A Dutch user online said he could kind of understand him (that perhaps he was Swedish?):
Half the time he's bragging about being so good and wanting to kill whoever in whatever game he's playing. The other time he's just going plain mad, and once he breaks his keyboard, well, if you did the same thing to your PC when you were nine I think you'd know how that felt.
I know a child psychologist working in this field. His research is pointing to something interesting, yet not earthshattering: children who play violent games outside the pervue of their parents *do* show a propensity for violent behavior. The flipside is that kids playing violent games *with* their parent's cursory involvement *do not*. This guy was ready to throw the book at games altogether, so the studies he's running came as quite the surprise, naturally.
So is that what this kid's problem is? He's not playing with his parents?
I'll buy that for a dollar. I think they would have cut him off a looonnnggg time ago.:)
Would you not call someone who plays a game for 8 hours a day addicted? I suggest making it so that you can't play more than 3 hours a day. However, all anyone faced with the limit will do is play another character or another account. It'll be viewed as a money-grab for the game company.
Well in Canada, the taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco are supposed to support the public health care system, so the more bad stuff you do to your body, the more you're (likely) going to use the health system in the long run.
It works even better with gas tax going towards road repair.
What I don't like is paying a levy on my CD-R's that goes to recording artists when I'm actually using them to burn porn or hollywood movies... just kidding!:) But you get my drift. I'm OK with a point of sale tax/levy where it's 95% effective in doing what its supposed to do because it does the job and protects my privacy (I don't want a GPS device installed in my car to track my driving, or blood tests every year where the government keeps the results on file to see how much health care tax I should pay) but in the case of this blank media levy, it's absolutely wrong.
I don't accept your analogy with books. A book costs almost as much as a DVD, and costs significantly less to write. Not only that, there is no easy way to copy them (photocopiers cost more to copy than to buy a book). A closer analogy would be an eBook, which still don't sell at $1 each, even though production costs are negligible. An author still needs to eat.
He missed the big one...
on
Inescapable Data
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This convergence concept is highly reminiscent of Big Brother of 1984 fame. Obviously, there are serious issues about the quality of life in the convergence era. The good is in enormous increases in efficiency, in customized processes and products, in immediacy, and in flexibility and individual freedoms. The downsides are discussed here in a mere four pages in Chapter 13 on Perspectives. The authors itemize them as: discriminatory insurance underwriting effecting those unlucky enough to have reported genetic or medical issues; rampant identity theft, increased marketing pressures, a conflation of work and home life which some may feel as threatening, the alteration of sports and entertainment, and the exposure of formerly personal information. Another issue is the likelihood that some people will not be connected, for whatever reason. This group will comprise an underclass missing out on the benefits of convergence.
He missed the big danger, then, which is the opportunity for a government administration to attack its political opponents by utilizing this aggregate data. In a world where being labelled a terrorist gets you an indefinite sentence without a court date, all the administration has to do is look into the purchasing and driving habits of the other party's nominee, and leak some scathing information to the press, like "so-and-so visits this middle eastern bakery 3 days a week, roomed with a guy back in college who once donated money to a middle eastern charity that is now under investigation, and once travelled to Jordan on business". The press will have a field day and the general populace will believe whatever CNN or Fox News tells them.
That's on top of the ability to forge the data in these databases. Have you ever tried to tell someone at a bank that the information they have about your credit is wrong? They'll believe the computer over you any day. The computer is always right.
Who modded that insightful? Here's insightful for you (and I'm anti-copyright):
If we try your scheme and sell all movies at $1 each because that will undercut what the pirates can effectively sell them for and still make a profit, how much of a budget will they have to advertise the movie? Think about it... if the studio that produced the movie actually advertises it, then they would be benefiting the pirates as much as themselves, meaning the pirates get more sales without footing the bill for advertising. That's not even counting the content creation costs.
If it costs $100,000,000 to make a movie, and even if they got $0.50 profit off each disc, then they'd have to sell 200 million copies just to break even, and there are less than 300 million people in the US. I agree that you could count worldwide sales that would be much bigger if the price was lower, but pirates can operate there at cheaper costs than even a movie studio could produce the discs at, so they get $0.10 per disc or something.
I played both, and Planetside players have little to complain about in comparison to SWG. Planetside and SWG had some bad implementation problems, granted, and neither were complete at launch, but the core game of Planetside is still solid, even today, and thanks to a decent new developer is actually improving. However, SWG was a terrible *design* from the beginning. It was always boring. Everyone played expecting it to get better, and it never did. I don't regret leaving SWG, especially after what I heard about the NGE.
You are correct but they're still just making incremental improvements to the same game. It's like taking a 2002 GMC sierra and comparing it to a 2003 GMC sierra. It still does everything the same, just better.
On the other hand, a segway was real innovation. It was a flop, but it was an innovative flop.
I can't say I'm happy with any recent innovations in the gaming industry. The MMORPG concept was pretty revolutionary, but nothing much new is happening now. It's the same basic rules with a new skin, better graphics, etc. Get a license from LucasArts and call it Star Wars Galaxies. Sure it had a better crafting system, but it wasn't THAT different.
There are times when a game seems to finally get a genre right... like command and conquer did with RTS's, or planetside did with real squad based tactics FPS (it's the only game persistent enough that you can ever hope to group with the same people on a regular basis).
I just bought Sid Meier's Pirates! which I originally played on the Nintendo (8 bit) and again on the PC (Pirates Gold!). Nothing too original in this one, but still a fun game, but I only bought it for old time's sake.
I used to play a game made with CGA graphics called "project space station". You had to run NASA and build a space station in orbit, run experiments, launch satellites, keep the orbiter fleet running, etc. That was innovative. Sim city was innovative. Sim City 4? Nope. Second Life is innovative (but I haven't seen it yet). The Sims is pretty innovative. But the Sims 2? Nope. What number are we up to on Civilization now?
I truly believe that we've begun the human age of sequels, and I don't think it's ever going to end. That's sad.
Alright, you've convinced me that it's time for a boycott of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Now, at the very least, I need a search engine. Anyone know of a good alternative search engine I can use until they get their act together?
You seem to think that China is a democracy of some sort, where the opinion of the people matters...
It may seem that way, but I certainly don't think China is anywhere near democratic. Apparently you seem to think that western governments are democracies of some sort, which would also be wrong.
All governments exist on a continuum with democracy at one end and dictatorship on the other. China is certainly closer to the dictatorship end than most western governments, but the closest any western government comes to democracy is Switzerland, as far as I know. Certainly most western governments are republics (except a few that are technically constitutional monarchies but still function as parliamentary republics).
A republic (like in the US) is a middle ground between dictatorship and democracy. In a republic, we elect representatives and give them tremendous authority over us, limited only by the constitution. There has been a tendency throughout history for governments to move away from freedom and towards dictatorship simply by chipping away at the constitutional limits. This is no different in the west. It's just that China started closer to the dictatorship end.
When things get too bad, you have a revolution/revolt/liberation, etc., and then the cycle repeats. The game is in how long you can stretch it between cycles. The US is doing pretty well, but it may still be nearing the end game.
In the west (except for Australia apparently, which isn't really in the west anyway) there are a lot of people who think porn is ok as long as it's contained to a place where we don't have to see it if we don't want to. As long as we know where it is, we can get it, but I don't want it shoved down my throat.
China may have a different cultural attitude towards porn, with a very large portion of the populace thinking that it must be banned, which gives the government more reasons to censor speech under the guise of getting rid of this terrible plague that everyone hates.
Don't kid yourself... the government in the US and other western nations would use this same excuse to censor your political beliefs if more of the population thought this content was objectionable. Therefore, the amount our government can censor us increases as the number of taboo subjects increase in our society.
Ok, but as I said, there are specific laws in place for telephones that make them private. The laws to do that with the internet don't exist. If the laws for cell phones did not exist, anyone would be allowed to tap into your cell phone conversation just as easily as someone can listen in on a ham radio or CB conversation.
Since you know how the internet works, you are even less likely to get away with the excuse of "expectation of privacy" in court. Unlike a commoner, you are more aware of how public the internet is. I'm just saying, be careful until the laws are better defined.
Your fallacy is on your assumption that talking to google is like standing beside the stock boy and whispering. Talking to google is more like writing your search request on a postcard and mailing it to google, or taking a post it note, writing on it:
Billy, need info on donkey porn - Bob...and then asking Sally the cashier to stick it on the stock boy's locker.
The search request you send to google goes over any number of intermediate computers that are privately owned. Any of those intervening computer owners has the *right* to look at the data being passed through their systems. If you don't want them to read it, then encrypt it, or use an anonymizing service. The private owners do not have the right to break your encryption, thanks to the DMCA. But they do have the right to look at the ciphertext.
You have a pretty funny definition of "public knowledge". Privacy is based on an "expectation of privacy". Even though the data isn't encrypted, the routers those packets travel on is certainly NOT open to monitoring by just anyone. There still are easdropping laws in this country that would protect against someone listening in on those requests.
What you are referring to are "common carrier" provisions, and it seems to be a common belief that internet service providers fall under those provisions, but recent reading on the subject seems to indicate that this isn't the truth. Governments are allowed to monitor portions of those communications, and companies who run portions of the internet are allowed to maintain logs of whatever data goes across that equipment. Many companies do not collect those logs, but those that do have been required by law to hand over those logs when requested, and many have done so. Wire tapping laws do not apply to the entire internet. By its very nature, the internet is a public network. If you believe that your data over the internet is private, then you have an odd idea of how the internet works.
You could argue the information on your computer is private, but anything you do online without taking even basic steps to protect it is public. To believe otherwise is foolish, in my opinion.
Consider it like real mail. If you put it in an envelope, it's protected and nobody else can open it. If you put it on a postcard, there's no expectation of privacy. The tools to encrypt your email are publicly available. If you don't use them, you are effectively writing all your emails on postcards.
I find that sometimes this gets abused. A person writes something absolutely scathing like, "I wouldn't expect a guy from {insert nationality, town of residence, etc.} to understand what I'm trying to say, so let me paraphrase myself in a 5th grade reading level and draw some pictures for your benefit", and when the other person takes offense, the original guy just says, "hey I was only kidding man, can't you take a joke?"
Unfortunately, in our society, a joke that belittles the person you're arguing with is usually given more weight by an audience than the content of the argument itself. Comments like this are usually made on message boards to swing sentiment to one side without having to construct a logical argument.
The receiver needs to try and assume that the sender is joking, if there is any doubt whatsoever, but the sender also needs to consider the fact that it's hard to discern original intent in electronic text, and should try to write in a way that focuses on the issue, not on the person. This is a good skill to master for most interpersonal situations, even verbal, by the way. It'll make your marriage last a lot longer.:)
Re:Can we trust google with our "secrets"?
on
Can We Trust Google?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
No, it's not. My family/friends/neighbours don't know I was looking up
Well, they may not know that you went down to the grocery store and yelled out to the stock boy, "hey, what's the price on radishes today?" But you wouldn't consider that private, would you?
The internet is a public network, and the data is not encrypted as it travels over 20 or so computers on its way from your computer to google and back. That request you made for donkey porn is most definitely public knowledge unless you took measures to protect your privacy.
That doesn't offend me at all. It makes a political statement about some real problems in the catholic church. It's shocking, and might be offensive, but it makes a good point. It's only a cartoon. If it's just incorrect, then you ignore it, and if it's got some truth to it, then it might help to enlighten you.
Some of us are capable of accepting criticism of our institutions, and the rest are called INTOLERANT. Got it?
So go ahead, publish that cartoon. Hell, you can nail an effigy of Jesus to a cross if you want - that won't bother me either.
There is no need for them to charge $400 a bottle when they could sell it for $40.
Yes, there is a need. The more money the final cure actually makes, the more people will want to invest their money into research to cure other diseases. As it stands, it's very risky to try and develop new medicines. It's a lot of money with little chance of return. We have to make that actual return very high to compensate for the small chance, or fewer people will invest in drug research.
Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life.
That's great. I guess it doesn't help with the depression though.
You know what a good analogy would be? Some performance vehicles are delivered with deliberate crippling technology included to make them pass environmental regulations, and there are simple instructions online about how to modify the vehicle to get all the performance out of it. Sometimes it's as simple as removing a fuse or jumper from the fuse panel.
We don't sue the car company for selling a car that can be modified to the point where it no longer meets environmental regulations - we charge the modder themselves if they're caught.
The GP's post was a good analogy, and I'm afraid that yours is not quite as good because when you bought the GTA game it came with the data; you didn't have to break into Rockstar's servers to steal it. There is no "hidden code" analogy for a TV because what you see is what you get.
A better analogy would be finding that an R rated DVD had an NC-17 rated video buried on it in the special features but you couldn't access it through the menu system and could only access it if you ripped the DVD to your hard drive. But that, actually, would make it sound much more wrong, now, wouldn't it?
So, let's agree that analogies are a bad thing to use here, and stick to the facts. The ESRB had no way to know about hot coffee because it can't be expected to run through the program with a debugger to find stuff like that. There is no rating agency that could ever find it.
Then you have to wonder, is there a difference between a mod that lets the game get to a spot that was completely inaccessible, and a mod that just adds a brand new section to the game? I say that there is NO difference. Once you have to modify the code itself, then it's not Rockstar's responsibility anymore. It's no different that creating new skins for games either.
Slashdot Mirror
What if the government gave you the option of having the RFID chip implanted on your left hand? No problem?
A Dutch user online said he could kind of understand him (that perhaps he was Swedish?):
Half the time he's bragging about being so good and wanting to kill whoever in whatever game he's playing. The other time he's just going plain mad, and once he breaks his keyboard, well, if you did the same thing to your PC when you were nine I think you'd know how that felt.
I know a child psychologist working in this field. His research is pointing to something interesting, yet not earthshattering: children who play violent games outside the pervue of their parents *do* show a propensity for violent behavior. The flipside is that kids playing violent games *with* their parent's cursory involvement *do not*. This guy was ready to throw the book at games altogether, so the studies he's running came as quite the surprise, naturally.
:)
So is that what this kid's problem is? He's not playing with his parents?
I'll buy that for a dollar. I think they would have cut him off a looonnnggg time ago.
Would you not call someone who plays a game for 8 hours a day addicted? I suggest making it so that you can't play more than 3 hours a day. However, all anyone faced with the limit will do is play another character or another account. It'll be viewed as a money-grab for the game company.
Well in Canada, the taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco are supposed to support the public health care system, so the more bad stuff you do to your body, the more you're (likely) going to use the health system in the long run.
:) But you get my drift. I'm OK with a point of sale tax/levy where it's 95% effective in doing what its supposed to do because it does the job and protects my privacy (I don't want a GPS device installed in my car to track my driving, or blood tests every year where the government keeps the results on file to see how much health care tax I should pay) but in the case of this blank media levy, it's absolutely wrong.
It works even better with gas tax going towards road repair.
What I don't like is paying a levy on my CD-R's that goes to recording artists when I'm actually using them to burn porn or hollywood movies... just kidding!
Sales of blank CDs in Detroit area soar! Details at eleven!
:)
That's alright... I'll just pay the tax, thanks.
I don't accept your analogy with books. A book costs almost as much as a DVD, and costs significantly less to write. Not only that, there is no easy way to copy them (photocopiers cost more to copy than to buy a book). A closer analogy would be an eBook, which still don't sell at $1 each, even though production costs are negligible. An author still needs to eat.
This convergence concept is highly reminiscent of Big Brother of 1984 fame. Obviously, there are serious issues about the quality of life in the convergence era. The good is in enormous increases in efficiency, in customized processes and products, in immediacy, and in flexibility and individual freedoms. The downsides are discussed here in a mere four pages in Chapter 13 on Perspectives. The authors itemize them as: discriminatory insurance underwriting effecting those unlucky enough to have reported genetic or medical issues; rampant identity theft, increased marketing pressures, a conflation of work and home life which some may feel as threatening, the alteration of sports and entertainment, and the exposure of formerly personal information. Another issue is the likelihood that some people will not be connected, for whatever reason. This group will comprise an underclass missing out on the benefits of convergence.
He missed the big danger, then, which is the opportunity for a government administration to attack its political opponents by utilizing this aggregate data. In a world where being labelled a terrorist gets you an indefinite sentence without a court date, all the administration has to do is look into the purchasing and driving habits of the other party's nominee, and leak some scathing information to the press, like "so-and-so visits this middle eastern bakery 3 days a week, roomed with a guy back in college who once donated money to a middle eastern charity that is now under investigation, and once travelled to Jordan on business". The press will have a field day and the general populace will believe whatever CNN or Fox News tells them.
That's on top of the ability to forge the data in these databases. Have you ever tried to tell someone at a bank that the information they have about your credit is wrong? They'll believe the computer over you any day. The computer is always right.
Who modded that insightful? Here's insightful for you (and I'm anti-copyright):
If we try your scheme and sell all movies at $1 each because that will undercut what the pirates can effectively sell them for and still make a profit, how much of a budget will they have to advertise the movie? Think about it... if the studio that produced the movie actually advertises it, then they would be benefiting the pirates as much as themselves, meaning the pirates get more sales without footing the bill for advertising. That's not even counting the content creation costs.
If it costs $100,000,000 to make a movie, and even if they got $0.50 profit off each disc, then they'd have to sell 200 million copies just to break even, and there are less than 300 million people in the US. I agree that you could count worldwide sales that would be much bigger if the price was lower, but pirates can operate there at cheaper costs than even a movie studio could produce the discs at, so they get $0.10 per disc or something.
I played both, and Planetside players have little to complain about in comparison to SWG. Planetside and SWG had some bad implementation problems, granted, and neither were complete at launch, but the core game of Planetside is still solid, even today, and thanks to a decent new developer is actually improving. However, SWG was a terrible *design* from the beginning. It was always boring. Everyone played expecting it to get better, and it never did. I don't regret leaving SWG, especially after what I heard about the NGE.
You are correct but they're still just making incremental improvements to the same game. It's like taking a 2002 GMC sierra and comparing it to a 2003 GMC sierra. It still does everything the same, just better.
On the other hand, a segway was real innovation. It was a flop, but it was an innovative flop.
I can't say I'm happy with any recent innovations in the gaming industry. The MMORPG concept was pretty revolutionary, but nothing much new is happening now. It's the same basic rules with a new skin, better graphics, etc. Get a license from LucasArts and call it Star Wars Galaxies. Sure it had a better crafting system, but it wasn't THAT different.
There are times when a game seems to finally get a genre right... like command and conquer did with RTS's, or planetside did with real squad based tactics FPS (it's the only game persistent enough that you can ever hope to group with the same people on a regular basis).
I just bought Sid Meier's Pirates! which I originally played on the Nintendo (8 bit) and again on the PC (Pirates Gold!). Nothing too original in this one, but still a fun game, but I only bought it for old time's sake.
I used to play a game made with CGA graphics called "project space station". You had to run NASA and build a space station in orbit, run experiments, launch satellites, keep the orbiter fleet running, etc. That was innovative. Sim city was innovative. Sim City 4? Nope. Second Life is innovative (but I haven't seen it yet). The Sims is pretty innovative. But the Sims 2? Nope. What number are we up to on Civilization now?
I truly believe that we've begun the human age of sequels, and I don't think it's ever going to end. That's sad.
Alright, you've convinced me that it's time for a boycott of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Now, at the very least, I need a search engine. Anyone know of a good alternative search engine I can use until they get their act together?
I'm trying to imagine Leeeroy Jenkinssss playing myst... no, I don't think it works. :)
You seem to think that China is a democracy of some sort, where the opinion of the people matters...
It may seem that way, but I certainly don't think China is anywhere near democratic. Apparently you seem to think that western governments are democracies of some sort, which would also be wrong.
All governments exist on a continuum with democracy at one end and dictatorship on the other. China is certainly closer to the dictatorship end than most western governments, but the closest any western government comes to democracy is Switzerland, as far as I know. Certainly most western governments are republics (except a few that are technically constitutional monarchies but still function as parliamentary republics).
A republic (like in the US) is a middle ground between dictatorship and democracy. In a republic, we elect representatives and give them tremendous authority over us, limited only by the constitution. There has been a tendency throughout history for governments to move away from freedom and towards dictatorship simply by chipping away at the constitutional limits. This is no different in the west. It's just that China started closer to the dictatorship end.
When things get too bad, you have a revolution/revolt/liberation, etc., and then the cycle repeats. The game is in how long you can stretch it between cycles. The US is doing pretty well, but it may still be nearing the end game.
In the west (except for Australia apparently, which isn't really in the west anyway) there are a lot of people who think porn is ok as long as it's contained to a place where we don't have to see it if we don't want to. As long as we know where it is, we can get it, but I don't want it shoved down my throat.
China may have a different cultural attitude towards porn, with a very large portion of the populace thinking that it must be banned, which gives the government more reasons to censor speech under the guise of getting rid of this terrible plague that everyone hates.
Don't kid yourself... the government in the US and other western nations would use this same excuse to censor your political beliefs if more of the population thought this content was objectionable. Therefore, the amount our government can censor us increases as the number of taboo subjects increase in our society.
Ok, but as I said, there are specific laws in place for telephones that make them private. The laws to do that with the internet don't exist. If the laws for cell phones did not exist, anyone would be allowed to tap into your cell phone conversation just as easily as someone can listen in on a ham radio or CB conversation.
Since you know how the internet works, you are even less likely to get away with the excuse of "expectation of privacy" in court. Unlike a commoner, you are more aware of how public the internet is. I'm just saying, be careful until the laws are better defined.
Your fallacy is on your assumption that talking to google is like standing beside the stock boy and whispering. Talking to google is more like writing your search request on a postcard and mailing it to google, or taking a post it note, writing on it:
...and then asking Sally the cashier to stick it on the stock boy's locker.
Billy, need info on donkey porn - Bob
The search request you send to google goes over any number of intermediate computers that are privately owned. Any of those intervening computer owners has the *right* to look at the data being passed through their systems. If you don't want them to read it, then encrypt it, or use an anonymizing service. The private owners do not have the right to break your encryption, thanks to the DMCA. But they do have the right to look at the ciphertext.
You have a pretty funny definition of "public knowledge". Privacy is based on an "expectation of privacy". Even though the data isn't encrypted, the routers those packets travel on is certainly NOT open to monitoring by just anyone. There still are easdropping laws in this country that would protect against someone listening in on those requests.
What you are referring to are "common carrier" provisions, and it seems to be a common belief that internet service providers fall under those provisions, but recent reading on the subject seems to indicate that this isn't the truth. Governments are allowed to monitor portions of those communications, and companies who run portions of the internet are allowed to maintain logs of whatever data goes across that equipment. Many companies do not collect those logs, but those that do have been required by law to hand over those logs when requested, and many have done so. Wire tapping laws do not apply to the entire internet. By its very nature, the internet is a public network. If you believe that your data over the internet is private, then you have an odd idea of how the internet works.
You could argue the information on your computer is private, but anything you do online without taking even basic steps to protect it is public. To believe otherwise is foolish, in my opinion.
Consider it like real mail. If you put it in an envelope, it's protected and nobody else can open it. If you put it on a postcard, there's no expectation of privacy. The tools to encrypt your email are publicly available. If you don't use them, you are effectively writing all your emails on postcards.
I find that sometimes this gets abused. A person writes something absolutely scathing like, "I wouldn't expect a guy from {insert nationality, town of residence, etc.} to understand what I'm trying to say, so let me paraphrase myself in a 5th grade reading level and draw some pictures for your benefit", and when the other person takes offense, the original guy just says, "hey I was only kidding man, can't you take a joke?"
:)
Unfortunately, in our society, a joke that belittles the person you're arguing with is usually given more weight by an audience than the content of the argument itself. Comments like this are usually made on message boards to swing sentiment to one side without having to construct a logical argument.
The receiver needs to try and assume that the sender is joking, if there is any doubt whatsoever, but the sender also needs to consider the fact that it's hard to discern original intent in electronic text, and should try to write in a way that focuses on the issue, not on the person. This is a good skill to master for most interpersonal situations, even verbal, by the way. It'll make your marriage last a lot longer.
No, it's not. My family/friends/neighbours don't know I was looking up
Well, they may not know that you went down to the grocery store and yelled out to the stock boy, "hey, what's the price on radishes today?" But you wouldn't consider that private, would you?
The internet is a public network, and the data is not encrypted as it travels over 20 or so computers on its way from your computer to google and back. That request you made for donkey porn is most definitely public knowledge unless you took measures to protect your privacy.
That doesn't offend me at all. It makes a political statement about some real problems in the catholic church. It's shocking, and might be offensive, but it makes a good point. It's only a cartoon. If it's just incorrect, then you ignore it, and if it's got some truth to it, then it might help to enlighten you.
Some of us are capable of accepting criticism of our institutions, and the rest are called INTOLERANT. Got it?
So go ahead, publish that cartoon. Hell, you can nail an effigy of Jesus to a cross if you want - that won't bother me either.
There is no need for them to charge $400 a bottle when they could sell it for $40.
Yes, there is a need. The more money the final cure actually makes, the more people will want to invest their money into research to cure other diseases. As it stands, it's very risky to try and develop new medicines. It's a lot of money with little chance of return. We have to make that actual return very high to compensate for the small chance, or fewer people will invest in drug research.
Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life.
That's great. I guess it doesn't help with the depression though.
You know what a good analogy would be? Some performance vehicles are delivered with deliberate crippling technology included to make them pass environmental regulations, and there are simple instructions online about how to modify the vehicle to get all the performance out of it. Sometimes it's as simple as removing a fuse or jumper from the fuse panel.
We don't sue the car company for selling a car that can be modified to the point where it no longer meets environmental regulations - we charge the modder themselves if they're caught.
That's a decent analogy.
The GP's post was a good analogy, and I'm afraid that yours is not quite as good because when you bought the GTA game it came with the data; you didn't have to break into Rockstar's servers to steal it. There is no "hidden code" analogy for a TV because what you see is what you get.
A better analogy would be finding that an R rated DVD had an NC-17 rated video buried on it in the special features but you couldn't access it through the menu system and could only access it if you ripped the DVD to your hard drive. But that, actually, would make it sound much more wrong, now, wouldn't it?
So, let's agree that analogies are a bad thing to use here, and stick to the facts. The ESRB had no way to know about hot coffee because it can't be expected to run through the program with a debugger to find stuff like that. There is no rating agency that could ever find it.
Then you have to wonder, is there a difference between a mod that lets the game get to a spot that was completely inaccessible, and a mod that just adds a brand new section to the game? I say that there is NO difference. Once you have to modify the code itself, then it's not Rockstar's responsibility anymore. It's no different that creating new skins for games either.