Samzenpus made it a point to blame deep pocket politics on Bush's last 6 years. I despise Bush, but he's just one in a line of president's who are using the power of the presidency to grease palms in the business world. Hence, I point this out by highlighting one of the most abusive business giveaway laws in recent years: the DMCA, which was Clinton's doing, not Bush's.
As somebody who thinks that much of what Bush has done outside the few weeks around 9/11 has been absolutely abusive and utterly unacceptable, I'm constantly outraged by people like him who weaken the perfectly valid complaints against the man by inventing ridiculous things like this. It's this sort of ridiculous, zealoted leftist crap that makes the perfectly normal people with perfectly normal grievances against Bush get ignored.
Recently, slashdot made a change to the journals system that allows user journals to be submitted as stories. Nobody thought much of it, but the "feature" is really just there so that those two advert bots, bought and paid for, can submit "stories" to the Vendors section of slashdot:
This in itself might not be so annoying, but since they're using journals to submit the advertising, if you try to use the search.pl script to look at the latest journal entries by users:
You frequently get long line of spam advertising how "great" AMD is, because they're just journals that get submitted to the AMD vendors section.
It appears that over the last two to three days it died down some, but at one point it wasn't uncommon to find that from about 1000 EST through the afternoon, the AMD bot would have almost an entire page full of AMD spam up, pushing everybody else's journals off the page.
Not to mention that a site that includes hardware "news" becomes a little suspect when it's (theoretically) so deeply funded by a chip maker that it dedicates a whole section to them.
To the contrary. I submitted an Ask Slashdot that was accepted and they actually edited some really stupid questions into it that I hadn't asked, which immediately resulted in a number of people questioning the source of my particular genetic line.
I think what you meant is not that they don't edit, but rather that they don't edit properly.
Yes, okay, so that was a very stupid choice of words on my part. Mock away.
Rather, what I meant to get at is that there is no set of obligations in the sense that you're going to provide something for them. The point here is that you can't violate the contract in any way that would consistute any sort of financially recoverable harm that could be used to sue you.
In other words, short of acting in a criminal manner, pretty much anything you do to break that agreement: in-game profanity, selling in-game items for money, harrassing people, is going to constitute you voiding the contract, and they're going to respond to that by denying you further service.
So, yes, they could of course sue you, since you can try to sue anybody for whatever bizarre reason you want, but I fail to see what grounds they would have to recover anything if they tried.
In a time when the typical console was retailing brand new at $200...
If a $500-$600 PS3 is real, it would be more comparable to a $1000 3D0 from "back in the day".
The question you have to ask yourself, if these environmentalist liberals, as I've just illustrated, are willing to kill so much, can you really believe that they intend to save the planet for you and all men?
Of course, no "eco terrorist" has ever in the history of the entire "eco terrorism" movement killed a single human being as far as I can tell.
Contrast this with "right to life conservatives" who have killed and wounded numerous people in their crusade to "preserve the sanctity of life".
Yes, I mean like one liberal democrat versus all the people at those three sites
Well, I'm winning this argument about 300,000 to 1. Would you like to continue? Or would you like me to go highlight some examples of where, for example, Freepers had wet dreams over the idea of a journalist doing his job being murdered in Iraq by American soldiers (note that, apparently, the soldiers are much smarter than freepers, which doesn't take much, since they didn't actually kill him for exercising his first amendment rights like the freepers wanted)?
Or maybe you'd like to compare something even better like, say, liberal eco "terrorists" who have never once, in all of recorded history, killed a single person in an act of "terrorism" versus, for example, conservative "right-to-lifers" who have murdered numerous people in their quest to "protect the sanctity of life". Or maybe we could talk about the good, god-fearing righties who called for the murder of each member of the supreme court? Or maybe the right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh?
I like how everything about conservatism is defined in cutesy terms to disguise the fact that it's really just hate-mongering and murderous violence whereas the worst liberals, who are "terrorists", seem to ever do is burn up an empty truck dealership or spray paint something.
I like how nothing you said is supported by anything that's actually happening.
While we're trying to reshape reality with our thoughts, do you think maybe I can make my coffee cup turn into a bar of solid gold if I pretend it already is one hard enough?
National Review is basically a conservative think-tank.
Contrast: National Review with National Review Online, the latter being a den of ultra-racist, mysognistic, violent and depraved lunatics (see also: Little Green Footballs, FreeRepublic).
If only the Democrats had the guts to step in and fill the void instead of likewise pandering to its base...
To clarify, the Democrats are pandering to the same base. Rather than refocus on some core concepts, they've apparently decided that if they pretend to be George Bush and Friends they can get elected. Except, nobody who would vote for them would be stupid enough to vote for a Bushite, and nobody who's stupid enough to vote for Bush would ever vote Democrat anyway, just because they're Democrats.
The posited circumstances involve unilateral violation of the terms of a legitimate contract.
What? No, they don't. You're talking out your rear end. There is absolutely no contract between you and ArenaNet that says you won't sell in-game gold on E-Bay. What there is is an agreement whereby if you violate the rules of the game - one of which is that you can't sell in-game items for non-game items or currency - you have voided the agreement and ArenaNet is no longer obligated to continue providing the service you purchased (although part of the agreement is, basically, that they're under no such obligation anyway).
In fact, outside criminal behavior, I doubt there's ANYTHING you can do to break that contract which would be unlawful. Anything you do against the terms that isn't criminal is basically just going to void it and get you locked out of the service.
In fact, although violating a contract is not typically a criminal offense, it's certainly illegal, and it's certainly breaking the law. That's why you can be sued for "breach of contract".
There's a difference between breaching a contract and voiding it.
It's not pay as you go. You buy a key once, download (or if you bought the box, install from CD) the client, and then you play away for however long you want.
The only time you have to pay more is if you choose to buy new content in the form of new chapters. For example, the first chapter is called "Prophecies Campaign". At the end of this month, people who have played that one to death can buy a new chapter called "Factions" if they want.
Basically, rather than keep billing you for a constant online service, they're banking on the idea that if they continually provide a strong product line, you'll become brand loyal and be willing to keep buying new games as they come out (which can be used as expansions if you already bought the previous games).
Frankly, I think it's an excellent approach. I've been playing for nearly two months now and I'm nowhere near finished with the existing campaign, and I'm contstantly finding new ways to enjoy the existing environment. When that's done, I can move on to the next chapter with the expectation that it's going to be as equally rewarding. If it meets expectations, I'll then go on to the next chapter when it's done in 6-12 months. I haven't even scratched the surface of the various PvP game types yet.
Not since the days of Black Isle have I found games that I think have as much value in them as Guild Wars.
Which was primarily the work of a fresh Republican congress.
Furthermore, note that the surpluses were projected and largely relied on a non-finalized tobacco deal with the promise that the funds would be found elsewhere if it fell through.
Maybe people like Bush wouldn't get elected if the opposition could at least pretend to have a clue.
You realize the article was about how cockroaches get together, communicate effectively, and do what is good for the entire group, right?
Yes, and Congress typically gets together, communicates effectively, and does what's best for the entire... Congress.
So, yes, they're just like cockroaches: as a group, they generally do what's best for themselves. Note that the article didn't indicate that the behavior generally benefited other cockroaches outside the clique.
In fact, the only exception I take to the OP is that it singles out the current Republican congresses self-interest and corruption when one need go back only to the beginning of Clinton's term to find an equally degraded Democratic congress.
In fact, the current congressional makeup is primarily a backlash from the corruption of the previous democratic congress, just like it seems likely that the democrats will now take over again as a result of all the republican corruption over the last six to eight years.
I guess that at least American voters aren't like cockroaches then. They rarely do what's best for the group...
Don't confuse an argument for basic human decency with one for compulsory government interference. They're rarely even remotely related, and one generally solves problems far better than the other. People can make fluid judgements for themselves when you don't introduce all this moronic beuracracy into the situation.
It's the "don't be an asshole" principle, not the "be an asshole and we'll lock you away" principle. In the former, all adherants insure that there will be a reasonable disbersement to help alleviate strain appropriately. In the latter (and in your chosen path, in fact), the only thing that generally happens is exactly what you decry: disproportionate disbursement as the privileged few deprive others of necessities for their own comfort.
Unfortunately, by definition, all conservative economics does is create assholes who steal from the poor, and all liberal economics does is create assholes who steal from everybody. Which explains why all economists are assholes, I guess. If they weren't, they'd recognize that all situations don't fit specific molds, and then they wouldn't be economists, they'd be anarchists.
Besides, you're arguing for the government to continue to enforce a free market anyway from the assumption that protection of property rights is a moral issue. If you'd like to talk "morality", here's a moral argument for you: I reject the assertion that that merchant's property rights are more valued than an individual's right to life. In other words, if I steal that loaf of bread for my starving child, the merchant, unless he is now also deprived of his right to life as a result of that action, is what is affectionately referred to as "SOL". Not that theft should be excused so easily or taken lightly, but at least I accept that there's something significantly more complicated in this issue than simple property rights issues.
Please post a high-resolution copy of your PhD in economics, I'd sure love to see which school turned out this brilliantly steaming pile of crap and how much it cost.
You're talking gibberish and I don't understand it. You're not breaking any laws by selling in-game items for real money. You're breaking the contract you made with the company when you agreed to use their services. The punishment comes from them, not the judicial system. Unless you did something truly egregious and they sue you. The point is, it doesn't matter what silly rules you set for yourself. You're only one party in the deal, and you're not the party that controls access to the service, and if you get yourself banned from it for breaking the TOS, you deserve it.
Yes, and? I could hit you in the fact with a shovel and steal your wallet. What's your point? I'd still be punished, and I'd still deserve it, even though I "could" do it.
So what? You lament the loss of creativity and innovation in gaming, and so do I, but if that's what the market wants, that's what the market gets.
Besides, this is nothing new. How many Mario clones are out there? How many arcade games were based around the concept of an overhead space or plane shooter? How about in the mid 90s when every other game cabinet out of the factory was "MARVEL VERSUS BARBIE!! THE ULTIMATE SUPER KILLER STREET FIGHTER PUFF TOY SHOWDOWN!!!"
Hell, speaking of which, what about the old Street Fighter craze. There were at LEAST five official arcade versions of Street Fighter 2 alone.
Welcome to 9th grade intro to econ (note that I'm not claiming you in particular fall into any of the slanderous categories below, I'm just ranting in general)...
Anything but the most absurdly pedantic reading of a free market economy will lead an intelligent reviewer to conclude that price gouging does, in fact, exist. When used pejoratively, it is a function of an emergency in which the supply is IGNORED in order to create a sense of urgency in the buyer.
In other words, you can't just SAY that there isn't enough water to go around unless you know for a fact that there isn't, that's deceptive. Most civilized nations recognize that a certain level of honesty must be enforced to have a viable free market.
Even when used to refer to an actual, sudden inflation of price due to a disaster, only a twisted idiot would honestly argue in favor of allowing it, because all decent human beings recognize that human safety and life is more important than vaporous concepts like "market forces". It's called Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, and people who at least graduated high school know about it.
All that said, I fail to see how this is price gouging. It's a non-essential item, so if you think it's too much, don't buy it. It's like a diamond: excessively high price and no actual value outside whatever you can convince a sucker to pay. It sounds to me like there are a lot of suckers with some really purty, worthless rocks on their X-Boxes.
Restricting the aftermarket in games has always been about companies seeing an opportunity to profit for themselves.
Except that's a load of crap in MMORPGs...
If I go out and farm a ton of high quality weaponry in Guild Wars, then sell it on e-bay for real money, I'm actively skirting the in-game economy. Now, the in-game currency is de-valued as there's more of it doing less, and anybody who is unable or unwilling to purchase fake items for real money is experiencing degraded gameplay because people aren't following the rules of the game.
If you don't want to follow the rules, don't play the game. You don't get to rewrite other people's rules just because you want to do something that benefits you.
Slashdot Mirror
Samzenpus made it a point to blame deep pocket politics on Bush's last 6 years. I despise Bush, but he's just one in a line of president's who are using the power of the presidency to grease palms in the business world. Hence, I point this out by highlighting one of the most abusive business giveaway laws in recent years: the DMCA, which was Clinton's doing, not Bush's.
As somebody who thinks that much of what Bush has done outside the few weeks around 9/11 has been absolutely abusive and utterly unacceptable, I'm constantly outraged by people like him who weaken the perfectly valid complaints against the man by inventing ridiculous things like this. It's this sort of ridiculous, zealoted leftist crap that makes the perfectly normal people with perfectly normal grievances against Bush get ignored.
The "OSTG Marketing" bot: OSTG Marketing
The "AMD" bot: AMD
Recently, slashdot made a change to the journals system that allows user journals to be submitted as stories. Nobody thought much of it, but the "feature" is really just there so that those two advert bots, bought and paid for, can submit "stories" to the Vendors section of slashdot:
http://vendors.slashdot.org/
This in itself might not be so annoying, but since they're using journals to submit the advertising, if you try to use the search.pl script to look at the latest journal entries by users:
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?op=journals
You frequently get long line of spam advertising how "great" AMD is, because they're just journals that get submitted to the AMD vendors section.
It appears that over the last two to three days it died down some, but at one point it wasn't uncommon to find that from about 1000 EST through the afternoon, the AMD bot would have almost an entire page full of AMD spam up, pushing everybody else's journals off the page.
Not to mention that a site that includes hardware "news" becomes a little suspect when it's (theoretically) so deeply funded by a chip maker that it dedicates a whole section to them.
You missed about eight years there, buddy. Ever heard of this little thing called the DMCA?
Yea, Clinton signed that one.
Bush is an ass, but if you can't be honest about why you hate him, just keep your trap shut.
To the contrary. I submitted an Ask Slashdot that was accepted and they actually edited some really stupid questions into it that I hadn't asked, which immediately resulted in a number of people questioning the source of my particular genetic line.
I think what you meant is not that they don't edit, but rather that they don't edit properly.
Just for that, I'm never buying Intel again either.
Are you allowed to put anything up about Intel now that AMD is paying Slashdot for the right to spam the site with crap advertisement "stories"?
I mean, hell, you created a whole new function in the journals system just so that AMD could continually spam with garbage.
Yes, okay, so that was a very stupid choice of words on my part. Mock away.
Rather, what I meant to get at is that there is no set of obligations in the sense that you're going to provide something for them. The point here is that you can't violate the contract in any way that would consistute any sort of financially recoverable harm that could be used to sue you.
In other words, short of acting in a criminal manner, pretty much anything you do to break that agreement: in-game profanity, selling in-game items for money, harrassing people, is going to constitute you voiding the contract, and they're going to respond to that by denying you further service.
So, yes, they could of course sue you, since you can try to sue anybody for whatever bizarre reason you want, but I fail to see what grounds they would have to recover anything if they tried.
In a time when the typical console was retailing brand new at $200... If a $500-$600 PS3 is real, it would be more comparable to a $1000 3D0 from "back in the day".
The question you have to ask yourself, if these environmentalist liberals, as I've just illustrated, are willing to kill so much, can you really believe that they intend to save the planet for you and all men?
Of course, no "eco terrorist" has ever in the history of the entire "eco terrorism" movement killed a single human being as far as I can tell.
Contrast this with "right to life conservatives" who have killed and wounded numerous people in their crusade to "preserve the sanctity of life".
I'll take those darn liberals anyday, thanks.
Yes, I mean like one liberal democrat versus all the people at those three sites
Well, I'm winning this argument about 300,000 to 1. Would you like to continue? Or would you like me to go highlight some examples of where, for example, Freepers had wet dreams over the idea of a journalist doing his job being murdered in Iraq by American soldiers (note that, apparently, the soldiers are much smarter than freepers, which doesn't take much, since they didn't actually kill him for exercising his first amendment rights like the freepers wanted)?
Or maybe you'd like to compare something even better like, say, liberal eco "terrorists" who have never once, in all of recorded history, killed a single person in an act of "terrorism" versus, for example, conservative "right-to-lifers" who have murdered numerous people in their quest to "protect the sanctity of life". Or maybe we could talk about the good, god-fearing righties who called for the murder of each member of the supreme court? Or maybe the right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh?
I like how everything about conservatism is defined in cutesy terms to disguise the fact that it's really just hate-mongering and murderous violence whereas the worst liberals, who are "terrorists", seem to ever do is burn up an empty truck dealership or spray paint something.
I like how nothing you said is supported by anything that's actually happening.
While we're trying to reshape reality with our thoughts, do you think maybe I can make my coffee cup turn into a bar of solid gold if I pretend it already is one hard enough?
I could have gotten first post in this story since the entire write-up is basically one giant lie.
National Review is basically a conservative think-tank.
Contrast: National Review with National Review Online, the latter being a den of ultra-racist, mysognistic, violent and depraved lunatics (see also: Little Green Footballs, FreeRepublic).
If only the Democrats had the guts to step in and fill the void instead of likewise pandering to its base...
To clarify, the Democrats are pandering to the same base. Rather than refocus on some core concepts, they've apparently decided that if they pretend to be George Bush and Friends they can get elected. Except, nobody who would vote for them would be stupid enough to vote for a Bushite, and nobody who's stupid enough to vote for Bush would ever vote Democrat anyway, just because they're Democrats.
American voters for the fail.
The posited circumstances involve unilateral violation of the terms of a legitimate contract.
What? No, they don't. You're talking out your rear end. There is absolutely no contract between you and ArenaNet that says you won't sell in-game gold on E-Bay. What there is is an agreement whereby if you violate the rules of the game - one of which is that you can't sell in-game items for non-game items or currency - you have voided the agreement and ArenaNet is no longer obligated to continue providing the service you purchased (although part of the agreement is, basically, that they're under no such obligation anyway).
In fact, outside criminal behavior, I doubt there's ANYTHING you can do to break that contract which would be unlawful. Anything you do against the terms that isn't criminal is basically just going to void it and get you locked out of the service.
There's a difference between breaching a contract and voiding it.
It's not pay as you go. You buy a key once, download (or if you bought the box, install from CD) the client, and then you play away for however long you want.
The only time you have to pay more is if you choose to buy new content in the form of new chapters. For example, the first chapter is called "Prophecies Campaign". At the end of this month, people who have played that one to death can buy a new chapter called "Factions" if they want.
Basically, rather than keep billing you for a constant online service, they're banking on the idea that if they continually provide a strong product line, you'll become brand loyal and be willing to keep buying new games as they come out (which can be used as expansions if you already bought the previous games).
Frankly, I think it's an excellent approach. I've been playing for nearly two months now and I'm nowhere near finished with the existing campaign, and I'm contstantly finding new ways to enjoy the existing environment. When that's done, I can move on to the next chapter with the expectation that it's going to be as equally rewarding. If it meets expectations, I'll then go on to the next chapter when it's done in 6-12 months. I haven't even scratched the surface of the various PvP game types yet.
Not since the days of Black Isle have I found games that I think have as much value in them as Guild Wars.
Which was primarily the work of a fresh Republican congress.
Furthermore, note that the surpluses were projected and largely relied on a non-finalized tobacco deal with the promise that the funds would be found elsewhere if it fell through.
Maybe people like Bush wouldn't get elected if the opposition could at least pretend to have a clue.
You realize the article was about how cockroaches get together, communicate effectively, and do what is good for the entire group, right?
Yes, and Congress typically gets together, communicates effectively, and does what's best for the entire... Congress.
So, yes, they're just like cockroaches: as a group, they generally do what's best for themselves. Note that the article didn't indicate that the behavior generally benefited other cockroaches outside the clique.
In fact, the only exception I take to the OP is that it singles out the current Republican congresses self-interest and corruption when one need go back only to the beginning of Clinton's term to find an equally degraded Democratic congress.
In fact, the current congressional makeup is primarily a backlash from the corruption of the previous democratic congress, just like it seems likely that the democrats will now take over again as a result of all the republican corruption over the last six to eight years.
I guess that at least American voters aren't like cockroaches then. They rarely do what's best for the group...
Don't confuse an argument for basic human decency with one for compulsory government interference. They're rarely even remotely related, and one generally solves problems far better than the other. People can make fluid judgements for themselves when you don't introduce all this moronic beuracracy into the situation.
It's the "don't be an asshole" principle, not the "be an asshole and we'll lock you away" principle. In the former, all adherants insure that there will be a reasonable disbersement to help alleviate strain appropriately. In the latter (and in your chosen path, in fact), the only thing that generally happens is exactly what you decry: disproportionate disbursement as the privileged few deprive others of necessities for their own comfort.
Unfortunately, by definition, all conservative economics does is create assholes who steal from the poor, and all liberal economics does is create assholes who steal from everybody. Which explains why all economists are assholes, I guess. If they weren't, they'd recognize that all situations don't fit specific molds, and then they wouldn't be economists, they'd be anarchists.
Besides, you're arguing for the government to continue to enforce a free market anyway from the assumption that protection of property rights is a moral issue. If you'd like to talk "morality", here's a moral argument for you: I reject the assertion that that merchant's property rights are more valued than an individual's right to life. In other words, if I steal that loaf of bread for my starving child, the merchant, unless he is now also deprived of his right to life as a result of that action, is what is affectionately referred to as "SOL". Not that theft should be excused so easily or taken lightly, but at least I accept that there's something significantly more complicated in this issue than simple property rights issues.
Please post a high-resolution copy of your PhD in economics, I'd sure love to see which school turned out this brilliantly steaming pile of crap and how much it cost.
You're talking gibberish and I don't understand it. You're not breaking any laws by selling in-game items for real money. You're breaking the contract you made with the company when you agreed to use their services. The punishment comes from them, not the judicial system. Unless you did something truly egregious and they sue you. The point is, it doesn't matter what silly rules you set for yourself. You're only one party in the deal, and you're not the party that controls access to the service, and if you get yourself banned from it for breaking the TOS, you deserve it.
Yes, and? I could hit you in the fact with a shovel and steal your wallet. What's your point? I'd still be punished, and I'd still deserve it, even though I "could" do it.
So what? You lament the loss of creativity and innovation in gaming, and so do I, but if that's what the market wants, that's what the market gets.
Besides, this is nothing new. How many Mario clones are out there? How many arcade games were based around the concept of an overhead space or plane shooter? How about in the mid 90s when every other game cabinet out of the factory was "MARVEL VERSUS BARBIE!! THE ULTIMATE SUPER KILLER STREET FIGHTER PUFF TOY SHOWDOWN!!!"
Hell, speaking of which, what about the old Street Fighter craze. There were at LEAST five official arcade versions of Street Fighter 2 alone.
No, nothing new. Nothing new at all.
Welcome to 9th grade intro to econ (note that I'm not claiming you in particular fall into any of the slanderous categories below, I'm just ranting in general)...
Anything but the most absurdly pedantic reading of a free market economy will lead an intelligent reviewer to conclude that price gouging does, in fact, exist. When used pejoratively, it is a function of an emergency in which the supply is IGNORED in order to create a sense of urgency in the buyer.
In other words, you can't just SAY that there isn't enough water to go around unless you know for a fact that there isn't, that's deceptive. Most civilized nations recognize that a certain level of honesty must be enforced to have a viable free market.
Even when used to refer to an actual, sudden inflation of price due to a disaster, only a twisted idiot would honestly argue in favor of allowing it, because all decent human beings recognize that human safety and life is more important than vaporous concepts like "market forces". It's called Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, and people who at least graduated high school know about it.
All that said, I fail to see how this is price gouging. It's a non-essential item, so if you think it's too much, don't buy it. It's like a diamond: excessively high price and no actual value outside whatever you can convince a sucker to pay. It sounds to me like there are a lot of suckers with some really purty, worthless rocks on their X-Boxes.
Restricting the aftermarket in games has always been about companies seeing an opportunity to profit for themselves.
Except that's a load of crap in MMORPGs...
If I go out and farm a ton of high quality weaponry in Guild Wars, then sell it on e-bay for real money, I'm actively skirting the in-game economy. Now, the in-game currency is de-valued as there's more of it doing less, and anybody who is unable or unwilling to purchase fake items for real money is experiencing degraded gameplay because people aren't following the rules of the game.
If you don't want to follow the rules, don't play the game. You don't get to rewrite other people's rules just because you want to do something that benefits you.