One of the more intelligent responses I've seen in this thread. I've never understood the mindset that allows the thought that "Blizzard screwed me!" to exist. I find that what WoW really provides is a platform for my friends and I to connect and engage in an activity together that would otherwise be impossible given our geographic separation. In that regard, Blizzard doesn't do anything other than suggest some activities for us to try, screw up creatively and laugh about.
As I remind people about WoW (and other MMOs) regularly, most of our fun comes from playing together and in spite of Blizzard (or other MMO publishers), not because of them. But, maybe I'm just crazy.
Evolution is based on the idea that billions of years ago there was nothing, then it exploded into the universe. It then proceeded to condense into stars and planets, some of which managed to end up spinning the wrong way. Earth somehow got a huge moon without messing up its orbit, and then chemicals washed from rocks managed to spring into bacteria that could reproduce.
No, that would be the Big Bang Theory, which while also a popular prevailing theory exists entirely independent of evolution.
These got more and more complex over time, and thousands of dead animals got fossilized (except for the transition forms, which apparently aren't allowed to fossilize).
The more and more complex over time part would actually be evolution, yes. You also do realize that not all bones become fossils, right? That exact conditions have to be met in order for bone to turn into rock? Not every creature who has ever lived will become a fossil...it's entirely possible for bones to be destroyed prior to becoming fossils, especially in areas where there's things that feed on bone matter like, say, bacteria...which would be present before all higher-order life and fairly predominant in how they cover most of the earth. Lots of bacteria = remains decompose and are destroyed. No bacteria = bones turn into fossils, allowing people millions of years later to look at them. As a result of this "circle of life" where dead things are broken down, the number of dinosaur bones and plant fossils recovered is a huge minority of the animals and plants that likely ever lived.
As this went on, we gradually got our modern group of organisms, including humans. Humans became aware of their origins and made a lot of shiny charts of fossils scattered around rock strata, except for those pesky transitions fossils that didn't want to be included. Am I right so far?
Only in the sense that I could say Jesus came to earth, did some stuff then left. I'm missing some pretty key facets of the story there. We're still unaware of our origins, and evolution has never purported to define exactly where we came from as much as it provides a framework to begin inquiring. Once we know how species change and come into being, we can start to look at ourselves. Evidence suggests that humans and primates at least share an ancestor, but that doesn't say we evolved from monkeys. It also doesn't say that it's absolutely true, but the similar biology and characteristics lends credence to the idea.
Look, it doesn't matter how much you theorize, how many shiny charts you make, or how many people you get to mod me down on Slashdot. If the transition fossils are missing, then they didn't exist.
No, the correct term is: We haven't found them yet. There's a large number of reasons for this...first off, the earth is big. Very big. The population of most higher-order creatures was not overwhelming, due to a lack of food supply to sustain them. It took us many thousands of years, even by Creationist reckoning, to get into the millions of humans. This would mean the amount of space occupied by the transitory species would be small, especially in comparison to the size of the earth. Factor in that we're talking about *under* the present surface of the earth and the area that would have to be examined to make a definitive statement of "they don't exist" is quite astronomical. Impossible to falsify? No...but admittedly impractical based on current methods and technologies. However, the overall trend of evolution is such that the transitory fossils of other species DO exist, which at least verifies the underlying idea even if specific species can not as of yet be located. Remember, science isn't about getting the answers all at once, that's the realm of dogma. Science is about gradual acquisition of evidence-supported information.
Further compounding the issue is that humans tend to inhabit the same places for extended periods of time. This leads to the destruction of th
I'm not arguing that there's nothing of value to be learned, it's a question of when people don't realize the limits on how what we learn can be applied.
For example, building castles on loose sand is generally considered...well dumb, however there's all sorts of things that could be learned from it. New ways of overcoming challenges, novel approaches that *can* be transferred to a more testable environment, etc. Responsible scientists also would analyze the limitations of that knowledge gained...such as a great approach that depends on being around sand not being applicable in a forested environment.
However, the tendency in politics and society at large is to ignore those constraints and say "Well, the castles we built showed that we need to use X, so clearly X is key to building a castle" which completely misses the point. When you change environments you cannot be certain of the applicability of knowledge gained elsewhere, and each person really boils down to a unique environment. As you say, you get a best an informed guess, which is fine as long as you remember it's just a guess.
However, this like many similar studies in various areas will be added as fodder against a topic even though the study itself cannot, and likely does not, purport that this is an immutable fact about human behavior. This will then further be demented to the point that you can claim that a video game company got you addicted to a game on purpose and that you're entitled to damages as a result. That's not the fault of the people who did the study per se, but it does diminish the science involved when you remove the science from the equation and then apply the knowledge in ways that it shouldn't be.
This wouldn't be an issue if the general population had a better understanding of science and the processes and limitations involved...alas...
I'd be more inclined to call it "junk science" because almost any attempt at a study of human behavior really is not going to be truly scientific at the end of the day. Humans are simply too diverse a group to be effectively measured by present scientific protocols, as you cannot say that this group of people is representative of all people and in this instance, you certainly can't say that 22 young adults represent 6 billion+ humans. Heck, you could collect a sample of a million people, run exhaustive tests on them and STILL not come up with a reliable sample that would allow you to put the results of that experiment as a true trend of human behavior.
Therein is the great failing; even though it's fairly obvious that 6 billion people have 6 billion different sets of experiences, we make the faulty assumption that other humans would react to things in the same way as ourselves or the sample group. Blacks were once thought to be "more aggressive" and "less intelligent" than whites. Was this obviously racial bias of the era? Of course it was, but I can assure you that at the time there were numerous studies just like this one to back up that assertion.
Once you start wandering into the area of the human brain, science falls apart. Science relies on testable, verifiable evidence and you can get none of that out of the human brain. This is a side-effect of humans being self-aware. There is no simple Stimulus -> Response like science can measure, there's a thought process about the response which is a random (i.e. - distinct to each person), uncontrollable variable. That alone indicates that it's not valid scientific data, as you cannot be sure if what you're testing is the cause of the reactions or if it's the unknown variable of the subject's life experience. The wiring of the brain is incidental, as humans can control their responses to stimuli (our claim to being "above" the other animals, after all).
I'm not saying there's *nothing* useful from observing human behavior, but to treat it like it can be applied as any other field of scientific study is going to produce junk ideas. It also absolves people of being human..."It's not my fault I stop going to work and ignored my family to the point that they all abandoned me! I was addicted to the videogame! My chemistry left me no choice!" and I find that to be a dangerous road to even begin to tread, science or no.
On the flip side of that coin, people who go through learning curves then become more resistant to an interface change (such as a new program, or an upgrade like Office 2007) due to the perceived time investment they put into the current one. "I spent six months learning how to get this one to work! I don't want to learn a new one!" is a fairly common human attitude. Using a basic, intuitive interface for basic tasks means that if you need to switch to another program with another basic interface you get less inertia with people to the change and less "shift downtime" while people adjust.
From a business perspective, such things are highly desirable as you can keep technology up to date while not negatively impacting worker productivity with having to learn something that isn't really their job. They hired an accountant to do accounting, not work an email program and every minute/hour/day/month he has to spend learning a new interface is money that's been lost from the reason he's there. Accounting is his job, not email...even if email is tightly integrated into the communications about his job it's not their primary function. So from an efficiency standpoint you'd want a simpler interface that can be learned quickly and easily.
Now, for more advanced work (such as the financial system that accountant would use as part of their core job) there's a strong case that a learning curve and it's boosts to productivity on complex tasks outweighs possible issues with later changes, but I can't think of a product that Mozilla makes that I'd put into the "advanced work" category. They seem to make apps for fairly basic tasks.
So basically (horrid pun intended), when the work is what people get hired to do, the interface should be powerful at the cost of simplicity. When it's an incidental task that will be performed in the execution of their main job, I'd say a simpler interface should simple, even if not as powerful, at least by default.
Well, I think I'd start by trying to get to some sort of workable solution in Iraq. Just pulling up and leaving isn't feasible, but definitive goals with actual progress need to be put in and if people don't meet them, then other people who will would be put in and those that failed better have some good reasons or they'll be cashiered out of government service. Not going to be unreasonable about it, but if there are signs that best effort wasn't given...
Dove-tailing with that would be an attempt to get the US to realize that it's not the world and merely a part of it. Try to extend the olive branch on a few arguments that have gone on for decades with no end in sight (Cuba, Iran, etc.) and even if they swat it away and stomp on it, at least we attempted to broker a fair end to the acrimony between nations. Not to say that other countries can boss the US around, but just an attempt to play nice with the neighbors rather than blasting the music louder.
On the home front, I'd take a long, hard look at ending entitlement programs. Welfare would see a fairly major curtailing in all likelihood, and employment would see a revamp. While I would want to leave as much in to assist people displaced by a market shift who are honest workers and trying to get into a new field (which could require school and the like), people who sit around for years doing nothing would find themselves out of luck. Hopefully, that will save a few bucks to go towards things like healthcare and such as healthcare is one of the few "entitlements" I'd probably leave alone. The goal would be that nobody starves or has to suffer a disease untreated...but you don't get money for existing. Nor do you get money to buy food...you want government assistance on food, you take what you get. Don't like it? Get the hell off the support program and get a job!
Educationally, wow...so much work to be done. First off, No Child Left Behind gets the axe under the "no more entitlement" clause above. A new program, Every Child Left Behind would be put in wherein teachers are encouraged to only pass deserving students. Set the bar high, make them rise to it...basically. If they can't, they don't earn their diploma or what have you...give some actual worth to these pieces of paper again. While there's limits to what the federal government can dictate here, I'd call for states to bring back actual education where the students learn to absorb and process information logically rather than recite facts to pass a test. A hard road to hoe there, but one that I think would pay long-term dividends to have a population of thinking citizens.
Another goal would be to revive American industry, though that is something I'm still a bit vague on the particulars. Surely though, the world still has demand for products that don't poison you or explode or fall apart after three weeks even if they cost a few dollars more.
On the liberties side, the Nanny State would see a bloody end, and Security Theater would probably give its last showing. Congress would be handed a mandate to fix broken, stupid laws rather than creating more broken, stupid laws and while they'd likely ignore it, the people at that point can vote in representatives that will fix laws if that's what they feel should be done. If they don't, well...the people said they don't care about that so I'd just have to move on. Morality would not be legislated, but would be a personal choice. So long as your choices do not infringe on the rights of others then the law won't interfere. There will be particular issues that will need to be handled in less of a "carte blanche" fashion (such as addictive and/or mind-altering drugs), but on the whole the money being hemorrhaged trying to keep people from being stupid will stop being spent and hopefully natural selection will take over and remove the stupid people.
Eh...think that's enough pointless scheming out of me...being that I'll never in a million years be the President...;P
At current, it takes more units of fossil fuel (from power plants) to produce biofuels than it would to simply have made and used gasoline. That's the point I was making that if your goal is to produce a fuel, you really shouldn't be using more coal/oil to make it than it would have taken to make and use gas to do the same thing. Obviously, a lot of that is a technology issue (compare the research done to date on refining oil to that of refining biofuels and see if there's not a century or two of disparity) and it isn't a permanent state of affairs, but it is the reality we have at the moment.
My concern was that people would use six times the power to avoid plugging in a cable, which is quite frankly ridiculously wasteful. However, I see from some of the other posts that such energy transfers do not appear to require such massive expenditures of power, and with proper technologies/implementation might even be better.
Does anyone know how much power is "wasted" (if any) due to using wireless methods versus wired connections?
Off my limited knowledge, it would seem to be akin to one of the problems with biofuels...they currently take more energy to produce than they store. So will using this technology to charge a device result in taking two or three times more energy to transmit the same amount of power to the device, or is there no discernible difference between wireless and wired?
Personally I don't think it's detailed ENOUGH in either form. It should be "Prioritizing Resources and Organization Such That Unidifiented Property Infiltrators be Defeated". That acronym is much more appropriate IMO.
More likely cause: The patch was tested but the patcher was not.
Don't forget that this is an issue with the the *patcher* that was not present in the full premium install from scratch, only the upgrade (which is probably the route most people would've taken, in fairness). It basically boils down to a simple typo in one version of the installer and rebooting to test the installer might not be part of their QA tests for the patcher.
Really what they should catch flak for is not a bad typo, but as the summary points out having a game file with the same name as a critical OS file. Boot.ini isn't a new thing, in fact it is on its way out with Vista, so there's really no excuse to claim you didn't know that Windows had such a file. It's been there since 1995 or so.
And short of requiring licenses to pro-create, there's not much you can really do to stop parents who don't pay attention. However, these parents have been a constant since before technology and video games were even thought, so clearly society hasn't found a way to fix that particular problem in the past few centuries.
I agree with your point that many parents are oblivious, and that even one such parent can destroy the diligence of an entire neighborhood's worth of them, however it does go back to staying involved with your child's life and teaching them right from wrong (and wrong is not "when you get caught" like many people seem to think). As a personal example, my mother forbade me from playing Mortal Kombat as a child...but I played it anyway at friend's houses. Did it make me a violent criminal? Not until they find the bodies! Kidding. However, I know exactly of whence you speak but in the grand-scheme it would have been more productive for my mother to go over WHY she didn't want us playing it (*cough*mediahype*cough*) instead of simply saying no. Still, she had taught us that violence against other humans is wrong, and for some reason neither I nor my brothers grew up to take part in fighting or mass murder rings. Still, going over the reasoning of "why not" places proper context on the title, as well as giving the child a chance to demonstrate if they're ready for such a thing through debate and discussion.
All in all however, one simply cannot shelter children indefinitely, and there's a strong case that you shouldn't do that since they will hopefully at some point stop being children. One day, they must grow up and become their own person, and all the "bad" things they're exposed to will have just as much meaning as the "good". As long as the parent has been conscientious about making sure their child understands the context of everything, I don't think there's any more that can be done. Will every child be able to cope with all these things at once? Odds are no, but children have this funny way of meeting the expectations that people have of them (for good or ill).
Once again I'm drifting from the main topic, but the national government's role is not to meddle in family (or neighborhood) affairs. If another parent makes different choices than I do, that's their right. It's not the government's place to say "No, nobody can have any sort of access to this material because we said so", which is effectively what the BBFC has taken upon itself to do.
Rockstar today launched its appeal against the BBFC's decision to refuse Manhunt 2 certification It is this sort of thing that annoys me; that the the BBFC refuses to grant it any classification and on those grounds I agree with Rockstar. Now, please hold while I wash that taste out of my mouth.
Moving on, while I feel that most of Rockstar's titles are over-hyped "shock" titles they are certainly able to be classified. While I personally enjoyed the GTA series, I would not want it in the hands of my children (were I to have any I was responsible for) unless I knew they could handle it BUT that would be MY decision as the child's parent/caregiver to make and not the government's. The end of the government's involvement should be to make available the information for me to make an informed choice that aligns with my personal beliefs, not to tell me what those beliefs are in the first place. I realize this is England where their ideas of personal freedom and the US's don't always line up. I also realize that the US is turning into more a Nanny State as well, but the fact remains.
Back on the immediate point, I really don't like this particular title for a variety of reasons, but to claim that something is "unclassifiable" says they've stepped over the line from classification to censorship, and that SHOULD be brought to people's attention in a free society. They are "classifiers," not "censors." Do your job and classify it. It's Adult Only (or the English equivalent anyway) and call it a day.
Didn't see blood spurting anywhere? While not something that happened every time, injuries did often happen resulting in a goodly amount of shed blood. I see what you're getting at though...were we trying to kill each other? Not exactly, but the unspoken intent to harm each other was certainly there. We weren't using swords (albeit wooden and blunted) because we wanted a tickle fight after all. As I said, many of us did get injured at various times and to varying levels of severity in our rough-housing.
Now, you can argue that there's a line between trying to stab someone in the back when they're not looking versus trying to strike them very hard with a relatively blunt object that can only be fatal in an extreme freak circumstance, but the point remains that we played those childhood games to inflict harm...that was the competition, after all: who got hurt the least. If you were really good, you didn't get hurt at all. If you were bad, you got a lot of very poignant reminders that you needed to work on things. While I'd like to pretend otherwise, I really never managed better than "gave as good as I got" in these contests.
However, steering away from the apparently modern marvel that we didn't kill ourselves, this does touch on a much deeper topic. Humans, as a species, are violent animals. Six thousand years of recorded history up to and including the present day show us that despite all our beliefs of superiority to every other creature when you put us to it, we're just as base and violent as anything else...more so in fact, since we're one of the few species that will wantonly kill our own. Paradoxically, those conflicts while representing the ultimate in the abandonment of our humanity is also when we're at our zenith of intellectual thought. It's sad, but true that we're never more inventive than when we're trying to kill each other. Once we stop fighting and work on applying the concepts once used as weapons to productive uses, we often find that we've vastly improved conditions. Airplanes, as an example, would probably not have advanced to the level where commercial jet liners were in use a scant six decades after the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight if someone had not noticed that aircraft could be used to kill some one during World War I. Nuclear power, two edged sword that it is, probably would not have seen the advancements it saw without someone first trying to blow someone else up. Even the space program with the numerous off-spin technologies to improve our lives was not done so much out of the altruistic "let's go there to do it!" as much as "let's go there to stick one in the Soviet's eye!" Of course, violence is not the direct cause per se as is the competition...but very often those two go together hand-in-hand. That's what those games we played as kids were about, proving who was the most nimble...who was the strongest...etc. etc.
Where am I going with this? That violence, like sex, is part of our animal heritage. It's there, hard-coded into each and every person that lives from our days living in caves and hunting mammoth where the strong lived and the weak died. While we strive to rise above this primitive programming, it's not going anywhere and to deny its existence, which is too often what we try to do with both sex and violence in this country, merely causes it to manifest itself in ever more extravagant ways. Put something under pressure and keep a tight lid on it and eventually, it blows up. In other societies, sex and violence are not such taboo topics. There's no forbidden fruit allure to it...it's just, there. Whoop de doo. Think about alcohol, as another example. In the US, it's regulated with almost the same zeal that we devote to narcotics but we still have rampant alcoholism and myriad problems with the stuff. Yet in Europe where alcohol is a daily and embraced part of life, they have such a lower incidence of these problems. Do they exist? Yes, but not with the massive excesses you see in the US. The surest way to get someone to do something is to tell them that they sh
"It's bad because it encourages people to act out violence!"
Ok, as a kid I remember playing Cowboys and Indians, "sword fighting" with wooden swords or sometimes just plain old sticks and having full-contact water gun fights...sometimes conducted while riding a bike in a sort of "drive-by" fashion...not so much because we were trying to be cool and emulate gangsters, but for the simple fact that you could shoot them and they couldn't hit you very effectively.
These things all strike me as things that lead to *actual* violence, yet not once were we chastised for rough-housing growing up unless somebody got hurt (or if one of the mothers caught you swearing). However, waving a white piece of plastic around and around in yet another example of crappy Wii controls from an uninspired developer is going to make kids suddenly more prone to violence? Did I miss some fundamental shift in the nature of human development here?
I realize that most people informed on the issue are fully aware that there is no proven direct link between violent videogames and actual violence, and in fairness to CBS they alluded to that fact in their report, but it was glossed over about how this game is going to turn little Johnny into a killer. Sort of a "while there are no signs that link leaving an electric fan on at night will cause your death...ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE THAT CHANCE? Listen to our thousands of anecdotal stories that make good cursory sense to those who know nothing of the way things work, because we know that's all the further you'll look into the issue!"
I know all news media is a pack of lies to get advertising money and anymore who you watch is just picking the pack of lies which you find most palatable, but it still saddens me to see that "journalism" has descended to such a pitiful level.
I'm actually still waiting for the first concrete evidence to be produced that violent video games translate into actual real-world violence. All the studies have produced is increased violent tendencies, but that appears to fail to translate into actual violence. You rely on isolated lab results the put forth a theory, but these results have yet be exhibited in reality. As much as you might want to cling to the concept, it remains in the world of theory. If you want to say that video games cause violence: provide actual real-world evidence that it ever has. Surely it won't be hard to come up with the miles of crime reports caused directly by video games if it's as widespread as you claim it to be.
The real world shows that there has been no increase in violent crime since violent games started coming out in droves, and in fact has been quite the opposite. That is a verifiable FACT, not a theory. While I do not believe a link exists between the two, these two facts taken together do strongly refute the theory you cling to so dearly. If video games lead to increased violence, then more violent games being made should lead to more violent crime. This is the underlying idea you support so dearly, and yet again...it's not exhibited, anywhere. Reality says there is no link between violent games and real-world violence. If you have actual case studies that prove otherwise, feel free to link them. Until then, you're blowing hot air about how you can't deal with the fact that reality doesn't agree with your soapbox topic.
For me, it's not so much about the games. It's about governments attempting to legislate morality rather than leaving it in the hands of individuals where it rightfully belongs. If parents don't want their kids to play violent videogames, then I support their right to make that choice and applaud them for taking an active role in their child's development even if I might disagree over specifics. To tell a retailer that they will be criminalized for not being a parent, however, is beyond ridiculous. Business and government have no business in teaching morality, especially given that both are rife with examples of a complete lack thereof. Moral behavior starts in the home, not in the store.
While there are millions of incidents of violent crime annually, again citing the Department of Justice statistics since 1993 they've taken a sharp drop (over 50%). Since most of the video games that people complain about being violent came out well after 1993, the theory that violent games translate into violence hasn't held water so far when compared to overall crime trends. If you were going to try and make any case based on the statistics from the Department of Justice, it'd be that violent video games LOWER violent crime rates, but as we all know correlation (two trends happening at the same time) does not equate to causation (A was caused by B).
However the idea that violent games carry over from the game world to the real one seemingly can't even get correlation down, let alone causation. One concept might not equate to the other, but one is certainly a prerequisite to the other.
What I am saying is that blaming video games isn't really addressing the problem. The problem is *not* violent games or comic books or rock/rap music or movies (and all of them have been blamed at one point or another), the problem is mentally or emotionally disturbed individuals who are having reactions to these forms of media.
Consider this. Halo in its various incarnations is a very violent game. Since it's initial release on the original Xbox, millions upon millions of people have played the game, and to date not one incident of violence has made it's way into the national headlines with any sort of link to the game. Why? Because the norm is that people understand the concept of game versus reality. As another example there's World of Warcraft, 9 million subscribers, probably many more than that have played it...also a game that is focused on "killing" various monsters and players. While the addictive nature of that particular game has lead to people causing their own personal tragedies (such as the Korean parents who left their child unattended and unnourished), that is a far cry from violently attacking people on the street.
There are however some people who cannot, for whatever reason, make this distinction and in terms of being prompted to violence by violent media, these individuals are the problem. These people who's grasp on reality is tenuous for whatever reason, not the specific media itself. The Columbine and VA Tech and similar shootings were not *caused* by video games or music or movies or anything else, they were cause by people with these mental/emotional issues falling away from their human support network (or not having one) and being spurred into action by a random stimulus. Sure, you can find specific contributing factors, but such people have the potential to be powder kegs to begin with, and if you "dodge the bullet" by not having them play violent games, who's to say a violent movie or aggressive song won't have the same result? If you suspect your child is one of these people, or a friend or a loved one, then you should seek to get them help. Not worry about what they're buying at the store.
Getting back to the initial topic of the story, punishing millions of people who understand things for the actions of one or two aberrations from the human norm, which is what most forms of this legislation effectively do, is beyond ridiculous. Forcing retailers to play parent is not a real solution to any problem. Instead of wasting the money on these laws, their inevitable overturning and appeal which costs the taxpayers millions in legal fees and court costs, why not put that money towards improving the flow of communication to the parents?
If you want to "protect the children", then you should start with the parents, not the stores.
Mr. Wheaton is 35, though in fairness he can pass for younger if he wanted. However, he's not *THAT* young looking.
At 27, I don't get carded to buy anything other than alcohol. At least there you can make the argument that there is a confirmed link that someone who uses alcohol can pose a genuine threat to an innocent bystander, such as drunk driving. Video games, there is no such link.
I agree that there is plenty of material out there that children should be exposed to only when they are mentally mature enough to handle it, but that's not a distinction that some detached governing body can effectively make. Some children are ready at the age of 12 for such things, others it might be until they're in their 20s. Who *should* know that? Their parents...of course many parents fall prey to wanting to coddle their children, but the point remains that if anyone is in a position to judge it's them, not politicians.
I play many violent games, and there are some games I would have reservations about children playing. However, the step of carding someone as though they are buying a controlled substance seems a bit too far. Give parents the tools to keep tabs on their children, yes...absolutely. For example, a logging feature on consoles that records what games are played and for how long, possibly with publisher/ESRB/similar body-provided information on content accessible if connected to the Internet. Things of that nature where a parent can more easily inform themselves without having to play every game themselves because Yee is correct, there is too much in any given game for a parent with responsibilities to play it all the way through. Possibly a website that they can easily visit and read advisories, or a newsletter they could subscribe to which provides the same information.
Forcing retail America to be parents for them? No, that's where I draw the line. Such things should start and end in the home, not on the Senate floor.
Out of curiosity though, if this theory has been proven, and games grow more and more violent each year...where is the corresponding increase in violent crime rates? Most numbers show violent crime rates descending overall. From 1993 to 2005, violent crime has dropped from 4.1 million incidents to 1.8 million, according to the US Department of Justice. Of course, as a government body they may be horribly inept at counting or I could be reading their data wrong, but that seems to be the sentiment echoed repeatedly by actual studies of this thing known as "reality".
I do believe that's the "It hasn't been proven" argument. The laboratory says that videogames increase violent tendencies, but reality says that violent crime is going down sharply. The fact that the media loves to harp on even tenuous links of violence to video games (see also: VA Tech shootings, where such links were proven to be non-existent) also hurts the "it's been proven" argument, as there are few (if any) documented real-world cases where videogames were the cause.
As Yee himself says, they can be a contributing factor. However, I'd be willing to say that crazy people will always be crazy, and if games don't set them off, something else will. The problem isn't the games, it's that the person is crazy. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.
I still disagree with his position based on the precedent Congress allowed with the MPAA and what they push at children. As a column by Gregg Easterbrook pointed out this week, we have an interesting hypocrisy when it comes to our media (Do a find for "MPAA" to skip to the relevant part). The example he used is that movie studios are making an effort to remove on-screen smoking, while retaining the grisly and horrific on-screen torture/death of teenage girls. So the message we seem to be saying is if you want to torture a human being, that's fine...but don't you dare smoke while doing it! Similar issue in terms of video games...it's okay to see someone get shot...but pressing X to do it rather than watching it is simply too much!
The problem is much deeper than videogames and their "interactivity", the problem is that the government has allowed parents to abdicate their responsibilities as parents by attempting to protect the children FOR the parents. In the long-term, this encourages lazy parenting where they DON'T pay attention to what their kids are exposed to because "the government will decide what's safe and what isn't" which inevitably causes "Innocent Little Johnny" to see boobs somewhere and the parents throw a hissyfit. This in turn drives a further "need" for government regulation and you end up in a slippery slope further and further down the line.
Another blog by Mr. Wil Wheaton (Hi CleverNickname!) points out that he got carded trying to buy Dead Rising. Now, I'd bet his not ever carded going into an R rated movie, or at a bar, or if he was to buy cigarettes...any of these activities arguably being as "dangerous" to kids as anything else, but they card him to buy a video game?
This is what it boils down to for me: No state or national government has any business trying to legislate morality, period. That is a responsibility for the local communities to decide upon for themselves, not have crammed down its throat from on high. Our country would be a lot better off if the people in Washington, D.C. worried about what is happening to our economy and foreign relations rather than worrying about what videogames people are playing and where people go on the Internet.
Of course, that's based on the silly ideal that our government is there to serve anyone but itself...but one can dream, can't they?
The Windows kernel by and large is not the problem. It's the copious amounts of useless (or near useless) garbage sitting atop that kernel that is the problem. Drivers use resources, yes...but not anywhere near the level that's wasted in various "user-centric" services by Windows at the moment.
The OS on the 360 is designed to take up as little of the system's resources as possible while delivering a certain baseline of functionality to the user on-demand. That is the goal for ANY OS, regardless of platform. To see Microsoft get it right with one division and cock it up with another is what's really frustrating. I know inter-departmental communication in a huge corporation is near impossible, but still...
Is that in the same timeframe with the Xbox 360 Microsoft produced an actually-decent OS. Sure, it's purpose-built to run games...but is there any reason that a similar setup would not work for a PC? Aren't games a form of application? It's simple, clean, always accessible when needed and there's a "fixed" amount of resources that it will consume as a result, but the majority of the system is given to the desired application.
After all, an OS is simply an interface that gets users to the useful applications. I think Microsoft lost sight of that detail and tried to make Vista it's own entity. Now, the 360 had its own slew of issues...but the OS has been decently simple and easy to work with (most of the time).
Of course, comparing it to Vista isn't exactly setting the bar real high...but they at least have SOMEONE at Redmond that knows how to make an OS...or at least where to steal one. Let that team work on the next OS rather than the horrid "death by committee" fubar crew that seems to have produced Vista.
From a technical standpoint, I would say it's a reference to the Australian dialect, which is a subset of the English language (much like American is a similar dialect...same parent language, but divergent).
For those who would question a reference, I'll remind you of the Foster's beer commercial tagline: "Foster's, Australian for beer" which probably helped with the headline a bit.
I'm not terribly sure about that. Most people who were formerly mad at Microsoft will be mollified by the fact that they at least stepped up and admitted an error, no matter how long it took them to actually do so and that the money (if not the time) is being refunded. People, in general, are generally fairly tolerant of people who make mistakes when they A) acknowledge them and B) make amends for any injury caused. Microsoft is doing both, so I'm fairly sure that will build customer goodwill in the long-term. The people who look down on them for this were probably the people who would do so regardless, so why bother attempting to please people who aren't interested in being pleased?
As far as "grim news" about the shortfall in 360 sales....a 4% shortfall? That's what 400,000 units of 12 million equates to. This is "grim"? What's Sony's shortfall on the PS3 at the moment? We won't mention Nintendo of course as they've been a runaway success by any standards.
While I'm personally greatly annoyed by my 360 with the way it's clearly malfunctioning (play a game longer than an hour or two and I run the risk of the disc magically becoming "unreadable") but not badly enough to get it repaired under warranty, I still enjoy the platform. I do have to question some of the rather sensationalist headlines on this story though.
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One of the more intelligent responses I've seen in this thread. I've never understood the mindset that allows the thought that "Blizzard screwed me!" to exist. I find that what WoW really provides is a platform for my friends and I to connect and engage in an activity together that would otherwise be impossible given our geographic separation. In that regard, Blizzard doesn't do anything other than suggest some activities for us to try, screw up creatively and laugh about.
As I remind people about WoW (and other MMOs) regularly, most of our fun comes from playing together and in spite of Blizzard (or other MMO publishers), not because of them. But, maybe I'm just crazy.
Evolution is based on the idea that billions of years ago there was nothing, then it exploded into the universe. It then proceeded to condense into stars and planets, some of which managed to end up spinning the wrong way. Earth somehow got a huge moon without messing up its orbit, and then chemicals washed from rocks managed to spring into bacteria that could reproduce.
No, that would be the Big Bang Theory, which while also a popular prevailing theory exists entirely independent of evolution.
These got more and more complex over time, and thousands of dead animals got fossilized (except for the transition forms, which apparently aren't allowed to fossilize).
The more and more complex over time part would actually be evolution, yes. You also do realize that not all bones become fossils, right? That exact conditions have to be met in order for bone to turn into rock? Not every creature who has ever lived will become a fossil...it's entirely possible for bones to be destroyed prior to becoming fossils, especially in areas where there's things that feed on bone matter like, say, bacteria...which would be present before all higher-order life and fairly predominant in how they cover most of the earth. Lots of bacteria = remains decompose and are destroyed. No bacteria = bones turn into fossils, allowing people millions of years later to look at them. As a result of this "circle of life" where dead things are broken down, the number of dinosaur bones and plant fossils recovered is a huge minority of the animals and plants that likely ever lived.
As this went on, we gradually got our modern group of organisms, including humans. Humans became aware of their origins and made a lot of shiny charts of fossils scattered around rock strata, except for those pesky transitions fossils that didn't want to be included. Am I right so far?
Only in the sense that I could say Jesus came to earth, did some stuff then left. I'm missing some pretty key facets of the story there. We're still unaware of our origins, and evolution has never purported to define exactly where we came from as much as it provides a framework to begin inquiring. Once we know how species change and come into being, we can start to look at ourselves. Evidence suggests that humans and primates at least share an ancestor, but that doesn't say we evolved from monkeys. It also doesn't say that it's absolutely true, but the similar biology and characteristics lends credence to the idea.
Look, it doesn't matter how much you theorize, how many shiny charts you make, or how many people you get to mod me down on Slashdot. If the transition fossils are missing, then they didn't exist.
No, the correct term is: We haven't found them yet. There's a large number of reasons for this...first off, the earth is big. Very big. The population of most higher-order creatures was not overwhelming, due to a lack of food supply to sustain them. It took us many thousands of years, even by Creationist reckoning, to get into the millions of humans. This would mean the amount of space occupied by the transitory species would be small, especially in comparison to the size of the earth. Factor in that we're talking about *under* the present surface of the earth and the area that would have to be examined to make a definitive statement of "they don't exist" is quite astronomical. Impossible to falsify? No...but admittedly impractical based on current methods and technologies. However, the overall trend of evolution is such that the transitory fossils of other species DO exist, which at least verifies the underlying idea even if specific species can not as of yet be located. Remember, science isn't about getting the answers all at once, that's the realm of dogma. Science is about gradual acquisition of evidence-supported information.
Further compounding the issue is that humans tend to inhabit the same places for extended periods of time. This leads to the destruction of th
I'm not arguing that there's nothing of value to be learned, it's a question of when people don't realize the limits on how what we learn can be applied.
For example, building castles on loose sand is generally considered...well dumb, however there's all sorts of things that could be learned from it. New ways of overcoming challenges, novel approaches that *can* be transferred to a more testable environment, etc. Responsible scientists also would analyze the limitations of that knowledge gained...such as a great approach that depends on being around sand not being applicable in a forested environment.
However, the tendency in politics and society at large is to ignore those constraints and say "Well, the castles we built showed that we need to use X, so clearly X is key to building a castle" which completely misses the point. When you change environments you cannot be certain of the applicability of knowledge gained elsewhere, and each person really boils down to a unique environment. As you say, you get a best an informed guess, which is fine as long as you remember it's just a guess.
However, this like many similar studies in various areas will be added as fodder against a topic even though the study itself cannot, and likely does not, purport that this is an immutable fact about human behavior. This will then further be demented to the point that you can claim that a video game company got you addicted to a game on purpose and that you're entitled to damages as a result. That's not the fault of the people who did the study per se, but it does diminish the science involved when you remove the science from the equation and then apply the knowledge in ways that it shouldn't be.
This wouldn't be an issue if the general population had a better understanding of science and the processes and limitations involved...alas...
I'd be more inclined to call it "junk science" because almost any attempt at a study of human behavior really is not going to be truly scientific at the end of the day. Humans are simply too diverse a group to be effectively measured by present scientific protocols, as you cannot say that this group of people is representative of all people and in this instance, you certainly can't say that 22 young adults represent 6 billion+ humans. Heck, you could collect a sample of a million people, run exhaustive tests on them and STILL not come up with a reliable sample that would allow you to put the results of that experiment as a true trend of human behavior.
Therein is the great failing; even though it's fairly obvious that 6 billion people have 6 billion different sets of experiences, we make the faulty assumption that other humans would react to things in the same way as ourselves or the sample group. Blacks were once thought to be "more aggressive" and "less intelligent" than whites. Was this obviously racial bias of the era? Of course it was, but I can assure you that at the time there were numerous studies just like this one to back up that assertion.
Once you start wandering into the area of the human brain, science falls apart. Science relies on testable, verifiable evidence and you can get none of that out of the human brain. This is a side-effect of humans being self-aware. There is no simple Stimulus -> Response like science can measure, there's a thought process about the response which is a random (i.e. - distinct to each person), uncontrollable variable. That alone indicates that it's not valid scientific data, as you cannot be sure if what you're testing is the cause of the reactions or if it's the unknown variable of the subject's life experience. The wiring of the brain is incidental, as humans can control their responses to stimuli (our claim to being "above" the other animals, after all).
I'm not saying there's *nothing* useful from observing human behavior, but to treat it like it can be applied as any other field of scientific study is going to produce junk ideas. It also absolves people of being human..."It's not my fault I stop going to work and ignored my family to the point that they all abandoned me! I was addicted to the videogame! My chemistry left me no choice!" and I find that to be a dangerous road to even begin to tread, science or no.
On the flip side of that coin, people who go through learning curves then become more resistant to an interface change (such as a new program, or an upgrade like Office 2007) due to the perceived time investment they put into the current one. "I spent six months learning how to get this one to work! I don't want to learn a new one!" is a fairly common human attitude. Using a basic, intuitive interface for basic tasks means that if you need to switch to another program with another basic interface you get less inertia with people to the change and less "shift downtime" while people adjust.
From a business perspective, such things are highly desirable as you can keep technology up to date while not negatively impacting worker productivity with having to learn something that isn't really their job. They hired an accountant to do accounting, not work an email program and every minute/hour/day/month he has to spend learning a new interface is money that's been lost from the reason he's there. Accounting is his job, not email...even if email is tightly integrated into the communications about his job it's not their primary function. So from an efficiency standpoint you'd want a simpler interface that can be learned quickly and easily.
Now, for more advanced work (such as the financial system that accountant would use as part of their core job) there's a strong case that a learning curve and it's boosts to productivity on complex tasks outweighs possible issues with later changes, but I can't think of a product that Mozilla makes that I'd put into the "advanced work" category. They seem to make apps for fairly basic tasks.
So basically (horrid pun intended), when the work is what people get hired to do, the interface should be powerful at the cost of simplicity. When it's an incidental task that will be performed in the execution of their main job, I'd say a simpler interface should simple, even if not as powerful, at least by default.
Well, I think I'd start by trying to get to some sort of workable solution in Iraq. Just pulling up and leaving isn't feasible, but definitive goals with actual progress need to be put in and if people don't meet them, then other people who will would be put in and those that failed better have some good reasons or they'll be cashiered out of government service. Not going to be unreasonable about it, but if there are signs that best effort wasn't given...
;P
Dove-tailing with that would be an attempt to get the US to realize that it's not the world and merely a part of it. Try to extend the olive branch on a few arguments that have gone on for decades with no end in sight (Cuba, Iran, etc.) and even if they swat it away and stomp on it, at least we attempted to broker a fair end to the acrimony between nations. Not to say that other countries can boss the US around, but just an attempt to play nice with the neighbors rather than blasting the music louder.
On the home front, I'd take a long, hard look at ending entitlement programs. Welfare would see a fairly major curtailing in all likelihood, and employment would see a revamp. While I would want to leave as much in to assist people displaced by a market shift who are honest workers and trying to get into a new field (which could require school and the like), people who sit around for years doing nothing would find themselves out of luck. Hopefully, that will save a few bucks to go towards things like healthcare and such as healthcare is one of the few "entitlements" I'd probably leave alone. The goal would be that nobody starves or has to suffer a disease untreated...but you don't get money for existing. Nor do you get money to buy food...you want government assistance on food, you take what you get. Don't like it? Get the hell off the support program and get a job!
Educationally, wow...so much work to be done. First off, No Child Left Behind gets the axe under the "no more entitlement" clause above. A new program, Every Child Left Behind would be put in wherein teachers are encouraged to only pass deserving students. Set the bar high, make them rise to it...basically. If they can't, they don't earn their diploma or what have you...give some actual worth to these pieces of paper again. While there's limits to what the federal government can dictate here, I'd call for states to bring back actual education where the students learn to absorb and process information logically rather than recite facts to pass a test. A hard road to hoe there, but one that I think would pay long-term dividends to have a population of thinking citizens.
Another goal would be to revive American industry, though that is something I'm still a bit vague on the particulars. Surely though, the world still has demand for products that don't poison you or explode or fall apart after three weeks even if they cost a few dollars more.
On the liberties side, the Nanny State would see a bloody end, and Security Theater would probably give its last showing. Congress would be handed a mandate to fix broken, stupid laws rather than creating more broken, stupid laws and while they'd likely ignore it, the people at that point can vote in representatives that will fix laws if that's what they feel should be done. If they don't, well...the people said they don't care about that so I'd just have to move on. Morality would not be legislated, but would be a personal choice. So long as your choices do not infringe on the rights of others then the law won't interfere. There will be particular issues that will need to be handled in less of a "carte blanche" fashion (such as addictive and/or mind-altering drugs), but on the whole the money being hemorrhaged trying to keep people from being stupid will stop being spent and hopefully natural selection will take over and remove the stupid people.
Eh...think that's enough pointless scheming out of me...being that I'll never in a million years be the President...
At current, it takes more units of fossil fuel (from power plants) to produce biofuels than it would to simply have made and used gasoline. That's the point I was making that if your goal is to produce a fuel, you really shouldn't be using more coal/oil to make it than it would have taken to make and use gas to do the same thing. Obviously, a lot of that is a technology issue (compare the research done to date on refining oil to that of refining biofuels and see if there's not a century or two of disparity) and it isn't a permanent state of affairs, but it is the reality we have at the moment.
My concern was that people would use six times the power to avoid plugging in a cable, which is quite frankly ridiculously wasteful. However, I see from some of the other posts that such energy transfers do not appear to require such massive expenditures of power, and with proper technologies/implementation might even be better.
Does anyone know how much power is "wasted" (if any) due to using wireless methods versus wired connections?
Off my limited knowledge, it would seem to be akin to one of the problems with biofuels...they currently take more energy to produce than they store. So will using this technology to charge a device result in taking two or three times more energy to transmit the same amount of power to the device, or is there no discernible difference between wireless and wired?
Just wondering is all...
Personally I don't think it's detailed ENOUGH in either form. It should be "Prioritizing Resources and Organization Such That Unidifiented Property Infiltrators be Defeated". That acronym is much more appropriate IMO.
More likely cause: The patch was tested but the patcher was not.
Don't forget that this is an issue with the the *patcher* that was not present in the full premium install from scratch, only the upgrade (which is probably the route most people would've taken, in fairness). It basically boils down to a simple typo in one version of the installer and rebooting to test the installer might not be part of their QA tests for the patcher.
Really what they should catch flak for is not a bad typo, but as the summary points out having a game file with the same name as a critical OS file. Boot.ini isn't a new thing, in fact it is on its way out with Vista, so there's really no excuse to claim you didn't know that Windows had such a file. It's been there since 1995 or so.
And short of requiring licenses to pro-create, there's not much you can really do to stop parents who don't pay attention. However, these parents have been a constant since before technology and video games were even thought, so clearly society hasn't found a way to fix that particular problem in the past few centuries.
I agree with your point that many parents are oblivious, and that even one such parent can destroy the diligence of an entire neighborhood's worth of them, however it does go back to staying involved with your child's life and teaching them right from wrong (and wrong is not "when you get caught" like many people seem to think). As a personal example, my mother forbade me from playing Mortal Kombat as a child...but I played it anyway at friend's houses. Did it make me a violent criminal? Not until they find the bodies! Kidding. However, I know exactly of whence you speak but in the grand-scheme it would have been more productive for my mother to go over WHY she didn't want us playing it (*cough*mediahype*cough*) instead of simply saying no. Still, she had taught us that violence against other humans is wrong, and for some reason neither I nor my brothers grew up to take part in fighting or mass murder rings. Still, going over the reasoning of "why not" places proper context on the title, as well as giving the child a chance to demonstrate if they're ready for such a thing through debate and discussion.
All in all however, one simply cannot shelter children indefinitely, and there's a strong case that you shouldn't do that since they will hopefully at some point stop being children. One day, they must grow up and become their own person, and all the "bad" things they're exposed to will have just as much meaning as the "good". As long as the parent has been conscientious about making sure their child understands the context of everything, I don't think there's any more that can be done. Will every child be able to cope with all these things at once? Odds are no, but children have this funny way of meeting the expectations that people have of them (for good or ill).
Once again I'm drifting from the main topic, but the national government's role is not to meddle in family (or neighborhood) affairs. If another parent makes different choices than I do, that's their right. It's not the government's place to say "No, nobody can have any sort of access to this material because we said so", which is effectively what the BBFC has taken upon itself to do.
Moving on, while I feel that most of Rockstar's titles are over-hyped "shock" titles they are certainly able to be classified. While I personally enjoyed the GTA series, I would not want it in the hands of my children (were I to have any I was responsible for) unless I knew they could handle it BUT that would be MY decision as the child's parent/caregiver to make and not the government's. The end of the government's involvement should be to make available the information for me to make an informed choice that aligns with my personal beliefs, not to tell me what those beliefs are in the first place. I realize this is England where their ideas of personal freedom and the US's don't always line up. I also realize that the US is turning into more a Nanny State as well, but the fact remains.
Back on the immediate point, I really don't like this particular title for a variety of reasons, but to claim that something is "unclassifiable" says they've stepped over the line from classification to censorship, and that SHOULD be brought to people's attention in a free society. They are "classifiers," not "censors." Do your job and classify it. It's Adult Only (or the English equivalent anyway) and call it a day.
Which he sidestepped, since they're his stepkids.
However, just from reading his site and listening to him talk, he's their father all the same. Sounds like a pretty decent one too.
Of course, if you listened to me I'm the most diligent worker ever and Slashdot is entirely work-related, but still...
Didn't see blood spurting anywhere? While not something that happened every time, injuries did often happen resulting in a goodly amount of shed blood. I see what you're getting at though...were we trying to kill each other? Not exactly, but the unspoken intent to harm each other was certainly there. We weren't using swords (albeit wooden and blunted) because we wanted a tickle fight after all. As I said, many of us did get injured at various times and to varying levels of severity in our rough-housing. Now, you can argue that there's a line between trying to stab someone in the back when they're not looking versus trying to strike them very hard with a relatively blunt object that can only be fatal in an extreme freak circumstance, but the point remains that we played those childhood games to inflict harm...that was the competition, after all: who got hurt the least. If you were really good, you didn't get hurt at all. If you were bad, you got a lot of very poignant reminders that you needed to work on things. While I'd like to pretend otherwise, I really never managed better than "gave as good as I got" in these contests. However, steering away from the apparently modern marvel that we didn't kill ourselves, this does touch on a much deeper topic. Humans, as a species, are violent animals. Six thousand years of recorded history up to and including the present day show us that despite all our beliefs of superiority to every other creature when you put us to it, we're just as base and violent as anything else...more so in fact, since we're one of the few species that will wantonly kill our own. Paradoxically, those conflicts while representing the ultimate in the abandonment of our humanity is also when we're at our zenith of intellectual thought. It's sad, but true that we're never more inventive than when we're trying to kill each other. Once we stop fighting and work on applying the concepts once used as weapons to productive uses, we often find that we've vastly improved conditions. Airplanes, as an example, would probably not have advanced to the level where commercial jet liners were in use a scant six decades after the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight if someone had not noticed that aircraft could be used to kill some one during World War I. Nuclear power, two edged sword that it is, probably would not have seen the advancements it saw without someone first trying to blow someone else up. Even the space program with the numerous off-spin technologies to improve our lives was not done so much out of the altruistic "let's go there to do it!" as much as "let's go there to stick one in the Soviet's eye!" Of course, violence is not the direct cause per se as is the competition...but very often those two go together hand-in-hand. That's what those games we played as kids were about, proving who was the most nimble...who was the strongest...etc. etc. Where am I going with this? That violence, like sex, is part of our animal heritage. It's there, hard-coded into each and every person that lives from our days living in caves and hunting mammoth where the strong lived and the weak died. While we strive to rise above this primitive programming, it's not going anywhere and to deny its existence, which is too often what we try to do with both sex and violence in this country, merely causes it to manifest itself in ever more extravagant ways. Put something under pressure and keep a tight lid on it and eventually, it blows up. In other societies, sex and violence are not such taboo topics. There's no forbidden fruit allure to it...it's just, there. Whoop de doo. Think about alcohol, as another example. In the US, it's regulated with almost the same zeal that we devote to narcotics but we still have rampant alcoholism and myriad problems with the stuff. Yet in Europe where alcohol is a daily and embraced part of life, they have such a lower incidence of these problems. Do they exist? Yes, but not with the massive excesses you see in the US. The surest way to get someone to do something is to tell them that they sh
"It's bad because it encourages people to act out violence!"
Ok, as a kid I remember playing Cowboys and Indians, "sword fighting" with wooden swords or sometimes just plain old sticks and having full-contact water gun fights...sometimes conducted while riding a bike in a sort of "drive-by" fashion...not so much because we were trying to be cool and emulate gangsters, but for the simple fact that you could shoot them and they couldn't hit you very effectively.
These things all strike me as things that lead to *actual* violence, yet not once were we chastised for rough-housing growing up unless somebody got hurt (or if one of the mothers caught you swearing). However, waving a white piece of plastic around and around in yet another example of crappy Wii controls from an uninspired developer is going to make kids suddenly more prone to violence? Did I miss some fundamental shift in the nature of human development here?
I realize that most people informed on the issue are fully aware that there is no proven direct link between violent videogames and actual violence, and in fairness to CBS they alluded to that fact in their report, but it was glossed over about how this game is going to turn little Johnny into a killer. Sort of a "while there are no signs that link leaving an electric fan on at night will cause your death...ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE THAT CHANCE? Listen to our thousands of anecdotal stories that make good cursory sense to those who know nothing of the way things work, because we know that's all the further you'll look into the issue!"
I know all news media is a pack of lies to get advertising money and anymore who you watch is just picking the pack of lies which you find most palatable, but it still saddens me to see that "journalism" has descended to such a pitiful level.
I'm actually still waiting for the first concrete evidence to be produced that violent video games translate into actual real-world violence. All the studies have produced is increased violent tendencies, but that appears to fail to translate into actual violence. You rely on isolated lab results the put forth a theory, but these results have yet be exhibited in reality. As much as you might want to cling to the concept, it remains in the world of theory. If you want to say that video games cause violence: provide actual real-world evidence that it ever has. Surely it won't be hard to come up with the miles of crime reports caused directly by video games if it's as widespread as you claim it to be.
The real world shows that there has been no increase in violent crime since violent games started coming out in droves, and in fact has been quite the opposite. That is a verifiable FACT, not a theory. While I do not believe a link exists between the two, these two facts taken together do strongly refute the theory you cling to so dearly. If video games lead to increased violence, then more violent games being made should lead to more violent crime. This is the underlying idea you support so dearly, and yet again...it's not exhibited, anywhere. Reality says there is no link between violent games and real-world violence. If you have actual case studies that prove otherwise, feel free to link them. Until then, you're blowing hot air about how you can't deal with the fact that reality doesn't agree with your soapbox topic.
For me, it's not so much about the games. It's about governments attempting to legislate morality rather than leaving it in the hands of individuals where it rightfully belongs. If parents don't want their kids to play violent videogames, then I support their right to make that choice and applaud them for taking an active role in their child's development even if I might disagree over specifics. To tell a retailer that they will be criminalized for not being a parent, however, is beyond ridiculous. Business and government have no business in teaching morality, especially given that both are rife with examples of a complete lack thereof. Moral behavior starts in the home, not in the store.
While there are millions of incidents of violent crime annually, again citing the Department of Justice statistics since 1993 they've taken a sharp drop (over 50%). Since most of the video games that people complain about being violent came out well after 1993, the theory that violent games translate into violence hasn't held water so far when compared to overall crime trends. If you were going to try and make any case based on the statistics from the Department of Justice, it'd be that violent video games LOWER violent crime rates, but as we all know correlation (two trends happening at the same time) does not equate to causation (A was caused by B).
However the idea that violent games carry over from the game world to the real one seemingly can't even get correlation down, let alone causation. One concept might not equate to the other, but one is certainly a prerequisite to the other.
What I am saying is that blaming video games isn't really addressing the problem. The problem is *not* violent games or comic books or rock/rap music or movies (and all of them have been blamed at one point or another), the problem is mentally or emotionally disturbed individuals who are having reactions to these forms of media.
Consider this. Halo in its various incarnations is a very violent game. Since it's initial release on the original Xbox, millions upon millions of people have played the game, and to date not one incident of violence has made it's way into the national headlines with any sort of link to the game. Why? Because the norm is that people understand the concept of game versus reality. As another example there's World of Warcraft, 9 million subscribers, probably many more than that have played it...also a game that is focused on "killing" various monsters and players. While the addictive nature of that particular game has lead to people causing their own personal tragedies (such as the Korean parents who left their child unattended and unnourished), that is a far cry from violently attacking people on the street.
There are however some people who cannot, for whatever reason, make this distinction and in terms of being prompted to violence by violent media, these individuals are the problem. These people who's grasp on reality is tenuous for whatever reason, not the specific media itself. The Columbine and VA Tech and similar shootings were not *caused* by video games or music or movies or anything else, they were cause by people with these mental/emotional issues falling away from their human support network (or not having one) and being spurred into action by a random stimulus. Sure, you can find specific contributing factors, but such people have the potential to be powder kegs to begin with, and if you "dodge the bullet" by not having them play violent games, who's to say a violent movie or aggressive song won't have the same result? If you suspect your child is one of these people, or a friend or a loved one, then you should seek to get them help. Not worry about what they're buying at the store.
Getting back to the initial topic of the story, punishing millions of people who understand things for the actions of one or two aberrations from the human norm, which is what most forms of this legislation effectively do, is beyond ridiculous. Forcing retailers to play parent is not a real solution to any problem. Instead of wasting the money on these laws, their inevitable overturning and appeal which costs the taxpayers millions in legal fees and court costs, why not put that money towards improving the flow of communication to the parents?
If you want to "protect the children", then you should start with the parents, not the stores.
Mr. Wheaton is 35, though in fairness he can pass for younger if he wanted. However, he's not *THAT* young looking.
At 27, I don't get carded to buy anything other than alcohol. At least there you can make the argument that there is a confirmed link that someone who uses alcohol can pose a genuine threat to an innocent bystander, such as drunk driving. Video games, there is no such link.
I agree that there is plenty of material out there that children should be exposed to only when they are mentally mature enough to handle it, but that's not a distinction that some detached governing body can effectively make. Some children are ready at the age of 12 for such things, others it might be until they're in their 20s. Who *should* know that? Their parents...of course many parents fall prey to wanting to coddle their children, but the point remains that if anyone is in a position to judge it's them, not politicians.
I play many violent games, and there are some games I would have reservations about children playing. However, the step of carding someone as though they are buying a controlled substance seems a bit too far. Give parents the tools to keep tabs on their children, yes...absolutely. For example, a logging feature on consoles that records what games are played and for how long, possibly with publisher/ESRB/similar body-provided information on content accessible if connected to the Internet. Things of that nature where a parent can more easily inform themselves without having to play every game themselves because Yee is correct, there is too much in any given game for a parent with responsibilities to play it all the way through. Possibly a website that they can easily visit and read advisories, or a newsletter they could subscribe to which provides the same information.
Forcing retail America to be parents for them? No, that's where I draw the line. Such things should start and end in the home, not on the Senate floor.
Out of curiosity though, if this theory has been proven, and games grow more and more violent each year...where is the corresponding increase in violent crime rates? Most numbers show violent crime rates descending overall. From 1993 to 2005, violent crime has dropped from 4.1 million incidents to 1.8 million, according to the US Department of Justice. Of course, as a government body they may be horribly inept at counting or I could be reading their data wrong, but that seems to be the sentiment echoed repeatedly by actual studies of this thing known as "reality".
I do believe that's the "It hasn't been proven" argument. The laboratory says that videogames increase violent tendencies, but reality says that violent crime is going down sharply. The fact that the media loves to harp on even tenuous links of violence to video games (see also: VA Tech shootings, where such links were proven to be non-existent) also hurts the "it's been proven" argument, as there are few (if any) documented real-world cases where videogames were the cause.
As Yee himself says, they can be a contributing factor. However, I'd be willing to say that crazy people will always be crazy, and if games don't set them off, something else will. The problem isn't the games, it's that the person is crazy. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.
I still disagree with his position based on the precedent Congress allowed with the MPAA and what they push at children. As a column by Gregg Easterbrook pointed out this week, we have an interesting hypocrisy when it comes to our media (Do a find for "MPAA" to skip to the relevant part). The example he used is that movie studios are making an effort to remove on-screen smoking, while retaining the grisly and horrific on-screen torture/death of teenage girls. So the message we seem to be saying is if you want to torture a human being, that's fine...but don't you dare smoke while doing it! Similar issue in terms of video games...it's okay to see someone get shot...but pressing X to do it rather than watching it is simply too much!
The problem is much deeper than videogames and their "interactivity", the problem is that the government has allowed parents to abdicate their responsibilities as parents by attempting to protect the children FOR the parents. In the long-term, this encourages lazy parenting where they DON'T pay attention to what their kids are exposed to because "the government will decide what's safe and what isn't" which inevitably causes "Innocent Little Johnny" to see boobs somewhere and the parents throw a hissyfit. This in turn drives a further "need" for government regulation and you end up in a slippery slope further and further down the line.
Another blog by Mr. Wil Wheaton (Hi CleverNickname!) points out that he got carded trying to buy Dead Rising. Now, I'd bet his not ever carded going into an R rated movie, or at a bar, or if he was to buy cigarettes...any of these activities arguably being as "dangerous" to kids as anything else, but they card him to buy a video game?
This is what it boils down to for me: No state or national government has any business trying to legislate morality, period. That is a responsibility for the local communities to decide upon for themselves, not have crammed down its throat from on high. Our country would be a lot better off if the people in Washington, D.C. worried about what is happening to our economy and foreign relations rather than worrying about what videogames people are playing and where people go on the Internet.
Of course, that's based on the silly ideal that our government is there to serve anyone but itself...but one can dream, can't they?
The Windows kernel by and large is not the problem. It's the copious amounts of useless (or near useless) garbage sitting atop that kernel that is the problem. Drivers use resources, yes...but not anywhere near the level that's wasted in various "user-centric" services by Windows at the moment. The OS on the 360 is designed to take up as little of the system's resources as possible while delivering a certain baseline of functionality to the user on-demand. That is the goal for ANY OS, regardless of platform. To see Microsoft get it right with one division and cock it up with another is what's really frustrating. I know inter-departmental communication in a huge corporation is near impossible, but still...
Is that in the same timeframe with the Xbox 360 Microsoft produced an actually-decent OS. Sure, it's purpose-built to run games...but is there any reason that a similar setup would not work for a PC? Aren't games a form of application? It's simple, clean, always accessible when needed and there's a "fixed" amount of resources that it will consume as a result, but the majority of the system is given to the desired application.
After all, an OS is simply an interface that gets users to the useful applications. I think Microsoft lost sight of that detail and tried to make Vista it's own entity. Now, the 360 had its own slew of issues...but the OS has been decently simple and easy to work with (most of the time).
Of course, comparing it to Vista isn't exactly setting the bar real high...but they at least have SOMEONE at Redmond that knows how to make an OS...or at least where to steal one. Let that team work on the next OS rather than the horrid "death by committee" fubar crew that seems to have produced Vista.
From a technical standpoint, I would say it's a reference to the Australian dialect, which is a subset of the English language (much like American is a similar dialect...same parent language, but divergent).
For those who would question a reference, I'll remind you of the Foster's beer commercial tagline: "Foster's, Australian for beer" which probably helped with the headline a bit.
I'm not terribly sure about that. Most people who were formerly mad at Microsoft will be mollified by the fact that they at least stepped up and admitted an error, no matter how long it took them to actually do so and that the money (if not the time) is being refunded. People, in general, are generally fairly tolerant of people who make mistakes when they A) acknowledge them and B) make amends for any injury caused. Microsoft is doing both, so I'm fairly sure that will build customer goodwill in the long-term. The people who look down on them for this were probably the people who would do so regardless, so why bother attempting to please people who aren't interested in being pleased? As far as "grim news" about the shortfall in 360 sales....a 4% shortfall? That's what 400,000 units of 12 million equates to. This is "grim"? What's Sony's shortfall on the PS3 at the moment? We won't mention Nintendo of course as they've been a runaway success by any standards. While I'm personally greatly annoyed by my 360 with the way it's clearly malfunctioning (play a game longer than an hour or two and I run the risk of the disc magically becoming "unreadable") but not badly enough to get it repaired under warranty, I still enjoy the platform. I do have to question some of the rather sensationalist headlines on this story though.