The main problem with Exchange (and most Microsoft software in general) is that when it breaks, it's usually very difficult to figure out what broke and how to get it fixed.
Agreed...and I've been on both sides of this. I've worked on a development team for a large (tier 1) ISP who was developing early ecommerce hosting platforms. We were developing Unix and Windows platforms side-by-side for our web hosting operations center. I believe that it used IIS 3 and some version of MS Commerce Server with Windows NT 4. When NT4's multihoming didn't work (at all), we called Microsoft and Microsoft immediately escalated the issue and wrote a new DLL for us. It took a few days, but they eventually sent it to us for testing, and it worked like a charm. (We weren't necessarily paying Microsoft alot of money, we just represented a potentially large reseller for a product that they very much wanted to develop.)
OTOH, with smaller companies, it's difficult to get Microsoft to escalate an issue. Best bet in this situation is to team up with a consulting firm who sells Microsoft products in reasonably large volume (I believe that they should be at least a Gold level reseller, but I could be off). Having a light service or monitoring contract with them is usually enough for you to be able to use their Microsoft service.
Again, I understand the reasons not to use Microsoft software quite well, and am sure that I'd be making those arguments given the proper circumstances. However, sometimes the Microsoft software makes sense. We don't know exactly what the situation is with the submitter, and it wouldn't be fair to simply issue a "don't use Microsoft" warning. Political/ethical RMS arguments aside (which have no place at a middle management level) in some cases, Microsoft makes the right tool for the job.
I wonder if this says more about the intelligence of people of various races (and creeds), or that the IQ tests are culturally biased? I tend to believe the latter. IQ was never a great metric for adults, and wasn't ever designed to show intelligence in a linear fashion...it was designed to show what level a child learned at. A 6 year old whose cognative abilities were at that of a 8 year old would have an IQ of 133.3. See this page for more info.
As outlined in earlier posts, you have quite a few options when it comes to email service.
You can have it hosted. This is probably the easiest option. It sounds like you've had some bad experiences with this, and may be wary of it. You will have the best luck going with larger, more established hosts that embrace modern technology and have a strong, well documented, and well enforced AUP (that bans all kinds of spamming).
The second option has also been mentioned. Run a small Unix-based email service out of your office. This is probably the cheapest option, and depending on whom you compare it to, day-to-day management and troubleshooting can be quicker than a hosted service.
The third option is going to be an unpopular one with the Slashdot crowd (and in some cases, understandably so). Check out Microsoft Exchange (try the one bundled with Small Business Server). There are other groupware applications out there, and some (like Novell/SUSE's OpenExchange) are worth consideration...but nothing is Exchange. If you're already a Microsoft shop, you should definitely consider it as it integrates well with the MSFT software that you already have. Of course, it's budget dependant (and is an expensive platform to use). In your case with a small shop and limited experience, I would have a third party come in and set it up for you, and sign up for a service contract.
For an end user (especially management types), Exchange has every feature under the sun. It would help if you identified your goals (specifically budget and featureset desired) and then decide on what product is best for you. However, I would advise you to leave no option off the table, even if you have personal issues with the software. Also, all of these options are available as hosted solutions. However, it's important to weigh out both the benefits and drawbacks to hosting. Benefits are relatively obvious, and some drawbacks are that you lose control over your service, and certain quick tasks (like a password change) can take hours or even a full day for them to get around to.
If this is the first time you have heard about the attacks on the peacekeepers in the no-fly zones
It was the first time I'd heard of them called terrorists, which is a bit confusing. Natives in their land under soverign control attacking enemy airplanes on a combat air patrol are generally not considered terrorists. That's a little more than a stretch. You never answered my question, however. Do you believe that the US can do no wrong in the world? Have we ever done wrong in the world?
I'm drawing question to your objectivity. You seem to take a one-sided stance on this...and there are two sides to every story.
I wonder if you can even place Iraq on a map. Or if you know the difference between Iran and Iraq.
Heh...nice try with the flamebaitish troll. If you're interested in a civil discussion, I'd be interested in one. I'm not sure if I've put you on the definsive or not, but if you wish a flamewar, please politely piss off.
They (Saddam's terrorists) already had attacked, and were attacking still. Your claim makes no sense. The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
Which attacks were these? Which terrorists were these? Did this really happen, or is this just pro-USA revisionism?
Why can't other Americans realize that just because we're Americans, it doesn't mean that we can't do wrong? Aren't we also human, or do we just have to believe that our enemies are sub-human?
It had all the features it took Microsoft ages to nearly get working many years before and at a far lower price. Shame Commodore were morons.
Mmmmmm...Amiga. I have fond memories of my young Amiga zealotry. The truth is that while it was a superior platform at inception, Amiga was far behind the curve by the time that the AGA architecture was rolled out. Wintel boxes eventually had a better implemented (completely native) retargatable graphics system, and you could pick up 24-bit graphics cards for under $100 (remember that AGA didn't do 24-bit graphics. They had that sorta 18-bit Ham8 and a 24-bit palette. The onboard graphics on the Amiga which used to be its trump card became a hinderance. The 24-bit Wintel cards were much faster than the AGA chipset could (I remember how incredibly slow an 8-bit color desktop was on my 1200...it was unusable).
Amigas still had great blitter, but by this time, it was nearly useless unless you were really into animating sprites and scrolling massive bitmap screens. It did make for some cool games, like Gravity Wars however.
Once Windows 95 was released, it was all over for the Amiga, as Windows 95 sported usable multitasking and some protected memory, while the Amigas would have (what would normally be) userland applications bring the system down...Guru Meditation. The Windows OS caught up to and surpassed AmigaOS 3.x.
None of this was the fault of the platform or its engineers. I believe that it came down to Commodore's management. The company wes too slow to release technology and failed to market what they had. Of course, I'm sure that it also had something to do with Microsoft's dominant marketshare as well as the depth of their third-party development base./p
Hello SnowDeath. The scientific method has always applied to the theory of evolution. Have you ever read any of Charles Darwin's work, or the related work that it spawned. Much of it has been well observed and is generally accepted by the scientific community. In fact, the only part of the theory under any kind of debate is the abstraction that humanity has evolved (over great time) from single cell organisms. That is the only part that is open to any real debate at this point. It's the same with parts of general relativity and the theory of gravity. In the case of human origins, it can be proven on paper, and scientific postulate and law can be drawn upon, but our evolution from single celled organisms cannot be directly observed.
If a theory is not completely observable and has not been accepted as scientific law, do we just throw all theories away? Does that mean that we throw out teaching about gravity because there are holes in the theory? Do you equate teaching the theory of general relativity in a science class with teaching Christian dogma in the same room?
You bring up an intersting point about science as religion, however. I've often thought about this. I came to the conclusion that they do have some parallels, but I believe that it is more coincidental than anything. Most religions tend to incorporate a story of our origins. Science also has a story of our origins. The fact that both have a creation story is where the similarity begins and ends. Science is far different from religion because religion is not peer reviewed, and generally does not invite anyone to come in and try to disprove it. Disproving dogmatic ideals is deeply frowned upon as people tend to feel threatened by this as their worldview is directly challenged. Science, on the other hand, is built on by peer reviewed studies. Everything must be scrutinized by other scientists. If an inconsistency is found, it is published (and generally somewhat welcome). Science is built upon critical and skeptical thinking (the theory of evolution included). Science is very open to change, especially because it is very well known that although data doesn't lie, interpretations of the data are subjective and vary. Religion completely discourages this kind of skepticism -- especially Christianity, where participants are required to give themselves to God.
Perhaps it is out of context. If this is the case, it all seems much more outargeously silly. The problems that they cite are with players being rewarded for PK'ing, and they cite this happenning in MMORPG's. Fortunately, the article states that regulators will have a very difficult time enforcing this new law outside of Internet cafes.
When I see Intelligent Design called a theory by the popular press, it drives me a little nuts. They are equating two separate definitions of the word theory. General Relativity is a theory. Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory. Scientific theories tend to incorporate facts, laws, and verifyable hypothesis, but generally fall short of becoming scientific law.
ID is not a theory in the scientific sense, because it does not incorporate any of the above. It's a conjecture -- in a scientific sense, nothing more than a hypothesis. I would not have a problem with ID being taught from a standpoint of world religion. It belongs there, but these ideals have no place in a scientific curriculum. It's not science, and teaching ID as such erodes at the definition and understanding of what science is and how it is to be performed.
I hear what you're saying...but it's still pretty nonsensical to me. Killing other players is OK, but if your character becomes more powerful by doing this, it somehow becomes more harmful. Where do they get this stuff? Do they cite any studies, or is this just another conjecture by a bureaucrat that is stated as fact?
I'm also wondering about non-RPG's...like Command and Conquer: Generals, where you are rewarded for the experience gained from killing your opponent's armies by gaining rank, which allows access to certain abilities. Would that also apply?
Perhaps this is due to my lack of understanding of Chinese culture, but I find this to be completely bizarre. Who writes these laws? Are there a bunch of bureaucrats in China who are former gamers that are making up these laws? Is China making stuff up in order to meet some kind of a quota for new laws? Where do they come up with stuff like "Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people." Would there also be a problem if kids were playing online tennis, and their tennis character would gain increased stats by beating other players in tennis matches?
I'm reading that acts of violence in video games are marginally OK (because it's OK to kill NPC's), but spending too much time trying to increase the power of a character is what pushes the issue over the edge. Am I missing something huge here? Did I just wake up in the twilight zone?
No, I don't have kids, but I did purposely overlook that in my original assessement. Kids seem to be able to watch movies over and over...usually until my ears bleed. I suppose that I was only relating it to geeks like us.
You also make a good point about per-person entertainment. With multiplayer games, we're generally required to purchase multiple licenses to play across multiple computers. The exception to this (that I overlooked again) would be parlour-type video games, where multiple people play on one screen. These are less and less common, however. (M.U.L.E., anyone?)
Because DVD replayability is a difficult metric to even estimate. Further, it tends to vary from person to person. To get 20 hours out of a DVD, it must be watched 10 times. Maybe some people will watch a DVD 10 times, but I do not.
DVD's are definitely replayable, as are video games -- but the original impression is probably the best way to compare different kinds of media in this way...then again, my metric has quite a few flaws and should probably be taken as antecdotal anyway.
Not only that, but games for $60.00 aren't THAT expensive.
Agreed. They're especially cheap when you consider entertainment time per dollar. A ticket for a full length movie is about $9. That's around two hours of entertainment, or about $4.50/hr. DVD's are even more expensive, not accounting for replayability. Supposing that your average game has about 20 hours of playability (I pulled that number out of my butt...but it seems pretty conservative). At $60, that's $3/hr, not accounting for replayability.
Even at $60, most games are a relatively good value in terms of entertainment...although books, broadcast TV, and radio tend to trump it.
Start making games that don't appeal only to what is worst in humanity?
I sure hope that they don't do this. I like games with an ethical or philosophical component too, but they certainly exist. There is also a place in the markey for dark and immersive games. Perhaps part of the issue is that Rockstar does such a great job of filling their niche (gameplay, production, storyline), which really adds to their widespread popularity. IMO, games like Postal don't hold a candle to the GTA series' gameplay. So if Rockstar wants to lean over under criticism, they will have two options: either start making crappy games, or make games where the player assumes the role of a "good guy".
Personally, I find moral ambiguity refreshing in entertainment, whether it's in movies, books, TV, or video games...especially in a time when the morally elite crowd tend to be particularly vocal with moral absolutes. I hope that Rockstar keeps on doing what they're doing - that is, presuming that the "Hot Coffee" scandal really was accidental, and it really does require external patching to 'unlock' the content on disc.
We are talking about the same thing, right? I assume you're not saying that their games only appeal to the people that represent the worst in humanity, but the content itself.
They must have some evidence, but to take him to trial now might compromise other investigations because just airing evidence in public court can reveal information to people involved in terrorist conspiracies againsst US (e.g. if the gov't provides eveidence in court - the terorsits know that we know about what ever it is).
Here's the problem...where is the oversight? How do we know that they have some evidence? We've always been reasonably well protected from law enforcement abuse, but with the Patriot Act, many of those protections are gone. Some of us hold our freedoms extremely dear to us, and losing the ability to face our accusers, a speedy trial, and having certain judicial oversight over our officers of the law is a slap in the face to many patriotic Americans (you know...the kind who don't like to take crap from an opportunistic government, similar to our founding fathers). Perhaps some of us feel that giving up certain essential freedoms moves us one step closer to Sharia law and thus granting our adversaries a victory.
We are at war.
Aren't we also at war against poverty? Drugs? Why not water down our civil liberties for them? Surely the scourge of drugs is hazardous to us all? Or is terrorism an immediate threat requiring real war. If this is the case, would you please direct me to a formal declaration of war (the one issued by congress). Perhaps martial law has been passed temporarily suspending some civil liberties in a time of emergency? Nope...that didn't happen either. So instead of a temporary suspension of civil liberties in a time of war, we have a permanant (yeah, the sundown clauses were greatly extended or eliminated) law in effect where there really isn't a war per se. Tell me which part of making this a permanany law is a good idea? Will it go away when we win the war on terrorism? Can a war on a concept possibly be won?
Being against provisions in the USA PATRIOT act doesn't mean that one is anti-American or desires any harm on America. I'm a little surprised that you would characterize the issue like that (extremist radio talk show hosts use this tactic). This issue isn't even a liberal/conservative thing (although it does seem to follow Democrat/Republican party lines). To some of us, it means that we don't want to see an erosion of what America has been for the past 200 or so years. To others, there is a fear of a government with reduced oversight. If you give a government power, they will use it. It doesn't matter that the USA PATRIOT act was meant to battle terrorism -- it will be used wherever the federal authorities see fit. Perhaps there is a legimitacy in the fear of how the government will abuse this power.
History does teach us about all of the horrible things that governments across the world can and will do to people. I've read your replies and you seem to feel safe because you are certain that you're not a terrorist. Remember that if there is no oversight, our government can sweep up as many people as it feels (under the guise of an ongoing terrorist investigation) and disappear them all. It's good that you feel secure that you're not a terrorist, but how well do you think you will be able to convince someone after you've been secretly arrested? How can you mount a devense if you're never allowed to answer for the charges before you?
Some time ago, I found that my company's mail was rejected by a large provider. Similar to your issue, our mails were also being rejected without any notice. I had good luck with calling the ISP. Once I got the right person on the line, we were able to diagnose the problem with ease. In my case, it was an incorrect reverse DNS lookup record that I had overlooked, which it was easily resolved. Your domain appears to have the same problem.
You may want to see if your ISP will update your reverse lookup record to match your DNS info (unlikely if your DSL is residential). If they won't do this for you, consider upgrading to a business class service that allows you to run a mail server and gives you some control over your DNS record(s). If this turns out not to be the issue, your best bet is to contact the recipient's service provider(s). Once you get the right person on the line, you may be pleasantly surprised.
I take issue with the suggestion that the LP is more like the GOP than the Dems.
Modern Republicans seem pretty dissimilar to Libertarians, however parts of the LP creedo is pretty close to that of Republicans of a century ago. I don't know much about the old Republican stance on civil liberties, but traditionally, it leaned towards states' rights, smaller government, and geared towards business friendly policiess.
The other issues that you mention sort of represents how the Republicans have evolved to appeal to the socially conservative voters. With this, issues like abortion choice and religion/morality are pushed to the forefront of some of their policy. Regarding the issue on drugs, both parties major parties have pushed the drug agenda pretty hard, and to me it seems that this is primarily out of fear that the party/politican appears soft on drugs. As an example, the Clinton administration on drug spending was higher than any other administration before his. Consequently, marijuana posession arrests also hit their all time high. This does not say that Clinton was necessarily a huge drug fighter; IMO, he just didn't want to appear weak on the issue. Both parties will continue to escalate their efforts becuase (again, IMO) politicians would rather be outspoken about more popular issues and avoid political suicide.
For an interesting chart on the political "spectrum", and where the LP feels that they fall on it, check out the world's smallest political Quiz. According to the chart, the spectrum is not quite linear. I suppose, however, that the chart (and the questionaire) are oversimplified, but it is interesting nevertheless.
I'm her constituent, and it's not what I want. Outside of that this appears to be more about political posturing than anything else. She wants something on her record to attract social moderates...perhaps this is why I'm so aggrivated that I'm left in the wake of her political string-pulling.
however us liberals usually have the common sense to form our own opinions instead of pushing more rhetoric to stop the rhetoric.
That's the funniest thing I've heard all day. Liberals are just as bad as conservatives when it comes to pushing rhetoric.
This is stupid. Why are all you idiots pinning the blame on Clinton, when plenty of other government representatives are involved, including Republicans.
Clinton is a pretty good candidate for a lightning rod on this one. The 'morality' of video games has traditionally been an issue for social conservatives who reel in the face of social change (they tend to call it something like a decline in traditional moral values). I wouldn't expect this kind of rhetoric from someone like Hillary Clonton, who is relatively socially liberal. She's a big fat target because this appears to be blatant political posturing for the 2008 presidential election. Adding to this, she is a high profile democrat (mainly because of who she is married to), and is pretty outspoken. She is also a target of many conservative republicans for various reasons (yes, gender is likely a big fat one).
So why would so many people tear into her for an issue like this? Perhaps many were expecting someone a little more socially liberal to champion their cause. Modern republicans tend to beat the 'morality' drum, and this is has become expected behavior from them. This is merely speculative, as I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll tell you how I feel. I'm neither a liberal nor conservative. I may go some ways on some issues, and a different way on other issues. That being said, I think that the point of Hillary Clinton's recent push for video game legislation has nothing to do with personal beliefs, but more to do with showing moderates that she can go the other way on some social issues. In the process, she has sold people who are affected by censorship of this media a little short...and I'm one of them. I am fully aware that she is not the only Democrat pushing the issue -- Chuck Schumer is pretty outspoken about this as well (I think that he called for a ban on a recent game prior to its release). As a registed voter in New York state, I've sent both of them letters and have informed them both that if they continue to pursue this course of action, that they will lose my vote permanantly.
Is it because she has a vagina? For some people...perhaps they will never see past gender. However, my criticism of her has nothing to do with her gender and more to do with the issues mentioned above.
Can I turn this around to you with another question: Should her gender excuse her from criticism?
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed...and I've been on both sides of this. I've worked on a development team for a large (tier 1) ISP who was developing early ecommerce hosting platforms. We were developing Unix and Windows platforms side-by-side for our web hosting operations center. I believe that it used IIS 3 and some version of MS Commerce Server with Windows NT 4. When NT4's multihoming didn't work (at all), we called Microsoft and Microsoft immediately escalated the issue and wrote a new DLL for us. It took a few days, but they eventually sent it to us for testing, and it worked like a charm. (We weren't necessarily paying Microsoft alot of money, we just represented a potentially large reseller for a product that they very much wanted to develop.)
OTOH, with smaller companies, it's difficult to get Microsoft to escalate an issue. Best bet in this situation is to team up with a consulting firm who sells Microsoft products in reasonably large volume (I believe that they should be at least a Gold level reseller, but I could be off). Having a light service or monitoring contract with them is usually enough for you to be able to use their Microsoft service.
Again, I understand the reasons not to use Microsoft software quite well, and am sure that I'd be making those arguments given the proper circumstances. However, sometimes the Microsoft software makes sense. We don't know exactly what the situation is with the submitter, and it wouldn't be fair to simply issue a "don't use Microsoft" warning. Political/ethical RMS arguments aside (which have no place at a middle management level) in some cases, Microsoft makes the right tool for the job.
I wonder if this says more about the intelligence of people of various races (and creeds), or that the IQ tests are culturally biased? I tend to believe the latter. IQ was never a great metric for adults, and wasn't ever designed to show intelligence in a linear fashion...it was designed to show what level a child learned at. A 6 year old whose cognative abilities were at that of a 8 year old would have an IQ of 133.3. See this page for more info.
As outlined in earlier posts, you have quite a few options when it comes to email service.
You can have it hosted. This is probably the easiest option. It sounds like you've had some bad experiences with this, and may be wary of it. You will have the best luck going with larger, more established hosts that embrace modern technology and have a strong, well documented, and well enforced AUP (that bans all kinds of spamming).
The second option has also been mentioned. Run a small Unix-based email service out of your office. This is probably the cheapest option, and depending on whom you compare it to, day-to-day management and troubleshooting can be quicker than a hosted service.
The third option is going to be an unpopular one with the Slashdot crowd (and in some cases, understandably so). Check out Microsoft Exchange (try the one bundled with Small Business Server). There are other groupware applications out there, and some (like Novell/SUSE's OpenExchange) are worth consideration...but nothing is Exchange. If you're already a Microsoft shop, you should definitely consider it as it integrates well with the MSFT software that you already have. Of course, it's budget dependant (and is an expensive platform to use). In your case with a small shop and limited experience, I would have a third party come in and set it up for you, and sign up for a service contract.
For an end user (especially management types), Exchange has every feature under the sun. It would help if you identified your goals (specifically budget and featureset desired) and then decide on what product is best for you. However, I would advise you to leave no option off the table, even if you have personal issues with the software. Also, all of these options are available as hosted solutions. However, it's important to weigh out both the benefits and drawbacks to hosting. Benefits are relatively obvious, and some drawbacks are that you lose control over your service, and certain quick tasks (like a password change) can take hours or even a full day for them to get around to.
It was the first time I'd heard of them called terrorists, which is a bit confusing. Natives in their land under soverign control attacking enemy airplanes on a combat air patrol are generally not considered terrorists. That's a little more than a stretch. You never answered my question, however. Do you believe that the US can do no wrong in the world? Have we ever done wrong in the world?
I'm drawing question to your objectivity. You seem to take a one-sided stance on this...and there are two sides to every story.
Heh...nice try with the flamebaitish troll. If you're interested in a civil discussion, I'd be interested in one. I'm not sure if I've put you on the definsive or not, but if you wish a flamewar, please politely piss off.
Which attacks were these? Which terrorists were these? Did this really happen, or is this just pro-USA revisionism?
Why can't other Americans realize that just because we're Americans, it doesn't mean that we can't do wrong? Aren't we also human, or do we just have to believe that our enemies are sub-human?
Mmmmmm...Amiga. I have fond memories of my young Amiga zealotry. The truth is that while it was a superior platform at inception, Amiga was far behind the curve by the time that the AGA architecture was rolled out. Wintel boxes eventually had a better implemented (completely native) retargatable graphics system, and you could pick up 24-bit graphics cards for under $100 (remember that AGA didn't do 24-bit graphics. They had that sorta 18-bit Ham8 and a 24-bit palette. The onboard graphics on the Amiga which used to be its trump card became a hinderance. The 24-bit Wintel cards were much faster than the AGA chipset could (I remember how incredibly slow an 8-bit color desktop was on my 1200...it was unusable).
Amigas still had great blitter, but by this time, it was nearly useless unless you were really into animating sprites and scrolling massive bitmap screens. It did make for some cool games, like Gravity Wars however.
Once Windows 95 was released, it was all over for the Amiga, as Windows 95 sported usable multitasking and some protected memory, while the Amigas would have (what would normally be) userland applications bring the system down...Guru Meditation. The Windows OS caught up to and surpassed AmigaOS 3.x.
None of this was the fault of the platform or its engineers. I believe that it came down to Commodore's management. The company wes too slow to release technology and failed to market what they had. Of course, I'm sure that it also had something to do with Microsoft's dominant marketshare as well as the depth of their third-party development base. /p
Bureaucracy is bureaucracy. It's all sucktastic.
Actually, the post links the original submission and is a follow-up. This is not a dupe, and is OK by me.
Indeed it was. Thanks for pointing that out.
If a theory is not completely observable and has not been accepted as scientific law, do we just throw all theories away? Does that mean that we throw out teaching about gravity because there are holes in the theory? Do you equate teaching the theory of general relativity in a science class with teaching Christian dogma in the same room?
You bring up an intersting point about science as religion, however. I've often thought about this. I came to the conclusion that they do have some parallels, but I believe that it is more coincidental than anything. Most religions tend to incorporate a story of our origins. Science also has a story of our origins. The fact that both have a creation story is where the similarity begins and ends. Science is far different from religion because religion is not peer reviewed, and generally does not invite anyone to come in and try to disprove it. Disproving dogmatic ideals is deeply frowned upon as people tend to feel threatened by this as their worldview is directly challenged. Science, on the other hand, is built on by peer reviewed studies. Everything must be scrutinized by other scientists. If an inconsistency is found, it is published (and generally somewhat welcome). Science is built upon critical and skeptical thinking (the theory of evolution included). Science is very open to change, especially because it is very well known that although data doesn't lie, interpretations of the data are subjective and vary. Religion completely discourages this kind of skepticism -- especially Christianity, where participants are required to give themselves to God.
Perhaps it is out of context. If this is the case, it all seems much more outargeously silly. The problems that they cite are with players being rewarded for PK'ing, and they cite this happenning in MMORPG's. Fortunately, the article states that regulators will have a very difficult time enforcing this new law outside of Internet cafes.
When I see Intelligent Design called a theory by the popular press, it drives me a little nuts. They are equating two separate definitions of the word theory. General Relativity is a theory. Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory. Scientific theories tend to incorporate facts, laws, and verifyable hypothesis, but generally fall short of becoming scientific law.
ID is not a theory in the scientific sense, because it does not incorporate any of the above. It's a conjecture -- in a scientific sense, nothing more than a hypothesis. I would not have a problem with ID being taught from a standpoint of world religion. It belongs there, but these ideals have no place in a scientific curriculum. It's not science, and teaching ID as such erodes at the definition and understanding of what science is and how it is to be performed.
I hear what you're saying...but it's still pretty nonsensical to me. Killing other players is OK, but if your character becomes more powerful by doing this, it somehow becomes more harmful. Where do they get this stuff? Do they cite any studies, or is this just another conjecture by a bureaucrat that is stated as fact?
I'm also wondering about non-RPG's...like Command and Conquer: Generals, where you are rewarded for the experience gained from killing your opponent's armies by gaining rank, which allows access to certain abilities. Would that also apply?
Perhaps this is due to my lack of understanding of Chinese culture, but I find this to be completely bizarre. Who writes these laws? Are there a bunch of bureaucrats in China who are former gamers that are making up these laws? Is China making stuff up in order to meet some kind of a quota for new laws? Where do they come up with stuff like "Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people." Would there also be a problem if kids were playing online tennis, and their tennis character would gain increased stats by beating other players in tennis matches?
I'm reading that acts of violence in video games are marginally OK (because it's OK to kill NPC's), but spending too much time trying to increase the power of a character is what pushes the issue over the edge. Am I missing something huge here? Did I just wake up in the twilight zone?
No, I don't have kids, but I did purposely overlook that in my original assessement. Kids seem to be able to watch movies over and over...usually until my ears bleed. I suppose that I was only relating it to geeks like us.
You also make a good point about per-person entertainment. With multiplayer games, we're generally required to purchase multiple licenses to play across multiple computers. The exception to this (that I overlooked again) would be parlour-type video games, where multiple people play on one screen. These are less and less common, however. (M.U.L.E., anyone?)
Because DVD replayability is a difficult metric to even estimate. Further, it tends to vary from person to person. To get 20 hours out of a DVD, it must be watched 10 times. Maybe some people will watch a DVD 10 times, but I do not.
DVD's are definitely replayable, as are video games -- but the original impression is probably the best way to compare different kinds of media in this way...then again, my metric has quite a few flaws and should probably be taken as antecdotal anyway.
Agreed. They're especially cheap when you consider entertainment time per dollar. A ticket for a full length movie is about $9. That's around two hours of entertainment, or about $4.50/hr. DVD's are even more expensive, not accounting for replayability. Supposing that your average game has about 20 hours of playability (I pulled that number out of my butt...but it seems pretty conservative). At $60, that's $3/hr, not accounting for replayability.
Even at $60, most games are a relatively good value in terms of entertainment...although books, broadcast TV, and radio tend to trump it.
Yeah...but writable DVD's and modchips have come down in price ;)
I sure hope that they don't do this. I like games with an ethical or philosophical component too, but they certainly exist. There is also a place in the markey for dark and immersive games. Perhaps part of the issue is that Rockstar does such a great job of filling their niche (gameplay, production, storyline), which really adds to their widespread popularity. IMO, games like Postal don't hold a candle to the GTA series' gameplay. So if Rockstar wants to lean over under criticism, they will have two options: either start making crappy games, or make games where the player assumes the role of a "good guy".
Personally, I find moral ambiguity refreshing in entertainment, whether it's in movies, books, TV, or video games...especially in a time when the morally elite crowd tend to be particularly vocal with moral absolutes. I hope that Rockstar keeps on doing what they're doing - that is, presuming that the "Hot Coffee" scandal really was accidental, and it really does require external patching to 'unlock' the content on disc.
We are talking about the same thing, right? I assume you're not saying that their games only appeal to the people that represent the worst in humanity, but the content itself.
Here's the problem...where is the oversight? How do we know that they have some evidence? We've always been reasonably well protected from law enforcement abuse, but with the Patriot Act, many of those protections are gone. Some of us hold our freedoms extremely dear to us, and losing the ability to face our accusers, a speedy trial, and having certain judicial oversight over our officers of the law is a slap in the face to many patriotic Americans (you know...the kind who don't like to take crap from an opportunistic government, similar to our founding fathers). Perhaps some of us feel that giving up certain essential freedoms moves us one step closer to Sharia law and thus granting our adversaries a victory.
Aren't we also at war against poverty? Drugs? Why not water down our civil liberties for them? Surely the scourge of drugs is hazardous to us all? Or is terrorism an immediate threat requiring real war. If this is the case, would you please direct me to a formal declaration of war (the one issued by congress). Perhaps martial law has been passed temporarily suspending some civil liberties in a time of emergency?
Nope...that didn't happen either. So instead of a temporary suspension of civil liberties in a time of war, we have a permanant (yeah, the sundown clauses were greatly extended or eliminated) law in effect where there really isn't a war per se. Tell me which part of making this a permanany law is a good idea? Will it go away when we win the war on terrorism? Can a war on a concept possibly be won?
Being against provisions in the USA PATRIOT act doesn't mean that one is anti-American or desires any harm on America. I'm a little surprised that you would characterize the issue like that (extremist radio talk show hosts use this tactic). This issue isn't even a liberal/conservative thing (although it does seem to follow Democrat/Republican party lines). To some of us, it means that we don't want to see an erosion of what America has been for the past 200 or so years. To others, there is a fear of a government with reduced oversight. If you give a government power, they will use it. It doesn't matter that the USA PATRIOT act was meant to battle terrorism -- it will be used wherever the federal authorities see fit. Perhaps there is a legimitacy in the fear of how the government will abuse this power.
History does teach us about all of the horrible things that governments across the world can and will do to people. I've read your replies and you seem to feel safe because you are certain that you're not a terrorist. Remember that if there is no oversight, our government can sweep up as many people as it feels (under the guise of an ongoing terrorist investigation) and disappear them all. It's good that you feel secure that you're not a terrorist, but how well do you think you will be able to convince someone after you've been secretly arrested? How can you mount a devense if you're never allowed to answer for the charges before you?
Some time ago, I found that my company's mail was rejected by a large provider. Similar to your issue, our mails were also being rejected without any notice. I had good luck with calling the ISP. Once I got the right person on the line, we were able to diagnose the problem with ease. In my case, it was an incorrect reverse DNS lookup record that I had overlooked, which it was easily resolved. Your domain appears to have the same problem.
You may want to see if your ISP will update your reverse lookup record to match your DNS info (unlikely if your DSL is residential). If they won't do this for you, consider upgrading to a business class service that allows you to run a mail server and gives you some control over your DNS record(s). If this turns out not to be the issue, your best bet is to contact the recipient's service provider(s). Once you get the right person on the line, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Modern Republicans seem pretty dissimilar to Libertarians, however parts of the LP creedo is pretty close to that of Republicans of a century ago. I don't know much about the old Republican stance on civil liberties, but traditionally, it leaned towards states' rights, smaller government, and geared towards business friendly policiess.
The other issues that you mention sort of represents how the Republicans have evolved to appeal to the socially conservative voters. With this, issues like abortion choice and religion/morality are pushed to the forefront of some of their policy. Regarding the issue on drugs, both parties major parties have pushed the drug agenda pretty hard, and to me it seems that this is primarily out of fear that the party/politican appears soft on drugs. As an example, the Clinton administration on drug spending was higher than any other administration before his. Consequently, marijuana posession arrests also hit their all time high. This does not say that Clinton was necessarily a huge drug fighter; IMO, he just didn't want to appear weak on the issue. Both parties will continue to escalate their efforts becuase (again, IMO) politicians would rather be outspoken about more popular issues and avoid political suicide.
For an interesting chart on the political "spectrum", and where the LP feels that they fall on it, check out the world's smallest political Quiz. According to the chart, the spectrum is not quite linear. I suppose, however, that the chart (and the questionaire) are oversimplified, but it is interesting nevertheless.
I'm her constituent, and it's not what I want. Outside of that this appears to be more about political posturing than anything else. She wants something on her record to attract social moderates...perhaps this is why I'm so aggrivated that I'm left in the wake of her political string-pulling.
That's the funniest thing I've heard all day. Liberals are just as bad as conservatives when it comes to pushing rhetoric.
Clinton is a pretty good candidate for a lightning rod on this one. The 'morality' of video games has traditionally been an issue for social conservatives who reel in the face of social change (they tend to call it something like a decline in traditional moral values). I wouldn't expect this kind of rhetoric from someone like Hillary Clonton, who is relatively socially liberal. She's a big fat target because this appears to be blatant political posturing for the 2008 presidential election. Adding to this, she is a high profile democrat (mainly because of who she is married to), and is pretty outspoken. She is also a target of many conservative republicans for various reasons (yes, gender is likely a big fat one).
So why would so many people tear into her for an issue like this? Perhaps many were expecting someone a little more socially liberal to champion their cause. Modern republicans tend to beat the 'morality' drum, and this is has become expected behavior from them. This is merely speculative, as I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll tell you how I feel. I'm neither a liberal nor conservative. I may go some ways on some issues, and a different way on other issues. That being said, I think that the point of Hillary Clinton's recent push for video game legislation has nothing to do with personal beliefs, but more to do with showing moderates that she can go the other way on some social issues. In the process, she has sold people who are affected by censorship of this media a little short...and I'm one of them. I am fully aware that she is not the only Democrat pushing the issue -- Chuck Schumer is pretty outspoken about this as well (I think that he called for a ban on a recent game prior to its release). As a registed voter in New York state, I've sent both of them letters and have informed them both that if they continue to pursue this course of action, that they will lose my vote permanantly.
Is it because she has a vagina? For some people...perhaps they will never see past gender. However, my criticism of her has nothing to do with her gender and more to do with the issues mentioned above.
Can I turn this around to you with another question: Should her gender excuse her from criticism?
He must be talking about the low, low prices! ;)