Invalidate the copyright? You must be thinking of trademarks. You can't invalidate a copyright by lack of defending it (or in this case, bad faith). If someone reproduces a book I've written for 10 years and I don't do anything, I can still sue them at anytime even if I was previously aware of the violation. You can't 'lose' a copyright.
The first books I've read and still remember fondly these days were The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. I think I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and the edition I read had some pencil-drawn pictures every 5 pages or so.
Amazing, engrossing story of a group of people lost on an island and how they build their own little pocket of civilization. There's an engineer in the group and they build a watermill, a telegraph, etc. They even rebuff a pirate attack! I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I absolutely loved those books (I think it's only a single book, but the ones I had were split in two). They are accessible and I don't remember anything objectionable in them. There's a little tie-in at the end with Captain Nemo, from the Twenty Leagues Under the Seas story, but the books stand on their own.
I highly recommend this book. Hmm, I wonder if I can find a good online version of it to read again...
If you're with Teksavvy, here's a little trick to get around the Bell traffic shaping boxes. If you use multilink PPP packets, they will leave your traffic alone, even if you only have one DSL line. In Windows, you can enable MLPPP by simply going into your connection properties, in the Networking tab. Click the Settings button for PPPoE, then check the "Enable multi-link for single link connections". Reconnect and voilà, no more traffic shaping! To do it in linux, simply modify your ppp config file to enable multi-link (RTFM).
I guess they might upgrade their shaping boxes to deal with this eventually, but in the meantime it works very well.
Erm, that was a somewhat vitriolic reply. I'll let you know that the motherboard comes with a 1GB NIC, 7.1 channels sound card (with both analog and digital ports). I guess you're not too technical, as every motherboard made in the last 5 years have had sound/NIC on-board. There's a good reason companies like Creative only make like 6% of their profits from sales of sound cards nowadays, nobody buys one anymore. As for anti-virus, there are some excellent ones that are free, like AVG.
You are right that you have to add $69 for XP OEM if you don't already have a windows license (although if you've bought a computer in the last 7 years it's doubtful you don't already), and yes, that didn't include the monitor. But then, a console doesn't include the TV either.
It really amazes me that you'd call me a liar, while those prices were straight from the newegg web site. I often build computers for friends and $600 for a decent gaming system is indeed where it's at right now. Sure, you can go for the $500 video card, however no game will require it for at least a year, and the performace/price ratio is just horrible. In fact, in most cases, using two $100 cards in SLI is going to be faster than using a single $500 card. The fact is, my original point was that it doesn't cost very much to build a powerful computer now. The only reason people are still paying $2000 is either because they have to be at the very bleeding edge, or because they just don't know computers and they get suckered.
I really, really don't get why some people are paying so much for their gaming computers... paying $2000 for a gaming system will give you what, 15% more performance than paying $600? I think people are just used to the prices for 5 years ago and they haven't quite realized how fast they've dropped. I just took 5 minutes on newegg for the following:
Raidmax case & 450W PSU: $55 AMD x2-64 6000+ cpu: $150 Asus SLI MB: $120 2x1GB 800Mhz RAM: $55 Geforce 8600GT: $110 DVD burner: $30 WD 320GB HD: $80
Total: $600 (plus shipping I guess)
A 8600GT will play just about any current, last-gen game at max settings at 60fps+. Now if you really, really want to crank it up you can always splurge another $110 and go SLI, but with that setup you'd be way, way beyond Xbox 360 performance. Gaming computers don't cost $2000 anymore, unless you're a complete sucker, or have too much money.
Hum yeah sorry, classic case of didn't RTFA. It's just that anyone claiming that flash costs $30 per GB is smoking some seriously good stuff (or is a govt employee paying $50k for a few hundred rolls of toilet paper or some such).
Not to nitpick, but you're not even close to the price of flash memory with your estimate there. $29 per GB? Newegg lists several 16GB USB key drives for about $130, or $8.12 per GB. And that's retail. It's safe to assume that the actual price per GB for a mass-produced drive would be much lower than that. Even at $8, that hypothetical drive would be about $5120.
Right now, flash RAM prices drop in half every 6 months or so, meaning it won't be that long until this drive isn't outrageously expensive anymore.
You have to consider that this is worldwide. In Japan, the Wii outsells the 360 like crazy and it skews the numbers. If you only count the US, EU, AU and Asian markets and you don't count japan, the Xbox 360 leads by almost 50%.
I think the main problems with the ratings for games is that the outcome for the same rating is very different than for a movie. For a game, getting an AO rating means it won't be sold by some major retailers such as Wal-Mart. Can you imagine if the latest violent movie wasn't shown in most major movie theaters?
The consequences are getting very frustrating for adult gamers like me, who grew up playing games and still enjoy them. I'm 28 years old and my favorite way to spend my free time is still to fire up a good RPG game and let my mind escape somewhere else for one hour or two. I still enjoy games, but sadly the lack of mature content and plot lines is getting tiresome. I'm a bit past playing as 15 years old boys who are out to save the world from the Dark Wizard or whatever.
Games like Fallout 2 are what we're looking for, but the rating system scares developers into toning down and censoring their games a lot. RPGs are typically where the envelope is being pushed the most, and still there's a lot of censorship going: major titles like Neverwinter Nights 2 had concepts and locations "sanitized" by Atari out of fear or getting a high age rating.
Games can definitely be art. They can challenge you and make you think, or just shock you, or make you react emotionally. My main problem is that, because of ratings, games are usually fairly shallow. In Fallout 2, you were thrown into a post-apocalyptic world without laws and without orders. It wasn't a nice place, and the game properly represented what such a world could be like. Morality was pretty much: whoever has the biggest gun is right. In that game, you can prostitute yourself, you can marry someone of the same sex, heck, you can even sell your significant other to slavers when you're "tired" of him/her. Note that those decisions all have serious consequences, but the game allows you to explore the ramifications.
Fallout 2 was released in 1998 and I'm not sure that today such a game could still be made. I think the main problem is that legislators and even the Wal-Mart execs are all into the late fifties or later, and for them, video games just aren't something 30 years olds spend their time on. As more and more people of the gaming generation grow up and want games that are more serious and mentally challenging, the rules are going to relax, but it's going to take a while. For now it's all about "protecting the children" and people just don't consider games as a serious art form, or even communication medium. I can't wait until more people realize all the potential that interactivity brings...
The GNU Public License rests solidly on copyright law. Take away copyrights, and anybody can take GPL software and release it as closed source.
I never understood that argument. Without copyright laws, there would be no need for the GPL, because by definition source code couldn't be copyrighted. A company couldn't "release it as closed source" as you say, because without copyright, as soon as source code is leaked, it's public domain and can be used freely.
I understand that there are patents and such that would still be a hindrance, but without copyright laws, "closed source" would simply cease to exist.
* The Digital Telephony bill
* The Clipper Chip FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard)
* Obscenity prosecutions of BBSs
* Media hysteria about e-mail stalking and the threat to children on the Internet
Is it just me, or things didn't change all that much? So sad.
It must really depends where you live, because here in Quebec, Canada, electricity is by far the cheapest solution. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a gas stove in Montreal city, where I live. Everything just runs on electricity.
Granted, due to being a huge hydro power producer, our electricity is a bit cheaper than what you get in the US (0.069$ CAD per KW/h for me right now). Even then, according to the government's energy cost calculator, electricity is by far the cheapest option. Well actually, the cheapest option seems to be a mix of oil/electricity, but I don't know anyone with that setup.
My point is, even pure electricity is cheaper than an extremely recent natural gas heating installation (assuming 95% efficiency from gas). According to their calculations, an average 2 bedrooms home pays 1292$ per year for electricity heating (not counting water & appliances), while the best natural gas installation nets you a yearly cost of 1348$. Not a huge difference, but that's a best-case scenario.
Additionally, using electricity over here means no contribution to global warming, since it's all hydro. Win-win situation. I suppose with the higher electricity prices in the US gas can be cheaper, although there are reports that gas production might have peaked around 2001 in the USA, meaning it's going to get more expensive unless you start importing, with all the middle-eastern goodness that implies.
When you believe something strongly enough, you know it to be true. I have never seen Cygnus X1, yet I know it is there. I hear there is evidence to support it, but just took their words for it without actually doing the observations myself. Now if I know that Cygnus X1 exists with such little evidence, imaging how much I know that the universe is the result if ID when I have done the research for that myself.
I'm sorry, but there is one fundamental difference between "knowing" that Cygnus X1 exists, and "knowing" that God created man. The first one is based on facts, and thus isn't a belief. While, by your own admission, you didn't build a telescope yourself to observe the sky, you can do so at any time. You can go ahead and verify the facts about Cygnus X1.
On the other hand, you're never going to be able to go and independently verify the fact that God created man. That's why there's another word for it, belief (or faith). No matter how much you believe in God, it's never going to become knowledge. You can "know" all you want that you can fly by flapping your arms, but no matter how much you "know" it, you're still going to go splat if you jump from a 50 floor building (on Earth anyway).
See? In the second case, your "knowledge" was testable, but untested, so it was actually a belief, not knowledge. In the first case, your "knowledge" is not only untested, but also untestable, meaning it's even more of a belief. Only testable facts can be called knowledge. Everything else is belief.
Hum, as I understand it, the "loser pays" thing nearly always apply to the prosecuting party, not the defendant. At least, that's how it works in most European countries. If you sue someone and lose, you have to pay the defendant's legal fees, when it makes sense. The judge has a lot of discretion about when to apply or not this rule. There are also caps, so that an individual isn't going to pay a corporation's team of 26 lawyers. I know where I live, the caps are twice your own legal fees (roughly, lots of exceptions and such). So if you sue a corporation and lose, and you have to pay legal fees, you're only going to pay a maximum of twice your own fees.
It's not perfect, and it can be abused, yes. But there are some fairly good safeguards so that ridiculous situations like the ones you described don't happen.
I agree entirely, and wish more voters would stop voting for the candidate they'd most like to have a beer with, and start voting for people who are competent and will make responsible decisions and appointments.
I used to say things like that all the time. I never could understand that people would vote for someone based on his good looks, or charming voice, or good mannerism. I mean, ok, sure he's handsome and talks good, but he's a MORON people, don't you see? Then it dawned on me (and it took me over 25 years to understand this): the ability to make people comfortable and make them see things your way is the greatest part of what makes someone a leader.
The guy (or gal) might be stupid, flat out wrong and even evil at times, but if he's able to convince people that his prefered course of action is the right one to take, he's won. In the case of certain leaders, it will of course lead to actions that are wrong, stupid or evil. BUT his ability to get things done (and to convince other people to do them for him) is the prime reason why he got to a position of power in the first place. So, people will of course keep voting for the guy they want to have beer with. It's instinctive.
I'm pretty sure there's no easy way to fix that impulse in the general population. I'm not convinced it'd be a good thing to do in the first place... If your goal is to build a Space Elevator, it might make sense at first glance to assign the most competent and intelligent person you've got to lead the project. Someone who knows what works and doesn't, who will be able to prevent a huge waste of money on things that don't make logical sense, etc. The problem is, unless that guy is also a very charismatic talker, able to bullshit, browbeat, intimidate, cajole, coerce or simply convince enough other people to go along, you Space Elevator ain't gonna happen.
Anyway, my whole point can be reduced to this: the best quality to judge the competence of leaders is their people-skill. Sure, some degree of competence in the field they are supposedly leading is a very effective way of stopping the most stupid mistakes, but it's still only secondary to their interpersonal skills.
It's a bit tragic how that goes, because the most technically intelligent people, who are going to be the most knowledgable about some topics, are unlikely to ever be good leaders. The time investment required to be a great scientist, for example, doesn't leave much time to learn how to effectively manipulate other human beings to reach your goals. So what we get are leaders who are able to get things done, but a lot of those things that get done will be stupid because of the ignorance of the leaders. It's a bit sad and a bit amusing to watch, in a where-the-heck-is-humanity-going kind of way.
You're the one who's introducing belief when there's none. My whole point was that, even with a negative statement such as "There is no God", there's no belief involved, unless, like you said, you make that statement in disregard of empirical evidence (at which point it becomes testable, and no longer a matter of belief).
You are very right that absence of belief isn't disbelief, but that was the point I was trying to drive home. Faced with total absence of any evidence, the negative statement is the default one.
For anyone to even take position about there being a God or not, someone, at some time, must have posited the question "Is there a God?". If there is no evidence whatsoever for the existance of a God, then the proper answer is "No", not "There might be, but I doubt it". For you to be able to say "There might be", there needs to be some evidence pointing this way. Otherwise, you're the one taking a position of belief. Basically, your position is "There isn't any evidence whatsoever for something to be true, but I still think it might be true". That's an illogical position.
You seem to think that being an atheist implies some kind of active disbelief in the existance of God. It doesn't. In the absence of any evidence, absence of any kind of belief is the logical position. There isn't any logical reason to believe a God exists, by consequence "There is no God" isn't a belief. It's simply a lack thereof.
That statement boggles my mind every time I see it.
What you're basically saying is, not believing in something in the absence of evidence is just as illogical as believing.
So if I say "Santa Claus doesn't exist", based on the total absence of data proving his existance, does that make me an illogical non-santa-ist? Following your "logic", it would.
The problem here, is that absence of belief is the neutral state. As long as you don't have any evidence for something existing, the correct (and default) attitude is absence of belief. I have no reason to believe there's an orange floating 2 feet above my head right now. Faced with such a statement, I would look up, see (or not) if there's indeed an orange floating there, and change my attitude correspondingly.
Now, let's assume that someone would claim something that is non-observable by both of us. Say, there's an orange floating above my head, somewhere in space. Unless that person brings some kind of proof (hey I saw in in my telescope, come see for yourself!), the correct, logical attitude here is to say "there isn't an orange floating above my head somewhere in space". This statement isn't taking a negative position, it's the *lack* of a positive position.
In the same way, someone claiming "There is no God" following a complete absence of proof isn't making any leap of faith. It's simply the neutral attitude. Atheism isn't a religion, any more than baldness is a hair color, or silence is a kind of sound.
As a canadian, I feel I have to reply to this grossly misleading statement. It seems that most people in the USA think that the canadian health system is a train wreck with horrible waiting times and poor care quality.
I'm going to describe my last encounter with our horrible socialist health system. Three weeks ago, my mother fell sick. She had horrible stomach cramps, they hurt so much that she wasn't able to walk when she had them, she actually compared the pain to giving birth.
At 10AM, we arrive to the hospital. It takes 20 minutes to see a nurse, which gives her case a "high" priority, due to the pain severity. One hour later, she was with a doctor and was taking radios. They found her liver was almost blocked by rocks (sorry if it's not the correct english medical term, I'm translating from french). Then they gave her a bed in the emergency area, after supper they transferred her to a room.
Day 2, 1 PM. They transferred her to the operation block. At 3 PM, she was having surgery. It lasted just over one hour.
Day 3, Surgery went fine, though she had one more terrible cramp. They thought it was probably one of the freed rocks passing through, but they decided to do a MRI scan just to make sure.
Day 4. They gave her a MRI scan, to make sure they had gotten rid of all the rocks. Later that evening, MRI results were negative, she went home.
My point by telling you this is that, from my experience, and from the experience of people I know, this is very representative of the quality of health care you can expect here. If someone has a life-threatening condition, they most definitely do *not* wait for months to get surgery. It's a matter of days.
However, service for rural areas is typically a bit slower than for heavily populated areas, but even then, the most I've heard for urgent surgery was 2-3 weeks. There are some operations that do indeed have very long wait times, those that are classified "quality of life" in importance. For example, one of my friends had serious back pains, caused by something with his spine. He had to wait 11 months before he could get surgery, which pretty much sucked, because his condition was very painful.
Anyway, all this to say, our health system works pretty well. Yes, I heard some horror cases, especially in the great plains provinces (health care in Canada is managed by the province governments, not by the federal one), but here in Quebec, the care given to my family, friends and myself has always been top-notch.
I have never, ever, heard of it taking 3 days to see a doctor, for any reason. If things are that bad anywhere in Canada, then someone has seriously dropped the ball. I can see a generalist within 2 hours, without notice, anytime I want.
Here are some fun little facts about our horrible health care system:
- Canadians spend less money on health care per capita than the USA. In spite of this, the World Health Organisation ranks the average quality of health care received in Canada above the US one.
- For the last 8 years, Canada not only balanced its budget, it's been having a surplus (and some years it has been a considerable one). Yes, we are heavily taxed. However, we have an average quality of life above the US one, once again according to the WHO.
Basically, we're both socialist and for fiscal responsibility. Bet you didn't expect that, eh? Anyway, my whole point is, here in Socialist Canada, thing aren't going nearly as badly as you seem to think. We're doing just fine, thank you. I'm sure there have been some bad mistakes made regarding healthcare, but those are the rare exceptions, not the rule.
As a canadian, I feel I have to reply to this grossly misleading statement. It seems that most people in the USA think that the canadian health system is a train wreck with horrible waiting times and poor care quality.
I'm going to describe my last encounter with our horrible socialist health system. Three weeks ago, my mother fell sick. She had horrible stomach cramps, they hurt so much that she wasn't able to walk when she had them, she actually compared the pain to giving birth.
At 10AM, we arrive to the hospital. It takes 20 minutes to see a nurse, which gives her case a "high" priority, due to the pain severity. One hour later, she was with a doctor and was taking radios. They found her liver was almost blocked by rocks (sorry if it's not the correct english medical term, I'm translating from french). Then they gave her a bed in the emergency area, after supper they transferred her to a room.
Day 2, 1 PM. They transferred her to the operation block. At 3 PM, she was having surgery. It lasted just over one hour.
Day 3, Surgery went fine, though she had one more terrible cramp. They thought it was probably one of the freed rocks passing through, but they decided to do a MRI scan just to make sure.
Day 4. They gave her a MRI scan, to make sure they had gotten rid of all the rocks. Later that evening, MRI results were negative, she went home.
My point by telling you this is that, from my experience, and from the experience of people I know, this is very representative of the quality of health care you can expect here. If someone has a life-threatening condition, they most definitely do *not* wait for months to get surgery. It's a matter of days.
However, service for rural areas is typically a bit slower than for heavily populated areas, but even then, the most I've heard for urgent surgery was 2-3 weeks. There are some operations that do indeed have very long wait times, those that are classified "quality of life" in importance. For example, one of my friends had serious back pains, caused by something with his spine. He had to wait 11 months before he could get surgery, which pretty much sucked, because his condition was very painful.
Anyway, all this to say, our health system works pretty well. Yes, I heard some horror cases, especially in the great plains provinces (health care in Canada is managed by the province governments, not by the federal one), but here in Quebec, the care given to my family, friends and myself has always been top-notch.
As for your rants on socialism in general (It doesn't work! It's not efficient! It's a financial disaster!), let me point a few facts to you:
- Canadians spend less money on health care per capita than the USA. In spite of this, the World Health Organisation ranks the average quality of health care received in Canada above the US one.
- For the last 8 years, Canada not only balanced its budget, it's been having a surplus (and some years it has been a considerable one). Yes, we are heavily taxed. However, we have an average quality of life above the US one, once again according to the WHO.
Basically, we're both socialist and for fiscal responsibility. Bet you didn't expect that, eh? Anyway, my whole point is, here in Socialist Canada, thing aren't going badly at all. Your whole rant about socialism (which is different from communism btw) not working is a bit silly. We're doing just fine, thank you.
What he's saying is that there comes a point after which adding draconian security controls causes more damage in terms of hassles and problems than it actually helps fighting terror. Such a RFID system might inconvenience slightly intelligent, determinated terrorists and even catch one or two dumb ones, but it's going to inconvenience millions of people per year.
A lot of the propositions for safety that we've seen after 9/11 weren't well-tought out and were more reactionnary. The various government agencies want to appear like they are doing something, and will move to implement measures that will have a poor security return, and a huge impact on the day to day life of citizens.
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Invalidate the copyright? You must be thinking of trademarks. You can't invalidate a copyright by lack of defending it (or in this case, bad faith). If someone reproduces a book I've written for 10 years and I don't do anything, I can still sue them at anytime even if I was previously aware of the violation. You can't 'lose' a copyright.
Well, I assume the $400K per month is for more the whole team, in which case $200K per person sounds quite reasonable.
The first books I've read and still remember fondly these days were The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. I think I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and the edition I read had some pencil-drawn pictures every 5 pages or so.
Amazing, engrossing story of a group of people lost on an island and how they build their own little pocket of civilization. There's an engineer in the group and they build a watermill, a telegraph, etc. They even rebuff a pirate attack! I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I absolutely loved those books (I think it's only a single book, but the ones I had were split in two). They are accessible and I don't remember anything objectionable in them. There's a little tie-in at the end with Captain Nemo, from the Twenty Leagues Under the Seas story, but the books stand on their own.
I highly recommend this book. Hmm, I wonder if I can find a good online version of it to read again...
If you're with Teksavvy, here's a little trick to get around the Bell traffic shaping boxes. If you use multilink PPP packets, they will leave your traffic alone, even if you only have one DSL line. In Windows, you can enable MLPPP by simply going into your connection properties, in the Networking tab. Click the Settings button for PPPoE, then check the "Enable multi-link for single link connections". Reconnect and voilà, no more traffic shaping! To do it in linux, simply modify your ppp config file to enable multi-link (RTFM).
I guess they might upgrade their shaping boxes to deal with this eventually, but in the meantime it works very well.
Erm, that was a somewhat vitriolic reply. I'll let you know that the motherboard comes with a 1GB NIC, 7.1 channels sound card (with both analog and digital ports). I guess you're not too technical, as every motherboard made in the last 5 years have had sound/NIC on-board. There's a good reason companies like Creative only make like 6% of their profits from sales of sound cards nowadays, nobody buys one anymore. As for anti-virus, there are some excellent ones that are free, like AVG.
You are right that you have to add $69 for XP OEM if you don't already have a windows license (although if you've bought a computer in the last 7 years it's doubtful you don't already), and yes, that didn't include the monitor. But then, a console doesn't include the TV either.
It really amazes me that you'd call me a liar, while those prices were straight from the newegg web site. I often build computers for friends and $600 for a decent gaming system is indeed where it's at right now. Sure, you can go for the $500 video card, however no game will require it for at least a year, and the performace/price ratio is just horrible. In fact, in most cases, using two $100 cards in SLI is going to be faster than using a single $500 card. The fact is, my original point was that it doesn't cost very much to build a powerful computer now. The only reason people are still paying $2000 is either because they have to be at the very bleeding edge, or because they just don't know computers and they get suckered.
I really, really don't get why some people are paying so much for their gaming computers... paying $2000 for a gaming system will give you what, 15% more performance than paying $600? I think people are just used to the prices for 5 years ago and they haven't quite realized how fast they've dropped. I just took 5 minutes on newegg for the following:
Raidmax case & 450W PSU: $55
AMD x2-64 6000+ cpu: $150
Asus SLI MB: $120
2x1GB 800Mhz RAM: $55
Geforce 8600GT: $110
DVD burner: $30
WD 320GB HD: $80
Total: $600 (plus shipping I guess)
A 8600GT will play just about any current, last-gen game at max settings at 60fps+. Now if you really, really want to crank it up you can always splurge another $110 and go SLI, but with that setup you'd be way, way beyond Xbox 360 performance. Gaming computers don't cost $2000 anymore, unless you're a complete sucker, or have too much money.
Hum yeah sorry, classic case of didn't RTFA. It's just that anyone claiming that flash costs $30 per GB is smoking some seriously good stuff (or is a govt employee paying $50k for a few hundred rolls of toilet paper or some such).
Right now, flash RAM prices drop in half every 6 months or so, meaning it won't be that long until this drive isn't outrageously expensive anymore.
You have to consider that this is worldwide. In Japan, the Wii outsells the 360 like crazy and it skews the numbers. If you only count the US, EU, AU and Asian markets and you don't count japan, the Xbox 360 leads by almost 50%.
I think the main problems with the ratings for games is that the outcome for the same rating is very different than for a movie. For a game, getting an AO rating means it won't be sold by some major retailers such as Wal-Mart. Can you imagine if the latest violent movie wasn't shown in most major movie theaters?
The consequences are getting very frustrating for adult gamers like me, who grew up playing games and still enjoy them. I'm 28 years old and my favorite way to spend my free time is still to fire up a good RPG game and let my mind escape somewhere else for one hour or two. I still enjoy games, but sadly the lack of mature content and plot lines is getting tiresome. I'm a bit past playing as 15 years old boys who are out to save the world from the Dark Wizard or whatever.
Games like Fallout 2 are what we're looking for, but the rating system scares developers into toning down and censoring their games a lot. RPGs are typically where the envelope is being pushed the most, and still there's a lot of censorship going: major titles like Neverwinter Nights 2 had concepts and locations "sanitized" by Atari out of fear or getting a high age rating.
Games can definitely be art. They can challenge you and make you think, or just shock you, or make you react emotionally. My main problem is that, because of ratings, games are usually fairly shallow. In Fallout 2, you were thrown into a post-apocalyptic world without laws and without orders. It wasn't a nice place, and the game properly represented what such a world could be like. Morality was pretty much: whoever has the biggest gun is right. In that game, you can prostitute yourself, you can marry someone of the same sex, heck, you can even sell your significant other to slavers when you're "tired" of him/her. Note that those decisions all have serious consequences, but the game allows you to explore the ramifications.
Fallout 2 was released in 1998 and I'm not sure that today such a game could still be made. I think the main problem is that legislators and even the Wal-Mart execs are all into the late fifties or later, and for them, video games just aren't something 30 years olds spend their time on. As more and more people of the gaming generation grow up and want games that are more serious and mentally challenging, the rules are going to relax, but it's going to take a while. For now it's all about "protecting the children" and people just don't consider games as a serious art form, or even communication medium. I can't wait until more people realize all the potential that interactivity brings...
Hum, no. You can't ever "lose" a copyright, unless it expires. What you're thinking about is trademarks, which is completely different.
I never understood that argument. Without copyright laws, there would be no need for the GPL, because by definition source code couldn't be copyrighted. A company couldn't "release it as closed source" as you say, because without copyright, as soon as source code is leaked, it's public domain and can be used freely.
I understand that there are patents and such that would still be a hindrance, but without copyright laws, "closed source" would simply cease to exist.
Is it just me, or things didn't change all that much? So sad.
Whoever you are, if I catch you spying on my life like that again, I'll make you regret it!
Granted, due to being a huge hydro power producer, our electricity is a bit cheaper than what you get in the US (0.069$ CAD per KW/h for me right now). Even then, according to the government's energy cost calculator, electricity is by far the cheapest option. Well actually, the cheapest option seems to be a mix of oil/electricity, but I don't know anyone with that setup.
My point is, even pure electricity is cheaper than an extremely recent natural gas heating installation (assuming 95% efficiency from gas). According to their calculations, an average 2 bedrooms home pays 1292$ per year for electricity heating (not counting water & appliances), while the best natural gas installation nets you a yearly cost of 1348$. Not a huge difference, but that's a best-case scenario.
Additionally, using electricity over here means no contribution to global warming, since it's all hydro. Win-win situation. I suppose with the higher electricity prices in the US gas can be cheaper, although there are reports that gas production might have peaked around 2001 in the USA, meaning it's going to get more expensive unless you start importing, with all the middle-eastern goodness that implies.
I'm sorry, but there is one fundamental difference between "knowing" that Cygnus X1 exists, and "knowing" that God created man. The first one is based on facts, and thus isn't a belief. While, by your own admission, you didn't build a telescope yourself to observe the sky, you can do so at any time. You can go ahead and verify the facts about Cygnus X1.
On the other hand, you're never going to be able to go and independently verify the fact that God created man. That's why there's another word for it, belief (or faith). No matter how much you believe in God, it's never going to become knowledge. You can "know" all you want that you can fly by flapping your arms, but no matter how much you "know" it, you're still going to go splat if you jump from a 50 floor building (on Earth anyway).
See? In the second case, your "knowledge" was testable, but untested, so it was actually a belief, not knowledge. In the first case, your "knowledge" is not only untested, but also untestable, meaning it's even more of a belief. Only testable facts can be called knowledge. Everything else is belief.
Hum, as I understand it, the "loser pays" thing nearly always apply to the prosecuting party, not the defendant. At least, that's how it works in most European countries. If you sue someone and lose, you have to pay the defendant's legal fees, when it makes sense. The judge has a lot of discretion about when to apply or not this rule. There are also caps, so that an individual isn't going to pay a corporation's team of 26 lawyers. I know where I live, the caps are twice your own legal fees (roughly, lots of exceptions and such). So if you sue a corporation and lose, and you have to pay legal fees, you're only going to pay a maximum of twice your own fees.
It's not perfect, and it can be abused, yes. But there are some fairly good safeguards so that ridiculous situations like the ones you described don't happen.
I used to say things like that all the time. I never could understand that people would vote for someone based on his good looks, or charming voice, or good mannerism. I mean, ok, sure he's handsome and talks good, but he's a MORON people, don't you see? Then it dawned on me (and it took me over 25 years to understand this): the ability to make people comfortable and make them see things your way is the greatest part of what makes someone a leader.
The guy (or gal) might be stupid, flat out wrong and even evil at times, but if he's able to convince people that his prefered course of action is the right one to take, he's won. In the case of certain leaders, it will of course lead to actions that are wrong, stupid or evil. BUT his ability to get things done (and to convince other people to do them for him) is the prime reason why he got to a position of power in the first place. So, people will of course keep voting for the guy they want to have beer with. It's instinctive.
I'm pretty sure there's no easy way to fix that impulse in the general population. I'm not convinced it'd be a good thing to do in the first place... If your goal is to build a Space Elevator, it might make sense at first glance to assign the most competent and intelligent person you've got to lead the project. Someone who knows what works and doesn't, who will be able to prevent a huge waste of money on things that don't make logical sense, etc. The problem is, unless that guy is also a very charismatic talker, able to bullshit, browbeat, intimidate, cajole, coerce or simply convince enough other people to go along, you Space Elevator ain't gonna happen.
Anyway, my whole point can be reduced to this: the best quality to judge the competence of leaders is their people-skill. Sure, some degree of competence in the field they are supposedly leading is a very effective way of stopping the most stupid mistakes, but it's still only secondary to their interpersonal skills.
It's a bit tragic how that goes, because the most technically intelligent people, who are going to be the most knowledgable about some topics, are unlikely to ever be good leaders. The time investment required to be a great scientist, for example, doesn't leave much time to learn how to effectively manipulate other human beings to reach your goals. So what we get are leaders who are able to get things done, but a lot of those things that get done will be stupid because of the ignorance of the leaders. It's a bit sad and a bit amusing to watch, in a where-the-heck-is-humanity-going kind of way.
You're the one who's introducing belief when there's none. My whole point was that, even with a negative statement such as "There is no God", there's no belief involved, unless, like you said, you make that statement in disregard of empirical evidence (at which point it becomes testable, and no longer a matter of belief).
You are very right that absence of belief isn't disbelief, but that was the point I was trying to drive home. Faced with total absence of any evidence, the negative statement is the default one.
For anyone to even take position about there being a God or not, someone, at some time, must have posited the question "Is there a God?". If there is no evidence whatsoever for the existance of a God, then the proper answer is "No", not "There might be, but I doubt it". For you to be able to say "There might be", there needs to be some evidence pointing this way. Otherwise, you're the one taking a position of belief. Basically, your position is "There isn't any evidence whatsoever for something to be true, but I still think it might be true". That's an illogical position.
You seem to think that being an atheist implies some kind of active disbelief in the existance of God. It doesn't. In the absence of any evidence, absence of any kind of belief is the logical position. There isn't any logical reason to believe a God exists, by consequence "There is no God" isn't a belief. It's simply a lack thereof.
That statement boggles my mind every time I see it.
What you're basically saying is, not believing in something in the absence of evidence is just as illogical as believing.
So if I say "Santa Claus doesn't exist", based on the total absence of data proving his existance, does that make me an illogical non-santa-ist? Following your "logic", it would.
The problem here, is that absence of belief is the neutral state. As long as you don't have any evidence for something existing, the correct (and default) attitude is absence of belief. I have no reason to believe there's an orange floating 2 feet above my head right now. Faced with such a statement, I would look up, see (or not) if there's indeed an orange floating there, and change my attitude correspondingly.
Now, let's assume that someone would claim something that is non-observable by both of us. Say, there's an orange floating above my head, somewhere in space. Unless that person brings some kind of proof (hey I saw in in my telescope, come see for yourself!), the correct, logical attitude here is to say "there isn't an orange floating above my head somewhere in space". This statement isn't taking a negative position, it's the *lack* of a positive position.
In the same way, someone claiming "There is no God" following a complete absence of proof isn't making any leap of faith. It's simply the neutral attitude. Atheism isn't a religion, any more than baldness is a hair color, or silence is a kind of sound.
Erm, I believe I'm stating the obvious, but the reason why the "eau" in "Beauty" doesn't sount like "O" is that it's not a french word. "Bureau" is.
And yes, in french, "eau" always sounds like "O". In fact, eau is a common word itself, meaning water.
You mean he went on to be the second most powerful person in the universe for 30 years? Call me evil, but... where do I sign up?
As a canadian, I feel I have to reply to this grossly misleading statement. It seems that most people in the USA think that the canadian health system is a train wreck with horrible waiting times and poor care quality.
I'm going to describe my last encounter with our horrible socialist health system. Three weeks ago, my mother fell sick. She had horrible stomach cramps, they hurt so much that she wasn't able to walk when she had them, she actually compared the pain to giving birth.
At 10AM, we arrive to the hospital. It takes 20 minutes to see a nurse, which gives her case a "high" priority, due to the pain severity. One hour later, she was with a doctor and was taking radios. They found her liver was almost blocked by rocks (sorry if it's not the correct english medical term, I'm translating from french). Then they gave her a bed in the emergency area, after supper they transferred her to a room.
Day 2, 1 PM. They transferred her to the operation block. At 3 PM, she was having surgery. It lasted just over one hour.
Day 3, Surgery went fine, though she had one more terrible cramp. They thought it was probably one of the freed rocks passing through, but they decided to do a MRI scan just to make sure.
Day 4. They gave her a MRI scan, to make sure they had gotten rid of all the rocks. Later that evening, MRI results were negative, she went home.
My point by telling you this is that, from my experience, and from the experience of people I know, this is very representative of the quality of health care you can expect here. If someone has a life-threatening condition, they most definitely do *not* wait for months to get surgery. It's a matter of days.
However, service for rural areas is typically a bit slower than for heavily populated areas, but even then, the most I've heard for urgent surgery was 2-3 weeks. There are some operations that do indeed have very long wait times, those that are classified "quality of life" in importance. For example, one of my friends had serious back pains, caused by something with his spine. He had to wait 11 months before he could get surgery, which pretty much sucked, because his condition was very painful.
Anyway, all this to say, our health system works pretty well. Yes, I heard some horror cases, especially in the great plains provinces (health care in Canada is managed by the province governments, not by the federal one), but here in Quebec, the care given to my family, friends and myself has always been top-notch.
I have never, ever, heard of it taking 3 days to see a doctor, for any reason. If things are that bad anywhere in Canada, then someone has seriously dropped the ball. I can see a generalist within 2 hours, without notice, anytime I want.
Here are some fun little facts about our horrible health care system:
- Canadians spend less money on health care per capita than the USA. In spite of this, the World Health Organisation ranks the average quality of health care received in Canada above the US one.
- For the last 8 years, Canada not only balanced its budget, it's been having a surplus (and some years it has been a considerable one). Yes, we are heavily taxed. However, we have an average quality of life above the US one, once again according to the WHO.
Basically, we're both socialist and for fiscal responsibility. Bet you didn't expect that, eh? Anyway, my whole point is, here in Socialist Canada, thing aren't going nearly as badly as you seem to think. We're doing just fine, thank you. I'm sure there have been some bad mistakes made regarding healthcare, but those are the rare exceptions, not the rule.
As a canadian, I feel I have to reply to this grossly misleading statement. It seems that most people in the USA think that the canadian health system is a train wreck with horrible waiting times and poor care quality.
I'm going to describe my last encounter with our horrible socialist health system. Three weeks ago, my mother fell sick. She had horrible stomach cramps, they hurt so much that she wasn't able to walk when she had them, she actually compared the pain to giving birth.
At 10AM, we arrive to the hospital. It takes 20 minutes to see a nurse, which gives her case a "high" priority, due to the pain severity. One hour later, she was with a doctor and was taking radios. They found her liver was almost blocked by rocks (sorry if it's not the correct english medical term, I'm translating from french). Then they gave her a bed in the emergency area, after supper they transferred her to a room.
Day 2, 1 PM. They transferred her to the operation block. At 3 PM, she was having surgery. It lasted just over one hour.
Day 3, Surgery went fine, though she had one more terrible cramp. They thought it was probably one of the freed rocks passing through, but they decided to do a MRI scan just to make sure.
Day 4. They gave her a MRI scan, to make sure they had gotten rid of all the rocks. Later that evening, MRI results were negative, she went home.
My point by telling you this is that, from my experience, and from the experience of people I know, this is very representative of the quality of health care you can expect here. If someone has a life-threatening condition, they most definitely do *not* wait for months to get surgery. It's a matter of days.
However, service for rural areas is typically a bit slower than for heavily populated areas, but even then, the most I've heard for urgent surgery was 2-3 weeks. There are some operations that do indeed have very long wait times, those that are classified "quality of life" in importance. For example, one of my friends had serious back pains, caused by something with his spine. He had to wait 11 months before he could get surgery, which pretty much sucked, because his condition was very painful.
Anyway, all this to say, our health system works pretty well. Yes, I heard some horror cases, especially in the great plains provinces (health care in Canada is managed by the province governments, not by the federal one), but here in Quebec, the care given to my family, friends and myself has always been top-notch.
As for your rants on socialism in general (It doesn't work! It's not efficient! It's a financial disaster!), let me point a few facts to you:
- Canadians spend less money on health care per capita than the USA. In spite of this, the World Health Organisation ranks the average quality of health care received in Canada above the US one.
- For the last 8 years, Canada not only balanced its budget, it's been having a surplus (and some years it has been a considerable one). Yes, we are heavily taxed. However, we have an average quality of life above the US one, once again according to the WHO.
Basically, we're both socialist and for fiscal responsibility. Bet you didn't expect that, eh? Anyway, my whole point is, here in Socialist Canada, thing aren't going badly at all. Your whole rant about socialism (which is different from communism btw) not working is a bit silly. We're doing just fine, thank you.
What he's saying is that there comes a point after which adding draconian security controls causes more damage in terms of hassles and problems than it actually helps fighting terror. Such a RFID system might inconvenience slightly intelligent, determinated terrorists and even catch one or two dumb ones, but it's going to inconvenience millions of people per year.
A lot of the propositions for safety that we've seen after 9/11 weren't well-tought out and were more reactionnary. The various government agencies want to appear like they are doing something, and will move to implement measures that will have a poor security return, and a huge impact on the day to day life of citizens.