You're right - some Dems did vote along with the immunity-carrying version. And I'm afraid that the ultimate story of what happened on this bill makes the GOP look like childish assholes, and the Dems look like brainless, spineless pansies.
So far, the best collection of linkage and summary I've seen on this has been at The Mahablog (Warning: liberal. Like me, so, deal.)
Various translations exist of the sixth commandment; the Hebrew words are variously translated as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder". Older Protestant translations of the Bible, those based on the Vulgate and Roman Catholic translations usually render it "Thou shalt not kill", whereas Jewish and newer Protestant versions tend to use "You shall not murder". There is controversy as to which translation is more faithful, and both forms are quoted in support of ethical standpoints.
The generally held view is that murder is probably the more accurate translation. The issue of whether or not it is possible to commit murder on an Elite aside, exceptions are made in many Christian teachings for war.
And besides which, dude, it's a game. Nobody actually dies unless they're stupid and play continuously for three days.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a "CEO's dinner" at a regional tech trade show. (I'm not a CEO, I just happened to work for the meetings major sponsor.) The majority of attendees were the type of people who wear very expensive watches and attend regional tech conferences and use words like "synergy" a lot.
The keynote speech was given by an FBI special agent, and was about cybercrime (I hate that word). He talked about where major risks came from, talked up InfraGard a bit, and generally gave common sense advice to the CEO types there. I remember thinking, "This guy can't really be a computer security expert, can he?"
At one point, I zoned out, and when I tuned back in I thought he was using a Latino name repeatedly in a context I didn't understand. So I glanced up at his powerpoint slide, then back at him, and then back at the slide, until I made the connection.
He was talking about "warez," but he was pronouncing it "Juarez."
I found it very hard to take him seriously after that.
But I absolutely think that Microsoft would like nothing better than to "control" the growth of Linux by partnering with a major Linux vendor. Let's say as a hypothetical that Novell managed to wrest a sizable majority of corporate/enterprise level business from Red Hat. Do you think that Microsoft would hesitate for a second to put a shiv in Novell's back if they thought it would remove a major competitor?
"When we're out there competing with Red Hat, [our salespeople] are saying, 'Our Linux is recommended by Microsoft,' and customers that already have a Windows investment say it seems to make sense to pick the Linux that works with Windows."
Translation 1:
Wow! That "embrace" part was great, and this "extend" phase is fantastic! I wonder what's next?
Translation 2:
Wow! These guards are great - they gave me a delicious meal, and now they're taking me out to meet their "squad!" Wonder why they want me blindfolded?
More seriously: I haven't worked with Novell stuff since this deal was announced. Anyone have any insight as to how much easier it really is to integrate with Microsoft stuff?
Actually, Unisys hires through temp agencies and the temps only have to pass an FBI background check.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'm a former full-time employee of Unisys, and used to do pre-sales architecture and systems engineering for them. On one particular contract we worked on, there were a couple of us full-timers to do architecture, another to handle the PM angle, several short-timers to do write code and DBA work, and a couple of outsourced coders.
Also, a PM outsourced from our Indian contractor. That was weird.
No.2: Ahem...well, don't you think we should maybe ask for *more* than a million dollars? I mean, a million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Unisys alone makes over one million dollars a year!
Have you seen Unisys' quarterly reports recently? I'm not quite sure that's the case.
(joking. They still make a ton of money. Just not as much as they need to support themselves.)
Michael Dirda is not a science fiction author. He's a literary critic. Which the submitter probably should have known if he'd read, like, the very first sentence of the article: "On a recent Saturday morning, I headed over to the house of Pulitzer Prize-winning Post book columnist Michael Dirda with an Xbox 360 under my arm."
From the third paragraph: "But [Dirda] is a sci-fi fan and an open-minded fellow, and I was curious whether BioShock's story would be compelling enough to draw him in."
Did a quick Amazon search of his work, and the only things I noticed were essentially books about reading itself.
Liberals may not win any elections, but they sure won one part of the "small, powerless government" agenda, and it ain't the "small" one.
Um... at the risk of hijacking a perfectly good discussion of antitrust into a "liberals vs conservatives" argument, the sentence I quoted gave me pause. Are you suggesting that a traditionally liberal argument is for powerless government? Because I don't know anyone of any political stripe who perceives "small, powerless government" as a "liberal" value.
Re:Hyped too far?
on
BioShock Review
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I have to say that after being locked into a windowed box and forced to watch an exposition of exactly how extremely tough the "big daddies" are, right at the start of the game, then being told by some random radio voice whom I have no reason to trust that "you need to kill big daddy and this small child he's protecting in order to take her "Adam", (which appears to mean basically drinking her blood) my response was to just avoid them completely. This produces, just before you try to exit a level, a preposterous peice of fourth-wall-exploding nonsense - a dialog box pops up and tells you "you haven't either rescued or harvested any little sisters on this level - you should go back and do this otherwise the game will be very difficult later on". I mean - seriously - this is what counts for great writing these days? You give me a situation where I appear to have a free choice on how I react to the events you put infront of me and then when I come to what appears to me to be the completely reasonable conclusion that screwing with "big daddy" is a lot of trouble for no recognizable value you tell me "no, you're not playing it right!".
WARNING: Spoilers follow.
1. The substance of ADAM turns out to come, oddly, from a weird species of sea slug. The Little Sisters each have a slug implanted in their abdomens. When you "harvest" them, you're extracting the slug, from which you can directly absorb ADAM. 2. The warning message is fourth-wall exploding, and I didn't like it for that reason. But the default settings of the game constantly overlay tutorial messages about "searching containers for loot" and "eating food to regain health". If you're not annoyed about those, I don't see how you can get worked up about the "you're going to need to do this sooner or later." 3. Speaking of which: the reason that the decision on harvesting or rescuing the Little Sisters is posed as a dilemma is precisely because you can't avoid it. If you could just ignore them entirely, they wouldn't pose much of a dilemma, would they? 4. The "Little Sisters problem" isn't completely extraneous to the rest of the plot. The way in which you address it has concrete gameplay consequences, and can result in different endings to the game. 5. Lastly, other than for character advancement purposes, I'm not entirely sure that you actually "have" to harvest or rescue any of the Sisters. You can deal with them and reap the rewards, or ignore them and go off and get yourself killed. 6. The voice that you have "absolutely no reason to trust" guides you from the moment you arrive in the city, sends a robotic drone to defend you at a point of the game when you're weaponless, and generally tells you everything you know about the environment. Of course, you're right not to trust it, but seriously now, he's as close to an authoritative voice as you get.
I guess I'm just not sure what your beef is with the approach the writers/developers took. You decided not to engage the Big Daddy because that seemed logical to you, and it warned you that this wasn't gonna work in the long run, thus preventing you from embarking on a long, doomed journey. In the same situation, my gut instinct would be to hide in the back of the bathysphere right from the start, and I don't think I'd have gotten the benefit of a warning from the developers.
None of them was really any fun and I got sick of seeing real life friends refusing to go do real life things because they had to camp and wait (for hours!) for the magic penis stretcher to reappear so they could continue on their quest.
Even sadder was seeing everyone go crazy trying to get an epic mount. That's how they compensate when they couldn't get the magic penis stretcher.
I've not noticed anything "considerably" broken with BIg daddies. I just see them as spawning and searching out the sisters. If you already got all the sisters in the level, then the big daddies just go on looking. It adds texture.
After I'd "rescued" all the Little Sisters from a level, I tried following around a Big Daddy just to see what would happen. It approached one of the crawlspaces, banged on it thunderously, then seemed almost to sigh when no Sister emerged from it to shepherd. I actually felt bad for it. Maybe there's some other spawning/AI problem, but I haven't noticed it.
As far as "preservation of life" vs killing them goes. As far as the main character knows, they cant be "cured". They're trying to kill him, so he's gotta eliminate them first. The morality here is perhaps death is the better alternative. Either that or live life being disfigured and insane.
Yeah - I don't recall anyone making an issue of it when Max Payne featured a character gunning down "Valkyrie" crazed addicts. And nobody particularly weeps for the zombies in Day of the Dead.
TPM (linked in the grandparent of this comment) did a very good job of tracking this issue, but the summary is this: Bush canned basically all of his US attys near the beginning of his first term. That's pretty normal, and you may recall that nobody made much of a big deal about it.
The trick is that he then did it again during his second term. And the second time around, he didn't fire all of them - he only fired the ones who were a) looking too closely into possible investigations of Republican reps, or b) not looking closely enough at investigating Democrats. For example, fired attorney David Iglesias actually got a threatening phone call from Pete Domenici at his house, specifically because he didn't intend to file charges against a Democratic challenger before the November elections.
When Gonzales was asked what the rationale was for firing the second round of attorneys, his responses were nearly comically vague, and can be summed up as "I don't know, but I'm sure it was for good cause."
However, this vendor has no credibility when it comes to go design - they've never really created an elegant gaming system and clearly enjoy changing things around to force players to buy $1000+ in books.
Actually, their first product, "The Primal Order," was quite elegant and well done, IMO. Pity that asshole Kevin Siembeda sued them over it. (On the other hand, I suspect that the WOTC people have made all that money back in spades since then.)
When my daughter was in the NICU for 10 days, scrubbing with the povidone-laced sponges and scrubbers, once or twice a day going to see her got harsh on the hands... can't imagine doing it multiple times a day, all the time, like a nurse or doctor does.
Heh. Ours was in the NICU for 3 months. I used Corn Husker's Lotion on my hands every evening, and Cetaphil every morning, to repair the damage.
And yet, somehow, our kid still wound up with sepsis in her second week in the NICU. Go figure.
Remember when Quake came out? Sure you do. It wasn't too long after Duke 3D, and Shadow Warrior came out not too long after.
Well, after playing a healthy dose of Quake, I found myself completely unable to go back to sprite-based FPSes. Watching the sprites shift as I strafed around an enemy made me physically ill.
So, thanks, id software! You quite literally ruined me for older-generation FPS games.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right - some Dems did vote along with the immunity-carrying version. And I'm afraid that the ultimate story of what happened on this bill makes the GOP look like childish assholes, and the Dems look like brainless, spineless pansies.
So far, the best collection of linkage and summary I've seen on this has been at The Mahablog (Warning: liberal. Like me, so, deal.)
Nope. Portal.
US $100 says your step three doesn't happen. At least, not until 2012.
Really?
"Looking at your bloodwork, I predict that you better lay off the fried foods, or you're looking at a bypass by age 35."
"Um... what's that big thing hurtling towards us in the telescope?"
"Wow, at this rate, the hole in the Earth's ozone layer will be larger than Europe in ten years."
None of those things qualify as news to anyone?
Well... depends on who you ask. From Wikipedia
The generally held view is that murder is probably the more accurate translation. The issue of whether or not it is possible to commit murder on an Elite aside, exceptions are made in many Christian teachings for war.
And besides which, dude, it's a game. Nobody actually dies unless they're stupid and play continuously for three days.
Whoa! That's cool! Did they come from one of those countries where they chop off criminals' hands?
(Alternative response): Hey! I saw that movie. Funny stuff!
(Insert grumbling about inappropriate use of the word "literally" here.)
Disclaimer: I found Manhunt to be pretty gross. Never played the sequel.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a "CEO's dinner" at a regional tech trade show. (I'm not a CEO, I just happened to work for the meetings major sponsor.) The majority of attendees were the type of people who wear very expensive watches and attend regional tech conferences and use words like "synergy" a lot.
The keynote speech was given by an FBI special agent, and was about cybercrime (I hate that word). He talked about where major risks came from, talked up InfraGard a bit, and generally gave common sense advice to the CEO types there. I remember thinking, "This guy can't really be a computer security expert, can he?"
At one point, I zoned out, and when I tuned back in I thought he was using a Latino name repeatedly in a context I didn't understand. So I glanced up at his powerpoint slide, then back at him, and then back at the slide, until I made the connection.
He was talking about "warez," but he was pronouncing it "Juarez."
I found it very hard to take him seriously after that.
For the record: I don't.
But I absolutely think that Microsoft would like nothing better than to "control" the growth of Linux by partnering with a major Linux vendor. Let's say as a hypothetical that Novell managed to wrest a sizable majority of corporate/enterprise level business from Red Hat. Do you think that Microsoft would hesitate for a second to put a shiv in Novell's back if they thought it would remove a major competitor?
Translation 1:
Wow! That "embrace" part was great, and this "extend" phase is fantastic! I wonder what's next?
Translation 2:
Wow! These guards are great - they gave me a delicious meal, and now they're taking me out to meet their "squad!" Wonder why they want me blindfolded?
More seriously: I haven't worked with Novell stuff since this deal was announced. Anyone have any insight as to how much easier it really is to integrate with Microsoft stuff?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'm a former full-time employee of Unisys, and used to do pre-sales architecture and systems engineering for them. On one particular contract we worked on, there were a couple of us full-timers to do architecture, another to handle the PM angle, several short-timers to do write code and DBA work, and a couple of outsourced coders.
Also, a PM outsourced from our Indian contractor. That was weird.
Have you seen Unisys' quarterly reports recently? I'm not quite sure that's the case.
(joking. They still make a ton of money. Just not as much as they need to support themselves.)
Michael Dirda is not a science fiction author. He's a literary critic. Which the submitter probably should have known if he'd read, like, the very first sentence of the article: "On a recent Saturday morning, I headed over to the house of Pulitzer Prize-winning Post book columnist Michael Dirda with an Xbox 360 under my arm."
From the third paragraph: "But [Dirda] is a sci-fi fan and an open-minded fellow, and I was curious whether BioShock's story would be compelling enough to draw him in."
Did a quick Amazon search of his work, and the only things I noticed were essentially books about reading itself.
Just sayin'.
Um... at the risk of hijacking a perfectly good discussion of antitrust into a "liberals vs conservatives" argument, the sentence I quoted gave me pause. Are you suggesting that a traditionally liberal argument is for powerless government? Because I don't know anyone of any political stripe who perceives "small, powerless government" as a "liberal" value.
I mean, unless you think Grover Norquist is a liberal.
And so is ammo, eve, and health, by that logic. It's sort of a seperate complaint.
Also sort of a lame one, by the way - you'd prefer what, that the game forces you to resume from the last save? Still an option, isn't it?
It was a joke.
:) )
(Evidently, a pretty bad one.
WARNING: Spoilers follow.
1. The substance of ADAM turns out to come, oddly, from a weird species of sea slug. The Little Sisters each have a slug implanted in their abdomens. When you "harvest" them, you're extracting the slug, from which you can directly absorb ADAM.
2. The warning message is fourth-wall exploding, and I didn't like it for that reason. But the default settings of the game constantly overlay tutorial messages about "searching containers for loot" and "eating food to regain health". If you're not annoyed about those, I don't see how you can get worked up about the "you're going to need to do this sooner or later."
3. Speaking of which: the reason that the decision on harvesting or rescuing the Little Sisters is posed as a dilemma is precisely because you can't avoid it. If you could just ignore them entirely, they wouldn't pose much of a dilemma, would they?
4. The "Little Sisters problem" isn't completely extraneous to the rest of the plot. The way in which you address it has concrete gameplay consequences, and can result in different endings to the game.
5. Lastly, other than for character advancement purposes, I'm not entirely sure that you actually "have" to harvest or rescue any of the Sisters. You can deal with them and reap the rewards, or ignore them and go off and get yourself killed.
6. The voice that you have "absolutely no reason to trust" guides you from the moment you arrive in the city, sends a robotic drone to defend you at a point of the game when you're weaponless, and generally tells you everything you know about the environment. Of course, you're right not to trust it, but seriously now, he's as close to an authoritative voice as you get.
I guess I'm just not sure what your beef is with the approach the writers/developers took. You decided not to engage the Big Daddy because that seemed logical to you, and it warned you that this wasn't gonna work in the long run, thus preventing you from embarking on a long, doomed journey. In the same situation, my gut instinct would be to hide in the back of the bathysphere right from the start, and I don't think I'd have gotten the benefit of a warning from the developers.
Sorry. I'd say yes, but according to your party affiliation... it's outta my hands.
Went to www.microsoft.com/silverlight and the following message popped up:
This shit is the bomb.
Even sadder was seeing everyone go crazy trying to get an epic mount. That's how they compensate when they couldn't get the magic penis stretcher.
After I'd "rescued" all the Little Sisters from a level, I tried following around a Big Daddy just to see what would happen. It approached one of the crawlspaces, banged on it thunderously, then seemed almost to sigh when no Sister emerged from it to shepherd. I actually felt bad for it. Maybe there's some other spawning/AI problem, but I haven't noticed it.
Yeah - I don't recall anyone making an issue of it when Max Payne featured a character gunning down "Valkyrie" crazed addicts. And nobody particularly weeps for the zombies in Day of the Dead.
TPM (linked in the grandparent of this comment) did a very good job of tracking this issue, but the summary is this: Bush canned basically all of his US attys near the beginning of his first term. That's pretty normal, and you may recall that nobody made much of a big deal about it.
The trick is that he then did it again during his second term. And the second time around, he didn't fire all of them - he only fired the ones who were a) looking too closely into possible investigations of Republican reps, or b) not looking closely enough at investigating Democrats. For example, fired attorney David Iglesias actually got a threatening phone call from Pete Domenici at his house, specifically because he didn't intend to file charges against a Democratic challenger before the November elections.
When Gonzales was asked what the rationale was for firing the second round of attorneys, his responses were nearly comically vague, and can be summed up as "I don't know, but I'm sure it was for good cause."
Actually, their first product, "The Primal Order," was quite elegant and well done, IMO. Pity that asshole Kevin Siembeda sued them over it. (On the other hand, I suspect that the WOTC people have made all that money back in spades since then.)
Heh. Ours was in the NICU for 3 months. I used Corn Husker's Lotion on my hands every evening, and Cetaphil every morning, to repair the damage.
And yet, somehow, our kid still wound up with sepsis in her second week in the NICU. Go figure.
Is this surprising? I mean, in the seventies it was a popular theory that life here began out there.
Remember when Quake came out? Sure you do. It wasn't too long after Duke 3D, and Shadow Warrior came out not too long after.
Well, after playing a healthy dose of Quake, I found myself completely unable to go back to sprite-based FPSes. Watching the sprites shift as I strafed around an enemy made me physically ill.
So, thanks, id software! You quite literally ruined me for older-generation FPS games.