At the Nintendo World Store in NYC, they have a Game Boy on display which was allegedly the victim of a bomb blast in the first Iraq War. It is turned on, and plays a Tetris video. (Maybe just what Tetris plays when you don't start a game.) There is one line of the display which is out, but it looks and works fine (the display looks fine, anyway!). Someone has a picture of it on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhoran/45213997/in/set-988263/
Just a second? You aren't thinking big enough. Four. Or six, that's the way. Hellz yeah, you're right! If I had one on each hip and the small of my back, I could have hula sex with four chicks! One over my nose and one behind my head, and I could redefine "chicken head".
Do you pedal-pumping type action with my feet would be overdoing it?
There's simply no reason for the TSA to bother screening for small personal weapons or potentially dangerous pocket objects. Like Bruce Schneier says, it's all just wasteful, distracting security theater. Fine, screen for bombs and guns, maybe check for poison gas cannisters, but leave our fucking toothpaste alone, you morons! Right on. Also, think of all the resources wasted on petty drug possession. That is what the vast majority of arrests have been since the implementation of post-9/11 security, and how most manpower and time is spent with higher-level security screenings. Get priorities straight, and don't make travel such a pain in the ass for everyone involved. Stop wasting time and money. And, for Allah's sake, stop fear-mongering.
It also creates a perception of difficulty for accomplishing any sort of illegal activity, which is another goal.
Obviously, however, this is a slippery slope. The more freedom we give away, the more we are willing to give away again. This works, because the perception of safety created by this technique makes us even more sure there is something to feel unsafe about, to begin with.
It would be interesting to see, if we went back to pre-9/11 security again at airports for a year or two or five, would anything really happen? Is this all a total sham?
Maybe we should experiment, and find some kind of middle ground between freedom and safety. The way things are going, we are just losing more and more freedom, without gaining any tangible amount of safety. Just perception. Statistical evidence is better than a guess. Statistically, our previous security system worked pretty well for some time. Just awareness of what went wrong, I think, would go a long way in prevention of another such incident.
Mmm-hmm... Have you ever heard of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard-Satterthwaite_theorem
It has been shown by the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem that any voting method which is completely strategy-free must be either dictatorial or nondeterministic (that is, might not select the same outcome every time it is applied to the same set of voter preferences). - Wikipedia article on Tactical Voting IRV is not quite so glamorous as you might think. It is always subject to voter manipulation (unless it is dictatorial or nondeterministic, which we would assume our elections not to be). It pays off not to vote your true preferences, much as is the case with our current system.
The "wasted vote" is a myth, or at best a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you do not vote for who you WANT to win, then someone you do not want will win. Period. It is as simple as that. Thinking about it any other way is nothing more than second-guessing, or mental jerking off. Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Well, you won't get who you want in office, true, but you might have more desirable things happen than if you had been honest with your vote. Voting against your wishes in order to influence results is called "tactical voting" or "voting manipulation". It has been studied quite thoroughly for run-off election systems (and there are significant proofs about its usefulness -- look up "tactical voting" on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_voting). This also applies to our system, although our system does not lend itself so nicely to proofs.
Consider those who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000; if Gore had had Nader's votes (which is quite likely), Gore would have won. Now fast-forward through eight years of Bush, and five years of fighting in Iraq. Now, tell me many people could not benefit from voting against their true preferences. Clinton and Obama might suck big fat Enron nuts, but I, for one, think this war needs to end, and the supreme court needs a swift kick away from the right.
The fact remains that this country is full of people who are satisfied with the status-quo. As incredible as that might be to believe that anyone would be, you see it all around you. And the ones who are smart enough not to be happy with it do not have similar enough views to rally enough support for their candidate. Look at you and me. You seem to believe Ron Paul is a good candidate, so I suppose your views are roughly in line with Libertarianism. My views are more liberal. Then there are the right-wing and left-wing nutjobs. Pretty soon, it becomes obvious that the centrist Republicrats and Demicans are going to be the winners for a long time. Unless we switch to a system with more proportional representation (such as a parliamentary system), it simply won't pay to support a candidate with any sort of individuality. It really does make a lot of sense to use the tactical voting strategy. Unfortunately.
If you want something to support which all the freer thinkers can rally around, it is proportional representation. We all want our side to be represented, right? So forget about Ron Paul for now. Focus on realizing proportional representation. Just remember the establishment will fight it, tooth and nail.
The fact that they're in a church doesn't mean that we should be any less outraged, either. The NFL is abusing copyright law, and it happens to be a church who's getting hurt. The story is the abuse, not the fact that it's happening to a church. What you speak is truth, brother. But the story is also the church with the 56" TV. No tax-exempt organization should be afforded such luxury without proving a case for its necessity. (Perhaps the church has a school where it is needed for assemblies, or educational videos.) And it is not obviously necessary to broadcast the baby Jesus in HD (or even to broadcast the pastor for that matter -- a PA system takes care of that). If they can prove a case for the need of the TV, then I see no problem with viewing an occasional sporting event. But if this is the regular type of use of the monitor, or if (provably necessary) viewings of the baby Jesus play second fiddle, this is clearly an indication of a larger problem.
The NFL should be investigated for their abuse of copyright law, and the church should be investigated for abuse of tax-exempt status.
I was thinking I might eat my hat on that one, but I think the euro thing happened around the time I started becoming cognizant of world affairs, and I tend to conflate the EU and its currency. I'll have to be more careful in the future. If you were thinking you might "eat your hat", maybe you shouldn't have made the original statement with such certainty, or perhaps looked it up first. Not that people should use/. forums for a factionary, but it helps when we can have faith in the community that someone firmly believes that which they are professing as truth.
I generally agree with you, but let me play devil's advocate.
No other form of government has proven to be anything but fleeting, either. Dictatorships, communist states, monarchies, all forms of empires, even democracies have all had expiration dates. Look what is happening to democracy in Venezuela (although democracy has had one major victory recently). Look what the Russians are doing with their democracy, willfully giving it up. Look what is happening in Iraq, with their new "democracy".
Are you really so confident that America's current system is not "fleeting"? Granted, it has lasted for a while. I cannot point to an example of when anarchy has lasted so long, but I am sure, before government was formalized, there must have been long periods existing in what we, today, would call anarchy.
The reason anarchy would not work today is because our culture would forbid it. Similarly, the Russian and Iraqi cultures currently forbid the style of democracy which works in the U.S. Is a future unimaginable for these countries to adopt a system like western nations have? I certainly believe it is possible, but it is not currently possible. It is also not unimaginable that culture would "revert back" (or advance) to a state where anarchy might be feasible again. I do not think it is likely, but it is certainly possible.
ever heard of Cooking Mama? there is a version for Wii and two for DS (Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends just came out in November). each of these games have received pretty good reviews.
while the concept, admittedly, does not sound very exciting, it can, apparently, be successful.
I've had this exact same thought since the VC was announced. I like your taste.
Also, that is a great idea to have a VC voting channel. There is just so much untapped potential with the Wii (including its integration with the DS). Imagine a Wii with which we could influence which VC titles come out; which has new downloadable titles, both for Wii and DS; which has upgrades of older VC titles; which has Wiimote compatibility for appropriate VC titles (SimCity, Pokemon Snap, etc.); which has online play for VC titles; which has a really sweet online community (Does anyone remember X-Band? That was way better than what the Wii currently offers! And that was mid-freakin-nineties!)... The list goes on.
Unfortunately, at the rate things are going, it seems like the majority of the Wii's potential will never be tapped. I don't know if it is a lack of resources by Nintendo, a poor pacing plan for feature unveilings, or a sincere lack of understanding of what gamers want. Probably the online sucks, and will continue to, because of the Big N's overprotective parent mindset. They really need to give that a rest, and just let parents either turn off online play on their kids' Wii, or allow for a limited, child-friendly, online play system (i.e. the one that exists now).
As someone else said, wide-ranging sentencing guidelines just misplace the power of the judicial system.
What would make more sense would be if the computer cracking is used as means for "much more damaging ends," then those damaging ends should be what is punished heavily, with hacking charges tacked on. In this case, there are not those super-destructive ends, so this is the type of case on which the sentencing guidelines for these crimes should be based.
Otherwise, all it takes is one overzealous judge (or jury!) to set an insane precedent for future cases of this type. This happens all the time; just look at the RIAA case a few weeks ago, with that poor woman sentenced a ridiculous fine because she stole music with a computer, instead of shoplifting at Best Buy.
Slashdot Mirror
1) It is not congress, nor the government doing the censorship; it is the web host.
2) It's a freaking Dutch dude (politician), not an American, making the film, although it is an American host for the site.
At the Nintendo World Store in NYC, they have a Game Boy on display which was allegedly the victim of a bomb blast in the first Iraq War. It is turned on, and plays a Tetris video. (Maybe just what Tetris plays when you don't start a game.) There is one line of the display which is out, but it looks and works fine (the display looks fine, anyway!). Someone has a picture of it on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhoran/45213997/in/set-988263/
Do you pedal-pumping type action with my feet would be overdoing it?
Does this mean I can have a second wee-wee?
It also creates a perception of difficulty for accomplishing any sort of illegal activity, which is another goal.
Obviously, however, this is a slippery slope. The more freedom we give away, the more we are willing to give away again. This works, because the perception of safety created by this technique makes us even more sure there is something to feel unsafe about, to begin with.
It would be interesting to see, if we went back to pre-9/11 security again at airports for a year or two or five, would anything really happen? Is this all a total sham?
Maybe we should experiment, and find some kind of middle ground between freedom and safety. The way things are going, we are just losing more and more freedom, without gaining any tangible amount of safety. Just perception. Statistical evidence is better than a guess. Statistically, our previous security system worked pretty well for some time. Just awareness of what went wrong, I think, would go a long way in prevention of another such incident.
It has been shown by the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem that any voting method which is completely strategy-free must be either dictatorial or nondeterministic (that is, might not select the same outcome every time it is applied to the same set of voter preferences). - Wikipedia article on Tactical Voting IRV is not quite so glamorous as you might think. It is always subject to voter manipulation (unless it is dictatorial or nondeterministic, which we would assume our elections not to be). It pays off not to vote your true preferences, much as is the case with our current system.
(The better cure for the spoiler effect is proportional representation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation)
Consider those who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000; if Gore had had Nader's votes (which is quite likely), Gore would have won. Now fast-forward through eight years of Bush, and five years of fighting in Iraq. Now, tell me many people could not benefit from voting against their true preferences. Clinton and Obama might suck big fat Enron nuts, but I, for one, think this war needs to end, and the supreme court needs a swift kick away from the right.
The fact remains that this country is full of people who are satisfied with the status-quo. As incredible as that might be to believe that anyone would be, you see it all around you. And the ones who are smart enough not to be happy with it do not have similar enough views to rally enough support for their candidate. Look at you and me. You seem to believe Ron Paul is a good candidate, so I suppose your views are roughly in line with Libertarianism. My views are more liberal. Then there are the right-wing and left-wing nutjobs. Pretty soon, it becomes obvious that the centrist Republicrats and Demicans are going to be the winners for a long time. Unless we switch to a system with more proportional representation (such as a parliamentary system), it simply won't pay to support a candidate with any sort of individuality. It really does make a lot of sense to use the tactical voting strategy. Unfortunately.
If you want something to support which all the freer thinkers can rally around, it is proportional representation. We all want our side to be represented, right? So forget about Ron Paul for now. Focus on realizing proportional representation. Just remember the establishment will fight it, tooth and nail.
The NFL should be investigated for their abuse of copyright law, and the church should be investigated for abuse of tax-exempt status.
I generally agree with you, but let me play devil's advocate.
No other form of government has proven to be anything but fleeting, either. Dictatorships, communist states, monarchies, all forms of empires, even democracies have all had expiration dates. Look what is happening to democracy in Venezuela (although democracy has had one major victory recently). Look what the Russians are doing with their democracy, willfully giving it up. Look what is happening in Iraq, with their new "democracy".
Are you really so confident that America's current system is not "fleeting"? Granted, it has lasted for a while. I cannot point to an example of when anarchy has lasted so long, but I am sure, before government was formalized, there must have been long periods existing in what we, today, would call anarchy.
The reason anarchy would not work today is because our culture would forbid it. Similarly, the Russian and Iraqi cultures currently forbid the style of democracy which works in the U.S. Is a future unimaginable for these countries to adopt a system like western nations have? I certainly believe it is possible, but it is not currently possible. It is also not unimaginable that culture would "revert back" (or advance) to a state where anarchy might be feasible again. I do not think it is likely, but it is certainly possible.
Also, your notion of fleeting is ill-defined.
We can complain on /., of course.
It's quite telling that no one has given you a sufficient answer.
ever heard of Cooking Mama? there is a version for Wii and two for DS (Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends just came out in November). each of these games have received pretty good reviews.
while the concept, admittedly, does not sound very exciting, it can, apparently, be successful.
"I want Blaster Master, dammit."
I've had this exact same thought since the VC was announced. I like your taste.
Also, that is a great idea to have a VC voting channel. There is just so much untapped potential with the Wii (including its integration with the DS). Imagine a Wii with which we could influence which VC titles come out; which has new downloadable titles, both for Wii and DS; which has upgrades of older VC titles; which has Wiimote compatibility for appropriate VC titles (SimCity, Pokemon Snap, etc.); which has online play for VC titles; which has a really sweet online community (Does anyone remember X-Band? That was way better than what the Wii currently offers! And that was mid-freakin-nineties!)... The list goes on.
Unfortunately, at the rate things are going, it seems like the majority of the Wii's potential will never be tapped. I don't know if it is a lack of resources by Nintendo, a poor pacing plan for feature unveilings, or a sincere lack of understanding of what gamers want. Probably the online sucks, and will continue to, because of the Big N's overprotective parent mindset. They really need to give that a rest, and just let parents either turn off online play on their kids' Wii, or allow for a limited, child-friendly, online play system (i.e. the one that exists now).
Oh, and a keyboard would be nice.
As someone else said, wide-ranging sentencing guidelines just misplace the power of the judicial system. What would make more sense would be if the computer cracking is used as means for "much more damaging ends," then those damaging ends should be what is punished heavily, with hacking charges tacked on. In this case, there are not those super-destructive ends, so this is the type of case on which the sentencing guidelines for these crimes should be based. Otherwise, all it takes is one overzealous judge (or jury!) to set an insane precedent for future cases of this type. This happens all the time; just look at the RIAA case a few weeks ago, with that poor woman sentenced a ridiculous fine because she stole music with a computer, instead of shoplifting at Best Buy.