And what precisely are non-US citizens supposed to do about an impending piece of US legislation? Email Barack Obama?
Sure, you could, but it'd probably be more effective to e-mail your own representatives. It'd be even better to write or print a letter, sign it, and physically mail it to them like I did to both my U.S. senators and my House representative today. It'd be even better to call them (which I'm going to do soon). It'd be best to talk to them in person if feasible.
If enough people bring it up to their government, then their government will bring it up to America via diplomatic channels. "Hey, so... our citizens are kinda pissed on this whole SOPA/PIPA thing since it could kill the Internet for everyone, not just Americans. Maybe you'd like to, you know, veto that piece of shit?"
I'm not against killing as a last resort for self-defense (your own or people around you), but killing someone for protecting property, not life, is really something which I just can't agree. I'm not a Bible scholar by any means, but I do believe someone who does that (killing someone for protecting property, not life) will go to hell (if it exists, something I'm not sure).
Depends on where you look:
Exodus 21:16 - And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
Basically, the death penalty is endorsed for stealing slaves. Then again, Exodus is part of the Pentateuch and those books were always pretty hardcore on the "break this law and you die" part.
Matthew 19:24: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Yeah, I'd love to go to these big megachurches we have in America and just hold a sign up that says "Matthew 19:24". I'm not a Christian, but I really, really enjoy calling people out on their bullshit hypocrisy.
Harm criminals, even shoot them in the legs and knock them unconscious, but just enough harm to protect you and your friends and family.
I would agree, but when someone is attacking you, you could be very well trained and not be able to shoot precisely.
...you know what, I actually have something that could explain it very easily.
I will warn you in advance that the following video is graphic - very violent. It is disturbing as well. The video is sometimes used for training with police officers. The video shows a shootout between a police officer and a criminal from his dash board cam, and it is used to show officers how things can go bad and teach them lessons about how to react properly in a situation.
Here is the video. It shows Officer Kyle Dinkheller attempting to shoot an armed suspect less than 30 feet away and failing. It does not end well for him.
A common misconception (thanks to movies) is that it is easy to precisely shoot someone when your life is in danger. It is difficult to hit a moving target in the arm or leg when they're standing still, much less when they are running at you and your adrenaline is pumping. This is why we train our police officers to keep shooting their weapons until the target is down. Home defense classes often teach you the very same thing.
Even if they're not coming at you but you decide to still shoot at them for some reason, you could instigate them further. Moreover, it's possibly that they could successfully sue you for shooting them. That's right, in America people have been sued for shooting someone who breaks into their home. That's why the general advice you'll hear is that if you *do* shoot your weapon, you keep shooting until your target is dead.
I know we can seem a bit gun crazy as a country at times, but that's because the firearm was vital to our founding. We took our country with powder and shot. Our ancestors not only farmed the land but used rifles to hunt for meat and pistols to keep vermin in check. I can say that everyone I've ever known who is interested in and owns firearms is also responsible with them. For instance, when you have a gun for home defense you often have to consider the type of ammunition you're using. You don't want to use a high-powered rifle if you can avoid it - a bullet could penetrate through your house and hit a neighbor's house. Shotguns with buckshot or pistols are preferred so that there is minimal risk of collateral damage.
A lot of us - even those in the city - still believe in a very "frontier" mindset. Protect your home and loved ones at all costs etc. But that doesn't mea
And please point me where I've done this. I started my post with "As a Brazilian" parodying the way the original comment was started ("As a New Jerseyan")
Since you do not live in this country, I'll clarify for you - New Jersey has really shitty gun laws. We are a "may issue" state. The only way you can get a concealed carry permit in New Jersey is if you regularly protect valuables in excess of $200,000 - so basically only jewelers, antiques brokers, private bodyguards, couriers, etc. The majority of states in America do not make it this difficult to get a concealed carry permit. Anyone who knows anything about gun rights in America knows that California and New Jersey are a nightmare when it comes to concealed carry laws.
As a Brazilian, I'm disgusted at how some (maybe most) Americans value and money property over life.
You may be misunderstanding the situation to a degree, so I will expand on it a bit.
Let's use a real-life example. A friend of mine was robbed while walking home from a party at about 2:00AM in my city. Four men jumped out of a car and held him at gunpoint. (Heading this argument off at the pass, but it just as easily could have been knives or improvised weapons such as pipes or baseball bats.) They took his wallet and his cell phone.
Usually you'll be told to "just cooperate". You'll lose some money, maybe, but you'll be alive so long as you don't resist.
Except my very good friend followed this advice exactly. He gave the thieves his money and phone, and they shot him in the leg for fun.
What if they had killed him? What's to stop them? You have to understand that someone who is willing to break many laws (robbery, armed robbery, assault, etc.) would just as likely have no problem killing you if you felt like it. This is why all humans have a fundamental right to defend themselves. (Whether or not your government supports it is another thing.)
The threat of violence acts as a deterrent when it comes to persons wishing to steal, cause harm, and/or invade your home. I think it would be overkill to just kill someone because they broke into your home (unless you are so in fear for your life that you cannot think straight), but I have absolutely zero problem harming somebody or killing them in order to defend my home and my property.
You also forget that sometimes home invasion has nothing to do with robbery. What if someone is invading your home but they don't want to rob you?
Britain, for example, is rife with examples of people being jailed for defending themselves. There's Munir Hussain who was jailed for beating home invaders with a Cricket Bat. They were not there to rob them but rather to injure or kill Mr. Hussain and his family because they are Muslim. Granted, he chased a man down and beat him, but I would honestly do the same if someone had threatened my family or friends with harm or death.
So it's not about going Rambo on somebody and shooting them as soon as they step into your doorway - it's about using reasonable force. The problem is that if someone is in your house to rape your daughter/wife/etc., or they're crazy, or they're out to kill you, etc. the only reasonable response is lethal force. Kill or be killed. The other problem is that you can't really know what an intruder's intent is. The reasonable thing to do in my opinion is announce that you're armed and try to hold them for the police. If they run, let them go (depending on the situation). If they come at you, then kill them.
In addition, I really don't get how a mostly Christian country likes death penalty and wars so much.
Despite my strong stance on self defense, I am very serious about preservation of life. I think the death penalty can never work right - there is always a chance an innocent person can be convicted. It troubles me greatly that we as a country have yet to entirely abolish it. Thankfully, it seems to be disappearing by and large - one of the (few) points of pride about my state is that we haven't executed anyone since 1963.
"Mostly Christian" doesn't count for shit when it comes to violence as I'll explain below.
"Thou shalt not kill." doesn't have exceptions I know of.
Sure it does.
Romans 1:32 - Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but hav
It will only happen if we let it happen. Defeatist attitudes and a feeling of powerlessness (which the mainstream media, government, and businesses love to cultivate in us at every opportunity save election years) serve no one but the people in power.
I wrote my senators and representative today - typed and printed out letters and signed them with my name. Should any of them vote for SOPA or PIPA I'll be spending a great amount of my time campaigning against them come next election and I want them to know this. What have you done?
As a New Jerseyan, I'd like to say that the 2nd amendment is still very much the 2nd amendment of our age. New and oppressive laws that suppress or otherwise impede our right to keep and bear arms crop up every day, especially in nanny states like NJ and CA.
(Considering the Wikipedia is blacked out today, I'll add footnotes for these terms - doin' it old school!. The links are mainly for after the blackout is over.)
[1] "Shall Issue" refers to a specific type of concealed carry law. "May Issue" means that the local authority on handing out permits (typically a sheriff or police chief) can pretty much say "no" to your request for a concealed carry permit for any reason. "Shall Issue" means that unless you do not meet particular qualifications (such as no criminal background), than they must issue you a concealed carry permit, typically within 30 days.
[2] "Castle Doctrine" laws refer to the statement "A man's home is his castle". They essentially protect you from prosecution for employing severe or lethal force when protecting your home, life, limb, and in some cases property. (For instance, in Florida, it's legal to kill someone who is putting the lives of your livestock at risk. A cow can run around $5,000 and farmers aren't exactly rich.) This is, essentially, the most fundamental human right of self-defense codified in law and does away with the insanity of a homeowner going to jail for killing someone who invades their home.
(Ironically, I don't believe there are any elephant people in the game.)
Not a single line references the fact that animals are walking around, talking and holding jobs.
Have you considered this is a good thing?
Think about it. The camera shows the species have been given latin classifications. Note that there's also very few "wild" animals that are anything like ours today. A possibility is that our wild animals evolved to sentience (eventually).
The fact that no one says anything about it says a lot. They are accepted as normal and living side by side with their fellow sentients. How is this in any way a bad thing?
Let's put it another way. Say a game has a homosexual male character in it. If they made the occasional gay joke, it might offend some people and some people might laugh. But if they don't make any jokes whatsoever, what does that tell you? It tells you that no one cares about that person's status as a homosexual, and therefore it is so commonly accepted that no one even thinks to say something about it. This is a good thing.
I've only ever been annoyed by two games I own on Steam.
First is Beyond Good & Evil. You can't really config the controls to set up a gamepad properly (and it's a port from a console!), so I have to use XPadder (a wonderful program that lets you remap keys from one device to another, plus do cool things like macros and whatnot) to get a controller to work correctly.
Secondly is Street Fighter IV. I bought it to enjoy it on my PC and play with my friends. I have to sign into that goddamned Windows Live service everytime. I'll definitely be more careful about buying games with this extra junk added on, and had I paid attention and known that I'd have to run the Windows Live service on top of running Steam just to play Street Fighter IV I probably would have never bought it.
Man, can you imagine? I bet 20 years from now we're going to have to do things like emulate false activation servers for DRM so we can actually play the games.
It's ultimately a technical problem we've already solved. We would just end up running another specialized piece of software in a virtual machine like many of us have to do now with Windows 7 and playing games.
Look at something like DOOM. No DRM really (at least not of the nastiest sort), but it can't exactly run natively in Windows 7. Instead, it gets run in DOSBox. I'd imagine that 20 years from now we'll have Starcraft II emulating Blizzard's older Battle.net servers so we can actually play it.
That, or we can just use the cracks that exist now and then run it in the appropriate OS via a VM.
Oh my. I seem to recall a time when this wasn't possible. You think it would have been done with a little more fanfare.
It is a bit convoluted, though. It'd just be easier to list everything in the library and grey out what you don't actually have downloaded like Steam does. Nice that you can actually redownload with iTunes now - I'll have to reconsider my purchasing decisions, then.
Yes they can. It's called "public funding", and right now it's so shitty because they allow a superior private alternative.
You know, they talk about "campaign finance reform" being hard to figure out. It really isn't. Here's how I would do it, and I think it's a pretty solid plan.
First, a vote similar to primaries would take place before the election. Said vote would include all persons willing to run for the office who can meet a minimum requirement of X signatures of voters in the related district. This keeps out the millions of loons who might want to run for president but can't actually get people to commit to supporting them.
After this first stage is complete, these people are added to a ballot. This ballot asks that voters choose who they would (at the time) vote for the office in a non-committal way. Basically, "out of these candidates, which one is currently your favorite?".
After this is done, we'll have rough popularity numbers. This person might get 20% of the vote, this person 10%, etc. Any "abstains" on the ballot would be added to a pool and divided evenly among all the candidates to raise everyone's percentage equally.
Next, the government has mandated allocated public advertising space on the television, radio, and web. (We have no problem seizing assets when it suits us, and it may as well be in a way that's actually helpful to our country.)
The candidates get advertising space based on their percentages. If they can make something like at least 3%, then they get a guaranteed "block" of space (say 60 seconds out of one hour's total of commercial airtime). The candidates get advertising ability proportional to their ability to get votes.
All other advertising directly relating to candidates is otherwise illegal. No private money. No "PACs". Issues? Sure. People? No. You can make a big campaign about "voting Republican", but should a candidate be stupid enough to appear in said advertisement then their candidacy is immediately forfeit.
So how would the candidates get voters to pick them in the finance vote if advertising is illegal? I don't know, how about the old fashioned way? Town hall meetings. Debates. Door-to-door campaigning. Talking directly with voters.
Is my system perfect? No. Is it better than what we have now? I think so. Can someone come up with something even better than this? Probably.
People talk shit about Steam a lot, but you can always redownload your games and content at 0 charge. The lack of this is one of the things that prevented me from getting an iPod/iPhone and using iTunes at all.
How? I mean, I've used Dreamweaver before. I *also* hate the <div> tags and whatnot it adds... so I don't use the graphic editor. I have the text window open, edit in there, and I see the results in the preview version in real time. Why not just do that? It's certainly better than having a browser open on half your screen/out of focus/another monitor and constantly refreshing...
I know it might be judged as paranoid and irrational (and to a degree, it is), but I really want the bare minimum of Google products on my computer. I just don't trust them. I've seen too many previously "good" companies abuse their power once their product is entrenched on everyone's computer, and I don't want to give Google much of a chance in that respect.
Firefox isn't only the best for my needs, it's also the least of all evils that has the features I want.
Fair use does involve copying and sharing, but since the use is 'fair', there is absolutely no reason that the recording industry should be receive any money. As I understand it, the tax really only covers personal backups and mixtapes. That is not within the realm of what copyright should be allowed to dictate.
Yes, but the music industry is anything but fair and has shown time and time again that they are willing to bring out the lawyers and drag shit like this out in court for years at a massive expense just as a giant "fuck you". The media tax is bullshit, but it's bullshit meant to appease them and prevent even worse bullshit. Canada accedes to them in a fashion... and now the fuckers want to double dip!
I actually often get that response, especially when it comes to socialized medicine. It gets a diminished a fair bit when I explain we already have a lot of socialized things in our country. You know, power companies, the police, fire departments... and fire departments are definitely a good one to use as well. I explain the disaster that was the fire companies in the private insurance era of the early 1900s. You know, they'd basically let your house burn and all? While that kinda stuff still (rarely) happens today, I think most people would generally agree that the current system is better.
You think criminals don't work hard? There's often a lot of work involved in some of the more complex stuff that's illegal. Think about things like bootlegging DVDs - you basically have to set up a miniature factory to get all this stuff out the gates.
In this case, an unscrupulous scrap yard would probably have the equivalent of a "back room". Let this stuff go on at night, off hours, in a hidden place, etc. and keep the regular business going during the day. It can be one employees job to melt down the stolen stuff, and he'd get paid on the books for some other generic job. Make it look legit as possibly, hide everything you can, and most importantly deny, deny, deny.
Crime only pays less than minimum wage if you are not ambitious or creative enough.
It's an odd life, but makes more sense than living in Cleveland.
Well yeah. I mean, think about it. One is freezing cold most of the time and filled with economic uncertainty and brutal animals out to murder you at a second's notice. The other is Alaska.
Slashdot Mirror
And what precisely are non-US citizens supposed to do about an impending piece of US legislation? Email Barack Obama?
Sure, you could, but it'd probably be more effective to e-mail your own representatives. It'd be even better to write or print a letter, sign it, and physically mail it to them like I did to both my U.S. senators and my House representative today. It'd be even better to call them (which I'm going to do soon). It'd be best to talk to them in person if feasible.
If enough people bring it up to their government, then their government will bring it up to America via diplomatic channels. "Hey, so... our citizens are kinda pissed on this whole SOPA/PIPA thing since it could kill the Internet for everyone, not just Americans. Maybe you'd like to, you know, veto that piece of shit?"
Thanks for the examples and explanations. :-)
Obrigado. ;D (Falo um pouco de Portugues.)
I'm not against killing as a last resort for self-defense (your own or people around you), but killing someone for protecting property, not life, is really something which I just can't agree. I'm not a Bible scholar by any means, but I do believe someone who does that (killing someone for protecting property, not life) will go to hell (if it exists, something I'm not sure).
Depends on where you look:
Exodus 21:16 - And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
Basically, the death penalty is endorsed for stealing slaves. Then again, Exodus is part of the Pentateuch and those books were always pretty hardcore on the "break this law and you die" part.
Matthew 19:24: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Yeah, I'd love to go to these big megachurches we have in America and just hold a sign up that says "Matthew 19:24". I'm not a Christian, but I really, really enjoy calling people out on their bullshit hypocrisy.
Harm criminals, even shoot them in the legs and knock them unconscious, but just enough harm to protect you and your friends and family.
I would agree, but when someone is attacking you, you could be very well trained and not be able to shoot precisely.
...you know what, I actually have something that could explain it very easily.
I will warn you in advance that the following video is graphic - very violent. It is disturbing as well. The video is sometimes used for training with police officers. The video shows a shootout between a police officer and a criminal from his dash board cam, and it is used to show officers how things can go bad and teach them lessons about how to react properly in a situation.
Here is the video. It shows Officer Kyle Dinkheller attempting to shoot an armed suspect less than 30 feet away and failing. It does not end well for him.
A common misconception (thanks to movies) is that it is easy to precisely shoot someone when your life is in danger. It is difficult to hit a moving target in the arm or leg when they're standing still, much less when they are running at you and your adrenaline is pumping. This is why we train our police officers to keep shooting their weapons until the target is down. Home defense classes often teach you the very same thing.
Even if they're not coming at you but you decide to still shoot at them for some reason, you could instigate them further. Moreover, it's possibly that they could successfully sue you for shooting them. That's right, in America people have been sued for shooting someone who breaks into their home. That's why the general advice you'll hear is that if you *do* shoot your weapon, you keep shooting until your target is dead.
I know we can seem a bit gun crazy as a country at times, but that's because the firearm was vital to our founding. We took our country with powder and shot. Our ancestors not only farmed the land but used rifles to hunt for meat and pistols to keep vermin in check. I can say that everyone I've ever known who is interested in and owns firearms is also responsible with them. For instance, when you have a gun for home defense you often have to consider the type of ammunition you're using. You don't want to use a high-powered rifle if you can avoid it - a bullet could penetrate through your house and hit a neighbor's house. Shotguns with buckshot or pistols are preferred so that there is minimal risk of collateral damage.
A lot of us - even those in the city - still believe in a very "frontier" mindset. Protect your home and loved ones at all costs etc. But that doesn't mea
And please point me where I've done this. I started my post with "As a Brazilian" parodying the way the original comment was started ("As a New Jerseyan")
Since you do not live in this country, I'll clarify for you - New Jersey has really shitty gun laws. We are a "may issue" state. The only way you can get a concealed carry permit in New Jersey is if you regularly protect valuables in excess of $200,000 - so basically only jewelers, antiques brokers, private bodyguards, couriers, etc. The majority of states in America do not make it this difficult to get a concealed carry permit. Anyone who knows anything about gun rights in America knows that California and New Jersey are a nightmare when it comes to concealed carry laws.
As a Brazilian, I'm disgusted at how some (maybe most) Americans value and money property over life.
You may be misunderstanding the situation to a degree, so I will expand on it a bit.
Let's use a real-life example. A friend of mine was robbed while walking home from a party at about 2:00AM in my city. Four men jumped out of a car and held him at gunpoint. (Heading this argument off at the pass, but it just as easily could have been knives or improvised weapons such as pipes or baseball bats.) They took his wallet and his cell phone.
Usually you'll be told to "just cooperate". You'll lose some money, maybe, but you'll be alive so long as you don't resist.
Except my very good friend followed this advice exactly. He gave the thieves his money and phone, and they shot him in the leg for fun.
What if they had killed him? What's to stop them? You have to understand that someone who is willing to break many laws (robbery, armed robbery, assault, etc.) would just as likely have no problem killing you if you felt like it. This is why all humans have a fundamental right to defend themselves. (Whether or not your government supports it is another thing.)
The threat of violence acts as a deterrent when it comes to persons wishing to steal, cause harm, and/or invade your home. I think it would be overkill to just kill someone because they broke into your home (unless you are so in fear for your life that you cannot think straight), but I have absolutely zero problem harming somebody or killing them in order to defend my home and my property.
You also forget that sometimes home invasion has nothing to do with robbery. What if someone is invading your home but they don't want to rob you?
Britain, for example, is rife with examples of people being jailed for defending themselves. There's Munir Hussain who was jailed for beating home invaders with a Cricket Bat. They were not there to rob them but rather to injure or kill Mr. Hussain and his family because they are Muslim. Granted, he chased a man down and beat him, but I would honestly do the same if someone had threatened my family or friends with harm or death.
So it's not about going Rambo on somebody and shooting them as soon as they step into your doorway - it's about using reasonable force. The problem is that if someone is in your house to rape your daughter/wife/etc., or they're crazy, or they're out to kill you, etc. the only reasonable response is lethal force. Kill or be killed. The other problem is that you can't really know what an intruder's intent is. The reasonable thing to do in my opinion is announce that you're armed and try to hold them for the police. If they run, let them go (depending on the situation). If they come at you, then kill them.
In addition, I really don't get how a mostly Christian country likes death penalty and wars so much.
Despite my strong stance on self defense, I am very serious about preservation of life. I think the death penalty can never work right - there is always a chance an innocent person can be convicted. It troubles me greatly that we as a country have yet to entirely abolish it. Thankfully, it seems to be disappearing by and large - one of the (few) points of pride about my state is that we haven't executed anyone since 1963.
"Mostly Christian" doesn't count for shit when it comes to violence as I'll explain below.
"Thou shalt not kill." doesn't have exceptions I know of.
Sure it does.
Romans 1:32 - Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but hav
It will only happen if we let it happen. Defeatist attitudes and a feeling of powerlessness (which the mainstream media, government, and businesses love to cultivate in us at every opportunity save election years) serve no one but the people in power.
I wrote my senators and representative today - typed and printed out letters and signed them with my name. Should any of them vote for SOPA or PIPA I'll be spending a great amount of my time campaigning against them come next election and I want them to know this. What have you done?
As a New Jerseyan, I'd like to say that the 2nd amendment is still very much the 2nd amendment of our age. New and oppressive laws that suppress or otherwise impede our right to keep and bear arms crop up every day, especially in nanny states like NJ and CA.
Until every state has Shall Issue [1] and Castle Doctrine [2] laws, the fight is nowhere near over.
.
.
.
(Considering the Wikipedia is blacked out today, I'll add footnotes for these terms - doin' it old school!. The links are mainly for after the blackout is over.)
[1] "Shall Issue" refers to a specific type of concealed carry law. "May Issue" means that the local authority on handing out permits (typically a sheriff or police chief) can pretty much say "no" to your request for a concealed carry permit for any reason. "Shall Issue" means that unless you do not meet particular qualifications (such as no criminal background), than they must issue you a concealed carry permit, typically within 30 days.
[2] "Castle Doctrine" laws refer to the statement "A man's home is his castle". They essentially protect you from prosecution for employing severe or lethal force when protecting your home, life, limb, and in some cases property. (For instance, in Florida, it's legal to kill someone who is putting the lives of your livestock at risk. A cow can run around $5,000 and farmers aren't exactly rich.) This is, essentially, the most fundamental human right of self-defense codified in law and does away with the insanity of a homeowner going to jail for killing someone who invades their home.
Slashdot didn't participate in the blackout
Sure they are! I just don't know if "Error 503 Service Unavailable" is sending the right message exactly.
QuestionableContent.net and SomethingPositive.net have announcements, but no blackouts. SMBC-Comics.com has a blackout.
Shoulda never taken that left!
(Sir, I bow to you!)
like there is this gigantic elephant in the room
Ha!
(Ironically, I don't believe there are any elephant people in the game.)
Not a single line references the fact that animals are walking around, talking and holding jobs.
Have you considered this is a good thing?
Think about it. The camera shows the species have been given latin classifications. Note that there's also very few "wild" animals that are anything like ours today. A possibility is that our wild animals evolved to sentience (eventually).
The fact that no one says anything about it says a lot. They are accepted as normal and living side by side with their fellow sentients. How is this in any way a bad thing?
Let's put it another way. Say a game has a homosexual male character in it. If they made the occasional gay joke, it might offend some people and some people might laugh. But if they don't make any jokes whatsoever, what does that tell you? It tells you that no one cares about that person's status as a homosexual, and therefore it is so commonly accepted that no one even thinks to say something about it. This is a good thing.
I've only ever been annoyed by two games I own on Steam.
First is Beyond Good & Evil. You can't really config the controls to set up a gamepad properly (and it's a port from a console!), so I have to use XPadder (a wonderful program that lets you remap keys from one device to another, plus do cool things like macros and whatnot) to get a controller to work correctly.
Secondly is Street Fighter IV. I bought it to enjoy it on my PC and play with my friends. I have to sign into that goddamned Windows Live service everytime. I'll definitely be more careful about buying games with this extra junk added on, and had I paid attention and known that I'd have to run the Windows Live service on top of running Steam just to play Street Fighter IV I probably would have never bought it.
Man, can you imagine? I bet 20 years from now we're going to have to do things like emulate false activation servers for DRM so we can actually play the games.
It's ultimately a technical problem we've already solved. We would just end up running another specialized piece of software in a virtual machine like many of us have to do now with Windows 7 and playing games.
Look at something like DOOM. No DRM really (at least not of the nastiest sort), but it can't exactly run natively in Windows 7. Instead, it gets run in DOSBox. I'd imagine that 20 years from now we'll have Starcraft II emulating Blizzard's older Battle.net servers so we can actually play it.
That, or we can just use the cracks that exist now and then run it in the appropriate OS via a VM.
Oh my. I seem to recall a time when this wasn't possible. You think it would have been done with a little more fanfare.
It is a bit convoluted, though. It'd just be easier to list everything in the library and grey out what you don't actually have downloaded like Steam does. Nice that you can actually redownload with iTunes now - I'll have to reconsider my purchasing decisions, then.
Yes they can. It's called "public funding", and right now it's so shitty because they allow a superior private alternative.
You know, they talk about "campaign finance reform" being hard to figure out. It really isn't. Here's how I would do it, and I think it's a pretty solid plan.
First, a vote similar to primaries would take place before the election. Said vote would include all persons willing to run for the office who can meet a minimum requirement of X signatures of voters in the related district. This keeps out the millions of loons who might want to run for president but can't actually get people to commit to supporting them.
After this first stage is complete, these people are added to a ballot. This ballot asks that voters choose who they would (at the time) vote for the office in a non-committal way. Basically, "out of these candidates, which one is currently your favorite?".
After this is done, we'll have rough popularity numbers. This person might get 20% of the vote, this person 10%, etc. Any "abstains" on the ballot would be added to a pool and divided evenly among all the candidates to raise everyone's percentage equally.
Next, the government has mandated allocated public advertising space on the television, radio, and web. (We have no problem seizing assets when it suits us, and it may as well be in a way that's actually helpful to our country.)
The candidates get advertising space based on their percentages. If they can make something like at least 3%, then they get a guaranteed "block" of space (say 60 seconds out of one hour's total of commercial airtime). The candidates get advertising ability proportional to their ability to get votes.
All other advertising directly relating to candidates is otherwise illegal. No private money. No "PACs". Issues? Sure. People? No. You can make a big campaign about "voting Republican", but should a candidate be stupid enough to appear in said advertisement then their candidacy is immediately forfeit.
So how would the candidates get voters to pick them in the finance vote if advertising is illegal? I don't know, how about the old fashioned way? Town hall meetings. Debates. Door-to-door campaigning. Talking directly with voters.
Is my system perfect? No. Is it better than what we have now? I think so. Can someone come up with something even better than this? Probably.
Seriously, how much is /. getting behind the scenes from the various IT rags that plaster the front page?
At least enough money that it's worthwhile to keep doing it?
People talk shit about Steam a lot, but you can always redownload your games and content at 0 charge. The lack of this is one of the things that prevented me from getting an iPod/iPhone and using iTunes at all.
How? I mean, I've used Dreamweaver before. I *also* hate the <div> tags and whatnot it adds... so I don't use the graphic editor. I have the text window open, edit in there, and I see the results in the preview version in real time. Why not just do that? It's certainly better than having a browser open on half your screen/out of focus/another monitor and constantly refreshing...
Agreed. IE is shit, and I don't trust Chrome.
I know it might be judged as paranoid and irrational (and to a degree, it is), but I really want the bare minimum of Google products on my computer. I just don't trust them. I've seen too many previously "good" companies abuse their power once their product is entrenched on everyone's computer, and I don't want to give Google much of a chance in that respect.
Firefox isn't only the best for my needs, it's also the least of all evils that has the features I want.
leading to lawmakers needing to listen to some group to understand what their voters want.
Here's a crazy idea: how about they listen to the actual fucking voters?
Oh, there's so many ways to have fun with those things.
Fair use does involve copying and sharing, but since the use is 'fair', there is absolutely no reason that the recording industry should be receive any money. As I understand it, the tax really only covers personal backups and mixtapes. That is not within the realm of what copyright should be allowed to dictate.
Yes, but the music industry is anything but fair and has shown time and time again that they are willing to bring out the lawyers and drag shit like this out in court for years at a massive expense just as a giant "fuck you". The media tax is bullshit, but it's bullshit meant to appease them and prevent even worse bullshit. Canada accedes to them in a fashion... and now the fuckers want to double dip!
As a veteran player of Dwarf Fortress, I can appreciate the versatility of a single crop. It's food! It's fuel! It's clothing! It menaces with spikes!
I actually often get that response, especially when it comes to socialized medicine. It gets a diminished a fair bit when I explain we already have a lot of socialized things in our country. You know, power companies, the police, fire departments... and fire departments are definitely a good one to use as well. I explain the disaster that was the fire companies in the private insurance era of the early 1900s. You know, they'd basically let your house burn and all? While that kinda stuff still (rarely) happens today, I think most people would generally agree that the current system is better.
You think criminals don't work hard? There's often a lot of work involved in some of the more complex stuff that's illegal. Think about things like bootlegging DVDs - you basically have to set up a miniature factory to get all this stuff out the gates.
In this case, an unscrupulous scrap yard would probably have the equivalent of a "back room". Let this stuff go on at night, off hours, in a hidden place, etc. and keep the regular business going during the day. It can be one employees job to melt down the stolen stuff, and he'd get paid on the books for some other generic job. Make it look legit as possibly, hide everything you can, and most importantly deny, deny, deny.
Crime only pays less than minimum wage if you are not ambitious or creative enough.
It's an odd life, but makes more sense than living in Cleveland.
Well yeah. I mean, think about it. One is freezing cold most of the time and filled with economic uncertainty and brutal animals out to murder you at a second's notice. The other is Alaska.