You do not need to be worrying about whether or not you will love your work. Before you do anything else (especially play another video game), you need to concentrate on the "writing well" aspect. I direct you to a beginner's guide.
The majority of time that I spend on the internet is spent communicating with others in some way. I would think that sending email and participating in forum discussions qualify as socializing. Heck, even the time I spend playing WoW counts as socializing, IMO, because I am in constant contact with my guildmates.
Television is an entirely one-way connection: you watch it. Even if you happen to be sitting in a room with other people, if everyone is watching the TV, no one is actually socializing with anyone else.
And furthermore, DUR! What a brilliant study: hey, guess what I figured out, if you spend time doing something, you can't spend that same time doing something else. Somebody give me a grant!
I just beat this game. It took about ten minutes. Is the flash version like the original version? Because I was never able to beat the original version, ever. Of course, when I played the original version, I was a spazzy kid with a propensity to panic whenever I encountered a dragon.
Re:Sign Me Up.... I Want My Charlie Back!
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Re-Pet a Reality
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· Score: 1
For what it's worth, I hope you find another pet that can provide you with as much happiness and companionship.
I also hope you find that driver and have him crucified.
The article brings up some excellent points. While I understand the antipathy that many MMOG players feel for purchasing in-game items for real-life money, the author of the article makes some striking observations about WoW's economy. I am interested to see if gold becomes so readily available during the higher levels of the game.
A more subtle point in this article is that MMOG economies are command economies, like the economy of the U.S.S.R. These game economies are not truly driven supply and demand. The easiest solution, but the author does not touch on this idea, is to limit the amount of currency in the MMOG world. If new currency is constantly being created, then inflation is the inevitable result.
The questioner is thinking about the cost of MMOGs all wrong. The flat fee per month results in better cost per entertainment hour than you might think by just looking at the total fee.
If you live in a major city, you pay $10-11 to go see one movie (if you buy only the ticket, and you go alone). A fair estimate of average movie length is 2 hours.
If you pay for WoW (for example) one month at a time, it costs $15 per month. If you then play the game 3 hours per week (assuming four weeks in a month), you play a total of 12 hours a month.
Your cost per hour of movie entertainment is at least $5/hour, but your cost per hour of WoW entertainment is $0.8/hour. (I have left out a lot of costs, like the initial cost of the game, the cost of gas to get to the movie theater, the cost of internet access for the game.) And the more you play WoW, the more that cost per hour goes down. Unless you intend on playing three hours or less a month, the cost per entertainment hour of playing WoW is less than going to ONE movie a month. If you can't find adequate entertainment value by paying the monthly fee of the MMOG (compared to seeing a movie or any other form of entertainment), you shouldn't bother playing an MMOG in the first place.
Yoda' Stories was a great game. All the adventures were randomly generated, and they really only took about an hour to complete. Naturally, each adventure tended to repeat variations on particular types of puzzles, so once you stumbled your way through a type of puzzle once, it was a lot easier to take on that type of puzzle the next time. But that was part of the beauty of the game: it wasn't twitch-oriented, it required at least a small modicum of thinking, and, at 45-minutes to an hour per adventure, it was the perfect study break.
Please. Gamespy Arcade itself displays ads when you use it, and it does not force your computer to visit ad websites or send personal information against your will or without your knowledge. You can also pay for the software, which allows you to disable the ads completely.
You might not like Gamespy, but there's no need to overreact.
I emailed the second picture in that set of HL2/Doom3 screenshots to my wife and asked her: "What do you think this is?" She called me up and said, "A picture of a basement hallway." I asked if by picture she might mean a photograph, and she said, "Sure." When I told her that the picture was from a 3D rendering engine, she was surprised. She thought it was real. That's some damn impressive technology.
In the recent article about Penny Arcade in the Seattle Times (I think it was the Seattle Times), you made mention that you did not plan on doing PA "forever". Then, on a news post on the PA site, Tycho tried to make it clear that you are not just "grooming PA to sell it to some big company" (quotes, but I'm paraphrasing). How would you classify your business: drawing comics and ads for games companies or publishing a regular web comic? At what point does the independent ad agency bit conflict with or replace the webcomic?
The rule is one question per post, so I am putting this one in a separate post:
Child's Play has been a substantial success. You were successful not only in doing a good thing for the Seattle Children's Hospital, but at also directly challenging at least one media know-it-all's perceptions about gamers. Have you recognized that this success means that you wield a tremendous amount of power both within the niche-world of gamers and in the "rest of the world"? Have you considered other ways that you can harness this power to either help others or positively influence the rest of the world's ideas about gamers?
To what lengths do you go to keep PA and Child's Play separate? Have any of the hospitals looked at Penny Arcade and questioned whether they should get involved with Child's Play?
I regularly work 10-12 hour days. I make it a point of being in the office for a few hours every weekend. I am a professional, and in order to maintain professional standards, I must dedicate a large part of my life to working.
On the other hand, I don't work in a restrictive corporate environment. I get an annual bonus. No one tells me to be here from x a.m. until y p.m. I can take a 2 hour lunch on occasion. If I need to leave early, I can and do. If I need time off, I don't need to get approval, I just need to give ample notice. These are the unwritten percs of being a professional.
While I don't feel much sympathy for the amount of hours these people work (or for the stress it causes them and their families--everyone is in the same boat on this score), I do think they are being treated little better than mules. Even though these EA programmers might not be entitled to comp time, if comp time is the customary reward in the industry for dedicated work for long hours to meet project deadlines, then EA is screwing these people. If I didn't get a bonus, or the kind of freedom I've described (which is customary for employees with my experience in my industry), I'd feel ill-used and under-appreciated. And I'd probably find someplace that would treat me better. Sounds like that avenue might not be open to these programmers, though.
Allow me to clarify: they are not filing FEDERAL FOIA requests, they are filing FOI requests pursuant to the relevant state's FOI law. You are right, the states aren't bound by the FEDERAL FOIA, but they are bound by their own FOI law (and most states have a FOI law that is almost exactly like the federal law). IF parent had CTFL, parent would have realized this very fact.
Where do you live? Honestly, I'm curious. And can you explain a little more about the voting process?
I can think of a couple reasons why things are different here in the U.S.: (1) there are more than 36.6 million registered voters and they are spread out over a country that measures more than 3,000 miles from Atlantic to Pacific coast; and (2) screwing with elections is a tradition with a long and hallowed history in the U.S., just ask Tammany Hall.
Scientists should not be spending their time attempting to discredit creationists. Any attempt to answer creationists on their own ground merely adds credence to their beliefs.
Science is not a belief. Science follows the scientific method. Accepted principles in science can be independently verified by testing and re-testing hypotheses using the scientific method.
Science is also not static, and it does not offer any guarantee that today's conclusions will match tomorrow's conclusions. While creationists attempt to cite this uncertainty as a weakness, it is one of science's greatest strengths. There is no place for dogma in science. Whereas, religion (and creationism as a sub-part of religion) is rife with dogma and the need to suppress intellectual curiousity.
Creationists deliberately misconstrue statements by various scientists and scientific conclusions in order to paint those statement and conclusions as "beliefs" rather than the results of the scientific method. Except creationists are not true scientists, because they come to the table with a hypothesis, the truth of which they are highly invested in proving. That is not the scientific method, because they do not approach their hypothesis with neutrality. Therefore, they find exactly the answers they seek. That is not science.
I probably should not bother to defend myself, but here goes: I am not calling the DS innovative because it has two screens. I am calling Nintendo innovative because the company consistently designs and publishes games that impress me in terms of taking simple concepts and turning them into easy-to-learn but completely engrossing games.
Ultimately, it's probably not fair for me to say that Nintendo is "more innovative" than Sony, because I am thinking of innovation in terms of game concepts and publishing, which Sony does not do. Sony is definitely more innovative (or at least more progressive) than Nintendo on the hardware front. The DS's second screen is cool, because it opens up options for further game concept innovation. As a hardware feature, the second screen is not impressive at all.
I think the key difference between the two systems is Nintendo's dedication to innovation. Both consoles will put more gaming power into a portable package than ever before.
But Sony's going to use that power to exploit proven franchises and game concepts. People can play their favorite kinds of games with great graphics on the go, and that's a huge selling point.
Nintendo is going to use its console's power to do more than push polygons: Nintendo will (like Nintendo always does) create great games that have a child-like sense of pure fun.
I guess it depends on what you want from your system. Personally, I prefer the unique and just plain fun games that Nintendo publishes to yet another sports game, first person shooter or driving game.
And, frankly, 4-6 hours of battery life is pathetic.
For me, this exchange has been useful, but it's clear that we have a fundamental difference in philosophy. I doubt I can convince you to adopt my viewpoint, and I know you won't convince me to adopt yours. Nonetheless, I'd like to respond to a few more of your comments.
First, I haven't been as clear as I can be regarding "drugs." Obviously, there is no war on aspirin (at least not a government sponsored one). So let's just agree that by "drugs," we mean drugs like marijuana, cocaine, crack, heroin, ecstasy, crystal meth, etc. Now, let me reiterate my point with our newly defined term "drugs": The drug laws criminalize the traffic in drugs, in order to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs. The reason we, as a society, want to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs is that drug addicts are, to be blunt, more trouble than they are worth, i.e., they are not productive members of society and they worsen certain problems, such as petty crime. Of course, once we have a drug addict were stuck with him (obviously, I don't advocate killing drug addicts or incarcerating them just because they are a pain). So the solution must be, "Stop the person from becoming addicted by preventing the drug from reaching the person." Thus, we criminalize the traffic of certain drugs. My original point was that this preventative solution is sensible, but the implementation of it has been shoddy.
How decides what is "alleviating the suffering of others"?... But where do you draw the line, and how do you draw it?
Well, now we get to a point on which you and I cannot agree: reasonable people can make reasonable judgments based on all the evidence at their disposal, which judgments will allow those people to draw a reasonable line. If we stick to certain principles, such as the inherent value of life, and the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness(and others that I am too tired to drag out), we can make sound and reasonable judgments about how best to alleviate the suffering of others.
Those are *our* inaliable rights.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I think those are the inalienable rights of all humans. Further, I don't think those rights are subject to time, place or culture. All humans have the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Cultural mores might demand that a person relinquish all or a portion of his or her individual liberty (or either of the other inalienable rights), but legitimate governments have no standing to separate their subjects from these inalienable rights. To do so would remove the government's legitimacy.
Freedom of speech is not the sole criteria for judging a democracy.
You are right, which is why I also wrote "obviously, other elements are necessary as well, but I don't think I need to drag out all the theory and principles just to make this simple point." I still think you should be able to grasp the point that I was driving at without a whole lot of equivocation and qualification on my part. But if you want to obtuse about it, be my guest. I'm sorry I can't be more civil about it, but it's late, and I'm feeling a bit ornery now.
The put people in jail for using something that harms only themselves, and not the public at large.
The "drug laws" are written and intended to criminalize the traffic of illegal narcotics. Being addicted is not a crime, possessing certain amounts is a crime. Law enforcement does not waste its time rounding up addicts, but rather they focus their efforts on shutting down the traffic in narcotics. Granted this process often begins at the bottom, with a street dealer who is probably also an addict, but the purpose of the war on drugs is to shut down the traffic, not the people.
Well, the country *was* originally concieved to be isolationist.
As Mr. Cobb pointed out, this country was also originally conceived as permitting human slavery. Of course, eventually people realized that some ideas are just plain lousy, no matter how long the ideas have been around.
First, we should not use the military to protect our "interests."
War is not a tool, but an admission of failure. On the other hand, debates at the UN in New York City will not put an end to genocide in Sudan. Sending in troops to assist in stabilizing the area can help. I didn't mean that we need a military so that we can send it around the world and depose dictators and leave people with chaos. I meant that the military is an important and necessary part of an effective foreign policy for those who won't listen to reason and only respond to a show of strength. As distasteful as that idea might be, it is a reality.
We're only over-extended because some have this belief that it is our job to bring freedom to people around the world, and combat injustice and oppression wherever it may exist. That's not our job. The war against all evil is not something that can be won, and it is not something we need to fight. The more we try to evangelize our democracy, the more we endanger ourselves. It is a failed policy, not unlike those policies in the past that tried to evangelize a particular religion.
"Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!" (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol) As Mr. Dickens implies, those in a position of advantage ought to alleviate the suffering of others who lack the same advantage, rather than pretending that the plight of the disadvantaged is something entirely separate from the concerns of the advantaged. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. It is the responsibility of a free people to do everything in their power to share that freedom with those people who are denied their inalienable rights. To do anything less is to shrink in the face injustice. You say, "That's not our job." Let me give you one more piece of wisdom from Mr. Dickens: "Business!... Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business."
For much of the reign of Wilhelm I, the socialist party in Germany flourished openly. This was even though the authoritarian government and the socialists were at odds, and the socialist party was at times technically illegal. This is not to say that we have an authoritarian regime, but rather that your line of logic isn't sensical.
And you are responding with hair splitting. Let me make my point more plain: the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I was being a bit prosaic. I used a little literary license to indicate a reference to the freedom of speech. Whether or not the socialists during the reign of Wilhelm I in Germany were able to get away with breaking the law is irrelevant. In the United States, we have freedom of speech, and Mr. Cobb is able to voice his criticisms of our true democracy precisely because this right is guaranteed to him by the First Amendment. A democracy without freedom of speech is not a true democracy (obviously, other elements are necessary as well, but I don't think I need to drag out all the theory and principles just to make this simple point).
I want to like the Greens. I really do. I am not registered with any party, and from time to time I consider registering as a member of the Green Party. But then I read stuff like these interview answers. Is this guy from Mars?.
As to our shortage of landfill space, we need to increase recycling and require manufacturers to take material back if it is not completely recyclable or biodegradable..
Require manufacturers to take material back? Did the Greens happen to notice when most of the manufacturing in this country moved overseas to find cheaper labor costs and less environmental regulation over the last 30 years? I think it's a great idea to protect our environment more, but the inevitable outcome is more businesses moving overseas. Environmental regulation must be accompanied by policies focused on absorbing those who lose their jobs as a result. (And I don't mean putting them on welfare).
Food was grown by humankind for an awfully long time and rather successfully before the advent of pesticides and herbicides. We don't need that poison on our foods, on our soil or in our water supplies. And we don't need Frankenfood either.
As someone else has pointed out, the reason we use modern farming technologies is to produce more food with the same (or less) amount of land. Changing the structure of our farming industry has more to do with changing the kinds of foods we eat than changing government policies. As for "Frankenfoods," I have yet to see any sound science to convince me that genetically engineered or modified foods are Bad(TM) or Good(TM). Until I do, I view blanket claims that such foods are Bad(TM) with deep suspicion.
Marijuana has been declared by an Administrative Judge for the FDA as one of the safest therapeutic substances known.
Who cares what an administrative law judge said? First of all, from a legal persepective, an administrative law judge's decision has zero precedential value beyond the applicable case. Second, who the heck was this administrative law judge and how did he reach this conclusion? Was he a scientist who conducted peer-reviewed experiments? Was he an expert who based his conclusion on a metastudy? Or was he just some bureaucrat sitting in some windowless room in some huge federal building somewhere in D.C.? Don't be fooled by the rhetoric, administrative judges are not part of the judicial system, and they are not necessarily truly impartial.
The "war on drugs" is racist and an insult to all Americans. This "war" has incarcerated people of color at a much higher rate than white people. It has resulted in senseless attacks on innocent people and on our Constitution. We have to treat drug addiction as a health problem, not as a crime.
Although drug addiction is a health problem, the drug laws don't put people in jail for being addicts. It's the people who traffic in illegal narcotics and get caught who end up in jail. The idea behind making certain narcotics illegal is that the best way to keep people from becoming addicted is to limit their access to the narcotics in the first place. In general, I recognize that the "war on drugs" has done a pretty piss-poor job of achieving this goal. But that's an argument for reforming the way we fight the war on drugs, not for scrapping the war entirely.
The Green Party supports closing overseas military bases and reducing the military budget by 50% over ten years.
This comment smacks of isolationism. We cannot protect our country, meaning our homeland or our interests throughout the globe, if we do not remain engaged with the world at large. Maybe we can drastically reduce our defense budget by cutting back on useless or out-dated ideas (missile defense system, anyone?), but we should not scale back our military in such a way that it would hamper our ability to respond to threats anywhere in the world in a rapid fashion. If anything, we need to increase the size of our armed forces, because we are currently overex
Slashdot Mirror
Allow me to summarize about 90% of the comments for you: M$.
News flash, folks: Gates is not the devil incarnate, nor does he have some mad scheme to become the ruler of all existence. Take the tin foil off.
In a more on-topic vein: it is poetic justice to watch Gates suffer through the same bugs that all his consumers must endure.
You do not need to be worrying about whether or not you will love your work. Before you do anything else (especially play another video game), you need to concentrate on the "writing well" aspect. I direct you to a beginner's guide.
The majority of time that I spend on the internet is spent communicating with others in some way. I would think that sending email and participating in forum discussions qualify as socializing. Heck, even the time I spend playing WoW counts as socializing, IMO, because I am in constant contact with my guildmates.
Television is an entirely one-way connection: you watch it. Even if you happen to be sitting in a room with other people, if everyone is watching the TV, no one is actually socializing with anyone else.
And furthermore, DUR! What a brilliant study: hey, guess what I figured out, if you spend time doing something, you can't spend that same time doing something else. Somebody give me a grant!
I just beat this game. It took about ten minutes. Is the flash version like the original version? Because I was never able to beat the original version, ever. Of course, when I played the original version, I was a spazzy kid with a propensity to panic whenever I encountered a dragon.
For what it's worth, I hope you find another pet that can provide you with as much happiness and companionship.
I also hope you find that driver and have him crucified.
The article brings up some excellent points. While I understand the antipathy that many MMOG players feel for purchasing in-game items for real-life money, the author of the article makes some striking observations about WoW's economy. I am interested to see if gold becomes so readily available during the higher levels of the game.
A more subtle point in this article is that MMOG economies are command economies, like the economy of the U.S.S.R. These game economies are not truly driven supply and demand. The easiest solution, but the author does not touch on this idea, is to limit the amount of currency in the MMOG world. If new currency is constantly being created, then inflation is the inevitable result.
The questioner is thinking about the cost of MMOGs all wrong. The flat fee per month results in better cost per entertainment hour than you might think by just looking at the total fee.
If you live in a major city, you pay $10-11 to go see one movie (if you buy only the ticket, and you go alone). A fair estimate of average movie length is 2 hours.
If you pay for WoW (for example) one month at a time, it costs $15 per month. If you then play the game 3 hours per week (assuming four weeks in a month), you play a total of 12 hours a month.
Your cost per hour of movie entertainment is at least $5/hour, but your cost per hour of WoW entertainment is $0.8/hour. (I have left out a lot of costs, like the initial cost of the game, the cost of gas to get to the movie theater, the cost of internet access for the game.) And the more you play WoW, the more that cost per hour goes down. Unless you intend on playing three hours or less a month, the cost per entertainment hour of playing WoW is less than going to ONE movie a month. If you can't find adequate entertainment value by paying the monthly fee of the MMOG (compared to seeing a movie or any other form of entertainment), you shouldn't bother playing an MMOG in the first place.
Yoda' Stories was a great game. All the adventures were randomly generated, and they really only took about an hour to complete. Naturally, each adventure tended to repeat variations on particular types of puzzles, so once you stumbled your way through a type of puzzle once, it was a lot easier to take on that type of puzzle the next time. But that was part of the beauty of the game: it wasn't twitch-oriented, it required at least a small modicum of thinking, and, at 45-minutes to an hour per adventure, it was the perfect study break.
Please. Gamespy Arcade itself displays ads when you use it, and it does not force your computer to visit ad websites or send personal information against your will or without your knowledge. You can also pay for the software, which allows you to disable the ads completely.
You might not like Gamespy, but there's no need to overreact.
This has become my new sig.
I emailed the second picture in that set of HL2/Doom3 screenshots to my wife and asked her: "What do you think this is?" She called me up and said, "A picture of a basement hallway." I asked if by picture she might mean a photograph, and she said, "Sure." When I told her that the picture was from a 3D rendering engine, she was surprised. She thought it was real. That's some damn impressive technology.
In the recent article about Penny Arcade in the Seattle Times (I think it was the Seattle Times), you made mention that you did not plan on doing PA "forever". Then, on a news post on the PA site, Tycho tried to make it clear that you are not just "grooming PA to sell it to some big company" (quotes, but I'm paraphrasing). How would you classify your business: drawing comics and ads for games companies or publishing a regular web comic? At what point does the independent ad agency bit conflict with or replace the webcomic?
The rule is one question per post, so I am putting this one in a separate post:
Child's Play has been a substantial success. You were successful not only in doing a good thing for the Seattle Children's Hospital, but at also directly challenging at least one media know-it-all's perceptions about gamers. Have you recognized that this success means that you wield a tremendous amount of power both within the niche-world of gamers and in the "rest of the world"? Have you considered other ways that you can harness this power to either help others or positively influence the rest of the world's ideas about gamers?
To what lengths do you go to keep PA and Child's Play separate? Have any of the hospitals looked at Penny Arcade and questioned whether they should get involved with Child's Play?
I regularly work 10-12 hour days. I make it a point of being in the office for a few hours every weekend. I am a professional, and in order to maintain professional standards, I must dedicate a large part of my life to working.
On the other hand, I don't work in a restrictive corporate environment. I get an annual bonus. No one tells me to be here from x a.m. until y p.m. I can take a 2 hour lunch on occasion. If I need to leave early, I can and do. If I need time off, I don't need to get approval, I just need to give ample notice. These are the unwritten percs of being a professional.
While I don't feel much sympathy for the amount of hours these people work (or for the stress it causes them and their families--everyone is in the same boat on this score), I do think they are being treated little better than mules. Even though these EA programmers might not be entitled to comp time, if comp time is the customary reward in the industry for dedicated work for long hours to meet project deadlines, then EA is screwing these people. If I didn't get a bonus, or the kind of freedom I've described (which is customary for employees with my experience in my industry), I'd feel ill-used and under-appreciated. And I'd probably find someplace that would treat me better. Sounds like that avenue might not be open to these programmers, though.
Allow me to clarify: they are not filing FEDERAL FOIA requests, they are filing FOI requests pursuant to the relevant state's FOI law. You are right, the states aren't bound by the FEDERAL FOIA, but they are bound by their own FOI law (and most states have a FOI law that is almost exactly like the federal law). IF parent had CTFL, parent would have realized this very fact.
Perhaps you should CTFL (click the f-in' link) before you post: they are filing state FOIA requests.
Where do you live? Honestly, I'm curious. And can you explain a little more about the voting process?
I can think of a couple reasons why things are different here in the U.S.: (1) there are more than 36.6 million registered voters and they are spread out over a country that measures more than 3,000 miles from Atlantic to Pacific coast; and (2) screwing with elections is a tradition with a long and hallowed history in the U.S., just ask Tammany Hall.
You're right. But I'd be glad to volunteer my time to assist. Heck, I'd quit my job if they would pay me to work on this audit.
Scientists should not be spending their time attempting to discredit creationists. Any attempt to answer creationists on their own ground merely adds credence to their beliefs.
Science is not a belief. Science follows the scientific method. Accepted principles in science can be independently verified by testing and re-testing hypotheses using the scientific method.
Science is also not static, and it does not offer any guarantee that today's conclusions will match tomorrow's conclusions. While creationists attempt to cite this uncertainty as a weakness, it is one of science's greatest strengths. There is no place for dogma in science. Whereas, religion (and creationism as a sub-part of religion) is rife with dogma and the need to suppress intellectual curiousity.
Creationists deliberately misconstrue statements by various scientists and scientific conclusions in order to paint those statement and conclusions as "beliefs" rather than the results of the scientific method. Except creationists are not true scientists, because they come to the table with a hypothesis, the truth of which they are highly invested in proving. That is not the scientific method, because they do not approach their hypothesis with neutrality. Therefore, they find exactly the answers they seek. That is not science.
I probably should not bother to defend myself, but here goes: I am not calling the DS innovative because it has two screens. I am calling Nintendo innovative because the company consistently designs and publishes games that impress me in terms of taking simple concepts and turning them into easy-to-learn but completely engrossing games.
Ultimately, it's probably not fair for me to say that Nintendo is "more innovative" than Sony, because I am thinking of innovation in terms of game concepts and publishing, which Sony does not do. Sony is definitely more innovative (or at least more progressive) than Nintendo on the hardware front. The DS's second screen is cool, because it opens up options for further game concept innovation. As a hardware feature, the second screen is not impressive at all.
I think the key difference between the two systems is Nintendo's dedication to innovation. Both consoles will put more gaming power into a portable package than ever before.
But Sony's going to use that power to exploit proven franchises and game concepts. People can play their favorite kinds of games with great graphics on the go, and that's a huge selling point.
Nintendo is going to use its console's power to do more than push polygons: Nintendo will (like Nintendo always does) create great games that have a child-like sense of pure fun.
I guess it depends on what you want from your system. Personally, I prefer the unique and just plain fun games that Nintendo publishes to yet another sports game, first person shooter or driving game.
And, frankly, 4-6 hours of battery life is pathetic.
For me, this exchange has been useful, but it's clear that we have a fundamental difference in philosophy. I doubt I can convince you to adopt my viewpoint, and I know you won't convince me to adopt yours. Nonetheless, I'd like to respond to a few more of your comments.
... But where do you draw the line, and how do you draw it?
First, I haven't been as clear as I can be regarding "drugs." Obviously, there is no war on aspirin (at least not a government sponsored one). So let's just agree that by "drugs," we mean drugs like marijuana, cocaine, crack, heroin, ecstasy, crystal meth, etc. Now, let me reiterate my point with our newly defined term "drugs": The drug laws criminalize the traffic in drugs, in order to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs. The reason we, as a society, want to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs is that drug addicts are, to be blunt, more trouble than they are worth, i.e., they are not productive members of society and they worsen certain problems, such as petty crime. Of course, once we have a drug addict were stuck with him (obviously, I don't advocate killing drug addicts or incarcerating them just because they are a pain). So the solution must be, "Stop the person from becoming addicted by preventing the drug from reaching the person." Thus, we criminalize the traffic of certain drugs. My original point was that this preventative solution is sensible, but the implementation of it has been shoddy.
How decides what is "alleviating the suffering of others"?
Well, now we get to a point on which you and I cannot agree: reasonable people can make reasonable judgments based on all the evidence at their disposal, which judgments will allow those people to draw a reasonable line. If we stick to certain principles, such as the inherent value of life, and the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness(and others that I am too tired to drag out), we can make sound and reasonable judgments about how best to alleviate the suffering of others.
Those are *our* inaliable rights.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I think those are the inalienable rights of all humans. Further, I don't think those rights are subject to time, place or culture. All humans have the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Cultural mores might demand that a person relinquish all or a portion of his or her individual liberty (or either of the other inalienable rights), but legitimate governments have no standing to separate their subjects from these inalienable rights. To do so would remove the government's legitimacy.
Freedom of speech is not the sole criteria for judging a democracy.
You are right, which is why I also wrote "obviously, other elements are necessary as well, but I don't think I need to drag out all the theory and principles just to make this simple point." I still think you should be able to grasp the point that I was driving at without a whole lot of equivocation and qualification on my part. But if you want to obtuse about it, be my guest. I'm sorry I can't be more civil about it, but it's late, and I'm feeling a bit ornery now.
The put people in jail for using something that harms only themselves, and not the public at large.
... Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business."
The "drug laws" are written and intended to criminalize the traffic of illegal narcotics. Being addicted is not a crime, possessing certain amounts is a crime. Law enforcement does not waste its time rounding up addicts, but rather they focus their efforts on shutting down the traffic in narcotics. Granted this process often begins at the bottom, with a street dealer who is probably also an addict, but the purpose of the war on drugs is to shut down the traffic, not the people.
Well, the country *was* originally concieved to be isolationist.
As Mr. Cobb pointed out, this country was also originally conceived as permitting human slavery. Of course, eventually people realized that some ideas are just plain lousy, no matter how long the ideas have been around.
First, we should not use the military to protect our "interests."
War is not a tool, but an admission of failure. On the other hand, debates at the UN in New York City will not put an end to genocide in Sudan. Sending in troops to assist in stabilizing the area can help. I didn't mean that we need a military so that we can send it around the world and depose dictators and leave people with chaos. I meant that the military is an important and necessary part of an effective foreign policy for those who won't listen to reason and only respond to a show of strength. As distasteful as that idea might be, it is a reality.
We're only over-extended because some have this belief that it is our job to bring freedom to people around the world, and combat injustice and oppression wherever it may exist. That's not our job. The war against all evil is not something that can be won, and it is not something we need to fight. The more we try to evangelize our democracy, the more we endanger ourselves. It is a failed policy, not unlike those policies in the past that tried to evangelize a particular religion.
"Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!" (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol) As Mr. Dickens implies, those in a position of advantage ought to alleviate the suffering of others who lack the same advantage, rather than pretending that the plight of the disadvantaged is something entirely separate from the concerns of the advantaged. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. It is the responsibility of a free people to do everything in their power to share that freedom with those people who are denied their inalienable rights. To do anything less is to shrink in the face injustice. You say, "That's not our job." Let me give you one more piece of wisdom from Mr. Dickens: "Business!
For much of the reign of Wilhelm I, the socialist party in Germany flourished openly. This was even though the authoritarian government and the socialists were at odds, and the socialist party was at times technically illegal. This is not to say that we have an authoritarian regime, but rather that your line of logic isn't sensical.
And you are responding with hair splitting. Let me make my point more plain: the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I was being a bit prosaic. I used a little literary license to indicate a reference to the freedom of speech. Whether or not the socialists during the reign of Wilhelm I in Germany were able to get away with breaking the law is irrelevant. In the United States, we have freedom of speech, and Mr. Cobb is able to voice his criticisms of our true democracy precisely because this right is guaranteed to him by the First Amendment. A democracy without freedom of speech is not a true democracy (obviously, other elements are necessary as well, but I don't think I need to drag out all the theory and principles just to make this simple point).
I want to like the Greens. I really do. I am not registered with any party, and from time to time I consider registering as a member of the Green Party. But then I read stuff like these interview answers. Is this guy from Mars?.
As to our shortage of landfill space, we need to increase recycling and require manufacturers to take material back if it is not completely recyclable or biodegradable..
Require manufacturers to take material back? Did the Greens happen to notice when most of the manufacturing in this country moved overseas to find cheaper labor costs and less environmental regulation over the last 30 years? I think it's a great idea to protect our environment more, but the inevitable outcome is more businesses moving overseas. Environmental regulation must be accompanied by policies focused on absorbing those who lose their jobs as a result. (And I don't mean putting them on welfare).
Food was grown by humankind for an awfully long time and rather successfully before the advent of pesticides and herbicides. We don't need that poison on our foods, on our soil or in our water supplies. And we don't need Frankenfood either.
As someone else has pointed out, the reason we use modern farming technologies is to produce more food with the same (or less) amount of land. Changing the structure of our farming industry has more to do with changing the kinds of foods we eat than changing government policies. As for "Frankenfoods," I have yet to see any sound science to convince me that genetically engineered or modified foods are Bad(TM) or Good(TM). Until I do, I view blanket claims that such foods are Bad(TM) with deep suspicion.
Marijuana has been declared by an Administrative Judge for the FDA as one of the safest therapeutic substances known.
Who cares what an administrative law judge said? First of all, from a legal persepective, an administrative law judge's decision has zero precedential value beyond the applicable case. Second, who the heck was this administrative law judge and how did he reach this conclusion? Was he a scientist who conducted peer-reviewed experiments? Was he an expert who based his conclusion on a metastudy? Or was he just some bureaucrat sitting in some windowless room in some huge federal building somewhere in D.C.? Don't be fooled by the rhetoric, administrative judges are not part of the judicial system, and they are not necessarily truly impartial.
The "war on drugs" is racist and an insult to all Americans. This "war" has incarcerated people of color at a much higher rate than white people. It has resulted in senseless attacks on innocent people and on our Constitution. We have to treat drug addiction as a health problem, not as a crime.
Although drug addiction is a health problem, the drug laws don't put people in jail for being addicts. It's the people who traffic in illegal narcotics and get caught who end up in jail. The idea behind making certain narcotics illegal is that the best way to keep people from becoming addicted is to limit their access to the narcotics in the first place. In general, I recognize that the "war on drugs" has done a pretty piss-poor job of achieving this goal. But that's an argument for reforming the way we fight the war on drugs, not for scrapping the war entirely.
The Green Party supports closing overseas military bases and reducing the military budget by 50% over ten years.
This comment smacks of isolationism. We cannot protect our country, meaning our homeland or our interests throughout the globe, if we do not remain engaged with the world at large. Maybe we can drastically reduce our defense budget by cutting back on useless or out-dated ideas (missile defense system, anyone?), but we should not scale back our military in such a way that it would hamper our ability to respond to threats anywhere in the world in a rapid fashion. If anything, we need to increase the size of our armed forces, because we are currently overex