It should have read "Apple's boat swamps Nintendo's boat by accident". I don't think Apply set out to create some sort of challenger to handheld gaming devices. I'm sure they're pleased to take your money for all those crappy $0.99 games, but I doubt 'dethrone Nintendo' was on their list of objectives for the iPhone.
That said, I find the whole thing a little troubling. One of the advantages of a dedicate machine is dedicated gaming inputs. Touch is cute, and can be quite a good input for some applications, but in a lot of cases its just goddamn awful. Unless the game is designed around touch, touch just plain sucks. I can't see phones regularly building in dedicated inputs anytime soon (I know there are a few isolated cases, but it doesn't look like a trend that's taking off) so if phones replace handheld gaming devices, I think that's going to be it for a lot of people for handheld gaming.
And even if its not, it'll just push everyone into an ecosystem where games are either free or a dollar. Games for passing the time on the subway or something are fine at that price, any game that's not meant to be played for no more than five minutes at a time isn't going to get developed if the best they can hope to sell it is at $1 a pop. I wonder if we aren't seeing the start of something akin to the Atari crash, but for mobile gaming.
I find it absolutely hilarious when people debate what the 'framers' had in mind when discussing things they couldn't have wrapped their heads around even if they'd had it explained to them. Corporations in their current form didn't exist until the last century, and the idea of a nation-spanning business would have blown their minds. And on top of that, we're talking about a nation-spanning business that doesn't really have 'real world' presence in the traditional sense.
So given all that, why can anyone expect to take something written 230+ years ago and apply it to this kind of entity? Its like to trying to fit Queen-size bed spread on a monster truck. They're just not compatible. I know taxes are a touchy subject for you guys, but come on. I'm Canadian; despite our differences I think of Americans as family, but like any family member you have quirks (lord knows we have ours). Taxes is one of your hot button issues, even though you guys really pay almost none compared to almost everyone else in the Western world. I get it, taxes are bad. I don't like them either. I get that you don't want them to get out of control, that's cool.
But its time to be realistic. Let's say everyone goes the Amazon route; everything is online. No taxes. Yes, it'd be great, things would be cheaper. But sales tax isn't there because the government are assholes. It's there to fund the things you expect the government to provide. I'm sure there'll be some Libertarian along shortly to tell me that the government shouldn't provide anything, but for the more realistic people you've got to be able to see that if you don't collect sales tax, they'll get it somewhere else.
It shouldn't matter if figuring out what tax to collect is a pain in the ass, its doable. We do it here. In Canada, you pay based on the customer, not based on where the retailers has arbitrarily decided to put his head office. That's absolutely feasible for Amazon. And it seems pretty fair as well.
Not that its an excuse, but 'everything is open from day 0' is how Facebook was until maybe a year ago. So its still ironic:) You'd have thought Google would have learned that little lesson though from just watching the complaints against how Facebook handled privacy. Also, I thought the whole point of Google+ was that they learned not to make everything public, like they did with Buzz. I guess not.
This is proving true on the 3DS as well, which probably accounts for its somewhat disappointing sales. I have one, and Ghost Recon is enjoyable, but hardly a killer app. I've yet to try Pilot Wings, and while I enjoyed past iterations that doesn't feel like the make-or-break game either. I'm always surprised when they launch any new platform without something that's 'must play' but somehow that seems to often be the case for any console.
I like the Gamecube controller, but I still prefer the N64 one by a hair.
And that's an interesting tidbit about the Wii U controller. I've seen a few videos and write-ups -- including a few that make surprised noise about how easy it actually is to hold -- but I hadn't seen anything on how many of those controllers you'd need. It feels like there would be some games you'd want a 2nd player to have that as well, but maybe doing so would just be a frill. I hadn't considered the possibility that the big controller is, in essence, just part of the console itself and not meant to be found in fours.
Heh, very true! I forgot about the Power Glove! When that came out, I thought it was the coolest thing (hey, I was maybe 8). When I finally got try it years later, I couldn't believe how awful it was.
And let's not leave out that floor pad thing, whatever it was called. I remember using it in that terrible track & field game. Eventually my brother & I realized that if you just stepped off it for things like the long jump your guy would fly forever:)
Nintendo had a lot of terrible peripherals way back (though to be fair, so did their competitors). Been a while since they really put out a head-smacker.
I look at that controller and I think both "Wow, cool!" and "Holy crap its big!" But it wouldn't be the first time we've all thought the Big N has lost their collective marbles only to be right. When they announced the N64 with its 3-prong controller, everyone said that looked like the most uncomfortable thing they'd ever seen -- and it was maybe the most comfortable one I've ever used, even to this day. When they announced the DS, everyone thought they were certifiable, and it turned into the best selling handheld of all time (no, we're not counting the goddamn iPhone just because it can play games). And I seem to recall that the Wii's announcement was also met with a fair bit of ridicule and it outsold its competitors (at least console-wise).
Of course, they also released the Virtual Boy (or whatever that thing was called) and that was a trainwreck. Still, I'm going to withhold judgement until I can try it for myself. At the very least, it sounds like there's some real possibility there. I just hope I'm not paying $150 a controller!
I run the application in one window and my debugger in the other. In general, I find this on its own much easier. I worked for years with one and only went to two monitors by accident, but it took me less than a day to get used to it and wonder why I hadn't been doing it eons earlier. Documentation side-by-side with code (or a browser if you're searching for answers online) is just less aggravating. Maybe if you've never had it, but once you have...hard as hell to go back!
That said, there are plenty of situations when its simply a must. If you're doing any kind of GUI work, it can be absolutely invaluable. Focus bugs, redraw issues -- these are all problems that I've had other developers here push over to me because they simply can't debug them properly without a second monitor. That extra work was itself a problem until every developer in our office got themselves a second monitor too, but now everyone is happy.
Seriously, if they tried to take my second monitor away I'd consider that grounds for quitting. That'd be like telling me I had to develop with one hand tied behind my back. Maybe some development environments wouldn't benefit the same way, but none that I've ever worked with.
Ah, ok. I knew they had facial recognition (well, location) software form the DSi. Someone told me it was doing the trick outlined in the article, but I guess not. I did wonder why that would produce the double-vision you get from the side:)
Though I *think* someone had this trick working on the DSi. I could have sworn there was a Slashdot article where some game company in Japan had used the 'locate the face' trick to create the effect. If I'm remember right, that might be why I got it confused with the 3DS. Or I could just be remembering everything completely wrong:P
I notice the 3D target thing is the same (I mean, EXACTLY the same) but maybe that's some kind of pre-packaged 3D test everyone uses? Though I noticed that the first example in the iPad used what were clearly Mii faces; is this just an adaptation of the Wii guy's work? Granted, the Wii guy had to strap the controller on his head, so they'd have to use the facial locating software. Ironically, that's what Nintendo's had since the DSi (and greatly improved in the 3DS). In fact, I *think* that's how the 3DS works -- using this trick. I might be mistake on that, but I'm pretty sure it uses facial location; I just can't remember if that's all it needs to get the 3D effect or if it uses other stuff as well.
I RTFA, but I don't get why this is marked as Microsoft. There's the odd quote in there from them, but shouldn't this be marked as Security or Internet? Or am I missing something?
Judging from what the professor said in the video its clear that this is NOT a resource available to students unless they gain access illicitly. He specifically mentions that the question bank proprietors are looking at the problem from a legal perspective. It isn't like the students just went to the site and hit print. Much more like is someone gained access by breaking in or (probably more likely) someone with legal access decided to make a quick buck and sold a copy of the database to a student and it went from there.
Frankly, the whole question bank thing just makes any argument that's remotely pro-cheating moot to me. So you're willing to memorize hundreds of questions & answers that may not be on the exam, but you're not willing to learn the material?
Thanks all, I get it now. I didn't see mention of the distinction between the 5970 & the 5870 (which is fair, its a 580 review, not an ATI review). Though I was skimming, so its possible they point that out early & I just missed it.
Though why is the dual-CPU chip using less power than the single GPU nVidia card? Is there some subtle interplay between dual GPU processors I'm not aware of that makes them use less power, or is the nVidia 580 just a hog?
It can put up in-game benchmark scores between 30% and 50% faster than AMD's current flagship single-GPU, the Radeon HD 5870.
But if you read the original article, the one flaw in the (otherwise good) nVidia card is that is still loses to the 5970 which is -- according to the article -- 'about a year old'. So why is that other article mentioned in the summary talking about the 5870 as if its the flagship? Clearly the 5970 is. Or am I missing something?
Just to clarify: you can cheat all you want in the single player campaign. They have built-in cheats. You just can't cheat and still earn achievements -- that's what the hack that gets people banned does. You can argue that's not significant enough to earn a permanent 'bricking' of the software, but since you're effectively cheating in multi-player when you do this (because achievements are really a measurement between players) there should definitely be some sort of consequence.
A better response would be to nuke offender's ability to do anything but play single player and disable any achievements they can earn, but I guess the Blizzard thinking was "Why are we going out of our way to play nice for assholes?" Whether I agree or not, I can at least understand that line of thinking.
As I said elsewhere, I wasn't actually talking about the videos because the first article I read about this (a day or so ago because I actually live in Toronto) mentioned cartoons & comments, not videos. It sounded like he might have a decent case on those, though I'm sure someone will argue parody if it comes down to it.
And I also agree, if he'd just not been an ass, he'd have saved himself a boatload of trouble. That said, I've been an ass myself from time to time and I'd hate to think that if someone captured it on film, put it on YouTube and it captured the imagination of bored youth that I would have some recourse if they took it past a certain point. Maybe I wouldn't, I don't know, but I think its worth examining the idea that somehow the Internet "doesn't count", which seems to permeate the culture (could probably lump piracy in here too).
The idea of suing commenters is troubling but at the same time interesting. The interactive nature of the Internet brings a new potential dimension to things like this. If someone posts something libelous, and then people quote it and add to it, tweet it, re-tweet it, etc. -- where is the line of responsibility? Is there any? It feels like there's some, but I don't know how much. I'm not suggesting there is any this time, but I wonder how long it will be before this is decided in court somewhere.
Parody is a fine line. If I parodied you by drawing a cartoon of you having sex with a dog, you might have a case for defamation:)
I haven't seen the video you're talking about, but that's not what I was referring to. There was a different article yesterday when this first came up that mentioned cartoons and comments as the primary focus of the lawsuit. I don't know if they're libelous (or even libel at all) since as someone else here pointed out, defamation can vary from place to place. Still, assuming that they are for a moment, there's an assumption that "if its on the internet, it doesn't count" in some circles that is quite baffling.
If this ever comes to trial I'd bet you're right, and that parody will be one of the lines of defense. That said, I doubt it will ever come to that so we won't know if it would have worked:)
Oh man, I remember that. I still can't believe they ruled that. Even still, I'm pretty sure that if they ran 'blatant nonsense' about someone with money, they'd face a lawsuit, regardless of any obligation to the truth (or lack therof).
The initial incident was pretty silly and I don't have much sympathy for the officer being ridiculed for that, but my understanding is it elevated past that quite quickly. From other articles I've read, there were cartoons & posts about him beating people and what not. You can argue that it was for fun but there was a note in one of the articles that libel laws cover comments & such on websites, so if you do it you'd better be careful its not defamatory.
Its a kind of tricky line. Anonymity is a powerful and -- often -- good force on the Internet, but there are clearly times when it can be a detriment. Its not hard to design a thought exercise: imagine that newspapers were printed anonymously or articles within them were written anonymously. Yes, I know sources remain anonymous, but in those cases the author of the piece takes responsibility for any libel (well, them and their publisher). If a paper could just publish blatant nonsense that was incredibly defamatory, I doubt many of us would stick up for them. So why do we stick up for some assholes getting their kicks on a bulletin board? It probably didn't matter that much ten years ago, but with YouTube and Facebook and all the viral crap, stuff that would have limited to a few people having a chuckle can now range unpredictably large. Hell, just look at the whole cyber-bullying phenomenon.
Make fun of the officer for being an idiot with the bubble lady -- he deserves that. I'm not sure he deserves some of the other crap, or even if you think he does, if its defamatory (let the lawyers argue that) and you say it, you can be held accountable. There have always been limits on speech -- American 1st amendment not withstanding -- so I don't know why people think the Internet is somehow a special magical case.
I think its not quite that simple. Granted, this is somewhat guesswork, but it looks like the problem is you've go something like a city that has a fire department paid by taxes. Then you've got 'outside the city limits' (where this fellow was) which is not covered. So they pay a fee to finance the FD from the city servicing the outskirts. Someone else indicated that this is further complicated by the 'outskirts' being in a different state (and I assume a long way from any other city that might service them instead in-state).
So I'm not sure this is a case of people wanting to 'opt out' so much as they probably tacked them on helpfully 20 years ago, used the fee to make it work and then didn't bother to fix the (admittedly smaller) problem. Or rather, when they do they run into the problem of state lines and levying a (small) unpopular tax to pay for a group people on the other side of a border.
Frankly, the whole thing just gets weirder, but the whole 'they watched it burn' makes it surreal.
Actually, Tennessee has a Good Samaritan law that would protect the fire fighters if they went in to save a life, such as your hypothetical wife or son. The way those fire fighters are insured for health and injury, the state requires a contract where they would be covered for injuries resulting if they were attempting to actually save a human life. The law also protects them from being sued individually in such cases.
I actually wasn't suggesting the firefighters would be legally responsible for going in, I was just wondering if they bothered to consider someone's life before saying "Don't answer the call". Another poster indicated though that they do in fact ask that before they say 'no service'.
Interesting to know about the GS law though, I know that's come up in other cases.
Well, if you RTFA, you'd hear that he didn't not pay his taxes, he forgot to pay an annual fee.
Well, you're quibbling about my wording, but you're right, its 'claimed'. Why aren't you posting 'MOD PARENT FALSE' at the OP since he went straight to 'claiming government interference' -- something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere as a rationale for not paying the fee.
And yes, its clear he avoided paying it on purpose now, but that wasn't mentioned at first.
And lastly, I don't think we actually disagree on the heart of the matter, I was just saying in my original post that -- at the time of the article posted -- there didn't seem to be anything to indicate he was lying. That's changed, but it doesn't alter the more interesting discussion which is about whether stuff like this should be 'opt out'. I suspect we agree on that anyways.
What I meant was: since the fire department was there, putting out the fire on his neighbour's house, clearly 'lines on a map' aren't super relevant to this instance.
And while I appreciate the problem of jurisdiction, its still one that should be solved in a larger sense: you either work something out with the neighbouring county/state/whatever (which they have in this case, but sort of badly) or you put a redundant fire department on the other side of the arbitrary line.
I appreciate the information -- as you say, none of this was in the linked articles (or even the linked ones from there that I followed)
1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue
Well that's good to know. It would be pretty irresponsible if that wasn't the case, but you never know. Still, its another level of classification the 911 operator has to go through before dispatching what should just be an essential service.
2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did 3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot
Handy to know. It was also mentioned that they had in fact waived the fee in other cases. Not sure what the circumstances in those other times were though.
At any rate, that at least rules out the "maybe he wasn't lying" aspect. Frankly, I'd rather talk about the broader angles, which are more interesting. I mostly defended him because I hadn't seen anything that damned him and it seemed unfair to jump to conclusions.
4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.
Yeah, this I know. It was in other links, or at least that they've had a policy to fix the problem. That said, its a pretty dumb system, since this only affects people outside the city limits. Presumably there are less of them than people inside, so getting a vote in favour of a (very small) tax hike to cover Not-Mes is unlikely to happen. A great example of places democracy kind of falls down a little.
5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.
This is an artificial problem created by arbitrary lines on a map. The problems are real and have to be dealt with, but not really an excuse in this matter.
That's when you get people starting to blame politicians for "interfering in their lives" and "the government controlling too much" until they NEED the government funded rescue teams to show up. They don't scream so loud for freedom when their life or property is in danger.
Sure, and I don't agree with those folks anyways, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say they resent paying for the fire department. Maybe there are people saying that, but I've never seen any sign of it. The policy in this county sounds like it kind of evolved over time into its current state than intentionally trying to setup some kind of 'opt-out' system for fire fighting. In fact, they've apparently had a proposal on the table for a while now to change the system to one that doesn't require the FD to check if someone is on their list.
Slashdot Mirror
It should have read "Apple's boat swamps Nintendo's boat by accident". I don't think Apply set out to create some sort of challenger to handheld gaming devices. I'm sure they're pleased to take your money for all those crappy $0.99 games, but I doubt 'dethrone Nintendo' was on their list of objectives for the iPhone.
That said, I find the whole thing a little troubling. One of the advantages of a dedicate machine is dedicated gaming inputs. Touch is cute, and can be quite a good input for some applications, but in a lot of cases its just goddamn awful. Unless the game is designed around touch, touch just plain sucks. I can't see phones regularly building in dedicated inputs anytime soon (I know there are a few isolated cases, but it doesn't look like a trend that's taking off) so if phones replace handheld gaming devices, I think that's going to be it for a lot of people for handheld gaming.
And even if its not, it'll just push everyone into an ecosystem where games are either free or a dollar. Games for passing the time on the subway or something are fine at that price, any game that's not meant to be played for no more than five minutes at a time isn't going to get developed if the best they can hope to sell it is at $1 a pop. I wonder if we aren't seeing the start of something akin to the Atari crash, but for mobile gaming.
I find it absolutely hilarious when people debate what the 'framers' had in mind when discussing things they couldn't have wrapped their heads around even if they'd had it explained to them. Corporations in their current form didn't exist until the last century, and the idea of a nation-spanning business would have blown their minds. And on top of that, we're talking about a nation-spanning business that doesn't really have 'real world' presence in the traditional sense.
So given all that, why can anyone expect to take something written 230+ years ago and apply it to this kind of entity? Its like to trying to fit Queen-size bed spread on a monster truck. They're just not compatible. I know taxes are a touchy subject for you guys, but come on. I'm Canadian; despite our differences I think of Americans as family, but like any family member you have quirks (lord knows we have ours). Taxes is one of your hot button issues, even though you guys really pay almost none compared to almost everyone else in the Western world. I get it, taxes are bad. I don't like them either. I get that you don't want them to get out of control, that's cool.
But its time to be realistic. Let's say everyone goes the Amazon route; everything is online. No taxes. Yes, it'd be great, things would be cheaper. But sales tax isn't there because the government are assholes. It's there to fund the things you expect the government to provide. I'm sure there'll be some Libertarian along shortly to tell me that the government shouldn't provide anything, but for the more realistic people you've got to be able to see that if you don't collect sales tax, they'll get it somewhere else.
It shouldn't matter if figuring out what tax to collect is a pain in the ass, its doable. We do it here. In Canada, you pay based on the customer, not based on where the retailers has arbitrarily decided to put his head office. That's absolutely feasible for Amazon. And it seems pretty fair as well.
Not that its an excuse, but 'everything is open from day 0' is how Facebook was until maybe a year ago. So its still ironic :) You'd have thought Google would have learned that little lesson though from just watching the complaints against how Facebook handled privacy. Also, I thought the whole point of Google+ was that they learned not to make everything public, like they did with Buzz. I guess not.
This is proving true on the 3DS as well, which probably accounts for its somewhat disappointing sales. I have one, and Ghost Recon is enjoyable, but hardly a killer app. I've yet to try Pilot Wings, and while I enjoyed past iterations that doesn't feel like the make-or-break game either. I'm always surprised when they launch any new platform without something that's 'must play' but somehow that seems to often be the case for any console.
I like the Gamecube controller, but I still prefer the N64 one by a hair.
And that's an interesting tidbit about the Wii U controller. I've seen a few videos and write-ups -- including a few that make surprised noise about how easy it actually is to hold -- but I hadn't seen anything on how many of those controllers you'd need. It feels like there would be some games you'd want a 2nd player to have that as well, but maybe doing so would just be a frill. I hadn't considered the possibility that the big controller is, in essence, just part of the console itself and not meant to be found in fours.
Thanks for that!
Heh, very true! I forgot about the Power Glove! When that came out, I thought it was the coolest thing (hey, I was maybe 8). When I finally got try it years later, I couldn't believe how awful it was.
And let's not leave out that floor pad thing, whatever it was called. I remember using it in that terrible track & field game. Eventually my brother & I realized that if you just stepped off it for things like the long jump your guy would fly forever :)
Nintendo had a lot of terrible peripherals way back (though to be fair, so did their competitors). Been a while since they really put out a head-smacker.
I look at that controller and I think both "Wow, cool!" and "Holy crap its big!" But it wouldn't be the first time we've all thought the Big N has lost their collective marbles only to be right. When they announced the N64 with its 3-prong controller, everyone said that looked like the most uncomfortable thing they'd ever seen -- and it was maybe the most comfortable one I've ever used, even to this day. When they announced the DS, everyone thought they were certifiable, and it turned into the best selling handheld of all time (no, we're not counting the goddamn iPhone just because it can play games). And I seem to recall that the Wii's announcement was also met with a fair bit of ridicule and it outsold its competitors (at least console-wise).
Of course, they also released the Virtual Boy (or whatever that thing was called) and that was a trainwreck. Still, I'm going to withhold judgement until I can try it for myself. At the very least, it sounds like there's some real possibility there. I just hope I'm not paying $150 a controller!
I run the application in one window and my debugger in the other. In general, I find this on its own much easier. I worked for years with one and only went to two monitors by accident, but it took me less than a day to get used to it and wonder why I hadn't been doing it eons earlier. Documentation side-by-side with code (or a browser if you're searching for answers online) is just less aggravating. Maybe if you've never had it, but once you have...hard as hell to go back!
That said, there are plenty of situations when its simply a must. If you're doing any kind of GUI work, it can be absolutely invaluable. Focus bugs, redraw issues -- these are all problems that I've had other developers here push over to me because they simply can't debug them properly without a second monitor. That extra work was itself a problem until every developer in our office got themselves a second monitor too, but now everyone is happy.
Seriously, if they tried to take my second monitor away I'd consider that grounds for quitting. That'd be like telling me I had to develop with one hand tied behind my back. Maybe some development environments wouldn't benefit the same way, but none that I've ever worked with.
Ah, ok. I knew they had facial recognition (well, location) software form the DSi. Someone told me it was doing the trick outlined in the article, but I guess not. I did wonder why that would produce the double-vision you get from the side :)
Though I *think* someone had this trick working on the DSi. I could have sworn there was a Slashdot article where some game company in Japan had used the 'locate the face' trick to create the effect. If I'm remember right, that might be why I got it confused with the 3DS. Or I could just be remembering everything completely wrong :P
There was a story on Slashdot a while ago (last year? later?) about how someone did something similar on the Wii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
I notice the 3D target thing is the same (I mean, EXACTLY the same) but maybe that's some kind of pre-packaged 3D test everyone uses? Though I noticed that the first example in the iPad used what were clearly Mii faces; is this just an adaptation of the Wii guy's work? Granted, the Wii guy had to strap the controller on his head, so they'd have to use the facial locating software. Ironically, that's what Nintendo's had since the DSi (and greatly improved in the 3DS). In fact, I *think* that's how the 3DS works -- using this trick. I might be mistake on that, but I'm pretty sure it uses facial location; I just can't remember if that's all it needs to get the 3D effect or if it uses other stuff as well.
I RTFA, but I don't get why this is marked as Microsoft. There's the odd quote in there from them, but shouldn't this be marked as Security or Internet? Or am I missing something?
Judging from what the professor said in the video its clear that this is NOT a resource available to students unless they gain access illicitly. He specifically mentions that the question bank proprietors are looking at the problem from a legal perspective. It isn't like the students just went to the site and hit print. Much more like is someone gained access by breaking in or (probably more likely) someone with legal access decided to make a quick buck and sold a copy of the database to a student and it went from there.
Frankly, the whole question bank thing just makes any argument that's remotely pro-cheating moot to me. So you're willing to memorize hundreds of questions & answers that may not be on the exam, but you're not willing to learn the material?
Thanks all, I get it now. I didn't see mention of the distinction between the 5970 & the 5870 (which is fair, its a 580 review, not an ATI review). Though I was skimming, so its possible they point that out early & I just missed it.
Though why is the dual-CPU chip using less power than the single GPU nVidia card? Is there some subtle interplay between dual GPU processors I'm not aware of that makes them use less power, or is the nVidia 580 just a hog?
The /. summary ends with:
It can put up in-game benchmark scores between 30% and 50% faster than AMD's current flagship single-GPU, the Radeon HD 5870.
But if you read the original article, the one flaw in the (otherwise good) nVidia card is that is still loses to the 5970 which is -- according to the article -- 'about a year old'. So why is that other article mentioned in the summary talking about the 5870 as if its the flagship? Clearly the 5970 is. Or am I missing something?
Just to clarify: you can cheat all you want in the single player campaign. They have built-in cheats. You just can't cheat and still earn achievements -- that's what the hack that gets people banned does. You can argue that's not significant enough to earn a permanent 'bricking' of the software, but since you're effectively cheating in multi-player when you do this (because achievements are really a measurement between players) there should definitely be some sort of consequence.
A better response would be to nuke offender's ability to do anything but play single player and disable any achievements they can earn, but I guess the Blizzard thinking was "Why are we going out of our way to play nice for assholes?" Whether I agree or not, I can at least understand that line of thinking.
As I said elsewhere, I wasn't actually talking about the videos because the first article I read about this (a day or so ago because I actually live in Toronto) mentioned cartoons & comments, not videos. It sounded like he might have a decent case on those, though I'm sure someone will argue parody if it comes down to it.
And I also agree, if he'd just not been an ass, he'd have saved himself a boatload of trouble. That said, I've been an ass myself from time to time and I'd hate to think that if someone captured it on film, put it on YouTube and it captured the imagination of bored youth that I would have some recourse if they took it past a certain point. Maybe I wouldn't, I don't know, but I think its worth examining the idea that somehow the Internet "doesn't count", which seems to permeate the culture (could probably lump piracy in here too).
The idea of suing commenters is troubling but at the same time interesting. The interactive nature of the Internet brings a new potential dimension to things like this. If someone posts something libelous, and then people quote it and add to it, tweet it, re-tweet it, etc. -- where is the line of responsibility? Is there any? It feels like there's some, but I don't know how much. I'm not suggesting there is any this time, but I wonder how long it will be before this is decided in court somewhere.
Parody is a fine line. If I parodied you by drawing a cartoon of you having sex with a dog, you might have a case for defamation :)
I haven't seen the video you're talking about, but that's not what I was referring to. There was a different article yesterday when this first came up that mentioned cartoons and comments as the primary focus of the lawsuit. I don't know if they're libelous (or even libel at all) since as someone else here pointed out, defamation can vary from place to place. Still, assuming that they are for a moment, there's an assumption that "if its on the internet, it doesn't count" in some circles that is quite baffling.
If this ever comes to trial I'd bet you're right, and that parody will be one of the lines of defense. That said, I doubt it will ever come to that so we won't know if it would have worked :)
Oh man, I remember that. I still can't believe they ruled that. Even still, I'm pretty sure that if they ran 'blatant nonsense' about someone with money, they'd face a lawsuit, regardless of any obligation to the truth (or lack therof).
The initial incident was pretty silly and I don't have much sympathy for the officer being ridiculed for that, but my understanding is it elevated past that quite quickly. From other articles I've read, there were cartoons & posts about him beating people and what not. You can argue that it was for fun but there was a note in one of the articles that libel laws cover comments & such on websites, so if you do it you'd better be careful its not defamatory.
Its a kind of tricky line. Anonymity is a powerful and -- often -- good force on the Internet, but there are clearly times when it can be a detriment. Its not hard to design a thought exercise: imagine that newspapers were printed anonymously or articles within them were written anonymously. Yes, I know sources remain anonymous, but in those cases the author of the piece takes responsibility for any libel (well, them and their publisher). If a paper could just publish blatant nonsense that was incredibly defamatory, I doubt many of us would stick up for them. So why do we stick up for some assholes getting their kicks on a bulletin board? It probably didn't matter that much ten years ago, but with YouTube and Facebook and all the viral crap, stuff that would have limited to a few people having a chuckle can now range unpredictably large. Hell, just look at the whole cyber-bullying phenomenon.
Make fun of the officer for being an idiot with the bubble lady -- he deserves that. I'm not sure he deserves some of the other crap, or even if you think he does, if its defamatory (let the lawyers argue that) and you say it, you can be held accountable. There have always been limits on speech -- American 1st amendment not withstanding -- so I don't know why people think the Internet is somehow a special magical case.
I think its not quite that simple. Granted, this is somewhat guesswork, but it looks like the problem is you've go something like a city that has a fire department paid by taxes. Then you've got 'outside the city limits' (where this fellow was) which is not covered. So they pay a fee to finance the FD from the city servicing the outskirts. Someone else indicated that this is further complicated by the 'outskirts' being in a different state (and I assume a long way from any other city that might service them instead in-state).
So I'm not sure this is a case of people wanting to 'opt out' so much as they probably tacked them on helpfully 20 years ago, used the fee to make it work and then didn't bother to fix the (admittedly smaller) problem. Or rather, when they do they run into the problem of state lines and levying a (small) unpopular tax to pay for a group people on the other side of a border.
Frankly, the whole thing just gets weirder, but the whole 'they watched it burn' makes it surreal.
Actually, Tennessee has a Good Samaritan law that would protect the fire fighters if they went in to save a life, such as your hypothetical wife or son. The way those fire fighters are insured for health and injury, the state requires a contract where they would be covered for injuries resulting if they were attempting to actually save a human life. The law also protects them from being sued individually in such cases.
I actually wasn't suggesting the firefighters would be legally responsible for going in, I was just wondering if they bothered to consider someone's life before saying "Don't answer the call". Another poster indicated though that they do in fact ask that before they say 'no service'.
Interesting to know about the GS law though, I know that's come up in other cases.
Well, if you RTFA, you'd hear that he didn't not pay his taxes, he forgot to pay an annual fee.
Well, you're quibbling about my wording, but you're right, its 'claimed'. Why aren't you posting 'MOD PARENT FALSE' at the OP since he went straight to 'claiming government interference' -- something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere as a rationale for not paying the fee.
And yes, its clear he avoided paying it on purpose now, but that wasn't mentioned at first.
And lastly, I don't think we actually disagree on the heart of the matter, I was just saying in my original post that -- at the time of the article posted -- there didn't seem to be anything to indicate he was lying. That's changed, but it doesn't alter the more interesting discussion which is about whether stuff like this should be 'opt out'. I suspect we agree on that anyways.
What I meant was: since the fire department was there, putting out the fire on his neighbour's house, clearly 'lines on a map' aren't super relevant to this instance.
And while I appreciate the problem of jurisdiction, its still one that should be solved in a larger sense: you either work something out with the neighbouring county/state/whatever (which they have in this case, but sort of badly) or you put a redundant fire department on the other side of the arbitrary line.
I appreciate the information -- as you say, none of this was in the linked articles (or even the linked ones from there that I followed)
1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue
Well that's good to know. It would be pretty irresponsible if that wasn't the case, but you never know. Still, its another level of classification the 911 operator has to go through before dispatching what should just be an essential service.
2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did
3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot
Handy to know. It was also mentioned that they had in fact waived the fee in other cases. Not sure what the circumstances in those other times were though.
At any rate, that at least rules out the "maybe he wasn't lying" aspect. Frankly, I'd rather talk about the broader angles, which are more interesting. I mostly defended him because I hadn't seen anything that damned him and it seemed unfair to jump to conclusions.
4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.
Yeah, this I know. It was in other links, or at least that they've had a policy to fix the problem. That said, its a pretty dumb system, since this only affects people outside the city limits. Presumably there are less of them than people inside, so getting a vote in favour of a (very small) tax hike to cover Not-Mes is unlikely to happen. A great example of places democracy kind of falls down a little.
5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.
This is an artificial problem created by arbitrary lines on a map. The problems are real and have to be dealt with, but not really an excuse in this matter.
That's when you get people starting to blame politicians for "interfering in their lives" and "the government controlling too much" until they NEED the government funded rescue teams to show up. They don't scream so loud for freedom when their life or property is in danger.
Sure, and I don't agree with those folks anyways, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say they resent paying for the fire department. Maybe there are people saying that, but I've never seen any sign of it. The policy in this county sounds like it kind of evolved over time into its current state than intentionally trying to setup some kind of 'opt-out' system for fire fighting. In fact, they've apparently had a proposal on the table for a while now to change the system to one that doesn't require the FD to check if someone is on their list.