Norwich woman Clare Hughes is spearheading the eastern arm of a new national campaign to put a stop to children's books that don't have a happy ending. | "Books should give them a sense of good triumphing over evil and let them be rest assured that the goodies will come out on top." | "It's about encouraging children to read books with positive values. Look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there are some unpleasant characters, but Charlie wins out in the end. That's the type of book we support."
It seems to me the logical result of showing kids nothing but "good always wins" is that they would expect it to happen automatically. It seems forcing kids to read a range of books with a range of positivity of endings would be better, so the kids will learn that good doesn't alway win, that they can't sit back and wait for matters to resolve themselves, a hero will always show up to right the wrong.
From the look of the world today, it seems we've already read far too many happy endings. That said, the primary purpose of most fiction is entertainment, not teaching, and happy endings are more entertaining, but consider that one of the selling points of short-stories (and anime) is that you don't always have happy endings (or when endings are happy, they're not glowingly happy, main characters die etc) giving the reader suspense. If everything is a happy ending, with no tension, what's the purpose in reading good vs evil stories? Comedy may still be worthwhile, as well as most anything from a particularly talented author (some authors have such a great writing style that they can make anything fun to read) but much dramatic fiction would be a shadow if there was no sting to it.
Even Disney stands behind a bit of pain.
Children should be subjected to enough range of endings that they realize that to win, good must not only take a stand, but work hard. At an appropriate age, children should be exposed to books showing how evil operates, but corrupting what is good for its own purposes. The Three Muskateers perhaps, showing how an office of the Church, normally to be trusted is not above taint?
Also important would be a few books that show major conflicts, and why they happen, focusing on the grunts of both sides, doing what they must to "defend themselves from the evil invaders", "wipe out the neighboring trash/infidel" and those at the top waging the war for their own gain, perfectly happy to toss away the lives of their citizens for personal gain. (Gundam perhaps) It's important to realize other nations aren't whole countries full of people with the attitude of the martians in "Mars Attacks" wringing their hands looking to cause trouble. All too often we want to belive that other nations are bad or horrible, but no whole nation on its own devotes itself to an invasion without a serious push, generally of propaganda.
To show nothing but happy endings will produce kids who will be unable to handle the real world. Sure "the perfect consumer" is a great thing now, while we *mostly* have enough jobs to go around, but as more and more jobs are outsourced and living conditions continue to worsen (and adherence to the constitution, suffering greatly of late) we'll realize, probably too late that the "always-feel-good" mantra is a chant to keep us in a happy-not-thinking state, and that we should question the motives of those who tell us in effect "don't worry about it, and no need to read the fine print".
OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and ***(5) free and open source.***
Someone else can run with option 5, to make an equivalent, for adults laptop. Depending on performance, we may finally see a machine mass-produced, showing acceptable speed and avertising that it's doing so despite "under-powered" hardware.
If this was mass-produced, people would finally have reason to question: why do I need this super-great/expensive machine for the latest OS? Sure we have plenty of tiny OSes out there, Puppy Linux, D*** Small Linux and various others from scratch. The problem is the same that kept Linux from the spotlight... it's not pre-installed on PCs sitting on store shelves.
(Sure the above efficiency question is asked frequently from one version of Windows to the next, but default installs of Linux flavors trying to be mainstream-ready are a bit slow on older hardware as well.)
I can't wait to see the results on the marketplace...
Linux wasn't around until the 386, and hasn't really been pushed (directly at home users) by anyone who already had a major following.
Windows follows DOS, which was THE way to run PCs. People were already buying (or stealing) MS products, why would they change to a new system? Sure, some things don't run on Vista, more run on it automatically than run on SUSE. (Assuming an ordinary user who can't handle emulation and who probably doesn't want to deal with dual-boot. That takes time and isn't seamless. I haven't looked into VMWare / WINE personally, and doubt most people where I work have ever heard of them.) Without something earth-shattering like a much larger price increase (cheapest version $500-$1000) or Windows no longer being "officially" made for PCs, it's not going away anytime soon.
Apple... from traditonal MacOS to MaxOSX and... the change is raved about... but BSD has been available for years... for free!
The product isn't as important to the end-user as 2 considerations: 1: Who am I getting it from 2: Can I use the same software WITHOUT HASSLES?
If the next Windows IS a shell over Linux, the world will largely move to Linux (and gripe about everything broken in the new MS OS, some of which MS broke and some of which is just different than before, but working.)
If the next version of Windows doesn't run Office, that will do more to hurt it than everything wrong with ME and XP put together.
Linux users may say StarOffice, OpenOffice, HolyCheeseItsAnotherOffice are better. They might be right, and everything might work perfectly, but if it looks too different most consumers will say, I can use the old I know, or the new I have to learn, I'm sticking with the old. No matter how simple something is, if it involves a computer a larger # of people won't even consider trying to wrap their heads around it.
The computer is like the geek in your office you have to put up with because you need what it/he does, but since you don't really understand it, the less you interact with it/him, the better. The same is true with people and cars. (Although cars are easier to understand, at least in terms of having a universally well understood interface, steering wheel, turn signal on the left of wheel, horn on front, gear shift moves between 2-3 places, a/c & radio on right)
The PC is hurt by 2 things. 1:Association with the unknowable, or the too-much-effort-to-be-worth-learning 2:A changing interface, Win 3.1 -> Win95 -> WinXP -> Vista = BAD! Even assuming each of these was a step up, to the barely able to use their computer people, different is still bad, because they didn't know WHAT they were doing to send an e-mail, they only understood a sequence of steps. Click start, programs, outlook. When personalized menus came along and hid outlook one day, the computer was BROKEN! Never mind that they only needed to play with the menu to make it re-appear, it WASN'T WHERE IT BELONGED!
The smartest thing MS did was adding the ability to turn off "features" like personalized menus, hiding accelerator keys (underlined letters that now only appear when you press alt), hiding extensions (leaving them unable to tell apart the 3 files that have the same name now) etc.
The dumbest would be starting the new OS with the new look, instead of with the old, or with a prompt at boot-up of which they want to use. Naturally, MS doesn't want to be held back UI-wise forever (and be laughed at for it), or having to maintain a huge # of UIs, but at some point MS needs to decide, what do we want as our UI for the next 10-20 years barring an interface revolution? (ie Wiimote vs standard gamepad, NES pad vs 2600 stick) Linux, representing choice, is inherently bad. If Windows and MacOS are Coke and Pepsi, Linux is coffee. Good, essentially the same (drink) but more different than the soda-holic is comfortable with. (It's HOT!)
Linux is good (or no one would bother with it). Windows is established (and good enough to stay that way
Given mod chips, like VCRs have acceptable uses (playing import games, home-made games, backups (1 each max I think) of your games should the original break) it's fairly evident to a lot of us that calling a mod chip inherently bad and illegal is rather self-serving. What if Sony ever did go ahead with the burn-the-serial-of-the-console-into-the-disc plan, preventing legitimate resale of the games? I'd love to see them sue GameStop for hiring someone to create a workaround and selling them in every store.
Given the characterization of mod chip owners as pirates, can mod chip owners make a class action lawsuit against those mischaracterizing us over slander or libel? It's too bad the legal system is so expensive, it'd be nice to grab written testimony from a few hundred or thousand mod-chip owners listing what they've legitimately used the chips for, suing for... a public apology and admission that they lied to the public and lawmakers for personal gain.
> Gangsters provide no benefit to store owners, who do not willingly enter into business with them.
Over having no gangsters in the area, no, but paying them protection money as they demand it ensures that nothing "happens" to your business. I'll agree that noone wants to deal with them, but the point of what I'm saying above is that when such an offer is made, it may not look like you have much choice. In the case of protection money the choice is pay up or give up on your business. In the music world it's pay up or have no (serious) chance at a career. While some bands can get by without the major labels, the perception is that there is no choice.
> 2. Recording artists have always had choices other than the music industry for publishing their music. Independent labels have existed for a long time and recording artists have self-published on many occasions.
I was under the impression that small labels had sufficiently small distribution reaches (probably not reaching major chains like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sam Goody etc) that they didn't offer serious benefits to a band that wasn't already large enough to have fans willing to go out of their way to find a place their record is sold, and that self-publishing would generally be far too expensive for a band on a limited budget. Am I wrong on this?
> Artists only sign contracts with big record companies because they want to take a shot at being much more successful;
I was under the belief that without a major label, you couldn't get enough distribution to live off of, that without a major label music could only be a side job.
> Gangsters give store owners no "choice", and they make their threats against established business with lots to lose (i.e. the investment of time and money that went into building up the store).
I'm not accusing the RIAA here of doing anything outright illegal to force people to deal with them, but I think they have much the same imposing presence as did "The Phone Company" before there was credible competition.
> 3. Gansterism is illegal. Publishing records is not. Absolutely correct, but the main point I was trying to make is to not underestimate their absolutely dominant position. Mortgages, software licensing are much the same. Don't like the bank's terms? They're probably not going to make an exception for you. When's the last time you heard about MS renegotiating the EULA for a dissatisfied potential home user? The recording industry may hit a point coming up where they're so desperate to sign new talent that they'll bend over backwards, but for now, so what if a dozen current top artists leave? They'll manufacture a dozen new stars, who will have all the publicity needed to eclipse the former stars buzz-wise. (Which they'ed be expected to do, you want the public excited about YOUR product.)
> As to your point about Beethoven, Mozart, etc. I am no music historian but I doubt that they had the same mass appeal to hundreds of millions of people in their lifetimes as modern pop artists do.
My point was that these people lived, died and left an enduring (if not immediately in the public's hands) legacy before the music industry as we know it existed. I'm not sure how widely the sheet music spread before music companies came along, and I'll have to admit that the music companies also greatly helped spread the popularity of the same composers. (Until records, drums or something else existed that let you hear music in your own home, the modern music culture with songs passed back and forth, overheard at a friend's house etc couldn't exist.) I don't see a wandering band of minstrels holding up signs saying "Will play classical for food", but the classical composers still both came and went before today's music industry existed, and even without it, as the symphony became an event the average person could attend the popularity of the music was bound to take off eventually.
> I have a vague inkling that those classical composers worked mostly
> These contracts are entered into freely by both parties and I really don't feel any pity for musicians who don't like the terms as much after their music has been promoted and distributed by the record companies, as they did before they became successful.
How about protection money paid to local gangsters? You freely fork it over to be able to play the game (operating a store). You don't want to in either case, but there's no real choice. (You COULD call the police, but someone might end up having an accident, or in the case of the RIAA you might have no chance of ever getting known. The RIAA might seem more legit, but this depends on the findings of the counter-suit against them claiming they act as a cartel illegaly working together for an unfair advantage negotiating against artists. Shakedowns of internet radio fall under the same area, especially with retroactive fees to be applied.) There are more options these days though. Various sites on the net where you can post your music to be heard (MySpace etc) are an option we didn't have 10-20 years ago.
> I don't think popular music artists in their current form would exist without the music industry; it was the music industry that over the course of 50 years produced the concept of the superstar musician.
Beethoven, Mozart... the superstar has existed for a long time. The nationally heard super-star, the mega-huge one-hit-wonder and the bands without any actual music (which they play, singing and dancing alone don't cut it unless you're a barbershop quartet) are newer creations.
I appreciate the RIAA for putting in place the system that brought me much great music over the years, although I can't say I particularly care for a lot they do (randomly aimed lawsuits, possible price-fixing). If the RIAA was to be replaced by another single for-profit company, or small group of them, much the same would happen. Perhaps some things like DRM or stupid lawsuits would be left out (things that can only happen when the scales are REALLY tipped your way) but the artist would still be in the same position as you applying for a mortgage at the bank.
> I remember the day I first showed them Napster and they laughed out loud because they knew it would be the end of the record companies.
How? By making sure enough is downloaded that there aren't enough CD sales to keep the music companies afloat? Or by providing an alternate means for musicians to get noticed nationally? The 2nd method is legitimate, and the stated purpose of the original Napster and of MySpace are a great idea. While the RIAA is on one hand double-dipping in providing a united front to keep music prices high for consumers across the board, and royalties low for new artists, as long as artists sign the contracts, the song's legally pass to the RIAA's member companies.
> Next, steal from the RIAA like Trent says This won't seriously hurt the RIAA, but opens you to a LEGITIMATE lawsuit should you get caught. Even assuming you can argue them down from a couple hundred or thousand per song stolen, settling still won't be cheap. A lawsuit isn't just to make you pay up, it's supposed to include a steep penalty to make you think twice about doing something again. Also, if you're stealing yourself, who are you to get onto the RIAA for what they do? Robin Hood was famous for giving to the poor, not helping himself.
The right thing to do is to go looking for places online where music is passed around legitimately. Besides MySpace, Napster (does what's left of it allow indies?) and local acts, where else do you go to legitimately find music online? One person further down plugs their own site "You could really help me out if you shared my music [geometricvisions.com]" which is good, but of a few hundred or thousand randomly named websites, how are you going to find ones with music you like? Another big component is radio, and it's no coincidence that there's a war against Internet radio which has the chance to promote artists other than those that sign with the RIAA's member companies.
I'd think all indie (or appropriately licensed to avoid legal hassles) net radio stations, possibly combined with competition fighting instead of joining the RIAA would work. Perhaps Google will launch a new music finding / community rating service. If they do, MS will almost certainly do the same, plus use existing cd pressing plants they own of have contracts with to handle physical distribution. I've found good music from passed around comedy MP3s (check out Moose In My House) and from AMVs (re: Your Brains). Perhaps companies without the money to buy songs from bigger stars for their ads wouldn't mind being approached by hopefuls, who would let them buy songs for cheap, in return for exposure on commercials. Record companies have scouts to hunt talent, is there a site like Wikipedia or Hitchiker's to post notes on local bands to help them get exposure?
Where would other reading this recommend finding new songs from, which is the cornerstone of the RIAA's control. As long as they make sure that the new stuff being heard on the radio is THEIR'S, and as long as the radio is the primary means of finding new music, they'll stay in control. In case any bands you like may have dropped from the labels, try looking them up online, seeing if they have any independent work for sale. The big task in undermining the RIAA is replacing the biggest need they fill, their ability to locate new songs / artists that people will eat up. The fact that people are still buying CDs proves that they're still meeting this need, even if you think recent offerings are junk, someone (appararently a LOT of someones) think otherwise.
Re:The issues with Bio-Shock
on
BioShock Review
·
· Score: 1
The controller can be a curse or a blessing.
While on one hand having fewer buttons than a keyboard is a liability in terms of direct flexibility, this can be countered with context sensative buttons, remapping what button does what (most Zelda games, which require the use of many more buttons than you have items) and shift-based setups like in Phantasy Star Online. (Hold a trigger button to change what the A, B, X and Y buttons do, actually only 3 of them for some bizarre reason) With 4 shoulder buttons, we could do a lot of shifting on our controllers.
The analog sticks of the controllers are frequently looked down on, but there's generally two of them, compared to a single mouse (with a possible wheel on top). Which is better, a single REALLY good analog control, or two lesser controls that while not giving you as much control of one thing, allows you more analog control of two things at once? Also, some console have taking analog to extremes, aren't most or all of the playstation buttons analog? Most shoulder buttons in recent consoles have been. There's also the push-down on the analog stick features.
The keyboard is a liability in some ways. While you may have no problem memorizing what each and every one of the 23/26 letter keys used in game X do, plus a handful of other keys and what the mouse buttons do, to many gamers that moves the game from "fun" to "work". Part of being a good game is immersion, which means getting you involved quickly. A steep learning curve is a bad thing in this regard. Also, for those not well versed with the computer, who don't know by default where the "Z" key is, a PC game will be an exercise in frustration when hunt and pecking just doesn't cut it. Picking up FPS level mouse control is even worse. Normal point and clicking skill is nowhere near good enough.
In some ways, the keyboard and mouse just aren't appropriate for consoles. A PC game maker can reasonably expect that the PC owner has both a mouse and a keyboard. The console game maker can reasonably assume that the console owner has... a STANDARD controller. Even for systems that can accept a keyboard and mouse... where will it go on a console? While the 360 has USB jacks, is the user on a couch? Floor? Standing? At a convenient desk like a PC user will probably be?
While the gamepad limits power compared to the keyboard (it can only have as many buttons as the fingers can reach while NOT moving the bulk of the hands relative to the controller) this makes gaming easier in that YOU don't have to stay rooted. A console gamer can move over on the couch to make way for someone else to sit, play with their hands behind their backs when the cat hops in their lap and proceeds to repeatedly head-butt arms and hands.
Mice are released for console after console (SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS1 among others) but never really used, even for games that could have made good use of them. Outside of a desk, a mouse is generally not a good controller.
All that said, the best controls I've used seem to be in Final Fantasy 11 on the PC and 360. (More on the PC) With both I used a mixture of a gamepad and keyboard. FF11 made good use of shortcuts and typing on the keyboard, while still allowing you to do pretty much EVERYTHING except talk from the gamepad. (Which at least on the 360 you an THEORETICALLY do from the gamepad, but I wouldn't recommend it)
If you consider the gamepad as a reworked mouse on steroids, using it with a keyboard, you can get a lot of use from the combo. The only time playing a console that I've ever wanted a mouse was a handful of ported over point and click games. (Blazing Dragons, Shadowgate etc) A mouse's greater range of movement allows you to handle the cursor more easily than a slow cursor connected to a single stick (fighting fallig asleep as it trudges across the screen) or a fast cursor (that zips past where you want). This could be fixed by having one stick control movement direction and another movement speed, or having a "fast" b
This could work, so long as it was designed to wait until you logged off the game, or were between rounds. Most likely, the siren call of advertising cash will have these popping up randomly. Even if this wasn't a "full-interruptable" moment, a sudden banner might zip across the bottom of your screen (and a needed radar display).
In the meantime... PC gaming dies, if this goes on the 360, the PS3 and Wii benefit greatly.
This isn't the 1st time, Windows Messenger based pop-ups anyone? This just goes further and allows it to be more annoying.
There's plenty of generic studies out to show that more advertising = better sales (no doublt largely paid for by people in a position to sell advertising) but I'd love to see some studies on what KIND of ads get the best response. I'd expect that funny ads tend to get a better response than annoying ads, and ads randomly popping up on your own pc, unwanted could be a major problem pr-wise for the 1st few companies to buy ads wholesale.
As to how dumb MS users are, consider the large number that happily buy the latest version of Windws, whether their PC is really powerful enough to run it well or not.
Also, this may not be a matter of choice, if this is added in with a later update to previous OSes. Also consider that whether a user CAN migrate to *nix or not, they probably THINK they can't. Most users have the idea that only Windows and MAYBE Macs are easy enough to use if you're not an uber-geek.
> The issue however is that many people are charged with DUI when they are NOT drunks and are trying to be responsible.
I have to wonder if anyone's tried marketing a breathalizer for the home market. What do these really cost to produce (or would they cost to produce if mass produced) if there was a market for people who really wanted to comply. I'll agree that if you want to rely on the machines you have a responsibility to make sure they're accurate, but I hardly trust people to know when they are / aren't drunks just on their gut feeling. To me, nothing short of waiting several hours or arranging a pickup counts as responsible.
> The issue however is I'm sorry, I did wander off from your point. I've seen enough people who think they have a right to drive no matter how much they've had, and my response was against the train of thought that since you don't specifically MEAN to kill or endanger someone by driving drunk, it's not REALLY bad and the cops are just being bullies. I've heard too many complaints from legitimately caught drunks trying to put the blame on the evil police instead of their own lack of planning ahead or willingness to do the right thing. Disclaimer aside, I stand by what I wrote, and given that there seems to be a major issue with people figuring out for themselves whether they're sufficiently imparied to need to stay off the road, I have no problem with a system that errs on the side of "make em wait a few hours to drive, till they've had a chance to actually sober a bit".
> Yes - there are drunks and some of them are really bad. I personally know one in fact. This guy was wreaking 6 cars per year and sometimes more....
But DUI laws don't stop people like this. Furthermore there are other laws which can be used including dangerous driving.
My thoughts on this are that if you're THIS out of control and REPEAT the mistake, your car should be impounded. The anti-drunk driving laws are there to keep the other drivers safe. If saying NO sternly doesn't work, move up from there. Permanently bar him from driving if needed, with longer and longer jail times if he's caught without a license. By now the person you mentioned certainly knows better. His refusal to obey the law doesn't make the law invalid, but makes him a criminal.
> The issue I addressed is the idea that an arbitrary Blood Alcohol number automatically determines if a person can handle a vehical. Next - there is no agreement on what that number should be. Some jurisdictions are at 0.05, others 0.08 and still others are at 0.10.
This is a good thing. The fact that a number can't be decided on means that different areas are TRYING to come to a correct number with different means, putting some thought into it (even if it means 2 of those 3 are possibly too high/low). The point of saying over.08 isn't to stop YOU when YOU can no longer handle it..08 means that the chooser of the number thinks that the actual point at which MOST people in the area can't handle it is.6 or.7 and they're going to pull you over at.8 since they believe MOST are over their heads at that point. You can't selectively enforce, or you have favoritism / discrimination. Likewise, if the speed limit is 55, the highway engineer figured most people do 10 over, this roads safe speed is 65 - 70, 55 will keep most of them safe. If I raise it to what IS safe, people will push that and we'll REALLY have problems.
> Then some correctly point out that while some people can handle a car at 120 others have trouble at 45. Yes - my point exactly. Perhaps the person who cannot handle a vehical at 45 should not have a license.
I agree, but how about the person good at 45 but not 55? The only good to 55 person? The only good to 65 person? While you should have to be competent with a car before being allowed to drive, the fa
Releasing the same software repeatedly is arrogant? To me it makes good sense. No one is saying let's release another Zelda, those nuts are sure to buy it! People are looking at sales figures and mail (snail and e) and seeing that there's a lot of demand for more of the same.
Whether you're tired of Mario Kart or not, for the person who eats, sleeps and breathes it, why bother getting a Wii before the next version is released? Stick with the GameCube in the meantime. Think it's absurd that someone would be so addicted to Mario Kart? Look at Halo. Halo can single-handedly sell X-Boxes. Nintendo has several franchises with similar power. MS would be a fool to stop releasing Halo, and Nintendo to stop releasing Mario, Metroid or Zelda.
Even if you never want to see another Mario, Metroid or Zelda again, keep in mind that these games fill Nintendo's pockets, giving them the money to take risks on Pikmin, the Wii, the DS or Animal Crossing. Whatever helps keep a desired developer afloat is good.
If anything, the one system without a Zelda, a Metroid, Super Mario or Mario Kart that Nintendo released a while back, the Virtual Boy was a HUGE disappointment. While there was logic behind not bothering to make such a title for a system that failed as quickly and horribly as the Virtual Boy did, at least one of those franchises should have been on the shelves on day one. Mario Clash just didn't cut it.
The franchises listed are a good bit of why the faithful ran out to buy the Wii to begin with. The new Zelda REALLY pushed the Wii's sales. While there's a segment who wants radical new ideas, there's another that wants more of the same. Consider the size of the Mega Man series. (Or serieses) Many people look at game instances as episodes of a beloved TV show more than as a movie, where too much is quickly old.
If we really want radical new games, we need to let people know what sort of games those might be. Did you try Katamari Damacy? (Already a series) Chu Chu Rocket? Luigi's Mansion? Look up and try the quirk games. Is there perhaps a well known website read by indie game developers where those who have ideas but not the skills or time to do something with them can post said ideas, so that someone else can run with them?
The big titles haven't completely stayed put. Super Mario 1, Lost Levels, 3, World, Land and Land 2, the "Super Mario" series died for a while. Paper Mario continued in the footsteps of Mario RPG (which left big boots the later Mario RPGs have had to struggle to fill). Many people were disappointed about having Mario 64 and Sunshine instead of Super Marios, tossing out loved mechanics. On the other hand, 64 was needed. 64 was more of an exploration game than any of the Super Mario games were. At 1st, just controlling 3d was hard enough, imagine trying to hit enemies the same size as your character with tiny fireballs. Sunshine was more of 64. With the awesome (at the time) graphics, being able to explore such a world in 3d was in itself just about game-worthy. Remember Zelda 2? Remember how different Zelda felt when it moved to 3d? Remember how much different Metroid felt as an FPS? Smash Brothers is a fairly new series. If you want mindless rehashes, look at Atari. (Although even Atari had some surprises)
> If they are common carriers, then they are supposed to be indifferent to WHAT they are carrying, like the mail or the phones. If an extortion threat is transmitted by mail, you can't sue the post office. Not just because it's acting as an agent of the govt, but because it's a common carrier. (UPS is just as protected.) They aren't supposed to know or care what they're carrying. If they did, and demonstrated the capability of filtering it by filtering some of it, then they would lose their common carrier status, and become liable as accessories to extortion, e.g.
Seen the poster at the post office of all the things you're not allowed to pack in? They care, whether they check or not. If certain things are showing (clear package) I'm sure they'll refuse certain packages. I also though UPS required the package to be open when you brought it in, for inspection purposes. A ticking alarm clock, or a package with white powder on the outside will probably be detained and searched. (If not by UPS / USPS then by the police, who will be called.)
Another thought, with how communication companies are helping the current administration spy on us, does that hurt their common carrier status?
> While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion. At 0.08% many people are not intoxicated at all. Others are intoxicated at 0.02%. And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
And if these people knew who they were, this would be simpler. The problem is that many people can't tell when they're too out of it, or don't care. No matter where the limit is (.08,.02,.20) you'll have people split, some complaining it's too high, others that it's too low.
The fact is, alcohol DOES have an effect. While this effect may not be easily predictable (depending on body mass, personal tolerance, time elapsed since the last drink etc) we know that in general, more alcohol in your system makes you a worse driver than you'd be with less. If someone can't stand without help or speak clearly, any reasonable person should note they're too out of it to drive, but the drinker doesn't. The limit MAY be too low, but what's it for? It's a scare tactic to get you to err on the side of caution.
The same can be said of the speed limit. Perhaps you can safely operate your car at 120mph. There's too many people locally who can't handle 45. We can't raise the posted limit to 120 or EVERYONE will try to drive that speed whether they're capable or not.
Not drinking and driving isn't that hard.
1: Call a taxi. If they take too long, call ahead.
2: Do you HAVE to drink?
3: Is it THAT hard to carry along ONE person in your car, who won't drink? Buy them a few cokes.
4: Call a friend to pick you up at that time, or a little in advance, as with the taxi.
5. Go to a bar close enough to walk home from.
6. Sleep in your car. (Conditions permitting)
7. Wait around for a bit, and give yourself a chance to sober up before driving home. Any business open ~ 2am locally is PACKED by people doing just this every Friday and Saturday.
If this is REALLY an actual problem, a solution will pop up. More taxi drivers, cheap hotels starting a bus service for a half night's stay and to-from taxi fare with whatever available rooms they have that night. Cheapo hotels (maybe like Japan's capsule hotels) near, or IN the bars, with the bar swapping to a hotel at 2ish.
Personally, I don't see some drunk's lack of self control as a legitimate problem in need of a solution as a criminal act. You can't say you're "not aware" of the potential consequences. We've all had it drummed into our heads from childhood how so many people get run down by drunks per year. Sure, when you're drunk you don't think it over, "Hmm, do I want to risk killing a few people in an accident or not tonight?" probably isn't the foremost thought in your mind. That said, it's also not ok to drop objects off tall buildings or bridges, no matter how funny you think it is. (Ignoring whether a penny's terminal velocity is high enough to hurt/kill you, assuming it's no more than a light poke, you can't just go poking random people for the heck of it.)
> While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion.
I'm not sure. While the statistics may be off (and themselves out of proportion), the amount of harping on it is justified given the ease with which these accidents can be avoided, and the equal lack of proportion behind that "naaah, that's other people, I'M not that out of control" croud's determination to keep doing whatever they feel like, sometimes even after killing someone.
> And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
Agreed. I've seen people who can't read the eye charts waved through. Of course, the licens
1. The same as the national ID, which it would quickly become.
2. Locating someone lost. (Your kid in a mall, see what store they last walked into from the help desk)
3. Convenience. Be scanned just from standing close enough to the counter.
Cons:
1. The same as the national ID, the more that works based on this ID, the more a thief can take from you after copying it
2. Being located unwillingly. Divorcing a lost-their-mind abusive spouse who if they find you will likely kill you (if not seriously hurt you?) Better hope he doesn't have means to read the network, tracking what door in the city you last walked through. Chased by criminals? No chance of escaping them now if they have some sort of long range scanner that can track the position of your key, even if it can't completely read it) Criminals will see cops coming before the police can get anywhere near.
3. Convenience (of criminals)
If this can be easily read by stores, it can be easily read by criminals. Even if the criminal can't trigger your RFID to spit it's info, they just need to be nearby when it does. Being buried under the skin does NOT prevent the IMPORTANT part from being stolen, the ID the RFID spits out when asked to identify you. Your info will be duped without you knowing it. What's more, when your ID is stolen, you'll need more surgery to remove the tag, to replace it with another, that will be copied every bit as easily.
4. Unreasonable search (and seizure, but seizure doesn't matter here)
If this is made common enough, the government will require companies to share info. (Citizen 42 just passed the door 1 of McDonalds 43,543.) Just the idea of this should be horrifying enough, but the logical follow-up, the all-us-database-of-citizens-comings-and-goings will be populated with this info. This will be admitted as valid in any court case (but will, being fed from stores, NOT be reliable, allowing inside jobs by people with the power to tweak records to be easily blamed on customers).
5. Unneeded surgery.
Any unneeded surgery is a stupid idea. Possible infection, possible rejection reaction (or allergic). The surgery to remove a tag (when you swap jobs and the next employer wants ONLY their tag in you), when the company claims the tag is THEIRS and takes it out when you leave, suing you if you don't relenquish it willingly (through further unwanted surgery). Aren't doctors supposed to be forbidden from unneeded surgery? (Hippocratic Oath) You never know where something will go wrong. A friend lost his dog to an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. It's apparently rare, but happens. Who assumes liability? The company? The doc? The would-be employee?
6. Further unfair bargaining power in the hands of the employer
If the employer controls / owns the implant, can demand a recall at any time and is willing to use the threat of painful surgery to get their way with their employees, the employess may become far more pliable to mandatory unpaid overtime.
7. What does this thing DO?
If people learn to accept something that they're told just spits out a number for the company's scanner, accept it under their skin and don't ask questions, what's next? Listening / recording tags. Your every sound will be recorded to be used against you. They KNOW you're looking for another job... your disloyalty will be punished. Imagine when some nut orders the RFIDs with the "painful electric shock" add-on. Yes, this goes beyond what an RFID is, but once we're used to putting things into ourselves, we'll sign to have anything put in.
What does this do better than a security guard?
It's cheaper. It can't be bribed. (The security guard won't be as easily fooled as the RFID though.) If your company is considering this, consider the number of guards they currently have. That's an OK level of security, or they'ed have more. Consider the combined salaries of thouse guards. Let's say 30k and there's 3 of them. If your
There's a fundamental difference between asking for a SSN and an RFID. The SSN is provided voluntarily, and only to the people the holder deems are trust-worthy enough to hold that information. The RFID is provided to anyone and everyone who walks closely enough to you.
If stores put RFID readers next to their doors, having 2 doors (an entry hall with the readers spaced so they can reliably tell customer 7 walked in, 2 out and 5 is walking back and forth around door 1 and not going in (past door 2) they get this information, whether you care for the idea or not.
If it becomes in some way useful to impersonate you with this, there will overnight be tools available on the black market to
a: read the tags of those close to you
b: an implantable (or glue on) tag for you that you can change the contents of
c: a tool that remotely reprograms your tag so you can quickly change who you impersonate, or reset your tag to avoid detection if someone checks your tag against filed info about the tag-holder
There's 3 big problems with this tag:
1: If you can require this, what CAN'T you require? This is a slippery slope that can lead to very bad things some year down the road when we learn enough about how the brain works to put in "morality chips" to enforce good behavior, that soon after turn out to be "turn into willing slave" chips when there's a large enough installed base that the holdouts are sufficiently outnumbered.
2: This is technically surgery. There's no medical benefit, there could be a rejection reaction, and this could allow an infection to start. This is risk without a valid medical reason. (Then again, many people stupidly get disease from shared tattoo needles, so maybe much of the US doesn't care)
3: This DOESN'T work, since it could be so easily bypassed.
I mention XP because I jumped directly from 98 to XP. The official upgrade paths were NT4 -> 2000 -> XP and 98 -> ME -> XP. While you could run 2000 at home, it was (iirc) marketed as a business OS. For home uaera, XP was the 1st NT-based Windows they were SUPPOSED to have, and it was a nice improvement over 98. (And from what a friend who tried ME told me, MUCH MUCH better than ME.)
I used 2000 and work and didn't have too many problems with it, but I didn't have that many problems with NT4. (I had more problems with NT4 than with 2000 or XP, but not nearly as much as with 3.1, 95 or 98.)
>> It's believed that Silverlight is an attempt to make a Flash that only works on MS and Apple machines, cutting out Linux users.
> Now, where did that come from? Microsoft is actively working with Mono to ensure that other platforms are supported.
It came from cynicism. If this works out, and works great cross-platform, giving everyone a free-to-program-for Flash substitute, awesome. I just don't see MS doing this without trying to slip SOMETHING in to keep it from working right.
Given why Flash is a threat (in 2-3 versions it could become a Java that can't be corrupted, since MS can't make their own VM), why would it be in the best interest of MS to have TWO ways Windows could be made moot instead of one? If there were a royalty / licensing scheme where every Silverlight movie required a payment to MS, this would make some sense, but it looks like MS shooting themselves in the foot. I don't think they're looking to do so deliberately JUST for the sake of crushing Flash. Perhaps I'm wrong and someone at Adobe REALLY pushed some buttons at MS.
Perhaps the schems is that version 1 will be awesome, and MS will help everyone out, but version 2 will be a must have that's only on Windows, until Mono and Apple can copy it on their own WITHOUT help, at which point version 3 with another must have is released. Maybe this is all on the up and up, and MS has resigned themselves to Windows becoming moot, or they no longer consider write-once-run-anywhere a credible threat.
When I first looked at Libertarianism, I was considering what conservative and liberal meant. I noticed we didn't really have a "conservative" and a "liberal" party. We had a "financially conservative and socially liberal" party (Republicans) and a "financially liberal and socially conservative" party (Democrats). To clarify the last sentence, conservative means the government says / does as little as possible about something, and liberal means they put their hands all over it. Republicans want to not touch the free market (conservative ethic) and dictate morality (telling you what it should be is liberal, although they'll claim their way is the one true way, the conservative way, and you're evil or at least horribly misguided if you disagree). The Democratic party theoretically isn't so much the party of hippies, as the party that says, we promise not to hold being a hippie against you.
My views were that the government should keep their hands out as much as possible both economically and socially. (2x Conservative) The Libertarian party seemed to stand for that. I'm not sure if I'm more Libertarian or more Constitutionalist, but the 1st president I really remember was Reagan. I haven't yet heard of a president everyone can be reasonably proud of, or a congress that everyone could agree was mostly on the up and up.
The question should be less, why are nerds more likely to be libertarians, and more why are nerds less likely to be republicans / democrats. Nerds are (or were) a people used to living with a stigma, that of not being "in". It would have been a social stigma to be neither a republican or democrat, so most people wouldn't consider a 3rd party. Nerds, already out of it, have nothing socially to lose by saying they're fed up with and won't support either major party.
Are nerds wrong about this? If both parties are incurably corrupt, how should we vote?
a: Only a R / D vote matters, so vote for the current seemingly less corrupt party (the reason I believe Republicans, at least locally are taking a hit, NOT because people are becoming more liberal)
b: Only a R / D vote matters, but choose the one closer to your ideology on principle, hoping that they'll suddenly get a conscience and do what you elected them to
c: Vote for a 3rd party, seemingly free of corruption (if only because they aren't yet worth buying out) if only as a protest of neither Rs or Ds being worth following?
Nerds are happy to think outside of the box, non-nerds consider out-of-the-box bad. Conservative can either mean "closer to the founding principles of the country" or "hands off" which for America are a decent match. I think most nerds who love this country will tend to be true (2x) conservatives, and look for a party that matches this view. I think the Libertarian party is more in line with American ideals than either the R or D parties.
Given that both R and D parties have CLEAR records of blatant corruption, I have to wonder how much anyone who would vote for them really cares about the country. To vote for them seemingly means that they can't be bothered to take the time to look at the issues, or else they'ed have been horrified away from the R and D parties permenantly too. If I was to walk up to someone and tell them "Hey, buddy, did you know there are two secret societies trying to take over the country, who want to take all power away from the people who make this country what it is, and ruin it for their own financial gain", if they didn't take me as a conspiracy theorist, they'ed be horrified. The only difference between the 2 main parties and these mythical societies is that the parties operate openly, though still without accountability.
Oddly, you'd think accountability would be the strong point of the R party, as the avowed conservative party, given they claim moral virtue as a stand of their party, sadly this is all talk.
From a nerd perspective, the R and D parties will NEVER clean themselves up, because they don't have to. They can cont
> Rather than you know, cooporate with Microsoft to help diagnose the problem, they're essentially saying to their users "We think you're a bunch of losers (LUSERS HAHA!!1!), so ya'll use the OS we want and tell you to use!
Well, what should they do? Tell MS: "Lookup the following RFCs.... Follow them, as you did in 3.1 - XP."?
> Because, after all, bugs never, ever happen on any software ever, Bugs will always happen, but Vista was in development for HOW long? Delayed HOW long for bug fixes? Let's not forget that the net not working is NOT a minor issue these days. The onus was on MS to make sure that any changes to how their talking with the net worked didn't break the system.
> and developers psychically know what exactly a bug does without any reporting by end-users whatsoever.
It would be helpful for Lundi to supply some logs on this, but given that this was working, and MS broke it between XP and Vista, MS should be able to look at what they changed to see where the problem crept in.
> Now if they have a policy of "NOT Windows Vista compatible right now" clearly stated to their users, then that's understandable.
This would be a good option, send a letter to users telling them WHY they can't connect with Vista, but their friends who still have XP can.
> But eventually, most folks will move to Vista (like it or not), so this bug needs to be squashed on whomever's end.
I can see, if this is definately MS's problem, Lundi saying "There's no way in heck we're breaking our standards compliance, or worse, buying new OSs and all the required licenses (MS server licensing is insane) to have guaranteed workability." It would be NO small expense for Lundi to swap to using MS servers. I can see Lundi thinking that given only Vista has this error, and Vista still talks to MS servers, that this is a move to force ISPs to have to swap to MS servers, paying them huge sums in the process.
> I'll end my rant with this: how in the hell is Lundis Energi so sure it's not a bug on their software?
Probably because 3.1 - XP worked. Even if there IS an error in their software, it's suspicious that EVERYTHING ELSE BUT Vista works. It may be that Lundi's implementation is incomplete, and Vista does things allowed by the specs, but which aren't commonly done, but that isn't going to be the 1st assumption.
> (sarcasm) Oh right, it's Microsoft, so it MUST be them. (/sarcasm) Well, MS isn't known for reliability. XP made HUGE gains in this department, but a whole generation or two are GOING to be biased by what they saw with Win 3.1 and Win 95.
This is considered funny because of the past behavior of MS, and what people presume the problem to be.
In the past, MS fearing things like Java (and rightfully so, Java done right could eliminate the need for Windows) made their own versionsof the Java Virtual Machine, broken n various ways to kill compatibility. MS is known for having run with and mucked up the Kerberos standard, so their implementation doesn't play well with competitors. It's believed that Silverlight is an attempt to make a Flash that only works on MS and Apple machines, cutting out Linux users.
In view of how MS has a reputation for breaking standards for their own gain (lookup "embrace and extend" for details) many people, at least semi-reasonably jump to the conclusion that MS is deliberately trying to break Internet standards. What if Lundi would apply a patch to their Linux server that made it play the MS way instead of the official standard way? At that point, MS would be emboldened to do it again, and again. Soon, with all the frequent ways the net was being trivially "broken" (when in actuallity only the MS software wasn't playing right) companies would move to MS servers that never seemed to have the problems. Viewed cynically, this is a ploy to cut out non-MS servers from the net, by harrassing the operators of said non-MS servers through users that MS deliberately made discontent.
There's 2 sides though:
1: MS is up to old tricks (which isn't flat MS bashing, MS does have a reputation for illicit practices)
2: MS made a legitimate mistake, and this is just a bug. It wouldn't be the first time, and all programmers make mistakes. That said, that it still just so happens to work with MS servers but not Linux servers seems to point away from this option, but I can't say for sure, as light on the details as this story is.
In short, people are laughing because they believe #1 is true, and MS is getting a taste of being told where to go instead of being blanketly obeyed.
That said, it is NOT funny for the end users. The end users don't pay much attention to the deeds / misdeeds of major companies. The end users don't care about standards. All the end users care about is whether it works. As much as Vista costs, they shouldn't have to deal with this sort of problem.
If Lundi is following the standard and MS isn't, it really shouldn't be Lundi's problem. MS knows how to talk to the net, they have from 3.1 to XP. Lundi has every reason to expect that MS will continue to get right what they've gotten right so far.
I have no problem with games being difficult, but there's a few ways in which they shouldn't be...
1. Disproportionate final boss. The last boss should be the hardest, but should only be so much harder than a normal boss. Link's Awakening on the GB pushed the limits with the seemingly endless forms of the final boss. Mega Man games can be bad in this regard when the final Wily battle dwarfs any previous battle in the last 15 - 16 levels difficulty-wise. Mega Man Battle Network games are really bad about this. Shadow of the Ninja: the main game FLEW by, then the last boss was insane. Legend of the Unemployed Ninja is similar, until the second to last dungeon there is NO difficulty to speak of. The 2nd to last dungeon is a small chore, then suddenly the last dungeon requires mastery to get halfway through.
2. Inappropriate mini-games. If you buy a game about, there shouldn't be a mandatory mini-game you can't proceed without beating, whose play style bears no resemblance to the main part of the game. Mega Man 8's "jump jump slide slide" sections, in a game where you can normally move at your own pace come to mind. Everyone knows what a Mega Man game is supposed to be, why should you have to waste your time on a snowboard simulator to beat it? All mini-games should be bypassable. Perhaps the bypass should be tough as nails, but it should use the main game engine. I resent hearts being gotten in Zelda through horse-based mini-games, but at least you don't need all the hearts to win.
3. Bad restarts. If you continue in Metroid with full energy tanks, you shouldn't need to refill them from 30 health. There's no challenge in this, it's just tedious. Later games fix this. Legend of the Unemployed Ninja: you can't work from a single save, over and over. If yo die, everything you used in the last attempt is GONE. You'll have to spend more time to build it back up again. The re-building isn't hard, but is needless unwelcome tedium.
4. Bad controls. Resident Evil. Some people may like the controls, but to most games, they were a pain in the butt, and too slow to bother with. One of the main reasons people hated Deadly Towers? Way too slow. RE2 on the 64 gave me the same move-in-the-direction-you-push controls I've used for years and was one of my favorite 64 games. I won't touch RE1. The people behind Contra could have made a level with the left and up buttons swapped (but right and down normal) which would have been much harder... but for no good reason. The CD-I Zeldas requuired strange things like ducking and jumping at the same time to hit the menu, since there weren't enough buttons.
5. Bad game genres.
If you like a series, you want to beat all the games in it. As such, all games in a franchise should be the same genra. Mega Man Soccer just doesn't fit. Mega Man Network Transmission doesn't fit the rest of the Battle Network games. Battlechip Challenge is more of an annoying nuisance than another game in the continuity. Did we really need Bomberman Fantasy Race? (Not that I'm blasting it, I haven't played it, but it's NOT what most Bomberman fans were lusting after.) There are exceptions, Mario is succesful in several genres, but arguably, Mario games aren't really a franchise anymore. These days "Mario games" is an umbrealla term for several franchises: Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario RPGs. Panzer Dragoon Saga. Why an RPG suddenly?
6. Bad quality The Game.Com Sonic game could move fast, but Sonic accelerated poorly. Very poorly. The CD-I Zeldas had cut-scenes that would gag a maggot.
7. Poor speed This is a mixture of bad quality and controls, but important enough to mention again. Long unskippable cut-scenes and too long intros with no action (IIRC I think "The Hobbit" did well by starting you with a bit of action in a dream sequence, THEN going into fetch quests for the next hour) make people not want to bother with a game. How many times do you WANT to replay FF3/6's last fight with the 30 minute cutscene?
Fully agreed, and how can the police "pull over" someone in mid-air. Also, staying just right behind someone to read their license plate could be difficult.
Just looking around while driving I see people can't handle 2d, simple signs like "do not block through lane", "no passing zone" etc are completely ignored. Most drivers are going to do whatever they feel like doing and will completely ignore whatever regulations tere are. You may think accidents are unlikely with the ability to move in 3d, but you can bet people will try their own airshow formation routines, trying to look cool, crashing into each other because they don't have the control to stay in formation (or do, but only until the wind changes). Until we have a society that mostly follows tracffic rules, don't expect to see us turned loose in the air.
As far as running out of fuel, we could have something that limited engine power when the tank got too close to empty, forcing a descent. It would probably be hacked / replaced like the chis that limit speeds in cars, but it would be something.
Drunks again, I don't want to see any drunks flying these... or kids stealing their parent's for a joyride w/o having been properly trained yet. Watch high school mortality rates skyrocket.
Then again, maybe this will all be moot, perhaps we can make this available for all, but require a driver's insurance on these that puts them out of range for all but the most dedicated, so that the common person can't afford it, with rates that triple or quadruple for any minor problem. Flying without a license would get the vehicle impounded and a mandatory jaik sentence.
You have to REALLY trust your citizens to allow this. Looking at the articles on all the spying on our own citizens we've done recently (and unconstitutionally), we know that at least the current government does not have that trust. They'ed probably take away cars and force us onto mass-transit if not that a: Too many people from government have a vested interest in the current transportation system b: This would cause a country-wide revolt, if not against the current government, then at least against the current 2 parties
Some (all?) states have a point system for licenses. Lose all your points and lose your license. It's too bad you can't have a vote off the road system built into cars for when someone drives recklessly. Pull over, key in their plate and demerit them. If one person gets too many demerits within X time, they lose a point. I see this being more used against people with the wrong bumper stickers or with darwinfish though. I also see people NOT pulling over to do so, causing wrecks of their own by typing while driving.
If you REALLY wanted this though, the answer would be: YOU don't get to fly it. Either
a: You get a computer system that handles this, with absurd redundancy, planning flights and handling all details, refusing to allow takeoff if all checks don't work out.
b: Professional pilots fly your car for you. Given they may not want to ho into every Tom, Dick and Harry's questionalbly maintained craft, perhaps air taxies or a true airbus would be the way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
Norwich woman Clare Hughes is spearheading the eastern arm of a new national campaign to put a stop to children's books that don't have a happy ending.
|
"Books should give them a sense of good triumphing over evil and let them be rest assured that the goodies will come out on top."
|
"It's about encouraging children to read books with positive values. Look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there are some unpleasant characters, but Charlie wins out in the end. That's the type of book we support."
It seems to me the logical result of showing kids nothing but "good always wins" is that they would expect it to happen automatically. It seems forcing kids to read a range of books with a range of positivity of endings would be better, so the kids will learn that good doesn't alway win, that they can't sit back and wait for matters to resolve themselves, a hero will always show up to right the wrong.
From the look of the world today, it seems we've already read far too many happy endings. That said, the primary purpose of most fiction is entertainment, not teaching, and happy endings are more entertaining, but consider that one of the selling points of short-stories (and anime) is that you don't always have happy endings (or when endings are happy, they're not glowingly happy, main characters die etc) giving the reader suspense. If everything is a happy ending, with no tension, what's the purpose in reading good vs evil stories? Comedy may still be worthwhile, as well as most anything from a particularly talented author (some authors have such a great writing style that they can make anything fun to read) but much dramatic fiction would be a shadow if there was no sting to it.
Even Disney stands behind a bit of pain.
Children should be subjected to enough range of endings that they realize that to win, good must not only take a stand, but work hard. At an appropriate age, children should be exposed to books showing how evil operates, but corrupting what is good for its own purposes. The Three Muskateers perhaps, showing how an office of the Church, normally to be trusted is not above taint?
Also important would be a few books that show major conflicts, and why they happen, focusing on the grunts of both sides, doing what they must to "defend themselves from the evil invaders", "wipe out the neighboring trash/infidel" and those at the top waging the war for their own gain, perfectly happy to toss away the lives of their citizens for personal gain. (Gundam perhaps) It's important to realize other nations aren't whole countries full of people with the attitude of the martians in "Mars Attacks" wringing their hands looking to cause trouble. All too often we want to belive that other nations are bad or horrible, but no whole nation on its own devotes itself to an invasion without a serious push, generally of propaganda.
To show nothing but happy endings will produce kids who will be unable to handle the real world. Sure "the perfect consumer" is a great thing now, while we *mostly* have enough jobs to go around, but as more and more jobs are outsourced and living conditions continue to worsen (and adherence to the constitution, suffering greatly of late) we'll realize, probably too late that the "always-feel-good" mantra is a chant to keep us in a happy-not-thinking state, and that we should question the motives of those who tell us in effect "don't worry about it, and no need to read the fine print".
From http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and ***(5) free and open source.***
Someone else can run with option 5, to make an equivalent, for adults laptop. Depending on performance, we may finally see a machine mass-produced, showing acceptable speed and avertising that it's doing so despite "under-powered" hardware.
If this was mass-produced, people would finally have reason to question: why do I need this super-great/expensive machine for the latest OS? Sure we have plenty of tiny OSes out there, Puppy Linux, D*** Small Linux and various others from scratch. The problem is the same that kept Linux from the spotlight... it's not pre-installed on PCs sitting on store shelves.
(Sure the above efficiency question is asked frequently from one version of Windows to the next, but default installs of Linux flavors trying to be mainstream-ready are a bit slow on older hardware as well.)
I can't wait to see the results on the marketplace...
Linux wasn't around until the 386, and hasn't really been pushed (directly at home users) by anyone who already had a major following.
Windows follows DOS, which was THE way to run PCs. People were already buying (or stealing) MS products, why would they change to a new system? Sure, some things don't run on Vista, more run on it automatically than run on SUSE. (Assuming an ordinary user who can't handle emulation and who probably doesn't want to deal with dual-boot. That takes time and isn't seamless. I haven't looked into VMWare / WINE personally, and doubt most people where I work have ever heard of them.) Without something earth-shattering like a much larger price increase (cheapest version $500-$1000) or Windows no longer being "officially" made for PCs, it's not going away anytime soon.
Apple... from traditonal MacOS to MaxOSX and... the change is raved about... but BSD has been available for years... for free!
The product isn't as important to the end-user as 2 considerations:
1: Who am I getting it from
2: Can I use the same software WITHOUT HASSLES?
If the next Windows IS a shell over Linux, the world will largely move to Linux (and gripe about everything broken in the new MS OS, some of which MS broke and some of which is just different than before, but working.)
If the next version of Windows doesn't run Office, that will do more to hurt it than everything wrong with ME and XP put together.
Linux users may say StarOffice, OpenOffice, HolyCheeseItsAnotherOffice are better. They might be right, and everything might work perfectly, but if it looks too different most consumers will say, I can use the old I know, or the new I have to learn, I'm sticking with the old. No matter how simple something is, if it involves a computer a larger # of people won't even consider trying to wrap their heads around it.
The computer is like the geek in your office you have to put up with because you need what it/he does, but since you don't really understand it, the less you interact with it/him, the better. The same is true with people and cars. (Although cars are easier to understand, at least in terms of having a universally well understood interface, steering wheel, turn signal on the left of wheel, horn on front, gear shift moves between 2-3 places, a/c & radio on right)
The PC is hurt by 2 things.
1:Association with the unknowable, or the too-much-effort-to-be-worth-learning
2:A changing interface, Win 3.1 -> Win95 -> WinXP -> Vista = BAD!
Even assuming each of these was a step up, to the barely able to use their computer people, different is still bad, because they didn't know WHAT they were doing to send an e-mail, they only understood a sequence of steps. Click start, programs, outlook. When personalized menus came along and hid outlook one day, the computer was BROKEN! Never mind that they only needed to play with the menu to make it re-appear, it WASN'T WHERE IT BELONGED!
The smartest thing MS did was adding the ability to turn off "features" like personalized menus, hiding accelerator keys (underlined letters that now only appear when you press alt), hiding extensions (leaving them unable to tell apart the 3 files that have the same name now) etc.
The dumbest would be starting the new OS with the new look, instead of with the old, or with a prompt at boot-up of which they want to use. Naturally, MS doesn't want to be held back UI-wise forever (and be laughed at for it), or having to maintain a huge # of UIs, but at some point MS needs to decide, what do we want as our UI for the next 10-20 years barring an interface revolution? (ie Wiimote vs standard gamepad, NES pad vs 2600 stick) Linux, representing choice, is inherently bad. If Windows and MacOS are Coke and Pepsi, Linux is coffee. Good, essentially the same (drink) but more different than the soda-holic is comfortable with. (It's HOT!)
Linux is good (or no one would bother with it).
Windows is established (and good enough to stay that way
Given mod chips, like VCRs have acceptable uses (playing import games, home-made games, backups (1 each max I think) of your games should the original break) it's fairly evident to a lot of us that calling a mod chip inherently bad and illegal is rather self-serving. What if Sony ever did go ahead with the burn-the-serial-of-the-console-into-the-disc plan, preventing legitimate resale of the games? I'd love to see them sue GameStop for hiring someone to create a workaround and selling them in every store.
Given the characterization of mod chip owners as pirates, can mod chip owners make a class action lawsuit against those mischaracterizing us over slander or libel? It's too bad the legal system is so expensive, it'd be nice to grab written testimony from a few hundred or thousand mod-chip owners listing what they've legitimately used the chips for, suing for... a public apology and admission that they lied to the public and lawmakers for personal gain.
> Gangsters provide no benefit to store owners, who do not willingly enter into business with them.
Over having no gangsters in the area, no, but paying them protection money as they demand it ensures that nothing "happens" to your business. I'll agree that noone wants to deal with them, but the point of what I'm saying above is that when such an offer is made, it may not look like you have much choice. In the case of protection money the choice is pay up or give up on your business. In the music world it's pay up or have no (serious) chance at a career. While some bands can get by without the major labels, the perception is that there is no choice.
> 2. Recording artists have always had choices other than the music industry for publishing their music. Independent labels have existed for a long time and recording artists have self-published on many occasions.
I was under the impression that small labels had sufficiently small distribution reaches (probably not reaching major chains like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sam Goody etc) that they didn't offer serious benefits to a band that wasn't already large enough to have fans willing to go out of their way to find a place their record is sold, and that self-publishing would generally be far too expensive for a band on a limited budget. Am I wrong on this?
> Artists only sign contracts with big record companies because they want to take a shot at being much more successful;
I was under the belief that without a major label, you couldn't get enough distribution to live off of, that without a major label music could only be a side job.
> Gangsters give store owners no "choice", and they make their threats against established business with lots to lose (i.e. the investment of time and money that went into building up the store).
I'm not accusing the RIAA here of doing anything outright illegal to force people to deal with them, but I think they have much the same imposing presence as did "The Phone Company" before there was credible competition.
> 3. Gansterism is illegal. Publishing records is not.
Absolutely correct, but the main point I was trying to make is to not underestimate their absolutely dominant position. Mortgages, software licensing are much the same. Don't like the bank's terms? They're probably not going to make an exception for you. When's the last time you heard about MS renegotiating the EULA for a dissatisfied potential home user? The recording industry may hit a point coming up where they're so desperate to sign new talent that they'll bend over backwards, but for now, so what if a dozen current top artists leave? They'll manufacture a dozen new stars, who will have all the publicity needed to eclipse the former stars buzz-wise. (Which they'ed be expected to do, you want the public excited about YOUR product.)
> As to your point about Beethoven, Mozart, etc. I am no music historian but I doubt that they had the same mass appeal to hundreds of millions of people in their lifetimes as modern pop artists do.
My point was that these people lived, died and left an enduring (if not immediately in the public's hands) legacy before the music industry as we know it existed. I'm not sure how widely the sheet music spread before music companies came along, and I'll have to admit that the music companies also greatly helped spread the popularity of the same composers. (Until records, drums or something else existed that let you hear music in your own home, the modern music culture with songs passed back and forth, overheard at a friend's house etc couldn't exist.) I don't see a wandering band of minstrels holding up signs saying "Will play classical for food", but the classical composers still both came and went before today's music industry existed, and even without it, as the symphony became an event the average person could attend the popularity of the music was bound to take off eventually.
> I have a vague inkling that those classical composers worked mostly
> These contracts are entered into freely by both parties and I really don't feel any pity for musicians who don't like the terms as much after their music has been promoted and distributed by the record companies, as they did before they became successful.
How about protection money paid to local gangsters? You freely fork it over to be able to play the game (operating a store). You don't want to in either case, but there's no real choice. (You COULD call the police, but someone might end up having an accident, or in the case of the RIAA you might have no chance of ever getting known. The RIAA might seem more legit, but this depends on the findings of the counter-suit against them claiming they act as a cartel illegaly working together for an unfair advantage negotiating against artists. Shakedowns of internet radio fall under the same area, especially with retroactive fees to be applied.) There are more options these days though. Various sites on the net where you can post your music to be heard (MySpace etc) are an option we didn't have 10-20 years ago.
> I don't think popular music artists in their current form would exist without the music industry; it was the music industry that over the course of 50 years produced the concept of the superstar musician.
Beethoven, Mozart... the superstar has existed for a long time. The nationally heard super-star, the mega-huge one-hit-wonder and the bands without any actual music (which they play, singing and dancing alone don't cut it unless you're a barbershop quartet) are newer creations.
I appreciate the RIAA for putting in place the system that brought me much great music over the years, although I can't say I particularly care for a lot they do (randomly aimed lawsuits, possible price-fixing). If the RIAA was to be replaced by another single for-profit company, or small group of them, much the same would happen. Perhaps some things like DRM or stupid lawsuits would be left out (things that can only happen when the scales are REALLY tipped your way) but the artist would still be in the same position as you applying for a mortgage at the bank.
> I remember the day I first showed them Napster and they laughed out loud because they knew it would be the end of the record companies.
How? By making sure enough is downloaded that there aren't enough CD sales to keep the music companies afloat? Or by providing an alternate means for musicians to get noticed nationally? The 2nd method is legitimate, and the stated purpose of the original Napster and of MySpace are a great idea. While the RIAA is on one hand double-dipping in providing a united front to keep music prices high for consumers across the board, and royalties low for new artists, as long as artists sign the contracts, the song's legally pass to the RIAA's member companies.
> Next, steal from the RIAA like Trent says
This won't seriously hurt the RIAA, but opens you to a LEGITIMATE lawsuit should you get caught. Even assuming you can argue them down from a couple hundred or thousand per song stolen, settling still won't be cheap. A lawsuit isn't just to make you pay up, it's supposed to include a steep penalty to make you think twice about doing something again. Also, if you're stealing yourself, who are you to get onto the RIAA for what they do? Robin Hood was famous for giving to the poor, not helping himself.
The right thing to do is to go looking for places online where music is passed around legitimately. Besides MySpace, Napster (does what's left of it allow indies?) and local acts, where else do you go to legitimately find music online? One person further down plugs their own site "You could really help me out if you shared my music [geometricvisions.com]" which is good, but of a few hundred or thousand randomly named websites, how are you going to find ones with music you like? Another big component is radio, and it's no coincidence that there's a war against Internet radio which has the chance to promote artists other than those that sign with the RIAA's member companies.
I'd think all indie (or appropriately licensed to avoid legal hassles) net radio stations, possibly combined with competition fighting instead of joining the RIAA would work. Perhaps Google will launch a new music finding / community rating service. If they do, MS will almost certainly do the same, plus use existing cd pressing plants they own of have contracts with to handle physical distribution. I've found good music from passed around comedy MP3s (check out Moose In My House) and from AMVs (re: Your Brains). Perhaps companies without the money to buy songs from bigger stars for their ads wouldn't mind being approached by hopefuls, who would let them buy songs for cheap, in return for exposure on commercials. Record companies have scouts to hunt talent, is there a site like Wikipedia or Hitchiker's to post notes on local bands to help them get exposure?
Where would other reading this recommend finding new songs from, which is the cornerstone of the RIAA's control. As long as they make sure that the new stuff being heard on the radio is THEIR'S, and as long as the radio is the primary means of finding new music, they'll stay in control. In case any bands you like may have dropped from the labels, try looking them up online, seeing if they have any independent work for sale. The big task in undermining the RIAA is replacing the biggest need they fill, their ability to locate new songs / artists that people will eat up. The fact that people are still buying CDs proves that they're still meeting this need, even if you think recent offerings are junk, someone (appararently a LOT of someones) think otherwise.
The controller can be a curse or a blessing.
While on one hand having fewer buttons than a keyboard is a liability in terms of direct flexibility, this can be countered with context sensative buttons, remapping what button does what (most Zelda games, which require the use of many more buttons than you have items) and shift-based setups like in Phantasy Star Online. (Hold a trigger button to change what the A, B, X and Y buttons do, actually only 3 of them for some bizarre reason) With 4 shoulder buttons, we could do a lot of shifting on our controllers.
The analog sticks of the controllers are frequently looked down on, but there's generally two of them, compared to a single mouse (with a possible wheel on top). Which is better, a single REALLY good analog control, or two lesser controls that while not giving you as much control of one thing, allows you more analog control of two things at once? Also, some console have taking analog to extremes, aren't most or all of the playstation buttons analog? Most shoulder buttons in recent consoles have been. There's also the push-down on the analog stick features.
The keyboard is a liability in some ways. While you may have no problem memorizing what each and every one of the 23/26 letter keys used in game X do, plus a handful of other keys and what the mouse buttons do, to many gamers that moves the game from "fun" to "work". Part of being a good game is immersion, which means getting you involved quickly. A steep learning curve is a bad thing in this regard. Also, for those not well versed with the computer, who don't know by default where the "Z" key is, a PC game will be an exercise in frustration when hunt and pecking just doesn't cut it. Picking up FPS level mouse control is even worse. Normal point and clicking skill is nowhere near good enough.
In some ways, the keyboard and mouse just aren't appropriate for consoles. A PC game maker can reasonably expect that the PC owner has both a mouse and a keyboard. The console game maker can reasonably assume that the console owner has... a STANDARD controller. Even for systems that can accept a keyboard and mouse... where will it go on a console? While the 360 has USB jacks, is the user on a couch? Floor? Standing? At a convenient desk like a PC user will probably be?
While the gamepad limits power compared to the keyboard (it can only have as many buttons as the fingers can reach while NOT moving the bulk of the hands relative to the controller) this makes gaming easier in that YOU don't have to stay rooted. A console gamer can move over on the couch to make way for someone else to sit, play with their hands behind their backs when the cat hops in their lap and proceeds to repeatedly head-butt arms and hands.
Mice are released for console after console (SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS1 among others) but never really used, even for games that could have made good use of them. Outside of a desk, a mouse is generally not a good controller.
All that said, the best controls I've used seem to be in Final Fantasy 11 on the PC and 360. (More on the PC) With both I used a mixture of a gamepad and keyboard. FF11 made good use of shortcuts and typing on the keyboard, while still allowing you to do pretty much EVERYTHING except talk from the gamepad. (Which at least on the 360 you an THEORETICALLY do from the gamepad, but I wouldn't recommend it)
If you consider the gamepad as a reworked mouse on steroids, using it with a keyboard, you can get a lot of use from the combo. The only time playing a console that I've ever wanted a mouse was a handful of ported over point and click games. (Blazing Dragons, Shadowgate etc) A mouse's greater range of movement allows you to handle the cursor more easily than a slow cursor connected to a single stick (fighting fallig asleep as it trudges across the screen) or a fast cursor (that zips past where you want). This could be fixed by having one stick control movement direction and another movement speed, or having a "fast" b
This could work, so long as it was designed to wait until you logged off the game, or were between rounds. Most likely, the siren call of advertising cash will have these popping up randomly. Even if this wasn't a "full-interruptable" moment, a sudden banner might zip across the bottom of your screen (and a needed radar display).
In the meantime... PC gaming dies, if this goes on the 360, the PS3 and Wii benefit greatly.
This isn't the 1st time, Windows Messenger based pop-ups anyone? This just goes further and allows it to be more annoying.
There's plenty of generic studies out to show that more advertising = better sales (no doublt largely paid for by people in a position to sell advertising) but I'd love to see some studies on what KIND of ads get the best response. I'd expect that funny ads tend to get a better response than annoying ads, and ads randomly popping up on your own pc, unwanted could be a major problem pr-wise for the 1st few companies to buy ads wholesale.
As to how dumb MS users are, consider the large number that happily buy the latest version of Windws, whether their PC is really powerful enough to run it well or not.
Also, this may not be a matter of choice, if this is added in with a later update to previous OSes. Also consider that whether a user CAN migrate to *nix or not, they probably THINK they can't. Most users have the idea that only Windows and MAYBE Macs are easy enough to use if you're not an uber-geek.
> The issue however is that many people are charged with DUI when they are NOT drunks and are trying to be responsible.
...
.08 isn't to stop YOU when YOU can no longer handle it. .08 means that the chooser of the number thinks that the actual point at which MOST people in the area can't handle it is .6 or .7 and they're going to pull you over at .8 since they believe MOST are over their heads at that point. You can't selectively enforce, or you have favoritism / discrimination. Likewise, if the speed limit is 55, the highway engineer figured most people do 10 over, this roads safe speed is 65 - 70, 55 will keep most of them safe. If I raise it to what IS safe, people will push that and we'll REALLY have problems.
I have to wonder if anyone's tried marketing a breathalizer for the home market. What do these really cost to produce (or would they cost to produce if mass produced) if there was a market for people who really wanted to comply. I'll agree that if you want to rely on the machines you have a responsibility to make sure they're accurate, but I hardly trust people to know when they are / aren't drunks just on their gut feeling. To me, nothing short of waiting several hours or arranging a pickup counts as responsible.
> The issue however is
I'm sorry, I did wander off from your point. I've seen enough people who think they have a right to drive no matter how much they've had, and my response was against the train of thought that since you don't specifically MEAN to kill or endanger someone by driving drunk, it's not REALLY bad and the cops are just being bullies. I've heard too many complaints from legitimately caught drunks trying to put the blame on the evil police instead of their own lack of planning ahead or willingness to do the right thing. Disclaimer aside, I stand by what I wrote, and given that there seems to be a major issue with people figuring out for themselves whether they're sufficiently imparied to need to stay off the road, I have no problem with a system that errs on the side of "make em wait a few hours to drive, till they've had a chance to actually sober a bit".
> Yes - there are drunks and some of them are really bad. I personally know one in fact. This guy was wreaking 6 cars per year and sometimes more.
But DUI laws don't stop people like this. Furthermore there are other laws which can be used including dangerous driving.
My thoughts on this are that if you're THIS out of control and REPEAT the mistake, your car should be impounded. The anti-drunk driving laws are there to keep the other drivers safe. If saying NO sternly doesn't work, move up from there. Permanently bar him from driving if needed, with longer and longer jail times if he's caught without a license. By now the person you mentioned certainly knows better. His refusal to obey the law doesn't make the law invalid, but makes him a criminal.
> The issue I addressed is the idea that an arbitrary Blood Alcohol number automatically determines if a person can handle a vehical. Next - there is no agreement on what that number should be. Some jurisdictions are at 0.05, others 0.08 and still others are at 0.10.
This is a good thing. The fact that a number can't be decided on means that different areas are TRYING to come to a correct number with different means, putting some thought into it (even if it means 2 of those 3 are possibly too high/low). The point of saying over
> Then some correctly point out that while some people can handle a car at 120 others have trouble at 45. Yes - my point exactly. Perhaps the person who cannot handle a vehical at 45 should not have a license.
I agree, but how about the person good at 45 but not 55? The only good to 55 person? The only good to 65 person? While you should have to be competent with a car before being allowed to drive, the fa
Releasing the same software repeatedly is arrogant? To me it makes good sense. No one is saying let's release another Zelda, those nuts are sure to buy it! People are looking at sales figures and mail (snail and e) and seeing that there's a lot of demand for more of the same.
Whether you're tired of Mario Kart or not, for the person who eats, sleeps and breathes it, why bother getting a Wii before the next version is released? Stick with the GameCube in the meantime. Think it's absurd that someone would be so addicted to Mario Kart? Look at Halo. Halo can single-handedly sell X-Boxes. Nintendo has several franchises with similar power. MS would be a fool to stop releasing Halo, and Nintendo to stop releasing Mario, Metroid or Zelda.
Even if you never want to see another Mario, Metroid or Zelda again, keep in mind that these games fill Nintendo's pockets, giving them the money to take risks on Pikmin, the Wii, the DS or Animal Crossing. Whatever helps keep a desired developer afloat is good.
If anything, the one system without a Zelda, a Metroid, Super Mario or Mario Kart that Nintendo released a while back, the Virtual Boy was a HUGE disappointment. While there was logic behind not bothering to make such a title for a system that failed as quickly and horribly as the Virtual Boy did, at least one of those franchises should have been on the shelves on day one. Mario Clash just didn't cut it.
The franchises listed are a good bit of why the faithful ran out to buy the Wii to begin with. The new Zelda REALLY pushed the Wii's sales. While there's a segment who wants radical new ideas, there's another that wants more of the same. Consider the size of the Mega Man series. (Or serieses) Many people look at game instances as episodes of a beloved TV show more than as a movie, where too much is quickly old.
If we really want radical new games, we need to let people know what sort of games those might be. Did you try Katamari Damacy? (Already a series) Chu Chu Rocket? Luigi's Mansion? Look up and try the quirk games. Is there perhaps a well known website read by indie game developers where those who have ideas but not the skills or time to do something with them can post said ideas, so that someone else can run with them?
The big titles haven't completely stayed put. Super Mario 1, Lost Levels, 3, World, Land and Land 2, the "Super Mario" series died for a while. Paper Mario continued in the footsteps of Mario RPG (which left big boots the later Mario RPGs have had to struggle to fill). Many people were disappointed about having Mario 64 and Sunshine instead of Super Marios, tossing out loved mechanics. On the other hand, 64 was needed. 64 was more of an exploration game than any of the Super Mario games were. At 1st, just controlling 3d was hard enough, imagine trying to hit enemies the same size as your character with tiny fireballs. Sunshine was more of 64. With the awesome (at the time) graphics, being able to explore such a world in 3d was in itself just about game-worthy. Remember Zelda 2? Remember how different Zelda felt when it moved to 3d? Remember how much different Metroid felt as an FPS? Smash Brothers is a fairly new series. If you want mindless rehashes, look at Atari. (Although even Atari had some surprises)
Not just strapped them to a chair and tossed them out, but forced them to eat brussel sprouts too!
Perhaps the Guide was right to note Belgium as the most objectionable of words, galaxy-wide.
> If they are common carriers, then they are supposed to be indifferent to WHAT they are carrying, like the mail or the phones. If an extortion threat is transmitted by mail, you can't sue the post office. Not just because it's acting as an agent of the govt, but because it's a common carrier. (UPS is just as protected.) They aren't supposed to know or care what they're carrying. If they did, and demonstrated the capability of filtering it by filtering some of it, then they would lose their common carrier status, and become liable as accessories to extortion, e.g.
Seen the poster at the post office of all the things you're not allowed to pack in? They care, whether they check or not. If certain things are showing (clear package) I'm sure they'll refuse certain packages. I also though UPS required the package to be open when you brought it in, for inspection purposes. A ticking alarm clock, or a package with white powder on the outside will probably be detained and searched. (If not by UPS / USPS then by the police, who will be called.)
Another thought, with how communication companies are helping the current administration spy on us, does that hurt their common carrier status?
> While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion. At 0.08% many people are not intoxicated at all. Others are intoxicated at 0.02%. And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
.02, .20) you'll have people split, some complaining it's too high, others that it's too low.
And if these people knew who they were, this would be simpler. The problem is that many people can't tell when they're too out of it, or don't care. No matter where the limit is (.08,
The fact is, alcohol DOES have an effect. While this effect may not be easily predictable (depending on body mass, personal tolerance, time elapsed since the last drink etc) we know that in general, more alcohol in your system makes you a worse driver than you'd be with less. If someone can't stand without help or speak clearly, any reasonable person should note they're too out of it to drive, but the drinker doesn't. The limit MAY be too low, but what's it for? It's a scare tactic to get you to err on the side of caution.
The same can be said of the speed limit. Perhaps you can safely operate your car at 120mph. There's too many people locally who can't handle 45. We can't raise the posted limit to 120 or EVERYONE will try to drive that speed whether they're capable or not.
Not drinking and driving isn't that hard.
1: Call a taxi. If they take too long, call ahead.
2: Do you HAVE to drink?
3: Is it THAT hard to carry along ONE person in your car, who won't drink? Buy them a few cokes.
4: Call a friend to pick you up at that time, or a little in advance, as with the taxi.
5. Go to a bar close enough to walk home from.
6. Sleep in your car. (Conditions permitting)
7. Wait around for a bit, and give yourself a chance to sober up before driving home. Any business open ~ 2am locally is PACKED by people doing just this every Friday and Saturday.
If this is REALLY an actual problem, a solution will pop up. More taxi drivers, cheap hotels starting a bus service for a half night's stay and to-from taxi fare with whatever available rooms they have that night. Cheapo hotels (maybe like Japan's capsule hotels) near, or IN the bars, with the bar swapping to a hotel at 2ish.
Personally, I don't see some drunk's lack of self control as a legitimate problem in need of a solution as a criminal act. You can't say you're "not aware" of the potential consequences. We've all had it drummed into our heads from childhood how so many people get run down by drunks per year. Sure, when you're drunk you don't think it over, "Hmm, do I want to risk killing a few people in an accident or not tonight?" probably isn't the foremost thought in your mind. That said, it's also not ok to drop objects off tall buildings or bridges, no matter how funny you think it is. (Ignoring whether a penny's terminal velocity is high enough to hurt/kill you, assuming it's no more than a light poke, you can't just go poking random people for the heck of it.)
> While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion.
I'm not sure. While the statistics may be off (and themselves out of proportion), the amount of harping on it is justified given the ease with which these accidents can be avoided, and the equal lack of proportion behind that "naaah, that's other people, I'M not that out of control" croud's determination to keep doing whatever they feel like, sometimes even after killing someone.
> And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
Agreed. I've seen people who can't read the eye charts waved through. Of course, the licens
Pros:
1. The same as the national ID, which it would quickly become.
2. Locating someone lost. (Your kid in a mall, see what store they last walked into from the help desk)
3. Convenience. Be scanned just from standing close enough to the counter.
Cons:
1. The same as the national ID, the more that works based on this ID, the more a thief can take from you after copying it
2. Being located unwillingly. Divorcing a lost-their-mind abusive spouse who if they find you will likely kill you (if not seriously hurt you?) Better hope he doesn't have means to read the network, tracking what door in the city you last walked through. Chased by criminals? No chance of escaping them now if they have some sort of long range scanner that can track the position of your key, even if it can't completely read it) Criminals will see cops coming before the police can get anywhere near.
3. Convenience (of criminals)
If this can be easily read by stores, it can be easily read by criminals. Even if the criminal can't trigger your RFID to spit it's info, they just need to be nearby when it does. Being buried under the skin does NOT prevent the IMPORTANT part from being stolen, the ID the RFID spits out when asked to identify you. Your info will be duped without you knowing it. What's more, when your ID is stolen, you'll need more surgery to remove the tag, to replace it with another, that will be copied every bit as easily.
4. Unreasonable search (and seizure, but seizure doesn't matter here)
If this is made common enough, the government will require companies to share info. (Citizen 42 just passed the door 1 of McDonalds 43,543.) Just the idea of this should be horrifying enough, but the logical follow-up, the all-us-database-of-citizens-comings-and-goings will be populated with this info. This will be admitted as valid in any court case (but will, being fed from stores, NOT be reliable, allowing inside jobs by people with the power to tweak records to be easily blamed on customers).
5. Unneeded surgery.
Any unneeded surgery is a stupid idea. Possible infection, possible rejection reaction (or allergic). The surgery to remove a tag (when you swap jobs and the next employer wants ONLY their tag in you), when the company claims the tag is THEIRS and takes it out when you leave, suing you if you don't relenquish it willingly (through further unwanted surgery). Aren't doctors supposed to be forbidden from unneeded surgery? (Hippocratic Oath) You never know where something will go wrong. A friend lost his dog to an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. It's apparently rare, but happens. Who assumes liability? The company? The doc? The would-be employee?
6. Further unfair bargaining power in the hands of the employer
If the employer controls / owns the implant, can demand a recall at any time and is willing to use the threat of painful surgery to get their way with their employees, the employess may become far more pliable to mandatory unpaid overtime.
7. What does this thing DO?
If people learn to accept something that they're told just spits out a number for the company's scanner, accept it under their skin and don't ask questions, what's next? Listening / recording tags. Your every sound will be recorded to be used against you. They KNOW you're looking for another job... your disloyalty will be punished. Imagine when some nut orders the RFIDs with the "painful electric shock" add-on. Yes, this goes beyond what an RFID is, but once we're used to putting things into ourselves, we'll sign to have anything put in.
What does this do better than a security guard?
It's cheaper. It can't be bribed. (The security guard won't be as easily fooled as the RFID though.) If your company is considering this, consider the number of guards they currently have. That's an OK level of security, or they'ed have more. Consider the combined salaries of thouse guards. Let's say 30k and there's 3 of them. If your
There's a fundamental difference between asking for a SSN and an RFID. The SSN is provided voluntarily, and only to the people the holder deems are trust-worthy enough to hold that information. The RFID is provided to anyone and everyone who walks closely enough to you.
If stores put RFID readers next to their doors, having 2 doors (an entry hall with the readers spaced so they can reliably tell customer 7 walked in, 2 out and 5 is walking back and forth around door 1 and not going in (past door 2) they get this information, whether you care for the idea or not.
If it becomes in some way useful to impersonate you with this, there will overnight be tools available on the black market to
a: read the tags of those close to you
b: an implantable (or glue on) tag for you that you can change the contents of
c: a tool that remotely reprograms your tag so you can quickly change who you impersonate, or reset your tag to avoid detection if someone checks your tag against filed info about the tag-holder
There's 3 big problems with this tag:
1: If you can require this, what CAN'T you require? This is a slippery slope that can lead to very bad things some year down the road when we learn enough about how the brain works to put in "morality chips" to enforce good behavior, that soon after turn out to be "turn into willing slave" chips when there's a large enough installed base that the holdouts are sufficiently outnumbered.
2: This is technically surgery. There's no medical benefit, there could be a rejection reaction, and this could allow an infection to start. This is risk without a valid medical reason. (Then again, many people stupidly get disease from shared tattoo needles, so maybe much of the US doesn't care)
3: This DOESN'T work, since it could be so easily bypassed.
I mention XP because I jumped directly from 98 to XP. The official upgrade paths were NT4 -> 2000 -> XP and 98 -> ME -> XP. While you could run 2000 at home, it was (iirc) marketed as a business OS. For home uaera, XP was the 1st NT-based Windows they were SUPPOSED to have, and it was a nice improvement over 98. (And from what a friend who tried ME told me, MUCH MUCH better than ME.)
I used 2000 and work and didn't have too many problems with it, but I didn't have that many problems with NT4. (I had more problems with NT4 than with 2000 or XP, but not nearly as much as with 3.1, 95 or 98.)
>> It's believed that Silverlight is an attempt to make a Flash that only works on MS and Apple machines, cutting out Linux users.
> Now, where did that come from? Microsoft is actively working with Mono to ensure that other platforms are supported.
It came from cynicism. If this works out, and works great cross-platform, giving everyone a free-to-program-for Flash substitute, awesome. I just don't see MS doing this without trying to slip SOMETHING in to keep it from working right.
Given why Flash is a threat (in 2-3 versions it could become a Java that can't be corrupted, since MS can't make their own VM), why would it be in the best interest of MS to have TWO ways Windows could be made moot instead of one? If there were a royalty / licensing scheme where every Silverlight movie required a payment to MS, this would make some sense, but it looks like MS shooting themselves in the foot. I don't think they're looking to do so deliberately JUST for the sake of crushing Flash. Perhaps I'm wrong and someone at Adobe REALLY pushed some buttons at MS.
Perhaps the schems is that version 1 will be awesome, and MS will help everyone out, but version 2 will be a must have that's only on Windows, until Mono and Apple can copy it on their own WITHOUT help, at which point version 3 with another must have is released. Maybe this is all on the up and up, and MS has resigned themselves to Windows becoming moot, or they no longer consider write-once-run-anywhere a credible threat.
When I first looked at Libertarianism, I was considering what conservative and liberal meant. I noticed we didn't really have a "conservative" and a "liberal" party. We had a "financially conservative and socially liberal" party (Republicans) and a "financially liberal and socially conservative" party (Democrats). To clarify the last sentence, conservative means the government says / does as little as possible about something, and liberal means they put their hands all over it. Republicans want to not touch the free market (conservative ethic) and dictate morality (telling you what it should be is liberal, although they'll claim their way is the one true way, the conservative way, and you're evil or at least horribly misguided if you disagree). The Democratic party theoretically isn't so much the party of hippies, as the party that says, we promise not to hold being a hippie against you.
My views were that the government should keep their hands out as much as possible both economically and socially. (2x Conservative) The Libertarian party seemed to stand for that. I'm not sure if I'm more Libertarian or more Constitutionalist, but the 1st president I really remember was Reagan. I haven't yet heard of a president everyone can be reasonably proud of, or a congress that everyone could agree was mostly on the up and up.
The question should be less, why are nerds more likely to be libertarians, and more why are nerds less likely to be republicans / democrats. Nerds are (or were) a people used to living with a stigma, that of not being "in". It would have been a social stigma to be neither a republican or democrat, so most people wouldn't consider a 3rd party. Nerds, already out of it, have nothing socially to lose by saying they're fed up with and won't support either major party.
Are nerds wrong about this? If both parties are incurably corrupt, how should we vote?
a: Only a R / D vote matters, so vote for the current seemingly less corrupt party (the reason I believe Republicans, at least locally are taking a hit, NOT because people are becoming more liberal)
b: Only a R / D vote matters, but choose the one closer to your ideology on principle, hoping that they'll suddenly get a conscience and do what you elected them to
c: Vote for a 3rd party, seemingly free of corruption (if only because they aren't yet worth buying out) if only as a protest of neither Rs or Ds being worth following?
Nerds are happy to think outside of the box, non-nerds consider out-of-the-box bad. Conservative can either mean "closer to the founding principles of the country" or "hands off" which for America are a decent match. I think most nerds who love this country will tend to be true (2x) conservatives, and look for a party that matches this view. I think the Libertarian party is more in line with American ideals than either the R or D parties.
Given that both R and D parties have CLEAR records of blatant corruption, I have to wonder how much anyone who would vote for them really cares about the country. To vote for them seemingly means that they can't be bothered to take the time to look at the issues, or else they'ed have been horrified away from the R and D parties permenantly too. If I was to walk up to someone and tell them "Hey, buddy, did you know there are two secret societies trying to take over the country, who want to take all power away from the people who make this country what it is, and ruin it for their own financial gain", if they didn't take me as a conspiracy theorist, they'ed be horrified. The only difference between the 2 main parties and these mythical societies is that the parties operate openly, though still without accountability.
Oddly, you'd think accountability would be the strong point of the R party, as the avowed conservative party, given they claim moral virtue as a stand of their party, sadly this is all talk.
From a nerd perspective, the R and D parties will NEVER clean themselves up, because they don't have to. They can cont
> Rather than you know, cooporate with Microsoft to help diagnose the problem, they're essentially saying to their users "We think you're a bunch of losers (LUSERS HAHA!!1!), so ya'll use the OS we want and tell you to use!
... Follow them, as you did in 3.1 - XP."?
Well, what should they do? Tell MS: "Lookup the following RFCs.
> Because, after all, bugs never, ever happen on any software ever,
Bugs will always happen, but Vista was in development for HOW long? Delayed HOW long for bug fixes? Let's not forget that the net not working is NOT a minor issue these days. The onus was on MS to make sure that any changes to how their talking with the net worked didn't break the system.
> and developers psychically know what exactly a bug does without any reporting by end-users whatsoever.
It would be helpful for Lundi to supply some logs on this, but given that this was working, and MS broke it between XP and Vista, MS should be able to look at what they changed to see where the problem crept in.
> Now if they have a policy of "NOT Windows Vista compatible right now" clearly stated to their users, then that's understandable.
This would be a good option, send a letter to users telling them WHY they can't connect with Vista, but their friends who still have XP can.
> But eventually, most folks will move to Vista (like it or not), so this bug needs to be squashed on whomever's end.
I can see, if this is definately MS's problem, Lundi saying "There's no way in heck we're breaking our standards compliance, or worse, buying new OSs and all the required licenses (MS server licensing is insane) to have guaranteed workability." It would be NO small expense for Lundi to swap to using MS servers. I can see Lundi thinking that given only Vista has this error, and Vista still talks to MS servers, that this is a move to force ISPs to have to swap to MS servers, paying them huge sums in the process.
> I'll end my rant with this:
how in the hell is Lundis Energi so sure it's not a bug on their software?
Probably because 3.1 - XP worked. Even if there IS an error in their software, it's suspicious that EVERYTHING ELSE BUT Vista works. It may be that Lundi's implementation is incomplete, and Vista does things allowed by the specs, but which aren't commonly done, but that isn't going to be the 1st assumption.
> (sarcasm) Oh right, it's Microsoft, so it MUST be them. (/sarcasm)
Well, MS isn't known for reliability. XP made HUGE gains in this department, but a whole generation or two are GOING to be biased by what they saw with Win 3.1 and Win 95.
This is considered funny because of the past behavior of MS, and what people presume the problem to be.
In the past, MS fearing things like Java (and rightfully so, Java done right could eliminate the need for Windows) made their own versionsof the Java Virtual Machine, broken n various ways to kill compatibility. MS is known for having run with and mucked up the Kerberos standard, so their implementation doesn't play well with competitors. It's believed that Silverlight is an attempt to make a Flash that only works on MS and Apple machines, cutting out Linux users.
In view of how MS has a reputation for breaking standards for their own gain (lookup "embrace and extend" for details) many people, at least semi-reasonably jump to the conclusion that MS is deliberately trying to break Internet standards. What if Lundi would apply a patch to their Linux server that made it play the MS way instead of the official standard way? At that point, MS would be emboldened to do it again, and again. Soon, with all the frequent ways the net was being trivially "broken" (when in actuallity only the MS software wasn't playing right) companies would move to MS servers that never seemed to have the problems. Viewed cynically, this is a ploy to cut out non-MS servers from the net, by harrassing the operators of said non-MS servers through users that MS deliberately made discontent.
There's 2 sides though:
1: MS is up to old tricks (which isn't flat MS bashing, MS does have a reputation for illicit practices)
2: MS made a legitimate mistake, and this is just a bug. It wouldn't be the first time, and all programmers make mistakes. That said, that it still just so happens to work with MS servers but not Linux servers seems to point away from this option, but I can't say for sure, as light on the details as this story is.
In short, people are laughing because they believe #1 is true, and MS is getting a taste of being told where to go instead of being blanketly obeyed.
That said, it is NOT funny for the end users. The end users don't pay much attention to the deeds / misdeeds of major companies. The end users don't care about standards. All the end users care about is whether it works. As much as Vista costs, they shouldn't have to deal with this sort of problem.
If Lundi is following the standard and MS isn't, it really shouldn't be Lundi's problem. MS knows how to talk to the net, they have from 3.1 to XP. Lundi has every reason to expect that MS will continue to get right what they've gotten right so far.
I have no problem with games being difficult, but there's a few ways in which they shouldn't be...
1. Disproportionate final boss. The last boss should be the hardest, but should only be so much harder than a normal boss. Link's Awakening on the GB pushed the limits with the seemingly endless forms of the final boss. Mega Man games can be bad in this regard when the final Wily battle dwarfs any previous battle in the last 15 - 16 levels difficulty-wise. Mega Man Battle Network games are really bad about this. Shadow of the Ninja: the main game FLEW by, then the last boss was insane. Legend of the Unemployed Ninja is similar, until the second to last dungeon there is NO difficulty to speak of. The 2nd to last dungeon is a small chore, then suddenly the last dungeon requires mastery to get halfway through.
2. Inappropriate mini-games. If you buy a game about, there shouldn't be a mandatory mini-game you can't proceed without beating, whose play style bears no resemblance to the main part of the game. Mega Man 8's "jump jump slide slide" sections, in a game where you can normally move at your own pace come to mind. Everyone knows what a Mega Man game is supposed to be, why should you have to waste your time on a snowboard simulator to beat it? All mini-games should be bypassable. Perhaps the bypass should be tough as nails, but it should use the main game engine. I resent hearts being gotten in Zelda through horse-based mini-games, but at least you don't need all the hearts to win.
3. Bad restarts. If you continue in Metroid with full energy tanks, you shouldn't need to refill them from 30 health. There's no challenge in this, it's just tedious. Later games fix this. Legend of the Unemployed Ninja: you can't work from a single save, over and over. If yo die, everything you used in the last attempt is GONE. You'll have to spend more time to build it back up again. The re-building isn't hard, but is needless unwelcome tedium.
4. Bad controls. Resident Evil. Some people may like the controls, but to most games, they were a pain in the butt, and too slow to bother with. One of the main reasons people hated Deadly Towers? Way too slow. RE2 on the 64 gave me the same move-in-the-direction-you-push controls I've used for years and was one of my favorite 64 games. I won't touch RE1. The people behind Contra could have made a level with the left and up buttons swapped (but right and down normal) which would have been much harder... but for no good reason. The CD-I Zeldas requuired strange things like ducking and jumping at the same time to hit the menu, since there weren't enough buttons.
5. Bad game genres.
If you like a series, you want to beat all the games in it. As such, all games in a franchise should be the same genra. Mega Man Soccer just doesn't fit. Mega Man Network Transmission doesn't fit the rest of the Battle Network games. Battlechip Challenge is more of an annoying nuisance than another game in the continuity. Did we really need Bomberman Fantasy Race? (Not that I'm blasting it, I haven't played it, but it's NOT what most Bomberman fans were lusting after.) There are exceptions, Mario is succesful in several genres, but arguably, Mario games aren't really a franchise anymore. These days "Mario games" is an umbrealla term for several franchises: Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario RPGs. Panzer Dragoon Saga. Why an RPG suddenly?
6. Bad quality
The Game.Com Sonic game could move fast, but Sonic accelerated poorly. Very poorly. The CD-I Zeldas had cut-scenes that would gag a maggot.
7. Poor speed
This is a mixture of bad quality and controls, but important enough to mention again. Long unskippable cut-scenes and too long intros with no action (IIRC I think "The Hobbit" did well by starting you with a bit of action in a dream sequence, THEN going into fetch quests for the next hour) make people not want to bother with a game. How many times do you WANT to replay FF3/6's last fight with the 30 minute cutscene?
Fully agreed, and how can the police "pull over" someone in mid-air. Also, staying just right behind someone to read their license plate could be difficult.
Just looking around while driving I see people can't handle 2d, simple signs like "do not block through lane", "no passing zone" etc are completely ignored. Most drivers are going to do whatever they feel like doing and will completely ignore whatever regulations tere are. You may think accidents are unlikely with the ability to move in 3d, but you can bet people will try their own airshow formation routines, trying to look cool, crashing into each other because they don't have the control to stay in formation (or do, but only until the wind changes). Until we have a society that mostly follows tracffic rules, don't expect to see us turned loose in the air.
As far as running out of fuel, we could have something that limited engine power when the tank got too close to empty, forcing a descent. It would probably be hacked / replaced like the chis that limit speeds in cars, but it would be something.
Drunks again, I don't want to see any drunks flying these... or kids stealing their parent's for a joyride w/o having been properly trained yet. Watch high school mortality rates skyrocket.
Then again, maybe this will all be moot, perhaps we can make this available for all, but require a driver's insurance on these that puts them out of range for all but the most dedicated, so that the common person can't afford it, with rates that triple or quadruple for any minor problem. Flying without a license would get the vehicle impounded and a mandatory jaik sentence.
You have to REALLY trust your citizens to allow this. Looking at the articles on all the spying on our own citizens we've done recently (and unconstitutionally), we know that at least the current government does not have that trust. They'ed probably take away cars and force us onto mass-transit if not that
a: Too many people from government have a vested interest in the current transportation system
b: This would cause a country-wide revolt, if not against the current government, then at least against the current 2 parties
Some (all?) states have a point system for licenses. Lose all your points and lose your license. It's too bad you can't have a vote off the road system built into cars for when someone drives recklessly. Pull over, key in their plate and demerit them. If one person gets too many demerits within X time, they lose a point. I see this being more used against people with the wrong bumper stickers or with darwinfish though. I also see people NOT pulling over to do so, causing wrecks of their own by typing while driving.
If you REALLY wanted this though, the answer would be: YOU don't get to fly it. Either
a:
You get a computer system that handles this, with absurd redundancy, planning flights and handling all details, refusing to allow takeoff if all checks don't work out.
b:
Professional pilots fly your car for you. Given they may not want to ho into every Tom, Dick and Harry's questionalbly maintained craft, perhaps air taxies or a true airbus would be the way to go.