My company is still stuck on IE6 for users of our financial system because it appears to totally break if you try and use it with anything other than IE6.
I don't ever touch that system, so I upgraded mine to IE8 and then proceeded to set FireFox with NoScript as my primary browser. I only use IE when a site I actually need for work refuses to work in FireFox or requires flash/shockwave which I have NOT installed on my FireFox (for my own sanity).
If I want to do personal browsing while at work, I plug my MacBook into the visitor network to protect both my employer and myself from any Interwebz baddiez.
I sincerely hope Amazon wins, but it seems to me that without some kind of federal-level intervention, more and more states are going to push to get online / mailorder merchants to collect their taxes.
Amazon's big enough that if push came to shove, they could probably implement a sales tax system based on delivery address that could cover all 50 states and the territories.
However, what really scares me is that this would be a death blow to a lot of smaller online and mail order retailers. I built a catalog and shopping cart system for a friend who had a business model that just didn't quite fit existing off the shelf models, and I have to say that I do not relish the idea of having to build in a system for 50+ different sets of taxes. However, that task is childs-play compared to the accounting nightmare my friend would have in having to fill out forms and remittances to all those different jurisdictions. She gets by, but doesn't exactly have a huge margin... the extra complication of collecting for all those jurisdictions and time/effort needed to deal with it could tip the scales on whether her business continues to be profitable or not.
So, this isn't really about one state being greedy - it's about the camel's nose under the tent.
Sooner or later, someone will suggest that the federal government charge some modest tax (say 5%) on all online / mailorder sales, then distribute the funds to the states based on their share of the delivered sales.
Of course, the federal government would probably not be able to resist getting THEIR hands on the money and we'd either end up with an insane rate with the federal government back-dooring a national sales tax in, or the states complaining that the rate needs to be higher since they're still "losing money" versus collecting their full state sales tax.
This is just an ugly situation all 'round.
Personally, I would think that the success of online retailers is at least partly due to the largely tax-free nature of sales transactions. I doubt we'd see sales taxes kill e-commerce, but I can see it hurting small e-tailers and having a bit of a downward pressure on sales as it'll be eating into the spending power of the buyers.
I used to sit there and think, "well, if I were a criminal, I'd do this, that and the other" (this that and the other being stuff like replacing updaters, faking out security software so it couldn't update, having multiple processes that "watchdogged" each other, yada yada). Nowadays, they're doing that shit and a whole lot more I never thought of.
Once your system is comprised, it's pretty much never a good idea to trust it until its been completely rebuilt from the ground up.
I'm currently in the middle of doing this for a friend. Whatever the heck he had was so dug in that I had him replace the hard drive, reinstall a fresh OS, patch up, reinstall apps from disk, and now I'm restoring his user data from the original drive (carefully with auto-run disabled) mounted from a USB enclosure.
Re:How to have Healthcare that a Republican would
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This is possibly the best Health Insurance Reform idea I've seen.
Too bad what we're going to get instead is a giant giveaway to the Insurance companies that the democrats will pat themselves on the back for getting sumthin done, and the right will get pat on the back by their insurance company funders.
Win-Win-Lose (left, right, the people in that order)
Anti-Piracy types, the studios, and the cinema chains have got to be feeling a big crunch from the recession. Why on Earth would I pay $10+ for a movie ticket and another $10 for (about $1.00 worth cost-wise) soda and popcorn to be forced to sit in some seat with horrible legroom and the inevitable kid kicking the back of it and chatty neighbors when I could just wait a few months for it to come out on dvd so I can buy it and watch it at home on my 61" TV with whatever drinks and snacks I want. Or, I could probably wait a month and see it on some premium or on-demand service.
Oh, it's 3D? crap, I don't have that equipment at home, guess I have to go see it in the theater afterall.
FEH!
It doesn't surprise me at all that the industry is phoning in the 3D aspect... it's just a tool to get you to go see it at premium rates.
Besides, I wear prescription glasses and it makes those goggle things not set so well with me anyway./get off my lawn!
Yes, China has a Billion people, but that doesn't scale the same way as a Billion US or European consumers would. There's HUGE cultural and economic gaps. This is why they're making all our cheap crap... they've got abysmal conditions for labor and can pay their workers a pittance. Sure, those conditions and that money is probably a BIG STEP UP over how many were living, but it does not equate into a billion people suddenly buying dishwashers, TVs, washers, driers, and other goods. Besides, even if it did, they're probably going to buy cheap Chinese-made crap anyway.
I had a point in here somewhere... Oh yeah: Someone once told me that when "they" declare a gold rush, be the one selling the shovels.
I think that there are a lot of clever people selling shovels (getting rich sending business to China or making money off businesses who think their futures are in China), and a lot of not-quite-as-clever folks mining for gold (looking to make fortunes by doing business in/with China).
Maybe Google is starting to add up the cost of doing business there and has realized that they were on the wrong end of that equation.
Google wins twice: 1) they stop spending money and taking (security and financial risk) on a losing proposition, and 2) they get a big public relations boost for standing on principles.
Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the Chinese people... I'm just saying (as the parent post said) China is nowhere near the business-paradise that many folks seem to think it is. There are different cultural, economic, and government forces at work than in the West, and anyone who thinks they can just waltz in there is falling victim to magical thinking:
1) Start doing business in / with China 2) ??? 3) PROFIT!
Hmm, I don't use Cox Communications myself (Comcast is the cable provider in my town), but a friend of mine the next town over has Cox, and my perception of them has always been that they're just as incompetent as Comcast... that things work okay when they work, but may the gods help you if you're having a problem (or more specifically, if there's a problem at the ISP that they don't think is their problem).
If what you're saying is true, then I'm starting to think that maybe there ~is~ a difference.
I'm a law-abiding citizen and technically have nothing to hide, but as has been shown by so many recent stories of RIAA/MPAA cases, it's EXPENSIVE to prove that you're innocent even when you truly are.
I agree that it's a gimmick, but I think you missed out on one aspect. It seems to me that one of the big driving forces behind "NOW IN THREE DEE" is that Hollywood sees it as a way to get people into the cinema.
After all, DVDs (and Blu-Ray I suppose) aren't going to bring you 3D without you having the stuff to view 3D at home. I keep hearing about all this 3D stuff coming out for Television, but I think we're a while off yet. Hell, there's a not-insignificant subset of the population that still has 4:3 standard def analog TVs out there even though the US has switched to Digital/HD.
I'm going to predict that this 3D stuff will continue to be hyped all to hell for some time to come.
On the point of the subject of the article, it strikes me that I'm much more interested in the political intrigue and complex storyline of the Dune universe than in "SAND WORMS NOW IN THREE DEE", or "NOW WITH MORE 'SPLOSIONS... IN THREE DEE" anyway.
So, yes, I'm with you... No plans here to see any 3D movie any time soon.
Users who give a damn about their fair use rights will stay well away from anything that even HINTS at the ability to make it UN-content.
What I'm eagerly awaiting is a complete sea-change in musicians/artists where they start realizing that the former barriers to entry no longer exist and go direct to self-publishing./now that we're agreed that we are living in the future, where is my flying car?
Seems to me that if we have all this vaccine, maybe they should be.... I dunno... using it?
As far as I can tell, even if this particular strain of H1N1 isn't taking over the world, getting the inoculation exposes your immune system to a variant that you probably don't have a lot of natural immunity to.
I didn't fall in for this whole "zomg, swine flu is gonna kill us all... PANIC!" mentality, but if I were offered the H1N1 vaccine right now (for free or for a reasonable cost), I'd still take it... Maybe it will help my immune system be a bit better prepared the next time an H1N1 type flu comes around.
Obviously, I'm not one of the folks who worries overly about whether vaccines are going to kill me.
Did you miss "Back to Earth"? They DID reboot it with the original actors (minus Holly), but it was only so-so. Made me sad, but certainly didn't keep me from buying it in Region 2 format to get it as early as possible.
In a nutshell, we've completely let the terrorists win.
A terrorist isn't specifically interested in killing the given 200 to 400 people on a plane or even the potential thousands of collateral victims. They're interested in scaring the shit out of millions of us and then sitting back while we do their work (terrorizing ourselves).
I'm not adverse to the act of flying, but I'll be damned if I'm going to subject myself to the insane security theater. If I can drive, take a bus, boat, or train or just do my business online, I will do so rather than put up with the hassle at this point.
That may be letting the bad guys win too. I dunno. I'm a lot more afraid of the very real danger that I'll be deprived of liberty/due process/several hours of my life by government and/or security people than I am of the very tiny one of being personally injured/killed by a terrorist attack./end rant
Okay, this will probably be taken as a point for the other side, BUT:
In my WoW guid, we have a few members under the age of 18. Mostly, they're the kids of "real" members and their participation is a matter of humoring them. However, we've got at least one kid (14 at present) who is really quite mature for his age. Specifically, he's got three end-game geared characters, and he's capable of being a very effective main tank on what is currently some of the most difficult content in Warcraft.
(translation, this 14 year old kid plays his characters as well as any adult member, and better than some).
We've also got a Ventrillo server (voice chat) to help us communicate during raids and to coordinate other guild activities (as well as being a social space)
So, although you may disagree about the merits of a kid's participation in WoW, I can tell you that I've actually heard our raid leader (A Canadian citizen and ironically, an eighth grade teacher) ask this young raider if he's done his homework before a raid. In some ways, the majority of us adults treat him as a little brother most of the time, and as an equal colleague when raiding.
Where does that leave our raid leader? What about our other Canadian members? How long before the US enacts the "me too" version of this law, potentially exposing us to criminal/civil liability just for letting this kid into our lives?
Anyway, in answer to that question, there are many legitimate and wholly innocent reasons. I know that I interact with this particular kind IN SPITE OF HIS AGE, not because of it.
If you're at all of the freak persuasion, then by all means, take the tube to Camden Town (Northern Line) and visit The Devonshire Arms on Kentish Town Road. Also, the Slimelight is absolutely a must-go. If you're not a goth/punk/freak, skip this paragraph worth of advice.
Here's some important things to remember:
The pubs close at 11:00pm and the tube closes not long after. If you're planning on staying out later (nightclub as opposed to pub) make sure you are either close enough that a cab won't cost you a fortune, or that you've got a clue which night bus to take. Being stranded at 4:30am at the tube station waiting for them to start running was a unique experience, but one that I could do without repeating. Especially the part where some dude tried to steal this passed out drunk guy's shoes... amusing and slightly terrifying all at the same time)
If you have a GSM phone, it will work over there, but roaming could be REALLY expensive. If your phone is unlocked, consider getting a prepaid sim card from Orange or somesuch and use that for a local number while you're there.
People have ragged on British food forever, but if you like curry, you'll be very happy.
Cornish Pasties (pronounced "Past-ees", not "paste-ees") are the best street food EVAR. (especially at the little cart at London Bridge Station)
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding for Sunday dinner is highly recommended.
Go to Meetup.com and find a group that shares your interest that's having a meeting early on in the time you're there - did me a world of good my first visit... Found an awesome '80s / goth / synthpop scene and made some good friends myself.
I didn't bother bringing a computer - I figured I wanted to spend time actually doing/experiencing the place rather than just diong the same thing I always do at home. Though I suppose it might make your research go more quickly.
Most important thing::
DO make sure you keep an emergency credit card and a copy of your passport somewhere safe and separate from your wallet/passport. That will help a LOT if you lose 'em in terms of getting replacements and so it doesn't ruin your trip. I lost my wallet while I was there - reported it to the police, but luckily I had a spare credit card for just such an emergency - and my passport was safely somewhere else at the time so I wasn't royally screwed. Either way, don't take anything you can't live without if its lost/stolen... property crime is kind of high in London.
Hmm if it's truly a cultural issue, then wouldn't it be a self-regulating feedback loop?
In other words, if you're that offended by the game diong something repugnant to your culture, you won't play... end of problem.
It seems to me that the whole bones thing may go against certain cultural norms, but that the government is the one who has a problem with it.
I honestly don't know enough about Chinese cultural norms to know if showing bones is equivelent (to the Chinese) as your hypothetical MMORPG would be to America.
I keep trying to think about this from an outsider's perspective, but I keep getting back to "dude, it's just bones. if it bothers me, I won't look, but it doesn't so where's the harm?". There are one or two substitutions for the word "bones" that you could add that would make it illegal in the US, and where most members of our culture would even agree that it should be a crime.
Cultural relativism is a damn minefield.
I'll just go back to LFM H ToC 25 now and be happy that my culture allows me to waste my evenings and weekends in this manner.
I have a Tivo and a Comcast DVR... both of which have their Jump Forward buttons enabled... Tivo usng the built in secret key sequence to activate, and Comcast via some tricky fiddling involving a Philips Pronto and a hex editor (and some good advice from remotecentral).
Point being that I have the skip forward and I use it a LOT, but I deliberately back up for every new Mac vs PC commercial (cuz they're funny) that I haven't seen before. I'll also occasionally skip backward and watch an ad that does catch my interest (most often video game or movie pitches) while paying virtually no attention to stuff I'm not interested in.
Like you, I don't need to see the same ad a zillion times, though to be fair, if they only ever played a given Mac vs PC ad (for example) once, I'd probably miss a lot of em as I've got to see something of interest during that half second between jumps or while I'm fumbl;ing for the remote to do the initial jump or when I'm trying to dig back to the end of the commercial break.
The DVR has changed my relationship with television. I watch what I want when I'm interested. Sometimes, that time shift is a month or more out of date... sometimes, the shift is 15 minutes... just long enough to let me watch a one-hour show in 45 minutes by skipping the ads.
I've actually bought/rented movies after seeing a TV preview. I've bought video games after having my interest piqued by a TV commercial. I've also bought a lot of TV series on DVD. For the most part, that's all any advertiser is ever going to get out of me regardless of how much they hawk their wares at me. In fact, there are some products whose commercials were so egregious that I deliberately avoided their product (Bubblicious Bubble gum, I'm looking at you... it was probably the late 1970's or early 1980's: I was young, but my total dislike of their dumb-ass commercial actually caused me to vow to never ever buy their product. I haven't, even to this very day)
Where was I going with this? oh yeah, basically, even as a DVR user and avid commercial skipper, the right ad for a product that I'm interested in will get to me. The rest of it will not work now, will not work later, and should an advertiser cross the line, will cause me to actively avoid their product. Either this is typical DVR user / consumer behavior (in which case, make your commercials entertaining and they'll be watched), or I'm some precious little snowflake and therefore statistically insignificant.
Yes, I know about the "slap chop" the "Snuggie", and that Andrew Lesco guy. Don't even get me STARTED on the Mister Shoutie himself, the (thankfully) late Billy Mayes (however you spell it). The advertisers ads ARE getting through... the DVR isn't stopping that. In my case, it's just that I don't want what they have to sell.
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My company is still stuck on IE6 for users of our financial system because it appears to totally break if you try and use it with anything other than IE6.
I don't ever touch that system, so I upgraded mine to IE8 and then proceeded to set FireFox with NoScript as my primary browser. I only use IE when a site I actually need for work refuses to work in FireFox or requires flash/shockwave which I have NOT installed on my FireFox (for my own sanity).
If I want to do personal browsing while at work, I plug my MacBook into the visitor network to protect both my employer and myself from any Interwebz baddiez.
Sadly you're probably very right... I always enjoy humor in the form of pseudocode as well.
Well played indeed sir.
I sincerely hope Amazon wins, but it seems to me that without some kind of federal-level intervention, more and more states are going to push to get online / mailorder merchants to collect their taxes.
Amazon's big enough that if push came to shove, they could probably implement a sales tax system based on delivery address that could cover all 50 states and the territories.
However, what really scares me is that this would be a death blow to a lot of smaller online and mail order retailers. I built a catalog and shopping cart system for a friend who had a business model that just didn't quite fit existing off the shelf models, and I have to say that I do not relish the idea of having to build in a system for 50+ different sets of taxes. However, that task is childs-play compared to the accounting nightmare my friend would have in having to fill out forms and remittances to all those different jurisdictions. She gets by, but doesn't exactly have a huge margin... the extra complication of collecting for all those jurisdictions and time/effort needed to deal with it could tip the scales on whether her business continues to be profitable or not.
So, this isn't really about one state being greedy - it's about the camel's nose under the tent.
Sooner or later, someone will suggest that the federal government charge some modest tax (say 5%) on all online / mailorder sales, then distribute the funds to the states based on their share of the delivered sales.
Of course, the federal government would probably not be able to resist getting THEIR hands on the money and we'd either end up with an insane rate with the federal government back-dooring a national sales tax in, or the states complaining that the rate needs to be higher since they're still "losing money" versus collecting their full state sales tax.
This is just an ugly situation all 'round.
Personally, I would think that the success of online retailers is at least partly due to the largely tax-free nature of sales transactions. I doubt we'd see sales taxes kill e-commerce, but I can see it hurting small e-tailers and having a bit of a downward pressure on sales as it'll be eating into the spending power of the buyers.
I used to sit there and think, "well, if I were a criminal, I'd do this, that and the other" (this that and the other being stuff like replacing updaters, faking out security software so it couldn't update, having multiple processes that "watchdogged" each other, yada yada). Nowadays, they're doing that shit and a whole lot more I never thought of.
Once your system is comprised, it's pretty much never a good idea to trust it until its been completely rebuilt from the ground up.
I'm currently in the middle of doing this for a friend. Whatever the heck he had was so dug in that I had him replace the hard drive, reinstall a fresh OS, patch up, reinstall apps from disk, and now I'm restoring his user data from the original drive (carefully with auto-run disabled) mounted from a USB enclosure.
Your newsletter: I wish to subscribe to it.
This is possibly the best Health Insurance Reform idea I've seen.
Too bad what we're going to get instead is a giant giveaway to the Insurance companies that the democrats will pat themselves on the back for getting sumthin done, and the right will get pat on the back by their insurance company funders.
Win-Win-Lose (left, right, the people in that order)
Anti-Piracy types, the studios, and the cinema chains have got to be feeling a big crunch from the recession. Why on Earth would I pay $10+ for a movie ticket and another $10 for (about $1.00 worth cost-wise) soda and popcorn to be forced to sit in some seat with horrible legroom and the inevitable kid kicking the back of it and chatty neighbors when I could just wait a few months for it to come out on dvd so I can buy it and watch it at home on my 61" TV with whatever drinks and snacks I want. Or, I could probably wait a month and see it on some premium or on-demand service.
Oh, it's 3D? crap, I don't have that equipment at home, guess I have to go see it in the theater afterall.
FEH!
It doesn't surprise me at all that the industry is phoning in the 3D aspect... it's just a tool to get you to go see it at premium rates.
Besides, I wear prescription glasses and it makes those goggle things not set so well with me anyway. /get off my lawn!
/THIS
I've thought along the same lines for some time.
Yes, China has a Billion people, but that doesn't scale the same way as a Billion US or European consumers would. There's HUGE cultural and economic gaps. This is why they're making all our cheap crap... they've got abysmal conditions for labor and can pay their workers a pittance. Sure, those conditions and that money is probably a BIG STEP UP over how many were living, but it does not equate into a billion people suddenly buying dishwashers, TVs, washers, driers, and other goods. Besides, even if it did, they're probably going to buy cheap Chinese-made crap anyway.
I had a point in here somewhere... Oh yeah: Someone once told me that when "they" declare a gold rush, be the one selling the shovels.
I think that there are a lot of clever people selling shovels (getting rich sending business to China or making money off businesses who think their futures are in China), and a lot of not-quite-as-clever folks mining for gold (looking to make fortunes by doing business in/with China).
Maybe Google is starting to add up the cost of doing business there and has realized that they were on the wrong end of that equation.
Google wins twice: 1) they stop spending money and taking (security and financial risk) on a losing proposition, and 2) they get a big public relations boost for standing on principles.
Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the Chinese people... I'm just saying (as the parent post said) China is nowhere near the business-paradise that many folks seem to think it is. There are different cultural, economic, and government forces at work than in the West, and anyone who thinks they can just waltz in there is falling victim to magical thinking:
1) Start doing business in / with China
2) ???
3) PROFIT!
Hmm, I don't use Cox Communications myself (Comcast is the cable provider in my town), but a friend of mine the next town over has Cox, and my perception of them has always been that they're just as incompetent as Comcast... that things work okay when they work, but may the gods help you if you're having a problem (or more specifically, if there's a problem at the ISP that they don't think is their problem).
If what you're saying is true, then I'm starting to think that maybe there ~is~ a difference.
I'm a law-abiding citizen and technically have nothing to hide, but as has been shown by so many recent stories of RIAA/MPAA cases, it's EXPENSIVE to prove that you're innocent even when you truly are.
What crazy times we live in.
We can't let them into the war room, they'll see the BIG BOARD!
I agree that it's a gimmick, but I think you missed out on one aspect. It seems to me that one of the big driving forces behind "NOW IN THREE DEE" is that Hollywood sees it as a way to get people into the cinema.
After all, DVDs (and Blu-Ray I suppose) aren't going to bring you 3D without you having the stuff to view 3D at home. I keep hearing about all this 3D stuff coming out for Television, but I think we're a while off yet. Hell, there's a not-insignificant subset of the population that still has 4:3 standard def analog TVs out there even though the US has switched to Digital/HD.
I'm going to predict that this 3D stuff will continue to be hyped all to hell for some time to come.
On the point of the subject of the article, it strikes me that I'm much more interested in the political intrigue and complex storyline of the Dune universe than in "SAND WORMS NOW IN THREE DEE", or "NOW WITH MORE 'SPLOSIONS ... IN THREE DEE" anyway.
So, yes, I'm with you... No plans here to see any 3D movie any time soon.
If I lived in Logan's Run world, I'd be dead ten years already, so I look at this as just bonus time.
Coffee, Coca-Cola and video games are my only bad habits, so I figure I'm actually a bit ahead of a lot of folks out there.
Am I crazy or does that sound like the job of a lifetime?
Makes me wish I were an Aussie.
Given the exchange rate I'm thinking it would be a slight pay-cut, but I'd go in a heartbeat for the chance to do something ((presonally)) meaningful.
One question? Is there a really good supply of STRONG coffee and/or coca-cola available?
Exactly what I was thinking.
Users who give a damn about their fair use rights will stay well away from anything that even HINTS at the ability to make it UN-content.
What I'm eagerly awaiting is a complete sea-change in musicians/artists where they start realizing that the former barriers to entry no longer exist and go direct to self-publishing. /now that we're agreed that we are living in the future, where is my flying car?
Seems to me that if we have all this vaccine, maybe they should be .... I dunno ... using it?
As far as I can tell, even if this particular strain of H1N1 isn't taking over the world, getting the inoculation exposes your immune system to a variant that you probably don't have a lot of natural immunity to.
I didn't fall in for this whole "zomg, swine flu is gonna kill us all... PANIC!" mentality, but if I were offered the H1N1 vaccine right now (for free or for a reasonable cost), I'd still take it... Maybe it will help my immune system be a bit better prepared the next time an H1N1 type flu comes around.
Obviously, I'm not one of the folks who worries overly about whether vaccines are going to kill me.
I am overwhelmed with the urge to say the following:
Amen, brother/sister as the case may be... Amen.
They may lose china, but in the eyes of many, "not being evil" is worth more.
Go Google, make me proud!
Did you miss "Back to Earth"? They DID reboot it with the original actors (minus Holly), but it was only so-so. Made me sad, but certainly didn't keep me from buying it in Region 2 format to get it as early as possible.
Came here to say this.
In a nutshell, we've completely let the terrorists win.
A terrorist isn't specifically interested in killing the given 200 to 400 people on a plane or even the potential thousands of collateral victims. They're interested in scaring the shit out of millions of us and then sitting back while we do their work (terrorizing ourselves).
I'm not adverse to the act of flying, but I'll be damned if I'm going to subject myself to the insane security theater. If I can drive, take a bus, boat, or train or just do my business online, I will do so rather than put up with the hassle at this point.
That may be letting the bad guys win too. I dunno. I'm a lot more afraid of the very real danger that I'll be deprived of liberty/due process/several hours of my life by government and/or security people than I am of the very tiny one of being personally injured/killed by a terrorist attack. /end rant
I came here to say THIS.
Gods, it scares me.
Okay, this will probably be taken as a point for the other side, BUT:
In my WoW guid, we have a few members under the age of 18. Mostly, they're the kids of "real" members and their participation is a matter of humoring them. However, we've got at least one kid (14 at present) who is really quite mature for his age. Specifically, he's got three end-game geared characters, and he's capable of being a very effective main tank on what is currently some of the most difficult content in Warcraft.
(translation, this 14 year old kid plays his characters as well as any adult member, and better than some).
We've also got a Ventrillo server (voice chat) to help us communicate during raids and to coordinate other guild activities (as well as being a social space)
So, although you may disagree about the merits of a kid's participation in WoW, I can tell you that I've actually heard our raid leader (A Canadian citizen and ironically, an eighth grade teacher) ask this young raider if he's done his homework before a raid. In some ways, the majority of us adults treat him as a little brother most of the time, and as an equal colleague when raiding.
Where does that leave our raid leader? What about our other Canadian members? How long before the US enacts the "me too" version of this law, potentially exposing us to criminal/civil liability just for letting this kid into our lives?
Anyway, in answer to that question, there are many legitimate and wholly innocent reasons. I know that I interact with this particular kind IN SPITE OF HIS AGE, not because of it.
I thought you only won WoW if you beat the Lich King in nothing but a loin cloth and an off-hand fish.
Who'd have thunk it?
If you're at all of the freak persuasion, then by all means, take the tube to Camden Town (Northern Line) and visit The Devonshire Arms on Kentish Town Road. Also, the Slimelight is absolutely a must-go. If you're not a goth/punk/freak, skip this paragraph worth of advice.
Here's some important things to remember:
The pubs close at 11:00pm and the tube closes not long after. If you're planning on staying out later (nightclub as opposed to pub) make sure you are either close enough that a cab won't cost you a fortune, or that you've got a clue which night bus to take. Being stranded at 4:30am at the tube station waiting for them to start running was a unique experience, but one that I could do without repeating. Especially the part where some dude tried to steal this passed out drunk guy's shoes... amusing and slightly terrifying all at the same time)
If you have a GSM phone, it will work over there, but roaming could be REALLY expensive. If your phone is unlocked, consider getting a prepaid sim card from Orange or somesuch and use that for a local number while you're there.
People have ragged on British food forever, but if you like curry, you'll be very happy.
Cornish Pasties (pronounced "Past-ees", not "paste-ees") are the best street food EVAR. (especially at the little cart at London Bridge Station)
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding for Sunday dinner is highly recommended.
Go to Meetup.com and find a group that shares your interest that's having a meeting early on in the time you're there - did me a world of good my first visit... Found an awesome '80s / goth / synthpop scene and made some good friends myself.
I didn't bother bringing a computer - I figured I wanted to spend time actually doing/experiencing the place rather than just diong the same thing I always do at home. Though I suppose it might make your research go more quickly.
Most important thing::
DO make sure you keep an emergency credit card and a copy of your passport somewhere safe and separate from your wallet/passport. That will help a LOT if you lose 'em in terms of getting replacements and so it doesn't ruin your trip. I lost my wallet while I was there - reported it to the police, but luckily I had a spare credit card for just such an emergency - and my passport was safely somewhere else at the time so I wasn't royally screwed. Either way, don't take anything you can't live without if its lost/stolen... property crime is kind of high in London.
If you owe the bank $10, you're their slave.
If you owe the bank $1,000,000,000, they're your slave.
That could apply to the China/US thing or that could apply to the MS / Pirates thing. /just sayin'
Hmm if it's truly a cultural issue, then wouldn't it be a self-regulating feedback loop?
In other words, if you're that offended by the game diong something repugnant to your culture, you won't play... end of problem.
It seems to me that the whole bones thing may go against certain cultural norms, but that the government is the one who has a problem with it.
I honestly don't know enough about Chinese cultural norms to know if showing bones is equivelent (to the Chinese) as your hypothetical MMORPG would be to America.
I keep trying to think about this from an outsider's perspective, but I keep getting back to "dude, it's just bones. if it bothers me, I won't look, but it doesn't so where's the harm?". There are one or two substitutions for the word "bones" that you could add that would make it illegal in the US, and where most members of our culture would even agree that it should be a crime.
Cultural relativism is a damn minefield.
I'll just go back to LFM H ToC 25 now and be happy that my culture allows me to waste my evenings and weekends in this manner.
Hear Hear!
I have a Tivo and a Comcast DVR... both of which have their Jump Forward buttons enabled... Tivo usng the built in secret key sequence to activate, and Comcast via some tricky fiddling involving a Philips Pronto and a hex editor (and some good advice from remotecentral).
Point being that I have the skip forward and I use it a LOT, but I deliberately back up for every new Mac vs PC commercial (cuz they're funny) that I haven't seen before. I'll also occasionally skip backward and watch an ad that does catch my interest (most often video game or movie pitches) while paying virtually no attention to stuff I'm not interested in.
Like you, I don't need to see the same ad a zillion times, though to be fair, if they only ever played a given Mac vs PC ad (for example) once, I'd probably miss a lot of em as I've got to see something of interest during that half second between jumps or while I'm fumbl;ing for the remote to do the initial jump or when I'm trying to dig back to the end of the commercial break.
The DVR has changed my relationship with television. I watch what I want when I'm interested. Sometimes, that time shift is a month or more out of date... sometimes, the shift is 15 minutes... just long enough to let me watch a one-hour show in 45 minutes by skipping the ads.
I've actually bought/rented movies after seeing a TV preview. I've bought video games after having my interest piqued by a TV commercial. I've also bought a lot of TV series on DVD. For the most part, that's all any advertiser is ever going to get out of me regardless of how much they hawk their wares at me. In fact, there are some products whose commercials were so egregious that I deliberately avoided their product (Bubblicious Bubble gum, I'm looking at you... it was probably the late 1970's or early 1980's: I was young, but my total dislike of their dumb-ass commercial actually caused me to vow to never ever buy their product. I haven't, even to this very day)
Where was I going with this? oh yeah, basically, even as a DVR user and avid commercial skipper, the right ad for a product that I'm interested in will get to me. The rest of it will not work now, will not work later, and should an advertiser cross the line, will cause me to actively avoid their product. Either this is typical DVR user / consumer behavior (in which case, make your commercials entertaining and they'll be watched), or I'm some precious little snowflake and therefore statistically insignificant.
Yes, I know about the "slap chop" the "Snuggie", and that Andrew Lesco guy. Don't even get me STARTED on the Mister Shoutie himself, the (thankfully) late Billy Mayes (however you spell it). The advertisers ads ARE getting through... the DVR isn't stopping that. In my case, it's just that I don't want what they have to sell.