Game developers are getting away with this because the consumers let them. For every gamer outraged there are two others pouncing on him with criticism. Those others are perfectly comfortable and more than happy to part with their money. They're the sort of people who value entertainment more highly than principles.
If there were solidarity amongst the gaming public where everyone stood up against this these practices would end overnight. But what do you expect from a segment of the consumer population that is willing to stand in line at midnight to pick up a game the split second it's released.
It's interesting you mention that. A few months ago my father got a number of LED bulbs for a few applications. A couple of bulbs have already failed. In one case he was able to repair the bulb, but it's been a frustrating experience nonetheless.
I'm not sure why failures are so common. Is it that we're dealing with Chinese made crap and no one can be bothered with some basic quality control? Are they that desperate to bring down the price?
I generally haven't had problems with my CFLs but I can't say I'm entirely pleased with their performance. Different bulbs have different warm up times, some are good almost immediately, others take 30+ seconds to get to full intensity. And a couple of times I've gotten bulbs in a different color temperature than is indicated on the package. I still use incandescents for my dimmable bulbs because I don't like all the buzzing coming from the dimmable CFLs. The 3-way CFLs have a tendency to buzz too while they're warming up. I haven't had a problem with my CFLs failing prematurely, but other people I know have, in one case a bulb failing quite spectacularly.
I suppose these are just growing pains as the technology matures. But whether they're ready for widespread use, particularly LED bulbs, is debatable. The ones that may be more reliable are far too expensive to be worth considering.
Yes. Another example of the free market working its wonders.
What the hell does this have to do with the free market? Have you ever visited websites in China? Chinese sites are even more cluttered with intrusive advertising.
Whether you like it or not, hosting a site and providing content costs money. So there are two practical options. One, you charge for a subscription. Unfortunately, that almost never works because people seem to believe that access to content should be free. And if you're not providing unique content then you're going to have a hard time charging for what someone else is providing for free. So you're left with the second option, run advertising.
Now, I hate advertising for many reasons, among them are poor design quality, invasiveness and the deceptive nature of so many. Browser performance is another important issue, especially on my Mac where there has always been a tendency for browsers to completely lock up until the page loads. That's why I run ad blockers.
As usual, the power is in the hands of the people. If the vast majority of people cared enough to completely ignore ads, even if they don't outright block them we wouldn't be having this problem. All people would have to do is render advertising completely ineffective. But most people just don't care, even if the issue is raised with them. And who's to say that the alternative business models would be more appealing anyway.
At least this way we have a way of blocking ads. I suspect if the government got involved it wouldn't be to make ads less invasive, but rather ensure that we would have no way to block them. The free market requires that the average person be involved not rely on someone else to fix their problems for them.
It's funny you mentioned your local climate changing. I've noticed my local climate has changed over the past 25-30 years as well. For the colder. The summers don't get nearly as hot as they used to. When I was a kid we used to get 2-3 week heatwaves of 90+ degree heat. I haven't seen that in 15 years. Augusts get a lot colder at night than they used to. I've noticed snow falling later into the year and starting up sooner. This year took the cake with snow in October.
Tornados can happen anywhere in the world, although some parts of the world certainly provide more favorable conditions, the midwest and parts of India being prime examples. Tornados are not unusual in Europe at all, and it's not possible that people in Germany have never seen them. Hurricanes are not behaving any differently along the Eastern seaboard. In fact, with the exception of the year that gave us Katrina hurricane seasons have been milder than normal. And up in my area the last time I saw a hurricane pass through was the early 80s.
And having family and friends in Europe and Asia I can attest to the fact that there haven't been unusual rises in temperatures. In fact, in some parts of Asia people have told me of unusually cold weather, although I do admit that has been more the case over the past decade or so.
That said, I guarantee you ask anyone going back as long as there have been humans and they'll all regale you with stories of how the climate is nothing like it was in previous years.
This is not to say that people shouldn't conserve more and pollute less. Absolutely they should. But I'm tired of all the alarmist claims and I don't want to see policies forced down everyone's throat. There certainly are things that need to be regulated, but progress generally will bring about more less wasteful technologies, as we've been seeing over the past few decades. And with further development a lot of these things will become affordable to the average person.
The alternative energy industry has plenty to gain from all this. The media loves to depict the industry as comprised of a series of scrappy upstarts trying to make it in a world dominated by big oil. The green industry is as big and established as any other. In some cases they're one and the same. Of course they're going to want to push the notion that there's an impending threat to the environment. What the hell company wouldn't absolutely love to have governments impose laws which basically guarantee profits?
Certainly there's a kernel of something positive in all this, but it's buried under a lot of crap and ultimately it's probably the average person who gets screwed.
I never understood why the hell Europeans swap periods and commas. Grammatically it doesn't even make sense.
A period ends a sentence or statement, which to me should imply a whole number. A comma is simply a separator, used within sentences. So why would it be used to separate decimals?
It would be like writing a sentence this way: I went to the supermarket to buy some cola. cabbages. and condoms,
Maybe there's a very good reason for it, but I don't see it.
Regarding the story on hand, that really sucks. I wonder if they will pull the same garbage as American banks where customers only have 60 days to report a problem otherwise nothing will be done. Whereas, if the bank screws up in your favor, they could go into your account 20 years from now and withdraw whatever extra money they gave you.
I have a lot of problems with government and many departments within that bureaucracy, but the FAA is not one of them. It's pretty amazing what they do and there probably aren't many other entities out there that could do what they do.
This reminds me of this application I had on my old 4Mhz PCjr that did nothing but draw a 3d wireframe of a cowboy hat. It took a good 30 minutes to draw that thing. I recall us running it on some faster machine some time later and it drew the thing in seconds. On one of my machines now I could have a far more complex hat, with textures, lighting and more and not only would it render the thing pretty much immediately, but it could move around at a nice framerate too.
Regarding effects in movies, I agree with what others have said, that nowadays the focus is on the effects not the characters or the story. Any movie with effects today has the obligatory gratuitous panning shots of fantastic environments. High tech devices are always unnecessarily complex and cumbersome to use, all for the sake reminding people how awesome the technology is. And characters are overly conscious about all these things. It would be like being dumbstruck every time you came up to street level from the subways in Manhattan. It would be like making great fanfare every time on your computer, and speaking in techno-babble with everyone about browsing the web.
I've also noticed this tendency over the last decade to depict everything in the future as overly polished and pristine. It's either that or then they make things so worn and weather-beaten that it's almost comical, like someone smashed their stuff with rocks and flushed it down the toilet for good measure. It's really not surprising since there's this compulsive need to make everything stupidly obvious.
There's also this cynicism people share towards special effects. When people watch any effects-laden movie what is invariably the first question asked? Are the effects any good? I've noticed it in myself. I'll sit there watching the movie with a critical eye towards the effects. So I'm ruining immersion because I'm constantly reminding myself this is a movie. Well, bad plot holes and stupid storylines manage to pull that off more effectively, but nevertheless the fact remains that there's a lot of fixation on effects on the part of viewers. Thinking back to when I was a kid, everything looked amazing. I didn't really question it and at the time it effects had to be truly awful for me not to find them convincing. But looking back on most movies, most effects were quite subpar by today's standards.
That said, there are a few that have managed to hold up quite well. I think that was accomplished not only by meticulous effects work, but I think it goes back to the initial point that the effects then served to support the movie, they weren't necessarily the central focus. Well, it's not so much that they weren't the focus, but rather they weren't trying to beat you over the head about how great the effects were. They were just there. A good example is Blade Runner. It just so happened that the movie took place in the future. But you could have just as easily depicted any of those scenes in modern day and it wouldn't look awkward. And everything had a adequately weathered look that made the world feel inhabited.
There would be little commentary. Movies have already been depicting that sort of thing for decades. I will concede that such a game might cause a stir, not so much because it's being depicted but because it's being depicted in a game.
In fact, I'd argue that there would be a lot stronger outrage if Modern Warfare 2 depicted some ethnic groups other than Russians. Remember all the complaining about Resident Evil 5 once people found out the zombies were African? I'd say when you want to depict terrorists and not spark much outrage Americans or Europeans are always the safe way to go.
I guarantee you this is another example of driver error in the same vein as the unintended acceleration that afflicted Audi 5000's years ago. If I'm not mistaken I think the problem in the Audi was that the position of the pedals was slightly off from what people were accustomed to causing them to think they were pressing down on the brake when they actually had the accelerator down to the floor. There have been a few other cars with similar issues.
I'm quite certain the problem with these Toyota's is similar. How in the hell could a car possible start accelerating on its own? And even if the accelerator is drive-by-wire the brakes are not and will likely never be. This means that if the owner got on the brakes hard they'd be able to slow the car. Even if the ECU didn't cut power when braking as some cars do, the engine won't be able to overpower the brakes. About the only possible culprit I see is cruise control, but again, that should be fairly easy to defeat.
The fact is that when some people panic they freeze up and are unable to do anything else. As with the Audi, they press the gas accidentally, the car lunges forward and they panic, pressing down harder on the pedal. It reminds me of what happened to my father years ago. He was teaching my sister's friend to drive. For whatever reason she got on the gas, started barreling towards a car and hit it. She freaked out and froze, her foot firmly planted on the gas. My father actually had to take her leg and lift it off the gas because she was completely unresponsive.
And the problem is that sometimes the issue isn't actually unintended acceleration but some other problem that gives that impression. I know of some cases, for example, where a transmission doesn't engage properly for whatever reason. The driver tries to accelerate but the car doesn't move, so they give it more gas. The transmission eventually does engage and the car lunges forward more aggressively than anticipated. The car may have a real problem, but the driver didn't respond to the issue appropriately.
People nowadays are far too ignorant about they drive. Some people barely know what they're driving, let alone how anything works. As part of driver training basic instruction on the mechanical operation of a car should be mandatory. This would allow drivers to better respond to problems and make them better informed when they deal with mechanics so that they don't get taken advantage of so easily. It's like Toyota's recall over the floor mats. Are drivers so oblivious that they don't notice their floor mats riding up under the pedals. It's not like those things slip under there that easily. Too many people seem to take driving as seriously as they do sitting on the sofa watching television. But they sure do manage to have quite an ego about what they drive.
I'm not convinced by these researchers' claims. Is there a trend towards people getting shorter? I thought the opposite was true. As for obesity, that's another story. But what I am convinced this reflects is not an evolutionary trend but rather a socioeconomic one. The better off people are the less likely they are to have children. So poorer people are the ones having children and unlike most of the rest of the world lower-class Americans are very likely to be obese. Do this study in parts of Asia or Africa and these researchers would be saying the trend was towards thinner humans. The US actually bucks the trend established by most developed nations in that many people still tend to have a few children, in Europe and Asia you're lucky if they have one. I'm not sure why there would be a shift towards bearing children sooner considering most people seem to be waiting longer to have kids. Again, it might simply be a reflection class.
That seems like a big assumption to me given how many variables exist. An interesting thing a gynecologist told me a couple of years ago was that obese women tend do deprive the fetus of nutrients more so than your average women, so they tend to have underweight babies far more frequently. So this evolutionary tend doesn't seem like a particularly good thing to me. But then there are so many variables affecting humanity that these findings are likely meaningless.
Initially I thought this was cool. But then I started thinking about this and I realized that all this is going to do is fragment the internet. The existing system ensured a convenient standard that anyone could access. How the hell are non-Chinese, for example, every going to figure out how to type a Chinese address? Unless someone provides you with an address it's not likely you'll ever figure it out.
Even being able to speak Chinese this would be a challenge for me. I expect even Chinese natives are going to have a hard time with this. I could tell someone my web address, but then I also have to explain which character I mean because there could be there might be multiple characters for that particular phonetic. And lets not get into all the languages out there with their own unique writing systems.
The fact is that certain languages aren't quite as conducive to use with computers as others. In many cases it's probably just that nobody has made the effort to optimize input devices and system interfaces. But then when you do that you also alienate the rest of the world. It's entirely possible most foreigners wouldn't ever end up on these sites anyway but I don't like this fragmentation by what I see as dumping a standard. Technology will eventually reach a point when this is not an issue, but we're not there yet. I really don't see what was wrong with the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. Every computer in the world supports this by default so how exactly does this move enhance accessibility?
The Acer Aspire One I got recently was loaded with crap, but the biggest source of problems came from Google and especially McAfee. Every time I started that thing up from hibernate mode I had to wait for the Google apps and sidebar to load. Then McAfee anti-virus starts grinding away trying to scan the entire system. Even when I thought I had disabled automatic scanning I still found it cranking away.
So every time I started it I'd spend a minute or so in the OS just waiting for it to be responsive. Eventually I'd get something like a browser open and would spend several more minutes for the computer to perform at a speed that was even remotely functional. The best part was how McAfee was only available for a 60 day trial.
So I went through and uninstalled every last unnecessary bit of garbage and performance improved dramatically. In place of McAfee I installed AVG which doesn't seem to be nearly as taxing.
It would be nice if the OS prioritized apps on start up, giving priority to the user, instead of this apparent mad dash to see who can get started first. And even better, it would be nice if these computer companies stopped cramming all this crap on these machines and at least paid some amount of attention to the performance capabilities of the machine. I realize this stuff helps subsidize some of the cost of these computers, but at least offer the option to get a machine with a clean OS.
Much of Taiwan's manufacturing has already moved to China and elsewhere in Asia. Taiwan's government has tried to limit that but it's been largely futile. And Taiwan's current administration is opening up to China, trying to improve relations. They already allow direct flights between the two countries, which is something that wasn't allowed for the past 50 years since Taiwan was formed. Most Taiwanese are mostly interested in economic success and as such are eager to conduct business in China. Freedom of the press has even taken a hit, largely to appease China it seems.
Let me tell you, China doesn't need those missiles pointed at Taiwan. All they need is to do is coerce Taiwan economically the same way they're doing with the US. With Taiwan's new administration there has been more openness between the two nations. For a few decades now Taiwanese have been conduction business in China, but in recent years their relationship as gotten quite a bit closer. It's already having an effect on free speech. Reporters Without Borders has downgraded Taiwan's score on freedom of the press from 37 in 07 to 59 this year. There have been concerns raised of manipulation of the press to appease China in much the same way has been happening in Hong Kong for years now.
Unfortunately, because the United Nations is so utterly worthless Taiwan has no ground to stand on since it will always do whatever China wants on this issue, which basically means Taiwan is marginalized on the international stage. Not many Taiwanese are losing sleep over this because so many are so interested in making money. And for many that means doing business in China and playing by their game.
I'm convinced that China is more determined to become an economic superpower than a military one. Having your military engaged around the world is often more trouble than it's worth in this day and age. Look at the troubles the US and Russia have faced over the last few decades. The international community would never except either nation exerting its full military might, so instead we end up with these simmering conflicts that are never fully resolved. You'll notice that outside of oppressing people in regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, China doesn't really get involved internationally.
What I think is happening is that China is using its economic success to enable it to invest in the military. Fortunately for them, they don't need to resort to military espionage on the level that the Russians did. All they have to do is buy whatever they need from Russia, and then build off of that. Unfortunately with the economic mess we have here in the US, and the rampant government spending, this places us in a position where we're even more dependent on China's economy.
The big irony is that China still needs the rest of the world far more than the rest of the world needs China. If the US, Japan and Europe decided to move all manufacturing to southeast Asia and India, China would be completely devastated. And I do think manufacturing work is slowly trickling away to nations where labor is cheaper. My point is that China won't go militaristic while it's dependent on the rest of the world. However, once the leadership decides China no longer needs us things may change dramatically.
I think a more immediate threat, however, is economic collapse in China. There are concerns about economic bubbles in China, real estate being one of them. If things go to crap, it's going to mean millions upon millions out of world. And what do nations always do when there's unrest amongst their people? They blame foreign nations and try to give people something to rally behind. That might mean starting with something like the invasion of some disputed islands in the Pacific, then on to Taiwan, and who knows what else?
I completely embrace the idea of American companies doing business in China. And I think it's a good think to have a positive relationship with China. However, I think there are too many naive people out there and they too intent on portraying China like it's this pinnacle of greatness where everything they do is somehow justifiable. Listening to the media, I'm always left with the impression that China is the model of environmentalism for us all to follow. I had to go to a Taiwanese newspaper to read that China recently relocated 10,000 people because of severe lead poisoning. The best part is that they moved these people mainly so that the offending factory could go right on polluting as it had been.
Considering that I live in America I expect my government to do what it can to ensure this nation's strength and success
Except for the problem that those things were prone to leaking when it rained and they were more prone to wind noise. Then there are styling and aerodynamic concerns.
You're going to be complaining too when you're paying more for your next car. Automakers might not be happy about the prospect but not because they're the ones paying for it. They will just pass the cost onto the consumer. They're concerned because higher prices will mean fewer sales.
And what's unusual about this being printed in a Detroit newspaper? This directly affects the auto industry and obviously people in the industry are the ones most interested in this news. It's not a conspiracy, it's common sense.
Just because people prefer a particular rate doesn't mean its actually better. Many people are probably used to listening to crap and so tend to favor sound they're familiar with. Also, in my experience people seem to think that good quality audio means boomy bass. So I wouldn't be surprised that muddy audio, with the volume turned up, sounds good to people. Also, sometimes, if people don't know what to listen for they wont be able to pick up on the differences which otherwise would be obvious.
For me, 128Kbps sounds like crap. The best way to describe it is that music sounds muffled, there's isn't enough definition. It's kind of like a jpg with too much compression. I find it a joke that is considered high quality. 192Kbps is good; at this rate I find it acceptable. But when I rip CDs I always go to 256Kbps. I can't really find much to complain about at that rate except that on a 4GB iPod I run out of space fairly quickly.
To this day I'm convinced that the problem with corporate culture in the West is that people with business majors are running companies. The rationale seems to be if you majored in business, economics, etc that somehow you have a more intimate understanding of business and are better equipped to manage a business. The thing is how many people actually get into this field because they're passionate about it and how many do it simply because they believe it's the easiest way to land a job? I'd wager the vast majority of people are in the latter category. How many of these people chose a business major because there was nothing else they were interested in but felt they had to go to college to land an acceptable job? They probably should have taken a trade but that, apparently, is beneath most people nowadays.
So you've got these passionless, ignorant (regarding the nature of the business where they work), drones who manage to climb up the corporate ladder by virtue of their degree. The people who actually have the skill and perform the work (engineers, programmers, designers, etc) have more of a tendency to get stuck because they're perceived as most valuable in the position they're currently occupying. And of course, it's human nature to protect yourself once you're in a position of authority. And interesting contrast to this are government workers who rarely have to worry about job security and for that reason could care less about the job they do.
Needless to say, not everyone is equipped to manage. Everyone says they want to be a manager simply because of the prospect of earning more money but when it comes down to it they're not willing to deal with the stress and responsibilities the job demands. Although, larger companies seem to come up with all kinds of fluff titles in order to give their employees the illusion that they're progressing. But if there were more technical people in high level positions I believe we'd be seeing better American products, less outsourcing and more efficiency. It wouldn't solve everything, because we're still dealing with humans, but it would help.
I think Asia is a good reflection of this. Engineers and designers routinely are the people running companies. Business majors end up in marketing, sales and accounting, where they belong. So you've got people with more intimate understanding of the nature of their company's business. However, managers in Asia can be brutal in a way Westerners can't imagine and in a way they couldn't even get away with here. They're extremely demanding and can be openly insulting towards their employees. They routinely resort to name-calling. I've had friends who have had papers thrown in their face because their manager was unhappy with something they had done. I've heard of people getting slapped, although that's very rare and nowadays people are more likely to take legal action. But this sort of thing happens everywhere, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. Although it's likely worse in places like China.
Certainly, there's a level of elitism there. I have a friend who started his own company a few years ago and is tough on everyone who works with him. I have another friend who stopped working with him because she couldn't stand his tyrannical attitude. He's even rough with his own wife when it comes to work. But I've seen that level of demanding expectations from him even when it comes to service from a waiter in a restaurant or a hotel employee. Whatever problems he may have, I can't deny that he doesn't produce high quality work.
Americans are pretty bad about having pride in anything. And I've noticed this tendency to blame someone else for their own problems in order to justify their own shortcomings. Experience crap service at a store and what is the excuse the employee will give? They don't earn enough to care or their manager is a jerk. That's not an excuse. But they've all got this entitlement mentality and don't value quality. And with employees like that why should a manager care about anything but t
The best part isn't that Obama won the prize 8 months into his presidency but rather that he was nominated 2 weeks after getting into office. So this crap that he's working towards peace was merely tacked on in an attempt to justify the award.
It's interesting that this reflects, quite nicely, the problems with America's youth today. Kids have been overly coddled by their parents, children win awards for merely participating so that no one feels left out, garbage like that. So we're stuck with these millennials who can't deal with the challenges of life and expect the government to shield them from everything. So Obama winning this award for "intentions" is quite fitting.
I work in design and have done more Photoshop work than I care to recall. It certainly is an extremely useful tool and can't be banned outright, however, they could impose very clear limits on retouching photos of people.
I personally see two problems. The first is covering up imperfections, freckles, beauty marks, lumps, etc. The second is thinning out individual body parts and in some extreme cases taking the entire person and making them more narrow.
There's a big drawback here, however. This wont address the use of heavy makeup, creative lighting or photography. And movies have always used all sorts of techniques to make actors look amazing. Celebrities are sometimes virtually unrecognizable in person because of how heavily they're done up for movies. And agencies will likely push models to lose even more weight. Photoshop ultimately is one small part of the larger problem of creating very unrealistic expectations of how people should look.
I've had friends who couldn't be with a girl if she didn't have the perfect complexion and body type depicted in the media. I've also known many girls who lament how terrible they supposedly look compared to celebrities. But how the hell do you change these attitudes in a culture so addicted to celebrity culture? And it's not a problem unique to the US either. It's bad enough in Europe, and probably even worse than the US in Asia.
I'm convinced the single largest mistake Sony made with the PSP Go was charging too much for it. If it had cost roughly as much as a regular PSP people would be complaining less about the other changes. I realize, however, that the new form factor has likely added to the price of this thing, but then therein lies the source of this problem.
What Sony should have done was offer an updated PSP in the same form factor as the original, but simply eliminate the UMD drive and then promote the functionality they're currently pushing with the Go. This would ensure costs stay down, and in fact, probably give Sony the opportunity to charge even less for this new PSP. Additionally, it wouldn't make existing PSP owners feel like they're being left behind.
While I prefer owning physical copies of my games, going to a download only model doesn't bother me. I personally think not being able to purchase used games is a non-issue because I never do so. I feel that, with the exclusion of buying from an individual, the used games market is a scam anyway. You're not paying much less than full price for a used game. I can go online, and sometimes retailers like Target, and find new games for the same or less than what places like Gamestop are charging for a used game.
And that's where the problem lies. With the PSP Go will we only be able to buy games via Sony? This pretty much ensures Sony has complete control over pricing. In the very least, I expect downloadable games to cost $5 to $10 less than an actual physical copy. And will games be discounted as they age and decline in popularity? I should hope so.
Unfortunately, I think this is the way of the future. It's already starting and Sony was simply the first to take such a bold step in that direction. Too many people have grown comfortable with micro-payments and overpaying for products and services. It's going to be next to impossible to stop this tide. The PSP Go might flop simply because it entered the market a bit too soon.
This must be some kind of joke. Having traveled to a varied of countries and having had friends and family visit from foreign countries coming into the US is no more difficult than it is going anywhere else. In fact, in some cases it's more of a pain going through immigrations in other countries although even then it's not the end of the world.
There is a problem I've found travelers encounter coming into the US, and that's good old shitty American service; immigration officers, for example who are complete assholes. They tend to be in bad moods for no apparent reason and they have little patience for people who can't speak English clearly. Obviously, not every immigration officer is like this. It's just a preview of what a foreigner is in for once they go out to shop. This is more of a cultural problem related to poor work ethic, among other things, than it is anything with immigration services.
However, I think the most important reason for Brazil being chosen is the fact that there hasn't yet been an Olympics in South America. Certainly Rio de Janeiro wasn't the best choice. I'm sure corruption will be rampant and it's going to be a logistical nightmare getting the games set up down there. Certainly, any of the other options were superior, with Japan likely being the best choice. And the fact is that until the US is no longer a superpower Europeans are going to continue disliking us.
First of all, corporations aren't running unfettered through society. There are so many government regulations in place they'd make your head spin. While some of these very necessary, many have them have done little more than ensure that it's primarily the largest, wealthiest and best connected corporations which thrive. Small upstarts are forced to be a part of the system, basically, if they want to get anywhere.
That said, what corporation has forced you to buy their shit? Nobody is forcing you to buy cigarettes, big macs, televisions, iphones, expensive homes or anything else you might be inclined to buy. If the vast majority of Americans boycotted McDonalds, for example, I guarantee you within weeks their cuisine would change. The government certainly wouldn't force consumers at gunpoint to eat there. But people value personal satisfaction more than principle.
Unfortunately, the attitude we see today is one of playing victim and entitlement. I had enough common sense not to buy stuff I can't afford, putting myself in debt. Why is it that credit card companies are at fault for other people being unable to do the same? But people live throwing around stupid terms like "evil" so that they can foment a little righteous indignation for themselves.
This is not to say that corporations don't take advantage when they can, because certainly they do. But people have gone way too far blaming others for their own short-comings.
As for your comments about medical expenses, I can only reason that you're trying to slip in your endorsement of government healthcare. I agree with you, medical costs are too high, to the point of feeling exploitive sometimes. But socialized healthcare in other countries hasn't decreased the cost of healthcare. What you'd pay directly to insurance companies you instead pay in taxes. And when the government tries to force down costs what you end up with instead is a shortage of doctors, hospital staff and equipment. And then we get into rationing.
The fact is that medical care is expensive because that's the value society places on it. Whenever anyone gets sick they want their condition to be treated as effectively as possible. If people shopped treatments, doctors and hospitals perhaps were would be competition on cost. But when you're incapacitated there isn't much chance of that happening. So what do you suggest? The government making those decisions for you? Does anyone want the government cutting corners on your treatment in order to save a few bucks?
And where do you cut costs? Are we going to cut doctor's salaries? If so, then are we going to cut their education costs in order to be fair about it? Are we going to tell manufacturers that they're asking too much for EKG machines? What about x-ray machines, MRIs, and everything else you find in a hospital? What about syringes, trash bags, towels, beds? What about staff, nurses and administrators? Are we going to cut their salaries too and tell hospitals they have to limit the number of people they hire? What about pharmaceuticals? Do we cut when they can ask for any medication? How do we then deal with R&D? Do we tell them they can only focus on certain fields in order to keep costs down? (Actually, I think pharmaceuticals should be completely banned from advertising, but that's another story.) And what about lawsuits? Certainly some lawsuits are justified but there are too many frivolous ones out there and even when they don't go to trial they still incur some level of expense. Oh yeah, lets cut what lawyers charge because they're seriously overpriced too, worse than doctors.
As you can see this is far more complicated than people every consider. Unfortunately too many people seem to have the simplistic worldview of a 10-year-old. And they seem to share that same infantile expectation that they should be sheltered from the troubles of the world the same way their parents were over-protective of them when they were kids. The way people have been spoiled by their parents I'm not surprised that younger ge
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Game developers are getting away with this because the consumers let them. For every gamer outraged there are two others pouncing on him with criticism. Those others are perfectly comfortable and more than happy to part with their money. They're the sort of people who value entertainment more highly than principles.
If there were solidarity amongst the gaming public where everyone stood up against this these practices would end overnight. But what do you expect from a segment of the consumer population that is willing to stand in line at midnight to pick up a game the split second it's released.
It's interesting you mention that. A few months ago my father got a number of LED bulbs for a few applications. A couple of bulbs have already failed. In one case he was able to repair the bulb, but it's been a frustrating experience nonetheless.
I'm not sure why failures are so common. Is it that we're dealing with Chinese made crap and no one can be bothered with some basic quality control? Are they that desperate to bring down the price?
I generally haven't had problems with my CFLs but I can't say I'm entirely pleased with their performance. Different bulbs have different warm up times, some are good almost immediately, others take 30+ seconds to get to full intensity. And a couple of times I've gotten bulbs in a different color temperature than is indicated on the package. I still use incandescents for my dimmable bulbs because I don't like all the buzzing coming from the dimmable CFLs. The 3-way CFLs have a tendency to buzz too while they're warming up. I haven't had a problem with my CFLs failing prematurely, but other people I know have, in one case a bulb failing quite spectacularly.
I suppose these are just growing pains as the technology matures. But whether they're ready for widespread use, particularly LED bulbs, is debatable. The ones that may be more reliable are far too expensive to be worth considering.
What the hell does this have to do with the free market? Have you ever visited websites in China? Chinese sites are even more cluttered with intrusive advertising.
Whether you like it or not, hosting a site and providing content costs money. So there are two practical options. One, you charge for a subscription. Unfortunately, that almost never works because people seem to believe that access to content should be free. And if you're not providing unique content then you're going to have a hard time charging for what someone else is providing for free. So you're left with the second option, run advertising.
Now, I hate advertising for many reasons, among them are poor design quality, invasiveness and the deceptive nature of so many. Browser performance is another important issue, especially on my Mac where there has always been a tendency for browsers to completely lock up until the page loads. That's why I run ad blockers.
As usual, the power is in the hands of the people. If the vast majority of people cared enough to completely ignore ads, even if they don't outright block them we wouldn't be having this problem. All people would have to do is render advertising completely ineffective. But most people just don't care, even if the issue is raised with them. And who's to say that the alternative business models would be more appealing anyway.
At least this way we have a way of blocking ads. I suspect if the government got involved it wouldn't be to make ads less invasive, but rather ensure that we would have no way to block them. The free market requires that the average person be involved not rely on someone else to fix their problems for them.
It's funny you mentioned your local climate changing. I've noticed my local climate has changed over the past 25-30 years as well. For the colder. The summers don't get nearly as hot as they used to. When I was a kid we used to get 2-3 week heatwaves of 90+ degree heat. I haven't seen that in 15 years. Augusts get a lot colder at night than they used to. I've noticed snow falling later into the year and starting up sooner. This year took the cake with snow in October.
Tornados can happen anywhere in the world, although some parts of the world certainly provide more favorable conditions, the midwest and parts of India being prime examples. Tornados are not unusual in Europe at all, and it's not possible that people in Germany have never seen them. Hurricanes are not behaving any differently along the Eastern seaboard. In fact, with the exception of the year that gave us Katrina hurricane seasons have been milder than normal. And up in my area the last time I saw a hurricane pass through was the early 80s.
And having family and friends in Europe and Asia I can attest to the fact that there haven't been unusual rises in temperatures. In fact, in some parts of Asia people have told me of unusually cold weather, although I do admit that has been more the case over the past decade or so.
That said, I guarantee you ask anyone going back as long as there have been humans and they'll all regale you with stories of how the climate is nothing like it was in previous years.
This is not to say that people shouldn't conserve more and pollute less. Absolutely they should. But I'm tired of all the alarmist claims and I don't want to see policies forced down everyone's throat. There certainly are things that need to be regulated, but progress generally will bring about more less wasteful technologies, as we've been seeing over the past few decades. And with further development a lot of these things will become affordable to the average person.
The alternative energy industry has plenty to gain from all this. The media loves to depict the industry as comprised of a series of scrappy upstarts trying to make it in a world dominated by big oil. The green industry is as big and established as any other. In some cases they're one and the same. Of course they're going to want to push the notion that there's an impending threat to the environment. What the hell company wouldn't absolutely love to have governments impose laws which basically guarantee profits?
Certainly there's a kernel of something positive in all this, but it's buried under a lot of crap and ultimately it's probably the average person who gets screwed.
I never understood why the hell Europeans swap periods and commas. Grammatically it doesn't even make sense.
A period ends a sentence or statement, which to me should imply a whole number. A comma is simply a separator, used within sentences. So why would it be used to separate decimals?
It would be like writing a sentence this way:
I went to the supermarket to buy some cola. cabbages. and condoms,
Maybe there's a very good reason for it, but I don't see it.
Regarding the story on hand, that really sucks. I wonder if they will pull the same garbage as American banks where customers only have 60 days to report a problem otherwise nothing will be done. Whereas, if the bank screws up in your favor, they could go into your account 20 years from now and withdraw whatever extra money they gave you.
I have a lot of problems with government and many departments within that bureaucracy, but the FAA is not one of them. It's pretty amazing what they do and there probably aren't many other entities out there that could do what they do.
This reminds me of this application I had on my old 4Mhz PCjr that did nothing but draw a 3d wireframe of a cowboy hat. It took a good 30 minutes to draw that thing. I recall us running it on some faster machine some time later and it drew the thing in seconds. On one of my machines now I could have a far more complex hat, with textures, lighting and more and not only would it render the thing pretty much immediately, but it could move around at a nice framerate too.
Regarding effects in movies, I agree with what others have said, that nowadays the focus is on the effects not the characters or the story. Any movie with effects today has the obligatory gratuitous panning shots of fantastic environments. High tech devices are always unnecessarily complex and cumbersome to use, all for the sake reminding people how awesome the technology is. And characters are overly conscious about all these things. It would be like being dumbstruck every time you came up to street level from the subways in Manhattan. It would be like making great fanfare every time on your computer, and speaking in techno-babble with everyone about browsing the web.
I've also noticed this tendency over the last decade to depict everything in the future as overly polished and pristine. It's either that or then they make things so worn and weather-beaten that it's almost comical, like someone smashed their stuff with rocks and flushed it down the toilet for good measure. It's really not surprising since there's this compulsive need to make everything stupidly obvious.
There's also this cynicism people share towards special effects. When people watch any effects-laden movie what is invariably the first question asked? Are the effects any good? I've noticed it in myself. I'll sit there watching the movie with a critical eye towards the effects. So I'm ruining immersion because I'm constantly reminding myself this is a movie. Well, bad plot holes and stupid storylines manage to pull that off more effectively, but nevertheless the fact remains that there's a lot of fixation on effects on the part of viewers. Thinking back to when I was a kid, everything looked amazing. I didn't really question it and at the time it effects had to be truly awful for me not to find them convincing. But looking back on most movies, most effects were quite subpar by today's standards.
That said, there are a few that have managed to hold up quite well. I think that was accomplished not only by meticulous effects work, but I think it goes back to the initial point that the effects then served to support the movie, they weren't necessarily the central focus. Well, it's not so much that they weren't the focus, but rather they weren't trying to beat you over the head about how great the effects were. They were just there. A good example is Blade Runner. It just so happened that the movie took place in the future. But you could have just as easily depicted any of those scenes in modern day and it wouldn't look awkward. And everything had a adequately weathered look that made the world feel inhabited.
There would be little commentary. Movies have already been depicting that sort of thing for decades. I will concede that such a game might cause a stir, not so much because it's being depicted but because it's being depicted in a game.
In fact, I'd argue that there would be a lot stronger outrage if Modern Warfare 2 depicted some ethnic groups other than Russians. Remember all the complaining about Resident Evil 5 once people found out the zombies were African? I'd say when you want to depict terrorists and not spark much outrage Americans or Europeans are always the safe way to go.
I guarantee you this is another example of driver error in the same vein as the unintended acceleration that afflicted Audi 5000's years ago. If I'm not mistaken I think the problem in the Audi was that the position of the pedals was slightly off from what people were accustomed to causing them to think they were pressing down on the brake when they actually had the accelerator down to the floor. There have been a few other cars with similar issues.
I'm quite certain the problem with these Toyota's is similar. How in the hell could a car possible start accelerating on its own? And even if the accelerator is drive-by-wire the brakes are not and will likely never be. This means that if the owner got on the brakes hard they'd be able to slow the car. Even if the ECU didn't cut power when braking as some cars do, the engine won't be able to overpower the brakes. About the only possible culprit I see is cruise control, but again, that should be fairly easy to defeat.
The fact is that when some people panic they freeze up and are unable to do anything else. As with the Audi, they press the gas accidentally, the car lunges forward and they panic, pressing down harder on the pedal. It reminds me of what happened to my father years ago. He was teaching my sister's friend to drive. For whatever reason she got on the gas, started barreling towards a car and hit it. She freaked out and froze, her foot firmly planted on the gas. My father actually had to take her leg and lift it off the gas because she was completely unresponsive.
And the problem is that sometimes the issue isn't actually unintended acceleration but some other problem that gives that impression. I know of some cases, for example, where a transmission doesn't engage properly for whatever reason. The driver tries to accelerate but the car doesn't move, so they give it more gas. The transmission eventually does engage and the car lunges forward more aggressively than anticipated. The car may have a real problem, but the driver didn't respond to the issue appropriately.
People nowadays are far too ignorant about they drive. Some people barely know what they're driving, let alone how anything works. As part of driver training basic instruction on the mechanical operation of a car should be mandatory. This would allow drivers to better respond to problems and make them better informed when they deal with mechanics so that they don't get taken advantage of so easily. It's like Toyota's recall over the floor mats. Are drivers so oblivious that they don't notice their floor mats riding up under the pedals. It's not like those things slip under there that easily. Too many people seem to take driving as seriously as they do sitting on the sofa watching television. But they sure do manage to have quite an ego about what they drive.
I'm not convinced by these researchers' claims. Is there a trend towards people getting shorter? I thought the opposite was true. As for obesity, that's another story. But what I am convinced this reflects is not an evolutionary trend but rather a socioeconomic one. The better off people are the less likely they are to have children. So poorer people are the ones having children and unlike most of the rest of the world lower-class Americans are very likely to be obese. Do this study in parts of Asia or Africa and these researchers would be saying the trend was towards thinner humans. The US actually bucks the trend established by most developed nations in that many people still tend to have a few children, in Europe and Asia you're lucky if they have one. I'm not sure why there would be a shift towards bearing children sooner considering most people seem to be waiting longer to have kids. Again, it might simply be a reflection class.
That seems like a big assumption to me given how many variables exist. An interesting thing a gynecologist told me a couple of years ago was that obese women tend do deprive the fetus of nutrients more so than your average women, so they tend to have underweight babies far more frequently. So this evolutionary tend doesn't seem like a particularly good thing to me. But then there are so many variables affecting humanity that these findings are likely meaningless.
Initially I thought this was cool. But then I started thinking about this and I realized that all this is going to do is fragment the internet. The existing system ensured a convenient standard that anyone could access. How the hell are non-Chinese, for example, every going to figure out how to type a Chinese address? Unless someone provides you with an address it's not likely you'll ever figure it out.
Even being able to speak Chinese this would be a challenge for me. I expect even Chinese natives are going to have a hard time with this. I could tell someone my web address, but then I also have to explain which character I mean because there could be there might be multiple characters for that particular phonetic. And lets not get into all the languages out there with their own unique writing systems.
The fact is that certain languages aren't quite as conducive to use with computers as others. In many cases it's probably just that nobody has made the effort to optimize input devices and system interfaces. But then when you do that you also alienate the rest of the world. It's entirely possible most foreigners wouldn't ever end up on these sites anyway but I don't like this fragmentation by what I see as dumping a standard. Technology will eventually reach a point when this is not an issue, but we're not there yet. I really don't see what was wrong with the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. Every computer in the world supports this by default so how exactly does this move enhance accessibility?
The Acer Aspire One I got recently was loaded with crap, but the biggest source of problems came from Google and especially McAfee. Every time I started that thing up from hibernate mode I had to wait for the Google apps and sidebar to load. Then McAfee anti-virus starts grinding away trying to scan the entire system. Even when I thought I had disabled automatic scanning I still found it cranking away.
So every time I started it I'd spend a minute or so in the OS just waiting for it to be responsive. Eventually I'd get something like a browser open and would spend several more minutes for the computer to perform at a speed that was even remotely functional. The best part was how McAfee was only available for a 60 day trial.
So I went through and uninstalled every last unnecessary bit of garbage and performance improved dramatically. In place of McAfee I installed AVG which doesn't seem to be nearly as taxing.
It would be nice if the OS prioritized apps on start up, giving priority to the user, instead of this apparent mad dash to see who can get started first. And even better, it would be nice if these computer companies stopped cramming all this crap on these machines and at least paid some amount of attention to the performance capabilities of the machine. I realize this stuff helps subsidize some of the cost of these computers, but at least offer the option to get a machine with a clean OS.
Much of Taiwan's manufacturing has already moved to China and elsewhere in Asia. Taiwan's government has tried to limit that but it's been largely futile. And Taiwan's current administration is opening up to China, trying to improve relations. They already allow direct flights between the two countries, which is something that wasn't allowed for the past 50 years since Taiwan was formed. Most Taiwanese are mostly interested in economic success and as such are eager to conduct business in China. Freedom of the press has even taken a hit, largely to appease China it seems.
Let me tell you, China doesn't need those missiles pointed at Taiwan. All they need is to do is coerce Taiwan economically the same way they're doing with the US. With Taiwan's new administration there has been more openness between the two nations. For a few decades now Taiwanese have been conduction business in China, but in recent years their relationship as gotten quite a bit closer. It's already having an effect on free speech. Reporters Without Borders has downgraded Taiwan's score on freedom of the press from 37 in 07 to 59 this year. There have been concerns raised of manipulation of the press to appease China in much the same way has been happening in Hong Kong for years now.
Unfortunately, because the United Nations is so utterly worthless Taiwan has no ground to stand on since it will always do whatever China wants on this issue, which basically means Taiwan is marginalized on the international stage. Not many Taiwanese are losing sleep over this because so many are so interested in making money. And for many that means doing business in China and playing by their game.
I'm convinced that China is more determined to become an economic superpower than a military one. Having your military engaged around the world is often more trouble than it's worth in this day and age. Look at the troubles the US and Russia have faced over the last few decades. The international community would never except either nation exerting its full military might, so instead we end up with these simmering conflicts that are never fully resolved. You'll notice that outside of oppressing people in regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, China doesn't really get involved internationally.
What I think is happening is that China is using its economic success to enable it to invest in the military. Fortunately for them, they don't need to resort to military espionage on the level that the Russians did. All they have to do is buy whatever they need from Russia, and then build off of that. Unfortunately with the economic mess we have here in the US, and the rampant government spending, this places us in a position where we're even more dependent on China's economy.
The big irony is that China still needs the rest of the world far more than the rest of the world needs China. If the US, Japan and Europe decided to move all manufacturing to southeast Asia and India, China would be completely devastated. And I do think manufacturing work is slowly trickling away to nations where labor is cheaper. My point is that China won't go militaristic while it's dependent on the rest of the world. However, once the leadership decides China no longer needs us things may change dramatically.
I think a more immediate threat, however, is economic collapse in China. There are concerns about economic bubbles in China, real estate being one of them. If things go to crap, it's going to mean millions upon millions out of world. And what do nations always do when there's unrest amongst their people? They blame foreign nations and try to give people something to rally behind. That might mean starting with something like the invasion of some disputed islands in the Pacific, then on to Taiwan, and who knows what else?
I completely embrace the idea of American companies doing business in China. And I think it's a good think to have a positive relationship with China. However, I think there are too many naive people out there and they too intent on portraying China like it's this pinnacle of greatness where everything they do is somehow justifiable. Listening to the media, I'm always left with the impression that China is the model of environmentalism for us all to follow. I had to go to a Taiwanese newspaper to read that China recently relocated 10,000 people because of severe lead poisoning. The best part is that they moved these people mainly so that the offending factory could go right on polluting as it had been.
Considering that I live in America I expect my government to do what it can to ensure this nation's strength and success
Except for the problem that those things were prone to leaking when it rained and they were more prone to wind noise. Then there are styling and aerodynamic concerns.
You're going to be complaining too when you're paying more for your next car. Automakers might not be happy about the prospect but not because they're the ones paying for it. They will just pass the cost onto the consumer. They're concerned because higher prices will mean fewer sales.
And what's unusual about this being printed in a Detroit newspaper? This directly affects the auto industry and obviously people in the industry are the ones most interested in this news. It's not a conspiracy, it's common sense.
Just because people prefer a particular rate doesn't mean its actually better. Many people are probably used to listening to crap and so tend to favor sound they're familiar with. Also, in my experience people seem to think that good quality audio means boomy bass. So I wouldn't be surprised that muddy audio, with the volume turned up, sounds good to people. Also, sometimes, if people don't know what to listen for they wont be able to pick up on the differences which otherwise would be obvious.
For me, 128Kbps sounds like crap. The best way to describe it is that music sounds muffled, there's isn't enough definition. It's kind of like a jpg with too much compression. I find it a joke that is considered high quality. 192Kbps is good; at this rate I find it acceptable. But when I rip CDs I always go to 256Kbps. I can't really find much to complain about at that rate except that on a 4GB iPod I run out of space fairly quickly.
To this day I'm convinced that the problem with corporate culture in the West is that people with business majors are running companies. The rationale seems to be if you majored in business, economics, etc that somehow you have a more intimate understanding of business and are better equipped to manage a business. The thing is how many people actually get into this field because they're passionate about it and how many do it simply because they believe it's the easiest way to land a job? I'd wager the vast majority of people are in the latter category. How many of these people chose a business major because there was nothing else they were interested in but felt they had to go to college to land an acceptable job? They probably should have taken a trade but that, apparently, is beneath most people nowadays.
So you've got these passionless, ignorant (regarding the nature of the business where they work), drones who manage to climb up the corporate ladder by virtue of their degree. The people who actually have the skill and perform the work (engineers, programmers, designers, etc) have more of a tendency to get stuck because they're perceived as most valuable in the position they're currently occupying. And of course, it's human nature to protect yourself once you're in a position of authority. And interesting contrast to this are government workers who rarely have to worry about job security and for that reason could care less about the job they do.
Needless to say, not everyone is equipped to manage. Everyone says they want to be a manager simply because of the prospect of earning more money but when it comes down to it they're not willing to deal with the stress and responsibilities the job demands. Although, larger companies seem to come up with all kinds of fluff titles in order to give their employees the illusion that they're progressing. But if there were more technical people in high level positions I believe we'd be seeing better American products, less outsourcing and more efficiency. It wouldn't solve everything, because we're still dealing with humans, but it would help.
I think Asia is a good reflection of this. Engineers and designers routinely are the people running companies. Business majors end up in marketing, sales and accounting, where they belong. So you've got people with more intimate understanding of the nature of their company's business. However, managers in Asia can be brutal in a way Westerners can't imagine and in a way they couldn't even get away with here. They're extremely demanding and can be openly insulting towards their employees. They routinely resort to name-calling. I've had friends who have had papers thrown in their face because their manager was unhappy with something they had done. I've heard of people getting slapped, although that's very rare and nowadays people are more likely to take legal action. But this sort of thing happens everywhere, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. Although it's likely worse in places like China.
Certainly, there's a level of elitism there. I have a friend who started his own company a few years ago and is tough on everyone who works with him. I have another friend who stopped working with him because she couldn't stand his tyrannical attitude. He's even rough with his own wife when it comes to work. But I've seen that level of demanding expectations from him even when it comes to service from a waiter in a restaurant or a hotel employee. Whatever problems he may have, I can't deny that he doesn't produce high quality work.
Americans are pretty bad about having pride in anything. And I've noticed this tendency to blame someone else for their own problems in order to justify their own shortcomings. Experience crap service at a store and what is the excuse the employee will give? They don't earn enough to care or their manager is a jerk. That's not an excuse. But they've all got this entitlement mentality and don't value quality. And with employees like that why should a manager care about anything but t
The best part isn't that Obama won the prize 8 months into his presidency but rather that he was nominated 2 weeks after getting into office. So this crap that he's working towards peace was merely tacked on in an attempt to justify the award.
It's interesting that this reflects, quite nicely, the problems with America's youth today. Kids have been overly coddled by their parents, children win awards for merely participating so that no one feels left out, garbage like that. So we're stuck with these millennials who can't deal with the challenges of life and expect the government to shield them from everything. So Obama winning this award for "intentions" is quite fitting.
I work in design and have done more Photoshop work than I care to recall. It certainly is an extremely useful tool and can't be banned outright, however, they could impose very clear limits on retouching photos of people.
I personally see two problems. The first is covering up imperfections, freckles, beauty marks, lumps, etc. The second is thinning out individual body parts and in some extreme cases taking the entire person and making them more narrow.
There's a big drawback here, however. This wont address the use of heavy makeup, creative lighting or photography. And movies have always used all sorts of techniques to make actors look amazing. Celebrities are sometimes virtually unrecognizable in person because of how heavily they're done up for movies. And agencies will likely push models to lose even more weight. Photoshop ultimately is one small part of the larger problem of creating very unrealistic expectations of how people should look.
I've had friends who couldn't be with a girl if she didn't have the perfect complexion and body type depicted in the media. I've also known many girls who lament how terrible they supposedly look compared to celebrities. But how the hell do you change these attitudes in a culture so addicted to celebrity culture? And it's not a problem unique to the US either. It's bad enough in Europe, and probably even worse than the US in Asia.
She's not particularly attractive in that photo either.
I'm convinced the single largest mistake Sony made with the PSP Go was charging too much for it. If it had cost roughly as much as a regular PSP people would be complaining less about the other changes. I realize, however, that the new form factor has likely added to the price of this thing, but then therein lies the source of this problem.
What Sony should have done was offer an updated PSP in the same form factor as the original, but simply eliminate the UMD drive and then promote the functionality they're currently pushing with the Go. This would ensure costs stay down, and in fact, probably give Sony the opportunity to charge even less for this new PSP. Additionally, it wouldn't make existing PSP owners feel like they're being left behind.
While I prefer owning physical copies of my games, going to a download only model doesn't bother me. I personally think not being able to purchase used games is a non-issue because I never do so. I feel that, with the exclusion of buying from an individual, the used games market is a scam anyway. You're not paying much less than full price for a used game. I can go online, and sometimes retailers like Target, and find new games for the same or less than what places like Gamestop are charging for a used game.
And that's where the problem lies. With the PSP Go will we only be able to buy games via Sony? This pretty much ensures Sony has complete control over pricing. In the very least, I expect downloadable games to cost $5 to $10 less than an actual physical copy. And will games be discounted as they age and decline in popularity? I should hope so.
Unfortunately, I think this is the way of the future. It's already starting and Sony was simply the first to take such a bold step in that direction. Too many people have grown comfortable with micro-payments and overpaying for products and services. It's going to be next to impossible to stop this tide. The PSP Go might flop simply because it entered the market a bit too soon.
This must be some kind of joke. Having traveled to a varied of countries and having had friends and family visit from foreign countries coming into the US is no more difficult than it is going anywhere else. In fact, in some cases it's more of a pain going through immigrations in other countries although even then it's not the end of the world.
There is a problem I've found travelers encounter coming into the US, and that's good old shitty American service; immigration officers, for example who are complete assholes. They tend to be in bad moods for no apparent reason and they have little patience for people who can't speak English clearly. Obviously, not every immigration officer is like this. It's just a preview of what a foreigner is in for once they go out to shop. This is more of a cultural problem related to poor work ethic, among other things, than it is anything with immigration services.
However, I think the most important reason for Brazil being chosen is the fact that there hasn't yet been an Olympics in South America. Certainly Rio de Janeiro wasn't the best choice. I'm sure corruption will be rampant and it's going to be a logistical nightmare getting the games set up down there. Certainly, any of the other options were superior, with Japan likely being the best choice. And the fact is that until the US is no longer a superpower Europeans are going to continue disliking us.
First of all, corporations aren't running unfettered through society. There are so many government regulations in place they'd make your head spin. While some of these very necessary, many have them have done little more than ensure that it's primarily the largest, wealthiest and best connected corporations which thrive. Small upstarts are forced to be a part of the system, basically, if they want to get anywhere.
That said, what corporation has forced you to buy their shit? Nobody is forcing you to buy cigarettes, big macs, televisions, iphones, expensive homes or anything else you might be inclined to buy. If the vast majority of Americans boycotted McDonalds, for example, I guarantee you within weeks their cuisine would change. The government certainly wouldn't force consumers at gunpoint to eat there. But people value personal satisfaction more than principle.
Unfortunately, the attitude we see today is one of playing victim and entitlement. I had enough common sense not to buy stuff I can't afford, putting myself in debt. Why is it that credit card companies are at fault for other people being unable to do the same? But people live throwing around stupid terms like "evil" so that they can foment a little righteous indignation for themselves.
This is not to say that corporations don't take advantage when they can, because certainly they do. But people have gone way too far blaming others for their own short-comings.
As for your comments about medical expenses, I can only reason that you're trying to slip in your endorsement of government healthcare. I agree with you, medical costs are too high, to the point of feeling exploitive sometimes. But socialized healthcare in other countries hasn't decreased the cost of healthcare. What you'd pay directly to insurance companies you instead pay in taxes. And when the government tries to force down costs what you end up with instead is a shortage of doctors, hospital staff and equipment. And then we get into rationing.
The fact is that medical care is expensive because that's the value society places on it. Whenever anyone gets sick they want their condition to be treated as effectively as possible. If people shopped treatments, doctors and hospitals perhaps were would be competition on cost. But when you're incapacitated there isn't much chance of that happening. So what do you suggest? The government making those decisions for you? Does anyone want the government cutting corners on your treatment in order to save a few bucks?
And where do you cut costs? Are we going to cut doctor's salaries? If so, then are we going to cut their education costs in order to be fair about it? Are we going to tell manufacturers that they're asking too much for EKG machines? What about x-ray machines, MRIs, and everything else you find in a hospital? What about syringes, trash bags, towels, beds? What about staff, nurses and administrators? Are we going to cut their salaries too and tell hospitals they have to limit the number of people they hire? What about pharmaceuticals? Do we cut when they can ask for any medication? How do we then deal with R&D? Do we tell them they can only focus on certain fields in order to keep costs down? (Actually, I think pharmaceuticals should be completely banned from advertising, but that's another story.) And what about lawsuits? Certainly some lawsuits are justified but there are too many frivolous ones out there and even when they don't go to trial they still incur some level of expense. Oh yeah, lets cut what lawyers charge because they're seriously overpriced too, worse than doctors.
As you can see this is far more complicated than people every consider. Unfortunately too many people seem to have the simplistic worldview of a 10-year-old. And they seem to share that same infantile expectation that they should be sheltered from the troubles of the world the same way their parents were over-protective of them when they were kids. The way people have been spoiled by their parents I'm not surprised that younger ge