I did an internship at a nuke plant a few years ago and had to take one of those tests. I especially liked the "obvious" questions, like "Is someone trying to poison you? Y/N." In the end I managed to get by without even having to go see the shrink, though some relatively normal looking people did. Just wasted an hour or two on the test, and another waiting around afterwords for the results, which I never saw.
I, Robot is a collection of loosely related short stories. The only really common element is the general setting and the three laws. The movie can be thought of sort of like another short, similar setting and again using the laws. In that respect it works (although I agree with other posters who say it misses the point of the laws, especially the First Law).
The Foundation series is sequential. They follow the fall of the "Galactic Empire" and the eventual rise of the Foundation over the course of several hundred years (the stories cut out before the projected 1000 year replacement plan). Out of the 8 short stories, only two focus on characters even present in previous stories. With only one exception, there is a gap of decades from one story to the next (and even that one exception still has a gap of a few years IIRC). This works well enough in a book, but adapting it to a movie means one of three things: - Focusing on one or two of the shorts, which means either an awkward introduction or ending, or both, since you miss most of the story. - A very disjoint movie, as the cast and setting change completely several times through the movie. - Rewriting the story from the ground up so it isn't really the foundation story anymore. Fit it into a movie time line, where somehow the empire crumbles and the Foundation takes over in the span of no more then a few years and thanks to the efforts of a couple of lead actors.
Probably the best compromise would be a still somewhat disjoint trilogy, where the characters only change between films. The first three shorts are close enough in time line to be the first film with Hardin (lead character of #2 and #3) featured in the first story, or simply skip through the first very quickly (it's basically just introducing the premise). The next two shorts (Traders and General) combine the lead characters into one and shorten the span to no more then a few years. Of the last three shorts, 6 and 7 are the closest thing to a good movie plot in the series (the longest two stories, following the same set of characters, has the shortest gap mentioned above, and even a decent climax). The last story would have to be bolted on here or combined in some other way. The characters in it share similar goals to those in #7, and a skilled writer could probably make them overlap in time lines and combine characters in a believable way without losing too much.
Enough rambling, hope that answered your question somewhat.
Can't you see this is the exact kind of tragedy that the social conservatives are trying to prevent by not allowing gay couples to own marriage certificates?
The general setting described in the first two sentences does sound somewhat similar to the early parts of the Foundation stories: The larger culture is irrational, secluded science types preserving knowledge, surrounding "barbarians" treat them as religious leaders.
(d'oh, proof-reading for the win)
I was going to say.
Another fun problem:
-See if this position is reachable with a valid rubix cube.
-See if the upper bound is affected if you make sticker swaps mandatory (that is, you can't hold stickers "off the cube," only swap their positions on the cube).
On any given face, there must be at least 2 stickers that share a color (6 colors, 9 possible positions). In the worst case, you get a face with 3 colors "double" (there are two stickers of that color on that face) and 3 colors "single" (they are the only sticker of that color on that face). Furthermore, in this situation, since each color has 9 stickers on the cube, each color must be doubled on 3 faces and singled on 3 faces.
If we are starting with a valid rubix cube (actually solvable), then I need to make some assumptions. If not, then stickers can obviously be arranged in this worst-case format.
It is possible for all faces to be in the worst position simultaneously (the 3x2, 3x1 as above) - if false, the maximum bound would be lowered.
In this situation, each color has at least one unique face where it is doubled (that is, it isn't possible for four colors to only occupy three faces as "doubled") - if false, the maximum bound is lower.
In that case, each face would require exactly 7 moved stickers. Multiplied by 6 faces, 7x6 = 42. ...
Maybe the Hitchhikers guy was on to something there..
On closer inspection, the first three rows are 47 columns, and the next 4 rows are 46. In row 4, there is a section near the end when the extra column is dropped, and ' |||' from R3 (4 bits) turn into a '| |' on R4 (3 bits).
Just to help you stay on track, a note about the odd line breaks from the link to the "thought process" from below:
The odd breaks occur because the way it's written is in a fixed-width row format. Each row contains an equal number of columns, and each column contains either a '|' or a ' ' (dash or space). The correct interpretation of the message removes the line breaks and translates the sentence as a single line.
The first stanza has 47 columns per row. The 5-6 and 6-7 breaks occur because the last column in line 5/6 is a '|' but the first column in line 6/7 is also a '|'.
The third stanza uses the same notation, but now each row consists of 85 columns. The 2-3 break has the same problem as in the first stanza, the row ran out of columns and the gap character had to be continued on the next row.
If you're looking for significance with those gaps, instead consider the number of columns per row, and the fact that both stanzas have 7 complete rows and an 8th partial row.
Misc numbers that may or may not be helpful:
25 columns in the last row of Stanza 1
21 columns in the last row of Stanza 3
FWIW, I have Cox and haven't noticed any problems with BitTorrent. Some torrents with good seeds have gotten up around 500-600 KB/s in the last month or so, and I am always able to seed normally once the torrent finishes.
I realize that there are several other factors. The drives are both pretty much the same speed (in fact if anything mine might be faster - my computer uses newer SATA drives I bought with the computer about 3 years ago, while my friend still uses an old IDE drive from his last computer). When it comes to fragmentation my friend probably has the advantage, as we installed the game shortly after setting up the system (including formatting the drive), while mine was installed several months after I set up my system. Aside from that, his computer is better in every other way that would matter.
It was not a rigorous scientific test, or even a very good benchmark. It was merely an example of a situation I've observed (reading lots of data into memory in a short period - such as loading a level for a game) in which greatly increased throughput to RAM (among other factors) can be a nice benefit, especially when the pricedifference is negligible (DDR has slightly lower latency, DDR2 is slightly cheaper even the before rebate and comes with some perks like a heat sink).
I don't feel like looking up lots of benchmarks at the moment, so let me cheap out with a personal anecdote. My computer has 3x512 DDR-400, my friends computer has 2x512 DDR2-800. The performance comparison is for loading a game level that fits in memory (Game was Battlefield 2142). On my computer, this usually takes about a minute, followed by some stuttering as important things are paged in from the page file. On his computer, the process takes about 20 seconds and there is very little stutter after the load screen.
Some of the speed increase may be because of other differences in the computer, but faster transfer rates can greatly reduce load times, which although it isn't everything can be very nice in some situations.
I believe there are other advantages to DDR2 over DDR, such as reduced power use and increased maximum size on a single stick. In the end, it was just an incremental upgrade over DDR, just like DDR3 is over DDR2. In the last couple years, the price of DDR2 and motherboards that support it has dropped enough that it's worth it (compared to DDR), while this isn't the case yet for DDR3.
Re:Just a tad over the top?
on
DDR3 RAM Explained
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually I don't think DDR2 was (is?) significantly faster than DDR for normal PCs.
The only reason to buy DDR2 over DDR is because it is cheaper (and compatible with more stuff you want).
That would be a horrible reason to make new RAM, change the connection just enough without any improvement to the hardware. Not that I'd put it past some hardware makers.
Your statement about speed might have been true when DDR2 had just launched (wasn't paying attention back then), since the low-end DDR2 memory modules have the same transfer rate as high-end DDR modules, but DDR2 has topped off at a transfer rate of just over 3x DDR's limit. Most people I know have gotten the more reasonably priced sticks that have twice the DDR transfer rate, though. Maybe the article is on to something there..
Nitpick: Guild Wars isn't free.
The cost of the game is paid up-front as the cost of an access key (with optional out-of-date installer and manual if you buy it in a brick & mortar store). To support the ongoing cost of maintaining the servers (as well as keep putting bread on the table), they released additional "chapters" which are self-contained and similar in size to the original. Not free, just different.
More on topic, the "metropolitan/urban center" environment City of Heroes seems like an environment where bulletin boards can be made unobtrusive, more a part of the natural landscape. And as long as it's optional, then it isn't so bad.
I'm just going to throw a couple things out there at random and be done with this conversation, since I've made my point (twice) and we clearly don't agree.
1) The monopoly entry strategy of "in the red until there's no more competition, then jack up the price" isn't going to work on the current online music store market. The market already has too many choices, many of them offering the same content.
2) At the very least, no one is unseating iTunes in the next several years. They're too entrenched. They have momentum, a decent product compared to most online stores, and as long as DRM is involved they own a good chunk of the hardware. Any theory that doesn't have iTunes still a heavy hitter (actually, according to a recent press release they just became the heaviest) in the online music market isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.
3) Most of this is actually irrelevant to the article, as MySpace is proposing a subscription service. Individual songs won't have costs.
How many songs were given away free through itunes near the start? Millions? Tens of millions? Actually hundreds of millions (available, not claimed though) according to the promotion section on wikipedia. But the landscape of online music downloads was a little different back then, don't you think?
When the choice is instant gratification for the latest ultra-hyped song or waiting until the weekend to go the mall or for amazon to ship the full CD, plenty are just going to suck it up and buy the one ultra-hyped, over-priced song. You are proposing that people will pay $3 a song for "Hyped songs" at this hypothetical new monopoly, when the kind of people that will pay ridiculous prices just to be trendy are the ones buying Apple for the most part.
Myspace is Rupert Murdoch's toy - aka it is part of the MAFIAA already News Corp has very almost no interests in the music industry. They're mostly a print, TV, and movie outfit. (HINT: the MPAA and RIAA are actually separate organizations, contrary to popular belief)
My main complaint with this line of reasoning is this:
If they can't muscle around one company who sells online music (Apple) to get higher prices, what makes you think they're going to be able to do it with the next hypothetical "Online Music Monopoly" (assuming they can even create a new one while destroying Apple's)?
Where do you propose that they "flock out" to? A couple of other people have already given you the most obvious answer: consumers can always go back to piracy to some degree. If the recording companies do somehow manage to triple the cost of music downloads overnight, it will mean that most people will buy 1/3 as many songs and pirate the other 2 they would have bought (or not get them anywhere). Increasing the cost isn't going to increase the disposable income people have to spend on it.
Besides that, there are other places to go. You mention physical media like going back to format-shifting isn't an option. If you're going to claim all CDs are also going up to $30 an album, I think you should checksomesources (and good luck getting any of them to raise prices if you can't even muscle around a newcomer like Apple). If I have a choice between 3 or 4 songs from an online store, or an album with 10-15 songs for the same price or better, even if I only want those 3-4 songs the album is obviously a better deal. The industry probably doesn't want that, since anything that plays on a CD player has just about the weakest DRM imaginable.
One further possibility (the most likely, I think) is that the online music market will just become fragmented, with different consumers buying from different venues. Amazon would probably grab enough to set the standard price (heck, they're already better then iTunes in almost every way), and they will never sell an mp3 album for more then a physical. The variety of more specialized online stores will grab others.
Of course, all this is extremely hypothetical anyway. I don't expect the record companies are willing to make an offer good enough that they can drive enough people away from iTunes (assuming that's even their goal).
Do you think that the MAFIAA isn't looking for any opportunity it can to increase the average selling price? This is just a given, along with the fact that they will always be pushing for stronger DRM. Its what they do. It doesn't mean it's going to work. I look at iTunes, and I see the same $.99 for a song that it's always been. The point is, unless they have some justification for a huge price hike (and they don't), it will never happen.
1) iTunes charges $.99 per song. 2) RIAA licenses MySpace/Amazon/Microsoft/etc to also provide the same or a wider selection of music. (This is where we are now.) 2a) If [New Competitor] has more restrictive DRM or offers a worse deal, or more likely when it doesn't work with their iPods, it fails to gain traction and eventually closes shop. (This has happened several times.) 3) Consumers flock to [new competitor] thanks to their clear advantage over the iTunes store. (warning: entering extremely hypothetical territory) 4) Record companies "tell Jobs where he can stick that 99 cents," call up [new competitor] and tell them its time to up the price to 2.99 a track! 4a) If [new competitor] complies, consumers flock out in droves quicker then they came in, [new competitor] closes up shop. Record companies better renegotiate to (1) before things get even worse for them. 5) More likely, [new competitor] realizes that a price hike of just about any size (let alone a 200% increase) will cause (4a) and tells the record companies where it can stick it's 2.99.
Record companies decision time: Deal with the new monopoly and it's improved (from a consumer perspective) standards: goto (1), replacing iTunes with [new competitor]. Attempt to break the new monopoly by driving consumers to a new store, where prices can be raised: goto (2), and probably to (2a) not long after.
Seriously, consumers have had $.99 songs for too long now to accept a price hike with no justification. This theory someone always pops up when a new store is announced, that once they get a big enough market share iTunes will get the boot and prices will go through the roof. It's crazier than the RIAA litigation strategy.
We've seen countless new online music stores fail to grab more then a tiny segment of the market from Apple. This one doesn't seem to offer much that hasn't been tried better before, including name-brand recognition.
Tactics Ogre is another good game on that list. A great early TRPG.
And the name isn't even that "silly" compared to most of the list. I agree with one of the other posters, stick Irritating Stick (or some other stuff) on the list, and drop the good games.
When Bin Laden calls for a Jihad against the US, we can say that it isn't Islam that's at fault, because the religion of Islam itself grants no inherent authority to Bin Laden, he simply twists some of its teachings.
However, if the Pope were to call for a Crusade and start up a new Inquisition, and Catholics (or at least enough of them) were to go along with him, we would be more justified holding Catholicism at fault. It teaches obedience to the Pope and its core leadership would have initiated the action.
You can certainly separate the religion from its followers. However, with Scientology you have a situation where the leadership of the church practices abusive actions against individuals, the majority of its followers go along with the abusive practices of the leadership (or are unaware of them), and the teachings of the church often call for those abusive practices. It's because of this that many people lay the blame on the church as a whole.
As a vegetarian who's been to Japan, there's plenty to eat and most of it is good. Tempura and Udon are both very common foods that have a few non-meet varieties, and plenty of other meals (foreign and local) do come meat free. The only tricky part, really, is figuring out which ones are which.
I don't know where the GP ate out (probably a much fancier place then most of the ones I did, if Squid was a mandatory topping on the pizza), but lots of places serve pizza with much more variety then that. You're right that they are a bit lighter on the tomato sauce then you're probably used to, though.
In those cases, you'd probably want to cite Wiki policy pages, or things like that of course. Most of the citations would probably come from studies and articles about wiki phenomenon, though.
Sure a blanket ban would be stupid in those cases, but I think a Professor that is going to assign a paper about one of those topics isn't very likely to ban citing Wikipedia. Discouraging citations of actual articles (rather then policy statements) would still make sense.
I'd say it's more likely a "better anything then nothing at all" scenario. Movies and TV shows are pretty high budget, especially TV shows with a lot of fancy special effects like Firefly. Comic books are relatively cheap, and they've done a few comics in the past so it probably wasn't to hard to get the rights to do more.
On a lighter note, I wouldn't say dead last. It's a pretty heated race for 2nd from the bottom between "Video Game" and "Comic Book."
Slashdot Mirror
I did an internship at a nuke plant a few years ago and had to take one of those tests. I especially liked the "obvious" questions, like "Is someone trying to poison you? Y/N." In the end I managed to get by without even having to go see the shrink, though some relatively normal looking people did. Just wasted an hour or two on the test, and another waiting around afterwords for the results, which I never saw.
people who steal their user names off of tolkien should be ashamed of themselves.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
(Score:4, Informative)
Clearly now rite_m will need to expand his conspiracy theory to include a sock puppet or two. Or maybe you're all three?!
I, Robot is a collection of loosely related short stories. The only really common element is the general setting and the three laws. The movie can be thought of sort of like another short, similar setting and again using the laws. In that respect it works (although I agree with other posters who say it misses the point of the laws, especially the First Law).
The Foundation series is sequential. They follow the fall of the "Galactic Empire" and the eventual rise of the Foundation over the course of several hundred years (the stories cut out before the projected 1000 year replacement plan). Out of the 8 short stories, only two focus on characters even present in previous stories. With only one exception, there is a gap of decades from one story to the next (and even that one exception still has a gap of a few years IIRC). This works well enough in a book, but adapting it to a movie means one of three things:
- Focusing on one or two of the shorts, which means either an awkward introduction or ending, or both, since you miss most of the story.
- A very disjoint movie, as the cast and setting change completely several times through the movie.
- Rewriting the story from the ground up so it isn't really the foundation story anymore. Fit it into a movie time line, where somehow the empire crumbles and the Foundation takes over in the span of no more then a few years and thanks to the efforts of a couple of lead actors.
Probably the best compromise would be a still somewhat disjoint trilogy, where the characters only change between films.
The first three shorts are close enough in time line to be the first film with Hardin (lead character of #2 and #3) featured in the first story, or simply skip through the first very quickly (it's basically just introducing the premise).
The next two shorts (Traders and General) combine the lead characters into one and shorten the span to no more then a few years.
Of the last three shorts, 6 and 7 are the closest thing to a good movie plot in the series (the longest two stories, following the same set of characters, has the shortest gap mentioned above, and even a decent climax). The last story would have to be bolted on here or combined in some other way. The characters in it share similar goals to those in #7, and a skilled writer could probably make them overlap in time lines and combine characters in a believable way without losing too much.
Enough rambling, hope that answered your question somewhat.
Can't you see this is the exact kind of tragedy that the social conservatives are trying to prevent by not allowing gay couples to own marriage certificates?
Wouldn't that be 1-900-HORNY-GOAT ?
Not that I would know...
The general setting described in the first two sentences does sound somewhat similar to the early parts of the Foundation stories: The larger culture is irrational, secluded science types preserving knowledge, surrounding "barbarians" treat them as religious leaders.
(d'oh, proof-reading for the win)
I was going to say.
Another fun problem:
-See if this position is reachable with a valid rubix cube.
-See if the upper bound is affected if you make sticker swaps mandatory (that is, you can't hold stickers "off the cube," only swap their positions on the cube).
I'll take a crack at it!
...
On any given face, there must be at least 2 stickers that share a color (6 colors, 9 possible positions). In the worst case, you get a face with 3 colors "double" (there are two stickers of that color on that face) and 3 colors "single" (they are the only sticker of that color on that face). Furthermore, in this situation, since each color has 9 stickers on the cube, each color must be doubled on 3 faces and singled on 3 faces.
If we are starting with a valid rubix cube (actually solvable), then I need to make some assumptions. If not, then stickers can obviously be arranged in this worst-case format.
It is possible for all faces to be in the worst position simultaneously (the 3x2, 3x1 as above) - if false, the maximum bound would be lowered.
In this situation, each color has at least one unique face where it is doubled (that is, it isn't possible for four colors to only occupy three faces as "doubled") - if false, the maximum bound is lower.
In that case, each face would require exactly 7 moved stickers. Multiplied by 6 faces, 7x6 = 42.
Maybe the Hitchhikers guy was on to something there..
Another fun problem:
On closer inspection, the first three rows are 47 columns, and the next 4 rows are 46. In row 4, there is a section near the end when the extra column is dropped, and ' |||' from R3 (4 bits) turn into a '| |' on R4 (3 bits).
Just to help you stay on track, a note about the odd line breaks from the link to the "thought process" from below:
The odd breaks occur because the way it's written is in a fixed-width row format. Each row contains an equal number of columns, and each column contains either a '|' or a ' ' (dash or space). The correct interpretation of the message removes the line breaks and translates the sentence as a single line.
The first stanza has 47 columns per row. The 5-6 and 6-7 breaks occur because the last column in line 5/6 is a '|' but the first column in line 6/7 is also a '|'.
The third stanza uses the same notation, but now each row consists of 85 columns. The 2-3 break has the same problem as in the first stanza, the row ran out of columns and the gap character had to be continued on the next row.
If you're looking for significance with those gaps, instead consider the number of columns per row, and the fact that both stanzas have 7 complete rows and an 8th partial row.
Misc numbers that may or may not be helpful:
25 columns in the last row of Stanza 1
21 columns in the last row of Stanza 3
FWIW, I have Cox and haven't noticed any problems with BitTorrent. Some torrents with good seeds have gotten up around 500-600 KB/s in the last month or so, and I am always able to seed normally once the torrent finishes.
I realize that there are several other factors. The drives are both pretty much the same speed (in fact if anything mine might be faster - my computer uses newer SATA drives I bought with the computer about 3 years ago, while my friend still uses an old IDE drive from his last computer). When it comes to fragmentation my friend probably has the advantage, as we installed the game shortly after setting up the system (including formatting the drive), while mine was installed several months after I set up my system. Aside from that, his computer is better in every other way that would matter.
It was not a rigorous scientific test, or even a very good benchmark. It was merely an example of a situation I've observed (reading lots of data into memory in a short period - such as loading a level for a game) in which greatly increased throughput to RAM (among other factors) can be a nice benefit, especially when the price difference is negligible (DDR has slightly lower latency, DDR2 is slightly cheaper even the before rebate and comes with some perks like a heat sink).
I don't feel like looking up lots of benchmarks at the moment, so let me cheap out with a personal anecdote. My computer has 3x512 DDR-400, my friends computer has 2x512 DDR2-800. The performance comparison is for loading a game level that fits in memory (Game was Battlefield 2142). On my computer, this usually takes about a minute, followed by some stuttering as important things are paged in from the page file. On his computer, the process takes about 20 seconds and there is very little stutter after the load screen.
Some of the speed increase may be because of other differences in the computer, but faster transfer rates can greatly reduce load times, which although it isn't everything can be very nice in some situations.
I believe there are other advantages to DDR2 over DDR, such as reduced power use and increased maximum size on a single stick. In the end, it was just an incremental upgrade over DDR, just like DDR3 is over DDR2. In the last couple years, the price of DDR2 and motherboards that support it has dropped enough that it's worth it (compared to DDR), while this isn't the case yet for DDR3.
The only reason to buy DDR2 over DDR is because it is cheaper (and compatible with more stuff you want).
That would be a horrible reason to make new RAM, change the connection just enough without any improvement to the hardware. Not that I'd put it past some hardware makers.
Your statement about speed might have been true when DDR2 had just launched (wasn't paying attention back then), since the low-end DDR2 memory modules have the same transfer rate as high-end DDR modules, but DDR2 has topped off at a transfer rate of just over 3x DDR's limit. Most people I know have gotten the more reasonably priced sticks that have twice the DDR transfer rate, though. Maybe the article is on to something there..
Nitpick: Guild Wars isn't free.
The cost of the game is paid up-front as the cost of an access key (with optional out-of-date installer and manual if you buy it in a brick & mortar store). To support the ongoing cost of maintaining the servers (as well as keep putting bread on the table), they released additional "chapters" which are self-contained and similar in size to the original. Not free, just different.
More on topic, the "metropolitan/urban center" environment City of Heroes seems like an environment where bulletin boards can be made unobtrusive, more a part of the natural landscape. And as long as it's optional, then it isn't so bad.
Also, shouldn't this be in Games instead of YRO?
1) The monopoly entry strategy of "in the red until there's no more competition, then jack up the price" isn't going to work on the current online music store market. The market already has too many choices, many of them offering the same content.
2) At the very least, no one is unseating iTunes in the next several years. They're too entrenched. They have momentum, a decent product compared to most online stores, and as long as DRM is involved they own a good chunk of the hardware. Any theory that doesn't have iTunes still a heavy hitter (actually, according to a recent press release they just became the heaviest) in the online music market isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.
3) Most of this is actually irrelevant to the article, as MySpace is proposing a subscription service. Individual songs won't have costs.
How many songs were given away free through itunes near the start? Millions? Tens of millions? Actually hundreds of millions (available, not claimed though) according to the promotion section on wikipedia. But the landscape of online music downloads was a little different back then, don't you think? When the choice is instant gratification for the latest ultra-hyped song or waiting until the weekend to go the mall or for amazon to ship the full CD, plenty are just going to suck it up and buy the one ultra-hyped, over-priced song. You are proposing that people will pay $3 a song for "Hyped songs" at this hypothetical new monopoly, when the kind of people that will pay ridiculous prices just to be trendy are the ones buying Apple for the most part. Myspace is Rupert Murdoch's toy - aka it is part of the MAFIAA already News Corp has very almost no interests in the music industry. They're mostly a print, TV, and movie outfit. (HINT: the MPAA and RIAA are actually separate organizations, contrary to popular belief)
If they can't muscle around one company who sells online music (Apple) to get higher prices, what makes you think they're going to be able to do it with the next hypothetical "Online Music Monopoly" (assuming they can even create a new one while destroying Apple's)? Where do you propose that they "flock out" to? A couple of other people have already given you the most obvious answer: consumers can always go back to piracy to some degree. If the recording companies do somehow manage to triple the cost of music downloads overnight, it will mean that most people will buy 1/3 as many songs and pirate the other 2 they would have bought (or not get them anywhere). Increasing the cost isn't going to increase the disposable income people have to spend on it.
Besides that, there are other places to go. You mention physical media like going back to format-shifting isn't an option. If you're going to claim all CDs are also going up to $30 an album, I think you should check some sources (and good luck getting any of them to raise prices if you can't even muscle around a newcomer like Apple). If I have a choice between 3 or 4 songs from an online store, or an album with 10-15 songs for the same price or better, even if I only want those 3-4 songs the album is obviously a better deal. The industry probably doesn't want that, since anything that plays on a CD player has just about the weakest DRM imaginable.
One further possibility (the most likely, I think) is that the online music market will just become fragmented, with different consumers buying from different venues. Amazon would probably grab enough to set the standard price (heck, they're already better then iTunes in almost every way), and they will never sell an mp3 album for more then a physical. The variety of more specialized online stores will grab others.
Of course, all this is extremely hypothetical anyway. I don't expect the record companies are willing to make an offer good enough that they can drive enough people away from iTunes (assuming that's even their goal). Do you think that the MAFIAA isn't looking for any opportunity it can to increase the average selling price? This is just a given, along with the fact that they will always be pushing for stronger DRM. Its what they do. It doesn't mean it's going to work. I look at iTunes, and I see the same $.99 for a song that it's always been. The point is, unless they have some justification for a huge price hike (and they don't), it will never happen.
1) iTunes charges $.99 per song.
2) RIAA licenses MySpace/Amazon/Microsoft/etc to also provide the same or a wider selection of music. (This is where we are now.)
2a) If [New Competitor] has more restrictive DRM or offers a worse deal, or more likely when it doesn't work with their iPods, it fails to gain traction and eventually closes shop. (This has happened several times.)
3) Consumers flock to [new competitor] thanks to their clear advantage over the iTunes store. (warning: entering extremely hypothetical territory)
4) Record companies "tell Jobs where he can stick that 99 cents," call up [new competitor] and tell them its time to up the price to 2.99 a track!
4a) If [new competitor] complies, consumers flock out in droves quicker then they came in, [new competitor] closes up shop. Record companies better renegotiate to (1) before things get even worse for them.
5) More likely, [new competitor] realizes that a price hike of just about any size (let alone a 200% increase) will cause (4a) and tells the record companies where it can stick it's 2.99.
Record companies decision time:
Deal with the new monopoly and it's improved (from a consumer perspective) standards: goto (1), replacing iTunes with [new competitor].
Attempt to break the new monopoly by driving consumers to a new store, where prices can be raised: goto (2), and probably to (2a) not long after.
Seriously, consumers have had $.99 songs for too long now to accept a price hike with no justification. This theory someone always pops up when a new store is announced, that once they get a big enough market share iTunes will get the boot and prices will go through the roof. It's crazier than the RIAA litigation strategy.
We've seen countless new online music stores fail to grab more then a tiny segment of the market from Apple. This one doesn't seem to offer much that hasn't been tried better before, including name-brand recognition.
Tactics Ogre is another good game on that list. A great early TRPG. And the name isn't even that "silly" compared to most of the list. I agree with one of the other posters, stick Irritating Stick (or some other stuff) on the list, and drop the good games.
Consider this difference:
When Bin Laden calls for a Jihad against the US, we can say that it isn't Islam that's at fault, because the religion of Islam itself grants no inherent authority to Bin Laden, he simply twists some of its teachings.
However, if the Pope were to call for a Crusade and start up a new Inquisition, and Catholics (or at least enough of them) were to go along with him, we would be more justified holding Catholicism at fault. It teaches obedience to the Pope and its core leadership would have initiated the action.
You can certainly separate the religion from its followers. However, with Scientology you have a situation where the leadership of the church practices abusive actions against individuals, the majority of its followers go along with the abusive practices of the leadership (or are unaware of them), and the teachings of the church often call for those abusive practices. It's because of this that many people lay the blame on the church as a whole.
As a vegetarian who's been to Japan, there's plenty to eat and most of it is good. Tempura and Udon are both very common foods that have a few non-meet varieties, and plenty of other meals (foreign and local) do come meat free. The only tricky part, really, is figuring out which ones are which. I don't know where the GP ate out (probably a much fancier place then most of the ones I did, if Squid was a mandatory topping on the pizza), but lots of places serve pizza with much more variety then that. You're right that they are a bit lighter on the tomato sauce then you're probably used to, though.
In those cases, you'd probably want to cite Wiki policy pages, or things like that of course. Most of the citations would probably come from studies and articles about wiki phenomenon, though.
Sure a blanket ban would be stupid in those cases, but I think a Professor that is going to assign a paper about one of those topics isn't very likely to ban citing Wikipedia. Discouraging citations of actual articles (rather then policy statements) would still make sense.
I'd say it's more likely a "better anything then nothing at all" scenario. Movies and TV shows are pretty high budget, especially TV shows with a lot of fancy special effects like Firefly. Comic books are relatively cheap, and they've done a few comics in the past so it probably wasn't to hard to get the rights to do more.
On a lighter note, I wouldn't say dead last. It's a pretty heated race for 2nd from the bottom between "Video Game" and "Comic Book."