what's disturbing to me is that if these kids eat candy like i eat candy (that is to say, entire bags of M&Ms disappear while i browse Slashdot and play Mass Effect), did the school official seeing this captured evidence really believe the high school kid was taking enough drugs to make an elephant high as a kite?
this is all fine and good, except that even if there is a contractual basis behind which the Video Professor can try to hide, he still is required, at least in most jurisdictions, to make the "fine print" clear and distinguishable for the average consumer to see. if Mr. Scherer is hiding the true nature of the contract an average person will be entering by burying it in tiny text, he could (and honestly should) be taken to task for it.
the legal definition of what is a scam aside, what he's doing is unethical. his company is blatantly misrepresenting the pricing structure of his "product". where i come from, you don't need the force of law to call something a scam if it's clearly unethical.
unless you're saying that the mere fact that the mom and her son are from Mexico somehow implies they're undocumented, i really don't see how you could even come close to the conclusion they're not here legally.
if anything, the mother's hounding of the police for not finding her son sooner could be seen as evidence that she and her son are in the US legally, as it's usually the undocumented folks who are reluctant to even speak with law enforcement.
impossible. people on facebook are too busy growing crops in FarmVille or doing epic crimes in Mafia Wars or making creepy comments on attractive friends-of-friends's photos to have time to have mere sex.
main problem is the sheer size of the US, coupled with a much older infrastructure. when you consider how cheaply the major telecoms operate in the US, and their unwillingness to use gov't subsidies to do something like actually investing in infrastructure, you know there's going to be a problem.
i gather Japan has a slightly more modern infrastructure, plus an easier geographic area to cover.
You say the token black guy was a gangster. HELLO? The entire series is about criminals with absolutely no social value whatsoever. They kill left and right for no other reason then that they are in a hurry. None of the leads are heroes, but this is only bad if he is black right?
you're setting up a strawman. i never claimed any of the GTA leads were "heroes". but they are the lead characters in each of their respective games. but with the exception of Carl Johnson, the remainder of the GTA leads are blank-slate white males. they intentionally have little-to-no specific identities; Rockstar left it up to the player to customize the character, right down to the type of music you can play on car radios. but with CJ in San Andreas, he is specifically characterized as a gang-banger. by itself, that's not a problem; creating a character that is true to the setting has merit. but you won't see Rockstar make a GTA game (or other kind of game for that matter) portraying a black lead character leading a non-gangsta type mob, or making references to things outside of hip-hop "urban" culture. CJ's stuck in a stereotype.
You then mention japanese games as an example... where of course the lead is japanese... but that is all right because a japanese person making a game with a japanese lead is totally different from a white person making a game with a white lead.
it's...kind of obvious why this would be the case. Japanese developers are creating games for a Japanese market. don't get me wrong; Japan has its own problems, particularly with the way Koreans and Chinese are portrayed in popular media there. but the linked study here apparently focuses on the US game market.
You also happily ignore the countless western games where UNLIKE the japanese games, you can choose your own race. MMO's like WoW and Lotro. The sims. Dues EX. Fallout, all of them. Far cry 2(probably the widest assortment of backgrounds).
hey, that's a great improvement. i'm glad game devs are starting to get that the player should be able to customize the main player character. but it's by no means the dominant trend (yet), and in some ways, it ignores the underlying problem: instead of just producing an interesting game with a non-white character as the lead, game studios either go the "safe" route with Generic White Dude A, or they produce a create-your-own-character game, like WoW or Aion or something similar. so why do studios/publishers have such a problem making a game with a non-white character as the lead? this question applies to US popular media as a whole: what is it that prevents TV and movie studios from making a mainstream film that just happens to have a black actor as the lead? or an asian american, or a latino, or some other non-white person in the lead role? outside of maybe Will Smith and Morgan Freeman, there's not much out in the popular market.
You are indeed a closet racist. Everything whites do is wrong and everything someone else does is alright. Japanese games as an example of racial diversity. I want some of what you are smoking.
there you go with that strawman thing again, with a bit of ad hominem to boot!
i'm certainly not claiming that "whites do wrong" or that Japan is the epicenter of all that is culturally diverse. both are unfair arguments, and you know it. what i am asking is: 1) why is social science always dismissed out of hand by the Slashdot demographic, and 2) why do game devs shy away from having a non-white lead in a mainstream game that for once does not rely on stereotypes to get by?
if asking those questions makes me racist...then, i'm not sure what to say.
just like any "hard" science, social sciences also start with hypotheses based on observations. then, those hypotheses are tested in the field, using rigorous methods developed in the social sciences. while these methods might not be as "exact" as self-labeled hard scientists might be comfortable with, they are no less valid than the procedures carried out by a grunt in a lab.
frankly, hard scientists (computer scientists in particular) are too uncomfortable with science that does not follow rigid binary results. if anything, that just shows a dogmatic, unimaginative approach to science which too many scientists sadly follow.
as for this study, they're right. outside of the fantasy/sci-fi realms, think about what protagonists are out there in mainstream video games today, at least those sold in Western markets. the GTA series is a good example: except for one game in the series (where the black protagonist was a thug gangsta of all things, the rest of the main protagonists were white.
expand that to the larger games market. while there are stand-out exceptions (Mirror's Edge, Beyond Good and Evil, and a slew of Japan-origin games), the majority feature a white, male lead character. it's kind of obvious when you think about it.
and you also have the chicken and the egg problem. some might argue that "diverse" games haven't been made because there's no market for them. but how can there even be a market if gamers of all colors see only 1) games with white male leads and/or; 2) games that reinforce bad stereotypes.
we're talking about the same industry that pulled the "acts of lust" shenanigans at Comic-Con, fer chrissakes.
it's not often the lawyers' choice. Goldman Sachs consults Chadbourne & Parke on the best courses of action. if the law firm is doing its job correctly, they will give Goldman Sachs a number of different options they could take. but ultimately, it's up to Goldman Sachs as the client to choose what path to take. in short, the lawyer types DO understand that there's more than just litigation, but clients may not necessarily know, or even want, those other options.
no, it's really not. most modern courts (at least in the U.S.) detest anything that would impede judicial efficiency and anything that would be seen as a plaintiff merely harassing a defendant.
if counsel for a plaintiff attempted to do what you're claiming, the defendant could easily fire right back and request a directed verdict or summary judgment on the facts, or because there'd be no substantive law backing the "kitchen sink" thrown at them by the plaintiff, or for the plaintiff's "failure to state a claim" that even fits within the law. the defendant would have the sympathy of the court at this point because the plaintiff would be viewed as being abusive via unfounded civil claims and wasteful for occupying the court's time with such claims.
what we're seeing in the Pirate Bay case appears to be lot of the latter, especially given the "safe-harbor" law that TPB's counsel is bringing up.
(also, in this case, we don't have a "prosecution" as it's a civil matter between two private entities.)
people shouldn't really have a problem with this
on
More Brains Needed
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· Score: 1
they're not unreasonable. i mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
what's disturbing to me is that if these kids eat candy like i eat candy (that is to say, entire bags of M&Ms disappear while i browse Slashdot and play Mass Effect), did the school official seeing this captured evidence really believe the high school kid was taking enough drugs to make an elephant high as a kite?
"mostly dead". maybe Miracle Max has a cure!
it's pretty obvious: the German Constitution upholds child pornography as an inalienable, constitutional right.
the legal definition of what is a scam aside, what he's doing is unethical. his company is blatantly misrepresenting the pricing structure of his "product". where i come from, you don't need the force of law to call something a scam if it's clearly unethical.
if anything, the mother's hounding of the police for not finding her son sooner could be seen as evidence that she and her son are in the US legally, as it's usually the undocumented folks who are reluctant to even speak with law enforcement.
People who want to get laid?
impossible. people on facebook are too busy growing crops in FarmVille or doing epic crimes in Mafia Wars or making creepy comments on attractive friends-of-friends's photos to have time to have mere sex.
i'd pee my pants if i had to go up against the son of Moag and the House of Martok!
main problem is the sheer size of the US, coupled with a much older infrastructure. when you consider how cheaply the major telecoms operate in the US, and their unwillingness to use gov't subsidies to do something like actually investing in infrastructure, you know there's going to be a problem. i gather Japan has a slightly more modern infrastructure, plus an easier geographic area to cover.
a company exec with a more appropriate name.
Coating the inside of your heat transfer pipes with a thermal insulator is like masturbating with sandpaper - it might work, but it doesn't work well.
so that's what i've been doing wrong the entire time!
oh great, now how am i supposed to explain to people why they see iPod reallyfuckingsmalls for sale at the Apple store?
You say the token black guy was a gangster. HELLO? The entire series is about criminals with absolutely no social value whatsoever. They kill left and right for no other reason then that they are in a hurry. None of the leads are heroes, but this is only bad if he is black right?
you're setting up a strawman. i never claimed any of the GTA leads were "heroes". but they are the lead characters in each of their respective games. but with the exception of Carl Johnson, the remainder of the GTA leads are blank-slate white males. they intentionally have little-to-no specific identities; Rockstar left it up to the player to customize the character, right down to the type of music you can play on car radios. but with CJ in San Andreas, he is specifically characterized as a gang-banger. by itself, that's not a problem; creating a character that is true to the setting has merit. but you won't see Rockstar make a GTA game (or other kind of game for that matter) portraying a black lead character leading a non-gangsta type mob, or making references to things outside of hip-hop "urban" culture. CJ's stuck in a stereotype.
You then mention japanese games as an example... where of course the lead is japanese... but that is all right because a japanese person making a game with a japanese lead is totally different from a white person making a game with a white lead.
it's...kind of obvious why this would be the case. Japanese developers are creating games for a Japanese market. don't get me wrong; Japan has its own problems, particularly with the way Koreans and Chinese are portrayed in popular media there. but the linked study here apparently focuses on the US game market.
You also happily ignore the countless western games where UNLIKE the japanese games, you can choose your own race. MMO's like WoW and Lotro. The sims. Dues EX. Fallout, all of them. Far cry 2(probably the widest assortment of backgrounds).
hey, that's a great improvement. i'm glad game devs are starting to get that the player should be able to customize the main player character. but it's by no means the dominant trend (yet), and in some ways, it ignores the underlying problem: instead of just producing an interesting game with a non-white character as the lead, game studios either go the "safe" route with Generic White Dude A, or they produce a create-your-own-character game, like WoW or Aion or something similar. so why do studios/publishers have such a problem making a game with a non-white character as the lead? this question applies to US popular media as a whole: what is it that prevents TV and movie studios from making a mainstream film that just happens to have a black actor as the lead? or an asian american, or a latino, or some other non-white person in the lead role? outside of maybe Will Smith and Morgan Freeman, there's not much out in the popular market.
You are indeed a closet racist. Everything whites do is wrong and everything someone else does is alright. Japanese games as an example of racial diversity. I want some of what you are smoking.
there you go with that strawman thing again, with a bit of ad hominem to boot!
i'm certainly not claiming that "whites do wrong" or that Japan is the epicenter of all that is culturally diverse. both are unfair arguments, and you know it. what i am asking is: 1) why is social science always dismissed out of hand by the Slashdot demographic, and 2) why do game devs shy away from having a non-white lead in a mainstream game that for once does not rely on stereotypes to get by? if asking those questions makes me racist...then, i'm not sure what to say.
just like any "hard" science, social sciences also start with hypotheses based on observations. then, those hypotheses are tested in the field, using rigorous methods developed in the social sciences. while these methods might not be as "exact" as self-labeled hard scientists might be comfortable with, they are no less valid than the procedures carried out by a grunt in a lab.
frankly, hard scientists (computer scientists in particular) are too uncomfortable with science that does not follow rigid binary results. if anything, that just shows a dogmatic, unimaginative approach to science which too many scientists sadly follow.
as for this study, they're right. outside of the fantasy/sci-fi realms, think about what protagonists are out there in mainstream video games today, at least those sold in Western markets. the GTA series is a good example: except for one game in the series (where the black protagonist was a thug gangsta of all things, the rest of the main protagonists were white.
expand that to the larger games market. while there are stand-out exceptions (Mirror's Edge, Beyond Good and Evil, and a slew of Japan-origin games), the majority feature a white, male lead character. it's kind of obvious when you think about it.
and you also have the chicken and the egg problem. some might argue that "diverse" games haven't been made because there's no market for them. but how can there even be a market if gamers of all colors see only 1) games with white male leads and/or; 2) games that reinforce bad stereotypes.
we're talking about the same industry that pulled the "acts of lust" shenanigans at Comic-Con, fer chrissakes.
considering Microsoft was already starting at the bottom circa Windows 9X and ME, there was really no other way to go but up...
it's not often the lawyers' choice. Goldman Sachs consults Chadbourne & Parke on the best courses of action. if the law firm is doing its job correctly, they will give Goldman Sachs a number of different options they could take. but ultimately, it's up to Goldman Sachs as the client to choose what path to take. in short, the lawyer types DO understand that there's more than just litigation, but clients may not necessarily know, or even want, those other options.
so the Internet really is a big truck, hauling all of our lulz and our memes across the globe.
take THAT, Ted Stevens!
if counsel for a plaintiff attempted to do what you're claiming, the defendant could easily fire right back and request a directed verdict or summary judgment on the facts, or because there'd be no substantive law backing the "kitchen sink" thrown at them by the plaintiff, or for the plaintiff's "failure to state a claim" that even fits within the law. the defendant would have the sympathy of the court at this point because the plaintiff would be viewed as being abusive via unfounded civil claims and wasteful for occupying the court's time with such claims.
what we're seeing in the Pirate Bay case appears to be lot of the latter, especially given the "safe-harbor" law that TPB's counsel is bringing up.
(also, in this case, we don't have a "prosecution" as it's a civil matter between two private entities.)
they're not unreasonable. i mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.