You obviously have no idea what string theory is about. The original poster is bang on. Good luck with your career in this, if you have one. Sounds like you've bought into the FUD. String Theory IS modified to fit the experimental results. ALL the time. Anything after this is just about how it falls apart.
Sorry. Transhumanists are nut jobs. As I've said before, go to the gym, take some breath mints, and try relating to women as real people, before you try making the entire human genome pay for your bad luck and lifestyle.
Well whatever the specifications between the two in actual flight we'll never know now. But my point still stands that if it weren't for Soyuz, you guys would be in big trouble right now. That said:
They tried a shuttle, failed, and are now back to a ship from the 60s. I fear we may go down the same path.
I completely agree with this. I don't believe that going back to a 60s style ship is the answer. I do believe in reusable launch vehicle, and I actually still do believe in a space plane. I've commened alot on this before. I also think that alot of people take a piece out of the shuttle, but if we were on a second generation or third generation of that program (instead of just keeping upgrading the old ships), people could see more clearly what could be done. I mean these things are almost 30 years old -- at least by design.
Hence your reliance now on Soyuz while you wander around in a daze wondering what to do next with your low earth orbit space program.......incidentally if you check out the wikipage previously referenced above there's a side by side comparison of how Buran is superior to the STS (I say is, because even though the Buran program effectively no longer exists, the specifications of the Shuttle have not changed since inception).
I think people are missing the bigger war: editor versus reader created site. This is essentially what we're talking about. All the other issues such as lack of good comments, or the way pages are posted, etc, etc are just implementations of these ideas. Fundamentally what digg has, which slashdot lacks, is pazzaz, newness, and reaction time more in pace with the tech crowd. And this is a result because the users are much more in control.
Digg offers two important innovations over slashdot:
1) a much faster post time between stories
and
2) a much more diverse story range.
The two in fact are related, and are based on the fact that digg is mostly created by the readers themselves. It turns out that people are interested in stories that are "related" to tech, but aren't tech themselves. And what better barometer of what people want to read, than the people?
Slashdot on the other hand will always be out of step with its readers, because to a certain extent its a reflection of a small group of people (the editors) who, and they are very bright, may not be actually better editors overall than the readers themselves.
Most websites that have editors, have writers as well. And this is what editors REALLY do, is they manage the writers, and what they write, and oversee the end product. Unfortunately with slashdot, the writers are just whatever is lying around on the web. And so what ends up happnening is that you have the few editors of slashdot trying to put together slashdot with their limited time and resources (Editor Model), versus all the readers at digg doing the same thing (reader model). In this situation the editors don't add alot of value because the managing of "writers" and their "stories" is not necessary.
Slashdot currently does have a better commenting system, and the quality of posts is definately why I come back. But while I used to read slashdot daily, I go to digg often during the day, but slashdot now every couple of days.
Unfortunately in the end, the great quality and comments, is just a result of the fact that slashdot has been around for a while. It will go if slashdot doesn't innovate (yes mod me down if you don't like it). If I were the editors of slashdot I would start looking very seriously at how to do that. As much as well all love slashdot, its important to remember that only websites that stay on top of it, stay around -- history of the web.
On the positive side, I think it would be very easy for slashdot to fix these. More stories, and more user control. Keep the great comment system.
I have a similar Windows 98 system at home, which is there because I'm using a Digidesign Session 8 (kind of an early Protools III system for PC), and it won't work with Win2k. Well its got a wire to the linksys router, and I access the internet on it lots. I play Starcraft on it on battlenet, all sorts of fun stuff. Lots of IE and Firefox.
Here's an interesting piece of news: NOTHING has ever happened to it, and its been running for about two years now. I have AVG on it, along with a software firewall, and it does fine (its also behind the router -- which has firewall functionality). And you know what? If something did happen to it, I just reformat and reinstall. Its not a big deal. Really it isn't. What about my data? Its on another physical drive, and its backed up frequently. For what its worth, I also have a Win2k Viao that I use with a wireless card.
Worried that I have a zombie computer? I can always look at the little blinky lights on the router, and see if its sending some data when nothing is accessing the internet. Imagine that? And I always investigate these instances, mostly though because I worry about spyware.
I get a bit tired of all the geeky security types talking about the latest security patching, as if you don't have the latest security patch and therefore are not allowed to hook up to the net. Its all about acceptable risk versus reality. The reality that you can become obsessed going after all of these security updates, waste all your time doing it, and the real consequences of it are: gee one thirty minute reinstall in 2 years.
I DO agree that on corporate networks, and mission critical systems SECURITY IS ESSENTIAL. And thats great.
But for me, and alot of other people it looks like on this thread, lack of Windows 98 security updates is alot of "Meh".
So I'll keep my Windows 98 installation. And when it does die, I'll just reformat and reinstall..o.
I call BS on your post. Its irrelevant whether someone has kids or not as to whether or not they are able to make a valid point on this issue. If it makes you feel superior to say so and think so thats fine. But the basis of the argument still stands on its own merit, no matter who is making it.
I don't care if you have kids. But I still have to live with your kids. And in the future that they end up creating. And if I have kids they'll have to deal with your kids as well. So this affects me, whether or not I'm a member of your (haughty, it would seem) segment of society.
With that out of the way. Lets get down to the BS part.
Kids have grown up and lived in modern society for around 100 years perfectly fine on their own without cell phones or trackers or anything like that. Communities have been relatively safe at least in major parts of the so called "Western World", and there are lots of ways to know where your child is at anytime or if they have gone missing. You have other parents, schools, after school places, etc, etc.
So now you have the opportunity to track them. And? I understand giving them a cell phone. If they are genuinely in trouble they can call you. This is actually great, because it does add to communication, and it can foster an element of responsibility.
But remember that kids are actually not your little puppets, but area meant to grow up to be independant members of society. The only thing I can see by having your kid knowing that you're monitoring them 24/7 is that you are ultimately undermining their trust, and also their ability to develop autonomy. I would actually argue this is bad parenting.
I understand you love your child, and thats great. But there is a greater love than just "possession" -- which this kind of a tracking device is to some degree an extension of (if you know where something is even if you don't have it in your presence,in a sense you always possess it, great for stalkers by the way) -- which is that of bringing your child up to be a responsible member of society. I'm not sure how giving them an electronic leash is going to foster that.
I usually don't respond to blatant trolls, but I can't let this horseshit slide.
I'll ignore this.
First, I love to play FPS and 3PS, yet I don't love to kill. I have never killed anything higher up the foodchain than a fish in real life, certainly not a person or even a warm-blooded organism.
Well but this is EXACTLY the point I'm making. None of us would ever do these things in real life. But obviously when it comes to gaming many of us do. Lets start with your definition of murder:
the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." Shooting demons from hell, enemy soldiers, mercenaries, trigens, clone troopers, Combine soldiers, zombies, monsters, aliens, or robots is not murder.
Now this is an interesting list. Why is killing "enemy soldiers, mercinaries.. clone troopers.. combine soldiers.. aliens" (elispes mine) not murder?
I of course had meant murder in the common sense not the "legal sense". I see your definition includes the word "unlaweful". But lets not get hung up on the word "murder", because of its legal implications, and replace the word "murder" with "killing". Obviously in a video game there is no meaningful "legal" framework in which to work.
But if we look at killing its still the same thing. So let me rephrase my original post:
And why is this statement moronic? Because its just a throw away. Why would you want to buy a game where you put a bullet in ANYONE's head? This is simulated killing. Once you get past that, it can be women, children, animals whatever. And that whatever is whatever sells
I mean really, Zonk. Have you not seen GTA? Have you not at least heard about it? Have you not played Duke Nukem 3D? What rock are you sitting under? First Person Shooters are all about this. Third person shooters are about this. People that play these love to kill. Even casual users love to play these sorts of games from time to time. And first person shooters, and lets be blunt here, is mostly about killing. And GTA has show that women are a great target as well.
There are you happy?
Now secondly, I'm not saying that there is anything right or wrong about it. I was simply saying that it sells. There are many examples of this in video games, and its about whatever sells.
And listen: I play these games too. Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Doom, Half-Life, etc etc. And I never imagine that because I "kill" people in these games, that I am bad, or that anyone who does is more likely to do so in real life.
But my point still stands. Why do people beat up hookers in GTA? Because it sells. End of story. Finito.
(Obviously some games do involve simulated murder, e.g. GTA, Hitman, etc., but they're not FPSs. Minor quibble.)
If you'd read my post I had included Third Person Shooters (of which Hitman is).
It's pretty darn tasteless; Why would a beautifully made up woman with a bullet in her brain make you want to buy a game?
What a mornoic statement. I keep thinking more and more that except for Taco, its the editors that hold slashdot back. If it weren't for the great user base and the comments, I'd be on digg all the time.
And why is this statement moronic? Because its just a throw away. Why would you want to buy a game where you put a bullet in ANYONE's head? This is simulated murder. Once you get past that, it can be women, children, animals whatever. And that whatever is whatever sells
I mean really, Zonk. Have you not seen GTA? Have you not at least heard about it? Have you not played Duke Nukem 3D? What rock are you sitting under? First Person Shooters are all about this. Third person shooters are about this. People that play these love to kill. Even casual users love to play these sorts of games from time to time. And first person shooters, and lets be blunt here, is mostly about murder. And GTA has show that women are a great target as well.
I say all of this because if it comes as a shock to you that someone would want to shoot a "beautiful" woman in the head (as if she is more worthy of not being shot than anyone else), then you're really missing something, and shouldn't be an editor on slashdot. Give us something with a little more depth please. We're not that dumb.
(And I didn't even need to make the other obvious argument that people play games because of what they "can't" do in real life, and since there's a very clear distinction in most people's minds between games and reality, morality is not much of an issue. )
These are the three laws of robotics that Asimov states in his body of fiction work in various places:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
It is clearly in violation of law one.
The issue of course is not whether these laws are "real" or not. The fact is they exist in various sci-fi books he has written. And any robot that kills will be in violation of law one.
As for your other point, I disagree. I think these robots were meant to be used on the front line. Commonly its the young that get sent to the front line. Colonel Smith will not be sent into a dangerous hot spot just to run a robot. He will be behind at the command post commanding things.
Sorry to break it to the folks over at the Inquirer, but Asimov's Laws do not actually exist....any more than his 'positronic brain' does. It's fiction.
Wether its fiction or not, they are still breaking his laws. I don't think Asimov had any delusions about how "real" his laws were. In fact they were simply a decision a particular fictional society (or arguably the finctional company U.S. Robotics in his books) made with regards to a particular technology. But they were reflective about a concern about machines which were capable of independant action, and indeed though.
And it is just a piece of technology. Just like nano technology, and genetic engineering. These are all technologies.
Genetic engineering is a good one to pick, because its almost exactly like robotics, except it uses biological material. Is there any difference? Sure today. But what if down the line robots become sophisticated enough to emulate biological systems? For simple applications they are able to do so today. If we create a mutant, non thinking, killing machine based on genetic engineering, is it worth debating? Are there any laws (which, really means ethics or guidelines) that we should follow in their creation?
This is not hysteria of course. I'm not going to say were now moving towards the future of the Matrix or the Terminator. These kinds of films are really just our inner fears or doubts played out on the screen in a way.
But anything that kills, and has the potential to do so without conscious, and autonomously (and this last part is key), should be contemplated.
And while I have no fanciful hopes about there being reflective debate on robots, there is merit in looking at least looking ethically why Asimov chose those laws, and also why those laws were not simply dismissed. In fact they have persisted for a long time through the recent decades, and people seem to kind of resonate with them.
The fact that some 18 year old is sitting behind the machine with the "go-no go" on the fire button, should not cloud us from the fact that it is just one step away from a fully autonomous killing machine. And that should give you pause to think, whether Asimov brings it up or anyone else.
After all it could be coming to a neighbourhood near you soon.
Actually this is a good point. I've never really understood why geek guys get so bunched up in a knot about issues like these: booth babes, volouptous women in video games, and so on. Every other guy I've talked to that comes back from E3 is either neutral about them (like "Eh, whatever, more girls"), or rather enjoyed them ("Check out these pics of the booth babes", etc). Plus its not open to the public (it is just an industry show), and so there won't be like familes with kids running around everywhere.
But geek guys, if we are to believe what they post online, seem to be the opposite. I have two theories:
1) They're insecure about themselves and so a beautiful woman standing in front of them makes them feel uncomfortable. If you're an unattractive, overweight guy with bad interpersonal skills, its hard not to have that feeling inside that this is exactly who you won't be dating, and that can be a hard swallow. This runs parallel with my other theory about why American media seems to want to put hot sexy, yet strong and agressive women on TV all the time (honestly, has anyone ever actually met any girl like Laura Croft in real life?), which I'll save for another discussion (these kinds of women are relatively uncommon on European media for example, or Latin American, etc).
2) They're trying to get in with other geek girls doing the old "Look at me I'm a sensitive guy too. You'll like me". Of course its a dishonest approach and an ingratiating one, but also a common tactic.
But people will go, and party and drink and have meetings and do all the stuff they do just the same. And I'm sure we'll see the booth babes come back in time. As another poster pointed out, they'll still hire attractive women and put them behind the booths.
THANK YOU. This is exactly how I feel about the whole situation as well. You've summed it up very nicely. I absolutely adore Win2k, at least as much I can adore a Windows product. For me its the closest thing that anything has ever come to perfect windows (contradiction in terms jokes ad nausem). It provides the same functionality as Windows XP, and I can run it on very old machines with very reasonable performance. I have an old Sony Viao with a 233mhz Pentium (yes no II, III, just a regular Pentium), and 128mb of RAM. Win2k runs great, and just about as well as my XP Desktop at work (3.0 ghz, AMD, bla bla). Of course certain applications like playing movies and so on it can't do. But this is not an OS limitation.
XP on the other hand is clearly bloatware. The memory specifications practically quadrippled, and there are still HUGE moments when it just sits there thinking, and of course there is the well know XP Slow down. Over time it just seems to get worse. We're back to Windows 3.1 when we had to reinstall every six months.
Actually my understanding is that just before the original Napster went down, they had a system in place which actually COULD identify a song against a database of "copyrighted songs". If I remember correctly it was able to look at the first 30 seconds or a minute, and create an analysis that resulted in a signature. This made it relatively easy to compare...
These are the people that want to control the internet.
You are so wrong. These are GOVERNMENTS that want to control the internet. Not "people". China especially is very suspect here, although the others for various reasons as well. In fact ANY government has shown in recent years that what is good for it, is often incidental to what is good for the people. One of the reasons the UN is now considered broken, is because it appears like a lethargic, festering horse dying on the side of the road. Much like Congress. Much like the governing bodies of alot of governments. While people may have issues with ICANN, its important in these kind of debates to seperate government issue with the original free (as in speach) vision of the internet. And that is essential. Just ask anyone in a place like China how much they enjoy their government filtering the internet.
Ironically grown up at DARPA, yes, but then developed and released in the universities and research labs, where the idea of unrestricted access to information and materials was considered essential.
Riiight. The US had LOTS of space stations up and running for a really long time. I mean lets have a look:
Russian:
Salyut1 : 175 Days in orbit Salyut3 : 213 Days in orbit Salyut 4: 770 Days in orbit Salyut 5: 412 Days in Orbit Salyut 6: 1,764 Days in orbit Salyut 7: 3,216 Days in orbit Mir: 5,511 Days in orbit
US:
Skylab: 2,249 Days in orbit
I can see how Russia would really need the US's help.
When ever this subject of "insecure programming language comes up", I often think of Intel's old iAPX design.
Now we all know Intel gets alot of bad rap these days, much like IBM got alot of bad rap in the late 80s just before it almost collapsed, and like Microsoft is getting now. But they have done some amazing things, and while we all love AMD, they have at least until very recently been copiers of ideas and designs (in fact their k6 design was basically brought in from NextGen when they bought that company to replace their own underwhelming K6 project).
The Intel iAPX 432 was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, introduced in 1981 as a set of three integrated circuits. The iAPX 432 was intended to be Intel's major design for the 1980s, implementing many advanced multitasking and memory management features in hardware, which led them to refer to the design as the Micromainframe.
The iAPX 432 has hardware and microcode support for object-oriented programming.
Programs are not able to reference data or instructions by address; instead they must specify a segment and an offset within the segment. Segments are referenced by Access Descriptors (ADs), which provide an index into the system object table and a set of rights (capabilities) governing accesses to that segment. Segments may be access segments, which can only contain Access Descriptors, or data segments which cannot contain ADs. The hardware and microcode rigidly enforce the distinction between data and access segments, and will not allow software to treat data as access descriptors, or vice versa... ...etc.
The idea being that the 432 architecture was essentially a hardware object oriented processing platform, with alot of stuff in there which would have changed at a fundamental level how programs approach the weaknesses in C like languages. Of course in the 80s when it was implimented it was dog slow. But then the first of anything is, isn't it (the 4004 was incrediably slow and so was the 8008).
Now the 432 was supposed to be the basis of Intel's microprocessor roadmap for the 80s (we can start hearing echo's of Itanium here), and in fact thats why early references to the 286 refered to it as the iAPX80286. It was a stepping stone to the 432, some say.
Interestingly enough alot of people believe that the main reason the 432 was not a success was because of its compiler (echo's of Itanium again), but we can imagine this might have been solved given enough time and development. Certainly if it had been given a chance, I always wonder how things would look different, and if we'd be having all of these problems we have today with insecure code.
I can't imagine why this new #1 women's breasts are too large in video games + variations is coming out, unless the geeks who write the articles (who have hard time getting dates anyways), are maybe recieving some kind of other pressure. But this last one really baffles me. Whores? With the exception of GTA, I'd like you to point out one game where a female character doesn't at least have some kind of "Action Oriented" participant role in the game.
You just sound bitter. As a Canadian, I'm very happy you're in the US. Perhaps we really don't want you back. But this is why different countries exist. I happen to love universal medicare, and I think the Trudeau era changes were great. The problems with the dollar after, and many of the things some (short sighted) people wish to ascribe to his government and policy, were in fact the results of the things going on in the 70s, alot of it related to oil. Most of the other world economies went through exactly the same thing, and I'm pretty sure they weren't taking advice from Mister Trudeau.
I may mention that our country has no deficit. I may also mention that we have alot of great social programs, many of which have prevented this country from becoming a barren landscape of cultureless strip malls. These involve the arts and local culture. I may also point out that our unemployment insurance program at last count was in a SURPLUS of BILLIONS. Possibly we could argue that its because people payed too much into it, or it could be that, well maybe the economy really isn't so bad over here.
The recent trend towards private medicare is really just a push on the part of the doctors for more of a cash grab, and shame on them. With the exception of places like Quebec and Ontraio, where first a Sovernist government created policies hostile towards universal heath care, and second basically a right wing government like the Republicans did more or less the same thing, most of the other provinces are quite happy with it.
As for your whining about hostility towards Americans on the part of Canadians, you might see that alot of that hostility (if it does exist) is directed at the current government. People here spoke quite favourably abuot Bill Clinton and his governmnt over all. There was a feeling that with the help of the US a new era of world peace and cooperation had started. And then...well..we all know recent history. If you read ANY media sources which are from outside the US, you'll find that this attitude and hostility is actually pretty universal world wide. You should think about that. THINK. I know its alot to ask from some people these days.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously have no idea what string theory is about. The original poster is bang on. Good luck with your career in this, if you have one. Sounds like you've bought into the FUD. String Theory IS modified to fit the experimental results. ALL the time. Anything after this is just about how it falls apart.
Love it! :)
Sorry. Transhumanists are nut jobs. As I've said before, go to the gym, take some breath mints, and try relating to women as real people, before you try making the entire human genome pay for your bad luck and lifestyle.
Well whatever the specifications between the two in actual flight we'll never know now. But my point still stands that if it weren't for Soyuz, you guys would be in big trouble right now. That said:
They tried a shuttle, failed, and are now back to a ship from the 60s. I fear we may go down the same path.
I completely agree with this. I don't believe that going back to a 60s style ship is the answer. I do believe in reusable launch vehicle, and I actually still do believe in a space plane. I've commened alot on this before. I also think that alot of people take a piece out of the shuttle, but if we were on a second generation or third generation of that program (instead of just keeping upgrading the old ships), people could see more clearly what could be done. I mean these things are almost 30 years old -- at least by design.
Hence your reliance now on Soyuz while you wander around in a daze wondering what to do next with your low earth orbit space program.... ...incidentally if you check out the wikipage previously referenced above there's a side by side comparison of how Buran is superior to the STS (I say is, because even though the Buran program effectively no longer exists, the specifications of the Shuttle have not changed since inception).
I think people are missing the bigger war: editor versus reader created site. This is essentially what we're talking about. All the other issues such as lack of good comments, or the way pages are posted, etc, etc are just implementations of these ideas. Fundamentally what digg has, which slashdot lacks, is pazzaz, newness, and reaction time more in pace with the tech crowd. And this is a result because the users are much more in control.
Digg offers two important innovations over slashdot:
1) a much faster post time between stories
and
2) a much more diverse story range.
The two in fact are related, and are based on the fact that digg is mostly created by the readers themselves. It turns out that people are interested in stories that are "related" to tech, but aren't tech themselves. And what better barometer of what people want to read, than the people?
Slashdot on the other hand will always be out of step with its readers, because to a certain extent its a reflection of a small group of people (the editors) who, and they are very bright, may not be actually better editors overall than the readers themselves.
Most websites that have editors, have writers as well. And this is what editors REALLY do, is they manage the writers, and what they write, and oversee the end product. Unfortunately with slashdot, the writers are just whatever is lying around on the web. And so what ends up happnening is that you have the few editors of slashdot trying to put together slashdot with their limited time and resources (Editor Model), versus all the readers at digg doing the same thing (reader model). In this situation the editors don't add alot of value because the managing of "writers" and their "stories" is not necessary.
Slashdot currently does have a better commenting system, and the quality of posts is definately why I come back. But while I used to read slashdot daily, I go to digg often during the day, but slashdot now every couple of days.
Unfortunately in the end, the great quality and comments, is just a result of the fact that slashdot has been around for a while. It will go if slashdot doesn't innovate (yes mod me down if you don't like it). If I were the editors of slashdot I would start looking very seriously at how to do that. As much as well all love slashdot, its important to remember that only websites that stay on top of it, stay around -- history of the web.
On the positive side, I think it would be very easy for slashdot to fix these. More stories, and more user control. Keep the great comment system.
Unless of course you live in Canada, where huge amounts if not all electricity in some regions is provided by water -- as hydro power.
Or not.
.o.
I have a similar Windows 98 system at home, which is there because I'm using a Digidesign Session 8 (kind of an early Protools III system for PC), and it won't work with Win2k. Well its got a wire to the linksys router, and I access the internet on it lots. I play Starcraft on it on battlenet, all sorts of fun stuff. Lots of IE and Firefox.
Here's an interesting piece of news: NOTHING has ever happened to it, and its been running for about two years now. I have AVG on it, along with a software firewall, and it does fine (its also behind the router -- which has firewall functionality). And you know what? If something did happen to it, I just reformat and reinstall. Its not a big deal. Really it isn't. What about my data? Its on another physical drive, and its backed up frequently. For what its worth, I also have a Win2k Viao that I use with a wireless card.
Worried that I have a zombie computer? I can always look at the little blinky lights on the router, and see if its sending some data when nothing is accessing the internet. Imagine that? And I always investigate these instances, mostly though because I worry about spyware.
I get a bit tired of all the geeky security types talking about the latest security patching, as if you don't have the latest security patch and therefore are not allowed to hook up to the net. Its all about acceptable risk versus reality. The reality that you can become obsessed going after all of these security updates, waste all your time doing it, and the real consequences of it are: gee one thirty minute reinstall in 2 years.
I DO agree that on corporate networks, and mission critical systems SECURITY IS ESSENTIAL. And thats great.
But for me, and alot of other people it looks like on this thread, lack of Windows 98 security updates is alot of "Meh".
So I'll keep my Windows 98 installation. And when it does die, I'll just reformat and reinstall.
One word: digg.
If you're really motivated you could check out the end of http://galaxy4girl.blogspot.com/
I call BS on your post. Its irrelevant whether someone has kids or not as to whether or not they are able to make a valid point on this issue. If it makes you feel superior to say so and think so thats fine. But the basis of the argument still stands on its own merit, no matter who is making it.
I don't care if you have kids. But I still have to live with your kids. And in the future that they end up creating. And if I have kids they'll have to deal with your kids as well. So this affects me, whether or not I'm a member of your (haughty, it would seem) segment of society.
With that out of the way. Lets get down to the BS part.
Kids have grown up and lived in modern society for around 100 years perfectly fine on their own without cell phones or trackers or anything like that. Communities have been relatively safe at least in major parts of the so called "Western World", and there are lots of ways to know where your child is at anytime or if they have gone missing. You have other parents, schools, after school places, etc, etc.
So now you have the opportunity to track them. And? I understand giving them a cell phone. If they are genuinely in trouble they can call you. This is actually great, because it does add to communication, and it can foster an element of responsibility.
But remember that kids are actually not your little puppets, but area meant to grow up to be independant members of society. The only thing I can see by having your kid knowing that you're monitoring them 24/7 is that you are ultimately undermining their trust, and also their ability to develop autonomy. I would actually argue this is bad parenting.
I understand you love your child, and thats great. But there is a greater love than just "possession" -- which this kind of a tracking device is to some degree an extension of (if you know where something is even if you don't have it in your presence,in a sense you always possess it, great for stalkers by the way) -- which is that of bringing your child up to be a responsible member of society. I'm not sure how giving them an electronic leash is going to foster that.
I usually don't respond to blatant trolls, but I can't let this horseshit slide.
.. clone troopers .. combine soldiers .. aliens" (elispes mine) not murder?
I'll ignore this.
First, I love to play FPS and 3PS, yet I don't love to kill. I have never killed anything higher up the foodchain than a fish in real life, certainly not a person or even a warm-blooded organism.
Well but this is EXACTLY the point I'm making. None of us would ever do these things in real life. But obviously when it comes to gaming many of us do. Lets start with your definition of murder:
the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." Shooting demons from hell, enemy soldiers, mercenaries, trigens, clone troopers, Combine soldiers, zombies, monsters, aliens, or robots is not murder.
Now this is an interesting list. Why is killing "enemy soldiers, mercinaries
I of course had meant murder in the common sense not the "legal sense". I see your definition includes the word "unlaweful". But lets not get hung up on the word "murder", because of its legal implications, and replace the word "murder" with "killing". Obviously in a video game there is no meaningful "legal" framework in which to work.
But if we look at killing its still the same thing. So let me rephrase my original post:
And why is this statement moronic? Because its just a throw away. Why would you want to buy a game where you put a bullet in ANYONE's head? This is simulated killing. Once you get past that, it can be women, children, animals whatever. And that whatever is whatever sells
I mean really, Zonk. Have you not seen GTA? Have you not at least heard about it? Have you not played Duke Nukem 3D? What rock are you sitting under? First Person Shooters are all about this. Third person shooters are about this. People that play these love to kill. Even casual users love to play these sorts of games from time to time. And first person shooters, and lets be blunt here, is mostly about killing. And GTA has show that women are a great target as well.
There are you happy?
Now secondly, I'm not saying that there is anything right or wrong about it. I was simply saying that it sells. There are many examples of this in video games, and its about whatever sells.
And listen: I play these games too. Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Doom, Half-Life, etc etc. And I never imagine that because I "kill" people in these games, that I am bad, or that anyone who does is more likely to do so in real life.
But my point still stands. Why do people beat up hookers in GTA? Because it sells. End of story. Finito.
(Obviously some games do involve simulated murder, e.g. GTA, Hitman, etc., but they're not FPSs. Minor quibble.)
If you'd read my post I had included Third Person Shooters (of which Hitman is).
It's pretty darn tasteless; Why would a beautifully made up woman with a bullet in her brain make you want to buy a game?
.o.
What a mornoic statement. I keep thinking more and more that except for Taco, its the editors that hold slashdot back. If it weren't for the great user base and the comments, I'd be on digg all the time.
And why is this statement moronic? Because its just a throw away. Why would you want to buy a game where you put a bullet in ANYONE's head? This is simulated murder. Once you get past that, it can be women, children, animals whatever. And that whatever is whatever sells
I mean really, Zonk. Have you not seen GTA? Have you not at least heard about it? Have you not played Duke Nukem 3D? What rock are you sitting under? First Person Shooters are all about this. Third person shooters are about this. People that play these love to kill. Even casual users love to play these sorts of games from time to time. And first person shooters, and lets be blunt here, is mostly about murder. And GTA has show that women are a great target as well.
I say all of this because if it comes as a shock to you that someone would want to shoot a "beautiful" woman in the head (as if she is more worthy of not being shot than anyone else), then you're really missing something, and shouldn't be an editor on slashdot. Give us something with a little more depth please. We're not that dumb.
(And I didn't even need to make the other obvious argument that people play games because of what they "can't" do in real life, and since there's a very clear distinction in most people's minds between games and reality, morality is not much of an issue. )
Sheesh.
These are the three laws of robotics that Asimov states in his body of fiction work in various places:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
It is clearly in violation of law one.
The issue of course is not whether these laws are "real" or not. The fact is they exist in various sci-fi books he has written. And any robot that kills will be in violation of law one.
As for your other point, I disagree. I think these robots were meant to be used on the front line. Commonly its the young that get sent to the front line. Colonel Smith will not be sent into a dangerous hot spot just to run a robot. He will be behind at the command post commanding things.
Sorry to break it to the folks over at the Inquirer, but Asimov's Laws do not actually exist....any more than his 'positronic brain' does. It's fiction.
Wether its fiction or not, they are still breaking his laws. I don't think Asimov had any delusions about how "real" his laws were. In fact they were simply a decision a particular fictional society (or arguably the finctional company U.S. Robotics in his books) made with regards to a particular technology. But they were reflective about a concern about machines which were capable of independant action, and indeed though.
And it is just a piece of technology. Just like nano technology, and genetic engineering. These are all technologies.
Genetic engineering is a good one to pick, because its almost exactly like robotics, except it uses biological material. Is there any difference? Sure today. But what if down the line robots become sophisticated enough to emulate biological systems? For simple applications they are able to do so today. If we create a mutant, non thinking, killing machine based on genetic engineering, is it worth debating? Are there any laws (which, really means ethics or guidelines) that we should follow in their creation?
This is not hysteria of course. I'm not going to say were now moving towards the future of the Matrix or the Terminator. These kinds of films are really just our inner fears or doubts played out on the screen in a way.
But anything that kills, and has the potential to do so without conscious, and autonomously (and this last part is key), should be contemplated.
And while I have no fanciful hopes about there being reflective debate on robots, there is merit in looking at least looking ethically why Asimov chose those laws, and also why those laws were not simply dismissed. In fact they have persisted for a long time through the recent decades, and people seem to kind of resonate with them.
The fact that some 18 year old is sitting behind the machine with the "go-no go" on the fire button, should not cloud us from the fact that it is just one step away from a fully autonomous killing machine. And that should give you pause to think, whether Asimov brings it up or anyone else.
After all it could be coming to a neighbourhood near you soon.
Actually this is a good point. I've never really understood why geek guys get so bunched up in a knot about issues like these: booth babes, volouptous women in video games, and so on. Every other guy I've talked to that comes back from E3 is either neutral about them (like "Eh, whatever, more girls"), or rather enjoyed them ("Check out these pics of the booth babes", etc). Plus its not open to the public (it is just an industry show), and so there won't be like familes with kids running around everywhere.
But geek guys, if we are to believe what they post online, seem to be the opposite. I have two theories:
1) They're insecure about themselves and so a beautiful woman standing in front of them makes them feel uncomfortable. If you're an unattractive, overweight guy with bad interpersonal skills, its hard not to have that feeling inside that this is exactly who you won't be dating, and that can be a hard swallow. This runs parallel with my other theory about why American media seems to want to put hot sexy, yet strong and agressive women on TV all the time (honestly, has anyone ever actually met any girl like Laura Croft in real life?), which I'll save for another discussion (these kinds of women are relatively uncommon on European media for example, or Latin American, etc).
2) They're trying to get in with other geek girls doing the old "Look at me I'm a sensitive guy too. You'll like me". Of course its a dishonest approach and an ingratiating one, but also a common tactic.
But people will go, and party and drink and have meetings and do all the stuff they do just the same. And I'm sure we'll see the booth babes come back in time. As another poster pointed out, they'll still hire attractive women and put them behind the booths.
THANK YOU. This is exactly how I feel about the whole situation as well. You've summed it up very nicely. I absolutely adore Win2k, at least as much I can adore a Windows product. For me its the closest thing that anything has ever come to perfect windows (contradiction in terms jokes ad nausem). It provides the same functionality as Windows XP, and I can run it on very old machines with very reasonable performance. I have an old Sony Viao with a 233mhz Pentium (yes no II, III, just a regular Pentium), and 128mb of RAM. Win2k runs great, and just about as well as my XP Desktop at work (3.0 ghz, AMD, bla bla). Of course certain applications like playing movies and so on it can't do. But this is not an OS limitation.
XP on the other hand is clearly bloatware. The memory specifications practically quadrippled, and there are still HUGE moments when it just sits there thinking, and of course there is the well know XP Slow down. Over time it just seems to get worse. We're back to Windows 3.1 when we had to reinstall every six months.
Actually my understanding is that just before the original Napster went down, they had a system in place which actually COULD identify a song against a database of "copyrighted songs". If I remember correctly it was able to look at the first 30 seconds or a minute, and create an analysis that resulted in a signature. This made it relatively easy to compare...
These are the people that want to control the internet.
You are so wrong. These are GOVERNMENTS that want to control the internet. Not "people". China especially is very suspect here, although the others for various reasons as well. In fact ANY government has shown in recent years that what is good for it, is often incidental to what is good for the people. One of the reasons the UN is now considered broken, is because it appears like a lethargic, festering horse dying on the side of the road. Much like Congress. Much like the governing bodies of alot of governments. While people may have issues with ICANN, its important in these kind of debates to seperate government issue with the original free (as in speach) vision of the internet. And that is essential. Just ask anyone in a place like China how much they enjoy their government filtering the internet.
Ironically grown up at DARPA, yes, but then developed and released in the universities and research labs, where the idea of unrestricted access to information and materials was considered essential.
Why were you moded down -1? I think you've made some good points. Funny slashdot...
Riiight. The US had LOTS of space stations up and running for a really long time. I mean lets have a look:
Russian:
Salyut1 : 175 Days in orbit
Salyut3 : 213 Days in orbit
Salyut 4: 770 Days in orbit
Salyut 5: 412 Days in Orbit
Salyut 6: 1,764 Days in orbit
Salyut 7: 3,216 Days in orbit
Mir: 5,511 Days in orbit
US:
Skylab: 2,249 Days in orbit
I can see how Russia would really need the US's help.
When ever this subject of "insecure programming language comes up", I often think of Intel's old iAPX design.
...etc.
Now we all know Intel gets alot of bad rap these days, much like IBM got alot of bad rap in the late 80s just before it almost collapsed, and like Microsoft is getting now. But they have done some amazing things, and while we all love AMD, they have at least until very recently been copiers of ideas and designs (in fact their k6 design was basically brought in from NextGen when they bought that company to replace their own underwhelming K6 project).
Back to iAPX. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 I'm not sure who is familiar with it, but here's an exerpt from the wikipedia entry on it:
The Intel iAPX 432 was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, introduced in 1981 as a set of three integrated circuits. The iAPX 432 was intended to be Intel's major design for the 1980s, implementing many advanced multitasking and memory management features in hardware, which led them to refer to the design as the Micromainframe.
The iAPX 432 has hardware and microcode support for object-oriented programming.
Programs are not able to reference data or instructions by address; instead they must specify a segment and an offset within the segment. Segments are referenced by Access Descriptors (ADs), which provide an index into the system object table and a set of rights (capabilities) governing accesses to that segment. Segments may be access segments, which can only contain Access Descriptors, or data segments which cannot contain ADs. The hardware and microcode rigidly enforce the distinction between data and access segments, and will not allow software to treat data as access descriptors, or vice versa...
The idea being that the 432 architecture was essentially a hardware object oriented processing platform, with alot of stuff in there which would have changed at a fundamental level how programs approach the weaknesses in C like languages. Of course in the 80s when it was implimented it was dog slow. But then the first of anything is, isn't it (the 4004 was incrediably slow and so was the 8008).
Now the 432 was supposed to be the basis of Intel's microprocessor roadmap for the 80s (we can start hearing echo's of Itanium here), and in fact thats why early references to the 286 refered to it as the iAPX80286. It was a stepping stone to the 432, some say.
Interestingly enough alot of people believe that the main reason the 432 was not a success was because of its compiler (echo's of Itanium again), but we can imagine this might have been solved given enough time and development. Certainly if it had been given a chance, I always wonder how things would look different, and if we'd be having all of these problems we have today with insecure code.
I can't imagine why this new #1 women's breasts are too large in video games + variations is coming out, unless the geeks who write the articles (who have hard time getting dates anyways), are maybe recieving some kind of other pressure. But this last one really baffles me. Whores? With the exception of GTA, I'd like you to point out one game where a female character doesn't at least have some kind of "Action Oriented" participant role in the game.
One other, please?
Actually most people for this bring kilowatt generators.
You just sound bitter. As a Canadian, I'm very happy you're in the US. Perhaps we really don't want you back. But this is why different countries exist. I happen to love universal medicare, and I think the Trudeau era changes were great. The problems with the dollar after, and many of the things some (short sighted) people wish to ascribe to his government and policy, were in fact the results of the things going on in the 70s, alot of it related to oil. Most of the other world economies went through exactly the same thing, and I'm pretty sure they weren't taking advice from Mister Trudeau.
I may mention that our country has no deficit. I may also mention that we have alot of great social programs, many of which have prevented this country from becoming a barren landscape of cultureless strip malls. These involve the arts and local culture. I may also point out that our unemployment insurance program at last count was in a SURPLUS of BILLIONS. Possibly we could argue that its because people payed too much into it, or it could be that, well maybe the economy really isn't so bad over here.
The recent trend towards private medicare is really just a push on the part of the doctors for more of a cash grab, and shame on them. With the exception of places like Quebec and Ontraio, where first a Sovernist government created policies hostile towards universal heath care, and second basically a right wing government like the Republicans did more or less the same thing, most of the other provinces are quite happy with it.
As for your whining about hostility towards Americans on the part of Canadians, you might see that alot of that hostility (if it does exist) is directed at the current government. People here spoke quite favourably abuot Bill Clinton and his governmnt over all. There was a feeling that with the help of the US a new era of world peace and cooperation had started. And then...well..we all know recent history. If you read ANY media sources which are from outside the US, you'll find that this attitude and hostility is actually pretty universal world wide. You should think about that. THINK. I know its alot to ask from some people these days.