Do you know of any other organization with a large automated regression testing system for linux kernels? That's not just me being snarky, its a serious question - who else beside phoronix is doing this sort of wide-scale testing on a constant basis?
Monet's world famous landscape paintings are definitely art, and not remotely "morally ambiguous". Just one example, of countless...
In fact, being morality-free was practically one of the tenants of Impressionism. However, that lack of morality is also one of the most widespread criticisms of the movement. Even the name, "Impressionist" was first coined by critics as a dismissive label for painters working in that style.
So yes, most of Monet's work is without morals, it is essentially amoral as is fridge art. But that's a far different thing than the premise that we want video games to have a simplistic, well-defined morality to them.
Moral ambiguity bothers people. It's not enjoyable. It shouldn't be enjoyable, and it's good that it bothers us. Is it surprising that we don't like it in games?
If games are indeed art, as many have argued in recent times, then moral ambiguity is an important component. It's not necessary of every game ever made, but a game without moral ambiguity is more akin to the art you put up on the fridge because your kid in preschool made it.
I agree. I have a fake facebook page too and DO NOT put any real information about myself out on the web. All the information about the user is completely untrue
That's what you think. Facebook has their hooks into thousands of big name websites such that even when you "log out" of facebook, they still track you at many of the other websites you use. Facebook is then able to cross-reference all of that external traffic, including "private" information you've given to those other sites like your shipping address and the name on your credit card with your "fake" facebook account.
Install the ghostery add-on for firefox and watch as it reports each time you load a page from a "facebook partner" (as well as tons of other trackers), you'll be stunned at just how far facebook has proliferated in the background.
During the 1990's, we had several terrorist attacks, foreign being World Trade Center 1, a few embassies, the USS Cole. And we can't forget McVeigh for domestic. Since 2002, what has happened within our borders, allies since 2008?
Are you seriously saying that a handful of events is the basis for a valid statistical conclusion? 3 significant domestic terrorist attacks in 20+ years isn't even in the noise. Even foreign attacks don't rise to the level from which you can draw a sound conclusion. Don't confuse severity with frequency.
Yes, specificity that the threat is a massive exaggeration. Even all of the attacks in europe over the last decade can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The underwear bomber didn't even have an extra $100 for a ticket to Chicago instead of Detroit.
Rather than apply basic reasoning to the known facts you postulate a massive undertaking based on a lack of facts. You might as well believe that flying spaghetti monster is out there saving us from terrorist attacks.
Without real facts, we can only guess. My guess is that both parts are true, real threats are eliminated and we are being played by politicians, each part separate though, no coordination. The TSA is possibly in the "played" part.
Right, because the TSA and all the other silly public machinations of the DHS are just a smokescreen for the ATNS, the Anti-Terrorist Ninja Squad. The terrorists are such uber-enemies that we need to spend billions and billions of dollars on baloney agencies just to keep them guessing. Just like we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on NASA to fake the moon-landing and keep the Soviets guessing.
My money is on most of the threats getting stopped by the government agencies and military units that we know very little about.
That doesn't pass muster for the very simple reason that anytime they even get a hint of "stopping a terrorist" the government trumpets it as a huge success. Of course it always turns out to be practically a non-event, like "plot" to blow up JFK airport by igniting a natural gas pipeline or the "plot" by a handful of wanna-be gang-bangers in Miami to blow up the Sears tower.
If there was some highly effective super-secret stealth military unit thwarting major terrorist attacks, then we would have heard about ONE of them by now, at the very least. If they are willing to mlik the BS "plots" for PR, sooner or later somebody would decide to milk a real threat for PR too. But there hasn't been a single one.
The only way your theory works is if the US government is stunningly competent and run by completely self-sacrificing politicians absolutely immune to the temptation to score points with the public.
If Google bought music labels - then there is little doubt that Amazon music service, iTunes and other direct Google competitors services would be out of licenses and out of business shortly. Isn't that obvious? What interest would Google have to provide these competing services with creative work licenses? None whatsoever.
Google sells eyeballs to advertisers. If Google were to make all major label music free as in beer, then itunes et al would no longer be competitive but not because of monopolistic advantage by Google but for the same reason no one makes money selling air.
No one seriously complains that WebM being free hurts the market for 4C's h264 patent portfolio. Or that WebP hurts the JPEG patent holders.
Sorry, you fail to offer any sort of compelling argument as to why centralization is necessary. Your example of a broken system - driver's licenses, SS#s and public records is a centralized system. You've basically disproven your own premise.
Q: How many terrorists has the TSA caught? A: ZERO
Q: How many terrorist attacks has the TSA stopped? A: ZERO
For proof, the answer is obvious - a terrorist doesn't just decide that airplanes are too well protected so they are going to give up on the idea of causing mayhem, they will just look for easier targets like shopping malls, movie theaters, concerts, etc. Since we have had zero attacks on alternate targets, its clear the TSA isn't protecting airplanes from anyone.
The worst we've seen have been run-of-the-mill lone gunmen type like the Ft Hood shooter and the DC sniper. Everybody else, like the Times Square bomber have been so incompetent they couldn't even build a working bomb and most of those convicted have been guilty of nothing more than talking trash within the earshot of a snitch looking to get criminal charges dropped in exchange for narcing out someone, anyone.
May I ask where/how you get them? I have looked into Visa gift cards as a way to make anonymous purchases on the internet and have not found a way to buy them without being asked for a name, address, and/or SSN.
A lot of them want that stuff, but not all of them. Look in stores like CVS and Walgreens, especially in areas with large 1st generation immigrant populations. Then read the fine print on the cards to see which ones let you "activate" the card without giving up that info. If you google around, you can find some forums where this stuff gets discussed and newly 'discovered' anonymous and semi-anonymous gift cards are frequently reviewed.
What we don't need is a centralized ID system - that's a recipe for all kinds of fraud of other sorts of abuse (like the recent story about how DVR commercial viewing records are correlated with grocery purchases in order to better target you for advertising).
If the government insists on getting involved in ID infrastructure, then they ought to be providing a means for distributed identification. Define a standardized system that promotes multiple, independent IDs that are domain specific. For example, one ID for facebook, another ID for your bank, another ID for your car registration, a different ID for the tax records on property like your house.
Go ahead and define a protocol for handling the identification and authentication transactions, but require taht each party (both users and service providers) keep the database of IDs on their own systems - not off in some massive cross-referenced database, federal or otherwise.
Is not the cost per Mb is the same for the Telco, whether on contract, month-to-month after contract, or prepaid? Charging prepaid plans a higher rate than contract or month-to-month is an unfair business practice.
Its a case of "one in hand is worth two in the bush" - a contract practically guarantees a revenue stream, while pay-as-you-go does not. So contractual minutes are essentially cheaper, but nothing like 10x cheaper, maybe 25% cheaper and that's being generous.
If you don't buy everything from Amazon, or if the order actually goes to some associate/affiliate (whatever they call it, those third party merchants) of amazon.com, then certainly they will ship separately.
That is not necessarily true. Amazon sells warehouse space and shipping services to many of those merchants. It is entirely possible for multiple items from multiple amazon partners to all ship in the same box if they are all filled from the same warehouse.
What was the point of AT&T paying the US government licensing fees for those public airways again?
Contractually it may be the case, but morally it isn't.
Just because the telecoms subverted the US government and were able to get all of the responsibilities that come with the stewardship of public spectrum waived in exchange for a simple payment doesn't make it right. It just means that the people we hired to handle the negotiations failed due to a conflict of interest. A conflict encouraged by the telecoms via the "revolving door" policy and quid pro quo in FCC appointments.
Owning a smart phone with a data plan isn't a human right. Don't want to pay that much for the data plan? Don't. Live without it. Billions do it every day.
Controlling a piece of a the public airways isn't a corporate right. Don't want to charge reasonable rates for data plans? Don't. Live without that government granted monopoly on public property. All the other corporations do it every day.
You missed the part where I said to hire a competent CPA. Everything he listed is deductible to one degree or another, you just have to know how it works.
Bullshit. Without a corp - and funds flowing into it to take the deductions against the tax liability, practically none of it is deductible. I created such a corp on the advice of a competent CPA so I know exactly what I am talking about.
damned be the (sometimes significant) creation costs.
Uh, no.
Anyone who's thought about it seriously knows that what's needed is the development of economic models that don't rely on distribution fees to make up for production costs after the fact.
There are a bunch of alternatives, like the ransom model (release to the public domain after enough money has been paid into an escrow account), the subscription model (sell "subscriptions" to serialised content, similar to magazine subscriptions or cable-tv subscriptions), the loss-leader model (make the generic version free, then sell commissioned custom versions like a love song with a girlfriend's name substituted in), the merchandising model (sell swag like autographed copies, t-shirts, etc), the advertising model (give away studio recordings as advertisements for live performances), etc. The list of possible funding methods is really quite large.
If anything, given the level of sophistication required to understand and use the term "imaginary property" you can pretty much count on the people who use that term being quite aware of the need to address production costs. Its only the people who pirate simply because they can who are likely to hold a "damn the production costs" attitude because they probably haven't even thought much about it at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever notice it is only Phoronix reporting that?
Do you know of any other organization with a large automated regression testing system for linux kernels? That's not just me being snarky, its a serious question - who else beside phoronix is doing this sort of wide-scale testing on a constant basis?
Monet's world famous landscape paintings are definitely art, and not remotely "morally ambiguous". Just one example, of countless...
In fact, being morality-free was practically one of the tenants of Impressionism.
However, that lack of morality is also one of the most widespread criticisms of the movement.
Even the name, "Impressionist" was first coined by critics as a dismissive label for painters
working in that style.
So yes, most of Monet's work is without morals, it is essentially amoral as is fridge art.
But that's a far different thing than the premise that we want video games to have
a simplistic, well-defined morality to them.
Moral ambiguity bothers people. It's not enjoyable. It shouldn't be enjoyable, and it's good that it bothers us. Is it surprising that we don't like it in games?
If games are indeed art, as many have argued in recent times, then moral ambiguity is an important component. It's not necessary of every game ever made, but a game without moral ambiguity is more akin to the art you put up on the fridge because your kid in preschool made it.
> ...and watch as it reports each time you load a page from a
> "facebook partner"...
Never happens.
100,000 Websites Add Facebook's Social Plugins - May 2010
I agree. I have a fake facebook page too and DO NOT put any real information about myself out on the web. All the information about the user is completely untrue
That's what you think. Facebook has their hooks into thousands of big name websites such that even when you "log out" of facebook, they still track you at many of the other websites you use. Facebook is then able to cross-reference all of that external traffic, including "private" information you've given to those other sites like your shipping address and the name on your credit card with your "fake" facebook account.
Install the ghostery add-on for firefox and watch as it reports each time you load a page from a "facebook partner" (as well as tons of other trackers), you'll be stunned at just how far facebook has proliferated in the background.
Ultimately, it's of little real concern to me what is actually true.
Other than it being a multi-trillion dollar drain on the US economy, yeah it doesn't really matter.
Either you are right, and thus there is no real threat, or I am right, and any real threat is stopped long before it matures.
And gambling is always 50/50 odds, either you win or you lose.
During the 1990's, we had several terrorist attacks, foreign being World Trade Center 1, a few embassies, the USS Cole. And we can't forget McVeigh for domestic. Since 2002, what has happened within our borders, allies since 2008?
Are you seriously saying that a handful of events is the basis for a valid statistical conclusion? 3 significant domestic terrorist attacks in 20+ years isn't even in the noise. Even foreign attacks don't rise to the level from which you can draw a sound conclusion. Don't confuse severity with frequency.
or there are other forces at play.
Yes, specificity that the threat is a massive exaggeration. Even all of the attacks in europe over the last decade can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The underwear bomber didn't even have an extra $100 for a ticket to Chicago instead of Detroit.
Rather than apply basic reasoning to the known facts you postulate a massive undertaking based on a lack of facts. You might as well believe that flying spaghetti monster is out there saving us from terrorist attacks.
bad analogy. You're comparing music content with video standards.
I'm comparing IP to IP. Making the comparison more narrow doesn't make it any more enlightening.
What's h264? What's TrueHD?
Your anti-analogy analogy is about missing the forest for the trees.
Without real facts, we can only guess. My guess is that both parts are true, real threats are eliminated and we are being played by politicians, each part separate though, no coordination. The TSA is possibly in the "played" part.
Right, because the TSA and all the other silly public machinations of the DHS are just a smokescreen for the ATNS, the Anti-Terrorist Ninja Squad. The terrorists are such uber-enemies that we need to spend billions and billions of dollars on baloney agencies just to keep them guessing. Just like we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on NASA to fake the moon-landing and keep the Soviets guessing.
My money is on most of the threats getting stopped by the government agencies and military units that we know very little about.
That doesn't pass muster for the very simple reason that anytime they even get a hint of "stopping a terrorist" the government trumpets it as a huge success. Of course it always turns out to be practically a non-event, like "plot" to blow up JFK airport by igniting a natural gas pipeline or the "plot" by a handful of wanna-be gang-bangers in Miami to blow up the Sears tower.
If there was some highly effective super-secret stealth military unit thwarting major terrorist attacks, then we would have heard about ONE of them by now, at the very least. If they are willing to mlik the BS "plots" for PR, sooner or later somebody would decide to milk a real threat for PR too. But there hasn't been a single one.
The only way your theory works is if the US government is stunningly competent and run by completely self-sacrificing politicians absolutely immune to the temptation to score points with the public.
If Google bought music labels - then there is little doubt that Amazon music service, iTunes and other direct Google competitors services would be out of licenses and out of business shortly. Isn't that obvious? What interest would Google have to provide these competing services with creative work licenses? None whatsoever.
Google sells eyeballs to advertisers. If Google were to make all major label music free as in beer, then itunes et al would no longer be competitive but not because of monopolistic advantage by Google but for the same reason no one makes money selling air.
No one seriously complains that WebM being free hurts the market for 4C's h264 patent portfolio. Or that WebP hurts the JPEG patent holders.
Sorry, you fail to offer any sort of compelling argument as to why centralization is necessary. Your example of a broken system - driver's licenses, SS#s and public records is a centralized system. You've basically disproven your own premise.
They are an authority in whether you're going on your trip or not.
Authority without responsibility, like so many of the "warriors" in "war on terror" and the "war on drugs."
the TSA's purpose is not stopping terrorists...
Q: How many terrorists has the TSA caught?
A: ZERO
Q: How many terrorist attacks has the TSA stopped?
A: ZERO
For proof, the answer is obvious - a terrorist doesn't just decide that airplanes are too well protected so they are going to give up on the idea of causing mayhem, they will just look for easier targets like shopping malls, movie theaters, concerts, etc. Since we have had zero attacks on alternate targets, its clear the TSA isn't protecting airplanes from anyone.
The worst we've seen have been run-of-the-mill lone gunmen type like the Ft Hood shooter and the DC sniper. Everybody else, like the Times Square bomber have been so incompetent they couldn't even build a working bomb and most of those convicted have been guilty of nothing more than talking trash within the earshot of a snitch looking to get criminal charges dropped in exchange for narcing out someone, anyone.
May I ask where/how you get them? I have looked into Visa gift cards as a way to make anonymous purchases on the internet and have not found a way to buy them without being asked for a name, address, and/or SSN.
A lot of them want that stuff, but not all of them. Look in stores like CVS and Walgreens, especially in areas with large 1st generation immigrant populations. Then read the fine print on the cards to see which ones let you "activate" the card without giving up that info. If you google around, you can find some forums where this stuff gets discussed and newly 'discovered' anonymous and semi-anonymous gift cards are frequently reviewed.
Here's one I remember off the top of my head:
Historical discussions going back years: http://www.canaryislandspress.com/index.cfm/fa/questions (very kludgey to dig through)
Brand spankin new forum area: http://www.canaryislandspress.com/forum/
What we don't need is a centralized ID system - that's a recipe for all kinds of fraud of other sorts of abuse (like the recent story about how DVR commercial viewing records are correlated with grocery purchases in order to better target you for advertising).
If the government insists on getting involved in ID infrastructure, then they ought to be providing a means for distributed identification. Define a standardized system that promotes multiple, independent IDs that are domain specific. For example, one ID for facebook, another ID for your bank, another ID for your car registration, a different ID for the tax records on property like your house.
Go ahead and define a protocol for handling the identification and authentication transactions, but require taht each party (both users and service providers) keep the database of IDs on their own systems - not off in some massive cross-referenced database, federal or otherwise.
Is not the cost per Mb is the same for the Telco, whether on contract, month-to-month after contract, or prepaid? Charging prepaid plans a higher rate than contract or month-to-month is an unfair business practice.
Its a case of "one in hand is worth two in the bush" - a contract practically guarantees a revenue stream, while pay-as-you-go does not. So contractual minutes are essentially cheaper, but nothing like 10x cheaper, maybe 25% cheaper and that's being generous.
Here's the info I should have linked to:
Fulfillment by Amazon
This 3rd party fulfillment seems to be one of Amazon's highest growth areas.
If you don't buy everything from Amazon, or if the order actually goes to some associate/affiliate (whatever they call it, those third party merchants) of amazon.com, then certainly they will ship separately.
That is not necessarily true. Amazon sells warehouse space and shipping services to many of those merchants. It is entirely possible for multiple items from multiple amazon partners to all ship in the same box if they are all filled from the same warehouse.
What was the point of AT&T paying the US government licensing fees for those public airways again?
Contractually it may be the case, but morally it isn't.
Just because the telecoms subverted the US government and were able to get all of the responsibilities that come with the stewardship of public spectrum waived in exchange for a simple payment doesn't make it right. It just means that the people we hired to handle the negotiations failed due to a conflict of interest. A conflict encouraged by the telecoms via the "revolving door" policy and quid pro quo in FCC appointments.
Owning a smart phone with a data plan isn't a human right. Don't want to pay that much for the data plan? Don't. Live without it. Billions do it every day.
Controlling a piece of a the public airways isn't a corporate right. Don't want to charge reasonable rates for data plans? Don't. Live without that government granted monopoly on public property. All the other corporations do it every day.
You missed the part where I said to hire a competent CPA. Everything he listed is deductible to one degree or another, you just have to know how it works.
Bullshit. Without a corp - and funds flowing into it to take the deductions against the tax liability, practically none of it is deductible. I created such a corp on the advice of a competent CPA so I know exactly what I am talking about.
damned be the (sometimes significant) creation costs.
Uh, no.
Anyone who's thought about it seriously knows that what's needed is the development of economic models that don't rely on distribution fees to make up for production costs after the fact.
There are a bunch of alternatives, like the ransom model (release to the public domain after enough money has been paid into an escrow account), the subscription model (sell "subscriptions" to serialised content, similar to magazine subscriptions or cable-tv subscriptions), the loss-leader model (make the generic version free, then sell commissioned custom versions like a love song with a girlfriend's name substituted in), the merchandising model (sell swag like autographed copies, t-shirts, etc), the advertising model (give away studio recordings as advertisements for live performances), etc. The list of possible funding methods is really quite large.
If anything, given the level of sophistication required to understand and use the term "imaginary property" you can pretty much count on the people who use that term being quite aware of the need to address production costs. Its only the people who pirate simply because they can who are likely to hold a "damn the production costs" attitude because they probably haven't even thought much about it at all.