Is it me or does this seem really bad if you know... use more then one computer. Is there a.dat or something I can stick on a thumb drive and take with me?
How do you recover from a hard drive failure?
The only think I can think of that would be more work then identiy theift is loosing acess to every single web account I have. I guess you could get around that by using only one e-mail account and just having a secure password there.
I always guessed that there are 3 major security holes you had to deal with in the realm of password security.
1. Telling people. 2. Securing your computer from intrusion both physcally and via the net. 3. Using sites with whom you felt secure.
This only seems to fix problem 1.
On Friday there was a story of a nasty little trojan, that basically hopped in your system decrypted what ever you sent or received, parsed it and sent it off to Russia. It even updated it's self. That bit of unplesantness, as I understand it, would defeat this scheme. It also continues to ellued some anti-virus software.
Finally, we can't control the security at the sites we use, and this doesn't improve that either.
Is this plug-in really going to valuable additional layer on your computer security or is it "EMP paint" blocking your cell reception?
Perhaps the solution might come from legislation. I personally would love to sue the hell out of any company who used my name to promote it's products via my confidential information with out my express, informed consent.
Unfortunatly with a representative democracy we get stuck with platforms. With the degree of technology in this country maybe we are moving twords a time where we could atleast replace the lower house with direct democracy. I'm not sure how implementation could be done, and oh brother are there issues with exploiting the system. Come to think of it, I bearly trust average americans to vote in their own best intrests let alone America's. I can hardly imagine a budget being passed, or tech legislation.
But what are our choices? A 3rd party? That's a virtual certainty that you will loose. Facism?... well i'm going to avoid a Bush II comment. Let's just say balances are there for a reason. Perhaps federal funding of campains? That get a lot of that lobbing nonsense out of the way, and opens things up for more people to run, but who is going to pay for the crazy cat lady down the street to run for Senate?
I don't know about you guys, but I deffinatly don't fall in line with the Cut-Tax-and-Spend Republicans or the Cut-and-run Democrats. Is the problem the system or the lobbies? What can be done?
"I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
"Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back."
W.W.J.B - What would Jesus Ban? Could simply being an asshole and blacklisting your music selection have an adverse effect on your sales. After all I'm sure no one would steal christian music.
I'm not sure the computer models you are thinking of took everything into account. War and natural disasters (any big single events in which large numbers of indviduals are killed), would seem to really give short term weight to those group selections. If one person can save 20 (and likely himself) or just himself is could have a large impact on the health of the aggragate group. Just by 2 cents.
Very important distintion about the GP post. Risk != Give. By and large when people risk their lives they don't actully lose them. As a whole that then increases the survivability of the social group. Thus Morality in that sense has a group evolutional advantage. The group with fire fighters will out produce the group without.
Wolfenstein Productivity Virus.... that takes me back.
Why can't we find games that... enthralling anymore?
I'm in the same boat you are. I swore off console games some time around the Turbo Graphix 16. The reason I gave them up for PC-only gaming was very straight forward for me. There is no game that you can play on multiple systems in which the PC version wasn't the best. The level of flexability in input mapping, settings, and (to relive a classic with a new twist) cheating, was unmatched.
Some time back in around 2000ish? something seemed to happen to the PC game market however. I guess it's the direct result of the bubble bursting. The sea of isles of PC games turned in to an isle or 2. I imagine it's a matter of capital investment, and risk. Game manufactures are too condensed and risk adverse. Every thing was the same, the sequel, or 'teh sux'. There have really been what, 1 big New game each year since. I think that is more of the slow death of the Large PC game then simply the preceived increase in complexety of hardware. I can remember when games required me to input every detail of my hardware everytime I played. (Which IRQ is my sound card again:) ?)
I think the shrinking market place of titles must also have been effecting the mag. I'm sure the lawsuit was a big nail, but my vote was death was inevetable from both the low cost alternatives and the decline of the game.
Just my 140,000 Yen.
Google purchases Viacom cost 35B (your number) vs. Possible cost of lost lawsuit (1B) + Undertermined Future cost of lawsuits from content providers (?B) + Cost of fighting Billion Dollar Lawsuits (?B) + Cost of opening own content company (?M-B) + Value of lost time for such a company ramping up (?M-B) + Cost of aquiring lisences for media archives (?B) + Cost of mistakes along the way (?B)
That's the math I'm doing. If they are looking to aquire media production in the near future, it seems they would be better served in taking that Billion and applying it to that end, IMHO.
I bet Viacom will be aquired. Google made a comment awhile back about making in house content. This would solve that problem and save some lawyer fees, oh an a Billion Dollars.
Sting Theory, Quantum Theory and Relativity all talk nicely about what energy "is". Energy is a translation of matter into an equal but not identical form. "All matter is but energy converted into a slow vibration." It is my understaning that Relativity and Quantum Theory dictate that all time, distance, mass, ect are all discreate. Ala Plank time, the quanta, and plank mass. I was trying to write out the formula's but the DayQuil is kicking my ass to hard.
Mathmatics being an abstraction of reality permits us to ask many questions of this nature. It may at some point be able to prove by law, as opposed to theory, that the universe isn't further subdividable, however at this point it isn't.
That is all, have a plesant day.
Theories of Time and Quantum Gravity would help resolve these issues I imagine.
Actully since the area is cooling I beleive the process is still entropic. This is because it is giving a larger amount of disorganization (to the vaccum around it) then the order of its new state has gained in order. Thus for the Universe the 2nd law is upheld. Locally = more order, closed system = less order.
Like why we can only make memories in the positive time direction.
I call Bull Shit on you. Unconnected people may purcase satalite feeds. Cost prohibitive, however it isn't a technical hurdle. They have the option even if it isn't realistic.
Not to say the statistics are obviously in contrast, but I don't think most people segregate their viewing of the HUGE SEXI DLP (tm) by what they want to watch as much as their location. If I'm able to watch that 1940's black and white footage on the history channel on my big screen, frankly bulb life just doesn't enter the picture.
Wasn't that the same part of the same package that removed like 5 million people from poverty by reclassifing the definition of poverty? I beleive that was about 6 months or so into Bush's first term. So maybe July 2000. It was right before he announced that the he had fixed the economy.
Employment numbers are only one indication of economic health. Employment numbers and poverty numbers are EASY to manipulate. Resort back to GINI and it becomes obvious that there is infact a great danger of serious economic problems. GINI is an indicator of the distribution of income. We are approaching the GINI of 1929 rather quickly, and by this point may have actully reached it. The average American is saving -1.2% of their income. That is to say, just like the Fed they are running their books in the red. Say that to your self out loud, "The AVERAGE American is living in the red." consumerism doesn't really have an easy solution to that. Luckly the Dems are gonna raise minimum wage a bit, $7.50 an hour or so. If it hadn't been lowered by legislation in the 70's (in 1974 was the brunt of it was passed, can't recall the name of the particual bill, it no longer pegged minimum wage to worker productivity) it would be over $20.00 right now.
Do you make less then $20 an hour? Thats a minimum wage of about 41K a year. I wonder what poverty numbers would look like with that figure as a baseline.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I was intending to take the conversation you started, and apply it to a taxation model that would be pratical for online gaming. It seems to me it would be simple to just add it as a line item to a regular tax return.
The point of the first paragraphs is to establish that Taxes benifit the wealthy more then the poor, without the inclusion of social welfare; it's a distrbutiional issue. This is simply to establish that the wealthy have more utility from tangibles then the poor, self-evident by deffinition, and as such have more to lose from poor governance.
The point of the second paragraph was to establish that a graduated system as opposed to a flat tax system like sales tax more equally represents the exchange of utility. The wealthy give up less utility per dollar for a higher return in utility per dollar. This primarly has to do with Diminishing Marginal Returns. I.E Sales taxes cost more to the poor more then to the wealthy. Thus to prevent the weathy from becoming virtual free-riders their taxes must be graduated, not a fixed percentage. (ie. I pay 12% of my total utility in taxes and receive 200% of that utility back in security, goods and services, as opposed to I pay 50% of my utility back and receive 75% of that utility back in goods and services. If you can come up with a pratical graduated sales tax, I would be all for it. I will find you a link or two, to support those claims if you like.
As for my final assertion to corporate ownership, I wasn't stipulating that the government should have complete control of corporate entities, say 25% (completely random guess). This would not only permit the government to garner dividends, but also to have a direct influence in the development of market sectors. As opposed to simply the market forces being translated in to legislation via lobbists which inturn changes market forces. This would allow the government to look at market forces and Benifit/Cost the implications of the actions. Perhaps doing things in the long term benifit of the company and the nation while not best short term for the firm. This ofcourse would require forward thinking governance, which might be a bit to utpoian. I would get more into this line of thought but its really off topic.
I appologise if I wasn't clear, I was typing while drinking the first cup of the day.
As an Economist, I have to say that sales taxes don't fairly distribute taxes. If you look at the GINI coefficent you can see the distribution of income across a population. It is a basic tenant of political science that those who have the most have the most to lose from an unstable or unsafe government. As such these people are the ones who derive the most value from government. (It's hard to find some one earing 7 figures who doesn't vote.) Therefore these people should pay the most for goods and services. This is where a flat level income tax starts.
Secondly we will also notice that there is minimum level of subsistance earnings that a person requires to live. This includes a basket of goods such as, but not limited to: roof, food, health care, education, utilities and security. The valuation of this basket of goods is a very important thing. Further it is shown that there is a declining rate of marginal utility for income beyond this point; I.E. Having a Porsche 911 instead of a Porsche Boxter provides a smaller increase in utility then having beef to eat instead of horse. This is the basis of the graduated income tax.
With this already inforce basis, I would assume that Virtual Economies would only have taxation when charcters exchange goods or services exceeding a threshold, say $1000.00 a year in cash out. Or that Virtual for Virtual transferes would be normalized such that only the top x% of the player base would exchange enough product to incure taxes.
Three more things, if your still reading:
With the capitalization of Virtual Economies there would be such an amazing level of new monitoring, regulation and enforecement that it wouldn't pay for itself. The markets would devaluate rapidly, and the games would suffer horribly. I imagine tht everyone would follow the thinking of, "If I'm going to be paying taxes on that plat, it damn well better be helping make my mortgage payment." With that the market would devaluate it self rapidly, as supply would spike.
The Liability, as discussed in many other posts, would be amazing. If one clever person, or a corporate entity that wanted to eliminate some competition mearly hacked and moved a decimal point on another entities server it could be astounding. Imagine the headline, "Worm Bankrupts Blizard! Virtual Trillions Lost In Server Roll-Back. Gamers File Class Action Lawsuit." Web-Security would atleast get more attention.
IMHO, the income tax is just one of a menu of taxes that solves the government income problem. I would prefer direct government ownership of a percentage of all corporate entites above a certain value. That is the government owning a percentage of stock, this does create some market inefficency however and is a bit to Left-ist for some. I would rather pay the government dividends each quarter then prepare tax-returns. That also would eliminate many barriers to entry for smaller-bussinesses.
Well there are 2 issues with that..
1. The F.R.W. (Fundmentalist Religious Wackos) will either say that god put them their to test their faith, or that on closer reading the Religious Text of their preferance actully mentions in passing something about other living things being made for mans benifit (Space Slavery here we come!), or it's just another struggle for the jewish people, (ie. Christians, Jews and Muslims) to prove they are the chosen people of god by being dumped on. Some how I think the Budhist and Hindu people would be ok with it in a metaphysical sence.
2. It Doesn't mater what the FRW would think about it because if we were discovered by other intellegent life we would die really fast. There is no evidence to support that a grouping of an intellegent species that is technologically and militarily superior from another grouping of an intellegent species, wouldn't subjegate or annialate them in all due haste. There is plenty of evidence to support it, however.
IMHO I beleive they are out there, both intelllegent and not. I just hope that we either get the jump on them, or only ever observe them indirectly.
-Lemur
Not very fast, that would piss off alot of voters... I'm just ball parking it at 80% of them. Don't worry, once AT&T get's their teired net traffic laws passed, it will have a big boon the the people who would economically benifit from getting the bot-nets cleaned up. Then MS will have an incentive. Legislation would work, just not the kind your perscribing. IMHO.
Lemur
Maybe this should be followed up by a list of most under rated FPS games in other peoples lists. like...
5. Postal 2 (Cat's as silencers, gas can and shovel make this trashy, ultra-violent post appocolytic game. To bad the multi-player end hummed.)
4. Swat 3 (Some where between Shooter and Sneaker this squad based game is tatically entertaining, and in multiplayer can have complex and intresting goals.)
3. America's Army (Sure it's propaganda, but man is the sniper rife a pain, ie ealistic. The ROE violations make it a very efficent self policing game.)
2. Conker's Bad Fur Day (While 3rd person and console, two big strikes for me, it does have furry animals swearing and blowing each other up.)
1. Soldier of Fortune 2 (Excellent Mod community made this game for me. Raven Software was forever patching and improving. Few FPS's I have played have had so many new weapons and maps availiable and in general rotation on public servers. The biggest point about this game, for me, was how customizable the hud was, and how much control an admin could have over a game.)
Important point of note; Our Silicon friends can spot weather trends, but can't really do specifics that well in all but the shortest term. Take a hurricane for example. In 24 hours we can't tell where it will be with certainty or how strong it will be. A hurricane is pure physics and fluid dynamics, while the stock market has a mix of "informed" and "uninformed" people with different goals, emotions and circumstances, all of which can change independent of the market data.
I do believe that computer forecasting is useful, my experience in Econometrics has shown that a computer really can't dissect the subtle differences in Correlation and Causation that a human can. There is of course a battery of tests for that, but there is also the human insight of, "Shit don't make sense."
Fair warning, pinko nonsense on slashdot is aiding the enemy. As such you are all infact "Terrorists".
All of your IP's have been logged, and back traced. Your ISP's are on the phone right now handing over every shred of info they have on you, and your location. Your assets are being seized. The men in black suits are racing twords your homes and your places of employment as we speak.
I for one welcome our new Neocon overlords, but kinda I do miss the days when the worst thing a President did was get a hummer.
Who is that at the door, one sec.
Granted 7 of 7 in this instance. However on the whole, what percentage of Radical Islamic terrorists are 'born and bred' in the west, and how many are born and bred in the places exploited by the west. In the particular however, a religious wacko is a religious wacko, and that knows no bounds. I think there are Americans whom, if they weren't so comfortable, would be a fair number over in the middle east revaling in the same sort of activities. Ala Pat Robertson's broadcasts from Lebanon this week, cheering the bombs and artillery pelting civillians.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it me or does this seem really bad if you know... use more then one computer. Is there a .dat or something I can stick on a thumb drive and take with me?
How do you recover from a hard drive failure?
The only think I can think of that would be more work then identiy theift is loosing acess to every single web account I have. I guess you could get around that by using only one e-mail account and just having a secure password there.
I always guessed that there are 3 major security holes you had to deal with in the realm of password security.
1. Telling people.
2. Securing your computer from intrusion both physcally and via the net.
3. Using sites with whom you felt secure.
This only seems to fix problem 1.
On Friday there was a story of a nasty little trojan, that basically hopped in your system decrypted what ever you sent or received, parsed it and sent it off to Russia. It even updated it's self. That bit of unplesantness, as I understand it, would defeat this scheme. It also continues to ellued some anti-virus software.
Finally, we can't control the security at the sites we use, and this doesn't improve that either.
Is this plug-in really going to valuable additional layer on your computer security or is it "EMP paint" blocking your cell reception?
Perhaps the solution might come from legislation. I personally would love to sue the hell out of any company who used my name to promote it's products via my confidential information with out my express, informed consent.
Unfortunatly with a representative democracy we get stuck with platforms. With the degree of technology in this country maybe we are moving twords a time where we could atleast replace the lower house with direct democracy. I'm not sure how implementation could be done, and oh brother are there issues with exploiting the system. Come to think of it, I bearly trust average americans to vote in their own best intrests let alone America's. I can hardly imagine a budget being passed, or tech legislation.
... well i'm going to avoid a Bush II comment. Let's just say balances are there for a reason.
But what are our choices?
A 3rd party? That's a virtual certainty that you will loose.
Facism?
Perhaps federal funding of campains? That get a lot of that lobbing nonsense out of the way, and opens things up for more people to run, but who is going to pay for the crazy cat lady down the street to run for Senate?
I don't know about you guys, but I deffinatly don't fall in line with the Cut-Tax-and-Spend Republicans or the Cut-and-run Democrats. Is the problem the system or the lobbies? What can be done?
"I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
"Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back."
W.W.J.B - What would Jesus Ban? Could simply being an asshole and blacklisting your music selection have an adverse effect on your sales. After all I'm sure no one would steal christian music.
I'm not sure the computer models you are thinking of took everything into account. War and natural disasters (any big single events in which large numbers of indviduals are killed), would seem to really give short term weight to those group selections. If one person can save 20 (and likely himself) or just himself is could have a large impact on the health of the aggragate group. Just by 2 cents.
Very important distintion about the GP post. Risk != Give. By and large when people risk their lives they don't actully lose them. As a whole that then increases the survivability of the social group. Thus Morality in that sense has a group evolutional advantage. The group with fire fighters will out produce the group without.
Cuban Pringles Can Crisis kinda has an appealing ring to it.
On the bright side, we could annex, er... liberate, them then.
Three words:
New Housing Boom!
Wolfenstein Productivity Virus.... that takes me back. Why can't we find games that... enthralling anymore? I'm in the same boat you are. I swore off console games some time around the Turbo Graphix 16. The reason I gave them up for PC-only gaming was very straight forward for me. There is no game that you can play on multiple systems in which the PC version wasn't the best. The level of flexability in input mapping, settings, and (to relive a classic with a new twist) cheating, was unmatched. Some time back in around 2000ish? something seemed to happen to the PC game market however. I guess it's the direct result of the bubble bursting. The sea of isles of PC games turned in to an isle or 2. I imagine it's a matter of capital investment, and risk. Game manufactures are too condensed and risk adverse. Every thing was the same, the sequel, or 'teh sux'. There have really been what, 1 big New game each year since. I think that is more of the slow death of the Large PC game then simply the preceived increase in complexety of hardware. I can remember when games required me to input every detail of my hardware everytime I played. (Which IRQ is my sound card again :) ?)
I think the shrinking market place of titles must also have been effecting the mag. I'm sure the lawsuit was a big nail, but my vote was death was inevetable from both the low cost alternatives and the decline of the game.
Just my 140,000 Yen.
They also gain, in that they don't have to pay the other listed costs.
Google purchases Viacom cost 35B (your number)
vs.
Possible cost of lost lawsuit (1B)
+
Undertermined Future cost of lawsuits from content providers (?B)
+
Cost of fighting Billion Dollar Lawsuits (?B)
+
Cost of opening own content company (?M-B)
+
Value of lost time for such a company ramping up (?M-B)
+
Cost of aquiring lisences for media archives (?B)
+
Cost of mistakes along the way (?B)
That's the math I'm doing. If they are looking to aquire media production in the near future, it seems they would be better served in taking that Billion and applying it to that end, IMHO.
That is all.
I bet Viacom will be aquired. Google made a comment awhile back about making in house content. This would solve that problem and save some lawyer fees, oh an a Billion Dollars.
Sting Theory, Quantum Theory and Relativity all talk nicely about what energy "is". Energy is a translation of matter into an equal but not identical form. "All matter is but energy converted into a slow vibration." It is my understaning that Relativity and Quantum Theory dictate that all time, distance, mass, ect are all discreate. Ala Plank time, the quanta, and plank mass. I was trying to write out the formula's but the DayQuil is kicking my ass to hard. Mathmatics being an abstraction of reality permits us to ask many questions of this nature. It may at some point be able to prove by law, as opposed to theory, that the universe isn't further subdividable, however at this point it isn't. That is all, have a plesant day. Theories of Time and Quantum Gravity would help resolve these issues I imagine.
Actully since the area is cooling I beleive the process is still entropic. This is because it is giving a larger amount of disorganization (to the vaccum around it) then the order of its new state has gained in order. Thus for the Universe the 2nd law is upheld. Locally = more order, closed system = less order.
Like why we can only make memories in the positive time direction.
I call Bull Shit on you. Unconnected people may purcase satalite feeds. Cost prohibitive, however it isn't a technical hurdle. They have the option even if it isn't realistic.
it's obligatory south park
Not to say the statistics are obviously in contrast, but I don't think most people segregate their viewing of the HUGE SEXI DLP (tm) by what they want to watch as much as their location. If I'm able to watch that 1940's black and white footage on the history channel on my big screen, frankly bulb life just doesn't enter the picture.
Wasn't that the same part of the same package that removed like 5 million people from poverty by reclassifing the definition of poverty? I beleive that was about 6 months or so into Bush's first term. So maybe July 2000. It was right before he announced that the he had fixed the economy.
Employment numbers are only one indication of economic health. Employment numbers and poverty numbers are EASY to manipulate. Resort back to GINI and it becomes obvious that there is infact a great danger of serious economic problems. GINI is an indicator of the distribution of income. We are approaching the GINI of 1929 rather quickly, and by this point may have actully reached it. The average American is saving -1.2% of their income. That is to say, just like the Fed they are running their books in the red. Say that to your self out loud, "The AVERAGE American is living in the red." consumerism doesn't really have an easy solution to that. Luckly the Dems are gonna raise minimum wage a bit, $7.50 an hour or so. If it hadn't been lowered by legislation in the 70's (in 1974 was the brunt of it was passed, can't recall the name of the particual bill, it no longer pegged minimum wage to worker productivity) it would be over $20.00 right now.
Do you make less then $20 an hour? Thats a minimum wage of about 41K a year. I wonder what poverty numbers would look like with that figure as a baseline.
I kinda think Jesus said something along those line...
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I was intending to take the conversation you started, and apply it to a taxation model that would be pratical for online gaming. It seems to me it would be simple to just add it as a line item to a regular tax return. The point of the first paragraphs is to establish that Taxes benifit the wealthy more then the poor, without the inclusion of social welfare; it's a distrbutiional issue. This is simply to establish that the wealthy have more utility from tangibles then the poor, self-evident by deffinition, and as such have more to lose from poor governance. The point of the second paragraph was to establish that a graduated system as opposed to a flat tax system like sales tax more equally represents the exchange of utility. The wealthy give up less utility per dollar for a higher return in utility per dollar. This primarly has to do with Diminishing Marginal Returns. I.E Sales taxes cost more to the poor more then to the wealthy. Thus to prevent the weathy from becoming virtual free-riders their taxes must be graduated, not a fixed percentage. (ie. I pay 12% of my total utility in taxes and receive 200% of that utility back in security, goods and services, as opposed to I pay 50% of my utility back and receive 75% of that utility back in goods and services. If you can come up with a pratical graduated sales tax, I would be all for it. I will find you a link or two, to support those claims if you like. As for my final assertion to corporate ownership, I wasn't stipulating that the government should have complete control of corporate entities, say 25% (completely random guess). This would not only permit the government to garner dividends, but also to have a direct influence in the development of market sectors. As opposed to simply the market forces being translated in to legislation via lobbists which inturn changes market forces. This would allow the government to look at market forces and Benifit/Cost the implications of the actions. Perhaps doing things in the long term benifit of the company and the nation while not best short term for the firm. This ofcourse would require forward thinking governance, which might be a bit to utpoian. I would get more into this line of thought but its really off topic. I appologise if I wasn't clear, I was typing while drinking the first cup of the day.
As an Economist, I have to say that sales taxes don't fairly distribute taxes. If you look at the GINI coefficent you can see the distribution of income across a population. It is a basic tenant of political science that those who have the most have the most to lose from an unstable or unsafe government. As such these people are the ones who derive the most value from government. (It's hard to find some one earing 7 figures who doesn't vote.) Therefore these people should pay the most for goods and services. This is where a flat level income tax starts.
Secondly we will also notice that there is minimum level of subsistance earnings that a person requires to live. This includes a basket of goods such as, but not limited to: roof, food, health care, education, utilities and security. The valuation of this basket of goods is a very important thing. Further it is shown that there is a declining rate of marginal utility for income beyond this point; I.E. Having a Porsche 911 instead of a Porsche Boxter provides a smaller increase in utility then having beef to eat instead of horse. This is the basis of the graduated income tax.
With this already inforce basis, I would assume that Virtual Economies would only have taxation when charcters exchange goods or services exceeding a threshold, say $1000.00 a year in cash out. Or that Virtual for Virtual transferes would be normalized such that only the top x% of the player base would exchange enough product to incure taxes.
Three more things, if your still reading:
With the capitalization of Virtual Economies there would be such an amazing level of new monitoring, regulation and enforecement that it wouldn't pay for itself. The markets would devaluate rapidly, and the games would suffer horribly. I imagine tht everyone would follow the thinking of, "If I'm going to be paying taxes on that plat, it damn well better be helping make my mortgage payment." With that the market would devaluate it self rapidly, as supply would spike.
The Liability, as discussed in many other posts, would be amazing. If one clever person, or a corporate entity that wanted to eliminate some competition mearly hacked and moved a decimal point on another entities server it could be astounding. Imagine the headline, "Worm Bankrupts Blizard! Virtual Trillions Lost In Server Roll-Back. Gamers File Class Action Lawsuit." Web-Security would atleast get more attention.
IMHO, the income tax is just one of a menu of taxes that solves the government income problem. I would prefer direct government ownership of a percentage of all corporate entites above a certain value. That is the government owning a percentage of stock, this does create some market inefficency however and is a bit to Left-ist for some. I would rather pay the government dividends each quarter then prepare tax-returns. That also would eliminate many barriers to entry for smaller-bussinesses.
47 Warlock LFG
-Lemur
Well there are 2 issues with that.. 1. The F.R.W. (Fundmentalist Religious Wackos) will either say that god put them their to test their faith, or that on closer reading the Religious Text of their preferance actully mentions in passing something about other living things being made for mans benifit (Space Slavery here we come!), or it's just another struggle for the jewish people, (ie. Christians, Jews and Muslims) to prove they are the chosen people of god by being dumped on. Some how I think the Budhist and Hindu people would be ok with it in a metaphysical sence. 2. It Doesn't mater what the FRW would think about it because if we were discovered by other intellegent life we would die really fast. There is no evidence to support that a grouping of an intellegent species that is technologically and militarily superior from another grouping of an intellegent species, wouldn't subjegate or annialate them in all due haste. There is plenty of evidence to support it, however. IMHO I beleive they are out there, both intelllegent and not. I just hope that we either get the jump on them, or only ever observe them indirectly. -Lemur
Not very fast, that would piss off alot of voters... I'm just ball parking it at 80% of them. Don't worry, once AT&T get's their teired net traffic laws passed, it will have a big boon the the people who would economically benifit from getting the bot-nets cleaned up. Then MS will have an incentive. Legislation would work, just not the kind your perscribing. IMHO. Lemur
Maybe this should be followed up by a list of most under rated FPS games in other peoples lists.
like...
5. Postal 2 (Cat's as silencers, gas can and shovel make this trashy, ultra-violent post appocolytic game. To bad the multi-player end hummed.)
4. Swat 3 (Some where between Shooter and Sneaker this squad based game is tatically entertaining, and in multiplayer can have complex and intresting goals.)
3. America's Army (Sure it's propaganda, but man is the sniper rife a pain, ie ealistic. The ROE violations make it a very efficent self policing game.)
2. Conker's Bad Fur Day (While 3rd person and console, two big strikes for me, it does have furry animals swearing and blowing each other up.)
1. Soldier of Fortune 2 (Excellent Mod community made this game for me. Raven Software was forever patching and improving. Few FPS's I have played have had so many new weapons and maps availiable and in general rotation on public servers. The biggest point about this game, for me, was how customizable the hud was, and how much control an admin could have over a game.)
Just my 2 cents.
-Lemur
Important point of note; Our Silicon friends can spot weather trends, but can't really do specifics that well in all but the shortest term. Take a hurricane for example. In 24 hours we can't tell where it will be with certainty or how strong it will be. A hurricane is pure physics and fluid dynamics, while the stock market has a mix of "informed" and "uninformed" people with different goals, emotions and circumstances, all of which can change independent of the market data.
I do believe that computer forecasting is useful, my experience in Econometrics has shown that a computer really can't dissect the subtle differences in Correlation and Causation that a human can. There is of course a battery of tests for that, but there is also the human insight of, "Shit don't make sense."
Fair warning, pinko nonsense on slashdot is aiding the enemy. As such you are all infact "Terrorists". All of your IP's have been logged, and back traced. Your ISP's are on the phone right now handing over every shred of info they have on you, and your location. Your assets are being seized. The men in black suits are racing twords your homes and your places of employment as we speak. I for one welcome our new Neocon overlords, but kinda I do miss the days when the worst thing a President did was get a hummer. Who is that at the door, one sec.
Granted 7 of 7 in this instance. However on the whole, what percentage of Radical Islamic terrorists are 'born and bred' in the west, and how many are born and bred in the places exploited by the west. In the particular however, a religious wacko is a religious wacko, and that knows no bounds. I think there are Americans whom, if they weren't so comfortable, would be a fair number over in the middle east revaling in the same sort of activities. Ala Pat Robertson's broadcasts from Lebanon this week, cheering the bombs and artillery pelting civillians.