...Your state legislature and/or governor, not congressman? I'm not an American, but since this is at the state level, I wouldn't think congress would have much to do with it... Or are there state-level congresses too?
Heck, even in "mainstream" American movies, there's sometimes a lot more violence/blood and nudity/sex than American media likes to claim there is in anime. For some generally interesting articles about anime, This Page is a good place to start. The author's views differ from mine in a few places, but its still mostly well-written.
Besides, most of the anime that has impossibly large breasts or other anatomical regions (with the exception of noses and eyes;-) as a central feature isn't worth watching. In most of the good stuff (Macross Plus, Gundam 0080, Captain Harlock, Serial Experiments Lain, Vampire Princess Miyu, and Vision of Escaflowne, to name a few), almost all of the characters are fairly realistically proportioned. Even in the good fantasy or fantasy/comedy anime, things aren't any worse than they are in comprable American art. Except in specific cases... Naga from Slayers comes to mind, but she's (from what I've seen) a take-off of the sterotypical evil sorceress of American fantasy. You just have to take one look at her outfit to see this.
Lets put it this way: it all depends on what you watch. Just like it does for (gasp!) live action movies/TV. The main reason "girls with big breasts" is associated with anime is because that's what the American media likes to paint it as (at the same time insisting that animation is for kids only), and because that's what they try to limit imports to. I seem to recall someone mentioning to me that if you look back before big American companies got involved in distributing anime, things were a lot different.
Have you even read the GNU Philosophy pages? There's at least half a dozen licenses listed as free software licenses, and I seriously doubt RMS wrote all of them. Also, IIRC, the Constitution does not define your freedoms. To the contrary, it tries to avoid defining anything as much as possible, because a precise definition greatly increases the likelyhood of abuse. If the constitution explicitly defined speach as X, Y, and Z, it can be argued that A, a form of expression that did not exist at the time, is not speach.
Ok, since neither of the high-rated responses to this have read any of the GNU philosophy section or even seem to understand that RMS means free as in speach not free as in beer, I'm going to say that I much prefer RMS brand of fanaticism. I may not agree with him on everything, but he does have a point. Several actually. One of which is that, in the legal system, what you call something matters.
And the cool thing about the provisions is that most of them apply to the MPAA's arguments WRT DVDs, too. Things like "you don't really own a copy, you just own the media and you're licensing the movie!" The problem is that people are a lot more used to listening to the MPAA...
Yeah, this add is really, really out of place. Remember that back around the turn of the century, Germany was where a lot of the "the strong adapt and survive" philosophies that sprung off of the idea of evolution started and took hold. I know things have changed a lot since then, but I'm assuming that a lot of the really basic society stuff is still the same.... If so, isn't this ad like shooting yourself in the foot?
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded. There was also a mad scientist with a big computer; a couple of gods, one of whom killed the other and used his/her/its body to make the universe; a single God that created everything for whatever reason; a musician or band that created the universe through its music; a turtle; the remains of an old universe; and three and a half parsnips.
My point? Believe whatever you want. Its like a tree falling in the forest when there's no-one around. We can't prove anything about the tree's fall. We just know that it fell.
Yes, there are existing laws. But using those laws to control "cybercrime" would mean that law enforcement might actually have to exert itself. Or try to avoid breaking other existing laws in gathering the information. From what I've read of this treaty, its another one like the treaty that spawned the DMCA. Only this time, its law enforcement pushing for it, instead of the entertainment industry.
Second-best post on why censorware sucks that I've ever seen. But I can't remember the best, so I'll call this one the best for now.;-)
Seriously, if only more people actually stopped to think about this for a few seconds, they'd come to the same conclusion. Censorware, by nature, cannot do good. There will always be a way around it, and even if there weren't, its a dumb way to handle things anyway. It won't teach kids how to remove the junk (in this case, porn) from the treasure (information). But, in my experience, too many "educators" and "school administrators" are too brain-dead, stuck in their ways, or corrupt to realize this.
For example, in my last year of high school, the system admin kept bothering the school board to set up censorware on the connection they were providing. When they did, it didn't have any effect at all other than impeding the research a couple of us were doing for a CS class project. The fscking thing blocked eff.org!
Excellent post. Yes, it might be "better" if they used Debian or Slackware, but even using Red Hat is a very good thing. All Linux distros share some degree of similarity, and having used one in school will probably make the students more likely to give it serious consideration when they have to choose an OS for something later. A lot of people, from what I understand, wind up using Windows and MS products because that's what everyone else at school/work is using. This has the potential to have the same effect.
They do? I thought one of the prerequsites for troll status was to have their feelings surgically removed, along with their brains and their nervous systems.... Oh, well. NSI still makes them look like wannabe amateurs.
According to the article linked to by comment #46, the reason there aren't any female members of the core team is because there aren't currently any females who contribute on a regular enough basis to be considered.
Do realistically violent games and movies desensitize kids to the real thing?
Excuse me, but I don't think so. Speaking as one of these "kids" you're talking about (high-end teenager), I think I've got a good idea of what's going on. I've been playing "violent" video games since Doom or earlier (fighting games on my old NES). I also watch anime extensively (although there's really very little violence there...), as well as watching the more and more violent stuff the MPAA's been pumping out over the past few years. You know what? I'm much more given to pacifism than my parents, or even my parents younger friends from work.
Most of my friends are the same way. Few would even consider any kind of violence except in self-defense. Even though a lot of them are "frighteningly" good at things like target shooting or martial arts. Most are or were at one point what would be considered "loners."
You know why I think that is? My friends and I have, by whatever means, gained a close-to-first-hand experience of what physical violence will do to a person. Without actually hurting someone. And after playing several rounds of Unreal against someone, I find that I'm much less stressed out.
Besides, as slightly more on-topic, prove to me that there is a connection. If there was, I'd expect to see some kind of increase in these statistics. Most of the really large decreses seem to be during periods where violent video games are springing up all over the place.
Yeah, the thing is, if they have their way, the hardware won't be untrusted for much longer. I don't remember if it was here or K5, but a while back, someone posted something about the music industry getting together with some big PC names (I remember Dell, Compaq, IBM, Intel and possibly AMD) about securing all the stuff in the inside of a PC from this kind of thing. Specifically, anything involving a video card, sound card, or monitor. I don't think it'll go anywhere (and I could even be remembering incorrectly), but its still scary... They don't seem to realize that the best way to avoid copyright violations is to behave in a way that doesn't make copyright violations more attractive. Reasonable pricing and passing more along to the artist would be a start...
Hmm... Are these science fiction writers unusually perceptive, or are there people who actually go through their works and try to impliment this stuff? The second could explain recent stuff like the DMCA, patent office wierdness, etc...
...And then gets replaced by advertising when they run short on cash.
"Your honor, I'd like to show that, in this post to comp.lang.c, my client was not advertising the sale of goats for immoral purposes, as these DejaNews backup tapes will prove... Wait a minute... How'd that get in there?"
Even worse! Can you imagine some of the sick stuff some of these skript kiddies would order in that case? Ew! I feel like I need to throw up just thinking about it...;-P
Ah. So you're saying that because everyone on the planet refers to kilograms as a measurement of weight, the physicists should too? I don't see any other good word to refer to someone who likes tinkering with technology, so I'll keep using the proper meaning of hacker.
-RickHunter
Re:Not really true these days...
on
KBasic
·
· Score: 1
Ok, I acknowledge that BASIC might be considered as a realistic language. Unfortunately, there are already better languages available. Java's one, Python's another, and Perl's a third.
No, the qualified ones straight out of college or high school get hired extremely quickly. I've met quite a few older, much more experienced programmers, sysadmins, or whatever who cannot get jobs because their experience means the company has to (in theory) pay them a higher wage to keep them around.
I'll admit there are a lot of wanabee IT workers, but there are even more wanabee managers. And unfortunately, the later usually get hired.
The consitution WAS supposed to be a backup to the freedom provided by democracy, IIRC. A way to prevent the servants of the people from taking over. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Democrats have shown repeatedly that they don't care what it says, they're going to do WTF they want.
Slashdot Mirror
...Your state legislature and/or governor, not congressman? I'm not an American, but since this is at the state level, I wouldn't think congress would have much to do with it... Or are there state-level congresses too?
-RickHunter
Heck, even in "mainstream" American movies, there's sometimes a lot more violence/blood and nudity/sex than American media likes to claim there is in anime. For some generally interesting articles about anime, This Page is a good place to start. The author's views differ from mine in a few places, but its still mostly well-written.
-RickHunter
Besides, most of the anime that has impossibly large breasts or other anatomical regions (with the exception of noses and eyes ;-) as a central feature isn't worth watching. In most of the good stuff (Macross Plus, Gundam 0080, Captain Harlock, Serial Experiments Lain, Vampire Princess Miyu, and Vision of Escaflowne, to name a few), almost all of the characters are fairly realistically proportioned. Even in the good fantasy or fantasy/comedy anime, things aren't any worse than they are in comprable American art. Except in specific cases... Naga from Slayers comes to mind, but she's (from what I've seen) a take-off of the sterotypical evil sorceress of American fantasy. You just have to take one look at her outfit to see this.
Lets put it this way: it all depends on what you watch. Just like it does for (gasp!) live action movies/TV. The main reason "girls with big breasts" is associated with anime is because that's what the American media likes to paint it as (at the same time insisting that animation is for kids only), and because that's what they try to limit imports to. I seem to recall someone mentioning to me that if you look back before big American companies got involved in distributing anime, things were a lot different.
-RickHunter
So then ignore him. No-one's stopping you, not even RMS himself. He wants you to have freedom, including the freedom to ignore him if you so desire.
-RickHunter
Have you even read the GNU Philosophy pages? There's at least half a dozen licenses listed as free software licenses, and I seriously doubt RMS wrote all of them. Also, IIRC, the Constitution does not define your freedoms. To the contrary, it tries to avoid defining anything as much as possible, because a precise definition greatly increases the likelyhood of abuse. If the constitution explicitly defined speach as X, Y, and Z, it can be argued that A, a form of expression that did not exist at the time, is not speach.
-RickHunter
Ok, since neither of the high-rated responses to this have read any of the GNU philosophy section or even seem to understand that RMS means free as in speach not free as in beer, I'm going to say that I much prefer RMS brand of fanaticism. I may not agree with him on everything, but he does have a point. Several actually. One of which is that, in the legal system, what you call something matters.
-RickHunter
And the cool thing about the provisions is that most of them apply to the MPAA's arguments WRT DVDs, too. Things like "you don't really own a copy, you just own the media and you're licensing the movie!" The problem is that people are a lot more used to listening to the MPAA...
-RickHunter
Yeah, this add is really, really out of place. Remember that back around the turn of the century, Germany was where a lot of the "the strong adapt and survive" philosophies that sprung off of the idea of evolution started and took hold. I know things have changed a lot since then, but I'm assuming that a lot of the really basic society stuff is still the same.... If so, isn't this ad like shooting yourself in the foot?
-RickHunter
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded. There was also a mad scientist with a big computer; a couple of gods, one of whom killed the other and used his/her/its body to make the universe; a single God that created everything for whatever reason; a musician or band that created the universe through its music; a turtle; the remains of an old universe; and three and a half parsnips.
My point? Believe whatever you want. Its like a tree falling in the forest when there's no-one around. We can't prove anything about the tree's fall. We just know that it fell.
-RickHunter
Yes, there are existing laws. But using those laws to control "cybercrime" would mean that law enforcement might actually have to exert itself. Or try to avoid breaking other existing laws in gathering the information. From what I've read of this treaty, its another one like the treaty that spawned the DMCA. Only this time, its law enforcement pushing for it, instead of the entertainment industry.
-RickHunter
Second-best post on why censorware sucks that I've ever seen. But I can't remember the best, so I'll call this one the best for now. ;-)
Seriously, if only more people actually stopped to think about this for a few seconds, they'd come to the same conclusion. Censorware, by nature, cannot do good. There will always be a way around it, and even if there weren't, its a dumb way to handle things anyway. It won't teach kids how to remove the junk (in this case, porn) from the treasure (information). But, in my experience, too many "educators" and "school administrators" are too brain-dead, stuck in their ways, or corrupt to realize this.
For example, in my last year of high school, the system admin kept bothering the school board to set up censorware on the connection they were providing. When they did, it didn't have any effect at all other than impeding the research a couple of us were doing for a CS class project. The fscking thing blocked eff.org!
-RickHunter
Excellent post. Yes, it might be "better" if they used Debian or Slackware, but even using Red Hat is a very good thing. All Linux distros share some degree of similarity, and having used one in school will probably make the students more likely to give it serious consideration when they have to choose an OS for something later. A lot of people, from what I understand, wind up using Windows and MS products because that's what everyone else at school/work is using. This has the potential to have the same effect.
-RickHunter
Trolls have feelings, too.
They do? I thought one of the prerequsites for troll status was to have their feelings surgically removed, along with their brains and their nervous systems.... Oh, well. NSI still makes them look like wannabe amateurs.
-RickHunter
According to the article linked to by comment #46, the reason there aren't any female members of the core team is because there aren't currently any females who contribute on a regular enough basis to be considered.
-RickHunter
Hmm... Excuse my ignorance, but how much degredation would there be with that approach?
-RickHunter
Do realistically violent games and movies desensitize kids to the real thing?
Excuse me, but I don't think so. Speaking as one of these "kids" you're talking about (high-end teenager), I think I've got a good idea of what's going on. I've been playing "violent" video games since Doom or earlier (fighting games on my old NES). I also watch anime extensively (although there's really very little violence there...), as well as watching the more and more violent stuff the MPAA's been pumping out over the past few years. You know what? I'm much more given to pacifism than my parents, or even my parents younger friends from work.
Most of my friends are the same way. Few would even consider any kind of violence except in self-defense. Even though a lot of them are "frighteningly" good at things like target shooting or martial arts. Most are or were at one point what would be considered "loners."
You know why I think that is? My friends and I have, by whatever means, gained a close-to-first-hand experience of what physical violence will do to a person. Without actually hurting someone. And after playing several rounds of Unreal against someone, I find that I'm much less stressed out.
Besides, as slightly more on-topic, prove to me that there is a connection. If there was, I'd expect to see some kind of increase in these statistics. Most of the really large decreses seem to be during periods where violent video games are springing up all over the place.
-RickHunter
Yeah, the thing is, if they have their way, the hardware won't be untrusted for much longer. I don't remember if it was here or K5, but a while back, someone posted something about the music industry getting together with some big PC names (I remember Dell, Compaq, IBM, Intel and possibly AMD) about securing all the stuff in the inside of a PC from this kind of thing. Specifically, anything involving a video card, sound card, or monitor. I don't think it'll go anywhere (and I could even be remembering incorrectly), but its still scary... They don't seem to realize that the best way to avoid copyright violations is to behave in a way that doesn't make copyright violations more attractive. Reasonable pricing and passing more along to the artist would be a start...
-RickHunter
Hmm... Are these science fiction writers unusually perceptive, or are there people who actually go through their works and try to impliment this stuff? The second could explain recent stuff like the DMCA, patent office wierdness, etc...
-RickHunter
...And then gets replaced by advertising when they run short on cash.
"Your honor, I'd like to show that, in this post to comp.lang.c, my client was not advertising the sale of goats for immoral purposes, as these DejaNews backup tapes will prove... Wait a minute... How'd that get in there?"
-RickHunter
Can we throw Bush, Jack Valenti, and Hillary Rosen in there too? Please?
-RickHunter
Even worse! Can you imagine some of the sick stuff some of these skript kiddies would order in that case? Ew! I feel like I need to throw up just thinking about it... ;-P
-RickHunter
Ah. So you're saying that because everyone on the planet refers to kilograms as a measurement of weight, the physicists should too? I don't see any other good word to refer to someone who likes tinkering with technology, so I'll keep using the proper meaning of hacker.
-RickHunter
Ok, I acknowledge that BASIC might be considered as a realistic language. Unfortunately, there are already better languages available. Java's one, Python's another, and Perl's a third.
-RickHunter
No, the qualified ones straight out of college or high school get hired extremely quickly. I've met quite a few older, much more experienced programmers, sysadmins, or whatever who cannot get jobs because their experience means the company has to (in theory) pay them a higher wage to keep them around.
I'll admit there are a lot of wanabee IT workers, but there are even more wanabee managers. And unfortunately, the later usually get hired.
-RickHunter
The consitution WAS supposed to be a backup to the freedom provided by democracy, IIRC. A way to prevent the servants of the people from taking over. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Democrats have shown repeatedly that they don't care what it says, they're going to do WTF they want.
-RickHunter