, all of my friends spoke German which would have been much more useful to me in the long run. As a Canadian, it seemed to me that the American despising of the French started up with the Gulf War situation, so if its a much longer term tendency in the US, I guess it wasn't apparent to a nearby foreigner.
I am sure the French are just as dismissive - probably much more so - as Americans are of all things foreign. Personally I don't have much use for them either as a culture. I remember the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
My point was that adopting the metric system which originated in France is going to have to cross the major hurdle of American disdain for anything French. Whether that disdain started with the US Revolution or more recently, its still a factor. It seems to me that a lot of USians have this assumption that if something was invented in the US it is automatically superior to anything *not* invented there. Thats another major hurdle to overcome.
I can't say I have adapted to metric. I still think in inches, feet, miles, pounds and ounces, and when faced with a metric value I mentally try to translate that into a "real" measurement, but then I grew up when they were starting to introduce the metric system here in Canada. I think it takes generations to accomplish a change like this.
I do think the US should join the rest of the world in adopting it, its a more consistent system potentially than the Imperial or US measurement systems, but it needs to be very gradual to allow various industries to change their standards.
Well I just downloaded and installed PS, its running fine on my Win7 system. Only tested it by creating a file and saving it but it worked just fine. Disabled the updates when it popped up since there won't be any.
I would say this is a great move by Adobe, mistake or deliberate. It costs them essentially nothing, they get massive publicity, they no longer need to support this old software, and by giving it away they ensure more people will play with it than would if it was illegal to use. The end result is going to be people who *want* updated versions of the software with all the latest features. Now, its true that only corporations and the 1% can actually afford Adobe products, but I don't see a downside.
Its like Microsoft allowing Windows to spread all over the world by ignoring the piracy for so many years. Windows would not be as ubiquitous as it is worldwide if millions of copies hadn't been pirated in its early years.
And this is the death knell of US Metrification as a likely future event: The irrational bigotry and hatred of the French exhibited by so many Americans, solely because when the US waged an illegal war based on false premises and deliberate lies, the French decided not to participate based on their own interests and their own democratic system. Anything French must seemingly be spat upon the moment it is mentioned. Anything French must be inferior, cowardly, belittled etc, simply because its French, and they didn't want to come play in the first Gulf War when the US told them to. Its sad.
Don't forget the Mortgage brokers and the folks that enabled them in government - even more dangerous. They ruined the lives of *millions* around the world with their greed - and none have been punished to date have they?
As an aside, there is a guy who parks in front of my apartment building who drives a VW Thing. One of the more ugly vehicles of course, but definitely distinctive.
I am up here in Canada - where competition for cable access to the internet is non-existent due to government failure on the part of the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission. Therefore my options are to get my internet connection from Shaw Cable or over my phone lines from Telus. There are no other options worth considering. I am a Shaw customer at the moment. It costs me $54 a month to get my internet connection. That is with no TV channel services or phone services. There is (I believe) one lower tier of service but its essentially just enough to browse the web. The level I am at is sufficient for things like Netflix or playing online games. So yeah, I am very jealous of anyone who can get the same internet connection for $20 per month:P If the CRTC wasn't a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporations its supposed to be the watchdog for it might be different of course.
If they could combine the sandbox elements of a game like SWG with the combat and Realm vs Realm of Dark Age of Camelot, they might have a real winner on their hands. This game is being developed by folks that worked on DAOC so its a good start - but it might be merely a third attempt to revive the popularity and loyalty of that title, which they failed to do with Warhammer Online. With WAR they failed because they over-engineered it I think, and their design relied too much on PvP at all levels, when players progress up in levels and leave the lower levels behind. If you don't have a steady stream of new players coming in, its going to start falling apart. WAR had a few faults that drove me and my friends away from it, but this TESO looks like they are directly trying to recreate the same sort of design as DAOC.
As for Sandbox games it would be great to see that sort of design return to the MMO world. Everyone focusing on trying to out-WOW WOW meant the industry gave up on Sandbox designs entirely. They lost a lot of dedicated players that way I think. When you play a game that is highly immersive, you gain an attachment to characters that is much more pronounced than when you just rollup "Gunnar FuckYuUp", picking his class based on what is the easiest to level and most overpowered in the endgame, pick his equipment based on what is the nastiest stuff you can get, and then go do an endless series of quests/raids etc just to get all the accolades required to make you as overpowered as possible so you never face a challenge.
Star Wars Galaxies was a great game in its first itteration, with a tremendous ambition behind its design. It had a lot of strengths and although not without fault, it was generally a great example of the MMO - until subsequent developers got ahold of it and driven headlong by the beancounters screaming "why don't we have WOW like subscription numbers?", changed the game to make it worse, then changed it further to make it the worse design possible. (As an aside, if you still have your install disks for SWG, check out http://www.swgemu.com/ - you can play the old game as of patch 14.1, legally. Its still in development, and a lot of things are not working yet but it is playable).
DAOC had the best online community I have ever seen in an MMO. I played on the RP PvP servers (mostly Percival in Midgard Realm but also on the other 2 servers in Albion and Hibernia). The design let you pick whether or not you wanted to be engaging in PvP (visit the frontier zones) or strictly PvE (stay in your realm zones). It had a decent quest system - although typical of the repetitive design of that generation, it had decent raids (although again limited by the level of typical development at the time. Things have changed since). It had the best PvP in the form of Realm Versus Realm combat - and I recall many very memorable events - sieges that lasted days, Relic raids that were planned 2 weeks in advance and then carried out with lightening precision, real pride in being part of one's realm etc.
I doubt you can ever go back truly but it will be interesting to see them try. I am sure I will give it a shot when it comes out. I miss Midgard immensely, and Ebonheart looks very close in a lot of ways:P
Oh I hear ya. CFB Cornwallis (known as Wally-world at the time by its inmates) was exactly that. 3-4 hours sleep was the norm, and the days were brutal. Fun Times!
We are not exactly Socialist (with a capital S) up here in Canada - we have some government controlled elements to our system (the health care system in part, some Crown Corporations etc) but we are primarily capitalist in nature. I know that in the US the general opinion seems to be that a society is either completely Capitalist (with a capital C), OR it is "Godless Communism"(tm) and threatening the existence of Democracy) but that's utter bullshit. There are plenty of countries where some elements are socialist and others are not that are proving quite successful (look to most of the northern European countries like Norway, Sweden or Denmark for instance). It works up here in Canada, although our current Conservative government (read very radical right-wing), are doing their best to ruin things as much as possible before they lose control.
When I did basic training in the Canadian Military we heard rumours that they were putting saltpeter in our food to discourage sexual desires. I don't know if its true but it was pretty popularly accepted as such.
You know, I am always surprised at how often those who dismiss OWS choose to do so by pointing out that the people that showed up at the camps were unemployed. Who the fuck else can show up there? The employed supporters of OWS had jobs to go to. I would love to have participated in my local OWS protest but it didn't jibe with my work hours at all. Nonetheless I support the need for change in our system (here in Canada as well as down in the US and over in Europe). The concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few based on their historic control of the political system to leverage things to their own advantage has not and is not working out well for our society. The money the extremely wealth folks earn doesn not trickle down worth a shit, bailing out companies that failed due to massive mismanagement/greed does not work to the public advantage (oh sure, some jobs are preserved, but since the bulk of the money comes from the middle and lower classes taxes its stealing from Peter to pay Paul). Unfortunately, I think its too late. The Rich (tm) control things and nothing is going to change that. The only thing that baffles me is the number of folks who flock to support the Republicans down in the US (or the Conservatives up here in Canada) and in effect are saying with their support "Ok, so the rich are trampling on the bulk of the population and fucking the economy up severely so they can keep their position, oh and they are removing our rights to privacy, destroying health care, ruining the environment and all for their own personal gain - but you know? I am okay with that". Blows my mind every time I read a sincere post from some fucking idiot that just doesn't see whats going on around them.
Because/. has a huge population of Right-wing extremist thinkers. Anything remotely sensible or even vaguely liberal in expression gets shot all to shit by an endless stream of dismissive posts, usually without any real content. Some o of those same individuals get Moderation points every once in a while and use them extensively to reflect their views. Its very difficult to be a sensible person here in my opinion (yes, that means I think the vast majority of gun-toting right-wing crackpots are not sensible). If you get into anything remotely political, you had better be the next thing to fascist to be left alone, if you talk about technology you had better hate Apple (and now seemingly *like* Microsoft for some reason, despite years of vitriol directed at Redmond in the past on this site) etc. Dissent is punished I will thus be moderated down to oblivion for my opinion. Wait for the endless stream of comments first...
I read a story recently (from a respected source) but can't recall the details. It involved a long series of experiments on the effects of radioactivity on humans. They were conducted by the US Army on American civilians without their consent. The article mentioned trucks rolling up to a children's playground in a particularly poor black neighborhood and spraying the kids and adults who were present with a radioactive liquid of some kind, then driving away. Other forms of testing were conducted all around the US, usually on very poor people. When we look at foreign countries we revile, we point out their inhuman abuses as justification for our hatred or dislike of them. When we ourselves here in the west (I am Canadian, not American) carry out similar abuses of people, we just cover them up and refuse to believe *our* government could do that sort of thing. Western Democracy is often just a more civilized face painted over the same barbaric and inhuman practices we revile in others.
Au Contraire. I found watching it was more tiring than watching a regular version of the movie, the plastic glasses were not bad but still irritating when worn over my regular glasses, and I got a minor headache from the whole process although thankfully it emerged mostly by the end of the film and stopped once I stopped watching. Admittedly my eyes are not perfectly aligned so any "impact" of the 3D was minimized somewhat.
I only went because my wife and a friend of mine wanted to see it right away and the 3D version was what was available. I have no desire to see any 3D films again ever.
If I see it again its without the fucking 3D effect which in my opinion offered ZERO improvements to the movie. I am already quite capable of suspending my belief when I watch a movie and losing my sense of self and surroundings if its at all engaging. 3D effects like rocks falling towards me or a butterfly flying at me only serve as irritating distractions. I think the film will be immensely better on blu-ray on my non-3D TV.
I hope the 3D hype fails. Hollywood would do better to concentrate on making better movies rather than hoping a new technology will give them easy money without having to focus on storylines, characters etc.
When copyright is up for debate there will be no shortage of money from Big Media, I am sure they can cough up billions if required to ensure they maintain perpetual control over Mikey Mouse or other key properties. Imagine when the copyright on Star Wars runs out - you think it won't get extended forever?
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The Spirit of Freedom has been bought and sold to the mega-corporations and their client governments. Privacy doesn't need to be dead, but its more advantageous to the business community if it is, therefore things like this proposed legislation to "Combat Terrorism" - i.e. to combat those whom the Media Industry wants to close down and prevent from copying their copyright works.
Well, ok, what I posted was slanted. I am sure that left-wing political parties and interest groups are just as likely to be doing the same thing.
The problem is I am left-wing generally, so I don't notice much of the commentary that I agree with or which seems sensible to me, as much as I notice the stuff that I *personally* consider to be right-wing batshit crazy.
I was not however being even handed in my response, you are correct.
My point was that this article is pointing out the Vietnamese Communist party is using these tactics, and this seems to suggest an air of "oh how low-down and despicable" of them, when I am fairly certain that either our western political parties - or "advocacy groups" on their behalf are doing the same thing.
It seems particularly noticeable on CNN to me. Whenever Obama is mentioned, a ton of posts seem to try to redirect the readers to a different but unrelated topic, usually by massive trolling and racial insults. Now, perhaps this is just reflective of the readership on CNN, or the American people in general but it seems very consisten and very immediate.
Caveat: I am Canadian, and I am *absolutely* sure that our current Prime Minister's Conservative party would do this, they have already been caught cheating with their finances in multiple ridings and elections, and we had a huge robo-call scandal in the last election where people pretending to represent the Liberal Part (that's middle of the road politically mind you, not left wing) and the New Democratic party (they are also pretty middle of the road these days but used to be more left-wing) called voters to tell them that their poling stations had moved (to addresses that didn't exist, were the wrong location etc), deliberately trying to ensure that those supporting their opposition parties had less chances to vote. It all got blamed on 1 unauthorized staffer of course, but since it involved thousands of phone calls this seems rather unlikely.
Astroturfing articles that are critical of your political belief seems almost guaranteed as a tactic these days, here in the west, not just in foreign communist countries.
Do you really think our western democratic political parties are not doing the exact same thing - even if they refer to them as marketing consultants or something similar?
I have sure noticed that some topics on various news sites and forums attract *immediate* right-wing commentary denigrating whatever the article is about.
I expect every political party out there is doing something similar. After all politics is more about appearance than substance these days.
Of course the obvious answer is that no one who worked on the script had the slightest fucking idea that a "parsec" wasn't a unit of time, they probably just looked up some scientific sounding terms to spread through the script and thats all she wrote.
Explanations after the fact are all fine and dandy but I suspect this one is complete bullshit to cover a very glaring error.
I would be happy to let Disney make a Death Star (which we can later destroy with a single small craft after all), if it meant Disney would not be able to make any more movies :P
But in CorporationLand, the important thing is to maximize the profits at all costs. The best way to maximize those profits is to pay the minimum possible wage with zero benefits - and if the person doesn't show up enough times, hire another desperate drone from the huddled masses of the unemployed and abuse them until they leave or find a better job. You get what you hire of course, but since its for a job that has no future and is simple enough to learn, they don't have to have high standards.
Sure, if they paid a better wage and offered decent benefits they would retain more employees and have more loyal workers but suspect the current system is working better for them.
Where I am living the minimum wage is $8.75/hr I believe. A study from a year or two ago determined that you need to be making at least $15/hr in order to have an acceptable minimum standard of living in the same community. The average price of a house here is $603k. Thus, the average person will never own a house here and will be stuck renting. Since there are no rent controls, rent continues to climb while wages drop.
There is no solution that is going to prevent gun violence in the US, its too late. You have too many guns already available. Any tech you can possibly invent will not affect any of the guns who do not have that tech, and in fact will only make those who own the newer "safer" guns be at more risk.
The US is a violent place. Many of you practically worship the right to bear arms. I personally think that the widespread possession and availability of guns has aggravated that situation but it hardly matters whether or not that is true. The guns are there already, with a powerful lobby supporting their continued presence, and a powerful industry dedicated to producing and selling them. Its too late to fix that situation, period.
About the only thing that might help resolve the situation would be a vigorous buy-back program which saw the government purchasing any gun from any individual, for cash without questions. It would have to be sufficient cash to encourage people to actually sell their firearms, and of course with the US on the decline, where would that cash possibly come from. (and of course this would immediately spawn a black-market gun production industry making guns solely to sell them and have them be destroyed, would spawn a smuggling industry importing guns from elsewhere to sell them etc).
The real solution is of course to have a very effective socialized mental health system similar to our health system up here in Canada (although our mental health system sucks as much as is possible too). And of course, an effective healthcare system is also another bugaboo down there. To paraphrase:
"Guns don't kill people, mentally ill people with guns kill people"
Well let me respond by saying I am Canadian. English Canadian. I had the French language shoved down my throat in school (required courses in high school) despite never having met a single Francophone until Grade 12 when they hired a French Canadian teacher. In the meantime, all of my friends spoke German which would have been much more useful to me in the long run.
As a Canadian, it seemed to me that the American despising of the French started up with the Gulf War situation, so if its a much longer term tendency in the US, I guess it wasn't apparent to a nearby foreigner.
I am sure the French are just as dismissive - probably much more so - as Americans are of all things foreign. Personally I don't have much use for them either as a culture. I remember the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
My point was that adopting the metric system which originated in France is going to have to cross the major hurdle of American disdain for anything French. Whether that disdain started with the US Revolution or more recently, its still a factor. It seems to me that a lot of USians have this assumption that if something was invented in the US it is automatically superior to anything *not* invented there. Thats another major hurdle to overcome.
I can't say I have adapted to metric. I still think in inches, feet, miles, pounds and ounces, and when faced with a metric value I mentally try to translate that into a "real" measurement, but then I grew up when they were starting to introduce the metric system here in Canada. I think it takes generations to accomplish a change like this.
I do think the US should join the rest of the world in adopting it, its a more consistent system potentially than the Imperial or US measurement systems, but it needs to be very gradual to allow various industries to change their standards.
Well I just downloaded and installed PS, its running fine on my Win7 system. Only tested it by creating a file and saving it but it worked just fine. Disabled the updates when it popped up since there won't be any.
I would say this is a great move by Adobe, mistake or deliberate. It costs them essentially nothing, they get massive publicity, they no longer need to support this old software, and by giving it away they ensure more people will play with it than would if it was illegal to use. The end result is going to be people who *want* updated versions of the software with all the latest features. Now, its true that only corporations and the 1% can actually afford Adobe products, but I don't see a downside.
Its like Microsoft allowing Windows to spread all over the world by ignoring the piracy for so many years. Windows would not be as ubiquitous as it is worldwide if millions of copies hadn't been pirated in its early years.
And this is the death knell of US Metrification as a likely future event: The irrational bigotry and hatred of the French exhibited by so many Americans, solely because when the US waged an illegal war based on false premises and deliberate lies, the French decided not to participate based on their own interests and their own democratic system.
Anything French must seemingly be spat upon the moment it is mentioned. Anything French must be inferior, cowardly, belittled etc, simply because its French, and they didn't want to come play in the first Gulf War when the US told them to. Its sad.
One night it will all crystallize, and you can all see where its heading...
Don't forget the Mortgage brokers and the folks that enabled them in government - even more dangerous. They ruined the lives of *millions* around the world with their greed - and none have been punished to date have they?
I'll just wipe up this coffee now :P
As an aside, there is a guy who parks in front of my apartment building who drives a VW Thing. One of the more ugly vehicles of course, but definitely distinctive.
I am up here in Canada - where competition for cable access to the internet is non-existent due to government failure on the part of the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission. Therefore my options are to get my internet connection from Shaw Cable or over my phone lines from Telus. There are no other options worth considering. I am a Shaw customer at the moment. It costs me $54 a month to get my internet connection. That is with no TV channel services or phone services. There is (I believe) one lower tier of service but its essentially just enough to browse the web. The level I am at is sufficient for things like Netflix or playing online games. :P
So yeah, I am very jealous of anyone who can get the same internet connection for $20 per month
If the CRTC wasn't a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporations its supposed to be the watchdog for it might be different of course.
If they could combine the sandbox elements of a game like SWG with the combat and Realm vs Realm of Dark Age of Camelot, they might have a real winner on their hands. This game is being developed by folks that worked on DAOC so its a good start - but it might be merely a third attempt to revive the popularity and loyalty of that title, which they failed to do with Warhammer Online.
With WAR they failed because they over-engineered it I think, and their design relied too much on PvP at all levels, when players progress up in levels and leave the lower levels behind. If you don't have a steady stream of new players coming in, its going to start falling apart. WAR had a few faults that drove me and my friends away from it, but this TESO looks like they are directly trying to recreate the same sort of design as DAOC.
As for Sandbox games it would be great to see that sort of design return to the MMO world. Everyone focusing on trying to out-WOW WOW meant the industry gave up on Sandbox designs entirely. They lost a lot of dedicated players that way I think. When you play a game that is highly immersive, you gain an attachment to characters that is much more pronounced than when you just rollup "Gunnar FuckYuUp", picking his class based on what is the easiest to level and most overpowered in the endgame, pick his equipment based on what is the nastiest stuff you can get, and then go do an endless series of quests/raids etc just to get all the accolades required to make you as overpowered as possible so you never face a challenge.
Star Wars Galaxies was a great game in its first itteration, with a tremendous ambition behind its design. It had a lot of strengths and although not without fault, it was generally a great example of the MMO - until subsequent developers got ahold of it and driven headlong by the beancounters screaming "why don't we have WOW like subscription numbers?", changed the game to make it worse, then changed it further to make it the worse design possible.
(As an aside, if you still have your install disks for SWG, check out http://www.swgemu.com/ - you can play the old game as of patch 14.1, legally. Its still in development, and a lot of things are not working yet but it is playable).
DAOC had the best online community I have ever seen in an MMO. I played on the RP PvP servers (mostly Percival in Midgard Realm but also on the other 2 servers in Albion and Hibernia). The design let you pick whether or not you wanted to be engaging in PvP (visit the frontier zones) or strictly PvE (stay in your realm zones). It had a decent quest system - although typical of the repetitive design of that generation, it had decent raids (although again limited by the level of typical development at the time. Things have changed since).
It had the best PvP in the form of Realm Versus Realm combat - and I recall many very memorable events - sieges that lasted days, Relic raids that were planned 2 weeks in advance and then carried out with lightening precision, real pride in being part of one's realm etc.
I doubt you can ever go back truly but it will be interesting to see them try. I am sure I will give it a shot when it comes out. I miss Midgard immensely, and Ebonheart looks very close in a lot of ways :P
Oh I hear ya. CFB Cornwallis (known as Wally-world at the time by its inmates) was exactly that. 3-4 hours sleep was the norm, and the days were brutal.
Fun Times!
We are not exactly Socialist (with a capital S) up here in Canada - we have some government controlled elements to our system (the health care system in part, some Crown Corporations etc) but we are primarily capitalist in nature.
I know that in the US the general opinion seems to be that a society is either completely Capitalist (with a capital C), OR it is "Godless Communism"(tm) and threatening the existence of Democracy) but that's utter bullshit. There are plenty of countries where some elements are socialist and others are not that are proving quite successful (look to most of the northern European countries like Norway, Sweden or Denmark for instance).
It works up here in Canada, although our current Conservative government (read very radical right-wing), are doing their best to ruin things as much as possible before they lose control.
When I did basic training in the Canadian Military we heard rumours that they were putting saltpeter in our food to discourage sexual desires. I don't know if its true but it was pretty popularly accepted as such.
You know, I am always surprised at how often those who dismiss OWS choose to do so by pointing out that the people that showed up at the camps were unemployed.
Who the fuck else can show up there? The employed supporters of OWS had jobs to go to. I would love to have participated in my local OWS protest but it didn't jibe with my work hours at all.
Nonetheless I support the need for change in our system (here in Canada as well as down in the US and over in Europe). The concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few based on their historic control of the political system to leverage things to their own advantage has not and is not working out well for our society. The money the extremely wealth folks earn doesn not trickle down worth a shit, bailing out companies that failed due to massive mismanagement/greed does not work to the public advantage (oh sure, some jobs are preserved, but since the bulk of the money comes from the middle and lower classes taxes its stealing from Peter to pay Paul).
Unfortunately, I think its too late. The Rich (tm) control things and nothing is going to change that.
The only thing that baffles me is the number of folks who flock to support the Republicans down in the US (or the Conservatives up here in Canada) and in effect are saying with their support "Ok, so the rich are trampling on the bulk of the population and fucking the economy up severely so they can keep their position, oh and they are removing our rights to privacy, destroying health care, ruining the environment and all for their own personal gain - but you know? I am okay with that". Blows my mind every time I read a sincere post from some fucking idiot that just doesn't see whats going on around them.
Because /. has a huge population of Right-wing extremist thinkers. Anything remotely sensible or even vaguely liberal in expression gets shot all to shit by an endless stream of dismissive posts, usually without any real content. Some o of those same individuals get Moderation points every once in a while and use them extensively to reflect their views.
Its very difficult to be a sensible person here in my opinion (yes, that means I think the vast majority of gun-toting right-wing crackpots are not sensible). If you get into anything remotely political, you had better be the next thing to fascist to be left alone, if you talk about technology you had better hate Apple (and now seemingly *like* Microsoft for some reason, despite years of vitriol directed at Redmond in the past on this site) etc. Dissent is punished
I will thus be moderated down to oblivion for my opinion. Wait for the endless stream of comments first...
I read a story recently (from a respected source) but can't recall the details. It involved a long series of experiments on the effects of radioactivity on humans. They were conducted by the US Army on American civilians without their consent. The article mentioned trucks rolling up to a children's playground in a particularly poor black neighborhood and spraying the kids and adults who were present with a radioactive liquid of some kind, then driving away. Other forms of testing were conducted all around the US, usually on very poor people.
When we look at foreign countries we revile, we point out their inhuman abuses as justification for our hatred or dislike of them. When we ourselves here in the west (I am Canadian, not American) carry out similar abuses of people, we just cover them up and refuse to believe *our* government could do that sort of thing.
Western Democracy is often just a more civilized face painted over the same barbaric and inhuman practices we revile in others.
The best series of its kind IMHO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(TV_series)
It was awesome, particularly the Moon girls in their miniskirts (I was a young teen after all)
Au Contraire. I found watching it was more tiring than watching a regular version of the movie, the plastic glasses were not bad but still irritating when worn over my regular glasses, and I got a minor headache from the whole process although thankfully it emerged mostly by the end of the film and stopped once I stopped watching. Admittedly my eyes are not perfectly aligned so any "impact" of the 3D was minimized somewhat.
I only went because my wife and a friend of mine wanted to see it right away and the 3D version was what was available. I have no desire to see any 3D films again ever.
If I see it again its without the fucking 3D effect which in my opinion offered ZERO improvements to the movie. I am already quite capable of suspending my belief when I watch a movie and losing my sense of self and surroundings if its at all engaging. 3D effects like rocks falling towards me or a butterfly flying at me only serve as irritating distractions. I think the film will be immensely better on blu-ray on my non-3D TV.
I hope the 3D hype fails. Hollywood would do better to concentrate on making better movies rather than hoping a new technology will give them easy money without having to focus on storylines, characters etc.
Well the Death Star would have its own facebook page with millions of people "liking" it for sure.
Ooh, just imagine Facebook as it would be run by the Imperials - oh, I guess not a lot of change after all. nm
When copyright is up for debate there will be no shortage of money from Big Media, I am sure they can cough up billions if required to ensure they maintain perpetual control over Mikey Mouse or other key properties.
Imagine when the copyright on Star Wars runs out - you think it won't get extended forever?