Actually, Square-Enix has taken the lesson. In fact, they did it a month ago. We've seen a lot of it of FFXI, and they did take action. Within a week of that change, we saw a dramatic drop in characters who were farming gil (game money) for real cash (a.k.a. gillsellers). I've heard that some of the sites have been shut down but I didn't really know where they were to begin with so I can't confirm it. They've made some more minor revisions as a follow-up, but I think their first move was the most effective. There were areas that I would sometimes have trouble walking through because it was so crowded with gilsellers and bots, and now when I go there it's usually almost (if not completely) empty. There are still hymns of praise being sung by players about this decision. It sounds a little silly to people who don't play, but the gilsellers have made far-reaching impacts on the gameplay and despite being banned still manage to do so. FFXI (as well as any other MMORPG, i'm sure) has an interesting player-driven economy. Gilsellers upset the balance of that economy by monopolizing access to certain items and railing the price so they have more gil to sell. They upset the gameplay by sweeping through areas and killing everything on their runs, making it pointless for anyone who is there after a monster or trying to gain experience points. Kudos to both companies for their decision and any future ones that follow suit.
As much as many people would love to see the same of D2, I don't think that's ever going to be a reality. It would be nice, but at this point it really isn't fesible. This stuff is a huge business, which is kinda funny when you consider that the vast majority of players want nothing to do with people who do this. I've seen char's kicked out of parties and occasionally run out of a zone because they were a gilseller. But some of them don't have a choice but to be there. There are companies out there whose sole income is getting items and selling them for money. They just have a bank of computers, a few employees that get paid peanuts to work shifts on the characters to keep the flow of items and money constant. It's kinda frightening. Square-Enix (and Blizzard, at least in the case of WoW) took the initiative to curb this practice but in the case of D2 the damage has already been done and is far too extensive. Even if Blizzard filed a lawsuit on every site that sells the items and/or gold and got them shut down immediately, the market has already been irrevocably changed by their activity. They've been there for so long now, and become so entrenched that even in their absence I doubt prices would retern to normal.
Oh, and for those who are interested: my name is Judaas and I'm on Shiva.
"But he believes human health, safety and standards of living will all suffer under the present patent structure."
I think it's about time more poeple started taking this view. I wish more would take it, and soon. I can certainly understand a large corporation's desire to protect the investment(s) they've made in researching and developing their patented material, but to do so at the cost of human lives is going too far. If they're just sitting on the patents, then I think somebody (or a few somebodies) need to be dragged down to the parking lot of their corporate office and beaten...severely. But in all fairness, I'm sure that the issue is far more complicated than it appears in the article. For instance some of the data that BIOS want's released may be integrated in less obvious ways with patented data that they aren't asking for. Discoveries are sometimes fickle like that. It's also possible that the company may already be working on similar areas of research. In a situation like that, I honestly couldn't blame the company from withholding that information. With that much rolled up in a project, it would be far beyond stupid for them to just hand all the data over to competition. I would like to think that in the case of medical research or other fields in which millions or even the whole world could benefit, companies (and people in general) would take a more benevolent attitude, but I'm trying to be realistic. Other than those, I really can't think of a good reason for them to try to fight against it. Of course, 'good reason' does not include greed, which seems to be the only motivation for anything corporations do anymore. And if you ask me, that's a LOT of what's wrong with the world today.
But if the company agrees, they could stand a lot to gain from sharing the information if they played their cards right. Strike a bargain, man. Give access to limited research personel, with the agreement that findings derived from its use be shared with the company. If the scientists don't find anything, they've not really lost anything. If they do make a breakthrough, now they have rights and access to cutting edge research and technology that they didn't even have to pay a dime for. Scientists get the credit, both get the data, and the company uses it to get money. Seems to me that everyone wins. On the side, they could probably create tax write-offs for donating to non-profit and even if they couldn't it would be great PR. "BLABLABLA Enterprises, sharing excelence for a better world..." or something like that. You know, kinda like the plastic commercials.
"Some fear that making the latest methods of genetic modification public will provide terrorists with the know-how to concoct new bioweapons in the comfort of their own garage. "Biological knowledge can be used for good or ill and unfortunately it's easier to make a biological weapon than it is defenses,"
That's a very good point that I don't think many people consider when they think of researching medicine. But it's a real threat, and certainly not something that I'd relish sharing with terrorists. So far they haven't done tinkering with things unwholesome yet (wish our governments could say the same), and that may be in part due to the advanced equipment I would imagine is necessary to manipulate something like anthrax at the genetic level. However, I still can't discount that as a legitimate concern. Restricting access would definitely cut down the risk of the information falling into the wrong hands, monitoring and other methods would also help. But nothing is going to keep a determined individual(s) from getting to something they want bad enough. Ultimately, it comes down to whether we are going to fight to help the world or let terror win by cowing us into doing nothing.
Actually, a virus is alive. A virus fills all the criteria to be clasified as a living organism. It moves, consumes, grows, reacts to stimuli, and reproduces. But more simply, your immune system kills the (if it works right). If it is killed, then it dies, and if it dies then it had to be alive first.
Well, yes and no. I agree that there really is no telling when the next "big breakthrough" will come about, but the same can be said of any field. But my question is this: When was the last "big breakthrough" in the space field vs. other scientific areas. Now granted, given the enormity of its scope, I wouldn't necessarily hold that program to same timeline. On the other hand, with so many fields encompassed in it you would think it would be more probable for one of them to come up with something. But aside from that, it really just comes down to using resources wisely. As is, the cost is outweighing the benefits by a lot.
You both bring up valid points that I'll admit I hadn't really considered. Yes, it is possible that some earth-shattering kaboom may be discovered to be coming our way in the future (Armageddon, anyone?) but it isn't doing so right now. Well, if it's coming it is coming and has been for the past 2 billion years but that's not my point. The space program is a massive undertaking in budget, manpower, equipment, and space. That is why the only other country to have one has been Russia. Even then, many great things were done, but done for the wrong reason(s). With Russia gone, and no new direct competition to pace itself again. I think NASA lost some of its direction.
So what I propose is a slow scale-back of NASA. Take the areas of research and development that have the highest probability of producing beneficial results in the near future, and make those the core of the program (assuming they aren't already but god I would hope they are). Next take a look at some of the more outlandish projects, those with low yields or extremely long-term projections for success. Preferably some of the military-type projects (like we need anymore weapons) but I doubt that would ever happen. Start phasing some of these projects out and re-allocating the resources to other projects or back to the general fund for use elsewhere.
In this manner, we can slowly scale back unnecessary programs and appropriate those resources to areas that can need it most. It will also stop a huge influx of unemployed workers flooding the job market all at once. I'm sure that we will come across problems that only NASA or some equivalent can solve, but I believe those problems to be some time away. There are enough problems on the planet that have been ignored and allowed to spiral out of control that I think should take precedence before we start looking out there for more. If we stop for a moment to fix the problems of today, we will be that much more capable of addressing the problems of tomorrow.
Once again I have to wonder if NASA is really necessary anymore. I realize that there's a whole lot of people that wouldn't really have a field anymore if it was shut down, but seriously. If they've got nothing better to do than to launce a jeep-sized camera so we can make a dent in a comet and take pictures of it, they need to find something better to do, or someone else's money to do it with. Aside from the notion itself being a ridiculous waste of money, let's just look at the details shall we? Or should I say the lack there of? They don't know what it looks like, they don't know what it is, they think the core is oblong shaped. Great, let's toss a grenade at it and see what happens. What a great, brilliant, and might I add extremely well thought out proposal. I'll be right with you, I just need to go get a bag of rocks to throw at people so I can see what they're like with dents in them.
You know, I really used to idolize the space program. Typical little boy, big dreams of flashy job. It was more than that, it was the flying too, something I enjoy even today. And admittedly there has been a lot of good come from the space program (albeit for the wrong reasons) and more than likely a fair share of nasty things came from that research that the government never bothered to tell us about.
To be perfectly honest, though, I can't really think of any new or important advancements that have come out of the space program lately. Never have I been a proponent of ignorance, but I really gotta ask, who really cares? I'm sure that we're making marvelous and wonderful new telescopes, but we're using the same shuttles now that we were 20 years ago, and we're not even sure those are really safe anymore. There hasn't been any benefits to pertinent sciences, and the images we're getting from telescopes aren't producing much more than pretty pictures and more unproven theories. I'm not sleeping any better knowing that the biggest star we've found so far is bigger than half our solar system, or I'd never have time to read slashdot.
It's sad when I would feel the urge to take the axe to one of my childhood dreams, but I think the space program in general has simply outgrown it's usefulness. America keeps funelling money into it but nothing's really coming out, at least not that we know of. If they could put half the effort and ingenuity that has gone into the space program to say...medical research, cleaner energy sources, environmental repair, agriculture, housing, any number of other areas, or (egad) the national debt, I think we would be utilizing those resources in a much wiser fashion.
Don't even try to bring up the possibility of colonizing Mars. I myself have even thought of ways to try to make it feasible but there are some problems with it. 1. To say that it is a 'long term possibility' would at the least say that it's not anything that any of us are going to see. Probably not our grandkids. 2. Because of point 1, we're probably going to destroy ourselves long before that. 3. Even if it is, and we can't cut it on this planet, what gives us the right to destroy a another one? 4. Every scifi I've ever seen where we colonized Mars, it breaks away and we have a horrible civil war that in most cases we never reconcile from. I know that this may seem like a stretch but knowing our history may keep us from being damned to repeat it, my study of it shows that we're still pretty likely to repeat it. Besides, the difference between Scifi and fanasy is that scifi is possible. Enough people have thought about it, maybe the authors are right.
It's funny, because I know that there are FCC regulations that govern/mandate of sharing access to your high-speed lines to other companies (a.k.a. competitors)...for a fee of course. And just who is the general beneficiary of being the "renter" in most cases? So, even with clauses like that protecting their rights to a potential customer base, without even having to worry about the overhead of laying their own network, this is still an "unfair advantage." Kinda makes you wonder how much competition they're really allowing in the telecommunications industry. I mean, if one of the biggest comapnies in the world can't cut it because of the fees involved, how the hell is a local company that's just trying to start out?
I'm not one to try to put down honest effort and hard earned achievement. Kudos to those people and good for them for taking the initiative and working for what they wanted. It's an accomplishment not many anymore can claim. I must say it worries me a small bit though. Having worked customer service for people in the southern states, I know that there are some (not all) that just aren't ready for that connection and really really need to be kept away from it for a while longer.
"What in cottonhell? That box there is askin me if I want to install Gator. *Spit-ting* WellshityesIwantsta install Gator. I dun never met a gator that I didn't like. Ornry lil goobers but they taste aight...
You get the idea. Sometimes they just worry me.
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Actually, Square-Enix has taken the lesson. In fact, they did it a month ago. We've seen a lot of it of FFXI, and they did take action. Within a week of that change, we saw a dramatic drop in characters who were farming gil (game money) for real cash (a.k.a. gillsellers). I've heard that some of the sites have been shut down but I didn't really know where they were to begin with so I can't confirm it. They've made some more minor revisions as a follow-up, but I think their first move was the most effective. There were areas that I would sometimes have trouble walking through because it was so crowded with gilsellers and bots, and now when I go there it's usually almost (if not completely) empty. There are still hymns of praise being sung by players about this decision. It sounds a little silly to people who don't play, but the gilsellers have made far-reaching impacts on the gameplay and despite being banned still manage to do so. FFXI (as well as any other MMORPG, i'm sure) has an interesting player-driven economy. Gilsellers upset the balance of that economy by monopolizing access to certain items and railing the price so they have more gil to sell. They upset the gameplay by sweeping through areas and killing everything on their runs, making it pointless for anyone who is there after a monster or trying to gain experience points. Kudos to both companies for their decision and any future ones that follow suit.
As much as many people would love to see the same of D2, I don't think that's ever going to be a reality. It would be nice, but at this point it really isn't fesible. This stuff is a huge business, which is kinda funny when you consider that the vast majority of players want nothing to do with people who do this. I've seen char's kicked out of parties and occasionally run out of a zone because they were a gilseller. But some of them don't have a choice but to be there. There are companies out there whose sole income is getting items and selling them for money. They just have a bank of computers, a few employees that get paid peanuts to work shifts on the characters to keep the flow of items and money constant. It's kinda frightening. Square-Enix (and Blizzard, at least in the case of WoW) took the initiative to curb this practice but in the case of D2 the damage has already been done and is far too extensive. Even if Blizzard filed a lawsuit on every site that sells the items and/or gold and got them shut down immediately, the market has already been irrevocably changed by their activity. They've been there for so long now, and become so entrenched that even in their absence I doubt prices would retern to normal.
Oh, and for those who are interested: my name is Judaas and I'm on Shiva.
"But he believes human health, safety and standards of living will all suffer under the present patent structure."
I think it's about time more poeple started taking this view. I wish more would take it, and soon. I can certainly understand a large corporation's desire to protect the investment(s) they've made in researching and developing their patented material, but to do so at the cost of human lives is going too far. If they're just sitting on the patents, then I think somebody (or a few somebodies) need to be dragged down to the parking lot of their corporate office and beaten...severely. But in all fairness, I'm sure that the issue is far more complicated than it appears in the article. For instance some of the data that BIOS want's released may be integrated in less obvious ways with patented data that they aren't asking for. Discoveries are sometimes fickle like that. It's also possible that the company may already be working on similar areas of research. In a situation like that, I honestly couldn't blame the company from withholding that information. With that much rolled up in a project, it would be far beyond stupid for them to just hand all the data over to competition. I would like to think that in the case of medical research or other fields in which millions or even the whole world could benefit, companies (and people in general) would take a more benevolent attitude, but I'm trying to be realistic. Other than those, I really can't think of a good reason for them to try to fight against it. Of course, 'good reason' does not include greed, which seems to be the only motivation for anything corporations do anymore. And if you ask me, that's a LOT of what's wrong with the world today.
But if the company agrees, they could stand a lot to gain from sharing the information if they played their cards right. Strike a bargain, man. Give access to limited research personel, with the agreement that findings derived from its use be shared with the company. If the scientists don't find anything, they've not really lost anything. If they do make a breakthrough, now they have rights and access to cutting edge research and technology that they didn't even have to pay a dime for. Scientists get the credit, both get the data, and the company uses it to get money. Seems to me that everyone wins. On the side, they could probably create tax write-offs for donating to non-profit and even if they couldn't it would be great PR. "BLABLABLA Enterprises, sharing excelence for a better world..." or something like that. You know, kinda like the plastic commercials.
"Some fear that making the latest methods of genetic modification public will provide terrorists with the know-how to concoct new bioweapons in the comfort of their own garage. "Biological knowledge can be used for good or ill and unfortunately it's easier to make a biological weapon than it is defenses,"
That's a very good point that I don't think many people consider when they think of researching medicine. But it's a real threat, and certainly not something that I'd relish sharing with terrorists. So far they haven't done tinkering with things unwholesome yet (wish our governments could say the same), and that may be in part due to the advanced equipment I would imagine is necessary to manipulate something like anthrax at the genetic level. However, I still can't discount that as a legitimate concern. Restricting access would definitely cut down the risk of the information falling into the wrong hands, monitoring and other methods would also help. But nothing is going to keep a determined individual(s) from getting to something they want bad enough. Ultimately, it comes down to whether we are going to fight to help the world or let terror win by cowing us into doing nothing.Actually, a virus is alive. A virus fills all the criteria to be clasified as a living organism. It moves, consumes, grows, reacts to stimuli, and reproduces. But more simply, your immune system kills the (if it works right). If it is killed, then it dies, and if it dies then it had to be alive first.
Well, yes and no. I agree that there really is no telling when the next "big breakthrough" will come about, but the same can be said of any field. But my question is this: When was the last "big breakthrough" in the space field vs. other scientific areas. Now granted, given the enormity of its scope, I wouldn't necessarily hold that program to same timeline. On the other hand, with so many fields encompassed in it you would think it would be more probable for one of them to come up with something. But aside from that, it really just comes down to using resources wisely. As is, the cost is outweighing the benefits by a lot. You both bring up valid points that I'll admit I hadn't really considered. Yes, it is possible that some earth-shattering kaboom may be discovered to be coming our way in the future (Armageddon, anyone?) but it isn't doing so right now. Well, if it's coming it is coming and has been for the past 2 billion years but that's not my point. The space program is a massive undertaking in budget, manpower, equipment, and space. That is why the only other country to have one has been Russia. Even then, many great things were done, but done for the wrong reason(s). With Russia gone, and no new direct competition to pace itself again. I think NASA lost some of its direction. So what I propose is a slow scale-back of NASA. Take the areas of research and development that have the highest probability of producing beneficial results in the near future, and make those the core of the program (assuming they aren't already but god I would hope they are). Next take a look at some of the more outlandish projects, those with low yields or extremely long-term projections for success. Preferably some of the military-type projects (like we need anymore weapons) but I doubt that would ever happen. Start phasing some of these projects out and re-allocating the resources to other projects or back to the general fund for use elsewhere. In this manner, we can slowly scale back unnecessary programs and appropriate those resources to areas that can need it most. It will also stop a huge influx of unemployed workers flooding the job market all at once. I'm sure that we will come across problems that only NASA or some equivalent can solve, but I believe those problems to be some time away. There are enough problems on the planet that have been ignored and allowed to spiral out of control that I think should take precedence before we start looking out there for more. If we stop for a moment to fix the problems of today, we will be that much more capable of addressing the problems of tomorrow.
Once again I have to wonder if NASA is really necessary anymore. I realize that there's a whole lot of people that wouldn't really have a field anymore if it was shut down, but seriously. If they've got nothing better to do than to launce a jeep-sized camera so we can make a dent in a comet and take pictures of it, they need to find something better to do, or someone else's money to do it with. Aside from the notion itself being a ridiculous waste of money, let's just look at the details shall we? Or should I say the lack there of? They don't know what it looks like, they don't know what it is, they think the core is oblong shaped. Great, let's toss a grenade at it and see what happens. What a great, brilliant, and might I add extremely well thought out proposal. I'll be right with you, I just need to go get a bag of rocks to throw at people so I can see what they're like with dents in them.
You know, I really used to idolize the space program. Typical little boy, big dreams of flashy job. It was more than that, it was the flying too, something I enjoy even today. And admittedly there has been a lot of good come from the space program (albeit for the wrong reasons) and more than likely a fair share of nasty things came from that research that the government never bothered to tell us about. To be perfectly honest, though, I can't really think of any new or important advancements that have come out of the space program lately. Never have I been a proponent of ignorance, but I really gotta ask, who really cares? I'm sure that we're making marvelous and wonderful new telescopes, but we're using the same shuttles now that we were 20 years ago, and we're not even sure those are really safe anymore. There hasn't been any benefits to pertinent sciences, and the images we're getting from telescopes aren't producing much more than pretty pictures and more unproven theories. I'm not sleeping any better knowing that the biggest star we've found so far is bigger than half our solar system, or I'd never have time to read slashdot. It's sad when I would feel the urge to take the axe to one of my childhood dreams, but I think the space program in general has simply outgrown it's usefulness. America keeps funelling money into it but nothing's really coming out, at least not that we know of. If they could put half the effort and ingenuity that has gone into the space program to say...medical research, cleaner energy sources, environmental repair, agriculture, housing, any number of other areas, or (egad) the national debt, I think we would be utilizing those resources in a much wiser fashion. Don't even try to bring up the possibility of colonizing Mars. I myself have even thought of ways to try to make it feasible but there are some problems with it. 1. To say that it is a 'long term possibility' would at the least say that it's not anything that any of us are going to see. Probably not our grandkids. 2. Because of point 1, we're probably going to destroy ourselves long before that. 3. Even if it is, and we can't cut it on this planet, what gives us the right to destroy a another one? 4. Every scifi I've ever seen where we colonized Mars, it breaks away and we have a horrible civil war that in most cases we never reconcile from. I know that this may seem like a stretch but knowing our history may keep us from being damned to repeat it, my study of it shows that we're still pretty likely to repeat it. Besides, the difference between Scifi and fanasy is that scifi is possible. Enough people have thought about it, maybe the authors are right.
It's funny, because I know that there are FCC regulations that govern/mandate of sharing access to your high-speed lines to other companies (a.k.a. competitors)...for a fee of course. And just who is the general beneficiary of being the "renter" in most cases? So, even with clauses like that protecting their rights to a potential customer base, without even having to worry about the overhead of laying their own network, this is still an "unfair advantage." Kinda makes you wonder how much competition they're really allowing in the telecommunications industry. I mean, if one of the biggest comapnies in the world can't cut it because of the fees involved, how the hell is a local company that's just trying to start out? I'm not one to try to put down honest effort and hard earned achievement. Kudos to those people and good for them for taking the initiative and working for what they wanted. It's an accomplishment not many anymore can claim. I must say it worries me a small bit though. Having worked customer service for people in the southern states, I know that there are some (not all) that just aren't ready for that connection and really really need to be kept away from it for a while longer. "What in cottonhell? That box there is askin me if I want to install Gator. *Spit-ting* WellshityesIwantsta install Gator. I dun never met a gator that I didn't like. Ornry lil goobers but they taste aight... You get the idea. Sometimes they just worry me.