What I don't understand is this American idea that nudity is wrong. No, I'm not a nudist.
I have family in Finland and when I was 16 and stayed at an aunts house, I happened to take notice of a rather peculiar advertisement on TV. A full frontal nude shot of a rather un-pretty man. I don't remember all the details but apparently it was a cell phone commercial.
The fact that I still remember this to this day is shocking in itself. The most basic thing we have as humans is our bodies and our minds. Why is it that we censor our bodies to such an absolute degree?
What, really, is the big deal here?
I agree with you, c64, children should be able to learn about the basic human body and what it is for. There is zero harm in that. Obviously, however, I wouldn't show them hardcore porn, but if there happens to be simple nudity or a discovery program about the birds and the bees, so be it. And if you're against them seeing that sort of thing, limit their exposure to it, but please don't ask the government to decide for _you_ because that would mean they are deciding for _me_ as well. Be a parent and parent your children.
Is this how it starts, or is this just another bad, never to materialize idea that somehow got press?
Limit all traffic for the sake of national security or at least national commerce? At what point do you give up said power once you have it? At what point do you drop all filters and say a situation is no longer present?
Once you grab power and control, there is no reason to _want_ to give it up.
Then again, this is probably nothing more than a bad idea written on paper. Hopefully.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but, isn't the problem with Lithium-ion batteries as a whole? Not just laptop batteries?
Isn't the fire risk greatest with an overcharged and/or damaged battery? If so, isn't the same risk associated with cell phones, PDA's, etc, etc (although, smaller battery, smaller kaboom/initial fire)?
And if _any_ Lithium-ion battery is a potential hazard then it wouldn't matter if it was in the cabin or in the hold underneath, it's still a fire/explosion risk. Why would you allow them on a passenger aircraft, at all?
Now I'm not saying to ban them, or even restrict them, allow them all, that's fine, but if we're going to go all nuts over one type of Lithium-ion battery, we really need to realize they _all_ pose a danger.
I see what you're saying, however, you deleting your files may hurt your employers bottom line and potentially yours _at worst_, pilots losing awareness can mean hundreds of deaths.
Now I'm not saying they should be fired, but I can easily see why they would be. Airlines and pilots are held to very strict standards by the government.
Could additional "training" and a heavy penalty/fine resolve the issue and create two better pilots? Possibly and potentially even likely. But if the punishment for potentially putting hundreds of lives in risk is a slap on the wrist, do you really think all the thousands of other pilots are really going to take notice? I have a feeling being fired in this case shows all the other pilots to simply only consider being distracted if you want to lose your job. In short, it appears any "big" mistake ends in termination simply to make examples of you.
You're assuming that someone with what amounts to a monopoly on a drug will somehow eventually want less profit and voluntarily drop their prices? Speaking of drugs, can I have some of what you're having?
You're suggesting we wait until it becomes a big problem and only at that point attempt to pass laws to stop it?
No, I'm sorry, the writing is already on the wall. Comcast started it here in the US. At least they started the "oh shit, look what is coming" fear.
Burying our heads in the sand now and just hoping it doesn't become a problem isn't the right answer here. And guidelines aren't enough to stop multi-billion dollar companies from making decisions that screw their customers.
Just look at how cable TV is now being threatened by internet sources (Hulu, Amazon VOD, etc, etc). Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc, etc, have a lot of means to absolutely _crush_ the new web tv technology so their customers stay locked into very expensive cable tv plans. "Oh hey, looks like a few of our customers are dropping cable tv and their internet usage is spiking to that Hulu site. Lets just throttle all connections to Hulu and make it unplayable. We can just claim it is to stop congestion at prime time and keep customers using our cable service!"
And that doesn't even take much imagination at all, it's going to happen unless we tell the companies there are _legal_ repercussions to doing something like that. We have to tell them it's time to adapt or die, not squash new tech and continue business as usual since it is easier.
How about we _don't_ wait until customers get royally screwed any more than they have already and stop the obviously-coming-down-the-pike problem now?
This is what disturbs me. Playing songs on a personal radio is _not_ intended to calm shoppers and aide in business.
What's next? Ban iPod's worn by employees because a passerby may just get close enough to make out what song he's listening to?
If there is a chance to prove a policy is in place to play music for the benefit of the shopper, fine, fair game, but if it is for the sole benefit of a single, or maybe a couple workers to pass the shift, leave them the hell alone.
Kdawson's name is on this, why am I not surprised. I don't mean to troll, but wow does that editor have some interesting stories to his/her name. I mean honestly, a bonified, "time travel is killing the LHC", story?
You're missing the point of an MMO. If you walked into a dungeon knowing you're going to get an upgrade (if you haven't farmed it all already), you're going to quickly realize that you'll get everything you need in X runs. At that point you're going to get bored and leave the game.
The developers _purposely_ make it all random in the hope that you'll keep coming back for more, month after month. If they give you what you want too quickly, you'll get bored and leave.
The same thing goes for difficulty. If they just tuned it so everyone would win, why would you ever do the lower level stuff more than once? You'd just go for the uber difficult stuff knowing that's where the best items drop. So what if you fail? It'll auto-tune to be easier next time and then you'll have every item you want.
And again, you'll get bored and stop playing/paying.
Like it or not, the grind is what people _want_ as it gives them a sense of accomplishment. It's what the developers want as well since, at least on average, more people will play longer as they keep _hoping_ to be successful and _hoping_ their items drop. It's just the way it works.
I'm an American. One who was more than pissed off with Bush. One who voted for Obama. One who is still proud of that choice.
I've seen a stark change in the world perception of the USA. I've seen opinions and hopes change within my family, friends, neighborhood, state, etc. Even Republicans I know, while still a bit jaded over Dem's winning is hopeful for the future under a Dem.
But what has _Obama_ the man done to win this prize?
I'm just an average citizen and all I've seen so far is an attitude shift in the country and world towards the changing of our President to a non-republican. And I'm not even sure the Republican change is even as important as the simple leaving of office that Bush graced us all with.
My point here is simple. Did Obama gaining leadership deserve him winning the Peace Prize, or was it awarded to the _office_? Did the real healing began _merely_ because Bush left?
Say _anyone_ else won the Presidency, not even necessarily a Democrat, but say anyone who was against War in general and came across as a "peacetime" president or at least, not a war mongering one. Would they have won as well?
I'd suggest that yes, yes they would have. At least if they were as personally likable and articulate as Obama is (regardless of who writes his speaches, he at least comes across as edumacatud).
My opinion is that the absence of Bush won the Prize, Obama just happened to be the person who filled that slot.
You'll have to explain to us who the "crazy fuckers" are. Because I seem to remember it was a group of mostly Saudi's who happened to be fundamentalists (notice how I separate the two?!) that decided it would be a good idea to hijack our airplanes and ram them into our buildings.
This wasn't the work of a government who sent an army after us. This isn't WW3.
It was a group of sick individuals who meant to destroy us to fulfill their _personal_ and fundamentalist religious ideals.
This is _not_ how to act after a _small_ group of people do something terrible.
Lets also enact broad stroke laws any time a single child gets hurt. Oh wait. God damnit.
We once took pride in saying we were a melting pot of nations (racism aside). Now we're about the same, except we're a melting pot of xenophobes (maybe not at the citizen level, but definitely at the administrative/political level.
Sad to see the great American nation turn from something I was once very proud of to one that I've considered, quite a few times, to up and leave.
You're looking at it backwards, but I respect your opinion none the less.
The iphone and ipod are phones and music players first and foremost. The XBox and PS3 are Gaming systems first and foremost. Their secondary functions are the icing on the cake. So to reitterate, if you want a device to make phone calls, you don't get something else that happens to have phone capability as a secondary function, you get a phone. If you want a music player, you don't get a pedometer that can also play some mp3s, and when you want to play games, you don't get a phone that can also play games.
I'm not saying the iWhatevers can't play games or that they shouldn't. No, it's cool that they do and I've played with them in the past. But when someone wants a gaming system, I can guarantee you they won't be heading over to the phone section to find their console. Their devices just aren't built around _real_ gaming. Halo 12 and RockBand 15 aren't coming out for the iPhone.
Or more to the point and a little better comparison.
When your kid wants to play games and say they have both an iWhatever and a Nintendo DS for example, which do you think they will pick up to play?
Having a game to play on your phone is great when you're at the doctors office waiting, but when it comes down to it, there are much better, dedicated systems, for playing mobile games. Just the control system on the iWhatever sucks for long term gaming and then you take into account the fact that game developers (at least the big ones) really only make their AAA titles for the real gaming systems... I just don't see it working out like this article suggests. If you want a gaming system, get a gaming system, not a phone or mp3 player that happens to also play games too.
And the alternative here is what? An iPhone (however much one costs) plus what, another $60-80 a _month_ for service? I guess you could say the iPod's as well could count but I just don't see kids wanting an iPod for gaming when there are much better alternatives out there.
First, I'm more of a casual gamer. Frankly, the $60 titles generally don't hold my attention anymore and I've found the Arcade (xbox 360) titles to be much more fun. I think I've kind of gotten sick of the "wow look at the graphics!" "genre".
That being said, when I do want to sit and waste an hour or two playing games, I want to do so in the comfort of my living room with a nice 46" screen. Not a 3 inch screen. I want to play with a controller built at least somewhat ergonomically, not one that feels like my thumbs are going to snap.
I will concede that _any_ new game "system" will pull customers away from some other company to at least some degree, but I seriously doubt the top players need to worry about the iWhatever taking over their industry.
Although, diversifying in your target market(s) isn't a bad idea.
Like it or not, money is pretty much _everything_ in this world. You need it to simply live. You need even more of it to live somewhat comfortably. You need even more of it to get decent health care. You need a bunch more to hold a job in most places as you'll need transportation. After you make some you'll want to make more so you can retire some day. All the while, most people enjoy consuming "stuff". Clothes, games, pictures, movies, etc, etc. All that takes even more money.
My Point? Basically, put a person in the position of making what appears to be quick easy money and they will probably be tempted if not fully accepting.
It's not even greed as much as it is a simple need to hoard cash. One day, you _will_ need that cash and turning down an easy sum of it is, to most people, stupid.
Although, in the case of doing something that will easily get you a jail sentence for what amounts to a week or two of pay, is stupid.
But we all need money and if someone offers you some and you weigh out the potential risks.. Hell, if it looks good, who needs rationalization. It's money and you accept the risk of taking it.
Ignoring the fear that it was probably _designed_ to instill in the population and potentially the global population... It's just a pointless system.
If this system is at all meant for the general population, it's failed. When I go out on vacation, or planning on visiting a major city and/or landmark, I never even think of the Alert colors.
I understand that it may potentially only be for government agencies, especially law enforcement, but even then does saying we're at yellow, or orange, or even red _really_ give them direction? I'm assuming even if there are general rules in place to "do x and y when at color z" they only get rudimentary things done. Say, bringing in more personnel or putting more people on standby status. Even the agencies need to know _what_ to look for and in what fashion the event is predicted to take place.
Really, beyond fear, I can't see the point in the system at all. If there is something to report to the public, report it. If there is something to report to government agencies, I bet there are a bunch of better ways, already in use, to alert the proper acronyms of the who, what, when, where, and why.
Entirely agree, and for the record I'm against using GPS for this purpose, but the government still has to pay for the Interstate system. Gas Tax, as far as I know, has helped fund it.
Quick hint.. What happens when gasoline isn't the primary fuel source for vehicles using Federally funded roads? GPS, while it's too big brothery and invasive, would charge you for miles driven and not for how much _gasoline_ you use.
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What I don't understand is this American idea that nudity is wrong. No, I'm not a nudist.
I have family in Finland and when I was 16 and stayed at an aunts house, I happened to take notice of a rather peculiar advertisement on TV. A full frontal nude shot of a rather un-pretty man. I don't remember all the details but apparently it was a cell phone commercial.
The fact that I still remember this to this day is shocking in itself. The most basic thing we have as humans is our bodies and our minds. Why is it that we censor our bodies to such an absolute degree?
What, really, is the big deal here?
I agree with you, c64, children should be able to learn about the basic human body and what it is for. There is zero harm in that. Obviously, however, I wouldn't show them hardcore porn, but if there happens to be simple nudity or a discovery program about the birds and the bees, so be it. And if you're against them seeing that sort of thing, limit their exposure to it, but please don't ask the government to decide for _you_ because that would mean they are deciding for _me_ as well. Be a parent and parent your children.
Is this how it starts, or is this just another bad, never to materialize idea that somehow got press?
Limit all traffic for the sake of national security or at least national commerce? At what point do you give up said power once you have it? At what point do you drop all filters and say a situation is no longer present?
Once you grab power and control, there is no reason to _want_ to give it up.
Then again, this is probably nothing more than a bad idea written on paper. Hopefully.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but, isn't the problem with Lithium-ion batteries as a whole? Not just laptop batteries?
Isn't the fire risk greatest with an overcharged and/or damaged battery? If so, isn't the same risk associated with cell phones, PDA's, etc, etc (although, smaller battery, smaller kaboom/initial fire)?
And if _any_ Lithium-ion battery is a potential hazard then it wouldn't matter if it was in the cabin or in the hold underneath, it's still a fire/explosion risk. Why would you allow them on a passenger aircraft, at all?
Now I'm not saying to ban them, or even restrict them, allow them all, that's fine, but if we're going to go all nuts over one type of Lithium-ion battery, we really need to realize they _all_ pose a danger.
I see what you're saying, however, you deleting your files may hurt your employers bottom line and potentially yours _at worst_, pilots losing awareness can mean hundreds of deaths.
Now I'm not saying they should be fired, but I can easily see why they would be. Airlines and pilots are held to very strict standards by the government.
Could additional "training" and a heavy penalty/fine resolve the issue and create two better pilots? Possibly and potentially even likely. But if the punishment for potentially putting hundreds of lives in risk is a slap on the wrist, do you really think all the thousands of other pilots are really going to take notice? I have a feeling being fired in this case shows all the other pilots to simply only consider being distracted if you want to lose your job. In short, it appears any "big" mistake ends in termination simply to make examples of you.
You're assuming that someone with what amounts to a monopoly on a drug will somehow eventually want less profit and voluntarily drop their prices? Speaking of drugs, can I have some of what you're having?
You're suggesting we wait until it becomes a big problem and only at that point attempt to pass laws to stop it?
No, I'm sorry, the writing is already on the wall. Comcast started it here in the US. At least they started the "oh shit, look what is coming" fear.
Burying our heads in the sand now and just hoping it doesn't become a problem isn't the right answer here. And guidelines aren't enough to stop multi-billion dollar companies from making decisions that screw their customers.
Just look at how cable TV is now being threatened by internet sources (Hulu, Amazon VOD, etc, etc). Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc, etc, have a lot of means to absolutely _crush_ the new web tv technology so their customers stay locked into very expensive cable tv plans. "Oh hey, looks like a few of our customers are dropping cable tv and their internet usage is spiking to that Hulu site. Lets just throttle all connections to Hulu and make it unplayable. We can just claim it is to stop congestion at prime time and keep customers using our cable service!"
And that doesn't even take much imagination at all, it's going to happen unless we tell the companies there are _legal_ repercussions to doing something like that. We have to tell them it's time to adapt or die, not squash new tech and continue business as usual since it is easier.
How about we _don't_ wait until customers get royally screwed any more than they have already and stop the obviously-coming-down-the-pike problem now?
This is what disturbs me. Playing songs on a personal radio is _not_ intended to calm shoppers and aide in business.
What's next? Ban iPod's worn by employees because a passerby may just get close enough to make out what song he's listening to?
If there is a chance to prove a policy is in place to play music for the benefit of the shopper, fine, fair game, but if it is for the sole benefit of a single, or maybe a couple workers to pass the shift, leave them the hell alone.
Are you sure they are upgrading bandwidth now, for _our_ best interests?
At least if there is competition the old monopoly will have to come up with some reason to choose them over the next guy.
Kdawson's name is on this, why am I not surprised. I don't mean to troll, but wow does that editor have some interesting stories to his/her name. I mean honestly, a bonified, "time travel is killing the LHC", story?
You're missing the point of an MMO. If you walked into a dungeon knowing you're going to get an upgrade (if you haven't farmed it all already), you're going to quickly realize that you'll get everything you need in X runs. At that point you're going to get bored and leave the game.
The developers _purposely_ make it all random in the hope that you'll keep coming back for more, month after month. If they give you what you want too quickly, you'll get bored and leave.
The same thing goes for difficulty. If they just tuned it so everyone would win, why would you ever do the lower level stuff more than once? You'd just go for the uber difficult stuff knowing that's where the best items drop. So what if you fail? It'll auto-tune to be easier next time and then you'll have every item you want.
And again, you'll get bored and stop playing/paying.
Like it or not, the grind is what people _want_ as it gives them a sense of accomplishment. It's what the developers want as well since, at least on average, more people will play longer as they keep _hoping_ to be successful and _hoping_ their items drop. It's just the way it works.
I'm an American. One who was more than pissed off with Bush. One who voted for Obama. One who is still proud of that choice.
I've seen a stark change in the world perception of the USA. I've seen opinions and hopes change within my family, friends, neighborhood, state, etc. Even Republicans I know, while still a bit jaded over Dem's winning is hopeful for the future under a Dem.
But what has _Obama_ the man done to win this prize?
I'm just an average citizen and all I've seen so far is an attitude shift in the country and world towards the changing of our President to a non-republican. And I'm not even sure the Republican change is even as important as the simple leaving of office that Bush graced us all with.
My point here is simple. Did Obama gaining leadership deserve him winning the Peace Prize, or was it awarded to the _office_? Did the real healing began _merely_ because Bush left?
Say _anyone_ else won the Presidency, not even necessarily a Democrat, but say anyone who was against War in general and came across as a "peacetime" president or at least, not a war mongering one. Would they have won as well?
I'd suggest that yes, yes they would have. At least if they were as personally likable and articulate as Obama is (regardless of who writes his speaches, he at least comes across as edumacatud).
My opinion is that the absence of Bush won the Prize, Obama just happened to be the person who filled that slot.
Quick edit: Damnit, I meant to put the emphasis on fundamentalists rather than Saudi's.
You'll have to explain to us who the "crazy fuckers" are. Because I seem to remember it was a group of mostly Saudi's who happened to be fundamentalists (notice how I separate the two?!) that decided it would be a good idea to hijack our airplanes and ram them into our buildings.
This wasn't the work of a government who sent an army after us. This isn't WW3.
It was a group of sick individuals who meant to destroy us to fulfill their _personal_ and fundamentalist religious ideals.
This is _not_ how to act after a _small_ group of people do something terrible.
Lets also enact broad stroke laws any time a single child gets hurt. Oh wait. God damnit.
We once took pride in saying we were a melting pot of nations (racism aside). Now we're about the same, except we're a melting pot of xenophobes (maybe not at the citizen level, but definitely at the administrative/political level.
Sad to see the great American nation turn from something I was once very proud of to one that I've considered, quite a few times, to up and leave.
Cloud is indeed bad enough. But then talking about the mud that is caused by the rain just entirely washes away any sense it could have made.
Here let me invest that for you..and it's gone.
You're looking at it backwards, but I respect your opinion none the less.
The iphone and ipod are phones and music players first and foremost. The XBox and PS3 are Gaming systems first and foremost. Their secondary functions are the icing on the cake. So to reitterate, if you want a device to make phone calls, you don't get something else that happens to have phone capability as a secondary function, you get a phone. If you want a music player, you don't get a pedometer that can also play some mp3s, and when you want to play games, you don't get a phone that can also play games.
I'm not saying the iWhatevers can't play games or that they shouldn't. No, it's cool that they do and I've played with them in the past. But when someone wants a gaming system, I can guarantee you they won't be heading over to the phone section to find their console. Their devices just aren't built around _real_ gaming. Halo 12 and RockBand 15 aren't coming out for the iPhone.
Or more to the point and a little better comparison.
When your kid wants to play games and say they have both an iWhatever and a Nintendo DS for example, which do you think they will pick up to play?
Having a game to play on your phone is great when you're at the doctors office waiting, but when it comes down to it, there are much better, dedicated systems, for playing mobile games. Just the control system on the iWhatever sucks for long term gaming and then you take into account the fact that game developers (at least the big ones) really only make their AAA titles for the real gaming systems... I just don't see it working out like this article suggests. If you want a gaming system, get a gaming system, not a phone or mp3 player that happens to also play games too.
And the alternative here is what? An iPhone (however much one costs) plus what, another $60-80 a _month_ for service? I guess you could say the iPod's as well could count but I just don't see kids wanting an iPod for gaming when there are much better alternatives out there.
First, I'm more of a casual gamer. Frankly, the $60 titles generally don't hold my attention anymore and I've found the Arcade (xbox 360) titles to be much more fun. I think I've kind of gotten sick of the "wow look at the graphics!" "genre".
That being said, when I do want to sit and waste an hour or two playing games, I want to do so in the comfort of my living room with a nice 46" screen. Not a 3 inch screen. I want to play with a controller built at least somewhat ergonomically, not one that feels like my thumbs are going to snap.
I will concede that _any_ new game "system" will pull customers away from some other company to at least some degree, but I seriously doubt the top players need to worry about the iWhatever taking over their industry.
Although, diversifying in your target market(s) isn't a bad idea.
Not crazy, happening here too. Read the second real comment on the page and wondered how in the hell it was modded +5 Interesting and not Off-Topic.
Like it or not, money is pretty much _everything_ in this world. You need it to simply live. You need even more of it to live somewhat comfortably. You need even more of it to get decent health care. You need a bunch more to hold a job in most places as you'll need transportation. After you make some you'll want to make more so you can retire some day. All the while, most people enjoy consuming "stuff". Clothes, games, pictures, movies, etc, etc. All that takes even more money.
My Point? Basically, put a person in the position of making what appears to be quick easy money and they will probably be tempted if not fully accepting.
It's not even greed as much as it is a simple need to hoard cash. One day, you _will_ need that cash and turning down an easy sum of it is, to most people, stupid.
Although, in the case of doing something that will easily get you a jail sentence for what amounts to a week or two of pay, is stupid.
But we all need money and if someone offers you some and you weigh out the potential risks.. Hell, if it looks good, who needs rationalization. It's money and you accept the risk of taking it.
Ignoring the fear that it was probably _designed_ to instill in the population and potentially the global population... It's just a pointless system.
If this system is at all meant for the general population, it's failed. When I go out on vacation, or planning on visiting a major city and/or landmark, I never even think of the Alert colors.
I understand that it may potentially only be for government agencies, especially law enforcement, but even then does saying we're at yellow, or orange, or even red _really_ give them direction? I'm assuming even if there are general rules in place to "do x and y when at color z" they only get rudimentary things done. Say, bringing in more personnel or putting more people on standby status. Even the agencies need to know _what_ to look for and in what fashion the event is predicted to take place.
Really, beyond fear, I can't see the point in the system at all. If there is something to report to the public, report it. If there is something to report to government agencies, I bet there are a bunch of better ways, already in use, to alert the proper acronyms of the who, what, when, where, and why.
Entirely agree, and for the record I'm against using GPS for this purpose, but the government still has to pay for the Interstate system. Gas Tax, as far as I know, has helped fund it.
Quick hint.. What happens when gasoline isn't the primary fuel source for vehicles using Federally funded roads? GPS, while it's too big brothery and invasive, would charge you for miles driven and not for how much _gasoline_ you use.