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Comment Re: Wow (Score 2) 463

The fundamentals of the broken window fallacy means that if you break the bakers window you create a demand for another window and 'stimulate' the economy. The Fallacy aspect is the fact that the baker has now spent that money on a new window instead of a new pot that he needed as well, leading to a sum of a broken window, a new whole window but no new pot. The loss is the opportunity cost of something else not getting bought and produced.

The same applies to wine bottles (if they're drinking (or breaking) them to create demand rather than to enjoy them).

The same could theoretically be applied to virtual goods destruction, but the opportunity cost for virtual goods is actually in the creation side for them. As they are artificially scarce they could theoretically be instantiated en-masse without any cost at all, freeing up money for the production of actual scarce resources being created within the economy.

However, at least for games like EVE, a significant portion of the entertainment is derived from the production of artificially scarce virtual goods. People pay to sit around producing them, unlike windows where very few pay to hang around in a window factory making windows. This means that the failure to just instantiate a titan for anyone who wants one does not carry the same cost to the real world economy as would a failure to instantly replicate a window, could it be done at the same zero cost.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 2) 463

The difference being that wine bottles are scarce, while EVE assets are artificially scarce and could be replaced instantly without any labour or resources being consumed. If any 'real' economic damage is inflicted it's through artificial scarcity.

Of course, as that scarcity is a significant factor in the entertainment value of EVE, and the 'labour' required actually being considered entertainment by some as well it's not as simple as saying it's 'damage' and arguments in favour of the function can't be relegated to a reflection of the broken window fallacy.

You could rewrite the headline to 'Battle causes the opportunity of $200k worth of gameplay about building starships' and it would hold some validity as well.

Comment Re:It might be an unpopular opinion... (Score 3, Insightful) 822

For whistleblower laws to do any good at all they really need to be enforced with with prohibitive and spectacular zeal, ie, anyone attempting to act against a whistleblower needs to get landed in jail so fast their head spins.

Of course, we all know it doesn't work like that. Perhaps the whistleblower won't get prosecuted but they are likely to lose their job or at the very least they'll find their social situation at work impossible to deal with. Few actions against the whistleblower will ever be punished.

Realistically it's go to the press and hope the attention makes retaliation difficult, or shut up and do something else if you don't want to be complicit in whatever illegal acts happening that should be leaked. Snowden's assessment was without a doubt correct and he chose the only possible ethical course of action.

Comment Re:Lesson from this story...don't be a glass hole! (Score 1) 1034

Even better, don't go to a movie theatre.

I can't even remember when I went last, it must've been more than a decade ago. It's not like it's an excessively pleasant experience to begin with and the handing of money to the MPAA in combination with the theatre anti-piracy crap pretty much was the final nail in that coffin.

Get a good projector and download cam releases made by people wearing google glass if you want the theatre experience.

Comment Re:Isn't this the ultimate goal? (Score 1) 732

No consumer has more than 24 hours per day and most arts are infinitely duplicatable. The failure lies in demand as the entire worlds demand is easily filled by a miniscule number of producers who also get to compete with everything already produced.

Services are slightly more resilient, but frankly, replacing cooks, stylists and hairdressers is more a question of when it's profitable to do so than any inherent difficulty.

Comment Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 1) 510

Unfortunately I think the system is a bit to susceptible to regulatory capture. And considering the nature of Monsanto as a corporation that, given a choice between developing a product that was vastly profitable and one less profitable but would also give the consumers inheritable cancer, would chose the cancer one I'm not convinced that regulation can become trustworthy enough.

I have nothing against GMO per-se, but unless companies like Monsanto can be permanently dispatched to history, and for as long as glaring misapplications of GMO tech seem to be the most common uses (ie, doomed short term applications whose use will soon be negated by resistance buildup in weeds or pests) I'd rather see bans than no bans.

Ultimately, it's not that GMO is that hard to appreciate. I think you'd find that if 90% of screwdrivers were used to build bombs there'd be a lot of interest in banning screwdrivers.

Comment Re:Double question (Score 4, Insightful) 363

If they have even the slightest concern about appearing to care about legalities they're probably outsourcing it to GCHQ or one of their other partners who will do just enough (with NSA consultant personell if they feel like it) to cover the bare necessities. So of course they'll say no and of course they're spying on congress.

Comment Re:Or just limit the Megpixel (Score 2) 103

The pixel count increases as it's a selling point. The optics on most things like phones seem to stay the same utter crap, barely enough to saturate the ccd in full sunlight, leaving most of those megapixels as random noise. Leaving any CSI style zoom as something achievable in photos specifically taken with the proper equipment and setup to allow CSI style zoom but not in the junk quality images they pretend to enhance in CSI.

Comment Re:Thank you (Score 5, Insightful) 242

Yeah, and if that was what was going to happen, maybe Snowden would have stayed. Preferring to avoid torture followed by more torture followed by American prisonrape followed by some more torture does not cast a shadow on Snowdens heroic actions. He's certainly given up enough to prove his sincerity.

Comment Re:not super expensive at all (Score 1) 1146

As far as I can tell, traditional 100 watt bulbs are more in the 1000 lumen range, with modern halogen incandecents being about 13-1400 lumen. A quick search places a 30watt CFL at 2000 lumen, almost twice what an incandecent does.

I actually have a couple of 60w CFL's with an output of 4200 lumens each. Granted you can't stick them in most lamps due to size but they fit in a standard socket.

Comment Re:say what? (Score 1) 383

They used to have audit logs but then someone pointed out Keith's LOVEINT logs and there were grumblings about Rick's kickbacks from businesses. Best just to leave accesses to data unlogged so everyone can go around their business without interference. Who could have expected someone like Snowden actually taking a moral high ground? With all that unmonitored and unsupervised access to everything about everyone he should have had some fun with the dirt, like everyone else.

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