Depends on how you define addiction. Full addiction usually includes both dependence (need it to function or avoid withdrawal), and escalating usage ('high'-seeking behavior).
No doubt one could become dependent on this. In my experience, anything that becomes associated with sleep or bedtime can quickly become necessary for sleep, especially if you're a borderline insomniac (like me). Even if it's a purely psychological effect, you can bet that people will become dependent on their special CD.
As for escalating usage, I don't see how that would happen. How does one increase the 'dose'? Turning up the volume probably won't help ( the noise will keep you awake after a certain point), and you'll only want to use it during sleep hours.
Heh, I was in Switzerland last week and I saw this. Basically a couple of guys chatting while one guy plays an RTS on-screen. If I could understand German it might have been interesting for about five seconds, if only to find out what game it was, but 24/7?!? Yech.
Since when has any industry been afforded such protection?
Since the birth of copyright law. Remember, the whole thing started as a way to gaurantee business for publishers, so that they could safely invest the money to support the original work.
This isn't about our rights, it's about theirs. Fair use is a specific and limited exception to their right to control their copyrighted material; in a sense, it's a 'privilege' granted to us by the courts. When in doubt, their rights come first.
As mentioned elsewhere, the issue of "doing harm to our ability to make money" is in fact a key factor in limiting fair use. The studios are certainly splitting hairs here, but they have every legal right to do so, and we (or rather the PVR companies) have to prove that it's not a significant change or threat.
I don't think the "all men are created equal" thing was ever intended to mean that our abilities and weaknesses are all the same. It's more of a philosophical, ethical idea: that we are all humans, and as such we all deserve the same measure of ethical treatment.
You'd be better off discussing C-ville's bizarre road & traffic policies. But I digress...
Seriously, maybe you could focus on the cost saving aspects? I'm not sure what the city's financials are like at the moment (as I no longer live in the area), but saving tax money always sounds good if you spin it right.
Very true; take it from someone who's learned the hard way. I bought one of those AIW cards with PVR functionality and tried to build a TiVo-killer box. Ignoring for the moment all the driver & SW issues I had to wrestle with, the TiVo still beats my PC solution hands down. Why? Because the program guide sucked. Sure, it would list programs, and even allow me to schedule recordings, but it just didn't have the advanced features (or even some basic features) needed to make it practical. I'm now in the market for a TiVo.
Very true. At my school, the only EE major was called Electrical Eng., and was mostly electronics-oriented. At other schools, IIRC, Electronic Engineering is the equivalent of what I took, and Electrical Eng. is for other stuff, like Power Distribution and basic analog circuits (ie. wiring!?).
Also, CS in my school was run by the engineering school, with a lot of overlap in courses; in many other schools, it's part of Arts&Crafts --err, Arts&Sciences, along with the usual liberal arts stuff. This is true even in schools with strong Engineering programs; apparently somebody early on decided that programming wasn't an engineering discipline, which is totally bogus IMHO.
The moral of the story is, there's no good way of comparing majors and/or schools other than actually looking at the details. All the different definitions being thrown out here are essentially meaningless, because they change with every school you go to.
And don't forget VA's 21 day rule: no new evidence can be considered after 21 days. If you're wrongly convicted, and new evidence which completely exonerates you shows up 22 days after your trial, too bad, you have to serve that life sentence away.
I just read about a case like this the other day, where the sole witness (w/ no other major evidence) recanted soon after trial --but not soon enough. Now his lawyers have to jump through hoops & use legal loop-holes to try to get a new trial.
This law is pure evil, plain & simple; it only punishes the wrongfully accused. Granted, it will never affect most of us, but that's no excuse.
Hmm, perhaps I misinterpretted the original comment. If you are talking about publicly accessible places, that's a whole other can of worms, although no less complicated.
It's more complicated than that; there's a big difference between allowing free speech and providing resources to support it. The local government has a right not to buy something to put in a public building, just as private individuals do in their homes. The complication comes in when public property is being loaned out or leased for essentially private use. If the city refuses to allow certain activities, is it public censorship, or just a property owner excercising its rights?
However the living primate species most genetically similar to humans isn't especially violent, but does enguage in a lot of sex.
So maybe "make love not war", scores more points under the "naturalness" criteria.
Ehh, it depends on which species you're talking about; both chimps and Binobos are contenders for that prize. Chimps are (almost?) as violent as we are (including tribal warfare), and only a little more promiscuous. Binobos are the "make love, not war" species; they have casual sex to settle almost any argument. All this really proves is that humans are a unique species (in the sense that all species are unique), and shouldn't be directly compared to other species as far as 'natural' behavior is concerned.
From a commercial viewpoint i am suprised also. There is much more money in selling sex than there is in selling violence.
Not in video games. The arcade game industry generally won't touch sex with a 10ft pole (err, no pun intended). Remember, sex is only appealing after you've hit puberty, but violence is fun for all ages!
(BTW, I think the subject line was meant to be the game industry's apparent POV on the subject.)
violence using weapons of mass destruction will often not get a programme or film an "adult" rating whereas violence which realistically shows dead and injured people quite often will
This follows real human psychology; killing from a distance doesn't have the same emotional impact as killing face-to-face. I think the idea is to prevent traumatic images from warping kids' minds at an early age, not to teach them to be Perfect Peaceful People(TM). Young kids don't 'get' abstract ideas like a deathtoll anyway; by the time they're old enough to really understand what's being represented, they're old enough to be taught about consequences.
Good point on the primate 'war' thing. I think one of the reasons why humans are willing to fight to the death is that we are a social, 'tribal' species. In our natural state, we are usually part of a tight-knit extended family grouping (a tribe), with extensive genetic overlap within the group. Thus even if I'm killed, my relatives will pass on my genes. In this sense, the tribe becomes the organism; individuals are just unique appendages. Thus limited-scale warfare between tribes provides a similar function to limited, ritualized individual combat in other species.
R1 X-Men right here, no problems. Once I got the 'seamless branching' bug, but then I've had that happen on standalone DVD players as well. Since getting the remote (BTW only $20, not $30), I've had no such problems.
I agree that the lack of power/eject buttons is a pain, but that seems to be an enduring 'feature' of the console paradigm. I mostly worry about letting it sit & spin (the disc, that is!:) for long periods of time. Seems like it would wear out the mechanism eventually. Of course, I've heard claims that it's not safe to turn off a PS2 with a disc in it anyway (WTF!?); I've long since lost the manual, so I can't verify the claim.
The point is, if the kids are young (or dumb) enough, the parents won't have buy a whole new set of games right away.
It's all about child psychology. If the kids have an old console with old games, they'll immediately lose all interest in that platform once they get the new one, and they'll demand all new games (maybe even ports or clones of the same old games) to play on the new toy.
If you have backwards compatibility, then the kids get the thrill of playing on their new toy, even when playing their old games. You still have to buy one or two popular games for the new platform, but at least that old catalog isn't completely wasted.
...And then they blow up Alderaan. (Sorry, your.sig was just too perfect...)
Do you really think Joe Sixpack has the strength of will to resist this, once the record cartel and the movie cartel unanimously decide to make everything DRM-OS encrypted? How long can Joe-Bob live without that next Shania Twain album? Or WWF Smackdown Volume #427 on DVD?
It's not the Windows monopoly that scares me, it's the state-supported (and enforced) absolute control of content by a handful of megacorps and their political wings / cartel front operations (the **AA groups).
Yep, after the SSSCA comes IIIIIIIIIII...CA, which mandates that all computer networks must protect Copyrighted material. The internet as we know it will be declared illegal. (Everybody sing along: "It's the end of the 'Net as we know it...";)
The only reason M$ isn't pushing this already is because of that pesky AOL/T/WB monstrosity, which might actually *gasp* _compete_ with them! Once M$ figures out how to 'innovate' AOL out of the way (maybe with.Net?), it will be time to make MSN the king of the world! "...One.Net to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them..."
Only once they put XP on that machine. Theoretically it's no different from 'licensing' the OS software itself.
OTOH, I suppose this could be a loophole to get around licensing restrictions imposed on M$: "Well of course, we can't force you to pay for Windows software you don't actually install, but we can certainly add that clause to your patent license..."
It's more subtle than this. Sure you can install Mozilla, you just can't run it when a trusted app is running. At first it would just be a bother to use untrusted apps; then after a while M$ would start tightening the screws by integrating 'trusted' programs deeper and deeper into low-level stuff like drivers. Plus, chances are that most of the Corels and Lotii(??) of the world would be able to get a signature for their products (for the right price); it's the little guys writing open-source stuff that would get screwed.
Sounds like they're counting on havng the key imprinted into the CPU hardware; if the CPU never reveals its original key (only the per-session generated signatures), then the only way is to crack the encryption. If the key can't be overwritten (after it's programmed once), then you can't clone CPU codes either (unless you steal CPUs from the factory before imprinting).
Denon amp & Runco TV: The PC doesn't take the place of these; rather, it provides source material for them. (The best way to handle audio is to output the digital signal to your receiver or pre-amp, for decoding there.)
DVD player: For high resolution displays, the scaling capabilities inherent in the PC solution are superior to most standalone player + line doubler combinations. A $2k PC can and does produce better output than a $20k+ standalone configuration.
The lack of SACD & DVD-A support in PCs is unfortunate, and purely a limitation imposed by the powers that be (RIAA, etc.) who won't allow it to happen.
Yeah, but to hear the full range, you would have to turn up the audio until the least little sound was at 30dB or more (I'm simplifying a bit here). I don't think your neighbors would appreciate it when you hit the loud parts at this volume.
Good point; I highly recommend building your own PC if you're planning to use special features or hardware. That way you can pick and choose all the hardware that goes into it, and you won't get burned by cut corners or non-standard components. At the very least, consider buying from a generic clone-maker, instead of the usual Compaq/Dell/etc.
Alternately, you could spend the extra money and buy a pre-built solution for you specific needs. There are companies out there that make high-end PCs specifically for HomeTheater PC use. Just be careful who you choose to deal with.
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Depends on how you define addiction. Full addiction usually includes both dependence (need it to function or avoid withdrawal), and escalating usage ('high'-seeking behavior).
No doubt one could become dependent on this. In my experience, anything that becomes associated with sleep or bedtime can quickly become necessary for sleep, especially if you're a borderline insomniac (like me). Even if it's a purely psychological effect, you can bet that people will become dependent on their special CD.
As for escalating usage, I don't see how that would happen. How does one increase the 'dose'? Turning up the volume probably won't help ( the noise will keep you awake after a certain point), and you'll only want to use it during sleep hours.
Heh, I was in Switzerland last week and I saw this. Basically a couple of guys chatting while one guy plays an RTS on-screen. If I could understand German it might have been interesting for about five seconds, if only to find out what game it was, but 24/7?!? Yech.
Since when has any industry been afforded such protection?
Since the birth of copyright law. Remember, the whole thing started as a way to gaurantee business for publishers, so that they could safely invest the money to support the original work.
This isn't about our rights, it's about theirs. Fair use is a specific and limited exception to their right to control their copyrighted material; in a sense, it's a 'privilege' granted to us by the courts. When in doubt, their rights come first.
As mentioned elsewhere, the issue of "doing harm to our ability to make money" is in fact a key factor in limiting fair use. The studios are certainly splitting hairs here, but they have every legal right to do so, and we (or rather the PVR companies) have to prove that it's not a significant change or threat.
(IANAL, heh)
I don't think the "all men are created equal" thing was ever intended to mean that our abilities and weaknesses are all the same. It's more of a philosophical, ethical idea: that we are all humans, and as such we all deserve the same measure of ethical treatment.
You'd be better off discussing C-ville's bizarre road & traffic policies. But I digress...
Seriously, maybe you could focus on the cost saving aspects? I'm not sure what the city's financials are like at the moment (as I no longer live in the area), but saving tax money always sounds good if you spin it right.
Very true; take it from someone who's learned the hard way. I bought one of those AIW cards with PVR functionality and tried to build a TiVo-killer box. Ignoring for the moment all the driver & SW issues I had to wrestle with, the TiVo still beats my PC solution hands down. Why? Because the program guide sucked. Sure, it would list programs, and even allow me to schedule recordings, but it just didn't have the advanced features (or even some basic features) needed to make it practical. I'm now in the market for a TiVo.
Very true. At my school, the only EE major was called Electrical Eng., and was mostly electronics-oriented. At other schools, IIRC, Electronic Engineering is the equivalent of what I took, and Electrical Eng. is for other stuff, like Power Distribution and basic analog circuits (ie. wiring!?).
Also, CS in my school was run by the engineering school, with a lot of overlap in courses; in many other schools, it's part of Arts&Crafts --err, Arts&Sciences, along with the usual liberal arts stuff. This is true even in schools with strong Engineering programs; apparently somebody early on decided that programming wasn't an engineering discipline, which is totally bogus IMHO.
The moral of the story is, there's no good way of comparing majors and/or schools other than actually looking at the details. All the different definitions being thrown out here are essentially meaningless, because they change with every school you go to.
And don't forget VA's 21 day rule: no new evidence can be considered after 21 days. If you're wrongly convicted, and new evidence which completely exonerates you shows up 22 days after your trial, too bad, you have to serve that life sentence away.
I just read about a case like this the other day, where the sole witness (w/ no other major evidence) recanted soon after trial --but not soon enough. Now his lawyers have to jump through hoops & use legal loop-holes to try to get a new trial.
This law is pure evil, plain & simple; it only punishes the wrongfully accused. Granted, it will never affect most of us, but that's no excuse.
Hmm, perhaps I misinterpretted the original comment. If you are talking about publicly accessible places, that's a whole other can of worms, although no less complicated.
It's more complicated than that; there's a big difference between allowing free speech and providing resources to support it. The local government has a right not to buy something to put in a public building, just as private individuals do in their homes. The complication comes in when public property is being loaned out or leased for essentially private use. If the city refuses to allow certain activities, is it public censorship, or just a property owner excercising its rights?
However the living primate species most genetically similar to humans isn't especially violent, but does enguage in a lot of sex.
So maybe "make love not war", scores more points under the "naturalness" criteria.
Ehh, it depends on which species you're talking about; both chimps and Binobos are contenders for that prize. Chimps are (almost?) as violent as we are (including tribal warfare), and only a little more promiscuous. Binobos are the "make love, not war" species; they have casual sex to settle almost any argument. All this really proves is that humans are a unique species (in the sense that all species are unique), and shouldn't be directly compared to other species as far as 'natural' behavior is concerned.
Not in video games. The arcade game industry generally won't touch sex with a 10ft pole (err, no pun intended). Remember, sex is only appealing after you've hit puberty, but violence is fun for all ages!
(BTW, I think the subject line was meant to be the game industry's apparent POV on the subject.)
This follows real human psychology; killing from a distance doesn't have the same emotional impact as killing face-to-face. I think the idea is to prevent traumatic images from warping kids' minds at an early age, not to teach them to be Perfect Peaceful People(TM). Young kids don't 'get' abstract ideas like a deathtoll anyway; by the time they're old enough to really understand what's being represented, they're old enough to be taught about consequences.
Good point on the primate 'war' thing. I think one of the reasons why humans are willing to fight to the death is that we are a social, 'tribal' species. In our natural state, we are usually part of a tight-knit extended family grouping (a tribe), with extensive genetic overlap within the group. Thus even if I'm killed, my relatives will pass on my genes. In this sense, the tribe becomes the organism; individuals are just unique appendages. Thus limited-scale warfare between tribes provides a similar function to limited, ritualized individual combat in other species.
R1 X-Men right here, no problems. Once I got the 'seamless branching' bug, but then I've had that happen on standalone DVD players as well. Since getting the remote (BTW only $20, not $30), I've had no such problems.
:) for long periods of time. Seems like it would wear out the mechanism eventually. Of course, I've heard claims that it's not safe to turn off a PS2 with a disc in it anyway (WTF!?); I've long since lost the manual, so I can't verify the claim.
I agree that the lack of power/eject buttons is a pain, but that seems to be an enduring 'feature' of the console paradigm. I mostly worry about letting it sit & spin (the disc, that is!
The point is, if the kids are young (or dumb) enough, the parents won't have buy a whole new set of games right away.
It's all about child psychology. If the kids have an old console with old games, they'll immediately lose all interest in that platform once they get the new one, and they'll demand all new games (maybe even ports or clones of the same old games) to play on the new toy.
If you have backwards compatibility, then the kids get the thrill of playing on their new toy, even when playing their old games. You still have to buy one or two popular games for the new platform, but at least that old catalog isn't completely wasted.
...And then they blow up Alderaan. (Sorry, your .sig was just too perfect...)
Do you really think Joe Sixpack has the strength of will to resist this, once the record cartel and the movie cartel unanimously decide to make everything DRM-OS encrypted? How long can Joe-Bob live without that next Shania Twain album? Or WWF Smackdown Volume #427 on DVD?
It's not the Windows monopoly that scares me, it's the state-supported (and enforced) absolute control of content by a handful of megacorps and their political wings / cartel front operations (the **AA groups).
Yep, after the SSSCA comes IIIIIIIIIII...CA, which mandates that all computer networks must protect Copyrighted material. The internet as we know it will be declared illegal. (Everybody sing along: "It's the end of the 'Net as we know it..." ;)
.Net?), it will be time to make MSN the king of the world! "...One .Net to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them..."
The only reason M$ isn't pushing this already is because of that pesky AOL/T/WB monstrosity, which might actually *gasp* _compete_ with them! Once M$ figures out how to 'innovate' AOL out of the way (maybe with
Only once they put XP on that machine. Theoretically it's no different from 'licensing' the OS software itself.
OTOH, I suppose this could be a loophole to get around licensing restrictions imposed on M$: "Well of course, we can't force you to pay for Windows software you don't actually install, but we can certainly add that clause to your patent license..."
It's more subtle than this. Sure you can install Mozilla, you just can't run it when a trusted app is running. At first it would just be a bother to use untrusted apps; then after a while M$ would start tightening the screws by integrating 'trusted' programs deeper and deeper into low-level stuff like drivers. Plus, chances are that most of the Corels and Lotii(??) of the world would be able to get a signature for their products (for the right price); it's the little guys writing open-source stuff that would get screwed.
But of course if the SSSCA passes, we'll all be legally required to pretend that he does have clothes...
Sounds like they're counting on havng the key imprinted into the CPU hardware; if the CPU never reveals its original key (only the per-session generated signatures), then the only way is to crack the encryption. If the key can't be overwritten (after it's programmed once), then you can't clone CPU codes either (unless you steal CPUs from the factory before imprinting).
Denon amp & Runco TV: The PC doesn't take the place of these; rather, it provides source material for them. (The best way to handle audio is to output the digital signal to your receiver or pre-amp, for decoding there.)
DVD player: For high resolution displays, the scaling capabilities inherent in the PC solution are superior to most standalone player + line doubler combinations. A $2k PC can and does produce better output than a $20k+ standalone configuration.
The lack of SACD & DVD-A support in PCs is unfortunate, and purely a limitation imposed by the powers that be (RIAA, etc.) who won't allow it to happen.
Yeah, but to hear the full range, you would have to turn up the audio until the least little sound was at 30dB or more (I'm simplifying a bit here). I don't think your neighbors would appreciate it when you hit the loud parts at this volume.
Good point; I highly recommend building your own PC if you're planning to use special features or hardware. That way you can pick and choose all the hardware that goes into it, and you won't get burned by cut corners or non-standard components. At the very least, consider buying from a generic clone-maker, instead of the usual Compaq/Dell/etc.
Alternately, you could spend the extra money and buy a pre-built solution for you specific needs. There are companies out there that make high-end PCs specifically for HomeTheater PC use. Just be careful who you choose to deal with.