I wonder if they told the police... cause your average 911 line is going to be just thrilled if this starts automatically forwarding whiny kids to them. I guess it could be a huge make work project for social work grad students, god help them.
I believe that Gibson was implying that middle class, white North Americans are relatively privileged. A member of the middle class who happened to be a woman or was of African or Middle Eastern descent might still suffer from racism and other things that the white man would not.
Furthermore, I do agree that it's fair to say that the middle class is privileged and as a rule doesn't experience extreme poverty. Some do climb out of extreme poverty, but most don't. The average North American also has a rather different idea of what extreme poverty does than someone in say India might.
I actually think that Gibson's comments were remarkably insightful, and already took into account your response.
If it's open source and available... couldn't interested parties compile it themselves. How are they going to ensure that it's not available for actual use?
This has always been my concern about cloud computing and moving toward web apps and online content.
Honestly I don't think that the idea of turning our desktops into terminals will catch on, and I'm not really sure that advocates have considered the cost.
You're really just moving the hardware requirements to the server side as far as I can tell.
Plus, the necessity of perpetual highspeed internet connections...
Now while I agree that there MAY not be much direct benefit from a Mars mission, I don't see the reasoning behind cutting it.
They should be funding institutions like NASA. If nothing else it's a massive make work project for the tech industry and creates an environment that's friendly toward the highly educated. It's a fairly harmless and uncontroversial project to center that on, unlike funding educational institutes or healthcare apparently. heh.
It really seems like funding NASA would be a positive thing for the US government, certainly not the best place for budget cuts. But then I think that governments need to increase arts funding and educational funding as well.
The problem with game remakes is rights. My only insights here are from working with Bioware briefly, but I understand that the rights to a lot of their older games are all over the damn place. In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission.
It sure doesn't help that the gaming industry is absurdly unstable, with small companies being bought, swallowed or merging left right and center.
My understanding is that these days rights are handled a lot more solidly, but that a lot of old material is going to remain unavailable. (Thank god for torrents or some of them might vanish entirely.)
Oh, they always intended to have DLC start rolling out the day of release. The quest giver was in loooong before the content he linked to was completed. It certainly shows their intent.
But for the content he triggers to have been included as part of the core game, they would have had to push back the cert date. Cert isn't very forgiving, especially for consoles. (ESPECIALLY for PS3)
I totally agree that there are a lot of scuzzy things about the way DLC works, but I don't think that it stole content or resources from the core game.;)
That content had development/testing deadlines that came AFTER the cert date of the game itself.
It was developed separately.
I'm not a fan of DLC either and find it jarring that it's not handled entirely outside the game, but I don't believe that anything was hacked out of the game to facilitate it.
It is very much a complete game. I hate DLC as much as anyone else, but it's not like they hacked pieces out of the original game and offered them up for sale. The DLC is extra, totally unnecessary, and IMHO not that impressive.
I'd try not to confuse hating DLC and hating the original product, if you do that you risk missing out on enjoyment you could otherwise appreciate.;)
The power grid IS being pretty damn fragile. Not because of terrorists, but because of under funded infrastructure and other cheapness/sloppiness on the part of those self same companies. You don't need terrorists for that apparently.;)
How are those things you're listing NOT imagined threats? Listing other paranoid fantasies doesn't make the first paranoid fantasy seem any more threatening.
Making computer chips overseas is NOT a gigantic security breach, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that American nukes are going to start exploding in hangers or that Predators will start razing New York. Could be a great Hollywood blockbuster though?
Awfully reminiscent of the hysteria that took place in the 80s, when the FBI and media were convinced that hackers were going to "crash the grid," launch a nuclear attack or god knows what other heinous crimes. The cost to the freedom of their own citizens, and the financial expenditure on all of this hysteria seems awfully prohibitive compared to the actual risk.
As someone with 20/20 vision I would still kill for an option to crank up font size in every single game made for consoles in the last three years. I have a 32" CRT screen, which is by no means small and THEORETICALLY supported for most games... but the fonts are absolutely unreadable without sitting so close that your breath is practically fogging the screen.
It isn't like the fonts are huge on high res screens either. It's easy to see how someone with compromised vision could have difficulties.
You don't have to be stone blind to be visually impaired, it isn't like they need brail screens. But allowing the user to crank up the font size would be an all around positive move, IMHO.
Like a lot of news articles, it's got no serious details in it. Closest it says is:
"Yet, despite the investment of thousands of dollars in diagnostic equipment, computers and training by independent service garages, car manufacturers continue to hold back on some of the information that your mechanic needs in order to properly repair your car and reset your codes and warning lights. "
Actually after some consideration, it may indeed gain widespread popularity.
Why wouldn't mechanics want access to that? Unless they were intimidated by the changing technology, but I'd expect them to be a minority.
That's incredible. I can't believe they'd actually pass that kind of legislation, but it's some of the more promising news I've heard in a while. Too bad it isn't national. (or international)
Most people aren't going to utilize that information anyway, but the companies definitely shouldn't be blocking those who would!
MOST large game hunting has been done my by men, in MOST human societies. However, human society has almost never relied on hunting large game for survival.
When hunting is a subsistence activity it still tends not to require a large percentage of the population's efforts or take a substantial amount of their time. Pregnancy is unlikely to be a factor in preventing women from hunting, except for a comparatively brief period in an individual's life, and child rearing obviously doesn't have to be a woman's activity, or the same mother's activity.
No, I can't scientifically proving anything about gender roles. The difference is that I'm not claiming to. I'd hardly publish a thesis on what I know about gender roles in history, but it is enough to suggest that things aren't as open and shut as that.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if they told the police... cause your average 911 line is going to be just thrilled if this starts automatically forwarding whiny kids to them. I guess it could be a huge make work project for social work grad students, god help them.
Or are children using any kind of unsupported OS on their own? Click the little red devil for help.
Wikipedia is already approximately that reliable as a source.
If Gibson was implying that a lot of his readers are middle class, North American, white, and male, then I'd say he was probably right. ;)
I believe that Gibson was implying that middle class, white North Americans are relatively privileged. A member of the middle class who happened to be a woman or was of African or Middle Eastern descent might still suffer from racism and other things that the white man would not. Furthermore, I do agree that it's fair to say that the middle class is privileged and as a rule doesn't experience extreme poverty. Some do climb out of extreme poverty, but most don't. The average North American also has a rather different idea of what extreme poverty does than someone in say India might. I actually think that Gibson's comments were remarkably insightful, and already took into account your response.
In the spirit of XKCD, should I get the chip installed in my brain and wait until Linux patches in support? Or wait for an Open Source alternative?
If it's open source and available... couldn't interested parties compile it themselves. How are they going to ensure that it's not available for actual use?
This has always been my concern about cloud computing and moving toward web apps and online content. Honestly I don't think that the idea of turning our desktops into terminals will catch on, and I'm not really sure that advocates have considered the cost. You're really just moving the hardware requirements to the server side as far as I can tell. Plus, the necessity of perpetual highspeed internet connections...
Unfortunately the Canadian sled-dog training program for this fell apart when the recruits heard about what happened to Laika.
Now while I agree that there MAY not be much direct benefit from a Mars mission, I don't see the reasoning behind cutting it. They should be funding institutions like NASA. If nothing else it's a massive make work project for the tech industry and creates an environment that's friendly toward the highly educated. It's a fairly harmless and uncontroversial project to center that on, unlike funding educational institutes or healthcare apparently. heh. It really seems like funding NASA would be a positive thing for the US government, certainly not the best place for budget cuts. But then I think that governments need to increase arts funding and educational funding as well.
Low cost Chinese labor! Using child astronauts will allow NASA to reduce payload and save money!
Luckily Google is also smarter than that.
The problem with game remakes is rights. My only insights here are from working with Bioware briefly, but I understand that the rights to a lot of their older games are all over the damn place. In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission. It sure doesn't help that the gaming industry is absurdly unstable, with small companies being bought, swallowed or merging left right and center. My understanding is that these days rights are handled a lot more solidly, but that a lot of old material is going to remain unavailable. (Thank god for torrents or some of them might vanish entirely.)
Oh, they always intended to have DLC start rolling out the day of release. The quest giver was in loooong before the content he linked to was completed. It certainly shows their intent. But for the content he triggers to have been included as part of the core game, they would have had to push back the cert date. Cert isn't very forgiving, especially for consoles. (ESPECIALLY for PS3) I totally agree that there are a lot of scuzzy things about the way DLC works, but I don't think that it stole content or resources from the core game. ;)
That content had development/testing deadlines that came AFTER the cert date of the game itself. It was developed separately. I'm not a fan of DLC either and find it jarring that it's not handled entirely outside the game, but I don't believe that anything was hacked out of the game to facilitate it.
It is very much a complete game. I hate DLC as much as anyone else, but it's not like they hacked pieces out of the original game and offered them up for sale. The DLC is extra, totally unnecessary, and IMHO not that impressive. I'd try not to confuse hating DLC and hating the original product, if you do that you risk missing out on enjoyment you could otherwise appreciate. ;)
The power grid IS being pretty damn fragile. Not because of terrorists, but because of under funded infrastructure and other cheapness/sloppiness on the part of those self same companies. You don't need terrorists for that apparently. ;)
How are those things you're listing NOT imagined threats? Listing other paranoid fantasies doesn't make the first paranoid fantasy seem any more threatening. Making computer chips overseas is NOT a gigantic security breach, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that American nukes are going to start exploding in hangers or that Predators will start razing New York. Could be a great Hollywood blockbuster though?
But how much energy can congress really expect them to expend defending against imagined threats?
Awfully reminiscent of the hysteria that took place in the 80s, when the FBI and media were convinced that hackers were going to "crash the grid," launch a nuclear attack or god knows what other heinous crimes. The cost to the freedom of their own citizens, and the financial expenditure on all of this hysteria seems awfully prohibitive compared to the actual risk.
As someone with 20/20 vision I would still kill for an option to crank up font size in every single game made for consoles in the last three years. I have a 32" CRT screen, which is by no means small and THEORETICALLY supported for most games... but the fonts are absolutely unreadable without sitting so close that your breath is practically fogging the screen. It isn't like the fonts are huge on high res screens either. It's easy to see how someone with compromised vision could have difficulties. You don't have to be stone blind to be visually impaired, it isn't like they need brail screens. But allowing the user to crank up the font size would be an all around positive move, IMHO.
Like a lot of news articles, it's got no serious details in it. Closest it says is: "Yet, despite the investment of thousands of dollars in diagnostic equipment, computers and training by independent service garages, car manufacturers continue to hold back on some of the information that your mechanic needs in order to properly repair your car and reset your codes and warning lights. "
Actually after some consideration, it may indeed gain widespread popularity. Why wouldn't mechanics want access to that? Unless they were intimidated by the changing technology, but I'd expect them to be a minority.
That's incredible. I can't believe they'd actually pass that kind of legislation, but it's some of the more promising news I've heard in a while. Too bad it isn't national. (or international) Most people aren't going to utilize that information anyway, but the companies definitely shouldn't be blocking those who would!
MOST large game hunting has been done my by men, in MOST human societies. However, human society has almost never relied on hunting large game for survival. When hunting is a subsistence activity it still tends not to require a large percentage of the population's efforts or take a substantial amount of their time. Pregnancy is unlikely to be a factor in preventing women from hunting, except for a comparatively brief period in an individual's life, and child rearing obviously doesn't have to be a woman's activity, or the same mother's activity. No, I can't scientifically proving anything about gender roles. The difference is that I'm not claiming to. I'd hardly publish a thesis on what I know about gender roles in history, but it is enough to suggest that things aren't as open and shut as that.