>> ^Stormsinger:

The biggest flaw in this "analysis" is that these same claims were made -before- WoW. EQ was the big dog then, and "the market for MMOs has been pretty well capped at 2-3 million" WoW made it absolutely clear that 2-3 million was not the entire market, and that it most definitely is possible to make money even on unimaginably large development costs.
Actually, I didn't hear -anything- new in this piece...these claims have been being made for the last 10 years, every single year. Even though not a single one has ever proved to be correct.


I always was surprised that EQ's dominance lasted as long as it did. I think the designers for EQ had some serious sadistic tendencies, and they got so enamored with their own success that they essentially never responded to player feedback about anything, and refused to change the gameplay in any real way.

WoW on the other hand seems to have been designed from the ground up to be colorful, simple, and fun, and to go to great lengths not to frustrate people. EQ had been losing subscribers for years when WoW came out, and there was a mass migration to it. After that, all those network effects (i.e. all my friends play WoW, so I can't leave) worked in WoW's favor, as people dragged over their friends, and tried to bring in new people who (understandably) found EQ pretty hard to get in to.

Now, I do sorta have this feeling that WoW is in that slow decline mode now -- I haven't really played in over a year myself, and I can't remember the last time Blizzard made a big splash about how many millions of people they have subscribed.

I kinda think Star Wars: The Old Republic has a chance to really spark another mass migration. It'll probably draw in a new, untapped audience too; it's Star Wars! And unlike Sony's Star Wars: Galaxies, I think SW:TOR will actually be good.

Mostly though, he has a point -- WoW wasn't a clone of EQ with minor changes around the edges, it was a major upgrade of the genre. Just having prettier graphics and a different fantasy setting isn't really going to get people to pull up roots and move to a new game.

I'm also wondering when they're going to announce World of Starcraft, now that Starcraft 2 is out. I guess Blizzcon is coming this fall...

The biggest flaw in this "analysis" is that these same claims were made -before- WoW. EQ was the big dog then, and "the market for MMOs has been pretty well capped at 2-3 million" WoW made it absolutely clear that 2-3 million was not the entire market, and that it most definitely is possible to make money even on unimaginably large development costs.

Actually, I didn't hear -anything- new in this piece...these claims have been being made for the last 10 years, every single year. Even though not a single one has ever proved to be correct.

>> ^gwiz665:
In a glorious libertarian pack, the big dog would have killed the guy, eaten him, and bitched on the internet that he tasted poorly.

Actually, this is dog welfare.

See, the man is the government and the dogs are the sheeple accepting whatever handouts they can get.

In a glorious libertarian pack, the big dog would have killed the guy, eaten him, and bitched on the internet that he tasted poorly.

Updated footage at 2:30 but otherwise..

dupeof="http://videosift.com/video/Boston-Dynamics-Big-Dog"

Happens a lot with people who don't ask any questions about dog/cat temperaments/sizes and buy whatever they think is cute. Then they end up with a really big dog, or a siamese cat that bites their kids when they "play" with it. Tons of people moved off and left pets when they lost their houses, just left them wherever..in the yard..locked in the house...out in the neighborhood. I'd imagine people would abandon their children, but they might end up in jail if they did that.

I understand people make mistakes and end up with kids (although a lot just dont bother trying to prevent it), but it's a choice to take in a pet. Government has programs to let people give up their children if they can't deal with it, but when it comes to pets there's very little past animal control and they only really come out over violent animals. So, I think the law should pick up the slack and bust down people who take in pets and don't do right by them. Dog fighting rings are one of the more popular things the news focuses on, but there are a lot of dogs just simply being starved to death.

Parents adopted a german shephard who was maybe 2-3 years old, people have him in their back yard chained to a tree with a massive chain wrapped around to where he barely had 5 feet of slack. The collar was too tight and digging into his flesh. They threw garbage out there with him, he'd eat what he could of it...and of course it had cans/glass/whatever else in it. They rarely gave him water, my parents were secretly feeding/watering him during the summer while they tried to get someone with authority to remove him to come out. When they finally did come out, they said since he had food and water..he was considered cared for...the stuff my parents had put out. So they had to just talk the owners of the dog into giving him up. He's about 8 years old now, has had heart worms and problems associated with that and lots of messed up teeth due to his early years, and has what I'd call abandonment issues but those could be related to him getting older and not hearing/seeing as well...he just doesn't like to be alone. But it pisses me off still knowing that he has spent the rest of his life suffering from what those people did to him. Yes his life is better, and he probably wouldn't have lived as long if they had decided to keep him but it wasn't the first or the last animal they had before moving off.

Strays aren't nearly as helpless as a dog in that situation. Although I know a lot of people take it upon themselves to aim for animals crossing streets while driving their cars...and leaving out poisoned food and water. Was some news stories of a guy catching strays and feeding them anti-freeze...which basically kills your kidneys and you die of kidney failure in all it's glory....slow and painful.


>> ^NordlichReiter:

>> ^tsarsfield:
Spay and neuter your pets and avoid puppy and kitten mills. This wouldn't happen if there wasn't an extreme abundance of stray cats and dogs dumped by owners who like puppies and kittens and get rid of them after the cute stage has come and gone.

People fucking do that? Well, people leave their cats outside, de-clawed.
A couple days ago I walked outside, saw this well groomed cat. I walked right up to it, and said, "What the fuck are you doing outside?" It mewed at me. I was about to take it home when I saw the tag with a phone number. When I called the owner of the cat, they didn't speak a lick of English and never even heard of the damned cat.

Worked fine this way in the past.....the future is now-Sometimes, change works for the worst on many levels.

Comment voting is for squares and youtube. I say we add a "comments on this viidy blocked" feature....works for the big dogs-

That's some photo-shopped pic referencing the annual meet-up of feindish empire-building fucks at the Bohemian Grove summer fire festival. Insider's burning man, complete with Ba'al worship and human sacrifice...er, plotting for human sacrifice, sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtSVBTne-KY

^that's an Alex Jones viddy from when he smuggled his manic ass into the thing and took viddies-yer about to pop yer cherry mate....took ya long enough

In reply to this comment by therealblankman:
Thanks, Choggie.

btw, what's the deal with your new avatar? George jr., Clinton and who? Jesse Helms?

In reply to this comment by choggie:
*promote

therealBM is close to squeezing a diamond out of the place....

always loved his contributions, you do too.

http://www.videosift.com/member/therealblankman/pqueued

I think Titan was just asking for some buttsecks.

Either way, I was hoping for the BigDog

>> ^gtjwkq:
What are they doing indoors!?


I agree. I think American culture is insane for thinking that keeping dogs outside is cruel. I had a rottweiler and Siberian Shepperd in Russia. You couldn't even get them to go inside, they hated it! They had a huge insulated dog house, and a huge property to run around in. I mean, keep your dogs inside if you want, especially small ones...but big dogs...nothing cruel about it. And the house wont smell. ANIMALS. They live outside. And people need to let their cats out too. Whats cruel is keeping them indoors. Its like a prison. And no, they aren't lawn ornaments. Maybe if people left their animals outside more, than humans would spend more time out in the sun with them, instead of all getting fat together indoors in front of the tv. Obviously many people don't have a yard, or a fenced yard...fine. but if you do, let you freaking pets enjoy the wind, sun and grass? Its only natural. And don't for one second think its cruel when others do so.

This isn't journalism. It's gnostic condescension. She's looking to put a feather in her cap at the expense of someone's career. Beck is right not to answer this. Couric is too daft to stop asking after he told her he wasn't going to answer the question.

I remember when FOX and it's representatives weren't given the time of day. Ever. What happened to that? Now that FOX is the big dog the other outlets fall all over themselves to talk about FOX and rail against FOX and interview FOX commentators. I guess FOX must really get inside people's heads.

A better title for this would be "No-ratings Olberflea Bites Hugely Popular Big Dog".

>> ^quantumushroom:
1) USA is not a democracy.


Correct. It is a constitutional republic.


2) Torture is illegal against American citizens and uniform-wearing soldiers of other nations' armed forces.


Wrong. The Bill of Rights does not differentiate between citizens and non-citizens. It only speaks of 'persons'. It embodies certain essential rights common to all men (and women) regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality. True, it only pertains to actions taken within US borders, and against US citizens outside of the US. However, as signatories to the UN Convention against Torture, we have agreed that agents of the US shall not torture.


3) Terrorists fit neither description of #2, therefore legal protections do not apply no matter how badly the ACLU wants them to. The same legal charade was attempted by leftists during WW2, scrambling to give German saboteurs the protection of the American legal process. It failed and the Germs were rightly executed (people had way more common sense + balls back then).



Funny story about them saboteurs--you must be talking about Operation Pastoreus, which gives us the rich legacy of secret military tribunals. The thing is that we would have known NOTHING about the plan, if not for the fact that its leader, intent on betraying the Nazis from the start, turned himself in to the FBI and told them everything they needed to know (he actually had to travel from NYC to Washington, DC to do this, as the FBI Office in NYC hung up on him, thinking him a crank). For this essential service, the leader who had turned on his own people and spared countless American lives was thrown in a cell with the other seven, and sentenced to die. Hoover, director of the FBI, felt that the stroke of luck that had benefitted them in this case didn't play as well in the media as a tireless army of FBI agents, knocking down doors. The leader had been tried separately, and the military judges had been informed about his vital role in breaking the case, and STILL he was sentenced to die. It was only after the details of the case were released that his sentence was commuted. Instead of being treated as a hero, he and another German 'spy' who had turned on their Nazi masters were deported back to Germany, where they were treated as traitors.

So, you know, try another one.


4) While rich in history, most of the rest of the world is quite lame...unstable, squalid, rife with tribal hatreds going back centuries. Other governments' depths of corruption make the USA's look like a school play about tooth decay. Europe is graying and its traditions and culture dying. It would be better off mummified than Muslimfied.


"To save the village, we had to destroy the village." How well did that mentality work in Vietnam?


5) Obama is a laughingstock to America's sworn enemies and is played like a harp by all manner of sociopathic dictators around the globe. He's made America seem as weak as a legless kitten.


Yawn.



6) The USA will never get proper credit or respect for the good it does in the world (at least, not from American liberals). Part of being The Big Dog is being challenged. When China eventually takes over as Big Dog, the rest of the world will long for the good old days.


You know, this is what's so funny about 'free market' ideologues. Their belief that the free market will right all wrongs seems to falter when the market starts favoring an outcome that's much less favorable to them, whether it be the speaking of Spanish, or the growth of non-Christian faiths, or hegemony under a different overlord. Once that happens, the free market must be ignored, and nations toppled.


7) Peanut-head Eric Holder already tried to raise a legal stink about torture and was rebuked. Navy SEALS are waterboarded as part of their training and only 3 of the terrorists were waterboarded, for the purpose of gaining intel, not torture for torture's sake.


Democracies AND constitutional republics do not believe that torture is permissible, regardless of outcome. The ends do NOT justify the means.



Since torture "doesn't work" the logical alternative is to kill all terrorists/insurgents on the battlefield without mercy. Yet this approach is also poo-pooed.


How is this logical? I know--I shouldn't feed the troll here, but I've got some time on my hands.


9) Liberal logic eats its own tail. Dependent on moral relativism to exist, it cannot by its own definition ever claim a lasting moral high ground.


Capitalism eats its own tail. It begets inequities that yield monopolies, and once we have monopolies, capitalism collapses. Communism eats its own tail. In fact, every ideological concept, when taken to its purest form, contains the seeds of its own destruction. The thing about liberalism is that, unlike conservativism, it is endlessly questioning its own relevance and truthfulness. You would, of course, see this as weakness, but like steel, tempering drives out impurities and leads to a stronger material.

1) USA is not a democracy.

2) Torture is illegal against American citizens and uniform-wearing soldiers of other nations' armed forces.

3) Terrorists fit neither description of #2, therefore legal protections do not apply no matter how badly the ACLU wants them to. The same legal charade was attempted by leftists during WW2, scrambling to give German saboteurs the protection of the American legal process. It failed and the Germs were rightly executed (people had way more common sense + balls back then).

4) While rich in history, most of the rest of the world is quite lame...unstable, squalid, rife with tribal hatreds going back centuries. Other governments' depths of corruption make the USA's look like a school play about tooth decay. Europe is graying and its traditions and culture dying. It would be better off mummified than Muslimfied.

5) Obama is a laughingstock to America's sworn enemies and is played like a harp by all manner of sociopathic dictators around the globe. He's made America seem as weak as a legless kitten.

6) The USA will never get proper credit or respect for the good it does in the world (at least, not from American liberals). Part of being The Big Dog is being challenged. When China eventually takes over as Big Dog, the rest of the world will long for the good old days.

7) Peanut-head Eric Holder already tried to raise a legal stink about torture and was rebuked. Navy SEALS are waterboarded as part of their training and only 3 of the terrorists were waterboarded, for the purpose of gaining intel, not torture for torture's sake.

Since torture "doesn't work" the logical alternative is to kill all terrorists/insurgents on the battlefield without mercy. Yet this approach is also poo-pooed.

9) Liberal logic eats its own tail. Dependent on moral relativism to exist, it cannot by its own definition ever claim a lasting moral high ground.

[Em - C - G all the way through]
My first love was a wicked twisted road
I hit the million mile mark at seventeen years old
I never saw the rainbow much less a pot of gold
yeah my first love was a wicked twisted road

my first love was a castle in the sky
I never thought I'd make it 'till I had the guts to try
and I sat up in my tower while the whole world passed me by
yeah my first love was a castle in the sky

my first love was a fearless drive in rain
scared to death I thought I'd never see her face again
they say god was crying so I guess he felt my pain
yeah my first love was a fearless drive in rain

my first love was a wild sinful night
I ran out with the big dogs guess I had more bark then bite
even thought I won the battle in the end I lost the fight
yeah my first love was a wild sinful night

my first love was an angry painful song
I wanted one so bad I went and did everything wrong
a lesson in reality would come before too long
yeah my first love was an angry painful song


My first love was a wicked twisted road
I hit the million mile mark at seventeen years old
I never saw the rainbow much less a pot of gold
yeah my first love was a wicked twisted road

my first love was a wicked twisted road