And yet, in the end, the company is still to blame for passing the buck down so far that someone who doesn't care is left in charge of something important. Passing the buck works sideways, and up the chain, but not down the chain. They're responsible for what happens underneath their authority.
First point, absolutely true. He had a task and he fucked it up.
Second point, also true. But if the boss in accounting wants hotdogs and tells the lowest-rung of the department to get it, he can either get the hotdogs which is out of his job description, or GTFO. He's disposable with no value as an employee(hence an intern) so he can choose between losing his job or doing what he's told. He is under considerable pressure to do whatever he's told. The boss isn't excused from putting him in this position just because he accepted it. Prostitutes accept pimp-slaps.
Now the intern's job is gone. That's pretty much a given here.
Intern faces a big penalty for saying no, and very minimal risk for accepting the tapes. What are the chances those tapes will get taken? It's pretty unlikely, and an acceptable risk for getting your first crack at job experience. It's easy in retrospect to say he shouldn't have taken them, but judgement comes before seeing the result. Lottery tickets are an idiot tax, just because someone wins on a lottery ticket doesn't make them less of an idiot for buying the ticket. He can say no and lose the job immediately, or say yes, and suffer a small possibility of losing his job later.
His pay is indeed relevant, because many people believe that risk should equal reward. Whether or not you agree, this is a view that people have. Putting the blame on the intern means he gets high risk for little reward while the boss has high reward and no risk? Companies can't just pass all the blame down to disposable youths. Management has to be held accountable. The intern does share responsibility, and that responsibility scales with his paycheck. That paycheck was on the line and is forfeit. The intern is eating his appropriate share of blame already. I am not suggesting that you believe that all the blame on the intern and none on the management, you didn't suggest this anywhere in your post. I am merely posting an addendum and my opinion that the management should bear the bulk.
Third point, also true, but ridiculous. Paper trailing everything is unfeasible. Boss tells the intern what to do, the intern doesn't get to tell the boss what to do. The intern can't tell the boss to e-mail it or sign a memo. The intern just gets fired for not doing what he's told. Even if the intern asks for an e-mail or memo clarification, the boss can just come down and tell him verbally again. Especially likely if the intern is working right next to the boss.
Intern gets the choice of his job or obedience at each step because he has no leverage as a low-rung employee with no value on his resume.
Nuremberg trials were between the choice of killing people and their job(well, possibly their life). Killing people vs. holding data tapes are different. Both are important, but saying they're the same is sillyness. The expectation we have on people faced with these decisions depends on the scale of what is asked of them. Killing people vs. the job? No. Holding tapes overnight vs. the job? Yes. Getting hotdogs for the boss? Yes. All are things he shouldn't be asked to do, but not all of them are worth trading his job to fight.
Yeah, that was what popped into my mind as well. Conspiracies are unlikely because they tend to be overly complicated and reliant on every participant in a massive web to remain silent. However in thise case, it can be as simple as 3 people.
Thank you, that was educational. I failed to properly understand the reasoning behind small inflation being favorable to no change.
Re:They did not go up in price, the dollar went do
on
$60 Games Are Here To Stay
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The standard economist line is not that inflation is good, nor that is bad, it is just inflation.
If I give you 1 dollar and want my value back at the end of the year with 4% inflation, then I need 1.04(I'd probably want some sort of a return for depriving myself of the use of the dollar, but for simplicity we can leave that out).
If actual inflation is 5%, I lost value, because to get my value back I should get 1.05, so if inflation goes up, the receiver of a loan wins.
If actual inflation is 3%, I gained value, because I really only needed to get 1.03, so if inflation goes down, the lender of a loan wins.
Inflation is bad because it makes it hard for 2 parties to agree on a mutually beneficial exchange when uncertainty is introduced like this. They can plan on an equal exchange, and then inflation risk can fuck it up.
Deflation is the same, it's just smaller numbers but the same effect. If the value is dropping at unpredictable rates, it stunts business because the 2 parties can't depend on a fair exchange. The information of knowing it will be stable is important to efficient resource distribution and investment in an economy.
So what is important is not inflation or deflation, what is important is how much variance is in the inflation or deflation.
Inflation makes the number bigger, deflation makes it smaller. But as long as the percentage of change is steady and predictable, it has no effect on the exchange in value. However, large inflation numbers tend to carry more variance, while low numbers are more stable. So that's the job of the Fed. To fight inflation so that business people can do their thing without worrying about instability fucking up the exchange they're negotiating.
Some say some small inflation is good, because it keeps pace with the growth of actual value in the country. GDP(just one of several measurements of a nation's value) for example, for the U.S it's been growing around 2-4%, so to keep the right amount of money flowing to represent this increase of gross domestic product, the idea is to keep the amount of money growing at 2-4%. Not everyone agrees with this, I don't see maintaining the speed of money circulation(How fast 1 dollar circulates) is worth intentionally keeping a level of inflation(Wouldn't the value of money change appropriately to adjust for changes in the speed of money circulation?)
However, a gold standard is just a different form of currency. Now a nation's currency growth rate is tied to...mining rocks? The currency itself is worthless, it's the value behind the currency that matters. A gold standard wouldn't help combat this fluctuation, it just ties it to a different fluctuation, mining. The real goal here is to keep the value stable, which is what the fed should do. They're trying to keep it steady at the current value, which is fine if they can pull it off. I'd be happier if they kept it steady at 0% inflation.
The more pressing issue is trade deficit. Inflation should be moderated by the Fed as it is currently. I don't like the idea of upsetting this tender balance. As much as I agree with many of Ron Paul's stances, abolishing the Fed for a gold standard is a dealbreaker since I believe it would bring little good to the country, while potentially wreaking catastrophic results. Another global Great Depression sort of catastrophe.
My explanation is rough, I know, but hopefully someone else can clarify this better than I.
People like to down on fatties all day for being lazy. How many of them actually work for the body they have?
-I'm 5'10. I weigh 220lbs by eating till I don't want to eat, and with no exercise. -I weigh 180lbs by lifting 3 days a week and cardio 4 days a week. I bench 315, squat around 600. I eat to sufficiency rather than to satisfaction. There is still 18% body fat there. No six pack.
Many of the people who are so quick to jump to conclusions have no idea what the other person is up to. I've been a fatty, and I've been an athlete, and I'm the only one who can tell you which is the real me.
How easy is it to resist something when it's easy? How hard is it to resist when it's hard? Quitting smoking is very different between the lifetime smoker and the guy who's never smoked. You don't know what it's like in their head, so don't pretend to.
But with that said, each person/does/ know what it's like in their own head, and they're the ones who have to be the harshest on themselves. They'll be the one who will have to deal with the results. So if fitness is easy for someone else, bully for them. If it's hard for you, you have to suck it up and deal with it because it won't just go away.
I share a similar view, I'm not interested in how well each company does in comparison to the other, I'm more interested in how well they cater to my interests.
There are so many titles in the near future that I'm interested in, there's just no way I'm going to be able to play them. After all the E3 news aggregated the info together my wallet was weeping. I've only got a Wii60 for now, and expecting to refresh my PC back to playability and probably a PS3 sometime next year after it releases enough games that I want.
So I'm hoping to play:
PS3: Uncharted Territory Folklore Echochrome Calling all cars
PC: Valve's Orange Box Crysis Left 4 Dead
Wii: Metroid Prime 3 Super Mario Galaxy Super Smash Bros Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire
Xbox360: Halo 3 Mass Effect Bioshock(since I don't feel like waiting to get my PC to play it there instead) Assasin's Creed Lost Odyssey(Same studio as Blue Dragon, but targeting older audiences with its theme) Eternal Sonata
So 2k on a PC, 600 on a PS3...and all these games at either 50 or 60 bucks apiece...
I had to sign up for Gamefly, it's just too much money to buy all these games. But the problem is that the subscription money I'm paying to Gamefly for all these rentals isn't going back to the developers. I will be buying a few of these games, but just the ones I expect to play repeatedly. I usually just finish a game and never go back. It's not a terrible problem right now, but I wonder if rentals will start to impact game industry growth. Perhaps additional payment structures can be arranged to fill the hole that caused Gamefly to come about?
The strumming is easily forgone, but I think they needed at least some of the feel to keep the lure of drumming there. Tiny little kids immediately go, "Oooo! Whacking stuff and making big noise!" and love it. The feedback in your hand is part of what produces that basic response to drumming.
The two games are different enough that the skills earned in one do not transfer to another. And yes, I just referred to the guitar as a game(a/great/ game btw), it's just a different medium for the entertainment.
So really, why play guitar when you can play DDR? Why play videogames when you can play baseball? Why play baseball when you can go bungeejumping? These are very different activities with different methods for entertaining the user. The guitar offers creativity and freedom, the guitar hero game offers a casual rhythm-based game with measurable feedback.
I've been playing guitar for several years. I enjoy Guitar Hero too.
I can appreciate the skill of a guitar genius, but there is no inherent significance to being able to play a guitar well. It's still just a game.
Can you cite some examples of the specific users who flew into a frothing racist rage regarding immigrant workers and then cheerlead when in the case of Google?
I think what you are seeing here is a case of people with own individual opinions being blended together to form what appears to be an irreconcilable platform. There's no clash in the statements when it comes from different people. Sort of like how Americans are pro-war and anti-war. Americans can be pro-war and anti-war because the individuals that compose it can pick either direction.
Predatory pricing has a perjorative connotation. The term is usually trotted out in the case of a dominant market leader in a market with low amounts of competition trying to squeeze out a fresh competitor by suffering temporary losses. Here it's a relatively fresh competitor trying to squeeze/into/ a market with low amounts of competition by suffering large losses. The carcasses of dead consoles line this industry, it is extremely hard to enter.
Is what is being done. Predatory pricing is an established market power temporarily reducing their prices to loss levels to keep out competition. The difference here is that the fresh competition is taking loss levels first, in order to become competitive, which is good for the market overall(but risky for the company doing so, which is what I mean by those corpses).
And even with MS's huge pockets propelling them to #1 early this generation, it looks like Nintendo will be passing them by the end of the year, and leaving them in the dust by the end of the generation, and the company has never adopted a loss-lead strategy.
With 3 major players, gamers have it pretty good actually with the increased competition. The console gaming industry already has high levels of product differentiation which is sort of like a partial monopoly in that a company is granted some level of market power due to idiosyncracies of their product. You miiight be able to substitute between a PS3 and an Xbox360, but substituting to or from a Wii is much harder to justify. The three are not directly equivalent because of product differentiation, so they are able to wield power due to this inelasticity.
Haha, thank you, that saying immediately came to mind, but I couldn't remember the exact wording or source so I didn't bother embarassing myself by referencing it in my own comment.
Intentionally sabotaging licensees is pretty extreme, and unlikely since it carries so much risk for a business since the fallout would be so severe. Epic probably just failed to meet their promises. I'm suprised that the contract didn't have any late clauses already embedded in the terms and conditions.
The simplest and most likely scenario here is that Epic promised to ship some code out, and missed their deadline. It's not very unusual for this to happen, deadlines get missed all the time, particularly in the gaming industry. SK is covering their bases (which is the smart thing to do) by making the claim include the possibility that Epic did it intentionally, which would be considerably harder to prove, but is in there just in case that's what happened.
If it was just a missed deadline, it looks like whatever clauses were already in the contract's terms and conditions for this scenario will be invoked(why the HELL would they not include a late delivery clause? There has to be one in there already), or failing that, just a nulled contract, possibly with some compensation for the inconvenience. Slashdotters probably already know that there's very little chance of the Gears profits being handed over. People claim whatever they want, that doesn't mean the court will decide to award it to them.
The problem you two are facing is that you're seeing different interpretations of the text in play.
In "perfect competition" there is no/economic/ profit. That's correct. That is very extreme case with relatively few real-world scenarios, and none if taken in a strict definition.
In low-competition markets, there is plenty of profit to be had. Whether or not this makes someone rich will depend on a number of factors besides how many players are in the market(sustainability for one).
The above is one way to test competition. This still doesn't account for product differentiation(why ipods can be priced higher than mp3 players that have more features). Also needs adjustment to examine local markets as well(There can be a ton of competition in the country, but if there's just 1 store within 100 miles of me, there's not much competition going on).
The lives of the poor are cheap. They are easily replaceable.
The lives of American soldiers are/very/ expensive.
As for population, a population replaces itself when a gap is created. Post WWII, post-Black Plague, the population bounces back to fill the gap when the infrastructure is still around to support it(not necessarily physicial, technological or long-term economic structure also counts).
People with nothing to lose can afford a war of attrition against those with something to lose.
What about morality in the face of changing states?
In the face of complete unknowability(since I can't experience any objective perspective), I've either got faith or I've got nothing. If everything about me can change, what is left of me? Was I there to begin with?
After all the philosophy crap is done, I'm still there, all I have left is reality and reality sucks. Venturing down these roads just brings me back to to dwelling on this point that reality sucks and anything beyond it is hopelessly unprovable. So thinking about it isn't very fun. I have to either "just be" or sprout a faith-based cosmology.
I'm stuck between a cosmology based only on the real-world where absolute insignificance and futility reigns supreme, or a faith-based cosmology which will deal with perpetual doubt since certainty will never be within reach. So I'm stuck in a world I hate, and am unable to reconcile the doubt in my mind with a world I could be happy in.
So I have to "just be happy". And that means not thinking about anything that would go beyond feeling happy(induced by whatever means most sustainable).
I believe there's a major artery passing through the groin. Not necessarily accessed through the penis itself, but very close to it.
Not sure why they'd use that one though. Perhaps it's because a bed-ridden patient would move that area less? I'm just throwing out guesses, someone more qualified will have to answer.
I hate to break out web 2.0 buzz, but it is applicable in this case. The response is meta-data. There's a lot of crap to sift through to find the useful information, and meta-data helps pre-filter the results. Everything still needs to get passed through the reader's own crap-filter(for example, never look at positive comments on a sales site, only compare the negatives). Getting multiple sources is the reader's job now, and hopefully over time, "meta" sites will mature to keep ahead of the tidal wave of crap.
I'm first interested in the Slashdot comments, they're what I use to decide if the article is trustworthy, and/or worth reading.
They're pretty good compared to other forms of pre-packaged food in consumer markets. Way better than just-add-water or frozen foods at the supermarket. I used to buy them from a military surplus store in the area.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet, in the end, the company is still to blame for passing the buck down so far that someone who doesn't care is left in charge of something important. Passing the buck works sideways, and up the chain, but not down the chain. They're responsible for what happens underneath their authority.
First point, absolutely true. He had a task and he fucked it up.
Second point, also true. But if the boss in accounting wants hotdogs and tells the lowest-rung of the department to get it, he can either get the hotdogs which is out of his job description, or GTFO. He's disposable with no value as an employee(hence an intern) so he can choose between losing his job or doing what he's told. He is under considerable pressure to do whatever he's told. The boss isn't excused from putting him in this position just because he accepted it. Prostitutes accept pimp-slaps.
Now the intern's job is gone. That's pretty much a given here.
Intern faces a big penalty for saying no, and very minimal risk for accepting the tapes. What are the chances those tapes will get taken? It's pretty unlikely, and an acceptable risk for getting your first crack at job experience. It's easy in retrospect to say he shouldn't have taken them, but judgement comes before seeing the result. Lottery tickets are an idiot tax, just because someone wins on a lottery ticket doesn't make them less of an idiot for buying the ticket. He can say no and lose the job immediately, or say yes, and suffer a small possibility of losing his job later.
His pay is indeed relevant, because many people believe that risk should equal reward. Whether or not you agree, this is a view that people have. Putting the blame on the intern means he gets high risk for little reward while the boss has high reward and no risk? Companies can't just pass all the blame down to disposable youths. Management has to be held accountable. The intern does share responsibility, and that responsibility scales with his paycheck. That paycheck was on the line and is forfeit. The intern is eating his appropriate share of blame already. I am not suggesting that you believe that all the blame on the intern and none on the management, you didn't suggest this anywhere in your post. I am merely posting an addendum and my opinion that the management should bear the bulk.
Third point, also true, but ridiculous. Paper trailing everything is unfeasible. Boss tells the intern what to do, the intern doesn't get to tell the boss what to do. The intern can't tell the boss to e-mail it or sign a memo. The intern just gets fired for not doing what he's told. Even if the intern asks for an e-mail or memo clarification, the boss can just come down and tell him verbally again. Especially likely if the intern is working right next to the boss.
Intern gets the choice of his job or obedience at each step because he has no leverage as a low-rung employee with no value on his resume.
Nuremberg trials were between the choice of killing people and their job(well, possibly their life). Killing people vs. holding data tapes are different. Both are important, but saying they're the same is sillyness. The expectation we have on people faced with these decisions depends on the scale of what is asked of them. Killing people vs. the job? No. Holding tapes overnight vs. the job? Yes. Getting hotdogs for the boss? Yes. All are things he shouldn't be asked to do, but not all of them are worth trading his job to fight.
Yeah, that was what popped into my mind as well. Conspiracies are unlikely because they tend to be overly complicated and reliant on every participant in a massive web to remain silent. However in thise case, it can be as simple as 3 people.
Thank you, that was educational. I failed to properly understand the reasoning behind small inflation being favorable to no change.
The standard economist line is not that inflation is good, nor that is bad, it is just inflation.
If I give you 1 dollar and want my value back at the end of the year with 4% inflation, then I need 1.04(I'd probably want some sort of a return for depriving myself of the use of the dollar, but for simplicity we can leave that out).
If actual inflation is 5%, I lost value, because to get my value back I should get 1.05, so if inflation goes up, the receiver of a loan wins.
If actual inflation is 3%, I gained value, because I really only needed to get 1.03, so if inflation goes down, the lender of a loan wins.
Inflation is bad because it makes it hard for 2 parties to agree on a mutually beneficial exchange when uncertainty is introduced like this. They can plan on an equal exchange, and then inflation risk can fuck it up.
Deflation is the same, it's just smaller numbers but the same effect. If the value is dropping at unpredictable rates, it stunts business because the 2 parties can't depend on a fair exchange. The information of knowing it will be stable is important to efficient resource distribution and investment in an economy.
So what is important is not inflation or deflation, what is important is how much variance is in the inflation or deflation.
Inflation makes the number bigger, deflation makes it smaller. But as long as the percentage of change is steady and predictable, it has no effect on the exchange in value. However, large inflation numbers tend to carry more variance, while low numbers are more stable. So that's the job of the Fed. To fight inflation so that business people can do their thing without worrying about instability fucking up the exchange they're negotiating.
Some say some small inflation is good, because it keeps pace with the growth of actual value in the country. GDP(just one of several measurements of a nation's value) for example, for the U.S it's been growing around 2-4%, so to keep the right amount of money flowing to represent this increase of gross domestic product, the idea is to keep the amount of money growing at 2-4%. Not everyone agrees with this, I don't see maintaining the speed of money circulation(How fast 1 dollar circulates) is worth intentionally keeping a level of inflation(Wouldn't the value of money change appropriately to adjust for changes in the speed of money circulation?)
However, a gold standard is just a different form of currency. Now a nation's currency growth rate is tied to...mining rocks? The currency itself is worthless, it's the value behind the currency that matters. A gold standard wouldn't help combat this fluctuation, it just ties it to a different fluctuation, mining. The real goal here is to keep the value stable, which is what the fed should do. They're trying to keep it steady at the current value, which is fine if they can pull it off. I'd be happier if they kept it steady at 0% inflation.
The more pressing issue is trade deficit. Inflation should be moderated by the Fed as it is currently. I don't like the idea of upsetting this tender balance. As much as I agree with many of Ron Paul's stances, abolishing the Fed for a gold standard is a dealbreaker since I believe it would bring little good to the country, while potentially wreaking catastrophic results. Another global Great Depression sort of catastrophe.
My explanation is rough, I know, but hopefully someone else can clarify this better than I.
Parent is informative.
/does/ know what it's like in their own head, and they're the ones who have to be the harshest on themselves. They'll be the one who will have to deal with the results. So if fitness is easy for someone else, bully for them. If it's hard for you, you have to suck it up and deal with it because it won't just go away.
People like to down on fatties all day for being lazy. How many of them actually work for the body they have?
-I'm 5'10. I weigh 220lbs by eating till I don't want to eat, and with no exercise.
-I weigh 180lbs by lifting 3 days a week and cardio 4 days a week. I bench 315, squat around 600. I eat to sufficiency rather than to satisfaction. There is still 18% body fat there. No six pack.
Many of the people who are so quick to jump to conclusions have no idea what the other person is up to. I've been a fatty, and I've been an athlete, and I'm the only one who can tell you which is the real me.
How easy is it to resist something when it's easy? How hard is it to resist when it's hard? Quitting smoking is very different between the lifetime smoker and the guy who's never smoked. You don't know what it's like in their head, so don't pretend to.
But with that said, each person
Exactly, everybody knows that you can't argue with cold hard Truthiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
Sim...Earth?
It's all about the games baby. Woot!
I share a similar view, I'm not interested in how well each company does in comparison to the other, I'm more interested in how well they cater to my interests.
There are so many titles in the near future that I'm interested in, there's just no way I'm going to be able to play them. After all the E3 news aggregated the info together my wallet was weeping. I've only got a Wii60 for now, and expecting to refresh my PC back to playability and probably a PS3 sometime next year after it releases enough games that I want.
So I'm hoping to play:
PS3:
Uncharted Territory
Folklore
Echochrome
Calling all cars
PC:
Valve's Orange Box
Crysis
Left 4 Dead
Wii:
Metroid Prime 3
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Smash Bros
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire
Xbox360:
Halo 3
Mass Effect
Bioshock(since I don't feel like waiting to get my PC to play it there instead)
Assasin's Creed
Lost Odyssey(Same studio as Blue Dragon, but targeting older audiences with its theme)
Eternal Sonata
So 2k on a PC, 600 on a PS3...and all these games at either 50 or 60 bucks apiece...
I had to sign up for Gamefly, it's just too much money to buy all these games. But the problem is that the subscription money I'm paying to Gamefly for all these rentals isn't going back to the developers. I will be buying a few of these games, but just the ones I expect to play repeatedly. I usually just finish a game and never go back. It's not a terrible problem right now, but I wonder if rentals will start to impact game industry growth. Perhaps additional payment structures can be arranged to fill the hole that caused Gamefly to come about?
Does this make me a celebrity?
/AM/ important on the internet! Woohoo!
My god...then it's true! I
"No mom!", I won't do what ya told me!
"Ewwww no!", I won't do what ya told me!"
"Gosh darnit!", I won't do what ya told ME!"
The strumming is easily forgone, but I think they needed at least some of the feel to keep the lure of drumming there. Tiny little kids immediately go, "Oooo! Whacking stuff and making big noise!" and love it. The feedback in your hand is part of what produces that basic response to drumming.
The two games are different enough that the skills earned in one do not transfer to another. And yes, I just referred to the guitar as a game(a /great/ game btw), it's just a different medium for the entertainment.
So really, why play guitar when you can play DDR? Why play videogames when you can play baseball? Why play baseball when you can go bungeejumping? These are very different activities with different methods for entertaining the user. The guitar offers creativity and freedom, the guitar hero game offers a casual rhythm-based game with measurable feedback.
I've been playing guitar for several years. I enjoy Guitar Hero too.
I can appreciate the skill of a guitar genius, but there is no inherent significance to being able to play a guitar well. It's still just a game.
Can you cite some examples of the specific users who flew into a frothing racist rage regarding immigrant workers and then cheerlead when in the case of Google?
I think what you are seeing here is a case of people with own individual opinions being blended together to form what appears to be an irreconcilable platform. There's no clash in the statements when it comes from different people. Sort of like how Americans are pro-war and anti-war. Americans can be pro-war and anti-war because the individuals that compose it can pick either direction.
Predatory pricing has a perjorative connotation. The term is usually trotted out in the case of a dominant market leader in a market with low amounts of competition trying to squeeze out a fresh competitor by suffering temporary losses. Here it's a relatively fresh competitor trying to squeeze /into/ a market with low amounts of competition by suffering large losses. The carcasses of dead consoles line this industry, it is extremely hard to enter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader
Is what is being done. Predatory pricing is an established market power temporarily reducing their prices to loss levels to keep out competition. The difference here is that the fresh competition is taking loss levels first, in order to become competitive, which is good for the market overall(but risky for the company doing so, which is what I mean by those corpses).
And even with MS's huge pockets propelling them to #1 early this generation, it looks like Nintendo will be passing them by the end of the year, and leaving them in the dust by the end of the generation, and the company has never adopted a loss-lead strategy.
With 3 major players, gamers have it pretty good actually with the increased competition. The console gaming industry already has high levels of product differentiation which is sort of like a partial monopoly in that a company is granted some level of market power due to idiosyncracies of their product. You miiight be able to substitute between a PS3 and an Xbox360, but substituting to or from a Wii is much harder to justify. The three are not directly equivalent because of product differentiation, so they are able to wield power due to this inelasticity.
Haha, thank you, that saying immediately came to mind, but I couldn't remember the exact wording or source so I didn't bother embarassing myself by referencing it in my own comment.
Intentionally sabotaging licensees is pretty extreme, and unlikely since it carries so much risk for a business since the fallout would be so severe. Epic probably just failed to meet their promises. I'm suprised that the contract didn't have any late clauses already embedded in the terms and conditions.
I want to see some evidence, from both sides.
IANAL but my guess is:
The simplest and most likely scenario here is that Epic promised to ship some code out, and missed their deadline. It's not very unusual for this to happen, deadlines get missed all the time, particularly in the gaming industry. SK is covering their bases (which is the smart thing to do) by making the claim include the possibility that Epic did it intentionally, which would be considerably harder to prove, but is in there just in case that's what happened.
If it was just a missed deadline, it looks like whatever clauses were already in the contract's terms and conditions for this scenario will be invoked(why the HELL would they not include a late delivery clause? There has to be one in there already), or failing that, just a nulled contract, possibly with some compensation for the inconvenience. Slashdotters probably already know that there's very little chance of the Gears profits being handed over. People claim whatever they want, that doesn't mean the court will decide to award it to them.
The problem you two are facing is that you're seeing different interpretations of the text in play.
/economic/ profit. That's correct. That is very extreme case with relatively few real-world scenarios, and none if taken in a strict definition.
In "perfect competition" there is no
In low-competition markets, there is plenty of profit to be had. Whether or not this makes someone rich will depend on a number of factors besides how many players are in the market(sustainability for one).
There is a large range between perfect competitive and monopolistic markets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index
The above is one way to test competition. This still doesn't account for product differentiation(why ipods can be priced higher than mp3 players that have more features). Also needs adjustment to examine local markets as well(There can be a ton of competition in the country, but if there's just 1 store within 100 miles of me, there's not much competition going on).
Console war news is like sports news for geeks.
The lives of the poor are cheap. They are easily replaceable.
/very/ expensive.
The lives of American soldiers are
As for population, a population replaces itself when a gap is created. Post WWII, post-Black Plague, the population bounces back to fill the gap when the infrastructure is still around to support it(not necessarily physicial, technological or long-term economic structure also counts).
People with nothing to lose can afford a war of attrition against those with something to lose.
I haven't found it particularly fun.
What about morality in the face of changing states?
In the face of complete unknowability(since I can't experience any objective perspective), I've either got faith or I've got nothing. If everything about me can change, what is left of me? Was I there to begin with?
After all the philosophy crap is done, I'm still there, all I have left is reality and reality sucks. Venturing down these roads just brings me back to to dwelling on this point that reality sucks and anything beyond it is hopelessly unprovable. So thinking about it isn't very fun. I have to either "just be" or sprout a faith-based cosmology.
I'm stuck between a cosmology based only on the real-world where absolute insignificance and futility reigns supreme, or a faith-based cosmology which will deal with perpetual doubt since certainty will never be within reach. So I'm stuck in a world I hate, and am unable to reconcile the doubt in my mind with a world I could be happy in.
So I have to "just be happy". And that means not thinking about anything that would go beyond feeling happy(induced by whatever means most sustainable).
I believe there's a major artery passing through the groin. Not necessarily accessed through the penis itself, but very close to it.
Not sure why they'd use that one though. Perhaps it's because a bed-ridden patient would move that area less? I'm just throwing out guesses, someone more qualified will have to answer.
I hate to break out web 2.0 buzz, but it is applicable in this case. The response is meta-data. There's a lot of crap to sift through to find the useful information, and meta-data helps pre-filter the results. Everything still needs to get passed through the reader's own crap-filter(for example, never look at positive comments on a sales site, only compare the negatives). Getting multiple sources is the reader's job now, and hopefully over time, "meta" sites will mature to keep ahead of the tidal wave of crap.
I'm first interested in the Slashdot comments, they're what I use to decide if the article is trustworthy, and/or worth reading.
They're pretty good compared to other forms of pre-packaged food in consumer markets. Way better than just-add-water or frozen foods at the supermarket. I used to buy them from a military surplus store in the area.
Don't forget the PS3 ad with the football(soccer) fanboy sitting naked except for a jockstrap on his bed fapping to a football game.
And the busty blonde in a pink bikini telling audiences a story about her mom while sitting on the porcelain throne, panties down.
The solution has been around: "Easy to play, hard to master."
You don't have to be a pro to enjoy a sport, an instrument, or a game and yet pros can keep engrossed so long as there's room for growth.