>>>have a hydraulic system that very quickly raises a heavy steel plate in front of the place where a car is expected to stop for the red light.
That's great until you have an ambulance or firetruck that needs to get to an emergency in a hurry, and the metal places are blocking them. They have a similar idea (physical barriers) for railroad crossings but it often doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOnpYCQLCuY
My state has installed a few roundabouts to replace redlights, and I think they are extremely dangerous.
The drivers zip around the circle as if they think they're on the Daytona 500 speedway, and I'm often afraid I'll get rear-ended or side-swiped when I enter the circle. I wish I could see the accident statistics - I bet they went up.
>>>'The economic effect on Nintendo of the trade in these devices is substantial as each accused device can store and play copies of many Nintendo DS games [...] The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence.' >>>
And then a few weeks later, other UK judges outlawed the use of VHS tapes, DVD-Rs, and MP3 recorders, for the same reason that these blanks can be used to copy movies and songs.
>>>But I only need one road in front of my house just like I only need one fiber cable to my house.
You need more than one fiber if you want to have something other than a monopoly. i.e. If you want to have Choice to say "Screw you Comcast" and go sign up with someone else instead (like Cox, TW Cable, AppleTV, ATT, Verizon, et cetera).
Actually I hate both governments and corporations.
The difference is that government can throw me in jail, or send me off to die in Afghanistan. A corporation can not. A government also is non-responsive to my needs, whereas a corporation is extremely democratic (my dollars are my votes). I can't bankrupt government because it can suck money direct from my wallet against my will, but I can bankrupt a corporation through boycott (like circuit city). So while I dislike both, I fear government more because it has power to take my wealth, or my life.
Also you've still failed to show how ABC, CBS, NBC are conservative. You've shown they are corporate-owned, but that doesn't seem to change the content of the news stories which are almost all "we need more & bigger government" liberal biased. i.e. A reflection of the reporters' personal beliefs.
We were attacked but that doesn't mean the solution is more killing. If some guy blew away my wife, that doesn't give me the right to go Rambo and start busting down everyone's doors trying to find the murderer.
Plus the "attack" wasn't that serious. 3000 dead. Big deal. That's how many people die in cars. Every year. Almost 30,000 car deaths just since 9/11. Are we going to declare war on the CEOs of GM, Ford, Dodge, et cetera because of it? No. We'll mourn the loss, develop better safety/security standards, and move on.
Sometimes when a bully hits you on the nose, the best thing to do is just walk away.
>>>They would sue you in a heartbeat if they thought they could make a dollar from it.
Some people (corporations) are "more equal" than other people (us). It's why folks like RIAA sue us for downloading songs, and yet they themselves have been caught downloading songs too. The corporations don't think copyright restrictions apply to them.
>>>have you sat in a dark room and played Doom 3 on a large screen with surround sound?
I think Doom is boring. Most FPSes are boring - pointless button mashers. The person who survives is the guy who sprays the most bullets. If they have some kind of compelling story, like Goldeneye and the first Red Faction had, it makes it worthwhile but for the most part I get bored after ten hours.
Give me IK+ anyday. Or Populous. That was a cool game.
>>>Limited "lives" were an artifact of arcades where they wanted you to put more money in. On a console they were just pointless frustration.
The first is true, but not necessarily the second. Some of us enjoy having limited lives because if you can get all the way to the last maze in Ms PacMan or Bruce Lee or whatever, it proves your gaming skills.
Getting to the end because you used a cheat (like saving every 5 minutes) proves nothing. Anyone can do that.
>>>you never played a Vectrex and were one of those poor souls with 2600 Pac-Man.
Yeah having the most popular console of the day, with all its great exclusives like Defender, Berzerk, Space Invaders, Phoenix, Ms PacMan, Pitfall, et cetera, really sucked. I feel sorry for myself.
It's all pointless. In about 100 billion years even the stars will degrade. The sky will be permanently dark with just a few glowing embers scattered around. Everything we tried to preserve will disappear.
I don't need to ride a Roman chariot across cobble stone roads to visualize how primitive it used to be.
Or to imagine playing Space Invaders or watching Star Trek in black and white. It's why I got rid of my old Atari and NES consoles and just emulate them instead. Less space needed for storage, fewer parts that need constant dusting, plus it's portable (fits in a laptop or phone).
>>>As a society mandates that more productive people be slaves (that's what involuntary labor for others is) to the less productive
And therefore you violate the negative right to not be someone else's slave. That's the main flaw with positive "must have" rights - they violate your negative right to be free. Hypothetical example: My neighbor spends most of his life smoking and then develops lung cancer. The doctor determines he can cure the problem by giving the man a lung transplant with clean lungs.
Am I (and other neighbors) under obligation to pay for this man's lung operation? Positive rights say I must, but that would make us partial slaves to that one man, so negative rights says that is not allowed.
>>>Putting themselves in harms way to protect civilians during firefights?
The soldiers would not need to do that if George Duh Bush had not sent them to Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place. The soldiers would not be in harms way, if Barak Hussein Obama had kept his campaign promise and brought the soldiers home. I'm glad the soldiers are brave, but I'd be even happier if the soldiers were at home & enjoying life. .
>>>he is an activist with an agenda to demonize the US
Me too. But not the whole US - just the idiots inside the US government that act as if they were a modern form of the old Roman Empire. And not just the US government, but ALL governments. Not one of them can be trusted. The leaders are as honest as other men, and not more so. .
>>>A journalist is unbiased
Just like unicorns, no such creature has ever existed. I think your definition of journalist is in error. A free press, just like free speech, is a reflection of the creator's biases. Anyone who claims to be unbiased is a liar. Or worse.
The above post is completely wrong. These governments do try to cover-up abuses - it's why China routinely makes people disappear or why you can't find information about Tianneman Square from within the Great Firewall. It's why Iran tried to silence cellphone and facebook updates during their uprisings.
Plus there are a lot of supposedly "democratic" governments that treat their own citizens like children, and therefore hide information these governments think we are too dumb to understand. Such as the US and EU governments. Wikileaks is necessary to keep their shadier dealings in the light too. Such as ACTA and the Global Warming treaties that were "classified". Wikileaks revealed these documents for review by the People .
...there's no fixed ending, and it just becomes a grindfest that chews up money from your credit card. I'd sooner buy a solo game like Final Fantasy 12 (fixed ending) or DDR (fixed cost).
>>>the corporate (therefore conservative) bias in reporting at NBC, CBS, etc. is what they choose NOT to report.
Well John Stossel (conservative) quit ABC because they wouldn't let him do stories about making the government smaller and less intrusive upon individuals. The corporate-owned ABC only wanted to air liberal, pro-"let's make government bigger" stories. That behind-the-scenes testimony from a ~30 year veteran shoots a giant hole in your theory.
>>>But I think it's wasteful of money and resources to string multiple cables.
It's also wasteful to have 30 different car companies. Maybe the US, or the State level government, should just issue a monopoly? "Congratulations GM. You won the exclusive franchise agreement for the state of Michigan." ----- Speaking for myself I'd rather have the "waste" of competition and choice, rather than being forced to only choose the government-granted monopoly.
That's true but you often don't "need" those features, because websites continue supporting the older browsers for quite a while. I'm still on FF 3.0. I see no reason to continue upgrading if what I have works just fine (holds-up copy of Office 97).
Plus upgrades often don't go as planned, like when my CWtv.com player stopped working after I moved from 2.5 to 3.0. And now I hear people are having problems with Youtube Downloaders after they jumped to 3.6.whatever last week. I follow two principles: If it aint broke; dont fix it. And KISS.
>>>A) Most random people on the internet who play games on Xbox live and the like are complete assholes
Precisely. Multiplayer was fun when it was just me and some friends with connected modems. 1-on-1 Populous or Firepower was a blast. Tradewars was a blast. And if some asshole showed up, the word quickly went out and the asshole was ganged-up on & exterminated. Then the "Eternal September" happened sometime around 2002, and a bunch of idiots showed up. Goodbye fun.
Another reason I don't like multiplayer is there's no
.
Yesterday Amiga celebrated its birthday. Today/. is plagued with Guru Mediation errors. Coincidence? I think not. (BTW a new Amiga is arriving in August and will have the approximate power of a PowerMac G5.):-)
>>>the average joe might think the IE 8 is better than Chrome 5 or FF 4.
Well in that case they must think Opera 10.x is the bestest browser out there! Are people running over to Opera? (checks). Nope. I suspect the number theory has no relevance to the average joe.
aside -
Although it could just they don't like it. I don't find Opera too great. It's okay for casual surfing but as soon as I visit Youtube the memory usage jumps to 500,000 kilobytes..... and my computer slows to a crawl. Meanwhile Firefox hovers around 300,000. Opera 10.0 worked well, but 10.6 appears to be suffering from bloat.
>>>How I lusted after the [Commodore 64] version with their 16 colors.
Fixed that for you.:-) Amiga has 4000 colors (on the stills) and 64 colors during gameplay which of course made the 4-color IBM PC or MAC versions look like crap. I too loved Red Storm Rising. And Silent Service. And most of MicroProse's sims.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
>>>have a hydraulic system that very quickly raises a heavy steel plate in front of the place where a car is expected to stop for the red light.
That's great until you have an ambulance or firetruck that needs to get to an emergency in a hurry, and the metal places are blocking them. They have a similar idea (physical barriers) for railroad crossings but it often doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOnpYCQLCuY
My state has installed a few roundabouts to replace redlights, and I think they are extremely dangerous.
The drivers zip around the circle as if they think they're on the Daytona 500 speedway, and I'm often afraid I'll get rear-ended or side-swiped when I enter the circle. I wish I could see the accident statistics - I bet they went up.
>>>'The economic effect on Nintendo of the trade in these devices is substantial as each accused device can store and play copies of many Nintendo DS games [...] The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence.'
>>>
And then a few weeks later, other UK judges outlawed the use of VHS tapes, DVD-Rs, and MP3 recorders, for the same reason that these blanks can be used to copy movies and songs.
>>>But I only need one road in front of my house just like I only need one fiber cable to my house.
You need more than one fiber if you want to have something other than a monopoly. i.e. If you want to have Choice to say "Screw you Comcast" and go sign up with someone else instead (like Cox, TW Cable, AppleTV, ATT, Verizon, et cetera).
>>>DDR isn't a fixed cost. Pads wear out fairly quickly
What pads? I use my controller to play DDR, Space Channel 5, and other rhythm games.
Actually I hate both governments and corporations.
The difference is that government can throw me in jail, or send me off to die in Afghanistan. A corporation can not. A government also is non-responsive to my needs, whereas a corporation is extremely democratic (my dollars are my votes). I can't bankrupt government because it can suck money direct from my wallet against my will, but I can bankrupt a corporation through boycott (like circuit city). So while I dislike both, I fear government more because it has power to take my wealth, or my life.
Also you've still failed to show how ABC, CBS, NBC are conservative. You've shown they are corporate-owned, but that doesn't seem to change the content of the news stories which are almost all "we need more & bigger government" liberal biased. i.e. A reflection of the reporters' personal beliefs.
Mods need to develop sense of humor
We were attacked but that doesn't mean the solution is more killing. If some guy blew away my wife, that doesn't give me the right to go Rambo and start busting down everyone's doors trying to find the murderer.
Plus the "attack" wasn't that serious. 3000 dead. Big deal. That's how many people die in cars. Every year. Almost 30,000 car deaths just since 9/11. Are we going to declare war on the CEOs of GM, Ford, Dodge, et cetera because of it? No. We'll mourn the loss, develop better safety/security standards, and move on.
Sometimes when a bully hits you on the nose, the best thing to do is just walk away.
>>>They would sue you in a heartbeat if they thought they could make a dollar from it.
Some people (corporations) are "more equal" than other people (us). It's why folks like RIAA sue us for downloading songs, and yet they themselves have been caught downloading songs too. The corporations don't think copyright restrictions apply to them.
>>>have you sat in a dark room and played Doom 3 on a large screen with surround sound?
I think Doom is boring. Most FPSes are boring - pointless button mashers. The person who survives is the guy who sprays the most bullets. If they have some kind of compelling story, like Goldeneye and the first Red Faction had, it makes it worthwhile but for the most part I get bored after ten hours.
Give me IK+ anyday. Or Populous. That was a cool game.
>>>Limited "lives" were an artifact of arcades where they wanted you to put more money in. On a console they were just pointless frustration.
The first is true, but not necessarily the second. Some of us enjoy having limited lives because if you can get all the way to the last maze in Ms PacMan or Bruce Lee or whatever, it proves your gaming skills.
Getting to the end because you used a cheat (like saving every 5 minutes) proves nothing. Anyone can do that.
>>>you never played a Vectrex and were one of those poor souls with 2600 Pac-Man.
Yeah having the most popular console of the day, with all its great exclusives like Defender, Berzerk, Space Invaders, Phoenix, Ms PacMan, Pitfall, et cetera, really sucked. I feel sorry for myself.
It's all pointless. In about 100 billion years even the stars will degrade. The sky will be permanently dark with just a few glowing embers scattered around. Everything we tried to preserve will disappear.
I don't need to ride a Roman chariot across cobble stone roads to visualize how primitive it used to be.
Or to imagine playing Space Invaders or watching Star Trek in black and white. It's why I got rid of my old Atari and NES consoles and just emulate them instead. Less space needed for storage, fewer parts that need constant dusting, plus it's portable (fits in a laptop or phone).
Yes I was agreeing with you.
>>>As a society mandates that more productive people be slaves (that's what involuntary labor for others is) to the less productive
And therefore you violate the negative right to not be someone else's slave. That's the main flaw with positive "must have" rights - they violate your negative right to be free. Hypothetical example: My neighbor spends most of his life smoking and then develops lung cancer. The doctor determines he can cure the problem by giving the man a lung transplant with clean lungs.
Am I (and other neighbors) under obligation to pay for this man's lung operation? Positive rights say I must, but that would make us partial slaves to that one man, so negative rights says that is not allowed.
>>>Putting themselves in harms way to protect civilians during firefights?
The soldiers would not need to do that if George Duh Bush had not sent them to Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place. The soldiers would not be in harms way, if Barak Hussein Obama had kept his campaign promise and brought the soldiers home. I'm glad the soldiers are brave, but I'd be even happier if the soldiers were at home & enjoying life.
.
>>>he is an activist with an agenda to demonize the US
Me too. But not the whole US - just the idiots inside the US government that act as if they were a modern form of the old Roman Empire. And not just the US government, but ALL governments. Not one of them can be trusted. The leaders are as honest as other men, and not more so.
.
>>>A journalist is unbiased
Just like unicorns, no such creature has ever existed. I think your definition of journalist is in error. A free press, just like free speech, is a reflection of the creator's biases. Anyone who claims to be unbiased is a liar. Or worse.
The above post is completely wrong. These governments do try to cover-up abuses - it's why China routinely makes people disappear or why you can't find information about Tianneman Square from within the Great Firewall. It's why Iran tried to silence cellphone and facebook updates during their uprisings.
Plus there are a lot of supposedly "democratic" governments that treat their own citizens like children, and therefore hide information these governments think we are too dumb to understand. Such as the US and EU governments. Wikileaks is necessary to keep their shadier dealings in the light too. Such as ACTA and the Global Warming treaties that were "classified". Wikileaks revealed these documents for review by the People
.
...there's no fixed ending, and it just becomes a grindfest that chews up money from your credit card. I'd sooner buy a solo game like Final Fantasy 12 (fixed ending) or DDR (fixed cost).
>>>the corporate (therefore conservative) bias in reporting at NBC, CBS, etc. is what they choose NOT to report.
Well John Stossel (conservative) quit ABC because they wouldn't let him do stories about making the government smaller and less intrusive upon individuals. The corporate-owned ABC only wanted to air liberal, pro-"let's make government bigger" stories. That behind-the-scenes testimony from a ~30 year veteran shoots a giant hole in your theory.
>>>But I think it's wasteful of money and resources to string multiple cables.
It's also wasteful to have 30 different car companies. Maybe the US, or the State level government, should just issue a monopoly? "Congratulations GM. You won the exclusive franchise agreement for the state of Michigan." ----- Speaking for myself I'd rather have the "waste" of competition and choice, rather than being forced to only choose the government-granted monopoly.
That's true but you often don't "need" those features, because websites continue supporting the older browsers for quite a while. I'm still on FF 3.0. I see no reason to continue upgrading if what I have works just fine (holds-up copy of Office 97).
Plus upgrades often don't go as planned, like when my CWtv.com player stopped working after I moved from 2.5 to 3.0. And now I hear people are having problems with Youtube Downloaders after they jumped to 3.6.whatever last week. I follow two principles: If it aint broke; dont fix it. And KISS.
>>>A) Most random people on the internet who play games on Xbox live and the like are complete assholes
Precisely. Multiplayer was fun when it was just me and some friends with connected modems. 1-on-1 Populous or Firepower was a blast. Tradewars was a blast. And if some asshole showed up, the word quickly went out and the asshole was ganged-up on & exterminated. Then the "Eternal September" happened sometime around 2002, and a bunch of idiots showed up. Goodbye fun.
Another reason I don't like multiplayer is there's no
.
Yesterday Amiga celebrated its birthday. Today /. is plagued with Guru Mediation errors. Coincidence? I think not. (BTW a new Amiga is arriving in August and will have the approximate power of a PowerMac G5.) :-)
>>>the average joe might think the IE 8 is better than Chrome 5 or FF 4.
Well in that case they must think Opera 10.x is the bestest browser out there! Are people running over to Opera? (checks). Nope. I suspect the number theory has no relevance to the average joe.
aside -
Although it could just they don't like it. I don't find Opera too great. It's okay for casual surfing but as soon as I visit Youtube the memory usage jumps to 500,000 kilobytes..... and my computer slows to a crawl. Meanwhile Firefox hovers around 300,000. Opera 10.0 worked well, but 10.6 appears to be suffering from bloat.
>>>How I lusted after the [Commodore 64] version with their 16 colors.
Fixed that for you. :-) Amiga has 4000 colors (on the stills) and 64 colors during gameplay which of course made the 4-color IBM PC or MAC versions look like crap. I too loved Red Storm Rising. And Silent Service. And most of MicroProse's sims. :-)