Actually, the English in the Victorian era were pretty hedonistic. The only problem was, Queen Victoria was not. Therefore, everyone had to pretend to be completely straightlaced, when in fact there was a great deal of sex and adultery going on among the older members of the uppper class. Adultery was especially common because many marriages were arranged (and loveless), so both parties would often reach an understanding regarding what their responsabilities were to each other.
For the youth, premarital sex was still somewhat difficult to have, so prostitution was widespread, with the age of consent being 12. This was eventually raised to 14 because there were prostitutes as young as 9 passing themselves of as 12. They figured if the age were 14, then 11 or 12 year olds would be the youngest that could get away with prostitution.
Anyway, the point here is, what is publicized isn't necessarily how a society acts. Indeed, the golden rule in Victorian England was "don't get caught." As long as the "society" (the Queen) didn't know about it, you were free to do whatever you wanted.
This would be instant death for the company. If people are going to be paying a significant monthly fee, and investing hundreds of man-hours in the game, they're not going to go for a scheme where their characters may be inherently less powerful. Once they have gone on this whole search, if they find out they can't be a Jedi, they'll just start over (that is, assuming they don't just get pissed off and find another game).
No, the game is only going to be fun if everyone starts out with the same opportunities. Giving people "hidden abilities" will not make for a good game.
Huh, I'm not sure it's a GOOD thing. Isn't the idea that it's an unpredictable thing? As I understand it, the theory is that beyond the technological singularity, human society (if it even exists) will be radically transformed. So, as a person born before the singularity, I probably wouldn't like it. Just as many of our grandparents, raised in a time when homosexuality was considered morally equivalent to incest or bestiality, are sickened by the Gay Pride parades, many of us would probably be sickened, frightened, or at least strongly morally opposed to the social norms that arise on the far side of the singularity. Be it cybernetics, cloning, genetic engineering, AI, vat grown fetuses for stem cell harvesting, or God only knows what, there's almost certain to be a technology we will one day use that makes you uncomfortable.
I'm not sure running away is the right answer, but I would be cautious in calling the technological singularity a "good thing." Those who are a product of it will likely consider it one, but those of us who precipitate it likely will not, and will long for the "good old days" from before the singularity.
Anyway, the guy in the article isn't afraid of the singularity, as such, he's afraid of the dangers that might arise (accidentally or through terrorism): grey goo from nanotech, killer diseases from bioengineering, Terminators from AI, and so forth. The singularity will simply accelerate development of these technologies (and hopefully, ones to counter the dangers, too).
What they really ought to do is make Jedis too weak in comparison to other characters. Sure, there'd be enough people who REALLY want to be Jedi that they'd still have a bunch, but if it were easier to advance as a non-Jedi, then they should end up with a good balance.
Yes, but it is not linked directly to Sacramento or LA, so it's not terribly useful. I'm really not sure who this train service is targetted for. I guess if you're in Freso, it'd be great, or it'd be great for me in San Francisco visiting my girlfriend in Redwood City (ought to be faster than Caltrain), but other than that, I just don't see the point.
Once, a couple years back, I was browsing the Japanese census page, because I'd heard that the birth rate was only about 1 child per couple. That seemed fairly shocking, so I wanted to know if it was true (IIRC, it was not, the birth rate was below 2, but not by a whole lot). Anyway, on several different pages, discussing changes in demographics, a common explanation for the changes was "increasing women's rights." Everytime that phrase was used, it was a link. So, even though it wasn't directly related to what I was looking for, I was curious what they had to say about rights gained by women in Japan, so I clicked the link. The page told me all I needed to know:
404 Not Found
(BTW, I like Japan as well. Don't think I'm trying to condemn an entire nation because they have some social problems. All nations have problems to deal with, and Japan is no exception. Clearly, there'd be no reason to bother discussing these issues if it were not already a great nation in many other respects)
If you standardized clothing, hairstyles, and tan they would look the same
Exactly my point. They're not different "races," they're the same, just with a different culture. So saying Japanese look like Koreans (or vice versa) is absolutely true.
That their culture, but it certainly is not racism.
Calling something "culture" does not automatically make it okay. It used to be American "culture" that whites should not marry blacks. That was unbelievably racist. How is this different? In many ways, the Japanese still have an "ubermensch" mentality, because unlike the Nazis, they weren't made to feel ashamed for the atrocities they committed. Indeed, America takes more heat for having dropped the A-bombs than Japan takes for the rape and enslavement of large portions of Asia. Ever hear of the "Rape of Nanking?" A quote from that link:
Between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,366 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops. An estimated 80,000 women and girls were raped; many of them were then mutilated or murdered.
For comparison purposes, only 150,000 people were killed outright in the dropping of the two atomic weapons. Perhaps that many again had their lives substantially shortened by radiation, still fewer than the number of Chinese killed in early 1938, to say nothing of the subsequent years, and the other invaded nations. Even if you still think America was somehow at fault for the war, I've never heard an American say that we shouldn't marry German people, because of WWII. And the Japanese don't just say "don't marry Americans," they say "don't marry non-Japanese." Again, it's like the Nazis wanting to keep the purity of the Aryan race. Simply disgusting.
Oh, by the way, it's spelled "emperor." Just a tip.
Could you tell a Spanish person from a French person from a German person?
Assuming you standardized clothing, hairstyles, and time in the sun (for tanning), I doubt it. Sure, you might be right more often than pure chance would suggest, but you wouldn't be anywhere near 100% accuracy. When you walk down a street in the US, can you honestly tell me that you can look at people and identify the origin of their ancestors?
The Japanese do discriminate against non-Japanese. Why do you think it is still such a homogenous society, when it is a rich country? Where is the flood of immigrants that other rich countries get? My girlfriend went to Japan several years ago, as part of a school trip. One of her assignments on the trip was to ask 20 people the same question. She chose "Do you think it's alright for Japanese to marry non-Japanese." Keep in mind, this is a white, clearly American, girl asking this question, so any answer other than "yes, of course" would obviously be offensive. Even so, she got several "no" responses. They were mainly elderly people who gave that response, so hopefully that means the racism is diminishing as the pre-WWII generation dies, but at the moment, it is still very strong.
Seriously, is this guy a nutcase, or what? First of all, he says "there's no such thing as a free lunch," and then talks about how important it is that digital content be secured. Hey, that saying works both ways, buddy. The entertainment industry doesn't get a free lunch by switching to digital, either. If you want the advantages of the digital form, you need to take some disadvantages too. If you don't think the two balance out, you can go back to VHS (looks like Lucas's approach, since the original trilogy's still not out on DVD), but don't cripple computers to give your industry a digital "free lunch."
Second point: we're getting this from a guy whose career is based on an idea ripped from Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress?" For those who have seen it, but don't see the Star Wars resemblance, I invite you to read Lucas's original 13 page treatment. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but the events are Kurosawa's. I don't begrudge the man making a successful adaptation of someone else's material. Furthermore, he's admitted the influence, and even funded some of Kurosawa's later projects. Still, you'd think this would be a guy who would champion fair use. Instead, we get this lecture? Feh.
That's nothing. The other day my girlfriend got a spam for dieting pills that were "endorsed by dotors worldwide." Well, if the dotors are behind it, it must be good...
Of course, as with all things, I believe Penny-Arcade has the best commentary on the subject.
I made no value judgements. All I said was, different features are important to different people. The good features of Mac are important to you, and the bad features are not. For me, it's the reverse. It's a simple difference of opinion, I can't understand why you're so insecure in your choice of operating system that you have to try to convince everyone that yours is the best. It's not the best, it's the best for YOU.
Mine has a circular slide rule. Not as visually offensive as the casio calculator, but even more geeky (plus, it takes square roots, which I don't believe the casio did).
My watch is water-resistant to 100 (feet? meters? can't remember). Anyway, the instructions that came with the watch basically said, their company makes 4 levels of water resistance: no resistance, resistant to 10 feet, resistant to 100 feet, and resistant to 1000 feet.
When explaining what each of these meant, the basic impression was "it's waterproof only to the previous level." So for example, no resistance means take it off when you wash your hands, 10 feet means you can wash your hands, but don't submerge it completely in water. 100 feet means you can submerge it, but don't take it down to any depth. 1000 feet means you can scuba dive with it.
Its like Linux except it has a usable desktop environment and has great consumer apps
And except that it's not free as in speech, free as in beer, or portable to non-Apple hardware. No easier, really, than saying "it's like Windows except that it has no DRM, it's based on BSD, it doesn't have as many games, and it doesn't run on commodity hardware." Or maybe we ought to just say "there are three different desktop OSes out there, each with a whole list of advantages and disadvantages." I don't think any one of them is any more like any other. They're different. Different aspects will be important to different people, and you're not going to change a Linux fanatic into a Mac fanatic by saying "they're really similar," because the core philosophies are totally different.
I'd also take issue with your assertion that Linux does not have a usable desktop environment. It may not be a brilliant desktop environment. It may not be your preferred desktop environment. You may even consider it a sub-par desktop environment. However, it is quite usable.
This has been discussed to death. Each of the original Star Trek cast members has a book of some sort about their life, or involvement in the series, and each one has a different version of what happened. Koenig's version is above. Nichols's version is similar, except she said that he just botched the acting. Think every Shatner spoof you've ever seen and multiply it by 10 ("no, I WILL, NOT kiss, her"). Shatner tells a different story in his "Star Trek Memories" book, so maybe the other cast members just thought he was intentionally botching the take, when he hadn't meant to at all...
Re:How does it compare on windows?
on
Mesa 5.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Are you using the nvidia linux drivers? If you are, you're not using Mesa anyway. If you're not, then you've got hardware acceleration under Windows, but no acceleration under Linux, of course there's a big difference.
Re:Per Transaction Fees Suck...
on
Add-Ons Add Up
·
· Score: 5, Informative
If they don't like the extra 3%, then the ought to pay using a debit card
*chuckle* Debit cards charge a higher fee, closer to 5%, if memory serves. Many retailers would rather not accept debit cards, but at the moment, Visa and MasterCard are demanding that if a store accepts their credit cards, it must accept their debit cards, too. There is currently a class action lawsuit going on (or there was, last time I heard) to settle whether or not this is illegal bundling of services. If the retailers are victorious, debit cards will no longer be accepted at many places, and Visa and MasterCard will likely go bankrupt as well because of the massive damages that the retailers are claiming (won't affect you as a cardholder, the debtors will just take over and it'll be business as usual).
You would be surprised at how many Americans are willing to sweep the issue under the carpet because the current situation works out well for the US economically.
ECONOMICALLY? How so? We alienate the arab nations, which control half the world's oil supply, in order to support a nation that has no oil whatsoever. We support Israel so much, in fact, that fully 1/3rd of their GDP is in the form of American aid. That's right, essentially one in three Israelis is living off of American handouts. How does this provide the USA with an economic benefit?
No, there are reasons that we support Israel, but money ain't one of them. We support Israel because of the holocaust. After WWII, the Allies decided that because of the horrors the Jewish people had endured (not only at the hands of the Nazis, but throughout their history), Israel would be turned over to them. Because we made that commitment, we back them. The second reason is suicide bombing. The Israelis may commit military actions which are of dubious morality (at best), but they've never sent in suicide bombers, or taken actions with no strategic value whatsoever. The third reason is historical. The arab nations in the middle east attacked Israel repeatedly without provocation. Each defeat has made them more and more hostile. Between terrorist actions like the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team and wars of agression from the First Arab-Israeli War onward, it's easy to be sympathetic to Israel.
Don't underestimate Lucas's ego. After all, he puts his businesses at a tremendous competitive disadvantage by locating where he does. He likes to have everything right there, he likes having his own little private empire. The downside is that it's a pain in the ass having an effects studio located in the SF bay area, rather than down in LA where the movies actually get made.
Nowadays, of course, distance is a bit less of a problem. Movies are shot all over the world, whereas they used to be done almost exclusively in Hollywood backlots. Had it not been for the unprecedented success of the original trilogy though, ILM never would have made it off the ground.
I do agree, absolutely, that money is not Lucas's concern. However, those below him in the power structure most certainly do care about the money. Since Lucas probably does not micromanage the promotional material and licenses, that may be where some of the "moneygrubbing" accusations come from.
What was Microsoft supporting 15 years ago with DOS and Word for DOS? Nothing. Those divisions turned enough of a profit for them to continue making those products, and have a nice tidy profit.
Today, they have a collossal profit, and in addition, the OS and Office divisions support the Xbox, the media player, IE,.NET, and so forth. I think it's pretty clear that they're making higher profit margins now that the competition's gone. I think it's also obvious that most of their other projects are mainly to make it harder to switch away from their OS and their office suite.
Actually, if I remember correctly, it was originally just going to be about #1, restoring the film. But, after they showed a couple previews in a handful of theatres, there was such an overwhelming response that Lucas figured he'd give it a bit of a budget, and make the whole "special edition." *sigh* If only they'd left the Greedo scene alone...
Or maybe they could put bags around the store, like they do now with the little plastic bags in the produce section of grocery stores. Or they can have seperate lines, one for people who want to be bagged, and and "express line" for those who don't. Personally, 9 times out of 10 I don't buy enough from a store to need a bag, so it'd be useful for some people, in some stores. You're right, it won't totally replace cashiers, but it may reduce the need for such menial staff in some types of retail.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops.
For the youth, premarital sex was still somewhat difficult to have, so prostitution was widespread, with the age of consent being 12. This was eventually raised to 14 because there were prostitutes as young as 9 passing themselves of as 12. They figured if the age were 14, then 11 or 12 year olds would be the youngest that could get away with prostitution.
Anyway, the point here is, what is publicized isn't necessarily how a society acts. Indeed, the golden rule in Victorian England was "don't get caught." As long as the "society" (the Queen) didn't know about it, you were free to do whatever you wanted.
No, the game is only going to be fun if everyone starts out with the same opportunities. Giving people "hidden abilities" will not make for a good game.
I don't know about "dumb," but they do call us "devils."
I'm not sure running away is the right answer, but I would be cautious in calling the technological singularity a "good thing." Those who are a product of it will likely consider it one, but those of us who precipitate it likely will not, and will long for the "good old days" from before the singularity.
Anyway, the guy in the article isn't afraid of the singularity, as such, he's afraid of the dangers that might arise (accidentally or through terrorism): grey goo from nanotech, killer diseases from bioengineering, Terminators from AI, and so forth. The singularity will simply accelerate development of these technologies (and hopefully, ones to counter the dangers, too).
What they really ought to do is make Jedis too weak in comparison to other characters. Sure, there'd be enough people who REALLY want to be Jedi that they'd still have a bunch, but if it were easier to advance as a non-Jedi, then they should end up with a good balance.
Yes, but it is not linked directly to Sacramento or LA, so it's not terribly useful. I'm really not sure who this train service is targetted for. I guess if you're in Freso, it'd be great, or it'd be great for me in San Francisco visiting my girlfriend in Redwood City (ought to be faster than Caltrain), but other than that, I just don't see the point.
404 Not Found
(BTW, I like Japan as well. Don't think I'm trying to condemn an entire nation because they have some social problems. All nations have problems to deal with, and Japan is no exception. Clearly, there'd be no reason to bother discussing these issues if it were not already a great nation in many other respects)
Exactly my point. They're not different "races," they're the same, just with a different culture. So saying Japanese look like Koreans (or vice versa) is absolutely true.
That their culture, but it certainly is not racism.
Calling something "culture" does not automatically make it okay. It used to be American "culture" that whites should not marry blacks. That was unbelievably racist. How is this different? In many ways, the Japanese still have an "ubermensch" mentality, because unlike the Nazis, they weren't made to feel ashamed for the atrocities they committed. Indeed, America takes more heat for having dropped the A-bombs than Japan takes for the rape and enslavement of large portions of Asia. Ever hear of the "Rape of Nanking?" A quote from that link:
Between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,366 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops. An estimated 80,000 women and girls were raped; many of them were then mutilated or murdered.
For comparison purposes, only 150,000 people were killed outright in the dropping of the two atomic weapons. Perhaps that many again had their lives substantially shortened by radiation, still fewer than the number of Chinese killed in early 1938, to say nothing of the subsequent years, and the other invaded nations. Even if you still think America was somehow at fault for the war, I've never heard an American say that we shouldn't marry German people, because of WWII. And the Japanese don't just say "don't marry Americans," they say "don't marry non-Japanese." Again, it's like the Nazis wanting to keep the purity of the Aryan race. Simply disgusting.
Oh, by the way, it's spelled "emperor." Just a tip.
Assuming you standardized clothing, hairstyles, and time in the sun (for tanning), I doubt it. Sure, you might be right more often than pure chance would suggest, but you wouldn't be anywhere near 100% accuracy. When you walk down a street in the US, can you honestly tell me that you can look at people and identify the origin of their ancestors?
The Japanese do discriminate against non-Japanese. Why do you think it is still such a homogenous society, when it is a rich country? Where is the flood of immigrants that other rich countries get? My girlfriend went to Japan several years ago, as part of a school trip. One of her assignments on the trip was to ask 20 people the same question. She chose "Do you think it's alright for Japanese to marry non-Japanese." Keep in mind, this is a white, clearly American, girl asking this question, so any answer other than "yes, of course" would obviously be offensive. Even so, she got several "no" responses. They were mainly elderly people who gave that response, so hopefully that means the racism is diminishing as the pre-WWII generation dies, but at the moment, it is still very strong.
P.S. I am not the original anonymous coward.
Second point: we're getting this from a guy whose career is based on an idea ripped from Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress?" For those who have seen it, but don't see the Star Wars resemblance, I invite you to read Lucas's original 13 page treatment. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but the events are Kurosawa's. I don't begrudge the man making a successful adaptation of someone else's material. Furthermore, he's admitted the influence, and even funded some of Kurosawa's later projects. Still, you'd think this would be a guy who would champion fair use. Instead, we get this lecture? Feh.
Of course, as with all things, I believe Penny-Arcade has the best commentary on the subject.
I made no value judgements. All I said was, different features are important to different people. The good features of Mac are important to you, and the bad features are not. For me, it's the reverse. It's a simple difference of opinion, I can't understand why you're so insecure in your choice of operating system that you have to try to convince everyone that yours is the best. It's not the best, it's the best for YOU.
Mine has a circular slide rule. Not as visually offensive as the casio calculator, but even more geeky (plus, it takes square roots, which I don't believe the casio did).
When explaining what each of these meant, the basic impression was "it's waterproof only to the previous level." So for example, no resistance means take it off when you wash your hands, 10 feet means you can wash your hands, but don't submerge it completely in water. 100 feet means you can submerge it, but don't take it down to any depth. 1000 feet means you can scuba dive with it.
And except that it's not free as in speech, free as in beer, or portable to non-Apple hardware. No easier, really, than saying "it's like Windows except that it has no DRM, it's based on BSD, it doesn't have as many games, and it doesn't run on commodity hardware." Or maybe we ought to just say "there are three different desktop OSes out there, each with a whole list of advantages and disadvantages." I don't think any one of them is any more like any other. They're different. Different aspects will be important to different people, and you're not going to change a Linux fanatic into a Mac fanatic by saying "they're really similar," because the core philosophies are totally different.
I'd also take issue with your assertion that Linux does not have a usable desktop environment. It may not be a brilliant desktop environment. It may not be your preferred desktop environment. You may even consider it a sub-par desktop environment. However, it is quite usable.
This has been discussed to death. Each of the original Star Trek cast members has a book of some sort about their life, or involvement in the series, and each one has a different version of what happened. Koenig's version is above. Nichols's version is similar, except she said that he just botched the acting. Think every Shatner spoof you've ever seen and multiply it by 10 ("no, I WILL, NOT kiss, her"). Shatner tells a different story in his "Star Trek Memories" book, so maybe the other cast members just thought he was intentionally botching the take, when he hadn't meant to at all...
Are you using the nvidia linux drivers? If you are, you're not using Mesa anyway. If you're not, then you've got hardware acceleration under Windows, but no acceleration under Linux, of course there's a big difference.
Isn't that BSOD?
*chuckle* Debit cards charge a higher fee, closer to 5%, if memory serves. Many retailers would rather not accept debit cards, but at the moment, Visa and MasterCard are demanding that if a store accepts their credit cards, it must accept their debit cards, too. There is currently a class action lawsuit going on (or there was, last time I heard) to settle whether or not this is illegal bundling of services. If the retailers are victorious, debit cards will no longer be accepted at many places, and Visa and MasterCard will likely go bankrupt as well because of the massive damages that the retailers are claiming (won't affect you as a cardholder, the debtors will just take over and it'll be business as usual).
ECONOMICALLY? How so? We alienate the arab nations, which control half the world's oil supply, in order to support a nation that has no oil whatsoever. We support Israel so much, in fact, that fully 1/3rd of their GDP is in the form of American aid. That's right, essentially one in three Israelis is living off of American handouts. How does this provide the USA with an economic benefit?
No, there are reasons that we support Israel, but money ain't one of them. We support Israel because of the holocaust. After WWII, the Allies decided that because of the horrors the Jewish people had endured (not only at the hands of the Nazis, but throughout their history), Israel would be turned over to them. Because we made that commitment, we back them. The second reason is suicide bombing. The Israelis may commit military actions which are of dubious morality (at best), but they've never sent in suicide bombers, or taken actions with no strategic value whatsoever. The third reason is historical. The arab nations in the middle east attacked Israel repeatedly without provocation. Each defeat has made them more and more hostile. Between terrorist actions like the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team and wars of agression from the First Arab-Israeli War onward, it's easy to be sympathetic to Israel.
Nowadays, of course, distance is a bit less of a problem. Movies are shot all over the world, whereas they used to be done almost exclusively in Hollywood backlots. Had it not been for the unprecedented success of the original trilogy though, ILM never would have made it off the ground.
I do agree, absolutely, that money is not Lucas's concern. However, those below him in the power structure most certainly do care about the money. Since Lucas probably does not micromanage the promotional material and licenses, that may be where some of the "moneygrubbing" accusations come from.
Today, they have a collossal profit, and in addition, the OS and Office divisions support the Xbox, the media player, IE, .NET, and so forth. I think it's pretty clear that they're making higher profit margins now that the competition's gone. I think it's also obvious that most of their other projects are mainly to make it harder to switch away from their OS and their office suite.
Actually, if I remember correctly, it was originally just going to be about #1, restoring the film. But, after they showed a couple previews in a handful of theatres, there was such an overwhelming response that Lucas figured he'd give it a bit of a budget, and make the whole "special edition." *sigh* If only they'd left the Greedo scene alone...
Or maybe they could put bags around the store, like they do now with the little plastic bags in the produce section of grocery stores. Or they can have seperate lines, one for people who want to be bagged, and and "express line" for those who don't. Personally, 9 times out of 10 I don't buy enough from a store to need a bag, so it'd be useful for some people, in some stores. You're right, it won't totally replace cashiers, but it may reduce the need for such menial staff in some types of retail.