Parent is insightful. Was talking about this awhile ago, Malthus had come up.
I'll try to save the wikipedia link. Thomas Malthus noted that population grows exponentially(more people means more people to mate, which means more people...etc.). However, agricultural production grew at a linear rate(this is a rough simplification, plant a field, get a crop, plant 2 fields, get 2 crops).
Plotting the linear line and the exponential curve would have the two intersecting at some point. After this point, you don't have enough food to sustain further population growth, everyone at this point lives at only subsistence levels.
Inventing new technologies and using resources more efficiently is how this Malthusian equilibrium is thwarted. Agriculture hasn't grown as a linear line, instead we find "kinks" in it where technology increases the productivity faster than population growth.
Instead of referring to food in particular, you can imagine other resources in place of food, like energy. Unless we develop technology to produce energy at a rate faster than a growing population will consume it, we will be in deep doodoo.
We won't be able to sustain civilization by allowing supply and demand forces to shift us to accepting a lifestyle on little oil. Hopefully, the prices for oil will increase at a slow rate, slow enough that economies manage to struggle along while the high price on oil increases the economic profit of developing alternative energy sources.
The key is keeping alive long enough for new tech to appear. As long as the technology keeps being developed, we won't have to live at a Malthusian equilibrium. Faster technological development can be acquired by producing higher levels of education and research.
The woman's commentary is interesting. she doesn't consider her gaming an addiction because it's not destructive. While she spends less time going out, she feels that she has merely supplanted going out with going online. A transplanted social life.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle ground between the two extremes.
As a college student, instant messaging has become a vital form of communication amongst myself and my peers. To lose access to instant messaging would severely restrict my social access. It's a less attention consuming form of contact than a phone conversation and it allows me to converse with multiple friends at the same time rather than being tied down to one at a time. Often my buddies plan to head out somewhere over the ventrilo chat channel. If I'm not at a computer I'd miss out.
We play games together as a group, it's a social activity that has introduced me to the bulk of my hometown friends. It supplants gathering 'round for a football game since only a few of us are even interested in spots.
I didn't grow up immersed in sports, undiagnosed athsma kept me from excelling in sports for a long time and instead video games took its place as a recreational activity.
There was a time when video games seemed to be the sole niche of an underground geek culture. However, as time progressed, the video game industry has blossomed and television advertisements for games have become commonplace. Many geeks would come to wonder when jocks started playing games too. They had probably been playing all along, but since video games have become more prevalent, society has become more accepting of this hobby and more are admitting to the activity.
Humanity has experienced a diverse set of lifestyles. We've tilled fields to scratch out subsistence lives in the countryside and washed ourselves with buckets of water, we've moved into cities and have become accustomed to commuting to work over distances that would have taken a full day of travel, and we are now touching upon an age where computers will become a natural extension of our lives.
How much is too much? This is clearly a question of values. Notably physical health is questioned. Also, mental health may come into question when some choose to completely divorce themselves from reality in order to live out another life they find more comforting. Society will also come to consider how much "real" social contact can be replaced with virtual contact.
(Btw, at some point, we're going to have to figure out a system to properly convey a range of emotions through text if we are going to make virtual contact more like real contact. We might need to upgrade keyboards with emotion keys akin to Caps Lock and make the necessary software changes. The earlier slashdot article on misconstrued posts raises this question already)
I have the same doubts about how well games can prepare you for violence. I have played a LOT of games, and have been playing a long while and from an early age.
I know that FPS games and such can teach you situational awareness(After you get as good as you can get with your aim, only way to break your natural limit of accuracy is by making sure you always get optimal shooting situations with situational awareness.) This obviously won't immediately translate since you lack the immersion, but the concept of how the flow of battles works can be taught in games.
But preparing you for violence? I've seen all the gory movies and laughed them off. I've seen japanese "snuff" movies with people kidnapping teenage girls and boiling, putting needles in their eyes, burrowing worms in their skin, cheesegrating their flesh, pretty vicious stuff(these movies got some media spotlight when americans thought that these particular movies were real, they weren't). But see, though these movies were able to make others they were real, but just the fact that I knew they were fake was enough to desensitize me.
However, when I see certain videos of real deaths I get incredibly sickened. Even when it's a death by gunshot, relatively cleaner than being boiled to death, it's still far more sickening because of the awareness that this a real person dying.
Videogames desensitizes me to violence only when I know it's fake. Real violence still deeply disturbs me. It'll take much more than a game to make me happy to see someone die, even if it's just a video.
Who is this letter being addressed to? Who will it reach that have the power to change the status quo?
I'm wondering what purpose this announcement serves. I'm glad to hear this, but is this just lipservice or a precursor to some real action?
I'm at a loss as to how such a major policy change can be brought about in China aside from a sudden onset of mass altruism. Part of it stems from a very poor understanding of the Chinese government structure. I'm sure I'm not the only one in the U.S that doesn't know.
Regardless of the rest of your post(which does indeed have food for thought), just wanna point out that freedom speech is one of the most crucial freedoms.
If you lose the ability to have free speech, you're far more likely to lose all the rest of your freedoms(though you can lose them even with free speech like you noted with your commentary on democracy).
A government can say what it wants and do what it wants when there is no freedom of speech. You may not even be able to protest with thought. You can't dissaprove of government actions that you don't know about. You can't fight these through a political process or even a violent protest if nobody knows about it.
A right to freedom of speech(that is enforced) allows the population to potentially change many things. They may not always win, but if no one even hears about the issue, then the war is lost before it begins.
Freedom of speech is among the most important rights we have.
This is unfortunately quite true. China's chock full of beneficial trade with its cheap labor. If we decide to cut off trade, that just means we don't get their very cheap prices. Us American consumers now have to spend more on a multitude of products.
Also, all that business that China has when exporting to us will be cut off, so they'll just do business with someone else.
Or, what if they can't replace that business with trade in other countries? They have less demand for their cheap labor products and their child labor won't even get the piddling amount they make right now. Many of those kids are working because if they don't their families will starve along with them. If we can induce a recession in China by stopping trade(possible, but not likely) the poor people will be hurt first. Even if they're hurting, there are levels of poverty that can be endured. How many other places have we sanctioned? How often has it worked vs. how often it's been used?
Those in power in China don't have to care about approval from the people. They can afford to live luxuriously even if their populace is hurting. They can't even be voted or petitioned(petitioners can and do "dissapear"). They can afford to just stifle protesters instead of trying to address the problems that brought them out, sometimes they do this violently.
It's unfortunate but true, we trade with them to reap from their child labor. There just aren't any easy answers. I know I can't think of any:( It's a terrible thing.
I had quit games for about 9 months when my computer had died. I felt it was a good time to try to kick the habit.
All I ended up doing was: 1) Reading more leisure books(useless fantasy and sci-fi) 2) Playing guitar(which is basically just another game) 3) Watching TV(and I normally never watch TV) 4) Weightlifting more(and the bulk of the health benefits from exercise are reaped in the first 30 minutes each day)
You tend to find other distractions and recreational activities to replace gaming time. A real increase in productivity doesn't come from not playing games, it requires an increase in motivation to work at the stuff you don't want to do(or better yet, convincing yourself that you actually want to do it).
As for socialization, I met my best friend in middle school through Starcraft. He's still my best friend in senior year of college. All my buddies back at home, I had never talked to in highschool. But I had met them all through ventrilo while playing games with them, and they had also introduced me to their friends, and so on. So because of games, I have a bunch of friends I had never met throughout all of highschool.
There's nothing wrong with videogames, it's just another form of entertainment like all the others. And just like all the others, it's only a problem when you start doing it to the point that it hurts other parts of your life.
When my internet connection is dead for so long that it can't talk to its servres at least once every couple of weeks, I'm probably admist a major internet blackout in my area, due to a freak accident, major disaster, or foreign military occupation.
I'd probably be more freaked out that my internet is gone and not coming back than my inability to play my old games in singleplayer.
Still, no question that it's a bummer to not be able to play the games of the past. But I suppose I'll just have to console myself with the games of the present and keep the classics in my memories when that day comes. I'll be bummed for a bit, but I'm sure I'll just move on and forget about it.
You bring up a fascinating point. It's been discussed before, but since time has progressed, it seems we may be getting closer and closer to the implementation of such a thing. If only we had the resource/security/broad user base necessary:P
It would be an amazing thing to see embedded chatrooms in webpages. It'd allow for "bumping into strangers" on the internet, vastly increasing social potential. Chatrooms already allow for those of similar interests to meet, and so do forums. However, by placing it directly on the same page, you lower the amount of initiative needed to go to these places to find those with common interests.
Subject material could immediately be dissected amongst fellow readers. They may have access to information beyond the scope of the article itself, and can provide additional insight into the subject. Obviously, Slashdot provides a similar service through a threaded forum. It'd be fascinating to see a similar thing appear on other websites in a chat format(minus the inane beowulf references).
Forums like slashdots do provide features that cannot be easily mimicked by a chat interface. Nevertheless, I wonder when(if ever) we'd be able to see something like this.
Hmm, those are some pretty extreme examples that may not explain the problem well enough. In the above, I'm sure the jews weren't well informed and willing subjects. I doubt the orphans would be willing to contract AIDS, not if they understood what it was.
I would use a different example. Say the test involves some sort of danger or discomfort. What sort of people would/rationally/ undertake such experiences? You'd only get people who enjoy danger and discomfort. Such people would need "help", not more danger and discomfort. These folk ought to be convinced to change this behavior since it brings about hazard to their well-being. It broaches the very controversial debate regarding suicide(Most try to convince others not to commit suicide, while some feel that under certain circumstances and a right to the self makes suicide legitimate). It's very rocky moral ground.
Take a homeless guy. The videos of the homeless people engaging in dangerous stunts and beating each other bloody for a small amount of food have circulated on the internet for awhile. A homeless guy would love to join up for a pain test for a slice of pizza. He could be well-informed and willing. The morality of offering a test that would inflict pain on the vagrant is very questionable. Such desperate folk would probably be offered many opportunities for such dangerous experiments if such prohibition was not levied. They'd probably be the majority of the subjects of these tests.
Another example is prostitution. Let's take a developing country where there is little money to be had. Many teenaged boys and girls offer themselves up for prostitution to avoid starvation. If offered, of course they'd sign up for the tests, well-informed and willing. But many would argue that such tests on them would be exploitation, much like if they were offered prostitution instead of sex.
There's no question that we'd receive great deal of useful research if we allowed such testing. The potential benefit for the world at large may even outweigh the exploitation(this is a loaded word, but I don't want it to be interpreted as such, too lazy to use a thesaurus). It's just that the moral stigma is too great of a short-term obstacle to overcome.
But there are other places in the world where such questions of morality can be ignored. Maybe the research can be accomplished over there. Personally I'd find it deplorable, but there is definitely plenty of room for argument.
I have similar sentiment regarding Google's action.
The clincher is, if Google did NOT comply with China's demands, what would be the result? I don't think this has been considered enough.
Yahoo and Microsoft have already obliged China's demands of censorship. The only result of Google not complying with the demands is that Google won't be in China. China will get Yahoo and Microsoft, and the SAME amount of censorship.
If Google doesn't become China's search engine, then Yahoo would be. Why would this be a better outcome?
Google following China's demands isn't going to make China worse off in some way. But it does give them a powerful search tool. The more information in general that they get, the better off they'll be. The more access they have, the better the chance that censored information will slip through to them. And more effective access to the internet will bring positive effects to the Chinese economy. Denying the Chinese people the most effective search engine hurts them more than a symbolic rejection of the Chinese government would help them. Because that's all it'd be, a symbolic gesture.
It would make a statement of protest to the Chinese government. But to what end? Google isn't in a position to change these censorship laws, they really cannot affect them at all. I don't foresee a grassroots rebellion of the Chinese people or their government pushing for free speech if Google chooses not to offer their services to China.
Google isn't producing any good in doing this, there never was an opportunity. However, they aren't bringing about any harm either.
I remember quite clearly the day I ended up valuing opportunities to read.
I was an elementary school student. I was at home playing with my action figurines when suddenly my big sister(10 years my senior) laughed aloud at a fantasy book she was reading. Naturally this incurred my curiousity at what was clearly a great deal of fun for my big sister. She hands me a book, the point from which I proceeded to read every book in her bookshelf.
It was such a little thing that happened so long ago, but it had a tremendous impact on my education to this day. I believe the book she was reading was part of the Belgariad, by David Eddings. Those books came to be among my favorites.
My anecdotal experience is that I had around 1200 on my first full-length SAT tests, and a 1450 official score after tutoring. It was a 250 point increase.
I understand why you'd think that IQ-related tests wouldn't be increased by a bit of study, I'd agree. However, the tutoring isn't about making you smarter, it's tricks on how to discover correct answers by using good test-taking strategies. SATs only partially test intelligence, a significant aspect of it is testing your ability to answer multiple choice questions.
Thing is, college is jam-packed with multiple choice questions as well. This is due to overcrowding in undergraduate programs(grading 100 essay exams would make the professors want to cut themselves). The SAT tutoring was helpful in college too...
I'm a college student. I'd agree with most of the things you've said...to a point.
Fact is, most college students are NOT there to learn the various subjects they're signed up for. They just want the diploma, and the 4-5 year trip away from their parents is just part of it. They want to take that diploma and make lower middle income wages in some office. Not everyone is an intellectual interested in higher learning. For the most part, they're folks who want to make money, have fun, and enjoy life. If studying isn't what they enjoy, I wouldn't be suprised to find that they only study the minimum amount required.
For most students, college is just a phase of life that must be endured on the way towards the working world. The expectations stated in your first paragraph are still the goals for highschool to today(whether or not they're met). For people to make enough money to buy the lifestyle they want, businesses want a college degree as a minimum. High school used to be enough. College is the new minimum. The businesses will know what to expect from an undergrad student. When they want the self-propelled intellectuals, they hire on graduate students.
Those who personally enjoy knowledge(or want to qualify for that bigger paycheck), end up going on to do graduate work where they "learn to learn". Undergrad is for churning through basics, rote memorization gets the fundamental knowledge into their heads. Now with their fundamental knowledge they can begin to digest what information they're getting. They're learning to walk in undergrad, and learning to run as graduate students. The higher education experience of which you speak still remains in the form of graduate students.
As for myself, I find knowledge invigorating; it's an enjoyable diversion. I keep up with currents events, I buy history books on my own, I'm teaching myself a language. Small minor expansions of my educational horizons on my own time. However, the fact is that the bulk of my time is spent on maintaining that high GPA so that I can secure a good entry-level job with opportunities for advancement. Knowledge in and of itself is merely entertainment for a low-brow such as I. It will only receive as much focus as my primary commitments will allow. I am well aware of the "power" it has, and the liberating effects it has for the scholar. When we students do not pursue it, it's usually a choice that was made either consciously or subconsciously.
Indeed, I enjoy reading negative reviews for the things that I'm considering purchasing. I can get positive reviews from the manufacturer and the retailers, don't really need to read positive reviews from users, just need to know that they're there.
If I can get a negative review from a user that still concedes the important positive traits to be true I feel much more assured. The fact that they mention negatives lets me know I can trust their positive remarks to be more truth than fan-worship. It also implies the user to have attempted an even-handed examination without the exaggerations that crop up in homogenously positive or negative reviews. There's almost always a bad-side, however small it may be. I feel safer knowing what I'm getting into.
You don't/need/ a rogue to get through traps. Watch IGN's video archives regarding this game. A set of repeating blades slice out of the walls and floor in a specific pattern. The player memorizes the pattern and makes his/her way through the trap without injury.
They go inside to encounter a large ogre(not sure what it is, just that it's about 4 times the size of the cleric).
They mix it up a little, before the cleric flees out through the trap once more. The trap skewers the player for quite a bit of damage, but at least it hurt the ogre worse, killing it.
Disabling traps is helpful, but not necessary.
No PVP at the moment. No need to deal with people trying to gank using rogues.
This all doesn't mean Turbine is somehow better for these implementations, because these implementations bring problems of their owns. I'm just lending some information to clear up your post.
Actually, the lack of AIM support is exactly why I wasn't using Gtalk. It was the only thing keeping me from switching over. I like the clean and simple interface much better than AIM. I'm already using and love Google sidebar, and all the little services it performs for me. Now I can get my IM client tucked in there as well. I love Trillian and all, but they've been getting screwed whenever AOL makes a change. Now that Google is getting sanctioned in the use of the AIM networks, I can finally have the clean simple IM client I've always wanted.
Just because Google's got stakes in AOL doesn't make it inherently evil. Perhaps Google will go infect AOL with quality or something. It's not that Google promised not to make any money. They just don't want to cause undue harm to the public in the process of making money. The "Do no evil" is already a motto that should be generating benefits for them. It's a blend of capitalism and conscience. Capitalism itself is only upsetting for the social harm it may cause.
Burn Google each time they screw people, but not because you're scared that they might.
If I was on a metered pay model, I would be/PISSED OFF/ having to sit around looking for a group just so I can start playing while paying for every moment. Every little tiresome game mechanism designed to waste your time would start to drive me insane since I'd have to pay for all the time they intentionally waste. Slow leveling curves, unnecessarily long travel times, long cooldown/rest periods. Anything that keeps me from actually playing would drive me insane.
The reason such time wasting methods are acceptable is that people accept using up their time. They don't mind because they're on a flat rate. If some are playing on a variable rate in a game paced for flat rates, then all they'll think about is "When the game does this to me, they're just taking my money without entertaining me." The gameplay for a variable rate MMO would not be compatible for a flatrate MMO. In order for the two pay models to work together, the MMO itself would need to be designed to accomodate variable pay first, and then have the flat rate as an option, not the other way around.
The best way to honor these fallen dollars would be to stay invested, not pulling out. To create a timetable for withdrawal is dangerous and unamerican. Microsoft must stay invested until the Xbox division can stand for itself.
Is this really a "problem". Is making money intrinsically wrong? Increasing shareholder value is the primary goal of any company.
There's already been advertisements in MxO, even in the beta for the game, they had billboards for the movie Constantine. It's billboards, you don't need to stop and stare at them just because they're there. They've already been in the game.
If they were to say, implement more billboards instead of swapping the billboards already in place, that would then be a problem since it'd obstruct the airspace of those jumping across rooftops.
The player population in this game isn't too large. They missed their population projections by enough that they chose to merge servers.
Advertisers just want to get the best return on their advertising dollar. If there's a small population being touched upon, the return is lower. However if that small population is also precisely the sort of people who'd buy the product then the return is higher. I'm guessing that if they want to bother sinking money into MxO for advertising, they'll be advertising something that these players would be likely to want.
Most likely, since this is a fairly limited advertising venue, MxO will only be charging a small amount for the advertising space. The amount they make will be far far too low to eliminate monthly fees. However, this does keep them from killing the MxO project by making it a little more profitable. that, or it provides more money to make more content with.
Newspapers are big, with huge ads. Those ads don't mean you get less news in your paper. Ads provide money that the newspaper can use to provide more. More ads are a good thing until they damage the primary utility of the venue(Like those flash pop-ups vs. the unobstrusive google ads).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm afraid I'll have to ask for examples.
Parent is insightful. Was talking about this awhile ago, Malthus had come up.
I'll try to save the wikipedia link. Thomas Malthus noted that population grows exponentially(more people means more people to mate, which means more people...etc.). However, agricultural production grew at a linear rate(this is a rough simplification, plant a field, get a crop, plant 2 fields, get 2 crops).
Plotting the linear line and the exponential curve would have the two intersecting at some point. After this point, you don't have enough food to sustain further population growth, everyone at this point lives at only subsistence levels.
Inventing new technologies and using resources more efficiently is how this Malthusian equilibrium is thwarted. Agriculture hasn't grown as a linear line, instead we find "kinks" in it where technology increases the productivity faster than population growth.
Instead of referring to food in particular, you can imagine other resources in place of food, like energy. Unless we develop technology to produce energy at a rate faster than a growing population will consume it, we will be in deep doodoo.
We won't be able to sustain civilization by allowing supply and demand forces to shift us to accepting a lifestyle on little oil. Hopefully, the prices for oil will increase at a slow rate, slow enough that economies manage to struggle along while the high price on oil increases the economic profit of developing alternative energy sources.
The key is keeping alive long enough for new tech to appear. As long as the technology keeps being developed, we won't have to live at a Malthusian equilibrium. Faster technological development can be acquired by producing higher levels of education and research.
The woman's commentary is interesting. she doesn't consider her gaming an addiction because it's not destructive. While she spends less time going out, she feels that she has merely supplanted going out with going online. A transplanted social life.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle ground between the two extremes.
As a college student, instant messaging has become a vital form of communication amongst myself and my peers. To lose access to instant messaging would severely restrict my social access. It's a less attention consuming form of contact than a phone conversation and it allows me to converse with multiple friends at the same time rather than being tied down to one at a time. Often my buddies plan to head out somewhere over the ventrilo chat channel. If I'm not at a computer I'd miss out.
We play games together as a group, it's a social activity that has introduced me to the bulk of my hometown friends. It supplants gathering 'round for a football game since only a few of us are even interested in spots.
I didn't grow up immersed in sports, undiagnosed athsma kept me from excelling in sports for a long time and instead video games took its place as a recreational activity.
There was a time when video games seemed to be the sole niche of an underground geek culture. However, as time progressed, the video game industry has blossomed and television advertisements for games have become commonplace. Many geeks would come to wonder when jocks started playing games too. They had probably been playing all along, but since video games have become more prevalent, society has become more accepting of this hobby and more are admitting to the activity.
Humanity has experienced a diverse set of lifestyles. We've tilled fields to scratch out subsistence lives in the countryside and washed ourselves with buckets of water, we've moved into cities and have become accustomed to commuting to work over distances that would have taken a full day of travel, and we are now touching upon an age where computers will become a natural extension of our lives.
How much is too much? This is clearly a question of values. Notably physical health is questioned. Also, mental health may come into question when some choose to completely divorce themselves from reality in order to live out another life they find more comforting. Society will also come to consider how much "real" social contact can be replaced with virtual contact.
(Btw, at some point, we're going to have to figure out a system to properly convey a range of emotions through text if we are going to make virtual contact more like real contact. We might need to upgrade keyboards with emotion keys akin to Caps Lock and make the necessary software changes. The earlier slashdot article on misconstrued posts raises this question already)
I have the same doubts about how well games can prepare you for violence. I have played a LOT of games, and have been playing a long while and from an early age.
I know that FPS games and such can teach you situational awareness(After you get as good as you can get with your aim, only way to break your natural limit of accuracy is by making sure you always get optimal shooting situations with situational awareness.) This obviously won't immediately translate since you lack the immersion, but the concept of how the flow of battles works can be taught in games.
But preparing you for violence? I've seen all the gory movies and laughed them off. I've seen japanese "snuff" movies with people kidnapping teenage girls and boiling, putting needles in their eyes, burrowing worms in their skin, cheesegrating their flesh, pretty vicious stuff(these movies got some media spotlight when americans thought that these particular movies were real, they weren't). But see, though these movies were able to make others they were real, but just the fact that I knew they were fake was enough to desensitize me.
However, when I see certain videos of real deaths I get incredibly sickened. Even when it's a death by gunshot, relatively cleaner than being boiled to death, it's still far more sickening because of the awareness that this a real person dying.
Videogames desensitizes me to violence only when I know it's fake. Real violence still deeply disturbs me. It'll take much more than a game to make me happy to see someone die, even if it's just a video.
Who is this letter being addressed to? Who will it reach that have the power to change the status quo?
I'm wondering what purpose this announcement serves. I'm glad to hear this, but is this just lipservice or a precursor to some real action?
I'm at a loss as to how such a major policy change can be brought about in China aside from a sudden onset of mass altruism. Part of it stems from a very poor understanding of the Chinese government structure. I'm sure I'm not the only one in the U.S that doesn't know.
Can someone fill in these information gaps?
Regardless of the rest of your post(which does indeed have food for thought), just wanna point out that freedom speech is one of the most crucial freedoms.
If you lose the ability to have free speech, you're far more likely to lose all the rest of your freedoms(though you can lose them even with free speech like you noted with your commentary on democracy).
A government can say what it wants and do what it wants when there is no freedom of speech. You may not even be able to protest with thought. You can't dissaprove of government actions that you don't know about. You can't fight these through a political process or even a violent protest if nobody knows about it.
A right to freedom of speech(that is enforced) allows the population to potentially change many things. They may not always win, but if no one even hears about the issue, then the war is lost before it begins.
Freedom of speech is among the most important rights we have.
...Would he even be allowed to talk to us on Slashdot if he did go to China?
I don't actually know whether or not he can, I'm just wondering.
This is unfortunately quite true. China's chock full of beneficial trade with its cheap labor. If we decide to cut off trade, that just means we don't get their very cheap prices. Us American consumers now have to spend more on a multitude of products.
:( It's a terrible thing.
Also, all that business that China has when exporting to us will be cut off, so they'll just do business with someone else.
Or, what if they can't replace that business with trade in other countries? They have less demand for their cheap labor products and their child labor won't even get the piddling amount they make right now. Many of those kids are working because if they don't their families will starve along with them. If we can induce a recession in China by stopping trade(possible, but not likely) the poor people will be hurt first. Even if they're hurting, there are levels of poverty that can be endured. How many other places have we sanctioned? How often has it worked vs. how often it's been used?
Those in power in China don't have to care about approval from the people. They can afford to live luxuriously even if their populace is hurting. They can't even be voted or petitioned(petitioners can and do "dissapear"). They can afford to just stifle protesters instead of trying to address the problems that brought them out, sometimes they do this violently.
It's unfortunate but true, we trade with them to reap from their child labor. There just aren't any easy answers. I know I can't think of any
I had quit games for about 9 months when my computer had died. I felt it was a good time to try to kick the habit.
All I ended up doing was:
1) Reading more leisure books(useless fantasy and sci-fi)
2) Playing guitar(which is basically just another game)
3) Watching TV(and I normally never watch TV)
4) Weightlifting more(and the bulk of the health benefits from exercise are reaped in the first 30 minutes each day)
You tend to find other distractions and recreational activities to replace gaming time. A real increase in productivity doesn't come from not playing games, it requires an increase in motivation to work at the stuff you don't want to do(or better yet, convincing yourself that you actually want to do it).
As for socialization, I met my best friend in middle school through Starcraft. He's still my best friend in senior year of college. All my buddies back at home, I had never talked to in highschool. But I had met them all through ventrilo while playing games with them, and they had also introduced me to their friends, and so on. So because of games, I have a bunch of friends I had never met throughout all of highschool.
There's nothing wrong with videogames, it's just another form of entertainment like all the others. And just like all the others, it's only a problem when you start doing it to the point that it hurts other parts of your life.
When my internet connection is dead for so long that it can't talk to its servres at least once every couple of weeks, I'm probably admist a major internet blackout in my area, due to a freak accident, major disaster, or foreign military occupation.
I'd probably be more freaked out that my internet is gone and not coming back than my inability to play my old games in singleplayer.
Still, no question that it's a bummer to not be able to play the games of the past. But I suppose I'll just have to console myself with the games of the present and keep the classics in my memories when that day comes. I'll be bummed for a bit, but I'm sure I'll just move on and forget about it.
You bring up a fascinating point. It's been discussed before, but since time has progressed, it seems we may be getting closer and closer to the implementation of such a thing. If only we had the resource/security/broad user base necessary:P
It would be an amazing thing to see embedded chatrooms in webpages. It'd allow for "bumping into strangers" on the internet, vastly increasing social potential. Chatrooms already allow for those of similar interests to meet, and so do forums. However, by placing it directly on the same page, you lower the amount of initiative needed to go to these places to find those with common interests.
Subject material could immediately be dissected amongst fellow readers. They may have access to information beyond the scope of the article itself, and can provide additional insight into the subject. Obviously, Slashdot provides a similar service through a threaded forum. It'd be fascinating to see a similar thing appear on other websites in a chat format(minus the inane beowulf references).
Forums like slashdots do provide features that cannot be easily mimicked by a chat interface. Nevertheless, I wonder when(if ever) we'd be able to see something like this.
Hmm, those are some pretty extreme examples that may not explain the problem well enough. In the above, I'm sure the jews weren't well informed and willing subjects. I doubt the orphans would be willing to contract AIDS, not if they understood what it was.
/rationally/ undertake such experiences? You'd only get people who enjoy danger and discomfort. Such people would need "help", not more danger and discomfort. These folk ought to be convinced to change this behavior since it brings about hazard to their well-being. It broaches the very controversial debate regarding suicide(Most try to convince others not to commit suicide, while some feel that under certain circumstances and a right to the self makes suicide legitimate). It's very rocky moral ground.
I would use a different example. Say the test involves some sort of danger or discomfort. What sort of people would
Take a homeless guy. The videos of the homeless people engaging in dangerous stunts and beating each other bloody for a small amount of food have circulated on the internet for awhile. A homeless guy would love to join up for a pain test for a slice of pizza. He could be well-informed and willing. The morality of offering a test that would inflict pain on the vagrant is very questionable. Such desperate folk would probably be offered many opportunities for such dangerous experiments if such prohibition was not levied. They'd probably be the majority of the subjects of these tests.
Another example is prostitution. Let's take a developing country where there is little money to be had. Many teenaged boys and girls offer themselves up for prostitution to avoid starvation. If offered, of course they'd sign up for the tests, well-informed and willing. But many would argue that such tests on them would be exploitation, much like if they were offered prostitution instead of sex.
There's no question that we'd receive great deal of useful research if we allowed such testing. The potential benefit for the world at large may even outweigh the exploitation(this is a loaded word, but I don't want it to be interpreted as such, too lazy to use a thesaurus). It's just that the moral stigma is too great of a short-term obstacle to overcome.
But there are other places in the world where such questions of morality can be ignored. Maybe the research can be accomplished over there. Personally I'd find it deplorable, but there is definitely plenty of room for argument.
I have similar sentiment regarding Google's action.
The clincher is, if Google did NOT comply with China's demands, what would be the result? I don't think this has been considered enough.
Yahoo and Microsoft have already obliged China's demands of censorship. The only result of Google not complying with the demands is that Google won't be in China. China will get Yahoo and Microsoft, and the SAME amount of censorship.
If Google doesn't become China's search engine, then Yahoo would be. Why would this be a better outcome?
Google following China's demands isn't going to make China worse off in some way. But it does give them a powerful search tool. The more information in general that they get, the better off they'll be. The more access they have, the better the chance that censored information will slip through to them. And more effective access to the internet will bring positive effects to the Chinese economy. Denying the Chinese people the most effective search engine hurts them more than a symbolic rejection of the Chinese government would help them. Because that's all it'd be, a symbolic gesture.
It would make a statement of protest to the Chinese government. But to what end? Google isn't in a position to change these censorship laws, they really cannot affect them at all. I don't foresee a grassroots rebellion of the Chinese people or their government pushing for free speech if Google chooses not to offer their services to China.
Google isn't producing any good in doing this, there never was an opportunity. However, they aren't bringing about any harm either.
I remember quite clearly the day I ended up valuing opportunities to read.
I was an elementary school student. I was at home playing with my action figurines when suddenly my big sister(10 years my senior) laughed aloud at a fantasy book she was reading. Naturally this incurred my curiousity at what was clearly a great deal of fun for my big sister. She hands me a book, the point from which I proceeded to read every book in her bookshelf.
It was such a little thing that happened so long ago, but it had a tremendous impact on my education to this day. I believe the book she was reading was part of the Belgariad, by David Eddings. Those books came to be among my favorites.
My anecdotal experience is that I had around 1200 on my first full-length SAT tests, and a 1450 official score after tutoring. It was a 250 point increase.
I understand why you'd think that IQ-related tests wouldn't be increased by a bit of study, I'd agree. However, the tutoring isn't about making you smarter, it's tricks on how to discover correct answers by using good test-taking strategies. SATs only partially test intelligence, a significant aspect of it is testing your ability to answer multiple choice questions.
Thing is, college is jam-packed with multiple choice questions as well. This is due to overcrowding in undergraduate programs(grading 100 essay exams would make the professors want to cut themselves). The SAT tutoring was helpful in college too...
I'm a college student. I'd agree with most of the things you've said...to a point.
Fact is, most college students are NOT there to learn the various subjects they're signed up for. They just want the diploma, and the 4-5 year trip away from their parents is just part of it. They want to take that diploma and make lower middle income wages in some office. Not everyone is an intellectual interested in higher learning. For the most part, they're folks who want to make money, have fun, and enjoy life. If studying isn't what they enjoy, I wouldn't be suprised to find that they only study the minimum amount required.
For most students, college is just a phase of life that must be endured on the way towards the working world. The expectations stated in your first paragraph are still the goals for highschool to today(whether or not they're met). For people to make enough money to buy the lifestyle they want, businesses want a college degree as a minimum. High school used to be enough. College is the new minimum. The businesses will know what to expect from an undergrad student. When they want the self-propelled intellectuals, they hire on graduate students.
Those who personally enjoy knowledge(or want to qualify for that bigger paycheck), end up going on to do graduate work where they "learn to learn". Undergrad is for churning through basics, rote memorization gets the fundamental knowledge into their heads. Now with their fundamental knowledge they can begin to digest what information they're getting. They're learning to walk in undergrad, and learning to run as graduate students. The higher education experience of which you speak still remains in the form of graduate students.
As for myself, I find knowledge invigorating; it's an enjoyable diversion. I keep up with currents events, I buy history books on my own, I'm teaching myself a language. Small minor expansions of my educational horizons on my own time. However, the fact is that the bulk of my time is spent on maintaining that high GPA so that I can secure a good entry-level job with opportunities for advancement. Knowledge in and of itself is merely entertainment for a low-brow such as I. It will only receive as much focus as my primary commitments will allow. I am well aware of the "power" it has, and the liberating effects it has for the scholar. When we students do not pursue it, it's usually a choice that was made either consciously or subconsciously.
Google's CEO makes $1 a year.
_ salary/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/08/technology/google
Indeed, I enjoy reading negative reviews for the things that I'm considering purchasing. I can get positive reviews from the manufacturer and the retailers, don't really need to read positive reviews from users, just need to know that they're there.
If I can get a negative review from a user that still concedes the important positive traits to be true I feel much more assured. The fact that they mention negatives lets me know I can trust their positive remarks to be more truth than fan-worship. It also implies the user to have attempted an even-handed examination without the exaggerations that crop up in homogenously positive or negative reviews. There's almost always a bad-side, however small it may be. I feel safer knowing what I'm getting into.
You don't /need/ a rogue to get through traps. Watch IGN's video archives regarding this game. A set of repeating blades slice out of the walls and floor in a specific pattern. The player memorizes the pattern and makes his/her way through the trap without injury.
They go inside to encounter a large ogre(not sure what it is, just that it's about 4 times the size of the cleric).
They mix it up a little, before the cleric flees out through the trap once more. The trap skewers the player for quite a bit of damage, but at least it hurt the ogre worse, killing it.
Disabling traps is helpful, but not necessary.
No PVP at the moment. No need to deal with people trying to gank using rogues.
This all doesn't mean Turbine is somehow better for these implementations, because these implementations bring problems of their owns. I'm just lending some information to clear up your post.
Actually, the lack of AIM support is exactly why I wasn't using Gtalk. It was the only thing keeping me from switching over. I like the clean and simple interface much better than AIM. I'm already using and love Google sidebar, and all the little services it performs for me. Now I can get my IM client tucked in there as well. I love Trillian and all, but they've been getting screwed whenever AOL makes a change. Now that Google is getting sanctioned in the use of the AIM networks, I can finally have the clean simple IM client I've always wanted.
Just because Google's got stakes in AOL doesn't make it inherently evil. Perhaps Google will go infect AOL with quality or something. It's not that Google promised not to make any money. They just don't want to cause undue harm to the public in the process of making money. The "Do no evil" is already a motto that should be generating benefits for them. It's a blend of capitalism and conscience. Capitalism itself is only upsetting for the social harm it may cause.
Burn Google each time they screw people, but not because you're scared that they might.
If I was on a metered pay model, I would be /PISSED OFF/ having to sit around looking for a group just so I can start playing while paying for every moment. Every little tiresome game mechanism designed to waste your time would start to drive me insane since I'd have to pay for all the time they intentionally waste. Slow leveling curves, unnecessarily long travel times, long cooldown/rest periods. Anything that keeps me from actually playing would drive me insane.
The reason such time wasting methods are acceptable is that people accept using up their time. They don't mind because they're on a flat rate. If some are playing on a variable rate in a game paced for flat rates, then all they'll think about is "When the game does this to me, they're just taking my money without entertaining me." The gameplay for a variable rate MMO would not be compatible for a flatrate MMO. In order for the two pay models to work together, the MMO itself would need to be designed to accomodate variable pay first, and then have the flat rate as an option, not the other way around.
The best way to honor these fallen dollars would be to stay invested, not pulling out. To create a timetable for withdrawal is dangerous and unamerican. Microsoft must stay invested until the Xbox division can stand for itself.
(It's ok to laugh at the joke.)
The best way to honor these fallen dollars is to spend more of them, not pulling out. To talk about a withdrawal timetable would be unamerican.
(It's ok to laugh.)
Is this really a "problem". Is making money intrinsically wrong? Increasing shareholder value is the primary goal of any company.
There's already been advertisements in MxO, even in the beta for the game, they had billboards for the movie Constantine. It's billboards, you don't need to stop and stare at them just because they're there. They've already been in the game.
If they were to say, implement more billboards instead of swapping the billboards already in place, that would then be a problem since it'd obstruct the airspace of those jumping across rooftops.
The player population in this game isn't too large. They missed their population projections by enough that they chose to merge servers.
Advertisers just want to get the best return on their advertising dollar. If there's a small population being touched upon, the return is lower. However if that small population is also precisely the sort of people who'd buy the product then the return is higher. I'm guessing that if they want to bother sinking money into MxO for advertising, they'll be advertising something that these players would be likely to want.
Most likely, since this is a fairly limited advertising venue, MxO will only be charging a small amount for the advertising space. The amount they make will be far far too low to eliminate monthly fees. However, this does keep them from killing the MxO project by making it a little more profitable. that, or it provides more money to make more content with.
Newspapers are big, with huge ads. Those ads don't mean you get less news in your paper. Ads provide money that the newspaper can use to provide more. More ads are a good thing until they damage the primary utility of the venue(Like those flash pop-ups vs. the unobstrusive google ads).