Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Duuvian on November 29, 2011, 07:21:16 am

Quote from: klingon13524 on November 29, 2011, 06:42:27 am

I played for a bit. I got tired of every other character in the game being a demon, and quitted.

Yeah, I noticed that too. It might have been a new powerset is my guess. That tended to happen back when I played years ago, where everyone made a new character with that powerset to try it out.

What's a powerset? I thought it was just a hoard of 13 year olds...

Oh, haha, my mistake, I apologize. I guess it could have been, it is a free to play game and children are notoriously under-compensated in monetary earnings at their educational facility. I probably either play MMO's at night or when they are at school due to the hours I work when I have a job. I suppose there is some overlap and I do change my schedule a lot though. I don't remember seeing kids on but then again I usually keep global-type chats on a tab I don't watch and I don't go around asking players how old they are either, since that information won't affect me and would be kind of weird and unnecessary for me to know...

I thought you meant all the characters were being followed around by a bunch of demon pets. On the villain side one of the archetypes is the Mastermind and I've recently seen a lot of those with the Demon Summoning primary, which of course lets them have demon pets.

Powerset is a set of a powers that you choose at the start of the game for the superhero/villain you play as. Basically you're a superhero or a supervillain. As you level up you choose which powers in your Primary and Secondary power set to unlock, and can also choose from power pools that any archetype can choose from, rather than the archetype specific powersets.

I searched for a thread about City of Heroes, the old one was pretty old. Anyways it's free sort of, and I'm playing it for free when I catch my long lost buddy online, but mostly it's worth coming back to if you played it before. New people are limited a bit. As many months as you paid for back whenever you played count as these things called Reward tokens, or something. There's a bunch of different reward merits, paragon merits, vanguard merits, etc but the type you get for having put money in the game in the past is what gives the most valuable type which unlocks features. The disappointing part is that depending on how many months you had subbed it may still not be enough to unlock some things that you had while being a subscriber. The plus side? None, really, as that money could have been better utilized elsewhere silly. The neutral side? It's free now all the time, plus if you lived in the days when subscribing to games wasn't as much of a budget breaker if you had it subbed for a good period you get most of the stuff VIP gets. The exception is Invention origin enhancements usage and basically anything that you would use the market for are very high on the unlock tree which is unfortunate, but I suppose it would have to be to be functional. Also requiring VIP is the content allowing you to gain what appears to be an extra level once you reach the max. This would play a large role in the voluntary PVP due to the maths at work and thus pvp is somewhat sparse due to the doubly stacked playing field between free players, premiums (which are returning former subscribers) and VIPs in that not only can VIPs gain an additional level via Incarnate status but also use IO's to flatten opposition.

However that's OK with me I suppose since PVP is pretty rare now from what I've heard and I'd mostly limit it to me and whoever else wants to go dogpiling onto whoever we find anyways.

The PVE game is also pretty cool. You can fly, jump, teleport and superspeed around a city, which is pretty cool. Fighting is pretty fun in groups and it's easy to set a suitable difficulty level. I tend to increase difficulty settings for the group until people start dieing and then keep it there. It's pretty well balanced as far as gameplay goes; but expect to take a great many bullets as it's a health points type game.



From this thread, it seems that Freedom is the server to play upon if you seek B12 companions as of 12/8/12

This grants a very large amount of power to the Department of Justice by allowing them to cherrypick which cases will be pursued.

From a post of mine in another topic:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show

Who gets to decide what 'limited use' other than infringement means?

I mean, are there precedents for this or does it give them the opportunity to say, for example, that talking about video games are of 'limited use' to the public?

If that is the case, the 'other than infringement' part is able to be used, perhaps after the first time someone posts a link to something that would infringe. This means theoretically you could hire a firm to go around spamming pirate links on websites you want to be shut down; if it's as vague as it seems.

Finally: It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.

Five years in prison?! Also, by 'web-streaming', is it me or is that worded strangely in a way that could be interpreted as 'streaming' either way? Thus possibly opening the door to 5 year prison terms for viewing such a 'stream.'

Also, this was a letter I wrote but didn't send,

One thing I should add is that any form of control over the internet is extremely unpopular with people who use the internet. Feel free to copy and paste the following link into your browser to see a discussion.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=96564.0

In addition, while this law mentions penalties quite specifically; however the description of the crime itself is quite vague. 'Streaming' could be interpreted as not only uploads (meaning being the one person to place for instance a copywrited video for others to view online) but also downloads (meaning you are one of many people simply viewing the video)

This means that it would be extremely easy to post what are called 'blind links' (http: links disguised as something else, aka blue text links) and direct a large amount of internet traffic to infringing sites; possibly after causing the site to infringe by your own actions or through an (overseas?) third party.

In this way an interested party could not only give the justification required to remove a website they do not agree with, but ALSO by choosing their target location for the blind link, they theoretically could send (part of) that locations 'audience' or userbase to prison for five years as felons. They could also do this without being tracked by IP address as far as I'm aware, by using a program called The onion Relay. If you don't like that, blame the military as the IP system loophole was and is for their security.

Also, the wording on this section is worrying: "The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have "only limited purpose or use other than infringement," and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site."

Not only does it give a copyright owner the right to force expensive legal fees upon any site that users could infringe on if that site has 'limited purpose', but also limited purpose is not clearly defined. If a website is made for talking about video games, and a user infringes upon it, does only being created to talk about video games define 'limited purpose?' Does a political forum have only 'limited purpose?" In addition it would allow the DoJ to cherry pick which sites with infringers would be punished or not.

Finally, I leave you with a final irony. The Congressman who supports this bill also supports loosening laws that have a side effect of allowing large entertainment corporations to pirate music from individual copywrite holders that it 'cannot determine the identities of after a reasonable search.' http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Orphan_works_legislation

Internet identities being what they are and having become necessary to protect oneself from those who collect information, they shouldn't be able to find out a person's identity after a reasonable search, which wasn't clearly defined.

From that message board forums above:

Campaign Contributions

This is a list of the top 10 industries giving campaign contributions to Lamar Smith in 2009-2010, the most recent fundraising cycle for which we have campaign contribution data.*
Industry   Individual   PAC   Total
TV/Movies/Music   $16,650   $49,000   $65,650
Retired   $59,225   $0   $59,225
Accountants   $2,000   $36,500   $38,500
Lawyers/Law Firms   $25,750   $12,500   $38,250
Employer Listed/Category Unknown   $35,400   $0   $35,400
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products   $1,000   $30,500   $31,500
Insurance   $11,850   $18,500   $30,350
Health Professionals   $20,550   $8,750   $29,300
Oil & Gas   $12,700   $16,400   $29,100
Commercial Banks   $7,650   $20,500   $28,150

Also, this guy proposed this as well a few years back: http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Orphan_works_legislation

Basically at first it sounds like a decent law, until you realize that in some cases it would allow the major music producers to pirate music from people who post their music on the internet! (probably for use as a sample, you can do all kinds of things to make music sound different much easier than it is to actually make different music)

Finally, while they might have done what they claim was a reasonable search to try to determine someone's real name, who gets to say what's reasonable or not? A judge? I probably can't afford that even if that were the case.

From above link:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Copyright law in the U.S.
Copyright law in the United States is essentially based on a “form of protection” provided to “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. These laws include a doctrine of “fair use,” which was established via the courts and specifies four factors for determining whether a use is fair: 1) the purpose and character of the use, 2) the nature of the copyrighted material, 3) the amount of the work used in proportion to the entire work and 4) the effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work. [1] [1]

Works which are considered to be in the “public domain” indicate that no person can claim ownership rights or retain proprietary interests over a particular work. [1]

As stated above, orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners cannot be identified. Because many archivists, libraries, film restorers, artists, scholars, educators, publishers, and others simply disregard works unless they are definitively in the public domain, orphan works are often not made available to the public due to uncertainty over their copyright status (despite the fact that no one is claiming ownership of them). [1]

Movement to address problems with orphan works
Beginning in the late 1990s, interested parties and organizations representing copyright owners and users pushed for copyright reform that would address the problems of orphan works. This pressure eventually led to a challenge of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (H.R. 1621) which extended “protection from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the author plus seventy years.” The measure, signed into law by President Clinton, included “provisions applied to works under copyright on the date of its implementation...An exception permits libraries, archives, and non-profit educational institutions to treat copyrighted works in their last twenty years of protection as if they were in the public domain for non-commercial purposes.” [1] The challenge was defeated in 2003 when the Supreme Court upheld the Bono copyright law as constitutional by a vote of 7-2 in Eldred v. Ashcroft. [1]

Mostly what would be useful to know before I send it is if 'Streaming' constitutes both uploads and downloads in the legal sense of SOPA.

Quick, someone come up with a way to regulate capitalism so everyone can poke holes into the idea until the bad parts are gone or at least avoidable with effort and we can consume it.

Quote from: Luke_Prowler on November 28, 2011, 03:58:20 pm

As much as I hate corperate lobbying, there's no way to completely stop that, since they already have "fundraisers" and "committies" just so they can get around those kind of things, and get a tax reduction as a bonus.

I'd reather prefer complete trasparency. They can donate as they like, but then people will be able to see it.

003): Goods by a corperation that have been made outside of their home country (such as via outsoursing) will be subject to tariffs

Meh....high tariff protectionism isn't really the way to go either. For one thing, get ready to pay a shit-ton more for every electronic device you own. Because semiconductor production is massively outsourced to East Asia and has been for roughly 20 years now. The vast majority of clothing is made in South Asia or Latin America. There's any number of products that are made overseas which even with the tariffs would be cheaper for the parent company to produce overseas. Meanwhile, they'll just pass the tariff cost along to consumers and blame Congress for the increase.

I don't mind paying more for electronics if I have a job making semiconductors. It's better than scavenging what I can without one probably.

That said, you are very right about tariffs. I would think that in order to combat an initial reduction of supply caused by tariffs a domestic industry would have to be shaped prior in order to be able to beat foreign prices just enough that the tariffs are effective while at the same time meeting enough of demand that the initial price spike is less severe before manufacturers can fully meet demand.

As for clothing, I just did a quick google search, found a made in America store, and learned that a pair of jeans cost 50$. While I won't make comparisons on quality, my desire to not spend money on foreign goods (due to the concept of money supply rather than a superiority complex) is greatly diminished at that price.

Historically, when things like these prices happen, people choose substitutes for their normal purchases. In this instance it's the cheaper foreign made good. Often this is a cause of monetary issues, in this case I would say it's partially due to the dollar's gradual decline and mostly due to the money supply. Specifically, the fact that wealth is accumulating in the hands of fewer people. While this might initially sound like an uninventive liberal proclamation, the fact is that it in fact has severe economic repurcussions. Three I can think of are 1: The people who have money can spend more. and 2: Those that do not have money don't spend much at all, and 3: The people who have money often let it 'sit' in  a bank somewhere, and who knows what mystical dimension they keep it in. Of these three the 3: is arguably the least important in this case and probably the most difficult to fix. Yes, I know bank money doesn't 'sit,' it's fairly active in stocks and loans and such but by doing these things they contribute to 1 and 2 over a period of time, and it still 'sits' for the people who made the deposit at record low interest rates.

1: is a problem because if they are willing to pay more for the luxury goods, it will raise prices due to business being able to charge that much. In non-luxury goods such as clothing in times like these most people make do with substitutes (foreign goods in this case) because they don't have the money to buy American Made. This contracts the money supply of most of the population as at least a portion of it flows overseas.

2: is the most severe problem, as people don't have the money to spend. This is because not only is it the case where only the wealthy can hold onto their money supply over the long term, as in a clothing example American made costs more; but also because economists have become dreamy eyed at the thought of finding the spot of the most profit per item instead of finding the way to produce the most at a profit in my opinion.

That said, would tariffs affect these issues positively? In the long term, yes, they could be a very good thing. That said, tariffs have proven so volatile in the past that politicians probably HATE them. That said, oftentimes it felt when I was reading about them that they were often poorly implemented and not well thought out. I'm probably forgetting an attempt somewhere that was but oh well. Mostly though it seems like a tariff would be something you would have to start planning say 5 years in advance? 

That way the government can do what it does anyways and spend money for business in shaping a new (old?) domestic industry, but this time it would be more constructive than usual in that it wouldn't be in a layman's (myself included as I shouldn't have to worry about this stuff for free) view the standard 'Here's your loan, do whatever the hell you want with it as long as we get paid before the next election."
EDIT2: Auto bailout was great though, unless the companies pulled a fast one that I don't know about. Houses in Detroit could be bought for 10$ at that time. Probably not a lot better now but at least Detroit doesn't have the national guard stationed where it used to be.

EDIT:



EDIT3: Also



and


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_base

and



EDIT3?:


So the poor people have little money, the wealthy have too much, and money supply is high but concentrated and prices are increasing despite and because of this.

Quote from: Duuvian on November 28, 2011, 03:41:57 pm

Also, I should note that John Hancock was the most successful (and well known) smuggler of his day. This likely had an influence on his being the first to sign the Declaration and adds even more humor to it.

Basically, what the crown would have considered a lawless rogue not only the first to sign the declaration, he did it in such a fashion that it was more or less the most prominent signature as well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

John Hancock smuggled French made goods to the American colonies from the French West Indies, as they were cheaper than British goods. This was because the British were unrealistically attempting to keep control of their monopoly while simultaneously charging more for same/similar goods.

Also, I will say that I don't want a system other than capitalism. What needs to change is the structure of the capitalism. A handy way to start would be to remove corporate money from the election process. After all, a good politician should be in favor of local jobs anyways. It seems to me that corporate money in elections is mostly useful for 'convincing' politicians that they should be in favor of whatever the corporations want.

After that it would be nice to eliminate the requirement of obtaining campaign funds in the first place, but first steps first I suppose.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If it were me I'd severely limit what politicans can spend to attract votes. I figure if they can't get their message across on an online forums (which I could see the government providing as it would be a good thing for how much it would cost) and from being invited on Television for debates or talk shows (or invited to write a column for a newspaper) then all they would need money for is to distort the truth.

Which means I should import and sell pirated Chinese DVDs, because hey...it's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. Or at least how'd they'd have tried to make a shilling off it.

Yeah, I suppose that post was out of place a bit. That's just my favorite bit of history about the Revolution that many people don't know about. It was fun reminding the Tea Party guys about stuff like that.

Also I looked up John Hancock on wikipedia after I made my post and the book I learned that from might be out of date, since the wiki says there was no written evidence of Hancock himself smuggling. The book I read basically said smuggling was so commonplace that everyone likely did it.

I find your link very interesting Duuvian. So what were these guys trying to do? Buy Qaddafi an escape? Shameful that it's even possible.

I think this was at some point towards the beginning. It was more an attempt to sway the US to not do the things we did eventually by convincing members of the government that Gaddhafi isn't so bad and those darn Islamists would blow up the world if Libya had a democracy.

I have to wonder if it was before of after the following picture, since at least one of the higher-ups had some sort of tie to Mr. McCain. I'll probably investigate more at some point. I still feel McCain deserves recognition for not only being brave enough to visit the Libyan opposition at the time but also for possibly breaking with his associates in doing so.