I think pointing out problems directly and efficiently will eventually make someone a total asshole, and that's what I think Steve Jobs really did. However, some people(especially those blink-eyed Steve Jobs enthusiastics) just mistook the whole point. They thought it's being a total asshole making him efficient and successful, and by being a total asshole will eventually lead to him/her being an awesome leader of big cooperation. These people really have to learn some principles of logic before they start to learn anything from Steve Jobs. Pardon my poor English.
Maybe that news was published 400ms or even a little bit earlier. Such little difference human beings cannot notice. Those who trade early were those who utilized A.I. systems to watch and analyze the report and trade accordingly, 400ms is long enough for big expensive machines to accomplish that task. To add even more conspiracy into the story, you can imagine someone was paid to publish the report just about 400ms earlier than supposed to by those who use computers to trade, and not very many people will notice, or just like post said feds don't even think this matters.
It's morally wrong to trick someone biological and psychological in order for them to play games in order to generate income for a game company. But I think there's a way to balance between making users like the game thus generate income for the company and making users biologically and psychologically rely on the game.
In the end, is there really any difference between making a game that is fun and a game that is addicting? I really don't think there is even if they went in with the idea of "lets make this game addicting".
I've never once seen a game that is not fun, but is addicting. Although my friends have said Master of Orion 3 fits that description, but I never actually saw them ever play it so I think it was a joke.
There's a great talk about this from some guy at Digital Illusions. He found some definition of what a "game" is and compared that definition with Farmville, it failed on every single bullet. I can't remember the exact details but it contained things like it has to be challenging, a skilled player should easily beat a newbie, not requiring grinding. What's interesting is that the definitions are not designed with the sole purpose of bashing farmville, all of them really make sense and origin from even before computer era.
If somebody knows where to find the talk please post it, my google-fu is weak today. He also compares the iphone to a swiss army knife and the ipad to a "swiss-army-kitchen-utensil" (i.e too bad to be really useful and too big to fit in your pocket). The talk was just a few weeks after the first ipad release. It also contains alot of other talk about the future of gaming for the general masses, facebook games and gaming anything in life(like shopping), etc. If that's enough to trigger anyones memory.
I was addicted to DOTA just like Tom and wasted 1 whole year on it, and almost dropped out of school(thanks to loose quality control in China's higher education system, but I'm not sure it's a good thing).
I got out -- and I'm the first one out -- my little DOTA addicted circle who did it.
What got me out is programming, I learned PHP/Java/Python/Javascript/Android etc... since I quited playing DOTA all day.
I still play DOTA, but very controllable and sometimes didn't play it in months.
I'm Chinese, I never heard of monks of Taoism. Those people believe in Taoism philosophy deeply, call themselves Dao Shi. And only some of Dao Shi train Taichi(a slow sport to help find inner peace), not "Wudang Kung Fu".
I'm just stating as far as I know. Maybe there're truly monks who practice "Wudang Kung Fu" and Taoism. But as far as I know, Taoism is about living peacefully and healthily and as long as possible, not about defeating your enemy.
I am Chinese (Tawainese if you want to get picky) and grew up in America. "Wudang Kung Fu" is a fairly popular moniker, even for those who know better. My Northern Shaolin teacher will sometimes work up a rant about it from time to time, but few people outside the martial arts circle really care about it. Many non-martial-artist native Chinese don't really know the specialized jargon and distinctions in the martial arts world.
The arts passed down from Wudangshan is not exclusive to Tai Chi. Tai Chi has origin myths relating to Wudangshan, but I doubt taijiquan was the only thing they practiced. Taijiquan itself cannot be characterized as "a slow sport to help find inner peace". Well, you can, but that is like saying "Wudang Kung Fu".
There are definitely "Taoist monks". They have their own temples and do their own things. They have similar beggar-monk tradition as Buddhist beggar-monk traditions. At several points, Taoist monks cultivated within the same spaces as Buddhist monks. This is not surprising given that all religious wisdom springs from the same source.
One aspect of Tao-"ism" is about living peacefully and healthily and as long as possible ... but that's not really it at all. That's the popular religion. As Joseph Campbell noted, the most popular religion in the world worships the idols of Longevity, Prosperity, and Posterity. Pop Taoism is no exception.
After you shed the outer layer of pop Taoism, at Taoism's core, it shares the same underlying understanding of reality as Buddhism, Shinto, and even the obscure parts of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Its moral expression is uniquely Chinese.
As for "not about defeating your enemy", this goes into something very interesting, the role of violence and spiritual growth. Sun Tzu's Art of War is very much Taoist-flavored. It might be kept at its arm's length, but its far more obscure inspiration, Master of Demon Valley (鬼谷子) is acclaimed as part of the Taoist tradition, despite being heavily encrypted teachings about the shadow side, governance, and right action.
You're right. I'm not really into Taoism, I heard the talking of "about living peacefully and healthily and as long as possible" from a friend, who has been to meditation leading by a famous Daoshi in my area, and also heard real Taoism monks don't practice martial arts at all except Taichi if you count it as a martial art or kungfu.
