It's whatever, any basic simple game with multiplayer, even if it doesn't have anything advanced. All you really need for people to be assholes is group chat & a competition / goal / scoreboard.
Unless and until judges roundly throw out insane lawsuits against libraries, streaming content providers, and other all-access/equal-access purveyors of information, we will have these idiotic lawsuits along the lines of "my kid went to the library and found a book on explosives and blew his leg off, so I blame the library, not my own shitty parenting skills".
It's not the videogames themselves that are "toxic", it's the players.
People can be assholes in multiplayer Solitaire, too.
There's a reason multiplayer games include a warning along the lines of "online interactions are not rated by ESRB".
That's because the interactions among players are not, and cannot, be under the control of the game publisher - and it's ridiculous to expect the game makers to be responsible for the actions of the players.
I wonder, do these same people blame the cell phone company when they get a rude phone call or a telemarketer?
I had that moment when I decided to sell my Diablo II account, complete with the game discs.
And as I was writing up all the characters and inventory, for the sale post, I kinda thought, holy crap, how many hours did I invest into this game? Sure, I have every classic build of every class (Fire Sorc, Cold Sorc, Lightning Sorc, Poison Necro, Bone Necro, etc), and literally every unique item in the game (from Sigon's to Windforce), and 6 mules packed with gems and SOJs... but what did that cost me?
That was a sobering thought. Like waking up after a long bender and taking a look around.
Never really invested that much time into games afterwards. Will never get involved in something that forces you to play for hours, or on an ongoing basis. So no "crack" like WOW or EVE... gimme World of Tanks where I can get into the game, spend 15 minutes blowing things up, and then moving on with my actual life.
Game publishers use a lot of psychological tactics to get people addicted, and keep them addicted.
Depends on the game. Borderlands 2 did fast travel in a creative and amazing way. If you die, you're digitally reconstructed ("digistructed") into a new body, complete with memories; so if you need to travel to the other side of the world, it's the same process - you're scanned into the system and digistructed somewhere else, makes no difference to the system which "3D printer" you're coming out of. Thing is, you're in a gameworld complete with spaceships, robots, AI, lasers, etc - having a matter-to-energy/energy-to-matter converter is perfectly normal and sensible.
Also, at one point, the sudden and surprising LACK of fast travel becomes a challenge and a chapter in itself.
But yeah, Fast Travel in games whose gameworld you can walk across in 5 minutes is frankly ridiculous.
So FT isn't a bad thing in itself, as long as it's appropriate to the setting and actually needed.
Anybody who appreciates a well-designed & clean interface, and exact controls that do what you want, when you want, and align things with an almost-prescient clarity.
It's AutoCAD "align this node precisely to the virtual guideline extending from that object, then create 24 clones and distribute them evenly around this curve" mentality vs PhotoShop "drag things around and feel creative" mentality.
"A feature I find funny in new games is the ability to press a button and the game reveals the path the player is supposed to take. The Tomb Raider games do this."
It depends on the game.
Dead Space 2 & 3 - the challenge is the dark environment & mutated bastards jumping at you from every corner. The challenge isn't pathfinding. So yeah, "Press right stick" to light a path is good in this case, because it doesn't take away from the main game, it's still dark and creepy and tense, but at least now you know which dark and creepy door to go through. Oh and it's done seamlessly, since you're in a powered suit with AR/VR display, so it MAKES SENSE for the system to draw a glowing line. It's not like a 3D path overlaid on a dungeon.
Or Borderlands - thanks to the sheer size of the environment, and the fact that it's split into different areas, yeah, you kinda need waypoints and markers. The goal of the game is to have fun, chuckle at the odd humor & cultural references, and kill bandits and Hyperion robots with a huge variety of weapons - not to laboriously crawl over every inch of a million-square-mile map looking for that one f**king key.
TL;DR: waypoints and pathfind hints aren't necessarily a bad thing, as long as they're done for a reason, with style, and without taking away from the challenge of the game.
trump lead the "birther" movement that was the nastiest "protest" ever against a president
1.) Yeah, the movement that was started by Hillary. But hey, who cares about facts, right? And as icing on the cake, why the fuck did it take SEVEN YEARS to produce that birth certificate? Answer me that. These people can find out what beer someone drank in high school 35 years ago, but when it comes to basic documentation, suddenly it's a great mystery of life.
No, really, seven years. Why?
2.) Nastiest protest ever? Really? I'd rank JFK getting his head Gallaghered as a little more intense than that. But again, American history has apparently started 20 years ago for some people. Still, even in that timeframe - when did Republicans set things on fire & break windows protesting against Obama? Show me 1 mass example of that. Because I can show you at least a dozen from the other side.
The subway network in St. Petersburg and Moscow was designed as a massive interconnected bomb shelter; it was further upgraded with blast doors capable of withstanding shockwaves from nuclear weapons, dedicated air filtration systems, etc, etc.
The East Coast subway system was built before the Cold War days, and by the time the nuclear threat materialized, the system was so developed that it made no sense to change it.
The point of this device - or any other at-home/POC HIV screening test - lies in the "screening" part of the name. It's NOT designed to provide a 100% reliable answer, it's designed to SCREEN OUT those who are definitely infected, and definitely past the window period.
Would you have sex with someone whose test results are DEFINITELY positive? I don't think so. There ya go. That's the point. If the results are inconclusive / not available, then use your discretion and use protection. But willingly stare down the barrel of a loaded gun? Let's prevent those situations.
Yes, I can completely imagine it. Instead of asking "hey, are you clean, have you been tested?" - which is perfectly acceptable (at least in major cities, I can't vouch for West Podunk, ND) - and *trusting* the person's answer (because we all know humans are 100% honest, 100% of the time, right?) - how about asking "hey, I'd like to not die in 15 years, so stick your finger in there and let me be a little more certain?".
Or little slips of gold or silver, encased in plastic so they're legally classified as a "novelty item" or "jewelry", but the grade & weight are stamped on them, so you know you're holding, for example, 5 grams of 24K gold, and you know the exact value of it (pending knowledge of current precious metals, of course, but what's stopping you from downloading the Kitco app?). But hey, it's not actual (paper/coin) money, so there's no legal issue;)
One of the primary reasons for having a militia is to counteract a standing army in case the government decides to use that army to enforce unethical laws (i.e. tyranny).
It has been made into a privilege. Licenses, permits, background checks, waiting periods, paperwork fees of up to $ 500 or more (hello, New York), "letters of necessity", medical examinations... There are plenty of restrictions.
It's not a strawman. If you're going to hold the Constitutional Amendments to a strict interpretation of the technological limits of the time, be consistent and hold all of them to the same limit.
If you're not going to hold the amendments to the historical technological limits, then your previous argument is invalid.
What you're calling a "strawman", is a thorough refutation of your argument. But just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a strawman.
Regarding the question of what TYPES of weapons are/should be covered by the 2nd Amendment:
Based upon the strict literal interpretation of the meaning of "bear", the only weapons that are covered are those that can be "borne", i.e. carried by 1 person. This specifically excludes things like crew-served weapons, such as SAWs, mortars, artillery, etc., and complex machinery such as tanks, jet fighters, and combat ships, all of which require a crew and/or a support structure.
Things like biological / nuclear / chemical weapons are not covered, either, since they're not "arms" but rather "weapons of mass destruction". The key differences are: a.) the effects of NBC's cannot be restricted to any one person / target in particular (i.e. you CAN target a pistol round to harm only 1 individual, you canNOT target a nuke or a cloud of sarin in the same way), and b.) they're likely to cause permanent and extensive damage to structures, biosphere, and environment, i.e. the effects of the weapon will persist much longer than the tactical significance of the target.
So, no tanks, nukes, jets, artillery pieces, neurotoxin SCUDs. Regardless of whether you can afford it or not. Arms, yes. Weapons of mass destruction, no.
The more laws with vague definitions & variable enforcement exist, the easier it is for the State to suppress whomever it wants to. It's not "unenforceable", it's there so they can gain entrance under another pretense and, oh, hey, lookitthat, a 3D printer! *handcuffs*.
the language of the law is so amazingly vague... could use it to outlaw just about any...
NAILED it!
Vague laws & variable enforcement = pathway to tyranny.
You can be arrested for even being suspected of having illegal gun parts - high-capacity magazines, silencers & fittings, automatic sears (yes, Citizen, a cube of metal 1/2" on the side can equal 5 years in jail...), even rubber O-rings that can be qualified as being "potential parts of grenade launcher attachments". Vague definition = arrest, fine, jail time, and a ruined life... for a piece of metal or an O-ring.
Meanwhile, David Gregory can wave around a highly illegal high-capacity magazine on public TV, and the DA will "decline to prosecute". Because the law that will land YOU in jail doesn't apply to the Ruling Class. Variable enforcement = some people are above the law.
It wasn't necessarily that the information was misleading, but that it would lead patients to make decisions about their own care without necessarily consulting a doctor, which the FDA thinks is not a good idea -- and I totally see their point, frankly.
So, by the same logic, let's shut down:
wikipedia.org - plenty of medical information there
RXList.com
WebMD.com
WrongDiagnosis.com
Healthatoz.com
DrKoop.com
Merck Manual at www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/
...and about 1000 more
Oh noes! Medical information out in the open! How dare those peasants make decisions for themselves! We must protect them from themselves!...etc.
Yeah, let's deny information (however flawed it may be, it's better than nothing) to people with a capacity for independent thought, for the sake of coddling & protecting the morons.
Absolutely. It's "the tyranny of the moron over the intellectual" - because a few idiots might misinterpret/misuse/get hurt by something, let's BAN it for EVERYONE.
OK, so they screw up once in a while. It's your responsibility to take ANY medical advice with a grain of salt, and to seek a 2nd opinion. Which is why there's that entire concept of a "2nd opinion", that's been around for centuries.
But noooo, we can't have that, let's shut down the information for EVERYONE because SOME people might misinterpret, or because there's a TINY error chance in the testing process.
Typical American attitude - "this might annoy/damage some morons, so let's shut it down for everyone".
So they're new, unproven, and questionable. The alternative is not knowing at all. Given the choice of "incomplete data" vs "NO data", I'll take the 1st, thank you very much.
Keywords: "learned", "listen", "consider", "reading myself". You're not a moron, so you think about things before making a decision. But, the FDA is not basing their decision on you - they're basing it on the possibility of some idiot doing something rash because they've heard they have a possibility of getting some disease. And, because we live in the age of "tyranny of the moron over the intellectual", their decision is "protect the moron, deny the intellectual".
Slashdot Mirror
It's whatever, any basic simple game with multiplayer, even if it doesn't have anything advanced. All you really need for people to be assholes is group chat & a competition / goal / scoreboard.
Unless and until judges roundly throw out insane lawsuits against libraries, streaming content providers, and other all-access/equal-access purveyors of information, we will have these idiotic lawsuits along the lines of "my kid went to the library and found a book on explosives and blew his leg off, so I blame the library, not my own shitty parenting skills".
It's not the videogames themselves that are "toxic", it's the players.
People can be assholes in multiplayer Solitaire, too.
There's a reason multiplayer games include a warning along the lines of "online interactions are not rated by ESRB".
That's because the interactions among players are not, and cannot, be under the control of the game publisher - and it's ridiculous to expect the game makers to be responsible for the actions of the players.
I wonder, do these same people blame the cell phone company when they get a rude phone call or a telemarketer?
I had that moment when I decided to sell my Diablo II account, complete with the game discs.
And as I was writing up all the characters and inventory, for the sale post, I kinda thought, holy crap, how many hours did I invest into this game? Sure, I have every classic build of every class (Fire Sorc, Cold Sorc, Lightning Sorc, Poison Necro, Bone Necro, etc), and literally every unique item in the game (from Sigon's to Windforce), and 6 mules packed with gems and SOJs... but what did that cost me?
That was a sobering thought. Like waking up after a long bender and taking a look around.
Never really invested that much time into games afterwards. Will never get involved in something that forces you to play for hours, or on an ongoing basis. So no "crack" like WOW or EVE... gimme World of Tanks where I can get into the game, spend 15 minutes blowing things up, and then moving on with my actual life.
Game publishers use a lot of psychological tactics to get people addicted, and keep them addicted.
Depends on the game. Borderlands 2 did fast travel in a creative and amazing way. If you die, you're digitally reconstructed ("digistructed") into a new body, complete with memories; so if you need to travel to the other side of the world, it's the same process - you're scanned into the system and digistructed somewhere else, makes no difference to the system which "3D printer" you're coming out of. Thing is, you're in a gameworld complete with spaceships, robots, AI, lasers, etc - having a matter-to-energy/energy-to-matter converter is perfectly normal and sensible.
Also, at one point, the sudden and surprising LACK of fast travel becomes a challenge and a chapter in itself.
But yeah, Fast Travel in games whose gameworld you can walk across in 5 minutes is frankly ridiculous.
So FT isn't a bad thing in itself, as long as it's appropriate to the setting and actually needed.
Anybody who appreciates a well-designed & clean interface, and exact controls that do what you want, when you want, and align things with an almost-prescient clarity.
It's AutoCAD "align this node precisely to the virtual guideline extending from that object, then create 24 clones and distribute them evenly around this curve" mentality vs PhotoShop "drag things around and feel creative" mentality.
"A feature I find funny in new games is the ability to press a button and the game reveals the path the player is supposed to take. The Tomb Raider games do this."
It depends on the game.
Dead Space 2 & 3 - the challenge is the dark environment & mutated bastards jumping at you from every corner. The challenge isn't pathfinding. So yeah, "Press right stick" to light a path is good in this case, because it doesn't take away from the main game, it's still dark and creepy and tense, but at least now you know which dark and creepy door to go through. Oh and it's done seamlessly, since you're in a powered suit with AR/VR display, so it MAKES SENSE for the system to draw a glowing line. It's not like a 3D path overlaid on a dungeon.
Or Borderlands - thanks to the sheer size of the environment, and the fact that it's split into different areas, yeah, you kinda need waypoints and markers. The goal of the game is to have fun, chuckle at the odd humor & cultural references, and kill bandits and Hyperion robots with a huge variety of weapons - not to laboriously crawl over every inch of a million-square-mile map looking for that one f**king key.
TL;DR: waypoints and pathfind hints aren't necessarily a bad thing, as long as they're done for a reason, with style, and without taking away from the challenge of the game.
trump lead the "birther" movement that was the nastiest "protest" ever against a president
1.) Yeah, the movement that was started by Hillary. But hey, who cares about facts, right? And as icing on the cake, why the fuck did it take SEVEN YEARS to produce that birth certificate? Answer me that. These people can find out what beer someone drank in high school 35 years ago, but when it comes to basic documentation, suddenly it's a great mystery of life. No, really, seven years. Why? 2.) Nastiest protest ever? Really? I'd rank JFK getting his head Gallaghered as a little more intense than that. But again, American history has apparently started 20 years ago for some people. Still, even in that timeframe - when did Republicans set things on fire & break windows protesting against Obama? Show me 1 mass example of that. Because I can show you at least a dozen from the other side.
The subway network in St. Petersburg and Moscow was designed as a massive interconnected bomb shelter; it was further upgraded with blast doors capable of withstanding shockwaves from nuclear weapons, dedicated air filtration systems, etc, etc. The East Coast subway system was built before the Cold War days, and by the time the nuclear threat materialized, the system was so developed that it made no sense to change it.
The point of this device - or any other at-home/POC HIV screening test - lies in the "screening" part of the name. It's NOT designed to provide a 100% reliable answer, it's designed to SCREEN OUT those who are definitely infected, and definitely past the window period. Would you have sex with someone whose test results are DEFINITELY positive? I don't think so. There ya go. That's the point. If the results are inconclusive / not available, then use your discretion and use protection. But willingly stare down the barrel of a loaded gun? Let's prevent those situations.
Yes, I can completely imagine it. Instead of asking "hey, are you clean, have you been tested?" - which is perfectly acceptable (at least in major cities, I can't vouch for West Podunk, ND) - and *trusting* the person's answer (because we all know humans are 100% honest, 100% of the time, right?) - how about asking "hey, I'd like to not die in 15 years, so stick your finger in there and let me be a little more certain?".
Or little slips of gold or silver, encased in plastic so they're legally classified as a "novelty item" or "jewelry", but the grade & weight are stamped on them, so you know you're holding, for example, 5 grams of 24K gold, and you know the exact value of it (pending knowledge of current precious metals, of course, but what's stopping you from downloading the Kitco app?). But hey, it's not actual (paper/coin) money, so there's no legal issue ;)
One of the primary reasons for having a militia is to counteract a standing army in case the government decides to use that army to enforce unethical laws (i.e. tyranny).
It has been made into a privilege. Licenses, permits, background checks, waiting periods, paperwork fees of up to $ 500 or more (hello, New York), "letters of necessity", medical examinations... There are plenty of restrictions.
Thank you, someone else with an understanding of the difference between a man-portable "arm" and a WMD/ordnance. http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
It's not a strawman. If you're going to hold the Constitutional Amendments to a strict interpretation of the technological limits of the time, be consistent and hold all of them to the same limit.
If you're not going to hold the amendments to the historical technological limits, then your previous argument is invalid.
What you're calling a "strawman", is a thorough refutation of your argument. But just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a strawman.
Regarding the question of what TYPES of weapons are/should be covered by the 2nd Amendment:
Based upon the strict literal interpretation of the meaning of "bear", the only weapons that are covered are those that can be "borne", i.e. carried by 1 person. This specifically excludes things like crew-served weapons, such as SAWs, mortars, artillery, etc., and complex machinery such as tanks, jet fighters, and combat ships, all of which require a crew and/or a support structure.
Things like biological / nuclear / chemical weapons are not covered, either, since they're not "arms" but rather "weapons of mass destruction". The key differences are: a.) the effects of NBC's cannot be restricted to any one person / target in particular (i.e. you CAN target a pistol round to harm only 1 individual, you canNOT target a nuke or a cloud of sarin in the same way), and b.) they're likely to cause permanent and extensive damage to structures, biosphere, and environment, i.e. the effects of the weapon will persist much longer than the tactical significance of the target.
So, no tanks, nukes, jets, artillery pieces, neurotoxin SCUDs. Regardless of whether you can afford it or not. Arms, yes. Weapons of mass destruction, no.
The more laws with vague definitions & variable enforcement exist, the easier it is for the State to suppress whomever it wants to. It's not "unenforceable", it's there so they can gain entrance under another pretense and, oh, hey, lookitthat, a 3D printer! *handcuffs*.
Reality according to US Congress:
the language of the law is so amazingly vague ... could use it to outlaw just about any...
NAILED it!
Vague laws & variable enforcement = pathway to tyranny.
You can be arrested for even being suspected of having illegal gun parts - high-capacity magazines, silencers & fittings, automatic sears (yes, Citizen, a cube of metal 1/2" on the side can equal 5 years in jail...), even rubber O-rings that can be qualified as being "potential parts of grenade launcher attachments". Vague definition = arrest, fine, jail time, and a ruined life... for a piece of metal or an O-ring.
Meanwhile, David Gregory can wave around a highly illegal high-capacity magazine on public TV, and the DA will "decline to prosecute". Because the law that will land YOU in jail doesn't apply to the Ruling Class. Variable enforcement = some people are above the law.
It wasn't necessarily that the information was misleading, but that it would lead patients to make decisions about their own care without necessarily consulting a doctor, which the FDA thinks is not a good idea -- and I totally see their point, frankly.
So, by the same logic, let's shut down:
Oh noes! Medical information out in the open! How dare those peasants make decisions for themselves! We must protect them from themselves! ...etc.
Yeah, let's deny information (however flawed it may be, it's better than nothing) to people with a capacity for independent thought, for the sake of coddling & protecting the morons.
Absolutely. It's "the tyranny of the moron over the intellectual" - because a few idiots might misinterpret/misuse/get hurt by something, let's BAN it for EVERYONE.
OK, so they screw up once in a while. It's your responsibility to take ANY medical advice with a grain of salt, and to seek a 2nd opinion. Which is why there's that entire concept of a "2nd opinion", that's been around for centuries.
But noooo, we can't have that, let's shut down the information for EVERYONE because SOME people might misinterpret, or because there's a TINY error chance in the testing process.
Typical American attitude - "this might annoy/damage some morons, so let's shut it down for everyone".
So they're new, unproven, and questionable. The alternative is not knowing at all. Given the choice of "incomplete data" vs "NO data", I'll take the 1st, thank you very much.
Keywords: "learned", "listen", "consider", "reading myself". You're not a moron, so you think about things before making a decision. But, the FDA is not basing their decision on you - they're basing it on the possibility of some idiot doing something rash because they've heard they have a possibility of getting some disease. And, because we live in the age of "tyranny of the moron over the intellectual", their decision is "protect the moron, deny the intellectual".