I find it strange that we even need to take oaths for anything. It might have been worth more back in the days when people would rather die then to be considered without honor. But today it is just lip service.
What are words? When the shit hit's the fan the person at the front of the rebellion is the one who will really show what 'defending the constitution' is about.
But sadly the 'bravest' ones spooling down the speech about bravery and sacrifice are the ones safely behind a mountain of armor.
'or you're fucked'? That might have been the US view of it but and any fool would have known that attacking Russia could have started a nuclear war.
Maybe the Russians were less willing to start a nuclear holocaust.
But you are basically correct and also show just how the truth gets twisted. The initial aggressor plays the victim. Sad thing, people actually believe it.
The 'Cuban Missile Crisis' was not started by the Russians. The basis for the stationing of the Russian rockets at the front door of the US was the stationing of US rockets in Germany or Turkey (Russia's front door).
So the US threatens Russia and when Russia does the same, they are the ones starting the crisis?
Oh I understood you, I'm just saying the US government never really has had a problem justifying anything as long as they came out on top.
And then flame others when they do the same thing, none the less. (f.i. blasting French nuclear tests in the south pacific when the US has not only conducted multiple nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll but also just took the land from the people there in order to do it)
What bothers me is the short sightedness of people (not you personally) that think 'a little damage' won't hurt.
What good is winning a war when what you are left with is a destroyed planet?
Some people seem to actually think animals becoming extinct is not really a problem and that *we* can fix it. If we look at our track record so far, maybe we should stop while there is still something to save.
I remember a story about a drunk US service member (while off duty) plowing his car into the car of a famous Romanian musician and killing him.
The US embassy flew him out of the country so he would not have to face charges.
The US has a well known double standard going on when it comes to crimes.
Most Americans can get by with anything or only face laughable charges (and be acquitted for most of them) for stuff they would be executed for in the US if the victims were Americans.
Well with the Taliban being a bad example because the US and them were friendly up until 9/11. How the Taliban oppressed and killed people, blow up the Buddhas and hid Osama was not a real problem as long as they were welcome to a oil pipeline being built through their country.
Actually the US supported the Taliban because they were against drug trade.
So that kinda goes against your claim, at least that part.
Wasn't the US's puppet dictator in Panama (Noriega?) also a drug dealer? Or are they only bad people when they are not friends with the US?
I agree. We should realize that there was only a few percentage difference between the two candidates.
Seeing as how the McCain voters acted during the campaign it is still a country divided and will be for a long time.
Maybe some of the swing voters would have voted differently had Obama been 'really' black. (as he is half white and raised by whites).
Or maybe not, I don't know.
Is Obama the next MLK? I do not know yet. We have seen with what grace he has carried himself through these hard times of the campaign, when the racist monster reared it's ugly head.
Even in the face of all this his speeches reminded me of those of MLK.
The next few years will not be easy ones and if Obama really is the man we have seen up until now, I could become the next MLK.
Sadly, we are not yet 'free at last'.
Side note:
While I was watching tv last night they showed all blacks that had been elected into certain positions and among them was Powell and Rice. I nearly had to throw up. Powell is a sell-out (who blocked the My-Lay massacre investigation f.i.) and a 'war hero' and Rice is deeply embedded in the Oil-Barony.
Before we send a probe I think we should first extend our (read: world) space programs to more reachable goals.
No, I am not talking about Mars. Really, who's bright idea was it to want to build an outpost on a planet we have to travel 6 months to even reach? Talk about jumping the gun.
IMHO first step should be the moon. It is reachable, maintainable and if something happens, the station can be evacuated and all personnel can back to earth in 2 days.
If we can reach that goal it would be a huge step.
This would already extend our reach into the universe by a handsome margin. Plus we also have a platform for further reaches into space.
Oh, I agree it is possible, but then why not mention the demands?
No, they just throw out the word 'blackmail' and already everyone is reading stuff into the news that was never said and basically doing exactly what the school (or whoever) wants them to do.
They are already criminals without even having been tried. I'm no lawyer but I thought it was some kind of 'innocent until proven guilty'.. or?
Sorry but I am sick of such methods. You no longer have to define what they did but just throw out keywords and everyone goes 'oh, well then he *must* be guilty'.
If the kids did attempt blackmail then it is easy to prove and they should be punished. (but not as draconian as this, really)
If not, people should not be making such claims. Then again they know they can get away with it.
People might laugh but just hope no one falsely labels them as a 'terrorist' or 'pedophile'.
Let's be honest, people will pull of a lot of stuff to save face.
But anyway...
Say you gained access to my computer and sent me an email 'yo bro, look, I was able to read your files, you should close your firewall', how should I take this?
If I *wanted* to I could add in a mental 'or else' and call it blackmail, but that would be my doing and not your actual words.
Remember we are talking about 15 year olds who probably just want that 'pwnd' moment.
Let's just refresh one point again. These were two 15 year olds. Kids. Not terrorists or criminals.
@Last line: Exactly what I am trying to say. The school just might want to conceal the fact that some 10th grader got into their system.
The reaction to this by the admins pretty much reflects my point. Someone (or multiple someones) is going to get in a *lot* of trouble and a why lose your job (and possibly face a fine/jail) when you can ruin a kids life?
Reminds me like all the incidents we hear about cops creating phony reasons to arrest people just to remove them from somewhere and/or demonize them to the public.
No! If anyone would have taken a minute to actually think about this, the claims do not make sense.
If the kid was trying to blackmail the school, why sign as 'a student'? How will 'a student' profit from this? Fix the grades of 'a student' in the database?
Blackmail is 'give me something or else'. As there is no *me* involved, it is not blackmail.
Claiming that it is blackmail because the kids had reviled the security flaw and thus could repeat it is just wrong.
This smells of BS all the way. The school comes up with false allegations to cover their asses and make the kids look like criminals.
Sure, the kids were doing something they should not but their actions after that should null the previous offense.
Only problem is that depending on how fast your vote comes in, it might not even get counted.
Even worse when you think about this little problem: All military personnel and family living out-of-country would have to vote absentee. All votes have to be sent to the respected states/districts. Now as a voter you can vote up until the last day. Problem is, the votes have to be collected, transported and redistributed first.
But in the US everyone wants to know the results as fast as possible. In the last elections they even admitted that there were absentee ballots not yet counted.
You can probably guess who's might be among those not yet counted.
On one side the soldiers are treated like demi-gods but on the other side their vote might not even be counted.
@1: Heck they could do sooo much with just the chat channels: * audio quality depending on range, environment effects, dampening, language barrier etc. This could easily be implemented * general language barrier: If you don't know orc, you won't understand them. Really simple to implement. * audio effects: shout, whisper, change your voice, speech problems (lisp, stutter).
@2: Imho not that important as there are so many other things you cannot modify as well. I do think that your appearance should not be based on your 3d char but on some other system. Maybe a description file that is filled based off of what you are wearing and like.
@3: I think the problem is that advancement is always connected to combat. Anyone that is an active martial artist or in something similar will tell you that training is where you really advance.
Far to many would-be heroes finally realize they should have practiced more when they see their enemy pulling their sword out of our late hero's bloody belly.
Combat should be seen as it would be in RL: dangerous, bloody and scary. I often compare combat to a wild-west shootout. If you survive you were simply better and/or had more luck. What valuable lessons does one learn that would improve ones skill during a shootout?
In my PnP sessions I would only give xp during the rest periods and they would reflect the insights since the last rest. I never mentioned how they were gained.
Actually the players never really had a lot of 'stats' about themselves. They had 'features' rather then 'stats' (in the back they were numbers).
and the result was: the players loved it!
@4: yes! Heck I would not even have classes but let people learn skills. Then they can do what they feel like.
And this is also exactly where the games are broken: A) Why should anyone want to be a non-combat class when you basically have to do combat in order to progress in any way.
Also far to often 'crafting' is simply just an excuse to allow farming.
B) Wealth distribution: Far to often I see blacksmiths with insane amounts of money. Is that not counter to standard logic? Being a blacksmith might not yield a lot of money but you also did not risk dieing horribly after being crushed by a club weld by a troll.
Again this is where games are often 'broken by design'.
Not to mention that worlds in games have some kind of monster-replicator that will just pour out monster horde after monster horde for the heroes to slay.
It should be like the old sailing-ship-navy saying about life in the navy: 'endless months of horrible boredom interrupted by minutes of sheer and unimaginable terror'.
C) Being a non-combat class also involves less heroic work. Every 'employment' should have some meaningful goal to actually make it interesting for players.
Employments such as merchant, manufacturer or engineer can, if supported by the game, equally fun and could become very powerful. Think Jabba the Hut.
The sad fact is that the huge majority do not care about RP. Every time someone calls their game a 'mmoRPG' I get a twitch in my eye and have to control the urge to inform them that just because you can change a couple of values on a character *does not make it an RPG*.
I'd love to have such features as you mentioned in a game. Other features: ID-Level: How well you can spot someone. I always hated how people always knew who you were, even if you disguised yourself, just because of your floating name.
@Progression: On one side I also like EVE's progression system where your char defines himself over the skills.
Generally I do not really like any level based progression in a way that you need n amount of points to progress because people will also act according to this. In case of a Xp death penalty system, the closer players get to the next level the more cautious they became. Then they discover RPing as a safe way of XP-income.
I also never liked this hp/level system. In my old PnP (D&D) days I ran a group where your char had the standard base hp + 1/lvl. This totally changed the game as your chance of dieing did not sink dramatically just because you gained a level. One lucky arrow could still take out a much higher level fighter instead of the archer having to turn him into a walking pincushion and that 100th arrow finally changing him from a full forced fighting machine (everything above 0hp = 100% power) to dead.
[Generic fighter name]: Hey [Generic mage name], what is that you got on your chest? [Generic mage name]: What this? (Points to object) Just a battle axe from that Orc. But please excuse me, I must cast my next spell.
I also had surprised my players into realizing that just because the enemy falls after being stabbed by a weapon does not mean they are dead. After that Holywood-style illusion was gone (and later others), I felt the players really were forced into contemplating their characters and found out that being evil did not just mean running around with a goatie. Plus the inner-party conflicts between the different alignments over such topics as what to do with the fleeing, wounded and dead enemies.
Ah the fun.:)
In closing I think most games are broken because they try to fix design short-comings (or non-existence) by easy outs like fed-ex quests, dumping huge amounts of gold, quick regen or other similar quick-fixes.
But sadly that is what many zero-depth players want.
Sadly games like these allow you to roleplay but do not encourage it. In the time you are roleplaying an encounter someone is out there farming and gaining xp.
Gaining xp -> faster level progression -> more power -> more prestige -> the only thing that is important in such a game.
Similarly I was in the Neverwinter Nights region and it was basically the same.
I remember one guy who was a part-time farmer and part-time roleplayer. But I ultimately felt he was more the former and only the latter when it gave xp because of one incident: He had calculated the price of an item by the amount of farming runs he would have to do.
In closing I think the game should determine what it wants to be: A roleplaying game or an action style game. But the mechanics must match.
Why not just let people sign up using only a number and some 'trivial' information like hair/eye color, sex, 'race', age. Just enough so they can do scientific research but nothing more.
If they do not get more then such information, they cannot give more to anyone else.
Then I would be fine with giving out my dna and data.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it strange that we even need to take oaths for anything.
It might have been worth more back in the days when people would rather die then to be considered without honor.
But today it is just lip service.
What are words?
When the shit hit's the fan the person at the front of the rebellion is the one who will really show what 'defending the constitution' is about.
But sadly the 'bravest' ones spooling down the speech about bravery and sacrifice are the ones safely behind a mountain of armor.
I agree.
Anything based off of something 'wrong' could never become 'right'.
No matter how you try to redefine, classify or mask the original sin.
Thus the wistleblower was not committing a crime because in order for it to be a crime it would need a lawful foundation, which does not exist.
Say you steal a VCR from a cop that had stolen it from the car of someone he had stopped.
How could you be charged with theft when the victim was not the rightful owner in the first place?
If you must fear the consequences of speaking your opinion, then it is no longer free speech.
Kinda like how a dictator would be assured getting 99,5% of the votes.
Please provide at least some details about 'don't meet the American Emissions Standards'.
Back up your claims pls.
What additional safety standards could be required that are not already covered in the European regulations?
Please elaborate.
'or you're fucked'? That might have been the US view of it but and any fool would have known that attacking Russia could have started a nuclear war.
Maybe the Russians were less willing to start a nuclear holocaust.
But you are basically correct and also show just how the truth gets twisted.
The initial aggressor plays the victim.
Sad thing, people actually believe it.
The 'Cuban Missile Crisis' was not started by the Russians.
The basis for the stationing of the Russian rockets at the front door of the US was the stationing of US rockets in Germany or Turkey (Russia's front door).
So the US threatens Russia and when Russia does the same, they are the ones starting the crisis?
Oh I understood you, I'm just saying the US government never really has had a problem justifying anything as long as they came out on top.
And then flame others when they do the same thing, none the less.
(f.i. blasting French nuclear tests in the south pacific when the US has not only conducted multiple nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll but also just took the land from the people there in order to do it)
What bothers me is the short sightedness of people (not you personally) that think 'a little damage' won't hurt.
What good is winning a war when what you are left with is a destroyed planet?
Some people seem to actually think animals becoming extinct is not really a problem and that *we* can fix it.
If we look at our track record so far, maybe we should stop while there is still something to save.
I remember a story about a drunk US service member (while off duty) plowing his car into the car of a famous Romanian musician and killing him.
The US embassy flew him out of the country so he would not have to face charges.
The US has a well known double standard going on when it comes to crimes.
Most Americans can get by with anything or only face laughable charges (and be acquitted for most of them) for stuff they would be executed for in the US if the victims were Americans.
Well with the Taliban being a bad example because the US and them were friendly up until 9/11.
How the Taliban oppressed and killed people, blow up the Buddhas and hid Osama was not a real problem as long as they were welcome to a oil pipeline being built through their country.
Actually the US supported the Taliban because they were against drug trade.
So that kinda goes against your claim, at least that part.
Wasn't the US's puppet dictator in Panama (Noriega?) also a drug dealer?
Or are they only bad people when they are not friends with the US?
Strange because it is the US that constantly is at war with one country or another.
Yes and iirc the fuel savings for commercial airliners were about 6%.
I think you misunderstood him.
But I also am against that 'right' as it it is unusually cruel to animals.
IIRC African-Americans are predominantly Democratic voters.
Thus again voted for the Democrats has nothing to do with the Democratic candidate being African-American.
As the USA has not yet had a non-white presidential candidate in the final round it is futile to discuss how who would vote / voted how.
I agree.
We should realize that there was only a few percentage difference between the two candidates.
Seeing as how the McCain voters acted during the campaign it is still a country divided and will be for a long time.
Maybe some of the swing voters would have voted differently had Obama been 'really' black. (as he is half white and raised by whites).
Or maybe not, I don't know.
Is Obama the next MLK? I do not know yet. We have seen with what grace he has carried himself through these hard times of the campaign, when the racist monster reared it's ugly head.
Even in the face of all this his speeches reminded me of those of MLK.
The next few years will not be easy ones and if Obama really is the man we have seen up until now, I could become the next MLK.
Sadly, we are not yet 'free at last'.
Side note:
While I was watching tv last night they showed all blacks that had been elected into certain positions and among them was Powell and Rice.
I nearly had to throw up. Powell is a sell-out (who blocked the My-Lay massacre investigation f.i.) and a 'war hero' and Rice is deeply embedded in the Oil-Barony.
Not to mention they were appointed, not elected.
They were no Rosy Parks or MLKs.
Before we send a probe I think we should first extend our (read: world) space programs to more reachable goals.
No, I am not talking about Mars. Really, who's bright idea was it to want to build an outpost on a planet we have to travel 6 months to even reach?
Talk about jumping the gun.
IMHO first step should be the moon. It is reachable, maintainable and if something happens, the station can be evacuated and all personnel can back to earth in 2 days.
If we can reach that goal it would be a huge step.
This would already extend our reach into the universe by a handsome margin. Plus we also have a platform for further reaches into space.
Your joking right?
Please tell me you are... please.
Oh, I agree it is possible, but then why not mention the demands?
No, they just throw out the word 'blackmail' and already everyone is reading stuff into the news that was never said and basically doing exactly what the school (or whoever) wants them to do.
They are already criminals without even having been tried. .. or?
I'm no lawyer but I thought it was some kind of 'innocent until proven guilty'
Sorry but I am sick of such methods. You no longer have to define what they did but just throw out keywords and everyone goes 'oh, well then he *must* be guilty'.
If the kids did attempt blackmail then it is easy to prove and they should be punished. (but not as draconian as this, really)
If not, people should not be making such claims.
Then again they know they can get away with it.
People might laugh but just hope no one falsely labels them as a 'terrorist' or 'pedophile'.
Then why did they not mention his 'demands'?
Let's be honest, people will pull of a lot of stuff to save face.
But anyway...
Say you gained access to my computer and sent me an email 'yo bro, look, I was able to read your files, you should close your firewall', how should I take this?
If I *wanted* to I could add in a mental 'or else' and call it blackmail, but that would be my doing and not your actual words.
Remember we are talking about 15 year olds who probably just want that 'pwnd' moment.
Let's just refresh one point again. These were two 15 year olds. Kids.
Not terrorists or criminals.
@Last line:
Exactly what I am trying to say. The school just might want to conceal the fact that some 10th grader got into their system.
The reaction to this by the admins pretty much reflects my point.
Someone (or multiple someones) is going to get in a *lot* of trouble and a why lose your job (and possibly face a fine/jail) when you can ruin a kids life?
Reminds me like all the incidents we hear about cops creating phony reasons to arrest people just to remove them from somewhere and/or demonize them to the public.
No!
If anyone would have taken a minute to actually think about this, the claims do not make sense.
If the kid was trying to blackmail the school, why sign as 'a student'?
How will 'a student' profit from this?
Fix the grades of 'a student' in the database?
Blackmail is 'give me something or else'.
As there is no *me* involved, it is not blackmail.
Claiming that it is blackmail because the kids had reviled the security flaw and thus could repeat it is just wrong.
This smells of BS all the way. The school comes up with false allegations to cover their asses and make the kids look like criminals.
Sure, the kids were doing something they should not but their actions after that should null the previous offense.
Only problem is that depending on how fast your vote comes in, it might not even get counted.
Even worse when you think about this little problem:
All military personnel and family living out-of-country would have to vote absentee.
All votes have to be sent to the respected states/districts.
Now as a voter you can vote up until the last day.
Problem is, the votes have to be collected, transported and redistributed first.
But in the US everyone wants to know the results as fast as possible.
In the last elections they even admitted that there were absentee ballots not yet counted.
You can probably guess who's might be among those not yet counted.
On one side the soldiers are treated like demi-gods but on the other side their vote might not even be counted.
agree 100%
@1: Heck they could do sooo much with just the chat channels:
* audio quality depending on range, environment effects, dampening, language barrier etc. This could easily be implemented
* general language barrier: If you don't know orc, you won't understand them. Really simple to implement.
* audio effects: shout, whisper, change your voice, speech problems (lisp, stutter).
@2: Imho not that important as there are so many other things you cannot modify as well. I do think that your appearance should not be based on your 3d char but on some other system. Maybe a description file that is filled based off of what you are wearing and like.
@3: I think the problem is that advancement is always connected to combat. Anyone that is an active martial artist or in something similar will tell you that training is where you really advance.
Far to many would-be heroes finally realize they should have practiced more when they see their enemy pulling their sword out of our late hero's bloody belly.
Combat should be seen as it would be in RL: dangerous, bloody and scary.
I often compare combat to a wild-west shootout. If you survive you were simply better and/or had more luck. What valuable lessons does one learn that would improve ones skill during a shootout?
In my PnP sessions I would only give xp during the rest periods and they would reflect the insights since the last rest.
I never mentioned how they were gained.
Actually the players never really had a lot of 'stats' about themselves.
They had 'features' rather then 'stats' (in the back they were numbers).
and the result was: the players loved it!
@4: yes!
Heck I would not even have classes but let people learn skills. Then they can do what they feel like.
And this is also exactly where the games are broken:
A) Why should anyone want to be a non-combat class when you basically have to do combat in order to progress in any way.
Also far to often 'crafting' is simply just an excuse to allow farming.
B) Wealth distribution:
Far to often I see blacksmiths with insane amounts of money.
Is that not counter to standard logic?
Being a blacksmith might not yield a lot of money but you also did not risk dieing horribly after being crushed by a club weld by a troll.
Again this is where games are often 'broken by design'.
Not to mention that worlds in games have some kind of monster-replicator that will just pour out monster horde after monster horde for the heroes to slay.
It should be like the old sailing-ship-navy saying about life in the navy:
'endless months of horrible boredom interrupted by minutes of sheer and unimaginable terror'.
C) Being a non-combat class also involves less heroic work.
Every 'employment' should have some meaningful goal to actually make it interesting for players.
Employments such as merchant, manufacturer or engineer can, if supported by the game, equally fun and could become very powerful.
Think Jabba the Hut.
The sad fact is that the huge majority do not care about RP. Every time someone calls their game a 'mmoRPG' I get a twitch in my eye and have to control the urge to inform them that just because you can change a couple of values on a character *does not make it an RPG*.
I'd love to have such features as you mentioned in a game.
Other features:
ID-Level: How well you can spot someone. I always hated how people always knew who you were, even if you disguised yourself, just because of your floating name.
@Progression:
On one side I also like EVE's progression system where your char defines himself over the skills.
Generally I do not really like any level based progression in a way that you need n amount of points to progress because people will also act according to this.
In case of a Xp death penalty system, the closer players get to the next level the more cautious they became. Then they discover RPing as a safe way of XP-income.
I also never liked this hp/level system.
In my old PnP (D&D) days I ran a group where your char had the standard base hp + 1/lvl. This totally changed the game as your chance of dieing did not sink dramatically just because you gained a level. One lucky arrow could still take out a much higher level fighter instead of the archer having to turn him into a walking pincushion and that 100th arrow finally changing him from a full forced fighting machine (everything above 0hp = 100% power) to dead.
[Generic fighter name]: Hey [Generic mage name], what is that you got on your chest?
[Generic mage name]: What this? (Points to object) Just a battle axe from that Orc. But please excuse me, I must cast my next spell.
I also had surprised my players into realizing that just because the enemy falls after being stabbed by a weapon does not mean they are dead.
After that Holywood-style illusion was gone (and later others), I felt the players really were forced into contemplating their characters and found out that being evil did not just mean running around with a goatie.
Plus the inner-party conflicts between the different alignments over such topics as what to do with the fleeing, wounded and dead enemies.
Ah the fun. :)
In closing I think most games are broken because they try to fix design short-comings (or non-existence) by easy outs like fed-ex quests, dumping huge amounts of gold, quick regen or other similar quick-fixes.
But sadly that is what many zero-depth players want.
Sadly games like these allow you to roleplay but do not encourage it. In the time you are roleplaying an encounter someone is out there farming and gaining xp.
Gaining xp -> faster level progression -> more power -> more prestige -> the only thing that is important in such a game.
Similarly I was in the Neverwinter Nights region and it was basically the same.
I remember one guy who was a part-time farmer and part-time roleplayer. But I ultimately felt he was more the former and only the latter when it gave xp because of one incident:
He had calculated the price of an item by the amount of farming runs he would have to do.
In closing I think the game should determine what it wants to be:
A roleplaying game or an action style game.
But the mechanics must match.
Why not just let people sign up using only a number and some 'trivial' information like hair/eye color, sex, 'race', age. Just enough so they can do scientific research but nothing more.
If they do not get more then such information, they cannot give more to anyone else.
Then I would be fine with giving out my dna and data.