I would pay a fixed monthly fee to download 320 hours of what I want from the pool of entertainment on demand. This includes songs, shows, movies, etc.
My monthly fee would be apportioned based on what I downloaded. If I didn't download much, then the individual entertainment item producers would get more that month.
I won't pay $2 for a show. I might pay $1 for a show-- I pay $1 a show on DVD now for seasons- but then I OWN the dvd's.
Didn't we learn from the Terry Childs case that if the people who own the software / hardware tell you to do something, you do it or risk a felony conviction for obstructing their use of the devices.
So do what they say or you are screwed. but wait... do what they say and you are screwed anyway.
Best to not work in that field until they work up some new boilerplate that protects Tech folks from immoral bosses directives.
Hey, I don't mind it if you insult GURPS GM's. There are so many tho that I'd peg the game system first.
I do not play AD&D 3 or 4.
Sometimes by limiting choices, you bring out the real differences much more distinctly.
While Baltar and Aurelia are both clerics with similar abilities, yet one is a drunken lush, driven half made by torture, given to bragging at the hands of the secret police while the other is a prophet of god, ruler of a bucolic domain of peasants and religious warriors, who loves gourmet food. The game is in the story. The game is in the GM finding the buttons to push, or the moral issues to explore. And in providing an environment for the players to wander around in going where their impulse or sustained desire takes them.
Siri the elven thief is nothing like the obnoxious Caw brothers.
Skills are picked up exactly randomly because life demands them- sort of how you pick up skills in real life after you finish college. If you need to learn to sail- maybe your character has it in them-- but maybe they don't have the willpower to finish it and wander off halfway through training. Sort of like how people really behave (as opposed to how they would like to behave).
If you think all you ever have is an archetype, then you are missing the magic of D&D.
I can understand that-- WOC just keeps cranking out new games and slapping "D&D" on them-- but they really are not any more.
I knew Gurps GMS I thought were good. I played in a multi GM "Champions" game that lasted over a year. But that was it. Nothing sustained.
Which is okay if you want to keep trying new experiences I suppose. I always wanted the depth that takes time to develop.
Until the players really buy into the world and their characters, they can never be so terrified of a plotline that they call an early close because they are too tense to continue that week.
There is a freshness to new campaigns tho and some get good stories out of them. Short isn't necessarily bad. It's just short.
and some people don't like to play games at all. and some folks don't like role-playing games.
My point is that even a casually tossed together D&D game has legs. Some D&D games where the GM invests a little effort are over a decade old.
I'm not talking about those "canned" campaigns sold like TV shows by WOC. I'm talking about custom games with their own worlds, language, culture, etc. D&D is archtypical.
The half dozen to dozen GURPS games I have known of were short. Months in duration.
Same for Champions where you can "buy" what you want. We had one person who had a new character every session. There was no investment in a character since a new one was 99% if not more powerful than the existing one.
Due to the 'level' and 'experience' nature of D&D and the restricted number of archtypes, you invest in characters who become extremely rich over time.
Gurp takes the magic out of the game by letting you buy everything.
Perhaps if you bought a roll on a table and every five rolls you got to pick a skill.
Many Gurps campaigns I've seen are short, suffer from "character rebuilditis" (i.e. yes, my starting character was good, but now I've got a new one that's "better").
A "tossed together" D&D game can easily run a year.
Now, I don't know about this modern 4e stuff- it seems more like a boardgame than an RPG.
The redistribution is not to just give money. The main reason is to stop the concentration of power.
If there are 40 of us, and we each have 5 dollars but you have 20 dollars. Then we can sort of share a government and society. You as a wealthy person get certain privileges but can't walk all over the rest of society. You might be able to sue one or two people into financial ruin unfairly but it would cost you a lot of your wealth to do so.
If there are 40 of us, and we each have 2 dollars but you have 160 dollars. Then we are reaching a point where we can't share a government and society. You have more wealth and power than the rest of us combined. You can casually destroy all of us financially and still have half your wealth left over.
Jefferson pictured lots of mildly wealthy people- not this small grouping of ultra wealthy people. I think ultra wealthy people are toxic for society. Anything over a 1,000 times average salary in income should be harshly taxed. Wealth should be harshly taxed on death (to prevent nobility). The mortgage tax exemption should be limited to 10% of the average salary (about $4,600).
That's an excellent point. Tho we sold the amendment that enforced states rights down the river for under a hundred bushels of wheat via the interstate commerce clause.
I think when someone's job is shipped overseas and despite having a degree, experience and even still being young (I'm old so I expect age discrimination), that their unhappiness is due to their finances.
Our system is predicated on the foundation that you can get a job. I know good people who've been without work over a year now.
When 20% of society has 95% of the wealth-- how can you relieve the other 80%'s suffering without redistribution of that wealth?
Yes, but I also watch O'reilley, rush, hannity, fox news, listen to them on the radio. I take in the propaganda from both sides.
It's the census data and the gini index and IBM hiding the number of american jobs they are shipping overseas and executives taking bonuses while running their companies into the ground and laying off millions of jobs and insurance companies setting up policies specifically to avoid paying out claims to people who have been paying premiums for years and so on.
Over the last 6-8 years, I have started to view fox news, and the conservative talk radio as propaganda for the rich. First I had trouble believing certain things they said. Then we had Bush's gaffe about the rich, the elite, i.e. "my base". The increasing inequity of income.
I think little better of CNN. They say some of the same things. "Lower taxes on the wealthy and things will get better for the rest of the country".
Well-- HOW'S that working out for us since 1960? 1970? 1980?
I've come to the conclusion that it is very important that we stop this runaway before we end up in a facist / corporatist society unable to break free from the company store.
While I still have a teeny bit of respect for o'reilley, the rest seem like mega millionaires spewing propaganda to poor people.
The poor people say, "We can't raise taxes on the wealthy!" and actually vote against their own self interest.
Why do you think I raise the question in the first place?
I'm starting to lose my ability to trust all the news services. I find that many local news video stories are basically press releases by corporations run as news stories.
Am I angry because I'm seeing truth?
I mean census data is factual. GINI is a real measure of wealth distribution inequality.
Using those facts, I can see America has become grossly imbalanced.
I started out happy and neutral back around 2002ish and have slowly drifted this way because the facts have gotten worse. I remember an article in the late 1990's that executive class made 357 time as much as the workers, increasing since 1978 when it was 52x. In the same time, worker wages had basically been stagnant. It was clear the money the executives were making was being taken from the working class.
Since then they started shipping massive numbers of jobs overseas, have had laws passed that prevent reimportation of goods they sell grossly cheaper elsewhere, and their income has apparently increased to over 500x the average worker. I can't see how that extremity of income can be realistic (they don't provide much benefit for shareholders- most companies stock is lower than it was 10 years ago).
When i started reading about Jobs using a huge warchest of money to crush people in opensource it made me extremely angry. Thank god patents only run 17 years (and even better that software patents are being invalidated in some countries). The day will come when these technologies are unencumbered.
But it makes me feel like people richer than god are reaching back to take the last crust of bread out of poor people's mouth. Not even necessarily to use it either- they'll ban it, then toss it in the trash can until the patent expires.
I'm doing okay myself- so it can't be from my personal situation. But I see so many people around me suffering.
I had a cousin who became a cop and he went from a nice boy to a bully telling "funny" stories about intimidating civilians (not criminals). It only took a couple years.
I also know police go to hookers one day and then spend the next day arresting them. Policing used to be about the law- now it's about power.
That's why I support mandatory 24x7 filming of all police activity. Sure- it protects them from false accusations. But the primary benefit is to keep them in line.
The first controversy in my city when the red light cameras went in was about the police running red lights when they were not on a call. Even when called on it- they felt running reds was just a privilege of the job.
What I see Jobs doing is not so much enforcing a valid patent, but using a huge warchest to bankrupt other people without resources.
I've seen an increasing amount of information about how unequal wealth distribution is, how the wealthy are shipping jobs over seas while taking huge bonuses for themselves. Why not ship the CEO job overseas as well- the savings would be tremendous-- it's about the SHAREHOLDERS right-- no, it's about the executive class which has gotten control of the corporate system. Shareholders can take hind teat.
Either the rich and the wealthy are engaged in some kind of power struggle or they've lost control of the message or things have gotten so extreme (1% of the population controlling 43% of the wealth, huge portions of the income, state taxes structured to hit the wealthy at.3% vs 12% of the poors income, executive pay increasing to 350 (to 502x) workers pay (from 52x in 1978 and 30x in 1960) while they lay off thousands.
Are the wealthy completely out of control so they can't hide it any more?
Or am I being manipulated with a news feed of this type of information.
I'm not anti capitalism- but what we have is not capitalism-- I pay 20x the price for drugs, movies, and other goods as are paid by the chinese, indians, and other people competing with me. These are not different products- they are the SAME products-- and we are even legally banned from buying the drugs, movies and other goods over there for 2x and selling it back here for 3x.
It's absurd. How much longer is this going to go on?
It's not just SJ. Each day with the news, I hate the rich a little more. I think I'm close to the point if I saw him in the street, I'd take a swing at him.
Am I being manipulated into this anger, or have they just put their heel on the back of my neck long enough that their propaganda has stopped working?
Slashdot Mirror
Which is still better than a download which is good for play only on one device (or worse for a limited number of plays).
No high horse. Just tired of frakkin with you.
Nothing new was being said.
I would pay a fixed monthly fee to download 320 hours of what I want from the pool of entertainment on demand. This includes songs, shows, movies, etc.
My monthly fee would be apportioned based on what I downloaded. If I didn't download much, then the individual entertainment item producers would get more that month.
I won't pay $2 for a show.
I might pay $1 for a show-- I pay $1 a show on DVD now for seasons- but then I OWN the dvd's.
Champions, like GURPS is a system where you buy your character with points.
I get it, you don't like D&D.
The rest of the my point, you are not getting my because you are not really listening or perhaps just have an alien perspective.
So I'll quit here.
Didn't we learn from the Terry Childs case that if the people who own the software / hardware tell you to do something, you do it or risk a felony conviction for obstructing their use of the devices.
So do what they say or you are screwed. but wait... do what they say and you are screwed anyway.
Best to not work in that field until they work up some new boilerplate that protects Tech folks from immoral bosses directives.
Hey, I don't mind it if you insult GURPS GM's. There are so many tho that I'd peg the game system first.
I do not play AD&D 3 or 4.
Sometimes by limiting choices, you bring out the real differences much more distinctly.
While Baltar and Aurelia are both clerics with similar abilities, yet one is a drunken lush, driven half made by torture, given to bragging at the hands of the secret police while the other is a prophet of god, ruler of a bucolic domain of peasants and religious warriors, who loves gourmet food. The game is in the story. The game is in the GM finding the buttons to push, or the moral issues to explore. And in providing an environment for the players to wander around in going where their impulse or sustained desire takes them.
Siri the elven thief is nothing like the obnoxious Caw brothers.
Skills are picked up exactly randomly because life demands them- sort of how you pick up skills in real life after you finish college. If you need to learn to sail- maybe your character has it in them-- but maybe they don't have the willpower to finish it and wander off halfway through training. Sort of like how people really behave (as opposed to how they would like to behave).
If you think all you ever have is an archetype, then you are missing the magic of D&D.
I can understand that-- WOC just keeps cranking out new games and slapping "D&D" on them-- but they really are not any more.
I knew Gurps GMS I thought were good. I played in a multi GM "Champions" game that lasted over a year. But that was it. Nothing sustained.
Which is okay if you want to keep trying new experiences I suppose. I always wanted the depth that takes time to develop.
Until the players really buy into the world and their characters, they can never be so terrified of a plotline that they call an early close because they are too tense to continue that week.
There is a freshness to new campaigns tho and some get good stories out of them. Short isn't necessarily bad. It's just short.
and some people don't like to play games at all.
and some folks don't like role-playing games.
My point is that even a casually tossed together D&D game has legs. Some D&D games where the GM invests a little effort are over a decade old.
I'm not talking about those "canned" campaigns sold like TV shows by WOC. I'm talking about custom games with their own worlds, language, culture, etc.
D&D is archtypical.
The half dozen to dozen GURPS games I have known of were short. Months in duration.
Same for Champions where you can "buy" what you want. We had one person who had a new character every session. There was no investment in a character since a new one was 99% if not more powerful than the existing one.
Due to the 'level' and 'experience' nature of D&D and the restricted number of archtypes, you invest in characters who become extremely rich over time.
Oil is valuable for fertilizer, medicine, plastics, and many other purposes.
Have 260 billion gallons of it is valuable regardless of where it ends up.
Many alternative fuels seem to make sense at $90/bbl so they don't make sense right now- and they hold the price of oil down...
Which makes oil use continue.
Ug.
Gurp takes the magic out of the game by letting you buy everything.
Perhaps if you bought a roll on a table and every five rolls you got to pick a skill.
Many Gurps campaigns I've seen are short, suffer from "character rebuilditis" (i.e. yes, my starting character was good, but now I've got a new one that's "better").
A "tossed together" D&D game can easily run a year.
Now, I don't know about this modern 4e stuff- it seems more like a boardgame than an RPG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenFormula
Your point is still valid for now, but a lot of work has been done on the formula standard and it looks like it will be ready soon.
The wind goes into a huge and general pool of power.
I'm in Houston, about 1,000 miles away but I can get wind power (albiet for about 3 cents per kilowatt hour more expensive... but it's "green").
I'm headed towards solar power myself.
Frequently after eating beans or eggs.
this.
The redistribution is not to just give money.
The main reason is to stop the concentration of power.
If there are 40 of us, and we each have 5 dollars but you have 20 dollars. Then we can sort of share a government and society. You as a wealthy person get certain privileges but can't walk all over the rest of society. You might be able to sue one or two people into financial ruin unfairly but it would cost you a lot of your wealth to do so.
If there are 40 of us, and we each have 2 dollars but you have 160 dollars. Then we are reaching a point where we can't share a government and society. You have more wealth and power than the rest of us combined. You can casually destroy all of us financially and still have half your wealth left over.
Jefferson pictured lots of mildly wealthy people- not this small grouping of ultra wealthy people. I think ultra wealthy people are toxic for society. Anything over a 1,000 times average salary in income should be harshly taxed. Wealth should be harshly taxed on death (to prevent nobility). The mortgage tax exemption should be limited to 10% of the average salary (about $4,600).
"Auto Space like Word 95"
is not a standard.
That's an excellent point. Tho we sold the amendment that enforced states rights down the river for under a hundred bushels of wheat via the interstate commerce clause.
I think when someone's job is shipped overseas and despite having a degree, experience and even still being young (I'm old so I expect age discrimination), that their unhappiness is due to their finances.
Our system is predicated on the foundation that you can get a job. I know good people who've been without work over a year now.
When 20% of society has 95% of the wealth-- how can you relieve the other 80%'s suffering without redistribution of that wealth?
Yes, but I also watch O'reilley, rush, hannity, fox news, listen to them on the radio. I take in the propaganda from both sides.
It's the census data and the gini index and IBM hiding the number of american jobs they are shipping overseas and executives taking bonuses while running their companies into the ground and laying off millions of jobs and insurance companies setting up policies specifically to avoid paying out claims to people who have been paying premiums for years and so on.
Over the last 6-8 years, I have started to view fox news, and the conservative talk radio as propaganda for the rich. First I had trouble believing certain things they said. Then we had Bush's gaffe about the rich, the elite, i.e. "my base". The increasing inequity of income.
I think little better of CNN. They say some of the same things. "Lower taxes on the wealthy and things will get better for the rest of the country".
Well-- HOW'S that working out for us since 1960? 1970? 1980?
I've come to the conclusion that it is very important that we stop this runaway before we end up in a facist / corporatist society unable to break free from the company store.
While I still have a teeny bit of respect for o'reilley, the rest seem like mega millionaires spewing propaganda to poor people.
The poor people say, "We can't raise taxes on the wealthy!" and actually vote against their own self interest.
It's madness.
Why do you think I raise the question in the first place?
I'm starting to lose my ability to trust all the news services. I find that many local news video stories are basically press releases by corporations run as news stories.
Am I angry because I'm seeing truth?
I mean census data is factual. GINI is a real measure of wealth distribution inequality.
Using those facts, I can see America has become grossly imbalanced.
I started out happy and neutral back around 2002ish and have slowly drifted this way because the facts have gotten worse. I remember an article in the late 1990's that executive class made 357 time as much as the workers, increasing since 1978 when it was 52x. In the same time, worker wages had basically been stagnant. It was clear the money the executives were making was being taken from the working class.
Since then they started shipping massive numbers of jobs overseas, have had laws passed that prevent reimportation of goods they sell grossly cheaper elsewhere, and their income has apparently increased to over 500x the average worker. I can't see how that extremity of income can be realistic (they don't provide much benefit for shareholders- most companies stock is lower than it was 10 years ago).
When i started reading about Jobs using a huge warchest of money to crush people in opensource it made me extremely angry. Thank god patents only run 17 years (and even better that software patents are being invalidated in some countries). The day will come when these technologies are unencumbered.
But it makes me feel like people richer than god are reaching back to take the last crust of bread out of poor people's mouth. Not even necessarily to use it either- they'll ban it, then toss it in the trash can until the patent expires.
I'm doing okay myself- so it can't be from my personal situation. But I see so many people around me suffering.
Watch Adam 12.
Then compare it to police you've interacted with.
Police have fallen a long way in only 40 years.
I had a cousin who became a cop and he went from a nice boy to a bully telling "funny" stories about intimidating civilians (not criminals). It only took a couple years.
I also know police go to hookers one day and then spend the next day arresting them. Policing used to be about the law- now it's about power.
That's why I support mandatory 24x7 filming of all police activity. Sure- it protects them from false accusations. But the primary benefit is to keep them in line.
The first controversy in my city when the red light cameras went in was about the police running red lights when they were not on a call.
Even when called on it- they felt running reds was just a privilege of the job.
Pathetic.
How we feel is based on the information we get.
What I see Jobs doing is not so much enforcing a valid patent, but using a huge warchest to bankrupt other people without resources.
I've seen an increasing amount of information about how unequal wealth distribution is, how the wealthy are shipping jobs over seas while taking huge bonuses for themselves. Why not ship the CEO job overseas as well- the savings would be tremendous-- it's about the SHAREHOLDERS right-- no, it's about the executive class which has gotten control of the corporate system. Shareholders can take hind teat.
Either the rich and the wealthy are engaged in some kind of power struggle or they've lost control of the message or things have gotten so extreme (1% of the population controlling 43% of the wealth, huge portions of the income, state taxes structured to hit the wealthy at .3% vs 12% of the poors income, executive pay increasing to 350 (to 502x) workers pay (from 52x in 1978 and 30x in 1960) while they lay off thousands.
Are the wealthy completely out of control so they can't hide it any more?
Or am I being manipulated with a news feed of this type of information.
I'm not anti capitalism- but what we have is not capitalism-- I pay 20x the price for drugs, movies, and other goods as are paid by the chinese, indians, and other people competing with me. These are not different products- they are the SAME products-- and we are even legally banned from buying the drugs, movies and other goods over there for 2x and selling it back here for 3x.
It's absurd. How much longer is this going to go on?
The irony being that Yahoo reported this today and noted that copyright infringers have had DRM free versions for four months.
So the DRM didn't stop copyright infringement. I just angered a lot of customers.
It's not just SJ. Each day with the news, I hate the rich a little more.
I think I'm close to the point if I saw him in the street, I'd take a swing at him.
Am I being manipulated into this anger, or have they just put their heel on the back of my neck long enough that their propaganda has stopped working?
It's pretty straight forward.
Just buy a $300 PC for checking email.
Recent Results do not look good for Saw Palmetto.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Urology/BPH/2643
I'm on HRT so I take it. It looks like it may not have made a difference.
When I ever get Prostate Cancer, I'll be taken off HRT and life will turn back to the hell it was before I went on HRT.
So the prostate cancer vaccination news was nice in some regard.
HRT does not cause prostate cancer but it accelerates it once you get it.