Didn't know myself so I looked into it.
But Wikipedia always has some insight: Germay. The short answer is christians and sex ed. The longer answer is "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society." ie, indoctrination. ie, brain-washing to a social norm. Thou shalt melt in the pot!
But from else I gathered some places have laws left over from when child labor was an issue. The parents claims they're homeschooling their kid so they can keep them in the coal-mine all day.
How to bullshit his teacher, keep his head down, deal with bullies, form cliches, and overall how to deal with the system. Which is a vital skillset if you want to get a job and be a normal person.
Dad was pretty clear about that. I wasn't there to learn the material they put on the board. That was easy. I was there to learn how to deal with these assholes.
Parents can be responsible for socializing their children as well.
Well, yes, but only it includes a part where the parents aren't involved in any way. I mean, they're responsible of course. But if the only other social contact the kids has is through their parents, then that's not being socialized. Even if it mediated by the parents, like a play-date, or visiting people with the parents, then the parent is still there and in control. It's a very different social environment then being among peers with an uncaring unknowing overlord. Which is public schools and the real world to a certain extent.
Even if they're involved in sports, as long as the parent is present, it affects the situation.
And if there's one issue I've seen with the parents that homeschool, it's willingness to let go.
And that's control. They want to decide what you consume rather than fulfill the desires you already have.
Their goal is not to try and serve their customers better, but how to squeeze more money out of them.
I thought it was a schism inserted into the Borg hivemind via Data and his experience as an individual. It caused a portion of the Borg to try and self-actualize, or at least start talking in the first person and experiment with shapes other than a cube.
Let's kick it up a notch.
The post-lunch era saw a dramatic rise in belching and the prosperity of the land was apparent. Belts were slackened and the terrible threat of hunger was abolished. But what were the long term consequences in this brave new world?
Turns out, not much. A significant portion of the populous continued to snack, and the powers that be simply shifted their debate from "where do we lunch?" to "What's for dinner?". This reflects on the fundamental nature of man to... uh... eat.
No doubt, some genuinely wanted to protect Americans against theft but were sincerely concerned about how the language in the bill might be interpreted.
Well thank god he threw out a bone and recognized there is indeed a rational argument against the bill.
They also argued misleadingly that the bills would have required Web sites to “monitor” what their users upload, conveniently ignoring provisions like the “No Duty to Monitor” section.
Hmmm. This may actually be a valid point. There were multiple version of the bill, did one of them not contain this section? And then there's the issue that while you don't have to monitor what your users submit, if they find anything infringing, they'll still blacklist your entire site.
it’s hackers like the group Anonymous that engage in real censorship when they stifle the speech of those with whom they disagree.
This is true. That's pure raw censorship they enacted. For, like, a day. It's definitely wrong. Misdemeanor, or possibly even criminal behavior. But it doesn't match the thread of giving the DA the ability to blacklist whatever site he wants.
Perhaps this is naïve, but I’d like to believe that the companies that opposed SOPA and PIPA will now feel some responsibility to help come up with constructive alternatives.
Uh, hey, what about us? The people? We're not companies you know. It's not just companies that can propose legislation to their reps.
So. Constructive alternatives.
1) We could repeal copyright. Rather than making something and then charging people for the use, authors would hold their works hostage and solicit payment to release it. Very similar to how book publishers deal with authors. A kickstarter model could also be used. Teasers, trailers, and samples would probably be more common.
2) Copyright could be shortened and their expiration explicit. I wanted to go get a copy of "Legends of Murder", an old murder mystery game in a fantasy setting. The GUI was made in assembly! I technically own the game, but it had succumbed to bitrot. So I went looking on abandonware sites. These don't have to belong in legal grey areas. With a shorter copyright, and a published date that it became public domain, this would sustain culture and make abandonware clear-cut.
3) I think Canada has a system where the recording industry has their own tax on blank CDs. We could do something similar and have a tax on ISPs that would be doled out to artists. Of course, RIAA would be the last entity we trust with such a responsibility. There would be endless squabbling over who deserves what and whoever ultimately determined that would have an obscene amount of power that would eventually succumb to corruption, but it's an option.
The diversionary bill that they drafted, the OPEN Act, would do little to stop the illegal behavior and would not establish a workable framework, standards or remedies.
Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American property from theft,
Yep, but a lost sale isn't theft.
to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud
True 'nuff. But a lot of the counterfeits are just as usable as the real goods, because they're made in the same factory. Although I've read a good writeup about how faulty, shoddy, or untested electronic components can be a big issue, so this one I understand. The rest of you slashdot people need to understand that he really does have a point here. The feds serve the greater good when they keep people from lying about their product.
and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs.
If they're exploiting technology to steal our ingenuity, it sounds like they simply have more ingenuity then we do. It's like you're complaining about the other guy having a longer spear then you.
They knew that music sales in the United States are less than half of what they were in 1999, when the file-sharing site Napster emerged, and that direct employment in the industry had fallen by more than half since then, to less than 10,000.
That's because technology has made your job obsolete. Anyone with a grand can go do what it cost you a million dollar to do back in the 90's. Once businesses realized this, they undercut you. Once consumers realized this, they stopped shelling out $30 for a CD with 2 songs they wanted.
Misinformation may be a dirty trick, but it works.
You would know. The damn bill is CALLED the stop online PIRACY act.
Since when is it censorship to shut down an operation that an American court, upon a thorough review of evidence, has determined to be illegal?
Since it includes the act of shutting it down. You DO know that they censor out tits from daytime television right? And swear words from the radio? At least they used to, I don't really watch TV anymore so that may have changed. But anyway, that's still censorship. It's acceptable because there's a level of expected decency. People want to plug in the nanny for their kids. You're playing word-games with the term "censorship". Misinformation really IS a dirty trick, isn't it?
I think part of the fundamental issue here is that you're treating this stuff as a physical product rather then information. In the digital age, we've turned your physical product into information. Copying is trivial. Distribution is easy. You simply live in the world of yesterday.
I think the more direct use would be for spotting, targeting, and destroying tanks and other vehicles. Most armies stencil on the name of the thing in big bold letters. Slap on a brick of C4 and you have a pretty smart missile that hover around till needed and can choose to come home and not detonate.
Despite sanctions? Dude, all the parts come from China. And China isn't part of the embargo. 10^2 km is a little wide for the smaller RC fliers out there, but for the larger ones that have a gas engine, it's completely do-able. That's retail store level technology. That hard part is flying it out of sight. Sensors, cameras, communications, all these little modules are made in china and are hobbyist stuff.
Long story short, it's impossible to embargo technology any more. It used to be that areospace technology was unatainable by anyone outside the industry. Serious engineers with serious companies with serious money. Now it's cheap. Kids are launching their own satellites.
Embargoes work for bulk goods, regulated and controlled substances, and money. And they usually work very badly. UAV technology doesn't fall under those categories.
Whoa there, don't be a negative nancy. Seriously, this sort of doomsaying is what gets the fundies' undies in a twist.
The next generation of nuclear plants is not fusion. You're looking WAY too far down the road. For that matter, CURRENT generation nuclear plants are perfectly viable. Sure, they have that risk of meltdown and the fuel isn't renewable. But meltdowns are rare, and there's quite a lot of fuel.
The whole economy is based upon oil and coal.
Oil is transportation and coal is grid power. And yes, those are two fundamental resources that our society needs. But there are alternatives. And... there is no such thing as "peak green". Oil, coal, and even nuclear material peaks because there's a set amount of it. That's the whole gimmick of renewable resources. If you want more, go make it. How will we go make it? Well we'll need resources to go make it, ie, people.
may kill off much of the human infestation of the planet
Yeah. This. This right here. This is the sort of evil megalomaniac spiel that paints you as "that evil guy". It puts the entire "think green" movement in REALLY bad light.
The cost of power will rise greatly; its highly unlikely to go down. This makes it cheaper to use animals and self-powered devices. A beast of burden has an upkeep cost but it reproduces itself cheaply and while it may not run as well as a machine it requires less infrastructure which may become so costly that it comes out cheaper to operate.
Well thank god you made an attempt to steer this back onto the topic of the book. Listen, it's fantasy. Using animals as energy conversion tools doesn't work out. It's a bio-punk book. Just like steam-power is a romantic notion that doesn't really pan out, neither does this. But it's fun to pretend.
If that was your rational for how to suspend your disbelief for a little while, that's fantastic. But taken together with the rant above it, I've got to tell you to step away from the sci-fi section and go get a healthy dose of reality.
Sand and slag wasn't vile. It wasn't even sad if you accept that the world had simply moved on and the dog was a buggy-whip. An adorable buggy-whip that beat the odds and somehow managed to survive through cataclysmic hell-scape and still crawls into bed with you to feel safe.
Ok, maybe a little vile.
Well, it's rape and forced prostitution, but I'm being redundant. It's kind of a vile subject.
So, uh... Spoilers!
There's also the important undertone that uber-men must be regulated as they're dangerous in the short term and the risk that they'd replace us in the long term. So they're gimped and made illegal. But, as always, some slip through the cracks and find their existance in direct opposition to the law, which makes the seedy underworld their only real option. Hey! Guess what the seedy underground does to women with no other option? Yeah. Which in turn justifies, at least to the reader, the path of rampant murder that the girl chooses. Oh look, that whole "risky" thing is circularly justified. And with her long-term goal of seeking out and joining the colony of her kind, the long-term risk also presents itself.
It's a lesson about how these sort of prohibitive rules make for self-fulfilling prophesies.
Well a big plot element is that the powers that be, the calorie-men, have an established business, and they hold the world by the throat. Imagine if you will that the oil tycoons were in charge of not only transportation, but food. In a time of famine. It's also a time of plagues, which they also have a hand in.
I'm not sure if it's specifically spelled out, but it's implied that the calorie-men were responsible for releasing plagues that decimated crops of competitors.
But anyway, if you have an immensely powerful establishment, and you try to introduce alternatives, it turns out that they don't look kindly on that sort of thing.
The complete lack of hydro-power is kinda damning though. Solar and wind too, but they lack the pun.
Yeah, that one caught me by surprise. It's one of the biggest arguments for abandonware. When Nintendo came out and directly distributed their older titles for a cheap price, I was surprised. It's a fantastic move for everyone involved.
My only qualm is that they're arguing that because it's available for purchase, I shouldn't be able to play my copy of Legend of Zelda on the platform I choose. I already own it. I'll play it where I damn well choose. They can take their "product as a service with strings attached" and shove it. Cue the fanboys who are eager to buy every Zelda game over and over again for every system they own.
A good portion of my childhood was wrapped up in these Big Blue Monthly disks we got in the mail. It was like a magazine, but with disks. It made sense before the Internet.
Dad thought it would get him cutting edge accounting software or something (well, he DOES still use that damn DOS convert program, even in Win7). But what made it magical is the slew of small, no-name games that came with it.
I've tracked down some gems like Legends of Murder, and I think Dark Designs, but there was just a slew of stuff that I couldn't find.
We had all those 5.25" disks in a closet, but sadly, they had succumbed to bitrot. Or a magnet hit them. Or something.
That was really crushing, you know? It was like finding an old stuffed animal was eaten by moths, or that old wooded ravine where your friends hung out was turned into a parking lot. Old, I guess, being the keyword there.
I think back and some of these were more influential/a better influence than a lot of my friends.
Maybe a better idea would be to allow consumers to pool their resources together, much like a company does, to get better rates or allow consumers to buy insurance out of state.
You know, you're right! We should come together as individuals to form groups that would be bigger and more powerful to demand better rates. JUST LIKE A COMPANY DOES.
HEY! I have a FANTASTIC IDEA! How about we ALL band together to form the BIGGEST group to demand the BEST rate from the insurance companies! All of us. Together. Of course, someone will have to lead this new-found group of insurance buyers. Since we're all in this together, how about we be democratic about and elect someone. Well, not just one person, there are a lot of sub-groups and interests among us, so how about a system of representatives along with the main dude. Well this is kinda complicated, so how about we have a side-group that's entirely dedicated to settling squabbles.
Not as much as you try to ignore the tainted nature of that guys links. The Koch family is typical pro-corporate wealthy republican. And boy are they pushing their agenda. You can't take anything they say about commoners' income seriously because they are so disconnected from that entire class. Facts like the GP's don't exist in a vacuum. There really is a difference between a poor starving child telling you to suck it up and be happy, and a wealthy businessman doing the same.
Communication, compassion, synergy, teamwork, etc are all things that can happen with a game like Starcraft.
There, fixed that for you. The difference between playing a physical team game and playing a mental team game is that it's physical. And that's about it.
What, you don't think there are teams of gamers out there?
That guild leader don't have a ton of organizational work?
That a CTF game doesn't involve coordination?
That you don't have the gracious losers and humble winners when it's zerglings instead of pigskins?
Where the hell have you been? And sure, while both physical sports and video games can tangentially teach people how to deal with situations and other people, they're still just games.
Tidlywinks isn't a team game though, so if you were selectively talking about that, sure, you have a point.
Damn right you should be ducking, your argument is weak.
What? I know that there was that stupid lead scare for Chinese toys and they instituted this horrible rule that all toy productions SOLD need to be inspected. At something like $1,000 a pop. Which essentially killed handy-craft toy sellers on e-bay and the like.
But that's a far cry from being unable to make your own toys.
Oh yeah, because the rising cost of healthcare is something that will make the masses happier.
Oh gee, you put it that way and I'm freaking estatic that I'm now paying an arm and a leg to keep my arms and legs.
Now lemme see... Who tried to fix that recently? Oh yeah, that was Obama's big push. The democrats got behind that.
And who fought them tooth and nail, and are still trying to get it anulled? Yep, that's the republicans.
So THANKS.
Everyone else, fyi:
The Cato Institute is a proprietarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest privately held company by revenue in the United States
Just so you know where this little blurb is coming from. Corporate Kochs.
But what's more shocking is that this is done in the name of football.
It's just a game. No more dignified then tiddlywinks, starcraft, or mumbley-peg. The NFL got the FEDS to bust up counterfeiters? For $4.8 million in loot? Really?
Come on guys, get a grip. I'd like to say that nobody cares how "your team" did, but sadly I can't. All I can say is nobody should really care. It's an activity that does not warrant caring.
You mean... The next time someone sees pictures of my awesome couch and builds one similar to it claiming that that it has all the awesomeness of my original couch.
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't know myself so I looked into it.
But Wikipedia always has some insight:
Germay. The short answer is christians and sex ed. The longer answer is "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society." ie, indoctrination. ie, brain-washing to a social norm. Thou shalt melt in the pot!
But from else I gathered some places have laws left over from when child labor was an issue. The parents claims they're homeschooling their kid so they can keep them in the coal-mine all day.
How to bullshit his teacher, keep his head down, deal with bullies, form cliches, and overall how to deal with the system. Which is a vital skillset if you want to get a job and be a normal person.
Dad was pretty clear about that. I wasn't there to learn the material they put on the board. That was easy. I was there to learn how to deal with these assholes.
Parents can be responsible for socializing their children as well.
Well, yes, but only it includes a part where the parents aren't involved in any way. I mean, they're responsible of course. But if the only other social contact the kids has is through their parents, then that's not being socialized. Even if it mediated by the parents, like a play-date, or visiting people with the parents, then the parent is still there and in control. It's a very different social environment then being among peers with an uncaring unknowing overlord. Which is public schools and the real world to a certain extent.
Even if they're involved in sports, as long as the parent is present, it affects the situation.
And if there's one issue I've seen with the parents that homeschool, it's willingness to let go.
And that's control. They want to decide what you consume rather than fulfill the desires you already have.
Their goal is not to try and serve their customers better, but how to squeeze more money out of them.
I thought it was a schism inserted into the Borg hivemind via Data and his experience as an individual. It caused a portion of the Borg to try and self-actualize, or at least start talking in the first person and experiment with shapes other than a cube.
Let's kick it up a notch.
The post-lunch era saw a dramatic rise in belching and the prosperity of the land was apparent. Belts were slackened and the terrible threat of hunger was abolished. But what were the long term consequences in this brave new world?
Turns out, not much. A significant portion of the populous continued to snack, and the powers that be simply shifted their debate from "where do we lunch?" to "What's for dinner?". This reflects on the fundamental nature of man to... uh... eat.
The word your looking for is "pretentious".
No doubt, some genuinely wanted to protect Americans against theft but were sincerely concerned about how the language in the bill might be interpreted.
Well thank god he threw out a bone and recognized there is indeed a rational argument against the bill.
They also argued misleadingly that the bills would have required Web sites to “monitor” what their users upload, conveniently ignoring provisions like the “No Duty to Monitor” section.
Hmmm. This may actually be a valid point. There were multiple version of the bill, did one of them not contain this section? And then there's the issue that while you don't have to monitor what your users submit, if they find anything infringing, they'll still blacklist your entire site.
it’s hackers like the group Anonymous that engage in real censorship when they stifle the speech of those with whom they disagree.
This is true. That's pure raw censorship they enacted. For, like, a day. It's definitely wrong. Misdemeanor, or possibly even criminal behavior. But it doesn't match the thread of giving the DA the ability to blacklist whatever site he wants.
Perhaps this is naïve, but I’d like to believe that the companies that opposed SOPA and PIPA will now feel some responsibility to help come up with constructive alternatives.
Uh, hey, what about us? The people? We're not companies you know. It's not just companies that can propose legislation to their reps.
So. Constructive alternatives.
1) We could repeal copyright. Rather than making something and then charging people for the use, authors would hold their works hostage and solicit payment to release it. Very similar to how book publishers deal with authors. A kickstarter model could also be used. Teasers, trailers, and samples would probably be more common.
2) Copyright could be shortened and their expiration explicit. I wanted to go get a copy of "Legends of Murder", an old murder mystery game in a fantasy setting. The GUI was made in assembly! I technically own the game, but it had succumbed to bitrot. So I went looking on abandonware sites. These don't have to belong in legal grey areas. With a shorter copyright, and a published date that it became public domain, this would sustain culture and make abandonware clear-cut.
3) I think Canada has a system where the recording industry has their own tax on blank CDs. We could do something similar and have a tax on ISPs that would be doled out to artists. Of course, RIAA would be the last entity we trust with such a responsibility. There would be endless squabbling over who deserves what and whoever ultimately determined that would have an obscene amount of power that would eventually succumb to corruption, but it's an option.
The diversionary bill that they drafted, the OPEN Act, would do little to stop the illegal behavior and would not establish a workable framework, standards or remedies.
Yeah, the story submitter nailed this one: Whiny.
Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American property from theft,
Yep, but a lost sale isn't theft.
to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud
True 'nuff. But a lot of the counterfeits are just as usable as the real goods, because they're made in the same factory. Although I've read a good writeup about how faulty, shoddy, or untested electronic components can be a big issue, so this one I understand. The rest of you slashdot people need to understand that he really does have a point here. The feds serve the greater good when they keep people from lying about their product.
and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs.
If they're exploiting technology to steal our ingenuity, it sounds like they simply have more ingenuity then we do. It's like you're complaining about the other guy having a longer spear then you.
They knew that music sales in the United States are less than half of what they were in 1999, when the file-sharing site Napster emerged, and that direct employment in the industry had fallen by more than half since then, to less than 10,000.
That's because technology has made your job obsolete. Anyone with a grand can go do what it cost you a million dollar to do back in the 90's. Once businesses realized this, they undercut you. Once consumers realized this, they stopped shelling out $30 for a CD with 2 songs they wanted.
Misinformation may be a dirty trick, but it works.
You would know. The damn bill is CALLED the stop online PIRACY act.
Since when is it censorship to shut down an operation that an American court, upon a thorough review of evidence, has determined to be illegal?
Since it includes the act of shutting it down. You DO know that they censor out tits from daytime television right? And swear words from the radio? At least they used to, I don't really watch TV anymore so that may have changed. But anyway, that's still censorship. It's acceptable because there's a level of expected decency. People want to plug in the nanny for their kids. You're playing word-games with the term "censorship". Misinformation really IS a dirty trick, isn't it?
I think part of the fundamental issue here is that you're treating this stuff as a physical product rather then information. In the digital age, we've turned your physical product into information. Copying is trivial. Distribution is easy. You simply live in the world of yesterday.
I think the more direct use would be for spotting, targeting, and destroying tanks and other vehicles. Most armies stencil on the name of the thing in big bold letters. Slap on a brick of C4 and you have a pretty smart missile that hover around till needed and can choose to come home and not detonate.
Despite sanctions? Dude, all the parts come from China. And China isn't part of the embargo. 10^2 km is a little wide for the smaller RC fliers out there, but for the larger ones that have a gas engine, it's completely do-able. That's retail store level technology. That hard part is flying it out of sight. Sensors, cameras, communications, all these little modules are made in china and are hobbyist stuff.
Long story short, it's impossible to embargo technology any more. It used to be that areospace technology was unatainable by anyone outside the industry. Serious engineers with serious companies with serious money. Now it's cheap. Kids are launching their own satellites.
Embargoes work for bulk goods, regulated and controlled substances, and money. And they usually work very badly. UAV technology doesn't fall under those categories.
The next generation of nuclear plants is not fusion. You're looking WAY too far down the road. For that matter, CURRENT generation nuclear plants are perfectly viable. Sure, they have that risk of meltdown and the fuel isn't renewable. But meltdowns are rare, and there's quite a lot of fuel.
The whole economy is based upon oil and coal.
Oil is transportation and coal is grid power. And yes, those are two fundamental resources that our society needs. But there are alternatives. And... there is no such thing as "peak green". Oil, coal, and even nuclear material peaks because there's a set amount of it. That's the whole gimmick of renewable resources. If you want more, go make it. How will we go make it? Well we'll need resources to go make it, ie, people.
may kill off much of the human infestation of the planet
Yeah. This. This right here. This is the sort of evil megalomaniac spiel that paints you as "that evil guy". It puts the entire "think green" movement in REALLY bad light.
The cost of power will rise greatly; its highly unlikely to go down. This makes it cheaper to use animals and self-powered devices. A beast of burden has an upkeep cost but it reproduces itself cheaply and while it may not run as well as a machine it requires less infrastructure which may become so costly that it comes out cheaper to operate.
Well thank god you made an attempt to steer this back onto the topic of the book. Listen, it's fantasy. Using animals as energy conversion tools doesn't work out. It's a bio-punk book. Just like steam-power is a romantic notion that doesn't really pan out, neither does this. But it's fun to pretend.
If that was your rational for how to suspend your disbelief for a little while, that's fantastic. But taken together with the rant above it, I've got to tell you to step away from the sci-fi section and go get a healthy dose of reality.
Sand and slag wasn't vile. It wasn't even sad if you accept that the world had simply moved on and the dog was a buggy-whip. An adorable buggy-whip that beat the odds and somehow managed to survive through cataclysmic hell-scape and still crawls into bed with you to feel safe.
Ok, maybe a little vile.
Well, it's rape and forced prostitution, but I'm being redundant. It's kind of a vile subject.
So, uh... Spoilers!
There's also the important undertone that uber-men must be regulated as they're dangerous in the short term and the risk that they'd replace us in the long term. So they're gimped and made illegal. But, as always, some slip through the cracks and find their existance in direct opposition to the law, which makes the seedy underworld their only real option. Hey! Guess what the seedy underground does to women with no other option? Yeah. Which in turn justifies, at least to the reader, the path of rampant murder that the girl chooses. Oh look, that whole "risky" thing is circularly justified. And with her long-term goal of seeking out and joining the colony of her kind, the long-term risk also presents itself.
It's a lesson about how these sort of prohibitive rules make for self-fulfilling prophesies.
Well a big plot element is that the powers that be, the calorie-men, have an established business, and they hold the world by the throat. Imagine if you will that the oil tycoons were in charge of not only transportation, but food. In a time of famine. It's also a time of plagues, which they also have a hand in.
I'm not sure if it's specifically spelled out, but it's implied that the calorie-men were responsible for releasing plagues that decimated crops of competitors.
But anyway, if you have an immensely powerful establishment, and you try to introduce alternatives, it turns out that they don't look kindly on that sort of thing.
The complete lack of hydro-power is kinda damning though. Solar and wind too, but they lack the pun.
Yeah, that one caught me by surprise. It's one of the biggest arguments for abandonware. When Nintendo came out and directly distributed their older titles for a cheap price, I was surprised. It's a fantastic move for everyone involved.
My only qualm is that they're arguing that because it's available for purchase, I shouldn't be able to play my copy of Legend of Zelda on the platform I choose. I already own it. I'll play it where I damn well choose. They can take their "product as a service with strings attached" and shove it. Cue the fanboys who are eager to buy every Zelda game over and over again for every system they own.
A good portion of my childhood was wrapped up in these Big Blue Monthly disks we got in the mail. It was like a magazine, but with disks. It made sense before the Internet.
Dad thought it would get him cutting edge accounting software or something (well, he DOES still use that damn DOS convert program, even in Win7). But what made it magical is the slew of small, no-name games that came with it. I've tracked down some gems like Legends of Murder, and I think Dark Designs, but there was just a slew of stuff that I couldn't find.
We had all those 5.25" disks in a closet, but sadly, they had succumbed to bitrot. Or a magnet hit them. Or something.
That was really crushing, you know? It was like finding an old stuffed animal was eaten by moths, or that old wooded ravine where your friends hung out was turned into a parking lot. Old, I guess, being the keyword there.
I think back and some of these were more influential/a better influence than a lot of my friends.
Maybe a better idea would be to allow consumers to pool their resources together, much like a company does, to get better rates or allow consumers to buy insurance out of state.
You know, you're right! We should come together as individuals to form groups that would be bigger and more powerful to demand better rates. JUST LIKE A COMPANY DOES.
HEY! I have a FANTASTIC IDEA!
How about we ALL band together to form the BIGGEST group to demand the BEST rate from the insurance companies! All of us. Together. Of course, someone will have to lead this new-found group of insurance buyers. Since we're all in this together, how about we be democratic about and elect someone. Well, not just one person, there are a lot of sub-groups and interests among us, so how about a system of representatives along with the main dude. Well this is kinda complicated, so how about we have a side-group that's entirely dedicated to settling squabbles.
GEE, if only something like this ALREADY EXISTED.
So? Ad hominem much?
Not as much as you try to ignore the tainted nature of that guys links. The Koch family is typical pro-corporate wealthy republican. And boy are they pushing their agenda. You can't take anything they say about commoners' income seriously because they are so disconnected from that entire class. Facts like the GP's don't exist in a vacuum. There really is a difference between a poor starving child telling you to suck it up and be happy, and a wealthy businessman doing the same.
Communication, compassion, synergy, teamwork, etc are all things that can happen with a game like Starcraft.
There, fixed that for you. The difference between playing a physical team game and playing a mental team game is that it's physical. And that's about it.
What, you don't think there are teams of gamers out there?
That guild leader don't have a ton of organizational work?
That a CTF game doesn't involve coordination?
That you don't have the gracious losers and humble winners when it's zerglings instead of pigskins?
Where the hell have you been? And sure, while both physical sports and video games can tangentially teach people how to deal with situations and other people, they're still just games.
Tidlywinks isn't a team game though, so if you were selectively talking about that, sure, you have a point.
Damn right you should be ducking, your argument is weak.
Well, I believe that perfectly killed of that joke. Bravo. :).
Sorry, I should have appended that message with some syntax indicating humor. Like
- can't make your own toys
What? I know that there was that stupid lead scare for Chinese toys and they instituted this horrible rule that all toy productions SOLD need to be inspected. At something like $1,000 a pop. Which essentially killed handy-craft toy sellers on e-bay and the like.
But that's a far cry from being unable to make your own toys.
What does Apple have to do with the GOP and the TEA party? Or the "progressives"?
Oh gee, you put it that way and I'm freaking estatic that I'm now paying an arm and a leg to keep my arms and legs.
Now lemme see... Who tried to fix that recently? Oh yeah, that was Obama's big push. The democrats got behind that.
And who fought them tooth and nail, and are still trying to get it anulled? Yep, that's the republicans.
So THANKS.
Everyone else, fyi:
The Cato Institute is a proprietarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest privately held company by revenue in the United States
Just so you know where this little blurb is coming from. Corporate Kochs.
But what's more shocking is that this is done in the name of football.
It's just a game. No more dignified then tiddlywinks, starcraft, or mumbley-peg. The NFL got the FEDS to bust up counterfeiters? For $4.8 million in loot? Really?
Come on guys, get a grip. I'd like to say that nobody cares how "your team" did, but sadly I can't. All I can say is nobody should really care. It's an activity that does not warrant caring.
You didn't rip off that tag on your mattress did you? Big brother has interests in your bedroom.
You mean... The next time someone sees pictures of my awesome couch and builds one similar to it claiming that that it has all the awesomeness of my original couch.
Sorry, but lost sales != theft.