Obligatory Penny Arcade link. I just hope it's better than Black & White. For some reason, I could never get into that game. The ideas were great, but it never jelled for me.
The New York Times put up an interesting article this past Sunday about Google and China which discussed the self-policing mechanism:
American Internet firms typically arrive in China expecting the government to hand them an official blacklist of sites and words they must censor. They quickly discover that no master list exists. Instead, the government simply insists the firms interpret the vague regulations themselves. The companies must do a sort of political mind reading and intuit in advance what the government won't like....
As a result, Internet executives in China most likely censor far more material than they need to. The Chinese system relies on a classic psychological truth: self-censorship is always far more comprehensive than formal censorship. By having each private company assume responsibility for its corner of the Internet, the government effectively outsources the otherwise unmanageable task of monitoring the billions of e-mail messages, news stories and chat postings that circulate every day in China. The government's preferred method seems to be to leave the companies guessing, then to call up occasionally with angry demands that a Web page be taken down in 24 hours. "It's the panopticon," says James Mulvenon, a China specialist who is the head of a Washington policy group called the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis. "There's a randomness to their enforcement, and that creates a sense that they're looking at everything."
LibraryThing is trying to do something similar to what you describe with its "work" system. Basically all different publications of a particular title are linked to one "work", which allows for recommendations and reviews to be shared among different owners of the same title (even if they own copies by different publishers, dates, etc.). The database is pretty small so far (only a few million books) but it's a pretty nifty concept and should only be more useful as more people add their books.
LibraryThing. Closed source (so far), but totally worth the $25 lifetime fee. Also compatible with a barcode scanner. I scanned my entire library (1300 books) in about five hours.
Can't say enough good things about "Concerned": like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern for the world of Half-Life. Apostasy is also a good read, if you're in the mood for something serious.
This dishwashing technique works very well. I've cleaned three different keyboards this way and everything came out squeaky clean and working (after a thorough air-dry). Didn't disassemble the keyboards before I put them in.
I wouldn't use soap though, or anything else like a rinse agent that can leave a residue (e.g. Jet-Dry). YMMV, of course.
Adherents.com, which cites Kane, Joseph Nathan. Facts About the Presidents (Fourth Edition). New York: The H. W. Wilson Co. (1981), pg. 360; DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Second Edition). New York: Dembner Books (1989).
I agree that Jefferson was a deist but that still doesn't change the fact that he admired much of the philosophy of Christianity. Rejecting Jesus's divinity and refusing to cede to fundamentalist demands that the Government recognize the primacy of Jesus does not mean rejecting what's good about Christianity. I wish Evangelicals who are up in arms about church-state separation could understand this as Jefferson did.
How true. I would also add that many evangelicals tend to think they're being persecuted because their leaders like to use the "we're under attack!" card as rallying tool. But if you ask them whether they, personally, have been discriminated against because of their beliefs, well, not so much.
I also think their conviction that the secular humanists are out to get them betrays a certain fundamental insecurity with their beliefs and the role of such beliefs in the modern world. If you find the absence of the phrase "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the "theory" of evolution so challenging to your faith, perhaps you need to look at your own commitment to the tenets of your religion. Why would the views of intellectuals and scientists even matter to the true believer?
Why is it that every ethnocentric/religious/sexually-oriented/whatever else group in the world these days is treated with respect except Christians? We're easy targets, sure, and it's not unexpected. After all, 6000 of us were covered in pitch and set on fire to light Roman streets in one fell swoop under Emperor Nero. Why should we expect any different treatment now?
Some facts
Percentage of the U.S. population who self-identify as Christian: %82
Percentage of Senators = 89%
Percentage of Representatives = 90%
Percentage of Supreme Court Justices = %78
Percentage of Presidents = %100
Percentage of Current Governors = 94%
Christmas = Federal Holiday
and I can go on and on.
Poor little Christians. So very, very oppressed.
A very limited perspective of "gamers"
on
Why We Fight
·
· Score: 1
Hardcore gamers don't buy games where the goal is to compromise. They buy games where the goal is to save the world - by force.
I'm reading this article more as satirical commentary, rather than as a serious analysis of gamer problem solving skills. Are FPSs more popular in comparison to RPGs and MMOs, I wonder? I sort of doubt whether fascist approaches to problem solving would appeal to people who play these types of games. Did he even consider the possiblity that people who like and play FPSs are doing so for the escapism the games provide, rather than because they're trying to express their internal Hitlers? The reason I like to play Half-Life is because of the story and the physics. And blowing stuff up is fun. People (even if they're Combine) - not so much.
You need to read "Sundown Towns", which describes and documents how black people were systematically prevented from moving into white neighborhoods in many cities and towns throughout the United States. Segregated housing was as much a "choice" as attending segregated schools.
Thanks for the link. I agree with the reviewer that Crawford's article was a load of evo psych bumpkis. I mean seriously,
"The ideal game for women, according to this simplified model, would be some sort of interactive soap opera or bodice ripper, presenting the player with complex social problems as she seeks the ideal mate."
We play games because we WANT MEN. I and all my female clanmates had a good laugh at that one.
Nice try, but the treaty has never been submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Even if it had been, Democrats did not control the Senate (which votes on treaties) in 1998, which is the earliest the Clinton Administration could have submitted the Protocol for ratification. (The Dems didn't control the House either for that matter.) The Republicans have held a majority in the Senate since the 104th Congress (elected in 1995) through the 106th Congress, with a tie for the 107th, and then back to full GOP control for the 108th and 109th. The failure of the Senate to ratify Kyoto cannot be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party. There's nothing the Clinton Administration could have done to ensure ratification of Kyoto - The Republican Senators would have committed harakiri before giving Clinton such a victory, particularly considering they were preparing to impeach him at the time.
Just sent a new 300-GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive (7200.8, 5 year warranty) back to Zipzoomfly. Total operation time before it failed completely? 22 days (running 24/7). The failed drive was in a well-cooled RAID-1 configuration with an identical Seagate and that drive is doing just fine. I've had Maxtors and Hitachis fail too, but never that fast. Regardless of manufacturer, I now take a "Trust, But Mirror" approach to all drives I use.
Slashdot Mirror
Hah! Yes, that was awesome.
Let's just say Raiden's five minutes do not disappoint.
The full 15 minute version of the trailer is even better.
(Still not worth 600+ though
Obligatory Penny Arcade link. I just hope it's better than Black & White. For some reason, I could never get into that game. The ideas were great, but it never jelled for me.
LibraryThing is trying to do something similar to what you describe with its "work" system. Basically all different publications of a particular title are linked to one "work", which allows for recommendations and reviews to be shared among different owners of the same title (even if they own copies by different publishers, dates, etc.). The database is pretty small so far (only a few million books) but it's a pretty nifty concept and should only be more useful as more people add their books.
LibraryThing. Closed source (so far), but totally worth the $25 lifetime fee. Also compatible with a barcode scanner. I scanned my entire library (1300 books) in about five hours.
Can't say enough good things about "Concerned": like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern for the world of Half-Life. Apostasy is also a good read, if you're in the mood for something serious.
This dishwashing technique works very well. I've cleaned three different keyboards this way and everything came out squeaky clean and working (after a thorough air-dry). Didn't disassemble the keyboards before I put them in.
I wouldn't use soap though, or anything else like a rinse agent that can leave a residue (e.g. Jet-Dry). YMMV, of course.
Adherents.com, which cites Kane, Joseph Nathan. Facts About the Presidents (Fourth Edition). New York: The H. W. Wilson Co. (1981), pg. 360; DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Second Edition). New York: Dembner Books (1989).
I agree that Jefferson was a deist but that still doesn't change the fact that he admired much of the philosophy of Christianity. Rejecting Jesus's divinity and refusing to cede to fundamentalist demands that the Government recognize the primacy of Jesus does not mean rejecting what's good about Christianity. I wish Evangelicals who are up in arms about church-state separation could understand this as Jefferson did.
How true. I would also add that many evangelicals tend to think they're being persecuted because their leaders like to use the "we're under attack!" card as rallying tool. But if you ask them whether they, personally, have been discriminated against because of their beliefs, well, not so much.
I also think their conviction that the secular humanists are out to get them betrays a certain fundamental insecurity with their beliefs and the role of such beliefs in the modern world. If you find the absence of the phrase "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the "theory" of evolution so challenging to your faith, perhaps you need to look at your own commitment to the tenets of your religion. Why would the views of intellectuals and scientists even matter to the true believer?
Why is it that every ethnocentric/religious/sexually-oriented/whatever else group in the world these days is treated with respect except Christians? We're easy targets, sure, and it's not unexpected. After all, 6000 of us were covered in pitch and set on fire to light Roman streets in one fell swoop under Emperor Nero. Why should we expect any different treatment now?
Some facts
Percentage of the U.S. population who self-identify as Christian: %82
Percentage of Senators = 89%
Percentage of Representatives = 90%
Percentage of Supreme Court Justices = %78
Percentage of Presidents = %100
Percentage of Current Governors = 94%
Christmas = Federal Holiday
and I can go on and on.
Poor little Christians. So very, very oppressed.
Hardcore gamers don't buy games where the goal is to compromise. They buy games where the goal is to save the world - by force.
I'm reading this article more as satirical commentary, rather than as a serious analysis of gamer problem solving skills. Are FPSs more popular in comparison to RPGs and MMOs, I wonder? I sort of doubt whether fascist approaches to problem solving would appeal to people who play these types of games. Did he even consider the possiblity that people who like and play FPSs are doing so for the escapism the games provide, rather than because they're trying to express their internal Hitlers? The reason I like to play Half-Life is because of the story and the physics. And blowing stuff up is fun. People (even if they're Combine) - not so much.
in Linux Journal recently.
You need to read "Sundown Towns", which describes and documents how black people were systematically prevented from moving into white neighborhoods in many cities and towns throughout the United States. Segregated housing was as much a "choice" as attending segregated schools.
Not getting any, eh?
Thanks for the link. I agree with the reviewer that Crawford's article was a load of evo psych bumpkis. I mean seriously,
"The ideal game for women, according to this simplified model, would be some sort of interactive soap opera or bodice ripper, presenting the player with complex social problems as she seeks the ideal mate."
We play games because we WANT MEN. I and all my female clanmates had a good laugh at that one.
I have the same problem. Excellent Karma, long-term visitor, yet I'm banned because I have a Comcast IP. Incredibly frustrating.
Or just optimize the drive for quick removal. This disables write caching.
Nice try, but the treaty has never been submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Even if it had been, Democrats did not control the Senate (which votes on treaties) in 1998, which is the earliest the Clinton Administration could have submitted the Protocol for ratification. (The Dems didn't control the House either for that matter.) The Republicans have held a majority in the Senate since the 104th Congress (elected in 1995) through the 106th Congress, with a tie for the 107th, and then back to full GOP control for the 108th and 109th. The failure of the Senate to ratify Kyoto cannot be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party. There's nothing the Clinton Administration could have done to ensure ratification of Kyoto - The Republican Senators would have committed harakiri before giving Clinton such a victory, particularly considering they were preparing to impeach him at the time.
I should have qualified, obviously. Of the 50 states, there are only 4 that are commonwealths.
It's a state. There are only 4 commonwealths.
Just sent a new 300-GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive (7200.8, 5 year warranty) back to Zipzoomfly. Total operation time before it failed completely? 22 days (running 24/7). The failed drive was in a well-cooled RAID-1 configuration with an identical Seagate and that drive is doing just fine. I've had Maxtors and Hitachis fail too, but never that fast. Regardless of manufacturer, I now take a "Trust, But Mirror" approach to all drives I use.
Damn it, I never have mod points when I need them.
Heaven forbid that the English have to deal with crappy American speak, when millions of Americans read Harry Potter daily.
But most of them are not reading the texts as they were published in the U.K. Publishers are stupid on both sides of the pond, unfortunately.