it becomes possible to argue with a very real chance of success that some games should be accessible to adults only.
This would make sense if evidence could be found of any sort of causal link between video game violence and real world violence. Since there have been innumerable studies of this, and all have ended up with nothing, there is absolutely no argument for a mandatory rating system. If one is passed, the ACLU will fight it tooth and nail, as it would be a massive violation of the First Amendment.
That would have to be allowed. People would be incredibly upset about it, but at the end of the day the government would not have the ability to prevent it from being made. The thing that would prevent such a game from being published would be the forces of the free market -- no game company would want to be associated with such a vile product and would therefore not want to distribute it. If the game is establish distribution channels it will quickly fade into obscurity. This is how a free society controls undesirable speech -- we refuse to pay attention to it and don't give such people a soap box to stand on. Having the government step in and attempt to suppress it is misguided at best, tyrannical at worst.
Yes. There would be a lot of uproar. There would even be a whole lot of retards braying like asses and calling for the game to be banned. In the end, however, the game would remain on store shelves because of the First Amendment. The United States government would not be able to do what the Russian government has done in this situation, and the fact that they are upset by the game is not sufficient reason to ban it. This is an attack on the civil liberties of Russians by their government.
While the GP is being a bit over-dramatic, your synopsis misses the key point here -- the point is not that this patent will display advertisements on your Apple product -- it is that it will force you to watch the ad, and prevent you from using your device if you don't want to watch their shit. I personally don't buy anything Apple already for a whole host of reasons that I will not go into now, but even if I were a loyal consumer, I would never buy a device that forced me to watch bullshit commercials. Unskippable ads are bad enough, but actively forcing me to watch them takes it to a whole new level, and is WAY beyond anything I am willing to put up with.
This may be true, but it will still be better than what we have now. The Eagles will have much less bargaining power in ripping people off if the majority of the industry were to be fragmented in this way -- they will actually have to compete with other, less greedy bands. If all of the other bands are selling an album's worth of new songs on their website for $5, the Eagles will have trouble selling theirs for $20. When the distribution of the vast majority of the music nowadays is overseen by the same international cartel, there is little room for competition. As a side note, I feel that anyone who is an Eagles fan deserves to be bilked, whenever I hear Hotel California come on the radio it feels like someone is raping my eardrums. I have a hard time trusting anyone who enjoys such ear rape.
A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609.
The summary kind of missed the point of that sentence a bit...
Why should you be so threatened by what an anonymous 14 year old has to say about you in an online forum? Along with the lack of quality control in online forums comes the expectation that we will need to filter through the crap to find real information. We need to ignore fools like this rather than infringe on everyone's privacy to find them. In other words, don't imprison the trolls, just don't feed them and let them starve.
Hey, wait a minute there, hoss. We aren't saying that he did rape and murder a young girl in 1990. We are just asking questions here.
No offense, and I know right-wing talk show hosts. I like right-wing talk show hosts. I`ve been to gay bars. I really don`t believe that Fox News is a network of child rape/murder. I -- you know, I think it`s being hijacked, quite frankly.
With that being said, Glenn Beck is a right-wing talk show host. He is saying, "Let's rape and murder children" And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with him, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990."
And I know Glenn Beck didn't rape and murder a young girl in 1990. I`m not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990, but that`s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.
Watch this video and then come back and tell me that these 'attacks' on Glenn Beck are unfair. This whole controversy is to draw attention to these sorts of outrageous tactics by throwing them back in his face. It is absolutely, 100% INTENDED to cause him harm, but it is going about it in a way that is completely protected by the U.S. Constitution. Citizens of free countries need to have a way to fight back against public figures such as Beck, and satire is an extremely effective weapon in our arsenal. So in short, yes, if this is effective it will harm Glenn Beck, as it rightly should.
"Civil society does not convey to teenagers an automatic right to post offensive, anonymous graffiti and that needs to be clearly understood."
Ummm... yeah dude, it does. Anonymity can be CRUCIAL to free speech -- there are certain things that we all wish to express and say about others and about the society around us that we cannot say in public. There is no freedom when a judge can read an Internet posting and immediately, like R. Lee Ermey at the beginning of Full Metal Jacket, bellow "WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT?!" This can lead to all sorts of bullying and abuse by the powers that be and will in the long run have a powerful chilling effect on free speech.
The question at hand is not whether or not anybody deserves the anonymous abuse, the question is whether or not the courts need to be involved in it. Since we are not privy to the details of this case, I cannot accurately determine whether or not the comments were illegal (libel/legitimately threatening), but if they are not the courts have NO business interfering. We do not have a right to not be made fun of, or made to feel uncomfortable. We do not have the right to not be criticized. These things are absolutely essential to our freedom of expression and our freedom of speech -- if we start telling the obnoxious assholes that they can't be obnoxious assholes it is only a matter of time before it is illegal to 'anonymously abuse' the president by questioning the new Patriot Act v. 2.0.
Glenn Beck *personally* attacks people in this exact manner all the time -- this site is simply a commentary on that. It is in no way an accusation -- nobody seriously believes that Glenn Beck may or may not have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
I wouldn't be happy about it -- but I would be smart enough to know that the site is parody, it is entirely legal, and attempting to make it go away will only draw more attention to it. I had not heard anything of the unconfirmed rumors that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 until he tried to disappear it (although he STILL didn't deny the rumors -- why could that be?)
Yes. People would be furious about that. So what? That would have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it was legal. I am sure that the drooling retards who call themselves Glenn Beck fans are outraged about this decision.
I think the biggest problem is that we no longer have 'art', we have 'content'. When our collective creative output becomes commercialized to this point, is it any wonder that DRM is as prevalent as it is?
This is where we see the difference between telling and showing -- you can tell kids that they need to pay attention on the road until you are blue in the face and they will continue to think that they are an exception, but if you put them in a simulator and show them the limits of their concentration it becomes indisputable. They are surely plenty of people that still won't care, but this would help out quite a bit for the masses of morons.
Why do we need silly childhood fantasies and invisible sky wizards to give us meaning in life? Your circular logic argument is also bafflingly absurd -- relying on evolved features is circular logic because these features evolved? Your argument is entirely meaningless, not even to mention the fact that almost all religion is really based on nothing more than circular logic:
"Why do you believe in the Bible?"
"Because it is the word of God."
"How do you know it is the word of God?"
"Easy, it says so in the Bible!"
None of these is even to mention that the emotional impact of any given fact has no influence whatsoever on its truth value -- it would certainly give me a great deal of hope to believe that I have a diamond the size of a basketball buried in my backyard, but it would still be based on nothing!
When it really gets down to it, the question becomes irrelevant. At the end of the day, you have an individual that is a danger to the rest of society. Whether or not the murderer was 'responsible' for his actions is a debate for the philosophers -- we can only hope to do what we can to make sure that this person in question is unable to harm others again, either by keeping them away from society or rehabilitating them to the point where they will no longer pose a threat to society at large. In this respect, I would find a gene that makes individuals predisposed to violent behavior more of an argument in favor of their life imprisonment than a mitigating factor.
As for the philosophical aspect of your query -- I am assuming that you are coming at this from a theistic perspective. I would counter your argument with the same -- if God made every person exactly as he saw fit and everything is in God's plan, how can any human ever be responsible for their own actions? The theistic world view is far more deterministic than the atheistic one. Furthermore, I don't feel that our being simply chemical beings equates to us being 'programmed'. Our brains have evolved to be incredibly plastic organs - they can be rewired and reshaped very easily. Our brains have also evolved the ability to create a separate internal dialog, invoking reflection on past actions and visualization of future actions, to make better decisions in the future. Our brains DO have a sort of inherent dualism in the way they process information, but this does not necessitate anything beyond the chemical! All of these dualism we see, as well as free will is simply a result of parallel processes running in the brain and subtly affecting each other.
To sum it all up -- personal responsibility is absolutely not incompatible with atheism, and even if it didn't exist at all it would not absolve murderers of their crimes.
I think that the 'Out of Touch' phrasing is accurate in this context -- if I am paying for 3G service and am getting EDGE because I am in a 3G-less area, then I am certainly 'Out of Touch'. This is just like if I realized my 22 Mbps Internet at home was running at 768 kbps all of a sudden -- I still technically have Internet but the difference would be great enough that I would certainly classify my Internet connection as broken, or 'Out of Touch'.
This is a clear cut case of fair use. They are parodizing the competition's catch phrase to sell their own service. This is 100% fair use. As far as this being misleading -- the ads clearly contain all of the pertinent information, and are entirely factually accurate. This is not even a case, it is a complete farce.
Slashdot Mirror
it becomes possible to argue with a very real chance of success that some games should be accessible to adults only.
This would make sense if evidence could be found of any sort of causal link between video game violence and real world violence. Since there have been innumerable studies of this, and all have ended up with nothing, there is absolutely no argument for a mandatory rating system. If one is passed, the ACLU will fight it tooth and nail, as it would be a massive violation of the First Amendment.
Yes, this is true. It is also completely retarded. It does nothing but damage the civil liberties of all Germans and Austrians.
That would have to be allowed. People would be incredibly upset about it, but at the end of the day the government would not have the ability to prevent it from being made. The thing that would prevent such a game from being published would be the forces of the free market -- no game company would want to be associated with such a vile product and would therefore not want to distribute it. If the game is establish distribution channels it will quickly fade into obscurity. This is how a free society controls undesirable speech -- we refuse to pay attention to it and don't give such people a soap box to stand on. Having the government step in and attempt to suppress it is misguided at best, tyrannical at worst.
Yes. There would be a lot of uproar. There would even be a whole lot of retards braying like asses and calling for the game to be banned. In the end, however, the game would remain on store shelves because of the First Amendment. The United States government would not be able to do what the Russian government has done in this situation, and the fact that they are upset by the game is not sufficient reason to ban it. This is an attack on the civil liberties of Russians by their government.
While the GP is being a bit over-dramatic, your synopsis misses the key point here -- the point is not that this patent will display advertisements on your Apple product -- it is that it will force you to watch the ad, and prevent you from using your device if you don't want to watch their shit. I personally don't buy anything Apple already for a whole host of reasons that I will not go into now, but even if I were a loyal consumer, I would never buy a device that forced me to watch bullshit commercials. Unskippable ads are bad enough, but actively forcing me to watch them takes it to a whole new level, and is WAY beyond anything I am willing to put up with.
This may be true, but it will still be better than what we have now. The Eagles will have much less bargaining power in ripping people off if the majority of the industry were to be fragmented in this way -- they will actually have to compete with other, less greedy bands. If all of the other bands are selling an album's worth of new songs on their website for $5, the Eagles will have trouble selling theirs for $20. When the distribution of the vast majority of the music nowadays is overseen by the same international cartel, there is little room for competition. As a side note, I feel that anyone who is an Eagles fan deserves to be bilked, whenever I hear Hotel California come on the radio it feels like someone is raping my eardrums. I have a hard time trusting anyone who enjoys such ear rape.
BOOO!!!!
A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609.
The summary kind of missed the point of that sentence a bit...
Why should you be so threatened by what an anonymous 14 year old has to say about you in an online forum? Along with the lack of quality control in online forums comes the expectation that we will need to filter through the crap to find real information. We need to ignore fools like this rather than infringe on everyone's privacy to find them. In other words, don't imprison the trolls, just don't feed them and let them starve.
Hey, wait a minute there, hoss. We aren't saying that he did rape and murder a young girl in 1990. We are just asking questions here.
No offense, and I know right-wing talk show hosts. I like right-wing talk show hosts. I`ve been to gay bars. I really don`t believe that Fox News is a network of child rape/murder. I -- you know, I think it`s being hijacked, quite frankly.
With that being said, Glenn Beck is a right-wing talk show host. He is saying, "Let's rape and murder children" And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with him, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990."
And I know Glenn Beck didn't rape and murder a young girl in 1990. I`m not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990, but that`s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFkpEduQJZo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFkpEduQJZo&feature=related
Watch this video and then come back and tell me that these 'attacks' on Glenn Beck are unfair. This whole controversy is to draw attention to these sorts of outrageous tactics by throwing them back in his face. It is absolutely, 100% INTENDED to cause him harm, but it is going about it in a way that is completely protected by the U.S. Constitution. Citizens of free countries need to have a way to fight back against public figures such as Beck, and satire is an extremely effective weapon in our arsenal. So in short, yes, if this is effective it will harm Glenn Beck, as it rightly should.
"Civil society does not convey to teenagers an automatic right to post offensive, anonymous graffiti and that needs to be clearly understood."
Ummm... yeah dude, it does. Anonymity can be CRUCIAL to free speech -- there are certain things that we all wish to express and say about others and about the society around us that we cannot say in public. There is no freedom when a judge can read an Internet posting and immediately, like R. Lee Ermey at the beginning of Full Metal Jacket, bellow "WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT?!" This can lead to all sorts of bullying and abuse by the powers that be and will in the long run have a powerful chilling effect on free speech.
The question at hand is not whether or not anybody deserves the anonymous abuse, the question is whether or not the courts need to be involved in it. Since we are not privy to the details of this case, I cannot accurately determine whether or not the comments were illegal (libel/legitimately threatening), but if they are not the courts have NO business interfering. We do not have a right to not be made fun of, or made to feel uncomfortable. We do not have the right to not be criticized. These things are absolutely essential to our freedom of expression and our freedom of speech -- if we start telling the obnoxious assholes that they can't be obnoxious assholes it is only a matter of time before it is illegal to 'anonymously abuse' the president by questioning the new Patriot Act v. 2.0.
Has Glenn Beck denied having raped and murdered a young girl in 1990?
If not, why not?
I'm not saying he did or anything, and I think he didn't, but I think that many of the readers will wonder why he has yet to deny these rumors.
Glenn Beck *personally* attacks people in this exact manner all the time -- this site is simply a commentary on that. It is in no way an accusation -- nobody seriously believes that Glenn Beck may or may not have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
I wouldn't be happy about it -- but I would be smart enough to know that the site is parody, it is entirely legal, and attempting to make it go away will only draw more attention to it. I had not heard anything of the unconfirmed rumors that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 until he tried to disappear it (although he STILL didn't deny the rumors -- why could that be?)
Yes. People would be furious about that. So what? That would have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it was legal. I am sure that the drooling retards who call themselves Glenn Beck fans are outraged about this decision.
I think the biggest problem is that we no longer have 'art', we have 'content'. When our collective creative output becomes commercialized to this point, is it any wonder that DRM is as prevalent as it is?
This is where we see the difference between telling and showing -- you can tell kids that they need to pay attention on the road until you are blue in the face and they will continue to think that they are an exception, but if you put them in a simulator and show them the limits of their concentration it becomes indisputable. They are surely plenty of people that still won't care, but this would help out quite a bit for the masses of morons.
Why do we need silly childhood fantasies and invisible sky wizards to give us meaning in life? Your circular logic argument is also bafflingly absurd -- relying on evolved features is circular logic because these features evolved? Your argument is entirely meaningless, not even to mention the fact that almost all religion is really based on nothing more than circular logic:
"Why do you believe in the Bible?"
"Because it is the word of God."
"How do you know it is the word of God?"
"Easy, it says so in the Bible!"
None of these is even to mention that the emotional impact of any given fact has no influence whatsoever on its truth value -- it would certainly give me a great deal of hope to believe that I have a diamond the size of a basketball buried in my backyard, but it would still be based on nothing!
When it really gets down to it, the question becomes irrelevant. At the end of the day, you have an individual that is a danger to the rest of society. Whether or not the murderer was 'responsible' for his actions is a debate for the philosophers -- we can only hope to do what we can to make sure that this person in question is unable to harm others again, either by keeping them away from society or rehabilitating them to the point where they will no longer pose a threat to society at large. In this respect, I would find a gene that makes individuals predisposed to violent behavior more of an argument in favor of their life imprisonment than a mitigating factor.
As for the philosophical aspect of your query -- I am assuming that you are coming at this from a theistic perspective. I would counter your argument with the same -- if God made every person exactly as he saw fit and everything is in God's plan, how can any human ever be responsible for their own actions? The theistic world view is far more deterministic than the atheistic one. Furthermore, I don't feel that our being simply chemical beings equates to us being 'programmed'. Our brains have evolved to be incredibly plastic organs - they can be rewired and reshaped very easily. Our brains have also evolved the ability to create a separate internal dialog, invoking reflection on past actions and visualization of future actions, to make better decisions in the future. Our brains DO have a sort of inherent dualism in the way they process information, but this does not necessitate anything beyond the chemical! All of these dualism we see, as well as free will is simply a result of parallel processes running in the brain and subtly affecting each other.
To sum it all up -- personal responsibility is absolutely not incompatible with atheism, and even if it didn't exist at all it would not absolve murderers of their crimes.
I think that the 'Out of Touch' phrasing is accurate in this context -- if I am paying for 3G service and am getting EDGE because I am in a 3G-less area, then I am certainly 'Out of Touch'. This is just like if I realized my 22 Mbps Internet at home was running at 768 kbps all of a sudden -- I still technically have Internet but the difference would be great enough that I would certainly classify my Internet connection as broken, or 'Out of Touch'.
This is a clear cut case of fair use. They are parodizing the competition's catch phrase to sell their own service. This is 100% fair use. As far as this being misleading -- the ads clearly contain all of the pertinent information, and are entirely factually accurate. This is not even a case, it is a complete farce.
Are you serious? You actually believed that shit?
Just the fact that you would choose that particular scenario to illustrate your point betrays you.