Your tiny "internet-only" lacks a physical presence in "all" of the States, so you wouldn't be asked to pay taxes in them anyway.
By the time that your company has grown to the size that qualifies as a physical presence in "all" of the states under tax law, then your company can easily afford to pay taxes.
App developers would not be affected by the Amazon taxation issue which pivots around the fact that Amazon has gigantic warehouses spanning the country, for example, shipping physical goods from a warehouse in NJ to a doorstop within NJ, and yet it claims to have no physical presence in NJ.
It seems like it could be a useful design tool for 3d navigation.
If you want to twist an object around for a certain perspective, you could just lift your hand slightly and turn the object around to the position you want to see, then go back to working on the object with your mouse.
Obviously, this is something you can do without Kinect, and you can probably do it with more precision with the existing control. But having the ability to quickly and casually interact with it to see results from different perspectives could add some benefit for the small niche that does a great deal of 3d design work.
There's a budget to pay for. Ultimately the people in each state will pay for Amazon's tax break. They will pay through service cuts in the state budget, or they will pay through increased taxes (far more likely).
Whatever your thoughts are on the Amazon sales tax are, or sales taxes in general, the reality is that shortfalls due to purchases shifting to Amazon will just be charged to consumers elsewhere.
Re:Ken Murray's blog
on
How Doctors Die
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My mom died from cancer when I was in highschool and my aunt was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer about a month ago. Though nobody has said it out loud, I think everyone in the family understands that my aunt is also going to die.
I still don't really know how to talk to someone who's going to die. It's...weird to talk about the future (which they won't be a part of), or to ask "how are you doing? (because they obviously aren't doing too well). We want to communicate care and support, but we also don't want to burden and tire out the patient by repeatedly calling to remind them that they're going to die. Is it better to confront the elephant in the room? Or to ignore it? It's disturbing to voice out loud the certainty of death, but it's also galling to bullshit someone by saying everything's going to be ok, when it's not.
What do you guys do in these situations? I'd especially like to hear the prefences of anyone who is dying or at one point believed that they were going to die.
Certain credit cards (Discover, and Citibank last I checked) allow you to generate temporary credit card numbers which you can use for online transactions for a specified amount, for a specified period of time.
That way you never expose your real underlying credit card data. A very useful feature in this day and age.
Every time someone mentions using a credit card on the internet, somebody will reply that using credit cards is stupid, because they simply could not imagine that a credit card user could have his account set to automatically pay-off in full from a flush bank account.
Then you have posts like these, where a flood of users reply to point out the obvious.
MMOs charging you up-front makes sense for the following reasons:
1) A Box - It's important to put games in the eye-line of casual shoppers in B&M stores. Industry practices have not yet worked out how much B&M stores should charge for stocking a free game on their valuable shelf space, i.e the publisher would need to throw even more money into a yet-unreleased game to get it to market. With box units, B&Ms have no problem stocking it because they know they are making money on each unit sold. The reason why the publisher wants box units is because not everyone follows gaming news, and even advertising doesn't always push people to go buy a product, but if you get enough "impressions" to form curiousity, and then place a box product in the path of that shopper, you end up getting sales.
2) Value perception - Free to play is too new. Right now the majority of free to play games are either too crappy to charge for or they're games that are so old that they can't be sold. In time, this perception will change and players will give free games equal respect to $50/60 full-price releases (like the upcoming free game Super Monday Night Combat for one). Even selling games at reduced prices gives people the impression that the game is a "budget" title with lower levels of polish and less value. Even crappy titles will still charge full price because they don't want to reveal themselves as crappy titles before the public consensus figures it out.
3) Price discrimination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination) - Some users are willing to pay $60, so why not ask them to pay $60? That's what you are doing with the $60 retail release. Some users aren't willing to pay $60, so you pick those people up later when the game goes free to play. But as long as most people are willing to pay full price, you want to continue charging full price to get your full return on investment. Later on when it's free, everyone under the $60 willingness-to-pay level gets in and pays their amount in microtransactions or some other revenue mechanic.
4) It's up-front money. Businesses want to have money now rather than later to improve their cash position, especially after a long long long and incredibly expensive development cycle that has bled cash flow for several years. A big release with a big cash spike up front gives decision makers the confidence that they can pay for the next project (or expansion of the MMO) from start to finish. Having stable cash flow is very desirable in such a volatile business. And hey, even if the game turns out to be crap and all the players bail, at least you got the first $60 out of them.
5) They can go free to play later - More importantly, they can make a great big hullabaloo about it. Small incremental updates/patches are not big news that will draw people in, it doesn't draw attention. Over a long enough time the MMO manages to completely transform itself through those patches, but each one is too small to draw attention. When you go free to play later, you can point to/everything/ that has happened since that first release to show a massive distinction from the first impression that didn't convince people to buy it at release. Now that it's so much improved, and free to check out, they bring in a big swath of new interest. If you start off as free to play, each of the small incremental patches isn't enough to put forward as the crux of an advertising campaign, and the free press of market gossip isn't going to help you out with such an advertising campaign.
But obviously, a crap MMO will still be a failure even if you charge up front for it. Going free to play won't hold on to free to play players either when they can go to other better free to play games.
Human love may just be illogical chemically driven urges to breed, but it's highly empathetic. Smart or clever animals learn some respect, cute and babylike animals are given even greater levels of protection.
While gorillas are relatively intelligent compared to most animals, they're still just "dumb apes" that are easy to marginalize. But seeing two of them walk all the way across the enclosure to hug and cradle each other generated a lot of empathy in myself, and the entire crowd around me. I thought to myself, "Look at them, hugging each other just like us (humans)".
Star Trek fans should remember the episode "The Measure of a Man" quite well, where they debate Data's rights as a being based upon sentience. There was no doubt regarding Data's intelligence, but Picard was having a difficult time winning the case by drawing a distinction between sentience and a highly advanced simulation of it. When we talk about how to treat advanced robots, it's usually an objective discussion of the ethics of how we humans should treat such an entity based on its intelligence. For some people simulated emotions may be a more important factor in how they'd respond to a robot. When the average person sees a robot producing a convincing expression of emotions, the viewer wonders what else it might be feeling about itself, others, and its environment. It makes the entity instantly relatable. The Turing test is an interesting and a high bar to reach, but perhaps an approximation of a Voight Kampff test might be just as relevant one day.
It would be a bad move to make it the default. People download this add-on specifically to remove ads, the presumption should be that all ads should be removed.
The best way to handle it would be to just ask the user in plain-english, maybe even explain why they might want to allow such advertisement. Then once the choice is made, never bring it up again. (For example, I don't mind seeing ads for movies because I like to see movies. I don't watch network television, so I never get exposed to movie trailers and I don't know I am missing a movie that might be relevant to my interests. So there are indeed a few cases where I want to allow ads.)
I'm not opposed to non-invasive advertising, and on certain sites, I'll even click an ad from time to time on the sites which I've allowed to advertise to me(assuming the ad was of any interest to me). The ads support the site, and I want the site to continue. I like the idea of advertisers having guidelines to adhere to in order to avoid pissing off viewers. They should already know by now what will piss off viewers, but at least now there's a standard they can point to. For example, if the advertiser has an internal argument between someone who wants a more invasive ad, and someone who wants a less invasive ad, now the guy who wants to use less invasive ads has at least 1 more arrow in his quiver.
If "free" ad-supported content is to survive as ad-blocked viewing methods grow in popularity, somebody needs to keep looking at ads. For that to happen, ads need to evolve into something that gets the point across without pissing off viewers. I didn't mind the brief 15-30 sec Hulu breaks, especially when given the option to give feedback on what kinds of ads they should be serving me with.
I definitely know very little about atomic devices.
Would a meltdown of the underground nuclear research facility possibly lead to radioactive material melting down and contaminating the water table there?
I don't know how far down a water table is either, or the distance a reactor could melt down to.
The OWS isn't a serious movement, the entire activity is meaningless. They each sure have a lot of passion for something, but they will have no effect on anything. Even if the movement grows at an incredible rate and sweeps the country, it still won't be a serious movement.
If they realize some kind of goal and cause change to happen in relation to that goal, then yes, it'd be a serious movement. But since they're not working towards anything, they aren't achieving anything, and will never be a serious movement until they start taking steps.
I only read about OWS news for entertainment only, I have no personal engagement in their success or failure because they can't have either without any goals.
I think the earlier poster was referring to an old testament story in which two "angels" visited a man's house, and then a mob came over to the house demanding anal sex with the angels.
The man instead offered to give the mob his wife and daughter to protect the two angels. The mob raped them instead and went away.
Old testament story, so it's not one of the stories attributable to Jesus, it's just one of the jewish stories he would have known of.
Buy it on the consoles, or don't buy it for now. There's no squad chat, so team play is right out the window. Squad chat is only on the console versions. You can get voice between friends in a webbrowser. But if somebody else signs on after you've already started, that means someone in the party needs to alt-tab (i.e crash the game) so they can go back to the browser and invite them into the party. If you're not already friends with your squad when playing, then there's absolutely no voice chat. You can/try/ to type at them, but you can be sure that no one will notice.
Presumably they will patch the PC version to catch up with the console versions, but until then potential buyers might as well just wait it out.
Great game, but just a pure shit interface with some of the worst design decisions I've ever seen. Technically brilliant, but with little to no thought put into it's design. (Who thought it'd be a good idea to disable ALL player controls upon death so that you can't do any of the controls/kit customization/option/in-game chat/origin chat/party management/etc. that you'd want to be doing instead of just staring at some guy's face for 15 seconds? You can't even hit escape to access menus with no in-game impact!)
I honestly could use some help with understanding why "science" isn't a belief system.
I don't ascribe to any religion. I suppose if I cared enough to think about it, I'd consider myself an atheist.
With that said, I don't navigate the world with science. For me, science is purely a belief system based on consensus. Any scientific "fact" I happen to know isn't something I've personally tested, or even researched (barring simple high-school experiments). I believe in those scientific facts only because I've been told that they're widely accepted by the scientific community and I assume that they've undergone peer review at some point. I believe that the scientific method works and when applied properly, it zeroes in on the truth, but I'm not applying the scientific method, I just believe that somewhere, someone else is.
The more unusual the claim, the more support I'll want to see or hear, but that's about as rigorous as I'll get. I believe creatures evolved because it has a wide body of support, as opposed to creationism. However, if I read a series of newspaper articles with a breakthrough discovery of intelligent design behind it all, neatly explaining the evolution of exhibits I've seen in museums and zoos, and accepted by the majority of scientists...then I'm going to believe in intelligent design after I get over my initial shock. Ditto with climate change. Whatever the consensus is telling me, that's the "science" I believe, because I'm not actually researching any of this stuff. Setting aside the discussion of whether or not I, as an individual, should be researching these things personally, why wouldn't my "faith" in the scientific community be considered a belief system?
I've noticed that Google Voice's translation to text has been pure shit.
However, I've also noticed that when I use the text-to-speech on my phone, google has been providing me with a pretty high level of accuracy and precision.
I have no idea why the two services have such huge differences in effectiveness.
Green Arrow, maybe. He's just a good shot, with a few trick arrows.
Batman? He (like Tony Stark) has the power of deus ex machina. Need to decipher ancient mayan script? Piece of cake, Batman already learned it in his spare time between being Bruce Wayne during the day, and Batman at night. He also keeps current in multiple fields at a PHD level, practices in multiple martial arts, designs, tests, and builds his own equipment, maintains relationships/surveillance on a global network of friends/foes, olympic physical training, and does it all...during the hours between day and night.
He has the power of retroactive timetravel. Anything he needs to have had done, has already been done retroactively. Tony Stark is equally bullshit. In his spare time, he designed an/anti-spiderman-device/. Just in case he needs to fight off his closest ally who had given up/everything/ to support him, he takes the time to build a device specifically to stop him, and carries it around with him everywhere he goes? It's like the ridiculous Bat-shark-repellent that Batman carried around on the tv show.
If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $30, I anticipate a net cost of $30 over the life of my ownership. If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $20(because their willingness to pay was $30, but since $10 has to go to Sony, the remaining amount is $20), I expect a net cost of $40 over the life of my ownership.
So the game price increased from $30 to $40. I can weigh whether or not the game itself is worth $40 and decide whether or not I think it's worth it. If I don't want to pay $40 I can still wait longer until the net cost drops to $30 anyway. I know about the PSN pass, so I just tack it into the overall evaluation of the purchase.
At least this way at least a little of the used game sales flows back to the developer for each new player.
What about the times when the criminals the undercover cop is trying to be buddies with, ask him to friend them on facebook? It's no kiss of death, but not having a facebook page would make them at least think a little harder about the cop's identity. Making up a fake facebook profile be a little difficult since sooner or later it'll have to tie into real people rather than just spam accounts.
I disagree, I believe that people should be constantly evaluating and giving consideration to all information they take in. After making decisions about who they want to be, they should change themselves to become the person they want to be.
Example: If you don't think you're a douchebag, but everyone is telling you that you are, then maybe you should consider the possibility that you really are a douchebag and you just didn't know it. Assuming that you are in fact a douchebag, you should consider whether it's worthwhile to change that characteristic.
The involvement of integrity implies that change is inherently unethical or immoral. That's just not true.
Great story, my favorite part of the games were the short stories they embedded to fill in background. But JRPG fights are mind-numbingly repetitive. If I've fought a group of 3 "______" enemies, I know I can beat that group again, I know how to do it, and in fact I've already done it. Why make me fight that exact same battle again? Every single repetition after that first fight is a grind.
I had hoped a game with such a pedigree would have evolved more over the years. I enjoyed those FF games for what they were at the time. I've been terribly disappointed by how little JRPGs have changed since then. There are the odd exceptions to the rule which incorporated more dynamic gameplay or tactical depth, but by and large JRPGs keep retreating to the tired formula of line-up in front of each other and wait for your turn to attack even after those exceptions proved that there are ways to do it better!
You know, I actually enjoyed FF8 even though it is popularly regarded as the ugly duckling of the FF games. The reason for that is because I bought it for the PC, applied a trainer unlocking infinite spell use for all spells from level 1, and then obtained the "no-random encounter" item within the first hour of the game. From that point on, it was all story, all meat, no grind.
Slashdot Mirror
Your tiny "internet-only" lacks a physical presence in "all" of the States, so you wouldn't be asked to pay taxes in them anyway.
By the time that your company has grown to the size that qualifies as a physical presence in "all" of the states under tax law, then your company can easily afford to pay taxes.
App developers would not be affected by the Amazon taxation issue which pivots around the fact that Amazon has gigantic warehouses spanning the country, for example, shipping physical goods from a warehouse in NJ to a doorstop within NJ, and yet it claims to have no physical presence in NJ.
It seems like it could be a useful design tool for 3d navigation.
If you want to twist an object around for a certain perspective, you could just lift your hand slightly and turn the object around to the position you want to see, then go back to working on the object with your mouse.
Obviously, this is something you can do without Kinect, and you can probably do it with more precision with the existing control. But having the ability to quickly and casually interact with it to see results from different perspectives could add some benefit for the small niche that does a great deal of 3d design work.
There's a budget to pay for. Ultimately the people in each state will pay for Amazon's tax break. They will pay through service cuts in the state budget, or they will pay through increased taxes (far more likely).
Whatever your thoughts are on the Amazon sales tax are, or sales taxes in general, the reality is that shortfalls due to purchases shifting to Amazon will just be charged to consumers elsewhere.
My mom died from cancer when I was in highschool and my aunt was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer about a month ago. Though nobody has said it out loud, I think everyone in the family understands that my aunt is also going to die.
I still don't really know how to talk to someone who's going to die. It's...weird to talk about the future (which they won't be a part of), or to ask "how are you doing? (because they obviously aren't doing too well). We want to communicate care and support, but we also don't want to burden and tire out the patient by repeatedly calling to remind them that they're going to die. Is it better to confront the elephant in the room? Or to ignore it? It's disturbing to voice out loud the certainty of death, but it's also galling to bullshit someone by saying everything's going to be ok, when it's not.
What do you guys do in these situations? I'd especially like to hear the prefences of anyone who is dying or at one point believed that they were going to die.
Certain credit cards (Discover, and Citibank last I checked) allow you to generate temporary credit card numbers which you can use for online transactions for a specified amount, for a specified period of time.
That way you never expose your real underlying credit card data. A very useful feature in this day and age.
Every time someone mentions using a credit card on the internet, somebody will reply that using credit cards is stupid, because they simply could not imagine that a credit card user could have his account set to automatically pay-off in full from a flush bank account.
Then you have posts like these, where a flood of users reply to point out the obvious.
Sounds like classic trolling to me.
MMOs charging you up-front makes sense for the following reasons:
1) A Box - It's important to put games in the eye-line of casual shoppers in B&M stores. Industry practices have not yet worked out how much B&M stores should charge for stocking a free game on their valuable shelf space, i.e the publisher would need to throw even more money into a yet-unreleased game to get it to market. With box units, B&Ms have no problem stocking it because they know they are making money on each unit sold. The reason why the publisher wants box units is because not everyone follows gaming news, and even advertising doesn't always push people to go buy a product, but if you get enough "impressions" to form curiousity, and then place a box product in the path of that shopper, you end up getting sales.
2) Value perception - Free to play is too new. Right now the majority of free to play games are either too crappy to charge for or they're games that are so old that they can't be sold. In time, this perception will change and players will give free games equal respect to $50/60 full-price releases (like the upcoming free game Super Monday Night Combat for one). Even selling games at reduced prices gives people the impression that the game is a "budget" title with lower levels of polish and less value. Even crappy titles will still charge full price because they don't want to reveal themselves as crappy titles before the public consensus figures it out.
3) Price discrimination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination) - Some users are willing to pay $60, so why not ask them to pay $60? That's what you are doing with the $60 retail release. Some users aren't willing to pay $60, so you pick those people up later when the game goes free to play. But as long as most people are willing to pay full price, you want to continue charging full price to get your full return on investment. Later on when it's free, everyone under the $60 willingness-to-pay level gets in and pays their amount in microtransactions or some other revenue mechanic.
4) It's up-front money. Businesses want to have money now rather than later to improve their cash position, especially after a long long long and incredibly expensive development cycle that has bled cash flow for several years. A big release with a big cash spike up front gives decision makers the confidence that they can pay for the next project (or expansion of the MMO) from start to finish. Having stable cash flow is very desirable in such a volatile business. And hey, even if the game turns out to be crap and all the players bail, at least you got the first $60 out of them.
5) They can go free to play later - More importantly, they can make a great big hullabaloo about it. Small incremental updates/patches are not big news that will draw people in, it doesn't draw attention. Over a long enough time the MMO manages to completely transform itself through those patches, but each one is too small to draw attention. When you go free to play later, you can point to /everything/ that has happened since that first release to show a massive distinction from the first impression that didn't convince people to buy it at release. Now that it's so much improved, and free to check out, they bring in a big swath of new interest. If you start off as free to play, each of the small incremental patches isn't enough to put forward as the crux of an advertising campaign, and the free press of market gossip isn't going to help you out with such an advertising campaign.
But obviously, a crap MMO will still be a failure even if you charge up front for it. Going free to play won't hold on to free to play players either when they can go to other better free to play games.
MUDs preceded MMOs. They were also by and large F2P.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
Can we teach a robot to love?
Kind of but not really trolling.
Human love may just be illogical chemically driven urges to breed, but it's highly empathetic. Smart or clever animals learn some respect, cute and babylike animals are given even greater levels of protection.
While gorillas are relatively intelligent compared to most animals, they're still just "dumb apes" that are easy to marginalize. But seeing two of them walk all the way across the enclosure to hug and cradle each other generated a lot of empathy in myself, and the entire crowd around me. I thought to myself, "Look at them, hugging each other just like us (humans)".
Star Trek fans should remember the episode "The Measure of a Man" quite well, where they debate Data's rights as a being based upon sentience. There was no doubt regarding Data's intelligence, but Picard was having a difficult time winning the case by drawing a distinction between sentience and a highly advanced simulation of it. When we talk about how to treat advanced robots, it's usually an objective discussion of the ethics of how we humans should treat such an entity based on its intelligence. For some people simulated emotions may be a more important factor in how they'd respond to a robot. When the average person sees a robot producing a convincing expression of emotions, the viewer wonders what else it might be feeling about itself, others, and its environment. It makes the entity instantly relatable. The Turing test is an interesting and a high bar to reach, but perhaps an approximation of a Voight Kampff test might be just as relevant one day.
It would be a bad move to make it the default. People download this add-on specifically to remove ads, the presumption should be that all ads should be removed.
The best way to handle it would be to just ask the user in plain-english, maybe even explain why they might want to allow such advertisement. Then once the choice is made, never bring it up again. (For example, I don't mind seeing ads for movies because I like to see movies. I don't watch network television, so I never get exposed to movie trailers and I don't know I am missing a movie that might be relevant to my interests. So there are indeed a few cases where I want to allow ads.)
I'm not opposed to non-invasive advertising, and on certain sites, I'll even click an ad from time to time on the sites which I've allowed to advertise to me(assuming the ad was of any interest to me). The ads support the site, and I want the site to continue. I like the idea of advertisers having guidelines to adhere to in order to avoid pissing off viewers. They should already know by now what will piss off viewers, but at least now there's a standard they can point to. For example, if the advertiser has an internal argument between someone who wants a more invasive ad, and someone who wants a less invasive ad, now the guy who wants to use less invasive ads has at least 1 more arrow in his quiver.
If "free" ad-supported content is to survive as ad-blocked viewing methods grow in popularity, somebody needs to keep looking at ads. For that to happen, ads need to evolve into something that gets the point across without pissing off viewers. I didn't mind the brief 15-30 sec Hulu breaks, especially when given the option to give feedback on what kinds of ads they should be serving me with.
I definitely know very little about atomic devices.
Would a meltdown of the underground nuclear research facility possibly lead to radioactive material melting down and contaminating the water table there?
I don't know how far down a water table is either, or the distance a reactor could melt down to.
The OWS isn't a serious movement, the entire activity is meaningless. They each sure have a lot of passion for something, but they will have no effect on anything. Even if the movement grows at an incredible rate and sweeps the country, it still won't be a serious movement.
If they realize some kind of goal and cause change to happen in relation to that goal, then yes, it'd be a serious movement. But since they're not working towards anything, they aren't achieving anything, and will never be a serious movement until they start taking steps.
I only read about OWS news for entertainment only, I have no personal engagement in their success or failure because they can't have either without any goals.
I think the earlier poster was referring to an old testament story in which two "angels" visited a man's house, and then a mob came over to the house demanding anal sex with the angels.
The man instead offered to give the mob his wife and daughter to protect the two angels. The mob raped them instead and went away.
Old testament story, so it's not one of the stories attributable to Jesus, it's just one of the jewish stories he would have known of.
I'd recommend AGAINST buying BF3 on the PC.
Buy it on the consoles, or don't buy it for now. There's no squad chat, so team play is right out the window. Squad chat is only on the console versions. You can get voice between friends in a webbrowser. But if somebody else signs on after you've already started, that means someone in the party needs to alt-tab (i.e crash the game) so they can go back to the browser and invite them into the party. If you're not already friends with your squad when playing, then there's absolutely no voice chat. You can /try/ to type at them, but you can be sure that no one will notice.
Presumably they will patch the PC version to catch up with the console versions, but until then potential buyers might as well just wait it out.
Great game, but just a pure shit interface with some of the worst design decisions I've ever seen. Technically brilliant, but with little to no thought put into it's design. (Who thought it'd be a good idea to disable ALL player controls upon death so that you can't do any of the controls/kit customization/option/in-game chat/origin chat/party management/etc. that you'd want to be doing instead of just staring at some guy's face for 15 seconds? You can't even hit escape to access menus with no in-game impact!)
I honestly could use some help with understanding why "science" isn't a belief system.
I don't ascribe to any religion. I suppose if I cared enough to think about it, I'd consider myself an atheist.
With that said, I don't navigate the world with science. For me, science is purely a belief system based on consensus. Any scientific "fact" I happen to know isn't something I've personally tested, or even researched (barring simple high-school experiments). I believe in those scientific facts only because I've been told that they're widely accepted by the scientific community and I assume that they've undergone peer review at some point. I believe that the scientific method works and when applied properly, it zeroes in on the truth, but I'm not applying the scientific method, I just believe that somewhere, someone else is.
The more unusual the claim, the more support I'll want to see or hear, but that's about as rigorous as I'll get. I believe creatures evolved because it has a wide body of support, as opposed to creationism. However, if I read a series of newspaper articles with a breakthrough discovery of intelligent design behind it all, neatly explaining the evolution of exhibits I've seen in museums and zoos, and accepted by the majority of scientists...then I'm going to believe in intelligent design after I get over my initial shock. Ditto with climate change. Whatever the consensus is telling me, that's the "science" I believe, because I'm not actually researching any of this stuff. Setting aside the discussion of whether or not I, as an individual, should be researching these things personally, why wouldn't my "faith" in the scientific community be considered a belief system?
I've noticed that Google Voice's translation to text has been pure shit.
However, I've also noticed that when I use the text-to-speech on my phone, google has been providing me with a pretty high level of accuracy and precision.
I have no idea why the two services have such huge differences in effectiveness.
FYI, Batman is currently touring the world to recruit and support a network of "Batpeople" around the world using his riches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Incorporated
The Robin #1/Nightwing/Dick Grayson is wearing the Batman outfit and taking care of Gotham for him.
Green Arrow, maybe. He's just a good shot, with a few trick arrows.
Batman? He (like Tony Stark) has the power of deus ex machina. Need to decipher ancient mayan script? Piece of cake, Batman already learned it in his spare time between being Bruce Wayne during the day, and Batman at night. He also keeps current in multiple fields at a PHD level, practices in multiple martial arts, designs, tests, and builds his own equipment, maintains relationships/surveillance on a global network of friends/foes, olympic physical training, and does it all...during the hours between day and night.
He has the power of retroactive timetravel. Anything he needs to have had done, has already been done retroactively. Tony Stark is equally bullshit. In his spare time, he designed an /anti-spiderman-device/. Just in case he needs to fight off his closest ally who had given up /everything/ to support him, he takes the time to build a device specifically to stop him, and carries it around with him everywhere he goes? It's like the ridiculous Bat-shark-repellent that Batman carried around on the tv show.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/nj_police_salaries_rank_highes.html
In my area we pay cops over six figures. reaching 120-130k in some counties, to patrol crime-less suburbs filled with middle-class on up suburbanites.
In Newark, we pay cops around 60k or less where shootings occur regularly, and the police force was dramatically reduced. It's nuts.
I have sympathy for cops in the rough neighborhoods. The cops in the other neighborhoods are overpaid bullies.
I know the reference, I just don't see how it applies to this article. Can someone enlighten me?
I'm ok with it.
If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $30, I anticipate a net cost of $30 over the life of my ownership.
If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $20(because their willingness to pay was $30, but since $10 has to go to Sony, the remaining amount is $20), I expect a net cost of $40 over the life of my ownership.
So the game price increased from $30 to $40. I can weigh whether or not the game itself is worth $40 and decide whether or not I think it's worth it. If I don't want to pay $40 I can still wait longer until the net cost drops to $30 anyway. I know about the PSN pass, so I just tack it into the overall evaluation of the purchase.
At least this way at least a little of the used game sales flows back to the developer for each new player.
Man, I always look forward to your posts. You really can't fake that kind of writing. Do you have a blog or twitter feed where I can see more?
What about the times when the criminals the undercover cop is trying to be buddies with, ask him to friend them on facebook? It's no kiss of death, but not having a facebook page would make them at least think a little harder about the cop's identity. Making up a fake facebook profile be a little difficult since sooner or later it'll have to tie into real people rather than just spam accounts.
I disagree, I believe that people should be constantly evaluating and giving consideration to all information they take in. After making decisions about who they want to be, they should change themselves to become the person they want to be.
Example: If you don't think you're a douchebag, but everyone is telling you that you are, then maybe you should consider the possibility that you really are a douchebag and you just didn't know it. Assuming that you are in fact a douchebag, you should consider whether it's worthwhile to change that characteristic.
The involvement of integrity implies that change is inherently unethical or immoral. That's just not true.
Every single battle was a grind.
Great story, my favorite part of the games were the short stories they embedded to fill in background. But JRPG fights are mind-numbingly repetitive. If I've fought a group of 3 "______" enemies, I know I can beat that group again, I know how to do it, and in fact I've already done it. Why make me fight that exact same battle again? Every single repetition after that first fight is a grind.
I had hoped a game with such a pedigree would have evolved more over the years. I enjoyed those FF games for what they were at the time. I've been terribly disappointed by how little JRPGs have changed since then. There are the odd exceptions to the rule which incorporated more dynamic gameplay or tactical depth, but by and large JRPGs keep retreating to the tired formula of line-up in front of each other and wait for your turn to attack even after those exceptions proved that there are ways to do it better!
You know, I actually enjoyed FF8 even though it is popularly regarded as the ugly duckling of the FF games. The reason for that is because I bought it for the PC, applied a trainer unlocking infinite spell use for all spells from level 1, and then obtained the "no-random encounter" item within the first hour of the game. From that point on, it was all story, all meat, no grind.