Spelunking the Universe
Posts tagged capitalism
“Sticking it to the Man”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I’m not a very old guy, by most standards I’m still quite young. It’s been 24 years or so since I was born and already I feel aged in at least a few ways (mostly my knees). I’ve worked in 6 different retail environments now: Martial Arts, Food, Toys, Garden, Electronics, and Video Games Community. Each one had a unique set of people that would come in and a unique set of needs that needed to be met.
In the case of Food I worked at Arby’s, I was behind making sandwiches so my work consisted largely of creating a sandwich and passing it to the people making the contact with faces. Arguably this was one of my favorite jobs, however there was one thing that kept me from ever wanting to do it for long term. By the end of the day you reeked of fry grease and meat. It was nauseating to say the least. If they would take care of their employees and install proper ventilation in the work area I think that would be a solid job for any person.
For Martial Arts it was 1 part instructing aid, and 9 parts cleaning up. I still look back fondly on this job even though it depressed me to degrees I cannot full express. The major issue was that 90% of my work was over the time I should have been training. It felt almost planned. They never had me not working during my class time. I was eventually let go because “I looked depressed.” I wonder why.
For Toys I worked at the Navy Exchange, as I did for Garden, and even Electronics. This was interesting because it was entirely to military personal and their families. I learned at that job that I love helping military men and women, but unanimously, I hate Navy Wives. I never met a Navy Husband but I imagine they are just as annoying. These were the most annoying individuals I have met in my entire life, even more so than what I’ll discuss shortly. They seemed to think their position beside someone in the military made them exceptional, I disagreed. (I will note also that the higher the military position the sweeter the individual was to me, if they had a chest covered in medals they’d love to chat about anything with you and never complained about slowness in service).
I also worked Electronics for Circuit City and Best Buy, in the case of CC I went as far as to become a Technician only to be dutifully demoted at Best Buy where I had to direct people to a “Geek Squad” that was less knowledgeable of PC’s than I am. That was mightily depressing in it’s own right. Keeping in mind I’m not a PC wiz by any means, but from experience the average GS agent doesn’t do the work. They hook it up to the internet and it’s outsourced to another state.
My most recent job is Community Management for GamesCampus. I suffer the unfortunate luck of having the word “Manage” in my title, this gives the average person the incorrect view that I’m anything more than a glorified customer service agent. Any policy ideas that I present are murdered and mutilated to such a degree that by the time I see them I am shocked that anyone would attribute them to me. This job is much like my time in Martial Arts, standing on the sidelines watching others while I clean up the mess.
At any rate, I tell all this in a rather disjointed and uninformative manner because it leads me to my next point. There was something I noticed across all these jobs, minus Martial Arts, that has dumbfounded me and continues to to this day. There is an idea that is at least as old as I am, known as “Sticking it to the Man”. The idea of this is that you will stop purchasing from somewhere, or buy from somewhere else, or write a really mean letter, something to tell “the man” that you won’t stand for his nonsense.
That’s all well and good except that the primary way of "Sticking it to the Man” is to harass the only people you can come into contact with. Entirely helpless peons, the lowest totem pole in the building. People shout at Cashiers, Sales Associates, and even Janitors in the false belief that their outbursts of rage will somehow trickle up in a reverse Reagan to the top. CEO’s don’t care about their employees in the broad sense, nor does the board of directors, nor the investors, these people are all just looking at profits.
But most people don’t protest in the previously mentioned “buy somewhere else” pathway, they do it by being an absolute troll to some random gal or guy. I’ve been on the receiving end by Navy Wives, Soccer Moms, Angry Men and Women, and recently even people in countries I’ve never been.
In the case of my most recent job I have an older man (likely retired) who spends 8 hours a day harassing the company I work at. Not once has he directed his dislike towards Management, or Upper Management, it has instead been entirely directed at the Sales Associates (because, as mentioned, they have the word “manage” in their title). Recently I was asked to talk with players in our golf game “Shot Online” because unlike, I presume, everyone else I actually like people.
Well this has put me in the unfortunate limelight once again of an angry person wishing to “Stick it to the Man”. This older man who goes by the name “Bob” has taken it upon himself to make endless accounts ridiculing me and pronouncing that I am “Ghey [sic]”. I realize at this point the reason he doesn’t call and talk to management is he knows he’d be reported to the police but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s unleashing all his rage on the bottom of the barrel, people who are already largely miserable the moment they walk in the door in the morning.
To crap on a King is one thing, to crap on a pauper leaves a miserable peasant all the worse.
I imagine until he is identified and criminal charges are pressed he’ll continue his onslaught. Ironically I don’t need his help to be miserable at work. 40 hours a week of talking with people, documenting problems and suggesting fixes, and watching all that being actively ignored then destroyed is enough in itself.
I know he’ll never read this, and chances are if he did he’d take it upon himself to begin harassing me on here. So I finish as I began with the title. I’ll never understand the ways people go to “Stick it to the Man.”
Atheism, Politics, Faith, and the Failure of Followers
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Quite a wordy title! But I was trying to snag all the keywords that this (relative to the title) short article is about. In Honor of Colbert I’ll be supporting my points with “the gut” and you can make your own personal judgment of whether or not I’m being accurate 
. I like to think I’m fairly good at this sort of thing so we shall see.
Recently I was asked if Atheism means that one knows, unequivocally, there is no God. I do think indeed that there are a large group of people who call themselves Atheists because they believe this and I’d be willing to go farther and say that like the word “Gay” the term “Atheist” no longer encompasses in the majority the group it originally was intended for (originally Gay meant Happy as far as I’m aware; But no nicer group of people could have snagged it so good for them).
Atheism is not necessarily a belief in anything, I do not mean in the context of Nihilism, but it is not a belief structure it is a knowledge structure. It’s name may merely be a misnomer? I’m in no position to create a better one, though I do think that “Intellectual” or “Scientist” are better options. Though the former has been butchered by Fox News and the latter isn’t necessarily anymore accurate for some folks. Which leads me into what will follow this coming paragraph.
Atheism is a lifestyle where a person applies the scientific method throughout their life where necessary. It is not that they know that God does not exist, but given the evidence, there is no reason to believe that God does. This does not mean in the future that evidence may indeed show that there is a God, it merely means that at this time there is no evidence to support the idea. Because of this Atheists do not believe in God, just like they do not believe that (as I’ve heard it said) Invisible Tea Cups orbit Mars and radiate pure dreams. It is possible, but there is no evidence to support it beyond anecdotal.
Alright I lied two paragraphs ago, I have more before we move on. Atheism like most lifestyles has been dominated by an incredibly loud and incredibly misinformed group of people. Unfortunately for reasons unbeknownst to me (maybe God knows 
) they seem to be the ones that end up having lots of free money and time that they can invest in shouting through megaphones at churches or badger faithful people about their foolish life choices. These people are not Atheists, they are more closely related to a group known as “Douche Bags”. The problem is that, like popular Tea Partiers, they have become so engrained in the ‘movement’ (I use that word because it is late and my vocabulary is tanking) that they are seen as the movement. This is never the case and luckily many of them make poor life choices and die young. That wasn’t too harsh was it?
Now to help redeem myself in your eyes I will move back to my point about the terminology not being accurate (I know it has been so long since I was talking about it we’ve both forgotten, it’s ok we’ll work through this). In every faith, every political body, and indeed every organization on the planet there are vast majorities of what I like to call “Ignoraleeches.” These are people who are largely ignorant of the faith/political body/organization of which they are apart of, but they saw a line or two in a pamphlet somewhere and thought “That’s a pretty good idea.” Because of this when you ask them about their own life and how they identify themselves they might say something akin to the following “I’m a Christian Democrat.”
That statement sounds harmless, but it is usually wrong. They are not an actual Christian, they are someone who believes that Jesus existed and that there is likely a God. But they more-than-likely did not read the bible, if you name a famous line from the bible they can’t recite it, if you ask them the name of the Prophets they can’t tell you. If you ask them who condemned Jesus they will likely guess (and guess wrong). I’m not saying Christians are stupid, because I’ve only met maybe 1 or 2 in my entire life, the rest are merely Ignoraleeches, they love the idea of a god and of a very nice guy who came down to wash away their sins. They haven’t dwelled farther than that, they may have seen a church once but that was the extent of it.
This is true of every faith, the majority (that is to say over 50% I couldn’t give a more accurate number than that) of people are not actual followers of their beliefs. Because to be a follower you need to take in the whole picture. You can’t just pick and choose what you like and ignore what you don’t, that’s not the same thing, faith is not a build-a-bear. What you become is a Chimera which is not necessarily bad thing (Chimeras are badass). But what it does is create a massive Zerg like mass of flesh that unfortunately does not share the single mindedness the Zerg are famous for. You have the illusion of a bunch of cohesive people when really it’s hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of subtypes that each share only the vaguest similarities.
This gives faiths more power than they deserve, the idea of a text that suggests peaceful and love filled life is a fantastic thing but I’m still waiting on one to be made. Those that I’ve read have had some extremely harsh rhetoric and stories within them that have troubled me deeply. If you are an actual follower of your faith, following the text that is the unquestionable word of the all powerful (whichever all powerful that might be) there is no way you can accept the existence of folks whose faith differs from yours. I cannot speak on Scientology but every other faith I’ve read into and read the book of explicitly says that no other faith can exist and the followers cannot be (conversion through word or death).
I understand faith and I’m not trying to make it sound bad, that’s not my intention. I’m merely pointing out the problem with organizations of any type. You have a massive organism where only a few pieces actually understand the central structure and the rest just pick and choose, it is easy but it is not correct. I can’t choose which sections of math work for me and ignore those that don’t, I can try and it might look like I’ve succeeded but I’ll never understand the domain entirely because of it. I’m merely a member of a certain part of math, not the entire body of mathematics (Calculus is a gangster).
Political parties are a huge perpetrator of this problem, perhaps worse than faith in the sense that they quite directly affect my life in a very negative manner. Nearly nobody in either party in the US is actually a part of that party. They cannot tell you the actual founding principles of their party nor can they tell you about the most influential leaders of their party. This might sound like a bold statement, but give it a shot, you’ll be so successful you’ll swear it is confirmation bias. What this creates is to mega parties that seemingly represent mass portions of the US when in actuality they represent ridiculously small portions. The rest pick and choose what they like and then call themselves a “Democrat” or a “Republican”. I’m also quickly going to acknowledge the position of Independent/Moderate and the fact that most folks (at least if Polls are to be believed) consider themselves a part of these (which I tend to consider the same thing but even they seem to have divides). This is probably accurate because by design this position is one that is defined by the desire to pick and choose, which is generally the only honest option people have.
What we have is a planet full of fleshy snowflakes, each trying to take their own personal experiences and transpose them on the global scale. They assume that their beliefs are accurate and thus must represent the entirety of those in their group. I am immediately aware of the humor in this article in relation to that last sentence (for those that didn’t catch it you could apply my last sentence to me as well right this moment). I’m often reminded of this when people speak of “moderate” *insert group here* versus “extremist” *insert group here*, be it Christians, Muslims, Tea Partiers, Republicans, or the less discussed “Chess Club” (They can kill you with a Rook from 50 yards), we are apparently able to identify that there are two groups of people but we make the mistake of labeling one “good” and one “bad”. For the sake of accuracy you have the first group, the moderates, which are your pick and choosers. They take what they like and ignore what they like on the intellectual buffet they’ve taken a seat at. These people do not represent the essence of the organization they affiliate themselves with, they merely legitimize a (generally) otherwise ridiculous concept by taking only the reasonable pieces of it and ignoring the other 99% that would make a creative writers mind explode (“Oh come on…nobody could ever believe that.”
I’m not picking on faith, that is true about Republicans, Democrats, Religions, Atheists, and basically any group you can think of (I’m sure even your softball team has this issue). It’s a hidden dissonance that desperately needs to be addressed. You are much more unique than you think, any group you think you are a member of is probably inaccurate at best, and the attempt to globalize your personal experiences is a dangerous precedent.
MLK famously said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Now I’m not a fan of milking others but he said it better than I could have and far earlier than I am saying it.
Though he was speaking against racism and a utopia in which we are more concerned with the character’s story than the character’s physical person (which I like) I think this also fits in with my point. Don’t define yourself by race, belief, political party, or anything else that ties you inseparably from a global beast. It is that which is in you that is most important, the content of your character should be the most precious treasure you house from birth till death. It is the compilation of every event in your life big or small and is ultimately unique in its final sum.
Label yourself a non label, so to speak, take a title that merely describes and does not dictate. You don’t belong to a faith, or a party, or a group, you belong to yourself. Finally to quote one more amazing person to finish my point which by now has likely been entirely lost:
"You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions." – Fred Rogers.
(^ The quote could quite easily be a tl;dr to my entire topic.)
I’m sure this’ll get lost in the ethos of the internet never to be seen again, which I feel, as one would expect, to be a shame.
Capitalism a sickly child.
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
People often speak of Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and the other 40-50 ‘isms’ that fill up our most well documented governments as if they are all built upon ideas that work well on paper but will never function with humans. That is somewhat true but it isn’t because of the nature of humans it, I feel, is more so the nature of ‘these’ humans. I imagine if there was a mass extinction and a new breed (cognitively) of humans rose to power some of the previously inefficient government forms would actually work.
However my point isn’t to debate that, at least not this time. I’m looking more at the wonder that is Capitalism. Capitalism is interesting for multiple reasons but few outshine the fact that people refuse to admit that it is a terrible regulation system. The idea of the Free market, as far as I’ve ever read, has never worked out. You have a short period of time where people think things are working and then a crash where tons of people have their livelihoods destroyed. Then you move on to another period of time, a crash, and the cycle repeats over and over. However when asked how nice Capitalism is most people in positions to speak will say it kicks the shins of all other setups.
Indeed the idea of Socialism makes many people on television turn red with rage and rant on about how it doesn’t work and how everything will fall apart leaving us with nothing but fire, death, and babies for dinner (I’ve heard all 3). However these same people refuse to acknowledge the huge problems with Capitalism, indeed it is a terrible system. The free market tends to lead to not much more than corruption and those problems only grow over time till large businesses collapse and many people loose everything they’ve worked for. A large percentage of people live under the poverty level, there is a huge separation of wealth where a very small minority (fantastically small even) gathers almost all the wealth of the country.
I think the reason that Capitalism is so popular is not because it works. Honestly if a race horse worked as well as Capitalism the poor thing would be shot. It is popular because of the possibility of great wealth that stems from it. A true communist country would not have fabulously rich people, a true socialist country likely would not either, however in the realm of Capitalism comes that dream of glory and greatness. The irony is that it is so popular for this factor and yet so few people every truly gain from it.
To me the free market and capitalism are no different than their siblings. They only truly work on paper, indeed these are merely sickly children that are kept alive by nothing more than hope. It is a lack of hope that caused the recent crash in the US, had nobody cared that Bear Sterns was being as foolish and corrupt as it was and nobody had withdrew their investments it would have never gone under. Likewise if I’m not mistaken the great depression was a similar issue with people fearing banks not having their money so everyone tried to withdraw.
At any rate I am somewhat interested now to try and fashion my own government system. See how well I can make one and get some input from the folks who frequent these pages.
Words given too much credit.
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Whenever a person of interest (generally coined ‘celebrity’) they are put under an unusually high level of excess and I feel unnecessary stress. One thing in particular is the idea of ‘thinking before you speak’. For the vast majority of people I do think there is a level of thought always joined with the act of communication it is something of a necessity. We all make mistakes in what we are saying, that is to say simply that occasionally we say orange when we meant to say carpool or something like that.
What I don’t feel is fair however is to assume that words have power. Words are no different than currency, essentially all the money you own is only worth as much as you and your social region believe they are worth. There is also that whole exchange rate globally but for the most part a nation could ignore that and still function pretty well. All our words and the emotions we tie to them are entirely personal, there is no automatic response to any words. If there was telling a baby with a sweet tone to go fuck themselves would not elicit the same response as it does from anyone who has been ‘lectured’ or ‘indoctrinated’ into the local lingo. Indeed cursing is all in all just as harmless as discussing vegetable preferences.
However we in a pretty sizeable amount give far far too much credit to words. What most recently elicited this train of thought was that “Special Olympics” comment of the President on the Tonight Show. He equated his bowling skills to something you would see in the Special Olympics, a simple enough example that produces a relatively vivid and likely consistent image amongst anyone who hears it.
People are up in arms about how he should apologize and that while it would have been ok for him to say that before he was President it is not alright anymore. Which to me is highly confusing. If an action is not alright in one instance I would assume that it should either be wrong in all instances or be reexamined.
A persons feelings about themselves, about their world, and about basically anything should not be so easily swayed by the simple speaking of others. This is akin to walking outside, feeling a cool breeze and killing yourself because of it. It’s a radical response to a relatively unimportant gesture. While of course these are all just personal opinion and suggestions it does pay to point out that my own personal life became easily exponentially easier to maintain once I stopped caring about the random banter of others.
Words are wonderful in their artistic quality, but just as you shouldn’t stop eating or lose your self confidence when you see the Mona Lisa, you also shouldn’t be dropping proverbial bricks every time someone says something. Especially considering how often these responses end up being hypocritical. You can’t be treated fairly if everyone feels you need to be treated special. To put it simply, if you can make comments about anything you can make comments about everything. Anything less and we risk (and indeed do) begin enforcing slanted and almost exclusively hypocritical rulings on the realm and limitations of language.
Boomers Burgers
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Have you ever had a food that literally caused you to think about it later? In Bellingham, Washington the place that provides that food is a single drive-in burger joint known as “Boomers”.
I cannot stress how utterly delicious this food is. Their shakes are mind bendingly delicious with real fruit in them, their burgers will haunt your dreams, their service is fast and friendly and you can even call ahead to have it ready when you get there.
Likewise they possess the best waffle fries I’ve had in my entire life. This month was their 20th anniversary and all their burgers (even their half pound big boom) were 2.89. Even when they aren’t on sale the prices at Boomers are fantastic and in no way effect service negatively.
About the only negative is that they are full 24 hours a day, which is hardly their fault, the food here will honestly blow your mind. Every other burger joint will pale in comparison once you have a burger at Boomers.
Well that’s it for today…I just had to give this fantastic place a mention.
Today’s Post brought to you by the letter “D”
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Today I wanted to talk about one of two topics, the topics being Determinism or Digital Rights Management. The latter is related to my previous game review suggestion, seeing as all available means to getting the game require dealing with DRM (as far as I know). The former has to do with the Metaphysics course that has inspired a swath of posts here.
I flipped a coin, heads I would deal with Determinism today and Tails I would deal with Digital Rights Management. Well that wonderful little gold plated coin left me with Tails. So without further adieu lets discuss Digital Rights Management. Keep in mind I had to carve up this article multiple times…hopefully there are no sudden ends to things.
So what is Digital Rights Management? This is a question that is most likely unnecessary seeing that most people have seen the huge protests involved with the ever increasing lockdown. However for those visiting that aren’t quite certain that’s what this particular paragraph is for.
When we look at the wonderful world of Wikipedia the following result is returned:
Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. The term is used to describe any technology which makes the unauthorized use of media or devices technically formidable and generally doesn’t include other forms of copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the media or device, such as serial numbers or keyfiles. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices.
Now this is the theoretical use of DRM, historically it was something simple such as a CD-Key or arguably the more annoying CD-In-Tray requirement. As years have past there has been a very visible connection between the rising levels of veracity of DRM and the ever rising presence of Piracy. What has been the center of debate is what connections can truly be made. However with the massive levels of propaganda involved on either side I can only work with historical examples.
It has been interesting to see the publics view of DRM and to contrast it with the companies enacting it. In general the large proportion of people dealing with DRM are very opposed to it, it’s generally cracked the day of or at times before the product is even released. Likewise there are stability issues that in multiple modern cases have been only seen or far more prominently seen in the DRM copies compared to the non-DRM pirated copies. A very personal event was SPORE, which ran roughly 5 frames per second slower in tests with the legitimate copy. It may not be a huge change, but considering that its a loss that benefits the consumer in absolutely no way its unreasonable.
So, if I download a purchase what makes it mine and mine alone?
Our products are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). These are systems in place to license your purchase to you only. It keeps it safe and gives you the exclusive ownership of that purchase.- Direct2Drive
We think our Digital Rights Management (DRM) system is a good balance between protecting the content owners and not making you the consumer give up your first-born. The system associates your computer with the specific product you purchased and this information is stored on our servers identifiable by your sign-in profile, email address or your transaction record.
- Green House Games
I personally hate DRM…. But I don’t like locks on my door, and I don’t like to use keys in my car… I’d like to live in a world where there are no passports. Unfortunately, we don’t – and I think the vast majority of people voted with their wallets and went out and bought Spore.
- EA CEO John Riccitiello
I have a problem with each of these three for some pretty specific reasons. The first being that nobody would ask the first question. It reminds me of a bash quote from a few years back.
<NES> lol
<NES> I download something from Napster
<NES> And the same guy I downloaded it from starts downloading it from me when I’m done
<NES> I message him and say "What are you doing? I just got that from you"
<NES> "getting my song back fucker"
This is the problem. Digital media has an interesting ability that no other real world product can easily replicate, which is just that, the ability to replicate. You can create a million copies of “Hit me baby one more time” and it will do nothing to harm your neighbors copy of the same song. What I think the D2D folks are trying to fabricate is the monetary sense, the idea that something is only worth as much as it is rare. So thusly the fantasy consumer is suggesting that if their copy of the game were to break loose into the wild it would make babies and be worthless.
Now if someone broke into my house and stole my laptop, I’d be furious. However if they broke into my house and copied all my music onto an IPod I’d (assuming they broke in without damaging anything) probably not care other than being a bit skeptical that they skipped everything but the music.
The problem with the GHG statement is the concept that DRM protects the content of the owners. While I do appreciate that their DRM takes all of a 10th of a second to deal with, it still raises the question. What happens when they disappear? The last thing on the mind of a company that is imploding financially is how to take care of their customers. Look at CITI bank and all those bail outs recently, they tried to blow all the money on 35k dollar toilets that don’t flush, luxury jets, and 1.5 million dollar office remodels.
This ties into my complaint about the third quote. Electronic Arts is famous now for their disregard for their customers, bastardization of once cherished properties, and an overall militant approach to dealing with competition. Westwood for instance was such a hardcore swallow that they immediately cut off support for the newest Westwood game out (Renegade) and banned the use of the word on all their forums.
Now the problem with the key analogy is that it is a decade or so off. CD-Keys were the key of the software world, much like the real world, if someone had your key they could get into your software. Likewise in theory if you could build twenty million copies of the exact same house using the exact same key you would have an exact replication of the software equivalent (some discrepancies aside).
Likewise the ‘vast majority’ of people don’t realize they are being swindled, they feel as any normal person would, that when they spend 50 dollars or more on something that they are indeed purchasing that item. However the sad truth is that most people don’t realize they are merely paying full price to rent software. Likewise with the state of EA’s stocks and the ever increasing layoffs to stay afloat, it doesn’t appear that their ‘activation servers’ will exist once they are gone. That’s millions of dollars in software that will cease functioning only for the people who legitimately purchased it.
The locks on your house and car, two purchases you made, are entirely optional. The entrance requirements on the software is not optional, unless you are going to become a criminal. This is why I dislike the analogy, it’s so poor that it almost creates an illusion of solidity. Likewise SPORE was a huge exception, it was a game that people had been waiting years and years for. Likewise most people didn’t even know about the DRM until after they had purchased it. Which meant they couldn’t return it. I’m an owner of SPORE and I haven’t played the game since roughly 30 days after it was released (once I realized the harsh reality of any EA owned sub-company).
Now my brain has somewhat evaded my fingers but I’ll continue with the next available point (leaving one to wonder what I had planned before). Stardock is one of the last very companies that I can truly suggest to people outside of Indie developers. This is a company that has done incredibly well, so well in fact that their last expansion for Galactic Civilization II was and is easily the largest update to any game I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
They chose to trust their customers and what happened? Starforce, a DRM company, released live torrent links on their own website for people to pirate Stardock’s games from. What ended up happening? Starforce was almost unanimously hated by the internet world, forums flared up with posts bashing them for poor business practices. Sales of Galactic Civilzation II (The game they were linking to) rose in protest and in the end it proved that their company was not built to protect properties, but instead like most businesses, to protect their own profits.
The only DRM any game company should have is the very same one that Stardock has. The game itself works out of the box without a CD-Key, crack unneeded. They have an outlook on their customers that I share. People will rise to the bar that you set them to. They feel (as they should) that if you provide a quality product for a fair price you will be rewarded with profit. It also appears that as the CEO said “People are voting with their wallets”.
http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ERTS
Set that to the last year and you’ll see the dramatic drop of their stocks nicely with their introduction of SPORE and the newest SecuROM (which is a sony product if you were curious). Likewise the only ‘up shot’ on that dive has been as a result of laying off people. It’s always good to know that the only shining light in your companies worth is when you throw people to the wolves.
The only DRM that should ever be used is the one provided by Stardock. If you have a copy of the product you can play it, if you are willing to take the time to verify that its legitimately owned Stardock will reward you with very impressive patches (they certainly corner the market for quality updates). This way if they ever go under the only loss you’ll be suffering is their patch data which you’d be unable to get even if they didn’t require a key. This to me is a better use of the EA analogy. Because now your home or car continue to work even if the people who built them do not, you just cannot get further repairs through that company. Instead needing to turn to third party companies (like sites that would likely host the patches after).
I could go on and on. But I feel this is the problem with the discussions is that people become overwhelmed. Historically all forms of censorship and banning have only resulted in the problem becoming even greater. It does not hinder crime it merely creates craftier criminals. The crime you can no longer see is far more dangerous than the crime you can.
Beyond our means
3 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I think as a whole our country is starting is starting to slowly realize that you cannot live beyond your means for very long before it comes back to haunt you. Many have lost their homes while others are struggling to hold onto what little they have. I don’t necessarily blame anyone in particular in fact if you take my college loans into account I too am living beyond my means and it will be something I have to deal with for years to come. Although I was given the choice of either waiting till I was 24 or getting into college now and considering my last place of employment just went under across the entire united states I feel I made a sound one. But I digress.
The most recent noticeable victim in the vicinity of where I live is Western Washington University. They are looking at a possible 36 million dollar shortfall and they say that this sort of cut will show noticeably upon their quality services. While I could easy attack the ludicrousness of western providing quality server I will instead carry on with my point. This college lived beyond its means for quite some time, hoping that each year would be a mirror of the past and that it would be able to keep on running in the negative. I know many would argue that state funding doesn’t put you in the negative but when you run in a manner that without someone else’s financial support you cannot function then you are living beyond your means.
This will be a good wake up call for Western if they take the event to heart. Much like this could be a great turn around for many people. The credit system is (without making conspiracy theories) a very corrupt one. The smallest bits of information are permissible in granting someone a credit card in your name, this has been an obvious shortfall for a decade or more and nothing has been done about it. I hope that with this big crash people will look towards living within their means. Enjoying all the things that are around them and if that isn’t enough working hard to gain legitimate access what they love (or at least want) most.
Since at one time I’m pretty sure that’s how the US worked. If you wanted great things you worked hard and accomplished great things. We’ve entered a weird period (which perhaps has been longer than I’ve been alive) where you can get an major in business move to New York and make millions off the efforts of others. It’s a weird world where those who work make less than those who observe. The last time that was a major source of income in the US it ended up leading to a war and being abolished. Not to sound too much like a dramatist of course.
Questions emailed in (depending on legitimacy) will be answered in the order they are received. If they are good enough (IE. Not complete nonsense) I’ll answer them on the here. If you don’t want to comment or can’t figure out where my email is hiding feel free to posit things via the comment system. I’ll also re-open the forums sometime down the road for people to ask things there.