Prototype starts you at 11 and somehow keeps getting better
Then why don't they just make 1 higher?
Prototype starts you at 11...it's like, when you're starting out, you're at 1, but you want to be more powerful, you want to kick ass at the beginning, so what does the game do? It starts you at 11
I know, I see that. Why don't they just make the powers and stats that you get at level 11 available at level 1, and then just call it level 1?
But....[long pause].....Prototype starts you at 11
Okay.
,
,
(Haven't played the game, have no idea whether you were just making a comparison to power levels in different games or whether the starting level is actually 11.)
"Alright, citizens of the United Kingdom, you're all going to need to opt-in if you want to get porn on your computers at home. So everyone who likes to watch porn on their computers, please raise your hand and sign this form. Here, can you pass this around for the perverts to sign?"
Mind you, I'd be standing in front with my hand up, jumping up and down yelling, "Oooh, me! Me! I want to sign!" But maybe some people would have a problem with that.
Wel, akshualii, thiss iz a bout spling, not gramer. Butt I undorstand wie sum pepol dont kair fore standerdiz'd spelingh; Samuel Johnson rilly set uss bak centuryes.
One of the stupidest aspects of copyright "law" is this:
You can't quote to refute a work. Say you think Al Gore's science is wrong, Sarah Palin doesn't know what she's talking about, or Cheney's a liar.
Yes you can.
The best and most effective refutation would be to quote entire chapters, and refute them line-by-line or paragraph-by-paragraph.
No, it isn't.
Since your work would be possibly larger than theirs, you're not exactly just copying their work for profit. In fact quoting for refuting is probably the highest and best use for advancing the useful arts and sciences.
Hardly.
Yet copyright "law" can be and is used to shut down debate.
Oh, I can think of some.;-) But nothing racial. Honestly, the racial epithets for white people almost seem...laudatory. It takes a real motherfucker to earn the name "White Devil" for an entire group of people. White guys seem mostly amused..."Yeah, dude, sorry we won that whole colonialism thing."
I think racial epithets are largely about the cultural history that drives them. You can't piss off a white American by calling them a gringo or a cracker because there's not any kind of sore spot to drive it into; for the past 500 years, guess who's been on the nicer end of the power relations?
On the other hand, it's really senseless to try to tell people how to feel about a particular symbol. I agree that there may be ways to advance that agenda, but it's not as simple as saying, "Dude, stop caring!" (Or, in the parlance of online gaming, "lol stfu n00b u suck")
I suppose this is, effectively, to say that if people stopped attaching a meaning to certain symbols, then the symbols would have no meaning. Which is all fine and dandy and clearly the case. Of course, suggesting it normatively is about as silly as declaring, "Hey, guys, racial epithets have no meaning any more, it's okay if we use them now!" and then getting frustrated when no one immediately drops their cultural understanding of the terms.
Oh, sure, none of those guys were in the Luftwaffe. The modern KKK doesn't go around burning crosses in people's front yards any more, near as I can tell. I haven't heard of anyone getting lynched in years.
Here's some counter-advice: Spend a day walking around in full Klansman gear (the distinction seems rather blurred in American culture) and explaining to everyone how dated their sentiments are, how the Klan stopped its reign of terror years ago, what is your problem, people? (Please take a camera with you if you do this...I would pay good money to see the looks on their faces.) You can drag on all you want about how the Nazis are dead and who cares any more, but if the ideas and symbolism have outlived their progenitors, then clearly, it's very much alive.
(Did I just invent a new kind of Godwin? Like, if the conversation is already about Nazis, who do you compare them to in a broad analogy?)
Well, she was a 98-pound white-trash kind of girl, but my friend palmed his dreidel just in case there were more where she came from. As it turned out, there was a whole group of them in that apartment complex. That was about 4 years ago.
The Reich is gone forever, but the symbolism and significance lives on.
Otherwise they are saying "I don't agree with THESE guys, but I have no problem with THOSE guys".
More or less, although it's more like, "I definitely have a problem with THESE guys, I'm neutral about everything else."
So what's the problem here? We're not talking about government censorship here---Microsoft has no legal or moral duty to enforce content-neutral policies in XBLA. Is it unfair to the Nazis that their symbol gets picked on rather than something else? Yeah, sure, maybe in some sense of the word. Is there a principle at stake? No, not really, once we've agreed that Microsoft has dominion over its own policies regarding content censorship.
Well said, but the issue really is context. If this game were being marketed primarily in Asia, it wouldn't be a big deal. It's not. It doesn't seem appropriate for a Westerner to scream, "Oh my God, Nazis!" if they see it used in Brahmin texts. It doesn't seem appropriate for an Easterner (or immigrant) to take umbrage that the swastika has a very specific and very odious meaning in the West.
Mind you, I would love to see the symbol reclaimed and enjoy the status in the Western world that it has in the East (and even, formerly and to a lesser extent, in the West). There are many avenues and platforms that one might use to that effect. It should be evident that XBLA is not that platform.
You know, if the Nazis had chilled out a bit, stopped the whole "let's conquer Europe" thing and the other bit about genocide and racism, established a modern liberal democracy, made friends with their neighbors, but kept the whole swastika business, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
His view is commonly held. The people who are arguing, most likely, are only doing so for the sole purpose of arguing. I can't say whether he "knows best" as a general principle, but it's a good call. And an obvious one.
When's the last time you heard the word "swastika" and didn't immediately think about its role in Nazi Germany? Here's my stream-of-consciousness: "NAZIS! HITLER! WORLD WAR II! DEATH CAMPS!" and then, if I think about it a little longer, I might think, "Hindu mythology? Wait, was that Hindu or something else? Maybe Sikh? I don't think that's really a Sikh thing...they've got the turbans but I'm not sure what else...what other religions are there in India? Jainism? No, that's not right...it's not the Buddhists, I don't think...must be Hindu. Doesn't it point the other way, though? Do they do it both ways? I should check out the Wikipedia article. Maybe I should look up Sikhism, too."
When's the last time you saw a swastika in a movie or a flier or a tattoo or a T-shirt, and it wasn'tthis bad boy or a reference to it?
These people live in the same universe as we do; it's merely a matter of being contrarian, and a video game (correction: this video game, I won't speak for all possible video games) is not really an appropriate platform for reclaiming the symbol.
They do both. The title of the page is "You need to use a real browser in order to use Diaspora!" and the page itself has a frame in the middle pitching Chrome Frame.
In their next case, they'll contend that not only are users breaking the law when they store their music on a hard drive they've rented, they're breaking the law when they store their music on a hard drive they've purchased. And of course, when I say "hard drive" I mean a "storage device," such as a flash drive or an optical disk. In other news: EMI pushes for a return to vinyl records.
Whether or not Kosovo is a "country" is sort of irrelevant to the point. One could just as easily say, "an autonomous district of Serbia, formerly under UN jurisdiction, which asserts disputed claims of sovereignty, is governed independently of Serbia, whose status is widely recognized by several nations around the globe, but is disputed by Serbia and several other nations, principally Serbian allies such as Russia." Or I could just call a duck a duck and save some typing.
If you really want to invoke "international law," though, might I remind you that this whole thing got started with Slobodan Milosevic (yes, I know, ethnic tensions go back to at least the 14th century) as a war criminal, and UN intervention in response to human-rights violations? (But of course, "international law" is largely sophistry---with an emphasis on "might makes right.")
Hi, sorry about you getting accidentally cryogenically frozen for 12 years, but it's 2010 now, and while the dollar is still an important international currency, the Euro (which was introduced in 1999, a year after you fell into that vat of liquid nitrogen) is also an important global currency. And more important than the dollar in Europe.
Slashdot Mirror
Something tells me a system administration job just opened up.at a major Australian bank.
Don't you guys call it a queue?
Prototype starts you at 11 and somehow keeps getting better
Then why don't they just make 1 higher?
Prototype starts you at 11...it's like, when you're starting out, you're at 1, but you want to be more powerful, you want to kick ass at the beginning, so what does the game do? It starts you at 11
I know, I see that. Why don't they just make the powers and stats that you get at level 11 available at level 1, and then just call it level 1?
But....[long pause].....Prototype starts you at 11
Okay.
,
,
(Haven't played the game, have no idea whether you were just making a comparison to power levels in different games or whether the starting level is actually 11.)
"Alright, citizens of the United Kingdom, you're all going to need to opt-in if you want to get porn on your computers at home. So everyone who likes to watch porn on their computers, please raise your hand and sign this form. Here, can you pass this around for the perverts to sign?"
Mind you, I'd be standing in front with my hand up, jumping up and down yelling, "Oooh, me! Me! I want to sign!" But maybe some people would have a problem with that.
Wel, akshualii, thiss iz a bout spling, not gramer. Butt I undorstand wie sum pepol dont kair fore standerdiz'd spelingh; Samuel Johnson rilly set uss bak centuryes.
Or perhaps you weren't expecting friggin coyotes.
One of the stupidest aspects of copyright "law" is this:
You can't quote to refute a work. Say you think Al Gore's science is wrong, Sarah Palin doesn't know what she's talking about, or Cheney's a liar.
Yes you can.
The best and most effective refutation would be to quote entire chapters, and refute them line-by-line or paragraph-by-paragraph.
No, it isn't.
Since your work would be possibly larger than theirs, you're not exactly just copying their work for profit. In fact quoting for refuting is probably the highest and best use for advancing the useful arts and sciences.
Hardly.
Yet copyright "law" can be and is used to shut down debate.
Not really.
Oh, I can think of some. ;-) But nothing racial. Honestly, the racial epithets for white people almost seem...laudatory. It takes a real motherfucker to earn the name "White Devil" for an entire group of people. White guys seem mostly amused..."Yeah, dude, sorry we won that whole colonialism thing."
I think racial epithets are largely about the cultural history that drives them. You can't piss off a white American by calling them a gringo or a cracker because there's not any kind of sore spot to drive it into; for the past 500 years, guess who's been on the nicer end of the power relations?
On the other hand, it's really senseless to try to tell people how to feel about a particular symbol. I agree that there may be ways to advance that agenda, but it's not as simple as saying, "Dude, stop caring!" (Or, in the parlance of online gaming, "lol stfu n00b u suck")
I suppose this is, effectively, to say that if people stopped attaching a meaning to certain symbols, then the symbols would have no meaning. Which is all fine and dandy and clearly the case. Of course, suggesting it normatively is about as silly as declaring, "Hey, guys, racial epithets have no meaning any more, it's okay if we use them now!" and then getting frustrated when no one immediately drops their cultural understanding of the terms.
Oh, sure, none of those guys were in the Luftwaffe. The modern KKK doesn't go around burning crosses in people's front yards any more, near as I can tell. I haven't heard of anyone getting lynched in years.
Here's some counter-advice: Spend a day walking around in full Klansman gear (the distinction seems rather blurred in American culture) and explaining to everyone how dated their sentiments are, how the Klan stopped its reign of terror years ago, what is your problem, people? (Please take a camera with you if you do this...I would pay good money to see the looks on their faces.) You can drag on all you want about how the Nazis are dead and who cares any more, but if the ideas and symbolism have outlived their progenitors, then clearly, it's very much alive.
(Did I just invent a new kind of Godwin? Like, if the conversation is already about Nazis, who do you compare them to in a broad analogy?)
Well, she was a 98-pound white-trash kind of girl, but my friend palmed his dreidel just in case there were more where she came from. As it turned out, there was a whole group of them in that apartment complex. That was about 4 years ago.
The Reich is gone forever, but the symbolism and significance lives on.
It's very simple, really. First, you give them a pedicure. Then, while they're admiring their feet, have someone bash them in the head.
I'm getting all vengeful on one of my greatest pet-peeves and perennial nemeses.
You know, I remember having conversations exactly like this in sixth grade. "Anything can be a weapon! Heck, my pencil could be a weapon!"
I'm assuming the teacher overheard such a conversation, and decided to react in the classic way that only a buffoon can.
There are a lot of them, they make up the border of the image. (The image on the amulet, not the JPG.)
Also, even if you added a hundred question marks, it would still not make your statement into a question.
Otherwise they are saying "I don't agree with THESE guys, but I have no problem with THOSE guys".
More or less, although it's more like, "I definitely have a problem with THESE guys, I'm neutral about everything else."
So what's the problem here? We're not talking about government censorship here---Microsoft has no legal or moral duty to enforce content-neutral policies in XBLA. Is it unfair to the Nazis that their symbol gets picked on rather than something else? Yeah, sure, maybe in some sense of the word. Is there a principle at stake? No, not really, once we've agreed that Microsoft has dominion over its own policies regarding content censorship.
Well said, but the issue really is context. If this game were being marketed primarily in Asia, it wouldn't be a big deal. It's not. It doesn't seem appropriate for a Westerner to scream, "Oh my God, Nazis!" if they see it used in Brahmin texts. It doesn't seem appropriate for an Easterner (or immigrant) to take umbrage that the swastika has a very specific and very odious meaning in the West.
Mind you, I would love to see the symbol reclaimed and enjoy the status in the Western world that it has in the East (and even, formerly and to a lesser extent, in the West). There are many avenues and platforms that one might use to that effect. It should be evident that XBLA is not that platform.
You know, if the Nazis had chilled out a bit, stopped the whole "let's conquer Europe" thing and the other bit about genocide and racism, established a modern liberal democracy, made friends with their neighbors, but kept the whole swastika business, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
His view is commonly held. The people who are arguing, most likely, are only doing so for the sole purpose of arguing. I can't say whether he "knows best" as a general principle, but it's a good call. And an obvious one.
When's the last time you heard the word "swastika" and didn't immediately think about its role in Nazi Germany? Here's my stream-of-consciousness: "NAZIS! HITLER! WORLD WAR II! DEATH CAMPS!" and then, if I think about it a little longer, I might think, "Hindu mythology? Wait, was that Hindu or something else? Maybe Sikh? I don't think that's really a Sikh thing...they've got the turbans but I'm not sure what else...what other religions are there in India? Jainism? No, that's not right...it's not the Buddhists, I don't think...must be Hindu. Doesn't it point the other way, though? Do they do it both ways? I should check out the Wikipedia article. Maybe I should look up Sikhism, too."
When's the last time you saw a swastika in a movie or a flier or a tattoo or a T-shirt, and it wasn't this bad boy or a reference to it?
These people live in the same universe as we do; it's merely a matter of being contrarian, and a video game (correction: this video game, I won't speak for all possible video games) is not really an appropriate platform for reclaiming the symbol.
They do both. The title of the page is "You need to use a real browser in order to use Diaspora!" and the page itself has a frame in the middle pitching Chrome Frame.
In their next case, they'll contend that not only are users breaking the law when they store their music on a hard drive they've rented, they're breaking the law when they store their music on a hard drive they've purchased. And of course, when I say "hard drive" I mean a "storage device," such as a flash drive or an optical disk. In other news: EMI pushes for a return to vinyl records.
Whether or not Kosovo is a "country" is sort of irrelevant to the point. One could just as easily say, "an autonomous district of Serbia, formerly under UN jurisdiction, which asserts disputed claims of sovereignty, is governed independently of Serbia, whose status is widely recognized by several nations around the globe, but is disputed by Serbia and several other nations, principally Serbian allies such as Russia." Or I could just call a duck a duck and save some typing.
If you really want to invoke "international law," though, might I remind you that this whole thing got started with Slobodan Milosevic (yes, I know, ethnic tensions go back to at least the 14th century) as a war criminal, and UN intervention in response to human-rights violations? (But of course, "international law" is largely sophistry---with an emphasis on "might makes right.")
Also, it would be a good idea to look in the New York Times archives for articles dated 9/11/2001.
Hi, sorry about you getting accidentally cryogenically frozen for 12 years, but it's 2010 now, and while the dollar is still an important international currency, the Euro (which was introduced in 1999, a year after you fell into that vat of liquid nitrogen) is also an important global currency. And more important than the dollar in Europe.
Troll? Try it yourself!