Clearly the "singular goal" part is just silly. But it's not unreasonable to say that a unifying characteristic of the republic party is to make business men richer. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy or planned out. All you need are a few confused ideas about how government and economics work and away you go. If you fundementally believed that any given manager contributes more wealth to company (and thus is more important) then all of this subordinates combined I believe your general interpretation of the world would lead to business owners and upper management getting more money. It could seem correct to you, with no outside influence that business owners should be given breaks and incentives, because they are worth so much more then everyone else.
There are many other ways to get there without a conspiracy, I'm just providing one possible example.
Maybe, but that doesn't mean J.R.R. Tolkien is a good author. I think he had great ideas and an amazing to ability to build rich and involved world. But the man did not do the ideas into paragraphs and chapters thing very well. He is definatlly the worst author of material that I like.
If you really think Tolkien should be followed in this reguard what about the hours of elvish songs from all of the movies?
I was going to bitch about everyone discounting the coolness of DoA. But I realized that you are correct. Making it a PG13 movie would be a complete waste of time. I'm with you, anything but an R rated DoA movie is just going to be a riduculus farce targeted only at 12 year olds.
I agree that it is entirely possible to believe in both creationism and evolution. The problem that I have is that no one I have ever met who describes their belief as Creationism accepts evolution. The always chose to say that the Bible is literaly correct. They believe that the world was created in 7 days, 168 hours as we measure it. It would be so easy to back the Bible if they took the position that 7 days was a figurative measure and could have been as long as tens of billions of years.
It is entirly possible to reconsile science and a divine creator, but many Creationists actively choose to disbelieve science.
I think the most likely business plan for google is to provide a searching service for blogs. By owning the servers that hold the content it makes it very easy to search or know when this are changing.
This strategy allows Google to continue generating money the same way it does now (text ads around search results), and offer new services (blog searching) to normal customers.
I read the first couple of Goodkinds novels. They where fairly interesting, but the second was less interesting the first and the third less then the second. I can't imagine reading through the sixth. All his books seem to have lots of moral clarity. I just don't find it interesting. I don't get any depth out of it. If this is really why science fiction is "taking a rear seat", then I don't want it to change. I want my science fiction to have something to say.
Good and evil are not childish concepts, but many fantasy novels deal with the like they are. I would much rather read a story that has character that I feel are real then archtypes of good and evil. Most all of the science fiction that I read and like doesn't have bad guys or evil. It's not about good rising up to defeat evil. It's about people trying to deal with problems and the world.
I agree that it's not really cutting edge news, but I'm fairly excited about it. I've been playing MGS2 Substance on the PS2 lately and love it. I've actually been considering going out and picking up a cheap copy of MGS to play again, but I would much rather play through an updated version.
So long as you don't feel obligated to get every edition of the game I think it's fine. I wouldn't bother getting MGS2 Substance for the Cube since I already have it, but I am interested in MGS.
If we do not act, we will have two options: let our jobs go to countries where the workers barely make enough to feed their families and live in fear of their lives; or institute similar policies on labour here in order to remain competative. You can't have it both ways.
These jobs pay more then any other job available to these workers. If you really care about the welfare of these people depriving them of work opportunites isn't going to help them.
If you really want to improve the lot of all the world's people, do it by giving them a way to contribute to the world at large.
If someone in a third world country can do my job, then I would rather they had it. I will find a better harder job.
All that US tariffs do is take money (or the opportunity for money) from third world contries and give it to the US. Is that really what you want? If that's what people want, they should be upfront about why they want tariffs.
Judges should be hired for a job not elected or appointed. The should have performance reviews by a panel of their peers. And these reviews should be a matter of public record. It's foolish to elect people to do a job that is not, at it's core, a job about politics. Perhaps the Supreme Court should be elected, but none below that.
Right now in most states Sheriff and Corener are elected positions. This is an stupid situation. These positions have jobs to do and actual credinatls would be nice. Why should the most politically sauve person get the job? How about the best police officer or necrophiliac?
Part of what killed the old school arcade was increasing popularity of specilized hardware. With special machines, case, and controls, it means three things.
First, you can use and old machine for a new game, by just buying a new board. You need to buy the whole rig, which means it costs more to get new games.
Second, it means that the machines are more complicated and harder/more expensive to fix. Which means games end up costing more.
Third, if the game is a flop you've wasted more money on trying it out, which makes owners more cautious about trying new things.
All of this leads to games being more expensive, which discourages some of the casual "Oh, look at this" players, and many of the hardcore regulars from spending their money. Which means the arcade is making back the cost, thus killing the arcade.
Sure, I think new specialized harware is cool, but it's not going to save the industry. I think DDR has several aspects that are far more important than it's control scheme. It's very sport like. There is no story, just competition against your self and or a friend. It supports a very large range of skills. It has a huge selection of content (songs). And it's fun to watch people play. This is partly do to the fact that people are flailing around while playing, but a normal game, that's geared of spectators would work just fine too. Perhaps a game with a secondary 3rd person display that was mounted on the top of the machine for spectators.
IMHO what the industry needs is a few standard types of "specilized hardware" and a variety of games that work on them. They also need to cultivate the regulars with sports type feels. Not sport games, but games where you regularly compete against someone in a setting with set rules, like a sport. Games that are easily linked to include multiply players are also probably a good way to go. (like NASCAR).
Walk into any American Greetings Store (they're in many malls). They are currently selling a shit-ton of strawberry shortcake stuff. Dolls, candies, playing cards, coasters, waste baskets. They brought strawberry shortcake and the carebears back 9-12 months ago.
" I also think you have a very unique perspective on Brave New World. A perfect society!?? Out of interest, did you think 1984 depicted a similarly perfect society? Do you feel that is what society should be like - no real freedoms, everyone just walking around in a state of perpetual bliss? A society where you in no way control your own destiny. I guess in that case, it would make sense that you approve of genetic engineering."
I don't think that Brave New World is a perfect place for you or me, but think of your fellow man. Look around in this world and see home many people don't value the freedoms they have. I see so many people who would gladly give up control of their destiny to be free of depression, fear and self-doubt. How many people despair about their lack of control of their life while they are happy?
"The question is whether or not this is a problem - to a lot of people, the state you have described is all they want or need. Most of the world sees thinking as a means to an end, not an end in itself."
I found it to really interesting that Brave New World was so very human to the people who didn't fit in. I thought it was morbidly facinating until they pointed out the islands for the people to intelligent or different to fit in.
The world in general was full of conformists who were truely happy, and all of the truely individual people put on islands completely free of conformist thinkers. It made the whole world much more humane and reasonable.
I feel we should fight tooth and nail anything that pushes us in that direction, but if it were to instanly become that world, it would hardly be horrible.
While we're discussion improvements to slashdot, how about a larger range for moderation totals. Particularly with the ability to add points to friends and based on moderation type (funny vs insightful) it would be nice if you could sort for only score 6 or 7 comments.
With more posts and more moderation it would be nice to have more different catagories for posts.
Unfortunatly the way the patent office is currently setup, it's most likely that a patent will go through. Each patent reviewer is expected to review a given number of patents per day. If they don't find any information in the sort period of time alloted for each application they make it an actual patent.
A recruiter for the patent office told me that the system is setup to let patents through. Reviewers aren't given enough time to do their job properly.
The problem is that there really isn't a way for society to figure out how much porn is to much until it's no longer taboo.
If it wasn't taboo it would be easy to figure out. For example. I think society has figured out how much NASCAR is to much, and it keeps it at the level it's comfortable with.
There is a huge difference between inadvertently introducing small species such as rats and rabbits across the country (well, starting at coastal shipping ports), and introducing large mammals into a controlled region.
That's all fine and good if you only plan to bring over the large mammals. But I doubt that is the intent. To make the ecosystem they will need the plants and small animals that don't get much coverage on the discovery channel. Large mamals do not an ecosystem make, and I think it's all the little things that are going to cause problems.
>One person that springs to mind is Stephan >Hawking. Despite his disease he has done amazing >things in the field of physics(as if you didn't >know;) ) because his mind, the things other >than his physical state are what makes him who >he is.
But, I'm sure that Hawkings wouldn't be the man he is if he was raised by more unfortunate parents. Genes are only part of the story. Maybe if a health child had been raised in similar settings he would have turned out the same. Problem is we can't know with current information.
The web is not a street corner. Any site you go to is owned by someone. It's no more publicly owned(like a street corner) than a mall is. Yes, a mall is a private establishment that will kick you out if they don't like you.
You are right that one should be responsible for what he/she says. So why not take responsiblity for your own statements you Anonymous Coward.
As for CDA II goes. I'm glad it got stoped. Not because it is anti-porn, but because it could never be enforced effectively. Any time the government says 'don't do that' and people do it anyway, it weakens the government in the eyes of the people.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly the "singular goal" part is just silly. But it's not unreasonable to say that a unifying characteristic of the republic party is to make business men richer. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy or planned out. All you need are a few confused ideas about how government and economics work and away you go. If you fundementally believed that any given manager contributes more wealth to company (and thus is more important) then all of this subordinates combined I believe your general interpretation of the world would lead to business owners and upper management getting more money. It could seem correct to you, with no outside influence that business owners should be given breaks and incentives, because they are worth so much more then everyone else.
There are many other ways to get there without a conspiracy, I'm just providing one possible example.
Maybe, but that doesn't mean J.R.R. Tolkien is a good author. I think he had great ideas and an amazing to ability to build rich and involved world. But the man did not do the ideas into paragraphs and chapters thing very well. He is definatlly the worst author of material that I like.
If you really think Tolkien should be followed in this reguard what about the hours of elvish songs from all of the movies?
I dislike CDs I. I hate that carrying my favorite CDs around all the time means that they are the most scratched CDs I have.
I don't want to have to pay for the same music again when all I want is a copy of what I already have on $.25 worth of media.
I like cover art and having something in hand, but I have a box full of CD cases in storage that I can't bring myself to get rid of.
To each their own.
I was going to bitch about everyone discounting the coolness of DoA. But I realized that you are correct. Making it a PG13 movie would be a complete waste of time. I'm with you, anything but an R rated DoA movie is just going to be a riduculus farce targeted only at 12 year olds.
I agree that it is entirely possible to believe in both creationism and evolution. The problem that I have is that no one I have ever met who describes their belief as Creationism accepts evolution. The always chose to say that the Bible is literaly correct. They believe that the world was created in 7 days, 168 hours as we measure it. It would be so easy to back the Bible if they took the position that 7 days was a figurative measure and could have been as long as tens of billions of years.
It is entirly possible to reconsile science and a divine creator, but many Creationists actively choose to disbelieve science.
I think the most likely business plan for google is to provide a searching service for blogs. By owning the servers that hold the content it makes it very easy to search or know when this are changing.
This strategy allows Google to continue generating money the same way it does now (text ads around search results), and offer new services (blog searching) to normal customers.
I read the first couple of Goodkinds novels. They where fairly interesting, but the second was less interesting the first and the third less then the second. I can't imagine reading through the sixth. All his books seem to have lots of moral clarity. I just don't find it interesting. I don't get any depth out of it. If this is really why science fiction is "taking a rear seat", then I don't want it to change. I want my science fiction to have something to say.
Good and evil are not childish concepts, but many fantasy novels deal with the like they are. I would much rather read a story that has character that I feel are real then archtypes of good and evil. Most all of the science fiction that I read and like doesn't have bad guys or evil. It's not about good rising up to defeat evil. It's about people trying to deal with problems and the world.
I agree that it's not really cutting edge news, but I'm fairly excited about it. I've been playing MGS2 Substance on the PS2 lately and love it. I've actually been considering going out and picking up a cheap copy of MGS to play again, but I would much rather play through an updated version.
So long as you don't feel obligated to get every edition of the game I think it's fine. I wouldn't bother getting MGS2 Substance for the Cube since I already have it, but I am interested in MGS.
That's absolutely hilarious. Kudos. Francium! Ha!
Foolish people, it's not a troll if it's blatantly a joke. I guess some people just don't know thier science.
If we do not act, we will have two options: let our jobs go to countries where the workers barely make enough to feed their families and live in fear of their lives; or institute similar policies on labour here in order to remain competative. You can't have it both ways.
These jobs pay more then any other job available to these workers. If you really care about the welfare of these people depriving them of work opportunites isn't going to help them.
If you really want to improve the lot of all the world's people, do it by giving them a way to contribute to the world at large.
If someone in a third world country can do my job, then I would rather they had it. I will find a better harder job.
All that US tariffs do is take money (or the opportunity for money) from third world contries and give it to the US. Is that really what you want? If that's what people want, they should be upfront about why they want tariffs.
Judges should be hired for a job not elected or appointed. The should have performance reviews by a panel of their peers. And these reviews should be a matter of public record. It's foolish to elect people to do a job that is not, at it's core, a job about politics. Perhaps the Supreme Court should be elected, but none below that.
Right now in most states Sheriff and Corener are elected positions. This is an stupid situation. These positions have jobs to do and actual credinatls would be nice. Why should the most politically sauve person get the job? How about the best police officer or necrophiliac?
Part of what killed the old school arcade was increasing popularity of specilized hardware. With special machines, case, and controls, it means three things.
First, you can use and old machine for a new game, by just buying a new board. You need to buy the whole rig, which means it costs more to get new games.
Second, it means that the machines are more complicated and harder/more expensive to fix. Which means games end up costing more.
Third, if the game is a flop you've wasted more money on trying it out, which makes owners more cautious about trying new things.
All of this leads to games being more expensive, which discourages some of the casual "Oh, look at this" players, and many of the hardcore regulars from spending their money. Which means the arcade is making back the cost, thus killing the arcade.
Sure, I think new specialized harware is cool, but it's not going to save the industry. I think DDR has several aspects that are far more important than it's control scheme. It's very sport like. There is no story, just competition against your self and or a friend. It supports a very large range of skills. It has a huge selection of content (songs). And it's fun to watch people play. This is partly do to the fact that people are flailing around while playing, but a normal game, that's geared of spectators would work just fine too. Perhaps a game with a secondary 3rd person display that was mounted on the top of the machine for spectators.
IMHO what the industry needs is a few standard types of "specilized hardware" and a variety of games that work on them. They also need to cultivate the regulars with sports type feels. Not sport games, but games where you regularly compete against someone in a setting with set rules, like a sport. Games that are easily linked to include multiply players are also probably a good way to go. (like NASCAR).
Dinny
Walk into any American Greetings Store (they're in many malls). They are currently selling a shit-ton of strawberry shortcake stuff. Dolls, candies, playing cards, coasters, waste baskets. They brought strawberry shortcake and the carebears back 9-12 months ago.
" I also think you have a very unique perspective on Brave New World. A perfect society!?? Out of interest, did you think 1984 depicted a similarly perfect society? Do you feel that is what society should be like - no real freedoms, everyone just walking around in a state of perpetual bliss? A society where you in no way control your own destiny. I guess in that case, it would make sense that you approve of genetic engineering."
I don't think that Brave New World is a perfect place for you or me, but think of your fellow man. Look around in this world and see home many people don't value the freedoms they have. I see so many people who would gladly give up control of their destiny to be free of depression, fear and self-doubt. How many people despair about their lack of control of their life while they are happy?
"The question is whether or not this is a problem - to a lot of people, the state you have described is all they want or need. Most of the world sees thinking as a means to an end, not an end in itself."
I found it to really interesting that Brave New World was so very human to the people who didn't fit in. I thought it was morbidly facinating until they pointed out the islands for the people to intelligent or different to fit in.
The world in general was full of conformists who were truely happy, and all of the truely individual people put on islands completely free of conformist thinkers. It made the whole world much more humane and reasonable.
I feel we should fight tooth and nail anything that pushes us in that direction, but if it were to instanly become that world, it would hardly be horrible.
While we're discussion improvements to slashdot, how about a larger range for moderation totals. Particularly with the ability to add points to friends and based on moderation type (funny vs insightful) it would be nice if you could sort for only score 6 or 7 comments.
With more posts and more moderation it would be nice to have more different catagories for posts.
Dinny
Unfortunatly the way the patent office is currently setup, it's most likely that a patent will go through. Each patent reviewer is expected to review a given number of patents per day. If they don't find any information in the sort period of time alloted for each application they make it an actual patent.
A recruiter for the patent office told me that the system is setup to let patents through. Reviewers aren't given enough time to do their job properly.
dinny
The problem is that there really isn't a way for society to figure out how much porn is to much until it's no longer taboo.
If it wasn't taboo it would be easy to figure out. For example. I think society has figured out how much NASCAR is to much, and it keeps it at the level it's comfortable with.
Dinny
That's all fine and good if you only plan to bring over the large mammals. But I doubt that is the intent. To make the ecosystem they will need the plants and small animals that don't get much coverage on the discovery channel. Large mamals do not an ecosystem make, and I think it's all the little things that are going to cause problems.
>One person that springs to mind is Stephan >Hawking. Despite his disease he has done amazing >things in the field of physics(as if you didn't >know ;) ) because his mind, the things other >than his physical state are what makes him who >he is.
But, I'm sure that Hawkings wouldn't be the man he is if he was raised by more unfortunate parents. Genes are only part of the story. Maybe if a health child had been raised in similar settings he would have turned out the same. Problem is we can't know with current information.
Dinny
The web is not a street corner. Any site you go to is owned by someone. It's no more publicly owned(like a street corner) than a mall is. Yes, a mall is a private establishment that will kick you out if they don't like you.
You are right that one should be responsible for what he/she says. So why not take responsiblity for your own statements you Anonymous Coward.
As for CDA II goes. I'm glad it got stoped. Not because it is anti-porn, but because it could never be enforced effectively. Any time the government says 'don't do that' and people do it anyway, it weakens the government in the eyes of the people.
Andy Drake - addrake@students.wisc.edu