I'm feeling that whole "trust in the system" thing.
It's ok. It's a fallicy that in this age is excusable--after all, nobody wants to be responsible for anything so we have insurance and judicial champions to assauge our sorrows and beat the snot out of the other guy, and since he lost he's responsible.
As for the "system" thing... Unfortunately anyone who has ever caught the attention of a policeman (I'm a white-boy eating lunch in a park in a predominantly hispanic/black neighborhood or I'm riding a bicycle with a bandanna on my head or I'm wearing mostly black clothes and walking home across a strip-mall parking-lot) knows exactly how troublesome and useless a security person can be. People have misconceptions, preconceptions, and people with power (police, judges) are often arbitrary with how and why they employ it. B.F. Skinner had a great deal of important things to say about systems and how they influence behavior.
Police and the system do not prevent crimes,they react to them. A system which catalogs people and manages movement control only controls the willing. It's possible for a single individual to carry out acts of horror and go unnoticed. A small group of justified individuals, even more so. And a organization of people infused with righteous determination and resources can undo hundreds of years of effort in a presidential term.
People who use the system to control other people justify their actions and the existence of the system in what is often a self-feeding, self-fulfilling prophecy. When you're "marked", you're no longer free. Once you're no longer free, you justify the system. "Sure it's not perfect but it's necessary" sucks.
Nothing can prevent crimes without removing (en-masse) the free will of people.
Nothing can prevent people from doing something which is going to kill, and maim.
Citizens should try to prevent people from being cataloged. I believe Nazi Germany in the early part of the twentieth century gave us a great example of how that power can be abused. By proxy we already have a "mark of the beast" through the SSN and a trail of records, womb to tomb, in order to feed the government.
As a people who value freedom U.S. citizens are strangely as willing as dray animals to be used in a variety of confusing and profitable ways. Maybe there's something to be said about homeschooling and turning that around. Is a good citizen someone who isn't necessarily "patriotic" as defined by the handlers in power? Maybe being patriotic or a good citizen means taking a longer, non-partisan, more suspicious view of mind and movement control.
Maybe I'm getting old and pissed off, but since I went to see "Return of the King" with the family I haven't bothered stepping foot into a movie theatre.
There's nothing which will draw me back there of my own free will. To be considered a criminal, to sit in a theatre seat and be watched in order to protect someone's interest over watching a movie. A movie. A movie isn't so precious that I have to be a criminal to watch it.
I'll wait for the DVD and enjoy it in private. Since I play computer games and program all the damn time, it's not as if I'm starved for something to do.
I'd pay good money to sit in a theatre and see a thousand miles of film knotted up and ran through the guts and butts of a hundred lawyers and MPAA executives for all the excretions of their efforts. It's the least they could do to atone for the suffering and comminseration they're putting people through. It would be a bonus if the lovely ladies of "Women of Sodom" would officiate the show. (Cue the "priceless" commercial spot)
Hey! Isn't this "slashdot"? Doesn't _anyone_ here play videogames? Just record all the K.K. Songs from Animal Crossing, and shuffle their order. Not only would the customers be completely tripped out, they couldn't be offended by the music or the lyrics, and they'd certainly know when it ended.
citizen-criminals have no right to anonymity in the eyes of the law
all citizen-criminals in the United States are already assumed guility unless they're really police or government employees working for any of the three-letter criminal services.
it's vital for citizen-criminals to identify themselves and submit to any degredation deemed fitting by police--anything less would put the citizen-criminal on a greater or equal footing with the officer and that's just not right,right?
citizen-criminals are never too young to enter the criminal-justice system--and with an ever lowering barrier to entry it won't be long before the privitization of the criminal-justice system (notably the prisons) begins generating serious revenue for domestic and international interests
it's all about money in the end, everyone loses to the system and in a system with no apparent winners there will be those who will gather to eventually destroy it the gamble taken by the 10% controlling the show is that they get a good return on their investment before everything is sacked or the hope that they're lucky enough to control whatever is left
Fibrous vegtables are a rough and tough substitute for a blowfish or other toy. There's a company which makes some interesting standalone body-part analogs which may not be as cheap or disposable as an eggplant, however they will reduce the time and artistry necessary to produce the desired results. Depending on the ripeness of the vegtable and how you want to doll it up (add some plastic toy eyes, some candy lips around the large hole you'll need to make, hot-glue a wig on the thing or just get all "Grace Jones" with it--or go completely reto and use some "Mrs. Potato Head" parts) it could be an interesting time. As with many things in life, we're truly self-limiting.
Vegetables are more suitable for penetration play, and only the foolish or bravest and most capable will ever attempt anything like that with an eggplant...unless they're stupid and greedy and possibly drunk. At which point they'll probably do about anything (I would like to call into evidence the "MTV-Spring Break" and "Girls Gone Wild" video series).
And don't forget to wash vegtables before playing with them. They're covered in stuff (pesticides, dirt, manure,etc..etc...) that can cause serious problems long after the moment.
As always take care of your tools. And don't forget to Kegel, it's good for a boy and a girl.
Actually, he doesn't stand to risk any damnage to his hands, but could incurr adhesion of the foreskin to the glans which can happen when there's enough wear-n-tear caused by friction with the hands. Of course a "professional" is going to use lube, which will lower the risk of this happening. Also recommended is the use of "both hands" or a "blowfish", which will produce a different set of conditions and alleviate the pressure across the frenum caused by an enthusiastic grip and high speed movements. And for those with the inclination, the use of large-mouthed beverage containers shouldn't be overlooked, however restrain such activities to just plastic containers because you can't cut-through or break the others if things are too binding. Just remember to use your best judgement with your own tools. Cheers.
Forgive me fellow reader, but it wasn't the time-slot that killed "Dark Angel". It was the purile scripts and what appeared to be a sea-change in the writing. When they made Jessica Alba a walking plauge-bearer and brought in the circus performers to play various hybrid-human failed experiments, and after they brought her character back to life they had super-balled several times over the shark-pool. In the end, the show was about as relevant and interesting as wet toilet paper. That's what killed it.
I agree with you on many points. However, I would still hold that the Chinese are performing a dilligent service to their citizenry by seeking greater accountability of their networks.
In the United States, where we like a perception of freedom, overt control of our Internet Access would be highly unpopular, so all the control is hidden behind corporate facades and supoenas and 4am visits by local and federal authorities.
In an Cybercafe, a virus, or an emailer will be quickly noticed because there's not much bandwidth and things are being monitored.
At RoadRunner cable, spambots live and breed across Win9x/XP systems and nobody notices for weeks or even months.
If I thought cars were a good idea I'd have applauded your example of a privilege-technology like cars. However, I commute by bicycle over 3500 miles a year, and I think there's a brain-mass/body weight ratio princicple (conservation of intelligence?) which governs how smart people are behind the wheel. Intuitively, the fatality rate of automobile use seems to confirm this. Without cars/trucks we probably wouldn't be able to feed ourselves (too many people, too long too expensive to transport processed food).
I think the Internet has a greater potential than the car to enable people to communicate, but that just means you can really bone yourself but good in a highly regulated environment where your activity is not anonymous. As long as there are people there will be people who tell them what they can and cannot do.
Technology is a ratchet. In China they loosen and tighten it whenever they see fit, and people can still hear the mechanism around the world.
In the United States, legislators pass laws like the DMCA and the Patriot act, and we have to check "The Daily Show" to hear a playback of the ratchet, and that's in our backyard. Scary.
I work with the "Internet" daily, and we're still living on the frontier of what the Internet will eventually be like. The Internet is not ready for business. Companies that do business on the Internet are victimized all the time. Merchants suffer beneath the lash of the "Charge-back".
The "Internet" isn't freedom. It's a crappy global network.
In an environment where information can get you hurt, using the Internet is like leaning over a vat of mild acid to see yourself.
I'm not sure I was aiming for an apologetic, just trying to put myself in the shoes of my Chinese contemporaries who may have access but realize their every move is being tracked.
In twenty years we'll all be swiping ID's and submiting to remote audits for DRM/Media content. If we're not, we'll be taxed for Internet usage and bulk-copying media at even higher levels than we hear being proposed. Smarter people than me have seen the writing on the wall and have already suggested ID cards and other ways of accounting for online activity. Most of them do not live under fascist or Communist governments.
Will this stop smart people around the world from having a good time? Nope.
There will always be those who will laugh and honeypot audits, relay through sophisticated port redirectors and encryption to use other people's ID's, and laugh at what the common user will suffer through.
I don't get it. We're talking about the same kind of micro-gravity PR happy-joy stuff we were doing with the CCCP, not ICBM's. ICBM's are easy compared to a sustained orbital prescense.
Measurements, tolerances, and docking protocol == Lost Angeles, USA gets nuked sometime in the future?
You're not a WWII/Korean Conflict veteran are you? I know several people from that era, and sometimes the social impact of such important events will echo into the present. Sometimes those echoes are a bit less thought out but I can understand the concern.
We don't face a military threat from China, we face an economic threat in the form of a trade deficit. There's a chance that the prices at Walmart will go up, and people won't be able to buy toys, some clothes, or Entertainment hardware for the low-low prices they are now. Something like OPEC necking down oil production. That's it.
The Chinese have had ICBM capability and have sold weapons packages for decades. We're in greater danger from briefcase nukes being sold in Turkey/any-stan/North Korea to terrorists (any flavor will do--just bandy about the virgins and a place in heaven with _diety_) who drive it in from Canada to any-town USA than we'll ever have to worry about from China.
I think we stand a greater threat of being left out of a bigger picture when they bootstrap their own technologies. They got to where they are now without NASA, and they'll leapfrog our "Oh no! It's too dangerous." Nancy-boy baby-steps approach to Space. The most important thing to remember here is that China produces parts for military hardware and systems which are used by every military power around the world. Nobody can underbid China for mass-production.
Hey, you forgot to mention our new patriotic slogan,
"Shut up and buy something!"
Of course when citizenry protest these days they're treated to the very best Pepper Spray, Pain Beams, and persecution possible (yes, there is a permanent record after all). Mind and movement control is getting faster and easier all the time thanks to the "womb-to-tomb" cataloging of pretty much everything you do. Wondering what you wrote in your 10th grade journal? Ask Pinkerton to profile you. For a nomial fee they will handily let you know. Now that's progress. Right?
You're not the only one who feels like we're at the shit end of "Liberty and Freedom" street. If you have kids and a home forget about doing anything out of line, it's all up for grabs unless you happen to also be rich enough to buy your way out of trouble. In that case, you're free to pay whatever fees indulgences go for these days. As long as someone is making money, anything is possible. This rule applies to all human endeavor wherever freedoms are bought and sold.
"Why is it a good thing to cut down trees just so you can put your hands on what you are reading?"
Because Paper is a technology that lasts without power, and without our current infrastructure. Digital information is deceptively easy to lose and depending on how it was packaged and by whom and for what reason, it may no longer be possible to access it.
Digital is nice. But there are some things which may never become digital. It's important to understand both legacy and contemporary information systems.
I didn't have computers when I was in school, but now that people do have computers, it's so easy to plagarize others that instructors now have to routinely check students' work for it. Cut and paste makes things pretty easy. I remember using a typewriter. It's not a pleasant memory.
There may exist the perception that digital works are good enough, but when things go to crap and there are few amenities, having a hard-copy is priceless.
We live in such a fragile information environment that we easily take it for granted, come to rely upon it, and forget that in rural areas Libraries and dead-tree books are still priceless. I guess I'm just an old fart that doesn't like PDF's/HTML. I've read hundreds of books, but I have serious problems trying to read electronic books. The last time I tried it, I could feel the "bit and bridle" of DRM and "only on the machine you downloaded it on". Screw that. E-books were a failure because there is a place for analog media.
Depending on your degree and how accomplished you were when you attened school it's not unreasonable to applaud you for accomplishing this. You are the exception. However, I don't remember any HVAC students not visting the stacks, or physics majors, or psychology majors getting out of using the library. And as I type this, I have two foot-high stacks of books on my desk and three other stacks on another desk nearby for everything from C++, Java, Servlets, Webservers, Email servers, etc..etc... My books are my tools. PDF's don't work for me much. YMMV.
BREVITOUS SUMMARY: Yes, you're right. CD/DVD ROMS are better now than they were four years ago, and cheaper, and ubiquitous. I paid about $120 for a DVD/VHS player a while back, and it hasn't given me any problems, but then I've only used it about 25 times. We don't play DVD's like we do video games. If you have kids, there's no comparison between what they do and what an adult will do. If the unit can fail, it will.
LONG WINDED VERBOSE/SHARING MODE: My gripe is that I would dearly love to be able to get a new CD/DVD unit and slot it like I do a PC, instead of shipping my system off to have it tinkered with and then getting it back with other issues which didn't exist before the servicing. Each servicing event has produced secondary problems. The first time I sent it out, I got it back and it wasn't rendering graphics properly (Baludr's Gate Dark Alliance, Inventory screen looks like splining and pathing wasn't masking correctly) and had to send it back shortly after getting it from the service center. This last time, I lost vibration on my controllers and wasn't able to get it back in time for the warranty.
What I'm trying to point out is that even though the DVD rom is crap, two visits to the shop didn't see it replaced. Replacing that DVD unit is pretty intense, only a few modular connectors and at least one desoldering/resoldering job. They probably just cleaned the unit, tested it and threw it back in a box for me.
I'm defending a position that a complex design will fail faster. And sharing some experiences I've endured as a Playstation2 owner. Experiences which have devalued the Playstation2 game unit for me, and hopefully in sharing will give other Playstation2 owners some insight. For me, I'll never pay retail again for a Playstation2. In a game system you shouldn't use a complex design that's a show-stopper. That's all I'm saying.
When I first had problems with the unit I turned it on it's side. That worked for about a week. There are other problems inherent in the early releases of the Playstation2's DVD unit. There were lens discoloration issues, reactions to chemical solvents used in lens cleaning kits, and a mechanical issue involving the media sensor and tracking speed sensors. Sony used a DVD drive which was featured in some of their component DVD player units (Standalone DVD players). These units also suffered many of the same problems (media sensing, playback issues). I don't have model numbers handy, but I'd say any top-end Sony DVD player from 1998 to 2000 featured the same DVD ROM.
I learned about these issues while I was trying to find a fix. I hate being "cap in hand" for _anything_. I don't like being at the mercy of some company. I'm sure I'm not alone on that point, at least here on Slashdot.
Seriously, the research that "kids" need to do should be in learning how to use a library. Go ask your local k12 student to find something in the library without a computer. Try not laughing as their eyes glaze over. Ask them to explain the Dewy Decimal system. Clueless little buggers have to be re-educated when they get to college on so many things it's no wonder the average 4 year degree takes five or even six years to complete now.
Need an electronic searchable resource? Ship it on a DVD. It's faster and they can still learn how to use a computer to search that resource.
Kids don't need to be online. Kids don't need computers. Everyone seems to excited about giving kids a computer in the hopes they'll teach themselves.
Pedofiles and sneaky buggers love having an endless stream of virgins and fools to play with. Since AOL, Instant (Molestation) Messaging has been the bane of fools from all walks of life. They should call it "Instant Phishing" because the chum bait their own hooks.
Our freedoms are not what China needs. Our freedoms aren't freedoms, they're "privledges", and we pay dearly for them. Online activity is monitored and every ISP in the country is ready and willing to lift their skirts for every court order rubbed lovingly against their cheek.
The Chinese need our gutbomb burgers and corn-syrup everything like they need unlimited Internet access for their people.
How many people here have had their kids fingered as hoodlums and criminals because they browsed the wrong folder/computer at school? Isn't that where our kids are supposed to learn? It's easier now to jail kids than ever before. In the United States children are being criminalized all the time.
Imagine living in a country where looking at websites not sanctioned by the government is a crime. Imagine someone running a port redirector on your system and filling up logs at the great firewall with spam and illicit requests to servers around the world. Now imagine going to jail and making plastic toys for McDonalds because of this, while your family has to do without you.
I think many people here are ignorant of the reality of living in a world where you can be jailed for doing something online that doesn't hurt anyone, but still makes you an enemy of the state.
Are you an owner of a Playstation2? And if so, how long and which model? (I'll eventually get another one, just wondering if they fixed things)
Less than a year after getting it, every time the CD/DVD drawer opened and closed it has made noises that startle the cats. Creaking, clicking, clacking on eject, and the same on return. Getting it serviced and complaining about said noises and even making notes to the techs didn't make a difference. It plays media, but it's horrid sounding. Oddly enough the Playstation1 I have, and the GameCube are DEVOID of these noises.
I don't think it's an issue of pleasing people, it's a bad design for a game console. Acutally, it's a horrid design for something which you can't fix yourself. With the Playstation1 and the 'Cube I can visually inspect the device, and the clamshell mechanism is butt-simple. Of course there are those who like to fill an entertainment center with devices which are stackable. In that case, the Playstation2 should have been a standard form-factor, like a Laserdisk player, or a 1U server. I could see the need for a front-loading unit then.
It rock to be able to load your Playstation2 (or any console for that matter) with (four to twenty?) discs and be able to switch between them with only a warm-start? Oh yeah! With the footprint of a Laserdisc player it would be the right size to accomodate a media caddy capable of shuffling between games. It certainly would be a better option than getting a mod-chip and blowing them onto a hard drive.
I cringe when my evil offspring take a disc from the wallet and fumble in into the machine...argh! I have to resurface a game at least once a year because the Playstation2 dics are too big for them to handle correctly. Nintendo got it right with the 'Cube...sadly the trade-off in limited capacity means some games don't get all the goodies (SSX-Tricky for the Cube doesn't have all the bonus goodies).
Moving parts on a console system are an invitation for failure. The fan, the CD/DVD unit are the two things which kill the Playstation2.
China tries to limit the number of foolish people online.
Sounds good to me.
The way I see it, if you limit Internet use then people will treat it like a preminum, which is what traditional computer usage was, a preminum to be used wisely.
We should enjoy the "relative" freedom we have now, because the more people who are educated by the FBI and other 3-letter agencies in the United States and around the world, the more people should try to understand the situations (pirate activity,script kiddiots,infrastructure hacks,etc...) the Chinese are trying to prevent in the first place. Just like every other country out there, the Chinese have their share of "get rich quick" fools who want to reach out and touch other people's wallets or email accounts.
If our lords and masters didn't find our Internet activites amusing and enlightening the experiment would stop. The Internet can be put back in the box.
Education in this context is appropriate. Proactive schooling is better than criminalizing people after the fact. (Ignorance of the law cannot be used as a defense against the law, right?)
When someone who may not necessarily be as (adept,technically cool,well-dressed) as you offers to incorporate your designs on (code,hardware) into their systems you don't dismiss them. You look at the situation as a moment upon which to build standards and some kind of relationship. WTF? Is NASA some kind of High-School cheerleader that's afraid to be seen with the Chinese kid?
If I was running anything at NASA I'd welcome them, offer specs, and request an inspection of any hardware prior to send-off for docking in order to ensure compliance. The only other requirement I'd stipulate would be a technician to assist the Taikonaut's CAPCOM with any issues that may arise during a docking. It would rock to have a Chinese visit to the "INTERNATIONAL" freakin' space station.
They can't believe that NASA would snub them. Everyone with a brain should be wondering too. Did someone at NASA blink and have a phantasm about helplessly watching the Chinese storm the ISS? Good Grief!
Where's the change in the "Culutre" of NASA which would allow them to remove their collective heads from their collective arse?
I know "existence preceeds essense", why can't NASA understand?
Because the right heads haven't been lopped off...the NASAhole brigade is still firmly in place, and I imagine Bush Jr. probably laughed when he heard this, hell, he was probably listening on the other line and laughing. Bush Sr. will probably sucker-punch his boy sometime in the near future for this.
"As long as ur not supporting xbox I have no problem with what you said. I have always liked nintendo but own a PS2 and a couple bad ass pcs. If you want a real video game machine, forget a fucking console, get a nice computer. But I do support Nintendo and Sony in their crusade against Microshit." --NIN1385
Actually, I have a fair gaming lan/home network which supports Doom2/Heretic/Q1/Q2/DungeonSiege/Diablo/Diablo2/Ba ldur's Gate/Starcraft/Warcraft/SCBroodwar/Descent Freespace/Homeworld/etc... but I refuse to buy newer computers because I don't see the sense of having new computers when the OS offered on them is still a kludge and a DRM nightmare. The kids screw up the PC's as it is, I'd rather they not mess with them and I have a byzantine labyrith of roadblocks which ensure that I'm the only person who gets online while restriciting access to all but a couple machines.
I've had console gaming systems since they were available for the market, they have a purpose, like a calculator.
What makes me upset is that the Xbox is going to gut PC gaming and nobody seems to see the writing on the wall (or they see it, but choose to ignore it). Our world works according to a "conservation" principle. Effort, energy, force, momentumn...it's all conserved. In the flimsy case I'm making here, game developers are going to conserve their efforts by developing more titles for the Xbox because the development cycle is much tighter for the "console" market than the general purpose computing market (where there are many different platforms/specs). Sure, we'll see a best-seller game like "Halo" make an appearance for both, but this is a case of "Write for Xbox, run w/o problems on Xbox everywhere" which is going to bite the PC market/PC gamer in the butt. XBox also gives developers a lot of control.
And something that needs to be mentioned is the XBox hardware mods. If I was a game developer/distributor I'd be shitting razorblades over the rental of XBox games right now. Anyone remember the late 1980's, when you could rent games/software for the Amiga? I do. How many people made copies of that software? About anyone who had a brain and an Amiga. Now, people are able to chip their XBox consoles, rent games, write them to a HUGE HD they install, and never bother touching a game CD again. The hardware mod people are smart, and you can switch the chip off, but no equivalent of this exists for the Playstation because Sony is smart that way and foolish for market uptake. Microsoft is smart when it comes to appealing to the market. They don't mind making a product which can be easily manipulated to the benefit of the customer because they know it's not only about people liking their platform, it's about people accepting their platform over others because it can be pirated. The same held for every consumer version of Windows until XP, including the productivity apps. They know what appeals to kids/early adopters. As long as they make paltry efforts at securing their platform nobody can really fault them. If I was a developer for the XBox, I'd probably agree with them until the next version of the console shows up. After that, there would be enough traction to sustain the platform through name alone. That's part of the Marketing game. Few play it better than Microsoft, and there's a possible argument between what is better, fostering consumer-level bait in the goal of securing market place, or fostering a developer security model? I think Microsoft is playing their "Adoption through piracy" game in the console market, and the consumer will play up to them. In another five years, it'll be all tightened up as soon as Microsoft wins the console war...and if history is any indicator we're going to see it all play out again. Sony and Nintendo should be worried. I know I am.
Playstation2 isn't worth $200 any more. I like the system, but over time I've experienced life with a planned-obsolecense hardware model which is intentionally made to keep owners touching base with the company. Am I paranoid, sure a little, but when you clean the dust out of your game console (a fan is a dust magnet)and suddenly the DVD/CD-ROM doesn't work any more and nothing will correct it you end up paying $75 and getting it "serviced".
Anyone else have this experience? I think there's legions of "Serviced" Playstation2 owners who have been 0wn3d by that crappy DVD/CD-Rom drive but nobody is publishing numbers.
I think the GameCube has much greater value, even though the controller is crap (SSX3--the "Y" button is a nightmare), the hardware is better and the software is worth the $$$. I wish someone would develop a Playstation2 style controller for the Gamecube. That would be a money-maker. Think I'll go check Lik-Sang.
I've rented and beaten 90% of the games I've played on the Playstation2, other than that I have a meager library of PS1 titles and used Playstation2 games. I have only two games I've ever purchased for the Playstation2 at "new" price levels.
My console has been in the shop twice (once every 18 mo.) and when it came back last time the controllers no longer recieve a "vibration" signal, so there's something wrong inside of it. Didn't find this out until I was out of warranty again. This recently influenced my purchase of SSX3 for the 'Cube instead of my Playstion2. My inability to purchase a "single" multi-tap and play both PS1 and Playstation2 games was another sour note. Nothing like being gouged. Customers don't appreciate $40 purchases for hardware which shouldn't be seperate. The ability to play 4 player games without being boned also influenced my purchase of "Double-Dash"...I would have rather played "Crash Team Racing" for the Playstation1 on my Playstation2--what happened to CTR for the Playstation2 is an abomination and I feel for anyone that purchased "Nitro-Cart".
Before I pay $200 or more for another game console it's going to be more than just a DRM device, it had better talk across the 'net without requiring a bolt-on card, use a memory card bigger than 8mb (what a freakin' joke!!! Nyko makes a 64mb memory card for the 'Cube!!!), have some kind of secondary storage (memory stick or HD), do PVR duties, and use a DVD/CD-ROM which is top-loading (THIS CANNOT BE STRESSED ENOUGH!) like the Playstation1 or the 'Cube, or be something which can be easily swapped out for something that works. The DVD/CD-Rom for the Playstation2 is a showstopper--it sucks sucks sucks.
If Sony can fix these issues, I'll be interested. If they can't, screw-em. I'll wait several years and buy one for $50. And The X-Box isn't an option. Why? I refuse to do business with a blatantly criminal, "Daddy Warbucks", development-house buying company. They have a warchest of billion$, other people can feed the monopoly monster.
You're asking for a list of the dangers for Genetically Modified/Transgenic foods?
I wish it were that simple. I'll check back here to see if some enterprising person finds such an animal, but my first thought is "Not no, but hell no."
Any well funded, independent lab worthy of such a study will cost $$$$.
Such a lab will be "liable", so if their findings can be used to hurt the business interests of a large agriculture corp. an army of lawyers will descend upon them with such fervor that collapsars will psuedo-color green with envy. Not a peep will reach the press.
Any findings will be buried under a forced agreement, or the study will be purchased in leiu of legal fees and NDA's will smother everything.
Here's something that I'm aware of, as a layman. Complex products have a miscibility. The more complicated and artificial they are, the more sublte and chronic the effects are bound to be. Long term interactions are not always apparent, and unlike testing software, testing vegware/meatware can be a horrifying process. Imagine if you eat some kind of transgenic food, grown or processed, which interacts with something made by another company...and say it only happens in people who have a peanut allergy. If the consumer is lucky, it will just give them a headache, a histamine reaction, or the runs. What if it happens in people with an "egg" allergies? Or how about people who get headaches from synthetic perfumes? Something we should be asking ourselves might be, "What percentage of the population are developing food allergies per year?".
With animals, the possibilities are interesting too, however, when y ou're dealing with animal protiens, things like a prion-cascade become possible. Compromise of our cellular systems wouldn't be a direct result of any one single product, but the miscibility between products and intake combinations over a long period of time could lead to changes with nightmarish outcomes.
I think it's chilling that laws are being passed which further abstract food-sources from the consumers. Without requirements for GM labeling, origination, or clearly explaining the sources of additives (LAKE food coloring for example), the market is creating a vector for anything.
Imagine what will be the marketplace norms when radio and television are cluttered with wonderful "fluff" commercials with people walking in the park, waving at other happy-joy people while music graces the idyllic scene and a voice over goes, "Ask your grocer for brocolli-G27..." and in some kind of Anne Heche moment the voice launches into a rumble of "contraindicated's", and "procscribed for...", and "consumers under 12 yrs shouldn't 's" legalese filled with clinician-speak and easily search for terms.
I'm not looking forward to that world. But until it arrives I'm happily waiting for thousands to die sometime before then, so all the crap laws can be repealed and the pigopolists properly heeled. It's sad, but that's exactly what's going to happen. Not today, maybe not even in this decade, but it will happen. Greed always wins over logic in the first round.
Hell YEAH! I think they're just scared shitless of giving Larry Niven any credit/money/etc..etc...and the same could go for anyone else who invested in the open ideals of Sci-Fi borrowing, like Christopher Rowley, and David Brin.
How hard would it be to have some huge "Rama" scale artifact detected going through one of the "Trek" solar systems on long-range scanners, a razed war artifact, and then have them detect a ship of unknown design persuing it? In a race they manage to reach the artifact and find a slaver device (cloak,excavator,statis field) and then have to figure out the slaver device in order to get out alive...in the meanwhile they could have to endure a somewhat homicidal alliance with a surviving Kzin in order to fend off the Vang-infested remnanats of the crew which are taken over (Christopher Rowley). Damn that would rock!! The Kzin make the Klingons look like intellectuals (at least until the Ringworld Series was started, and by then at least three conflicts had taken place with 'Nivens humans, resulting in 2/3rds of the Kzin species being wiped out each time...so that by the time of Ringworld we have a tolerant Kzin, like 'Speaker to Animals').
Now that would be one helluva movie. And the best part, it could be a "fork" in the franchise. We could even get a little "Chanur's Pride" (C.J.C.) thing going, where the survivors simply cease to exist as the artifact plunges into a star/collapsar while the Kzin ship tears ass back to some homeworld and we have a whole new saga which humanity/kzin waging war against the Vang and an unseen influence of uplift hinted at in the background. So by the time Ringworld rolls around there's no continuity break, the Kzin are more sociable, and some motile nervous system is thwarted in it's reach for dominion over all life.
Yep, I figure with copyright laws and licensing issues, it might be made in time for my great, great, great grandchildren to enjoy.
We live in a time when it's really easy to be a criminal. Check out this nifty law: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/02911.ht m
Think of this as a big stick. This is a reactionary "blanket" law which is often used by k12 institutions or any civil instituion in order to eliminate problems. All schools in Arizona have to adopt this kind of regulation in order to obtain funding.
Read the tennets of this reg. and think of all the times it could have been applied to you during your k12 internment. Schools exist to not only socialize and educate, they also serve as a vector for the criminal profit system.
I would expect any user who has violated the schools' computer usage contract to be hit with this reg because the disruption of IT activity is clearly a disruption of the school...not to mention all the suits and firearms, search and possible seizure of equipment. ARS 13-2911 is at least a class 6 felony. Yes, the number of k12 felons is growing all the time because there is a definite intolerance for human behavior in civil institutions in this country. It's now proper to chemically control our kids instead of making things meaningful or interesting. We don't motivate, we mandate, and if that fails then it's easier to criminalize a child than actually motivate them. This as the inevitable breakdown of a school system/institution which has produced ever weaker generations of educators. Our education system has fed upon itself in a folly of making everyone happy and over-the-top political correctness, and in the end, has no choice but to become just another vector for the criminal industry.
If you have kids, you should view public schools as your last resort. Therin lies mediocrity and the sufferage of disenfranchised tools.
When a government adopts a "no child left behind" policy, they're just using doublespeak for "And no child shall escape our rough hands and sweet nothings whispered in their ear" as institutional violence is visited upon them. How many of our greatest thinkers have come from public schools(factory worker socialization camps)? Maybe someone could pitch us a few.
The I/O protocol is optimized for imprinting and physical learning and those neurons are on FIRE! The wetware is busy learning all the social protocols. We may have the equipment to use them, but how and when they are used is a function of the imprinting and socialization.
Babies are learning verbal and non-verbal communication, perception of space, audible cues...and their learning how to control their parents. That's a lot of work and a woefully short list. Find a behavioral psychology text by McConell which will make for a much better explaination. You'll probably be able to find something on Amazon used.
McConnel was the guy who make the RNA-Memory discovery. He's just another dead hero.
As a species, we're not big enough to understand time. We mark it, we plot seasons, and we slice it up and pare it out. We understand a relationship between time and resources because our species climbed to sentience with that understanding.
We are incapable of understanding ourselves.
Our species is literally incapable of understanding itself. This isn't an accident, it's a joke biology plays at the insistence of the genes to prevent the organism from interferring with the need to make better code. Even though we have the undestanding of what genes are there's an endless list of things we're not supposed to do because some divine bogey-man is going to jump out of the closet and bitch-slap us. Ha. Hahah. Riiight. If detonating atomic weapons didn't bring the ass-whipping we'd had coming since the Romans invented the Catholic Church nothing is.
We understand very little about gravity which is a seemingly tangible concept that doesn't need to clip its toenails or do the dishes. It's there all the time and we're clueless.
Gravity is often described as a distortion of space and time.
It could be said that the complete ignorance of the most lethal species on the planet creates very real distortions in space and time.
Often, we hear things from people who steep themselves in white-boarded rooms thick with the odor of Dry-Erase markers and stale sweat/breath/ass-dreads and coffee that within an 11, or 15 dimensional universe everything makes sense. This could be the fumes talking for the person.
In much the same way as all the poets before them, the authors of "knowledge for masses" books don't come out and proclaim, "There's the answer you seek. Right there. With that kernel of information you can move worlds."
Their dance is the mastrubatory romp of students and scientists and the audience is either expected to descreetly turn away or get the lotion and bring their own towel.
Your 3 month old daughter is vastly more intelligent than any hardware humanity has made. The problem is the percieved lack of intelligence due to limited physical capacity. Just wait a few more weeks and that intelligence will be rolling/crawling around and pulling itself up on furniture. After that, you will experience a form of sentience that makes anything like the juvenile musings of Clive Barker and Stephen King laughable.
Humanity fears biology because it's messy in ways you can't escape...and it's intelligent.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm feeling that whole "trust in the system" thing.
It's ok. It's a fallicy that in this age is excusable--after all, nobody wants to be responsible for anything so we have insurance and judicial champions to assauge our sorrows and beat the snot out of the other guy, and since he lost he's responsible.
As for the "system" thing...
Unfortunately anyone who has ever caught the attention of a policeman
(I'm a white-boy eating lunch in a park in a predominantly hispanic/black neighborhood or I'm riding a bicycle with a bandanna on my head or I'm wearing mostly black clothes and walking home across a strip-mall parking-lot) knows exactly how troublesome and useless a security person can be. People have misconceptions, preconceptions, and people with power (police, judges) are often arbitrary with how and why they employ it. B.F. Skinner had a great deal of important things to say about systems and how they influence behavior.
Police and the system do not prevent crimes,they react to them.
A system which catalogs people and manages movement control only controls the willing. It's possible for a single individual to carry out acts of horror and go unnoticed. A small group of justified individuals, even more so. And a organization of people infused with righteous determination and resources can undo hundreds of years of effort in a presidential term.
People who use the system to control other people justify their actions and the existence of the system in what is often a self-feeding, self-fulfilling prophecy. When you're "marked", you're no longer free. Once you're no longer free, you justify the system. "Sure it's not perfect but it's necessary" sucks.
Nothing can prevent crimes without removing (en-masse) the free will of people.
Nothing can prevent people from doing something which is going to kill, and maim.
Citizens should try to prevent people from being cataloged. I believe Nazi Germany in the early part of the twentieth century gave us a great example of how that power can be abused. By proxy we already have a "mark of the beast" through the SSN and a trail of records, womb to tomb, in order to feed the government.
As a people who value freedom U.S. citizens are strangely as willing as dray animals to be used in a variety of confusing and profitable ways. Maybe there's something to be said about homeschooling and turning that around. Is a good citizen someone who isn't necessarily "patriotic" as defined by the handlers in power? Maybe being patriotic or a good citizen means taking a longer, non-partisan, more suspicious view of mind and movement control.
Maybe I'm getting old and pissed off, but since I went to see "Return of the King" with the family I haven't bothered stepping foot into a movie theatre.
There's nothing which will draw me back there of my own free will. To be considered a criminal, to sit in a theatre seat and be watched in order to protect someone's interest over watching a movie.
A movie.
A movie isn't so precious that I have to be a criminal to watch it.
I'll wait for the DVD and enjoy it in private.
Since I play computer games and program all the damn time, it's not as if I'm starved for something to do.
I'd pay good money to sit in a theatre and see a thousand miles of film knotted up and ran through the guts and butts of a hundred lawyers and MPAA executives for all the excretions of their efforts. It's the least they could do to atone for the suffering and comminseration they're putting people through.
It would be a bonus if the lovely ladies of "Women of Sodom" would officiate the show.
(Cue the "priceless" commercial spot)
Hey! Isn't this "slashdot"?
Doesn't _anyone_ here play videogames?
Just record all the K.K. Songs from Animal Crossing, and shuffle their order.
Not only would the customers be completely tripped out, they couldn't be offended by the music or the lyrics, and they'd certainly know when it ended.
citizen-criminals have no right to anonymity in the eyes of the law
all citizen-criminals in the United States are already assumed guility unless they're really police or government employees working for any of the three-letter criminal services.
it's vital for citizen-criminals to identify themselves and submit to any degredation deemed fitting by police--anything less would put the citizen-criminal on a greater or equal footing with the officer and that's just not right,right?
citizen-criminals are never too young to enter the criminal-justice system--and with an ever lowering barrier to entry it won't be long before the privitization of the criminal-justice system (notably the prisons) begins generating serious revenue for domestic and international interests
it's all about money
in the end, everyone loses to the system
and in a system with no apparent winners there will
be those who will gather to eventually destroy it
the gamble taken by the 10% controlling the show is that they
get a good return on their investment before everything is sacked
or the hope that they're lucky enough to control whatever is left
"How about eggplants?"
Fibrous vegtables are a rough and tough substitute for a blowfish or other toy. There's a company which makes some interesting standalone body-part analogs which may not be as cheap or disposable as an eggplant, however they will reduce the time and artistry necessary to produce the desired results. Depending on the ripeness of the vegtable and how you want to doll it up (add some plastic toy eyes, some candy lips around the large hole you'll need to make, hot-glue a wig on the thing or just get all "Grace Jones" with it--or go completely reto and use some "Mrs. Potato Head" parts) it could be an interesting time. As with many things in life, we're truly self-limiting.
Vegetables are more suitable for penetration play, and only the foolish or bravest and most capable will ever attempt anything like that with an eggplant...unless they're stupid and greedy and possibly drunk. At which point they'll probably do about anything (I would like to call into evidence the "MTV-Spring Break" and "Girls Gone Wild" video series).
And don't forget to wash vegtables before playing with them. They're covered in stuff (pesticides, dirt, manure,etc..etc...) that can cause serious problems long after the moment.
As always take care of your tools.
And don't forget to Kegel, it's good for a boy and a girl.
Actually, he doesn't stand to risk any damnage to his hands, but could incurr adhesion of the foreskin to the glans which can happen when there's enough wear-n-tear caused by friction with the hands. Of course a "professional" is going to use lube, which will lower the risk of this happening. Also recommended is the use of "both hands" or a "blowfish", which will produce a different set of conditions and alleviate the pressure across the frenum caused by an enthusiastic grip and high speed movements.
And for those with the inclination, the use of large-mouthed beverage containers shouldn't be overlooked, however restrain such activities to just plastic containers because you can't cut-through or break the others if things are too binding. Just remember to use your best judgement with your own tools.
Cheers.
Forgive me fellow reader, but it wasn't the time-slot that killed "Dark Angel". It was the purile scripts and what appeared to be a sea-change in the writing. When they made Jessica Alba a walking plauge-bearer and brought in the circus performers to play various hybrid-human failed experiments, and after they brought her character back to life they had super-balled several times over the shark-pool. In the end, the show was about as relevant and interesting as wet toilet paper.
That's what killed it.
I agree with you on many points. However, I would still hold that the Chinese are performing a dilligent service to their citizenry by seeking greater accountability of their networks.
In the United States, where we like a perception of freedom, overt control of our Internet Access would be highly unpopular, so all the control is hidden behind corporate facades and supoenas and 4am visits by local and federal authorities.
In an Cybercafe, a virus, or an emailer will be quickly noticed because there's not much bandwidth and things are being monitored.
At RoadRunner cable, spambots live and breed across Win9x/XP systems and nobody notices for weeks or even months.
If I thought cars were a good idea I'd have applauded your example of a privilege-technology like cars. However, I commute by bicycle over 3500 miles a year, and I think there's a brain-mass/body weight ratio princicple (conservation of intelligence?) which governs how smart people are behind the wheel. Intuitively, the fatality rate of automobile use seems to confirm this. Without cars/trucks we probably wouldn't be able to feed ourselves (too many people, too long too expensive to transport processed food).
I think the Internet has a greater potential than the car to enable people to communicate, but that just means you can really bone yourself but good in a highly regulated environment where your activity is not anonymous. As long as there are people there will be people who tell them what they can and cannot do.
Technology is a ratchet. In China they loosen and tighten it whenever they see fit, and people can still hear the mechanism around the world.
In the United States, legislators pass laws like the DMCA and the Patriot act, and we have to check "The Daily Show" to hear a playback of the ratchet, and that's in our backyard. Scary.
Cheers.
I work with the "Internet" daily, and we're still living on the frontier of what the Internet will eventually be like. The Internet is not ready for business. Companies that do business on the Internet are victimized all the time. Merchants suffer beneath the lash of the "Charge-back". The "Internet" isn't freedom. It's a crappy global network. In an environment where information can get you hurt, using the Internet is like leaning over a vat of mild acid to see yourself. I'm not sure I was aiming for an apologetic, just trying to put myself in the shoes of my Chinese contemporaries who may have access but realize their every move is being tracked. In twenty years we'll all be swiping ID's and submiting to remote audits for DRM/Media content. If we're not, we'll be taxed for Internet usage and bulk-copying media at even higher levels than we hear being proposed. Smarter people than me have seen the writing on the wall and have already suggested ID cards and other ways of accounting for online activity. Most of them do not live under fascist or Communist governments. Will this stop smart people around the world from having a good time? Nope. There will always be those who will laugh and honeypot audits, relay through sophisticated port redirectors and encryption to use other people's ID's, and laugh at what the common user will suffer through.
I don't get it. We're talking about the same kind of micro-gravity PR happy-joy stuff we were doing with the CCCP, not ICBM's. ICBM's are easy compared to a sustained orbital prescense.
Measurements, tolerances, and docking protocol == Lost Angeles, USA gets nuked sometime in the future?
You're not a WWII/Korean Conflict veteran are you? I know several people from that era, and sometimes the social impact of such important events will echo into the present. Sometimes those echoes are a bit less thought out but I can understand the concern.
We don't face a military threat from China, we face an economic threat in the form of a trade deficit. There's a chance that the prices at Walmart will go up, and people won't be able to buy toys, some clothes, or Entertainment hardware for the low-low prices they are now. Something like OPEC necking down oil production. That's it.
The Chinese have had ICBM capability and have sold weapons packages for decades. We're in greater danger from briefcase nukes being sold in Turkey/any-stan/North Korea to terrorists (any flavor will do--just bandy about the virgins and a place in heaven with _diety_) who drive it in from Canada to any-town USA than we'll ever have to worry about from China.
I think we stand a greater threat of being left out of a bigger picture when they bootstrap their own technologies. They got to where they are now without NASA, and they'll leapfrog our "Oh no! It's too dangerous." Nancy-boy baby-steps approach to Space. The most important thing to remember here is that China produces parts for military hardware and systems which are used by every military power around the world. Nobody can underbid China for mass-production.
Hey, you forgot to mention our new patriotic slogan,
"Shut up and buy something!"
Of course when citizenry protest these days they're treated to the very best Pepper Spray, Pain Beams, and persecution possible (yes, there is a permanent record after all).
Mind and movement control is getting faster and easier all the time thanks to the "womb-to-tomb" cataloging of pretty much everything you do. Wondering what you wrote in your 10th grade journal? Ask Pinkerton to profile you. For a nomial fee they will handily let you know. Now that's progress. Right?
You're not the only one who feels like we're at the shit end of "Liberty and Freedom" street. If you have kids and a home forget about doing anything out of line, it's all up for grabs unless you happen to also be rich enough to buy your way out of trouble. In that case, you're free to pay whatever fees indulgences go for these days. As long as someone is making money, anything is possible. This rule applies to all human endeavor wherever freedoms are bought and sold.
Being free requires a fee.
"Why is it a good thing to cut down trees just so you can put your hands on what you are reading?"
Because Paper is a technology that lasts without power, and without our current infrastructure. Digital information is deceptively easy to lose and depending on how it was packaged and by whom and for what reason, it may no longer be possible to access it.
Digital is nice. But there are some things which may never become digital. It's important to understand both legacy and contemporary information systems.
I didn't have computers when I was in school, but now that people do have computers, it's so easy to plagarize others that instructors now have to routinely check students' work for it. Cut and paste makes things pretty easy.
I remember using a typewriter. It's not a pleasant memory.
There may exist the perception that digital works are good enough, but when things go to crap and there are few amenities, having a hard-copy is priceless.
We live in such a fragile information environment that we easily take it for granted, come to rely upon it, and forget that in rural areas Libraries and dead-tree books are still priceless. I guess I'm just an old fart that doesn't like PDF's/HTML. I've read hundreds of books, but I have serious problems trying to read electronic books. The last time I tried it, I could feel the "bit and bridle" of DRM and "only on the machine you downloaded it on". Screw that. E-books were a failure because there is a place for analog media.
Depending on your degree and how accomplished you were when you attened school it's not unreasonable to applaud you for accomplishing this. You are the exception. However, I don't remember any HVAC students not visting the stacks, or physics majors, or psychology majors getting out of using the library. And as I type this, I have two foot-high stacks of books on my desk and three other stacks on another desk nearby for everything from C++, Java, Servlets, Webservers, Email servers, etc..etc...
My books are my tools. PDF's don't work for me much. YMMV.
BREVITOUS SUMMARY:
Yes, you're right. CD/DVD ROMS are better now than they were four years ago, and cheaper, and ubiquitous. I paid about $120 for a DVD/VHS player a while back, and it hasn't given me any problems, but then I've only used it about 25 times. We don't play DVD's like we do video games. If you have kids, there's no comparison between what they do and what an adult will do. If the unit can fail, it will.
LONG WINDED VERBOSE/SHARING MODE:
My gripe is that I would dearly love to be able to get a new CD/DVD unit and slot it like I do a PC, instead of shipping my system off to have it tinkered with and then getting it back with other issues which didn't exist before the servicing. Each servicing event has produced secondary problems. The first time I sent it out, I got it back and it wasn't rendering graphics properly (Baludr's Gate Dark Alliance, Inventory screen looks like splining and pathing wasn't masking correctly) and had to send it back shortly after getting it from the service center. This last time, I lost vibration on my controllers and wasn't able to get it back in time for the warranty.
What I'm trying to point out is that even though the DVD rom is crap, two visits to the shop didn't see it replaced. Replacing that DVD unit is pretty intense, only a few modular connectors and at least one desoldering/resoldering job. They probably just cleaned the unit, tested it and threw it back in a box for me.
I'm defending a position that a complex design will fail faster. And sharing some experiences I've endured as a Playstation2 owner. Experiences which have devalued the Playstation2 game unit for me, and hopefully in sharing will give other Playstation2 owners some insight. For me, I'll never pay retail again for a Playstation2.
In a game system you shouldn't use a complex design that's a show-stopper.
That's all I'm saying.
When I first had problems with the unit I turned it on it's side. That worked for about a week. There are other problems inherent in the early releases of the Playstation2's DVD unit. There were lens discoloration issues, reactions to chemical solvents used in lens cleaning kits, and a mechanical issue involving the media sensor and tracking speed sensors. Sony used a DVD drive which was featured in some of their component DVD player units (Standalone DVD players). These units also suffered many of the same problems (media sensing, playback issues). I don't have model numbers handy, but I'd say any top-end Sony DVD player from 1998 to 2000 featured the same DVD ROM.
I learned about these issues while I was trying to find a fix. I hate being "cap in hand" for _anything_. I don't like being at the mercy of some company. I'm sure I'm not alone on that point, at least here on Slashdot.
I'm not a troll. I'm not anonymous either.
Seriously, the research that "kids" need to do should be in learning how to use a library. Go ask your local k12 student to find something in the library without a computer. Try not laughing as their eyes glaze over. Ask them to explain the Dewy Decimal system. Clueless little buggers have to be re-educated when they get to college on so many things it's no wonder the average 4 year degree takes five or even six years to complete now.
Need an electronic searchable resource? Ship it on a DVD. It's faster and they can still learn how to use a computer to search that resource.
Kids don't need to be online. Kids don't need computers. Everyone seems to excited about giving kids a computer in the hopes they'll teach themselves.
Pedofiles and sneaky buggers love having an endless stream of virgins and fools to play with. Since AOL, Instant (Molestation) Messaging has been the bane of fools from all walks of life. They should call it "Instant Phishing" because the chum bait their own hooks.
Our freedoms are not what China needs. Our freedoms aren't freedoms, they're "privledges", and we pay dearly for them. Online activity is monitored and every ISP in the country is ready and willing to lift their skirts for every court order rubbed lovingly against their cheek.
The Chinese need our gutbomb burgers and corn-syrup everything like they need unlimited Internet access for their people.
How many people here have had their kids fingered as hoodlums and criminals because they browsed the wrong folder/computer at school? Isn't that where our kids are supposed to learn?
It's easier now to jail kids than ever before. In the United States children are being criminalized all the time.
Imagine living in a country where looking at websites not sanctioned by the government is a crime. Imagine someone running a port redirector on your system and filling up logs at the great firewall with spam and illicit requests to servers around the world. Now imagine going to jail and making plastic toys for McDonalds because of this, while your family has to do without you.
I think many people here are ignorant of the reality of living in a world where you can be jailed for doing something online that doesn't hurt anyone, but still makes you an enemy of the state.
Are you an owner of a Playstation2? And if so, how long and which model? (I'll eventually get another one, just wondering if they fixed things)
Less than a year after getting it, every time the CD/DVD drawer opened and closed it has made noises that startle the cats. Creaking, clicking, clacking on eject, and the same on return. Getting it serviced and complaining about said noises and even making notes to the techs didn't make a difference. It plays media, but it's horrid sounding. Oddly enough the Playstation1 I have, and the GameCube are DEVOID of these noises.
I don't think it's an issue of pleasing people, it's a bad design for a game console. Acutally, it's a horrid design for something which you can't fix yourself. With the Playstation1 and the 'Cube I can visually inspect the device, and the clamshell mechanism is butt-simple. Of course there are those who like to fill an entertainment center with devices which are stackable. In that case, the Playstation2 should have been a standard form-factor, like a Laserdisk player, or a 1U server. I could see the need for a front-loading unit then.
It rock to be able to load your Playstation2 (or any console for that matter) with (four to twenty?) discs and be able to switch between them with only a warm-start? Oh yeah! With the footprint of a Laserdisc player it would be the right size to accomodate a media caddy capable of shuffling between games. It certainly would be a better option than getting a mod-chip and blowing them onto a hard drive.
I cringe when my evil offspring take a disc from the wallet and fumble in into the machine...argh! I have to resurface a game at least once a year because the Playstation2 dics are too big for them to handle correctly. Nintendo got it right with the 'Cube...sadly the trade-off in limited capacity means some games don't get all the goodies (SSX-Tricky for the Cube doesn't have all the bonus goodies).
Moving parts on a console system are an invitation for failure. The fan, the CD/DVD unit are the two things which kill the Playstation2.
I don't let my foolish kids online.
China tries to limit the number of foolish people online.
Sounds good to me.
The way I see it, if you limit Internet use then people will treat it like a preminum, which is what traditional computer usage was, a preminum to be used wisely.
We should enjoy the "relative" freedom we have now, because the more people who are educated by the FBI and other 3-letter agencies in the United States and around the world, the more people should try to understand the situations (pirate activity,script kiddiots,infrastructure hacks,etc...) the Chinese are trying to prevent in the first place. Just like every other country out there, the Chinese have their share of "get rich quick" fools who want to reach out and touch other people's wallets or email accounts.
If our lords and masters didn't find our Internet activites amusing and enlightening the experiment would stop. The Internet can be put back in the box.
Education in this context is appropriate.
Proactive schooling is better than criminalizing people after the fact.
(Ignorance of the law cannot be used as a defense against the law, right?)
When someone who may not necessarily be as (adept,technically cool,well-dressed) as you offers to incorporate your designs on (code,hardware) into their systems you don't dismiss them. You look at the situation as a moment upon which to build standards and some kind of relationship. WTF? Is NASA some kind of High-School cheerleader that's afraid to be seen with the Chinese kid?
If I was running anything at NASA I'd welcome them, offer specs, and request an inspection of any hardware prior to send-off for docking in order to ensure compliance. The only other requirement I'd stipulate would be a technician to assist the Taikonaut's CAPCOM with any issues that may arise during a docking. It would rock to have a Chinese visit to the "INTERNATIONAL" freakin' space station.
They can't believe that NASA would snub them.
Everyone with a brain should be wondering too.
Did someone at NASA blink and have a phantasm about helplessly watching the Chinese storm the ISS? Good Grief!
Where's the change in the "Culutre" of NASA which would allow them to remove their collective heads from their collective arse?
I know "existence preceeds essense", why can't NASA understand?
Because the right heads haven't been lopped off...the NASAhole brigade is still firmly in place, and I imagine Bush Jr. probably laughed when he heard this, hell, he was probably listening on the other line and laughing. Bush Sr. will probably sucker-punch his boy sometime in the near future for this.
"As long as ur not supporting xbox I have no problem with what you said. I have always liked nintendo but own a PS2 and a couple bad ass pcs. If you want a real video game machine, forget a fucking console, get a nice computer. But I do support Nintendo and Sony in their crusade against Microshit." --NIN1385
a ldur's Gate/Starcraft/Warcraft/SCBroodwar/Descent Freespace/Homeworld/etc... but I refuse to buy newer computers because I don't see the sense of having new computers when the OS offered on them is still a kludge and a DRM nightmare. The kids screw up the PC's as it is, I'd rather they not mess with them and I have a byzantine labyrith of roadblocks which ensure that I'm the only person who gets online while restriciting access to all but a couple machines.
Actually, I have a fair gaming lan/home network which supports Doom2/Heretic/Q1/Q2/DungeonSiege/Diablo/Diablo2/B
I've had console gaming systems since they were available for the market, they have a purpose, like a calculator.
What makes me upset is that the Xbox is going to gut PC gaming and nobody seems to see the writing on the wall (or they see it, but choose to ignore it). Our world works according to a "conservation" principle. Effort, energy, force, momentumn...it's all conserved.
In the flimsy case I'm making here, game developers are going to conserve their efforts by developing more titles for the Xbox because the development cycle is much tighter for the "console" market than the general purpose computing market (where there are many different platforms/specs). Sure, we'll see a best-seller game like "Halo" make an appearance for both, but this is a case of "Write for Xbox, run w/o problems on Xbox everywhere" which is going to bite the PC market/PC gamer in the butt. XBox also gives developers a lot of control.
And something that needs to be mentioned is the XBox hardware mods.
If I was a game developer/distributor I'd be shitting razorblades over the rental of XBox games right now.
Anyone remember the late 1980's, when you could rent games/software for the Amiga? I do.
How many people made copies of that software? About anyone who had a brain and an Amiga.
Now, people are able to chip their XBox consoles, rent games, write them to a HUGE HD they install, and never bother touching a game CD again.
The hardware mod people are smart, and you can switch the chip off, but no equivalent of this exists for the Playstation because Sony is smart that way and foolish for market uptake.
Microsoft is smart when it comes to appealing to the market. They don't mind making a product which can be easily manipulated to the benefit of the customer because they know it's not only about people liking their platform, it's about people accepting their platform over others because it can be pirated. The same held for every consumer version of Windows until XP, including the productivity apps. They know what appeals to kids/early adopters. As long as they make paltry efforts at securing their platform nobody can really fault them.
If I was a developer for the XBox, I'd probably agree with them until the next version of the console shows up. After that, there would be enough traction to sustain the platform through name alone.
That's part of the Marketing game. Few play it better than Microsoft, and there's a possible argument between what is better, fostering consumer-level bait in the goal of securing market place, or fostering a developer security model? I think Microsoft is playing their "Adoption through piracy" game in the console market, and the consumer will play up to them. In another five years, it'll be all tightened up as soon as Microsoft wins the console war...and if history is any indicator we're going to see it all play out again. Sony and Nintendo should be worried. I know I am.
Playstation2 isn't worth $200 any more. I like the system, but over time I've experienced life with a planned-obsolecense hardware model which is intentionally made to keep owners touching base with the company. Am I paranoid, sure a little, but when you clean the dust out of your game console (a fan is a dust magnet)and suddenly the DVD/CD-ROM doesn't work any more and nothing will correct it you end up paying $75 and getting it "serviced".
Anyone else have this experience? I think there's legions of "Serviced" Playstation2 owners who have been 0wn3d by that crappy DVD/CD-Rom drive but nobody is publishing numbers.
I think the GameCube has much greater value, even though the controller is crap (SSX3--the "Y" button is a nightmare), the hardware is better and the software is worth the $$$. I wish someone would develop a Playstation2 style controller for the Gamecube. That would be a money-maker. Think I'll go check Lik-Sang.
I've rented and beaten 90% of the games I've played on the Playstation2, other than that I have a meager library of PS1 titles and used Playstation2 games. I have only two games I've ever purchased for the Playstation2 at "new" price levels.
My console has been in the shop twice (once every 18 mo.) and when it came back last time the controllers no longer recieve a "vibration" signal, so there's something wrong inside of it. Didn't find this out until I was out of warranty again. This recently influenced my purchase of SSX3 for the 'Cube instead of my Playstion2. My inability to purchase a "single" multi-tap and play both PS1 and Playstation2 games was another sour note. Nothing like being gouged. Customers don't appreciate $40 purchases for hardware which shouldn't be seperate. The ability to play 4 player games without being boned also influenced my purchase of "Double-Dash"...I would have rather played "Crash Team Racing" for the Playstation1 on my Playstation2--what happened to CTR for the Playstation2 is an abomination and I feel for anyone that purchased "Nitro-Cart".
Before I pay $200 or more for another game console it's going to be more than just a DRM device, it had better talk across the 'net without requiring a bolt-on card, use a memory card bigger than 8mb (what a freakin' joke!!! Nyko makes a 64mb memory card for the 'Cube!!!), have some kind of secondary storage (memory stick or HD), do PVR duties, and use a DVD/CD-ROM which is top-loading (THIS CANNOT BE STRESSED ENOUGH!) like the Playstation1 or the 'Cube, or be something which can be easily swapped out for something that works. The DVD/CD-Rom for the Playstation2 is a showstopper--it sucks sucks sucks.
If Sony can fix these issues, I'll be interested.
If they can't, screw-em. I'll wait several years and buy one for $50.
And The X-Box isn't an option.
Why? I refuse to do business with a blatantly criminal, "Daddy Warbucks", development-house buying company.
They have a warchest of billion$, other people can feed the monopoly monster.
You're asking for a list of the dangers for Genetically Modified/Transgenic foods?
I wish it were that simple. I'll check back here to see if some enterprising person finds such an animal, but my first thought is "Not no, but hell no."
Any well funded, independent lab worthy of such a study will cost $$$$.
Such a lab will be "liable", so if their findings can be used to hurt the business interests of a large agriculture corp. an army of lawyers will descend upon them with such fervor that collapsars will psuedo-color green with envy. Not a peep will reach the press.
Any findings will be buried under a forced agreement, or the study will be purchased in leiu of legal fees and NDA's will smother everything.
Here's something that I'm aware of, as a layman.
Complex products have a miscibility. The more complicated and artificial they are, the more sublte and chronic the effects are bound to be.
Long term interactions are not always apparent, and unlike testing software, testing vegware/meatware can be a horrifying process. Imagine if you eat some kind of transgenic food, grown or processed, which interacts with something made by another company...and say it only happens in people who have a peanut allergy. If the consumer is lucky, it will just give them a headache, a histamine reaction, or the runs. What if it happens in people with an "egg" allergies? Or how about people who get headaches from synthetic perfumes? Something we should be asking ourselves might be, "What percentage of the population are developing food allergies per year?".
With animals, the possibilities are interesting too, however, when y ou're dealing with animal protiens, things like a prion-cascade become possible. Compromise of our cellular systems wouldn't be a direct result of any one single product, but the miscibility between products and intake combinations over a long period of time could lead to changes with nightmarish outcomes.
I think it's chilling that laws are being passed which further abstract food-sources from the consumers. Without requirements for GM labeling, origination, or clearly explaining the sources of additives (LAKE food coloring for example), the market is creating a vector for anything.
Imagine what will be the marketplace norms when radio and television are cluttered with wonderful "fluff" commercials with people walking in the park, waving at other happy-joy people while music graces the idyllic scene and a voice over goes,
"Ask your grocer for brocolli-G27..." and in some kind of Anne Heche moment the voice launches into a rumble of "contraindicated's", and "procscribed for...", and "consumers under 12 yrs shouldn't 's" legalese filled with clinician-speak and easily search for terms.
I'm not looking forward to that world. But until it arrives I'm happily waiting for thousands to die sometime before then, so all the crap laws can be repealed and the pigopolists properly heeled. It's sad, but that's exactly what's going to happen. Not today, maybe not even in this decade, but it will happen. Greed always wins over logic in the first round.
Hell YEAH!
I think they're just scared shitless of giving Larry Niven any credit/money/etc..etc...and the same could go for anyone else who invested in the open ideals of Sci-Fi borrowing, like Christopher Rowley, and David Brin.
How hard would it be to have some huge "Rama" scale artifact detected going through one of the "Trek" solar systems on long-range scanners, a razed war artifact, and then have them detect a ship of unknown design persuing it? In a race they manage to reach the artifact and find a slaver device (cloak,excavator,statis field) and then have to figure out the slaver device in order to get out alive...in the meanwhile they could have to endure a somewhat homicidal alliance with a surviving Kzin in order to fend off the Vang-infested remnanats of the crew which are taken over (Christopher Rowley). Damn that would rock!! The Kzin make the Klingons look like intellectuals (at least until the Ringworld Series was started, and by then at least three conflicts had taken place with 'Nivens humans, resulting in 2/3rds of the Kzin species being wiped out each time...so that by the time of Ringworld we have a tolerant Kzin, like 'Speaker to Animals').
Now that would be one helluva movie. And the best part, it could be a "fork" in the franchise. We could even get a little "Chanur's Pride" (C.J.C.) thing going, where the survivors simply cease to exist as the artifact plunges into a star/collapsar while the Kzin ship tears ass back to some homeworld and we have a whole new saga which humanity/kzin waging war against the Vang and an unseen influence of uplift hinted at in the background. So by the time Ringworld rolls around there's no continuity break, the Kzin are more sociable, and some motile nervous system is thwarted in it's reach for dominion over all life.
Yep, I figure with copyright laws and licensing issues, it might be made in time for my great, great, great grandchildren to enjoy.
We live in a time when it's really easy to be a criminal.t m
Check out this nifty law:
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/02911.h
Think of this as a big stick.
This is a reactionary "blanket" law which is often used by k12 institutions or any civil instituion in order to eliminate problems. All schools in Arizona have to adopt this kind of regulation in order to obtain funding.
Read the tennets of this reg. and think of all the times it could have been applied to you during your k12 internment. Schools exist to not only socialize and educate, they also serve as a vector for the criminal profit system.
I would expect any user who has violated the schools' computer usage contract to be hit with this reg because the disruption of IT activity is clearly a disruption of the school...not to mention all the suits and firearms, search and possible seizure of equipment. ARS 13-2911 is at least a class 6 felony. Yes, the number of k12 felons is growing all the time because there is a definite intolerance for human behavior in civil institutions in this country. It's now proper to chemically control our kids instead of making things meaningful or interesting. We don't motivate, we mandate, and if that fails then it's easier to criminalize a child than actually motivate them. This as the inevitable breakdown of a school system/institution which has produced ever weaker generations of educators. Our education system has fed upon itself in a folly of making everyone happy and over-the-top political correctness, and in the end, has no choice but to become just another vector for the criminal industry.
If you have kids, you should view public schools as your last resort. Therin lies mediocrity and the sufferage of disenfranchised tools.
When a government adopts a "no child left behind" policy, they're just using doublespeak for "And no child shall escape our rough hands and sweet nothings whispered in their ear" as institutional violence is visited upon them. How many of our greatest thinkers have come from public schools(factory worker socialization camps)? Maybe someone could pitch us a few.
The I/O protocol is optimized for imprinting and physical learning and those neurons are on FIRE! The wetware is busy learning all the social protocols. We may have the equipment to use them, but how and when they are used is a function of the imprinting and socialization.
Babies are learning verbal and non-verbal communication, perception of space, audible cues...and their learning how to control their parents. That's a lot of work and a woefully short list. Find a behavioral psychology text by McConell which will make for a much better explaination. You'll probably be able to find something on Amazon used.
McConnel was the guy who make the RNA-Memory discovery.
He's just another dead hero.
As a species, we're not big enough to understand time. We mark it, we plot seasons, and we slice it up and pare it out. We understand a relationship between time and resources because our species climbed to sentience with that understanding.
We are incapable of understanding ourselves.
Our species is literally incapable of understanding itself. This isn't an accident, it's a joke biology plays at the insistence of the genes to prevent the organism from interferring with the need to make better code. Even though we have the undestanding of what genes are there's an endless list of things we're not supposed to do because some divine bogey-man is going to jump out of the closet and bitch-slap us. Ha. Hahah. Riiight. If detonating atomic weapons didn't bring the ass-whipping we'd had coming since the Romans invented the Catholic Church nothing is.
We understand very little about gravity which is a seemingly tangible concept that doesn't need to clip its toenails or do the dishes. It's there all the time and we're clueless.
Gravity is often described as a distortion of space and time.
It could be said that the complete ignorance of the most lethal species on the planet creates very real distortions in space and time.
Often, we hear things from people who steep themselves in white-boarded rooms thick with the odor of Dry-Erase markers and stale sweat/breath/ass-dreads and coffee that within an 11, or 15 dimensional universe everything makes sense. This could be the fumes talking for the person.
In much the same way as all the poets before them, the authors of "knowledge for masses" books don't come out and proclaim,
"There's the answer you seek. Right there. With that kernel of information you can move worlds."
Their dance is the mastrubatory romp of students and scientists and the audience is either expected to descreetly turn away or get the lotion and bring their own towel.
You do know where your towel is? Right?
Your 3 month old daughter is vastly more intelligent than any hardware humanity has made. The problem is the percieved lack of intelligence due to limited physical capacity. Just wait a few more weeks and that intelligence will be rolling/crawling around and pulling itself up on furniture. After that, you will experience a form of sentience that makes anything like the juvenile musings of Clive Barker and Stephen King laughable.
Humanity fears biology because it's messy in ways you can't escape...and it's intelligent.