Heck, I'm 39, and after being killed by Rift Entities one too many times I decided to go to "Casual" mode in the Ghostbusters video game. You know why? Because I don't care anymore...
This is because after a hard grueling day of work (or for a child, school), I don't want to come home to a hard/grueling video game, and never did.
We challenge our kid by making sure she keeps her grades up, if she wants to play Cooking Mama in her free time, that's her own affair.
I'll admit, I always thought it was dumb to play through a game on God mode from the very start. I knew kids who did it, and I didn't understand the point. I never thought it was bad to have God mode though.
On the other hand, the games where I get to "that one boss" and give up in frustration, what do those teach a child? If life is too hard you can always give up?
I really don't want Iran to get nuclear weapons (for purely selfish, self-preservation reasons. Don't respond to this saying, 'it is their right' because I don't care).
Oh, I agree, but then I'd prefer most countries with nuclear weapons didn't have them (and if I were living in fantasy land, all countries with nuclear weapons. The order of magnitude is too great. We really don't need people who can become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds in our only World, thanks. See Doctor Strangelove for reasons why.).
Too bad we can't put that genie back in the bottle... and an Ahmadenijad regime will definitely press on. Right now, while the United States is occupied elsewhere is their best chance to become a nuclear power. It may be that the Grand Ayatollah understands this, and it's why he's decided to back Ahmadenijad. Once a country is in the nuclear club, well, I haven't seen any kicked out of that clubhouse yet... The idea that we can stop it with anything other than a full scale, total war is very naive. Iran is not Iraq, even without nukes they are a big threat, especially with one of our armies conveniently next door.
Of course, Israel, which is scarily radicalizing under our noses, started that particular arms race by building their own nukes.
And before anyone says how great it is that Israel has nukes, let me be clear. I'm an American. I can argue over whether America should have nukes or not... but why on God's green earth would I ever want any other country (as in not-America) to have them? If we, as Americans are worried about Israel, we can just station some of our own nuclear subs in that part of the world as a deterrant. This whole idea that we should be thrilled that some other soveriegn country that we don't control has their own city killers never ceases to amaze me. But then we do seem to be putting an increasing number of unmedicated lunatics on our TVs as "news" programs so what do I know.
Hmm, it's not so much that we expect a "free and fair" election in Iran. No such thing there, of course. However, the particular candidate has an interesting history in Iran:
When Ali Khamenei became president in the elections of October, 1981, he first introduced right-leaning Ali Akbar Velayati to the Majlis as his prime minister, but he was voted down by the then left-leaning majority of the parliament, which then forced their own preferred prime minister to Khamenei, namely Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The dispute was finally ended by interference of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who advised the president to accept Mousavi.
Mousavi served under the title until 1989, when the constitution was amended to remove the title of Prime Minister and divide his responsibilities between the president and a newly-created title of First Vice President.
--- Prime Minister of Iran
Not only that, but he held some power in the Iranian government before Mahmoud Ahmedinijad came to power:
Mousavi refused to run for President in the 1997 elections, which caused the reformists to turn to his former Cabinet Minister, then a little-known cleric, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected by a landslide. During Khatami's administration, Mousavi served as the Senior Adviser to the President.
--- Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Put it to you this way, even a brutal, repressive dictatorship like Soviet Russia had factions. It's inevitable. Kruschev survived Stalin's terror, and as leader of the Soviet Union he was a reformer and anti-Stalinist. (Yes, I know he was the hated Soviet leader in those days, he was still an improvement on Uncle Joe.)
In these cases, we'd like to see someone like Gorbachev come to power rather than someone like Stalin. It appears to me, as an ignorant, outside observer that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently in the process of consolidating power. Or rather, that the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hoseyni Khmenei has decided he's had enough of reform and has decided to close off what little voice the Iranian people still have in their government.
I hope I'm wrong, but I predict darker days ahead for the people of Iran.
We tend to forget here on/. that not everyone values freedom of the net like we do.
Indeed, Germany is famous for not valuing freedom like we do. Of course, the last time they "didn't value freedom like we do" well that didn't work out so well for us, or France, or Belgium, or England, or Poland....
I'm just saying...
I'm sure back in Weimar Germany, no one thought that censoring the ending of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a precursor to the Third Reich but that's the way things turned out...
Look, if I were a German citizen, I'd probably be extra-hyper-vigilant about authoritarian tendencies.. you know, what with two world wars and the lovely example of The Third Reich and later East Germany before me. But that's just me.
I'll say it's none of my business until they move into the Sudetenland, however.
It's Germany, and while some people like their boardgames, it's been clear for a long time that they take the "hysterical spinster" approach to censorship. Their approach isn't sane, consistent nor rational.
I simply shake my head sadly, thank Yog-Sothoth that I don't have to live there, and pray nightly to "He Who Is Not To Be Named" that German style government doesn't come to my country.
Why do you need a phone for this? Why not just LARP or play K.A.O.S.?
Ok, a phone could be part of the game, sure, even have helper applications on it. But once you add, "location based," and "play with other humans" there really isn't much reason for the RPG part to be electronics based...
Actually, if China is on the list, don't they own us now?
Seriously, how much American National Debt do they have to hold before we have to start doing what they say?
I've bought my fair share of "dubious" media, and "game enhancing mechanisms" from Hong Kong, but why would the Chinese government have to listen to the US government?
I mean, heck, they just bought Hummer, they'll probably get the rest of GM eventually, for fire sale prices.... meanwhile, we're giving all our money to the big banks, which they use to try to make themselves even more overleveraged than they are now.
"I am Jonathan Jameson Volkeson the Third, no doubt the worlds most brilliant scientist. I will not let the course charted by my peerless intellect be stopped by you or anyone."
The current administration is much less submissive to corporate political desires.
I haven't seen any evidence of this. Yes, the current administration favors the FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) sector over manufacturing. Indeed Obama favors FIRE over all other businesses, so I'm guessing he's looking for a do nothing job at one of the big funds after his term as president is up. (It's the only thing that makes sense, since what's good for Goldman Sachs, currently, is what is bad for America.)
However, favoring one group of corporations over another group of corporations is not being "less submissive to corporate political desires."
I'm actually expecting Obama to roll over on the overseas tax havens, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.
I'm not really looking forward to that, I'm not sure why the government decided to waste all our taxpayer money on GM if they knew they were just planning to send most of the jobs to China. But I guess some extremely rich people won't lose as much money as they were going to originally, which makes me feel just swell.
I guess the people in charge of this, like our car czar, figured that that was what people were concerned about, that some well-heeled bondholders would have to take a haircut. Otherwise, it's kind of baffling from a political standpoint.
Except in the "after we retire from politics we'll all be rich, rich, rich! And what are you going to do about it, vote Republican, mwahahahaha!"
Buses are much faster than horse and carriages, they carry many more people.
Actually, buses are a kludge, and not a very good one... I'm going to quote Judge Doon from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? now:
Judge: "Of course not. You lack vision."
"I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day and all night!"
"Soon, where Toontown once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food, tire salons, automobile dealerships, and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see."
"My God, it'll be beautiful."
Eddie: "Come on! Nobody's going to drive this lousy freeway when they can take the Red Car for a nickel."
Judge: "Oh they'll drive. They'll have to."
"You see, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it."
If you go back, before the rise of the automobile, you'll find trolleys in many major American cities. Check the history of your own town. Did it have trolleys? If so, where did the go?
Why did the Federal Government decide to commit it's resources to an Interstate Highway System rather than an Interstate Rail System?
Why do passenger trains criss cross Europe and Japan, but not the United States?
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Others simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage. http://www.brianmclaren.net
I'll give you one better, back before anime had it's big surge in popularity, there was a comic book/rpg/occult book/anime/manga shop that I could go to to buy anime.
So, I went to buy a copy of the Chinese cartoon, A Chinese Ghost Story for my brother for his birthday. As I was purchasing this film, the hippy behind the counter proceeds to tell me that he doesn't like anime.
Well, I pointed out that you can't really call A Chinese Ghost Story anime as it is Chinese, paid the man and left.
Later the store went out of business. Hmm, I wonder why?
My dream is to become a multi-billionare by some mysterious, possibly sinister means, and then open a collectible card game/board game/comic book shop. Ah well, someday....
Slashdot Mirror
Up-Down-Up-Down-Left-Right-Left
Help Me
Heck, I'm 39, and after being killed by Rift Entities one too many times I decided to go to "Casual" mode in the Ghostbusters video game. You know why? Because I don't care anymore...
This is because after a hard grueling day of work (or for a child, school), I don't want to come home to a hard/grueling video game, and never did.
We challenge our kid by making sure she keeps her grades up, if she wants to play Cooking Mama in her free time, that's her own affair.
I'll admit, I always thought it was dumb to play through a game on God mode from the very start. I knew kids who did it, and I didn't understand the point. I never thought it was bad to have God mode though.
On the other hand, the games where I get to "that one boss" and give up in frustration, what do those teach a child? If life is too hard you can always give up?
Wow, negative one, troll.... cool!
Just think, you could've wasted that on a real troll rather than someone you disagreed with politically. Rock on, Mr. Mod.
Well, Sardonic Laughter is appropriate. The laughter of the baby as it's consumed by Saturn's Sacrificial fires...
Oh, and look, the idiot moderator modded you 'off-topic' as well. People really love whistling past the graveyard, don't they?
Rock on Mr. Mod! Keep on burying your head in that sand, and remember it isn't real if you can't see it...
What about Hellsing?
Oh, right, that's Japanese. I still thought of sending a copy to the Queen of England to watch if she's ever feeling down though.
"May God and Her Majesty the Queen bless you. Amen."
The thing that is weird is, why does anyone have to be bribed to make culturally British games? If indeed they do.
My guess is, this is going to be a "More money for stuff we were going to do anyway" kind of law.
I mean will Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia games qualify? How about 40k based games...
Oh, I agree, but then I'd prefer most countries with nuclear weapons didn't have them (and if I were living in fantasy land, all countries with nuclear weapons. The order of magnitude is too great. We really don't need people who can become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds in our only World, thanks. See Doctor Strangelove for reasons why.).
Too bad we can't put that genie back in the bottle... and an Ahmadenijad regime will definitely press on. Right now, while the United States is occupied elsewhere is their best chance to become a nuclear power. It may be that the Grand Ayatollah understands this, and it's why he's decided to back Ahmadenijad. Once a country is in the nuclear club, well, I haven't seen any kicked out of that clubhouse yet... The idea that we can stop it with anything other than a full scale, total war is very naive. Iran is not Iraq, even without nukes they are a big threat, especially with one of our armies conveniently next door.
Of course, Israel, which is scarily radicalizing under our noses, started that particular arms race by building their own nukes.
And before anyone says how great it is that Israel has nukes, let me be clear. I'm an American. I can argue over whether America should have nukes or not... but why on God's green earth would I ever want any other country (as in not-America) to have them? If we, as Americans are worried about Israel, we can just station some of our own nuclear subs in that part of the world as a deterrant. This whole idea that we should be thrilled that some other soveriegn country that we don't control has their own city killers never ceases to amaze me. But then we do seem to be putting an increasing number of unmedicated lunatics on our TVs as "news" programs so what do I know.
Not only that, but he held some power in the Iranian government before Mahmoud Ahmedinijad came to power:
Put it to you this way, even a brutal, repressive dictatorship like Soviet Russia had factions. It's inevitable. Kruschev survived Stalin's terror, and as leader of the Soviet Union he was a reformer and anti-Stalinist. (Yes, I know he was the hated Soviet leader in those days, he was still an improvement on Uncle Joe.)
In these cases, we'd like to see someone like Gorbachev come to power rather than someone like Stalin. It appears to me, as an ignorant, outside observer that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently in the process of consolidating power. Or rather, that the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hoseyni Khmenei has decided he's had enough of reform and has decided to close off what little voice the Iranian people still have in their government.
I hope I'm wrong, but I predict darker days ahead for the people of Iran.
Indeed, Germany is famous for not valuing freedom like we do. Of course, the last time they "didn't value freedom like we do" well that didn't work out so well for us, or France, or Belgium, or England, or Poland....
I'm just saying...
I'm sure back in Weimar Germany, no one thought that censoring the ending of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a precursor to the Third Reich but that's the way things turned out...
Look, if I were a German citizen, I'd probably be extra-hyper-vigilant about authoritarian tendencies.. you know, what with two world wars and the lovely example of The Third Reich and later East Germany before me. But that's just me.
I'll say it's none of my business until they move into the Sudetenland, however.
It's Germany, and while some people like their boardgames, it's been clear for a long time that they take the "hysterical spinster" approach to censorship. Their approach isn't sane, consistent nor rational.
I simply shake my head sadly, thank Yog-Sothoth that I don't have to live there, and pray nightly to "He Who Is Not To Be Named" that German style government doesn't come to my country.
Going outside.... check
Playing with other humans... check
Why do you need a phone for this? Why not just LARP or play K.A.O.S.?
Ok, a phone could be part of the game, sure, even have helper applications on it. But once you add, "location based," and "play with other humans" there really isn't much reason for the RPG part to be electronics based...
possible early prototype?
Oh, I guess not, the limit in the article is only $1,000 not 10 Million Yen...
o/~ Oh, I'm proud to be a Canadian, where at least I know I'm free o/~
Actually, if China is on the list, don't they own us now?
Seriously, how much American National Debt do they have to hold before we have to start doing what they say?
I've bought my fair share of "dubious" media, and "game enhancing mechanisms" from Hong Kong, but why would the Chinese government have to listen to the US government?
I mean, heck, they just bought Hummer, they'll probably get the rest of GM eventually, for fire sale prices.... meanwhile, we're giving all our money to the big banks, which they use to try to make themselves even more overleveraged than they are now.
Like in Robot Carnival's "A Tale of Two Robots"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdOieEsk918
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdqhD5NAv9w
"I am Jonathan Jameson Volkeson the Third, no doubt the worlds most brilliant scientist. I will not let the course charted by my peerless intellect be stopped by you or anyone."
I haven't seen any evidence of this. Yes, the current administration favors the FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) sector over manufacturing. Indeed Obama favors FIRE over all other businesses, so I'm guessing he's looking for a do nothing job at one of the big funds after his term as president is up. (It's the only thing that makes sense, since what's good for Goldman Sachs, currently, is what is bad for America.)
However, favoring one group of corporations over another group of corporations is not being "less submissive to corporate political desires."
I'm actually expecting Obama to roll over on the overseas tax havens, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Still, he's not as bad as Arnold.
You can have up to 6 players in Killing Floor .
Ok, so it isn't 8....
Apparently, after the bankruptcy, GM will be making cars in China...
I'm not really looking forward to that, I'm not sure why the government decided to waste all our taxpayer money on GM if they knew they were just planning to send most of the jobs to China. But I guess some extremely rich people won't lose as much money as they were going to originally, which makes me feel just swell.
I guess the people in charge of this, like our car czar, figured that that was what people were concerned about, that some well-heeled bondholders would have to take a haircut. Otherwise, it's kind of baffling from a political standpoint.
Except in the "after we retire from politics we'll all be rich, rich, rich! And what are you going to do about it, vote Republican, mwahahahaha!"
James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to be more efficient!
I was kind of glad I didn't find a bunch of Slashdot posts by me when I typed in Sesshomaru, just this video I did that one time in Paris.*
Other than that it's mostly relevant stuff...
---
*(OK, that's just a lie, my Sesshomaru cosplay costume isn't nearly as good, and I hardly ever get to go to Paris.)
Actually, buses are a kludge, and not a very good one... I'm going to quote Judge Doon from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? now:
If you go back, before the rise of the automobile, you'll find trolleys in many major American cities. Check the history of your own town. Did it have trolleys? If so, where did the go?
Why did the Federal Government decide to commit it's resources to an Interstate Highway System rather than an Interstate Rail System?
Why do passenger trains criss cross Europe and Japan, but not the United States?
That's weird, I've had plenty of teacher's who I liked to think of having sex. All females of course, but still...
You are thinking of tracts. Haw! Haw!
"Ok, fellas, make with the lightening bolts!"
I'll give you one better, back before anime had it's big surge in popularity, there was a comic book/rpg/occult book/anime/manga shop that I could go to to buy anime.
So, I went to buy a copy of the Chinese cartoon, A Chinese Ghost Story for my brother for his birthday. As I was purchasing this film, the hippy behind the counter proceeds to tell me that he doesn't like anime.
Well, I pointed out that you can't really call A Chinese Ghost Story anime as it is Chinese, paid the man and left.
Later the store went out of business. Hmm, I wonder why?
My dream is to become a multi-billionare by some mysterious, possibly sinister means, and then open a collectible card game/board game/comic book shop. Ah well, someday....