Non-intervention Free Market capitalism is great in times of plenty, but history has taught us in times of suffering (when capitalism goes wrong) this will only lead to two things:
Communism
or
National Socialism
Because the goodwill of men who in the art of making money are often not very "goodwillish" since making money is not about the benefit of others most of the time.
There are some men that make money and really are good people and love their workers, however because life is not often fair to those who are good, evil men can use the system to become wealthy and however their ill will might not be directed towards the masses they would not lift a finger to aleaviate the masses suffering in times of crisis (the Great Depression or Russia in World War I) and then men more evil than the capitalists will lead the masses (Joe Sixpack) into system much far worse than capitalism (National Socialism and Stalinism).
Keep in mind the U.S. has never been a true free market economy. The closest it has ever been was in 1890's. We are actually an odd form of Socialism. Not that great of a system, but hey... It works and it gives most Americans a higher standard of living than anyone else in the world (unless your South Korean, Finnish, Swiss, or Cannadian, but don't tell the Americans that).
The point being:
If you do not feed, educate, and get the masses jobs then someone else will and it might be at end of a gun.
Well... If you mean by "cheaper" as in paying a high school kid $5 bucks an hour to format hard drives and reinstall Windows on all your workstations after a patch push hoses Windows OS... Then yes, I could see your point.
An RPG with minimal stats, leaving the post-EQ MMORPG fan out in the cold.
You know what? After 100 single player and about 5 MMOGs games of nothing but leveling throughout my life it's safe to say...
I'm bloody kind of sick and tired of bloody leveling!
I think EQ burnt me out. Sure Marrowind Elder Scrolls for the Xbox was kind of fun to level... And Shadowbane was just easy so it wasn't a chore.
But out of all the MMOG games I would have to say Ultima Online had the best damned system for character development since you could just play the game without having to kill things over and over just to get stronger just to kill more things.
The urge to make another 60 level character for anyone on any game gets very low when you think about the tedious effort it takes when you start from scratch on a new game.
Seriously... Diku MUD leveling is a 20 year old (if not older system) we need to have more innovation that Kill, Kill, Heal Heal, Ding, Ding!
It's like saying that Linus is going to patent Linux and stop everyone from using it for free. That's simply not going to happen.
I think what he means is that What happens if Sun broke Java? As in, they release an update that hoses your API's and you don't have the slightest ability to fix that since the source is closed
And the only thing you can do is send requests asking Sun to fix it.
I think that is more likely than Sun just saying "We decided to let no one use Java at all! Nanabooboo!"
DRM is the future, you can't stop it. Your children in 20 years won't be able to buy plain old music CDs anymore because the RIAA won't release it unsecured like that. If they still sell physical media, they'll have changed the format over to something DRM'd.
Oh, hogwash!
You are making the assumption that all music is created by the RIAA and that CD format is dead or dying.
1. Even vinyl is not dead. I can still buy brand new vinyls of new releases of bands I like. Sure they maybe are things you have never heard of and I have to order them, but these are professional non-indie releases from Europe and the states. But in reality audiophiles will have access to music they want even if they have to make their own mix tapes.
2. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't find a great deal of music that isn't RIAA on iTunes which of course forces me to buy CD's from Europe or special order. Most of these are major labels in Europe but they are not a part of the RIAA in the states.
3. Most music that is DRM'd sucks anyways. *coughs* Well that is my opinion, but I think you are wasting your money if you are buying a Britney Spears CD and you're wasting your bandwidth if you are downloading it. Loose/loose situation. Most of you people just listen to music because you've been told it's "cool" or "the in thing" or you want to be all "gansta" like. Well... If that were the case I'd not listen to music at all. (No I don't work at a record store, why do you ask?)
4. If I am still alive in 20 years (see number 5) then I will most likely still release CD's for my record label (see my link for our only CD!)
5. In 20 years, downloading music will be the least of the kids worries...;)
That's like saying "it's up to you whether or not you have cancer".
Remember, perception of reality is based on an opinion. It's only real because we believe it to be so. I'm only aware of the cancer because I feel the pain in my stomach. If there was no pain or visible affect then it doesn't exist.... (Doesn't mean it's not there in time and space, but it doesn't exist to me since it is not being perceived by observation) Or until I gick sick or die. Well, if I die then I don't exist so the cancer is a moot point, but I'm being semantic.
Otherwise the placebo effect would not exist. Of course if it doesn't then it is because it's a matter of opinion:)
And if we didn't pay these fees every time, we would end up in Siberia and never be heard from again.
But Comrade! If we had supported the revolution to begin with it would be those very same persons who want this who would be in Siberia.
One of course must realize that money is of abject fiction... And that this peice of paper only means respect for a system which may or may not have respect for you!
I don't think computers are needed in the classroom, but they should be provided for those who don't normally have access to them.
I remember in my high school days (even though I had a 486 at home) I learned most of my valued computer skills of the time at the school computer club with other interested students.
Even though it involved playing allot of Doom... At we learned how to network DOS computers in the process!
For some reason, I have often found foreign films less guilty of this.
For the life of me and I wish I could remember it (I think it was "Cure" by a Japanese director), but I distinctly remember the cops using a command line interface to look up names. The most un-interesting computer screen. Of course the plot wasn't about computers mind you... But most Japanese films tend to have realitstic computer usage.
Hell, I would really believe that the computers in "Lain" actually existed.
Then again there are some pretty cheesy computer interfaces in Live action Japanese films and Anime.
They are more Nationalist these days than Communist and even the government says on occasion Mao was three fourth's right and one fourth wrong because of the Great Cultural Revolution which left millions starved to death (but not like they talk about it that much). Yes there is quite a bit of repression compared to the USA, but China today is more like Fascist Italy in the 1930s than say Stalinist Russia ever was.
The chinese urbanites (not rurals) have pop music, video games, fast food, TV, and basically many things westerners enjoy, but obviously you can't have a game that makes the government look bad or sell music of a pop singer that is shoutting "MAO SUCKS!", but it doesn't mean everything they indulge is government propaganda unlike every song in the DPRK (North Korea) has to mention Dear Leader or Kim Jong Il.
North Korea is still way Stalinist mind you but that is a different story all together.
That and you know that only 50,000 people are set to watch the great fire wall of China? That's a lot, but when you think about how many people they have to watch and I think they've been having problems clamping down on the Nationalist websites that are anti-Japanese. Most of the protests were organized via blogs, SMS, and via the web so the great fire wall isn't all that great.
That and like all governments you find apathy and bueracracy in which they let things slide. As you may not bribing is a major problem in China. Not as hardliner as you think.
They could link the US version of Slashdot on the front page and melt the uncrashable servers instantly. The immense power of this weapon they would have! I quiver with fear at the very thought.
Scam sites would only get sporadic visitors from fooled Internet users and have their PageRank drop like a rock, while news sites, popular gaming sites, and so on, would get large numbers of returning users.
Great! Now, I can actually use google to find Mame ROMs again!
How about hooking up a "Quake" type engine with a Sim type mapping engine so you could zoom in and enter buildings and interact with characters? Just thinking out loud...
Check out the videos from http://www.strangerhood.com/home.php which use the Sims2 game engine to generate the movies. They look very "Quakish" or at least the camera can get down in there and interact.
And it's by the same guys who do Red vs Blue! Very funny material.
Think of your favorite console game; has it crashed recently? Ever?
Yes. Why yes it has and on several occasions. Elder Scrolls: Marrowind for the Xbox and it was a brand new copy on a fairly new Xbox (non-modded mind you).
And yes it is my favorite game.;)
It doesn't blue screen or do anything that I havne't seen a PS2 do, but it's only Marrowind as far as I can tell. The screen freezes and then gives a certain tone and then only way to unfreeze it is to power cycle the Xbox and start from the last save point.
Ultimately, government control of information will lead to censorship, and monitoring. Information that is illegal will be pro-actively searched for and destroyed.
It's not like privately owned corporations censor opinions and turn people in for breaking copyright violations.
Oh and the fact you can't sue privately owned corporations for oppressing your freedom of speech is unimportant as well.
Slashdot Mirror
-- name an industry in existence that isn't flooded with asshats in it just for the money?
You know those guys who work as Janitors in porn theaters... Yeah those guys...
and they will always need someone to clean spyware.
Unless Microsoft goes out of business.
Non-intervention Free Market capitalism is great in times of plenty, but history has taught us in times of suffering (when capitalism goes wrong) this will only lead to two things:
Communism
or
National Socialism
Because the goodwill of men who in the art of making money are often not very "goodwillish" since making money is not about the benefit of others most of the time.
There are some men that make money and really are good people and love their workers, however because life is not often fair to those who are good, evil men can use the system to become wealthy and however their ill will might not be directed towards the masses they would not lift a finger to aleaviate the masses suffering in times of crisis (the Great Depression or Russia in World War I) and then men more evil than the capitalists will lead the masses (Joe Sixpack) into system much far worse than capitalism (National Socialism and Stalinism).
Keep in mind the U.S. has never been a true free market economy. The closest it has ever been was in 1890's. We are actually an odd form of Socialism. Not that great of a system, but hey... It works and it gives most Americans a higher standard of living than anyone else in the world (unless your South Korean, Finnish, Swiss, or Cannadian, but don't tell the Americans that).
The point being:
If you do not feed, educate, and get the masses jobs then someone else will and it might be at end of a gun.
Well... If you mean by "cheaper" as in paying a high school kid $5 bucks an hour to format hard drives and reinstall Windows on all your workstations after a patch push hoses Windows OS... Then yes, I could see your point.
Someone doing accounts payable doesn't need to install MySQL or .Net or Max or Doom3.
Geez! Give me a break! It was either play Doom3 all day or sit here reading Slashdot. Oh wait...
Yes, and the teachers, longshoremen, truckers, railroad workers, and grocery workers have done well as well.
Hrm... I don't know about the rest of them, but I think the teachers faired pretty poorly in the union deal.
I get paid more than a 5 year teacher does in most states and I never graduated college and have a non-union job.
An RPG with minimal stats, leaving the post-EQ MMORPG fan out in the cold.
You know what? After 100 single player and about 5 MMOGs games of nothing but leveling throughout my life it's safe to say...
I'm bloody kind of sick and tired of bloody leveling!
I think EQ burnt me out. Sure Marrowind Elder Scrolls for the Xbox was kind of fun to level... And Shadowbane was just easy so it wasn't a chore.
But out of all the MMOG games I would have to say Ultima Online had the best damned system for character development since you could just play the game without having to kill things over and over just to get stronger just to kill more things.
The urge to make another 60 level character for anyone on any game gets very low when you think about the tedious effort it takes when you start from scratch on a new game.
Seriously... Diku MUD leveling is a 20 year old (if not older system) we need to have more innovation that Kill, Kill, Heal Heal, Ding, Ding!
It's like saying that Linus is going to patent Linux and stop everyone from using it for free. That's simply not going to happen.
I think what he means is that What happens if Sun broke Java? As in, they release an update that hoses your API's and you don't have the slightest ability to fix that since the source is closed
And the only thing you can do is send requests asking Sun to fix it.
I think that is more likely than Sun just saying "We decided to let no one use Java at all! Nanabooboo!"
DRM is the future, you can't stop it. Your children in 20 years won't be able to buy plain old music CDs anymore because the RIAA won't release it unsecured like that. If they still sell physical media, they'll have changed the format over to something DRM'd.
;)
Oh, hogwash!
You are making the assumption that all music is created by the RIAA and that CD format is dead or dying.
1. Even vinyl is not dead. I can still buy brand new vinyls of new releases of bands I like. Sure they maybe are things you have never heard of and I have to order them, but these are professional non-indie releases from Europe and the states. But in reality audiophiles will have access to music they want even if they have to make their own mix tapes.
2. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't find a great deal of music that isn't RIAA on iTunes which of course forces me to buy CD's from Europe or special order. Most of these are major labels in Europe but they are not a part of the RIAA in the states.
3. Most music that is DRM'd sucks anyways. *coughs* Well that is my opinion, but I think you are wasting your money if you are buying a Britney Spears CD and you're wasting your bandwidth if you are downloading it. Loose/loose situation. Most of you people just listen to music because you've been told it's "cool" or "the in thing" or you want to be all "gansta" like. Well... If that were the case I'd not listen to music at all. (No I don't work at a record store, why do you ask?)
4. If I am still alive in 20 years (see number 5) then I will most likely still release CD's for my record label (see my link for our only CD!)
5. In 20 years, downloading music will be the least of the kids worries...
That's like saying "it's up to you whether or not you have cancer".
:)
Remember, perception of reality is based on an opinion. It's only real because we believe it to be so. I'm only aware of the cancer because I feel the pain in my stomach. If there was no pain or visible affect then it doesn't exist.... (Doesn't mean it's not there in time and space, but it doesn't exist to me since it is not being perceived by observation) Or until I gick sick or die. Well, if I die then I don't exist so the cancer is a moot point, but I'm being semantic.
Otherwise the placebo effect would not exist. Of course if it doesn't then it is because it's a matter of opinion
Unfortunately, sir, there are a great deal of people that run schools and have positions in government who would think the same thing without sarcasm.
May I suggest Alcohol, Drugs, Sex, a Cult, having kids, or an MMORPG...
Sometimes, everyone needs something to cope with life.
The way I see it, everyone is insane. It's just that some people don't know what their crutch is yet.
And if we didn't pay these fees every time, we would end up in Siberia and never be heard from again.
But Comrade! If we had supported the revolution to begin with it would be those very same persons who want this who would be in Siberia.
One of course must realize that money is of abject fiction... And that this peice of paper only means respect for a system which may or may not have respect for you!
Just recommending dumping one supplier of software simply to save money is a worry.
I don't have kids. Nor do I plan on having kids.
Should I be taxed more just so other people's children can have better software?
I hope I'm not coming across mean spirited, but it's something to think about.
I don't think computers are needed in the classroom, but they should be provided for those who don't normally have access to them.
I remember in my high school days (even though I had a 486 at home) I learned most of my valued computer skills of the time at the school computer club with other interested students.
Even though it involved playing allot of Doom... At we learned how to network DOS computers in the process!
For some reason, I have often found foreign films less guilty of this.
For the life of me and I wish I could remember it (I think it was "Cure" by a Japanese director), but I distinctly remember the cops using a command line interface to look up names. The most un-interesting computer screen. Of course the plot wasn't about computers mind you... But most Japanese films tend to have realitstic computer usage.
Hell, I would really believe that the computers in "Lain" actually existed.
Then again there are some pretty cheesy computer interfaces in Live action Japanese films and Anime.
But hey... I'll take those over Hollywood anyday.
This is my keyboard
This is my mouse!
On Ultima Online!
I place my house!
Sound off!
Ding! Ding!
Sound off!
Ding! Ding!
They are more Nationalist these days than Communist and even the government says on occasion Mao was three fourth's right and one fourth wrong because of the Great Cultural Revolution which left millions starved to death (but not like they talk about it that much). Yes there is quite a bit of repression compared to the USA, but China today is more like Fascist Italy in the 1930s than say Stalinist Russia ever was.
The chinese urbanites (not rurals) have pop music, video games, fast food, TV, and basically many things westerners enjoy, but obviously you can't have a game that makes the government look bad or sell music of a pop singer that is shoutting "MAO SUCKS!", but it doesn't mean everything they indulge is government propaganda unlike every song in the DPRK (North Korea) has to mention Dear Leader or Kim Jong Il.
North Korea is still way Stalinist mind you but that is a different story all together.
That and you know that only 50,000 people are set to watch the great fire wall of China? That's a lot, but when you think about how many people they have to watch and I think they've been having problems clamping down on the Nationalist websites that are anti-Japanese. Most of the protests were organized via blogs, SMS, and via the web so the great fire wall isn't all that great.
That and like all governments you find apathy and bueracracy in which they let things slide. As you may not bribing is a major problem in China. Not as hardliner as you think.
What battle exactly?
/.
Think about this...
A Chinese version of
They could link the US version of Slashdot on the front page and melt the uncrashable servers instantly. The immense power of this weapon they would have! I quiver with fear at the very thought.
Oh, that's ok. Most of the internet sucks anyways.
/., SomethingAwful, Penny Arcade, Wikipedia, LiveJournal, and maybe Gamespy then you'll be ok... Oh wait...
As long as you can get to
Scam sites would only get sporadic visitors from fooled Internet users and have their PageRank drop like a rock, while news sites, popular gaming sites, and so on, would get large numbers of returning users.
Great! Now, I can actually use google to find Mame ROMs again!
How about hooking up a "Quake" type engine with a Sim type mapping engine so you could zoom in and enter buildings and interact with characters? Just thinking out loud...
Check out the videos from http://www.strangerhood.com/home.php which use the Sims2 game engine to generate the movies. They look very "Quakish" or at least the camera can get down in there and interact.
And it's by the same guys who do Red vs Blue! Very funny material.
You mean no more hats made of money!?
Think of your favorite console game; has it crashed recently? Ever?
;)
Yes. Why yes it has and on several occasions. Elder Scrolls: Marrowind for the Xbox and it was a brand new copy on a fairly new Xbox (non-modded mind you).
And yes it is my favorite game.
It doesn't blue screen or do anything that I havne't seen a PS2 do, but it's only Marrowind as far as I can tell. The screen freezes and then gives a certain tone and then only way to unfreeze it is to power cycle the Xbox and start from the last save point.
Ultimately, government control of information will lead to censorship, and monitoring. Information that is illegal will be pro-actively searched for and destroyed.
It's not like privately owned corporations censor opinions and turn people in for breaking copyright violations.
Oh and the fact you can't sue privately owned corporations for oppressing your freedom of speech is unimportant as well.