Konami recently announced a DDR game for the Wii that will combine the traditional DDR gameplay with motion controls.
We just got a DDR for Christmas... We also got 3 RPGs. I was on the DDR for an hour after work and then it was about one RPG for two weeks. I just started FFXII earlier this week. The hour of DDR first didn't make it till Feb. I liked the DDR, but there are several not so small issues that I have with it. Number one is that it has a really steep learning curve. The tutorial is almost a joke. It took two solid weeks of playing it an hour to two hours to slowly move from beginner to basic. I'm still the only one in my family that can do any of them on basic. I liked the concept of the floor mat, but it moves far too much. I've watched my kids play it and they have their feet in the same relative places except the mat has moved so they are missing now. It happens with me as well except I can adjust better than the kids can. After playing with DDR, I wanted to use it for walking around in those RPGs. Problem is that the mat doesn't map all the control buttons that the RPGs use. We need some ankle bracklets that track relative foot positions and movements so our on screen character can match our actual jumping/kicking motions. I tend to think this feature will be rolled out in the system after the Wii.
All this aside, when has there been this much hoopla over a book in recent times? People will camp out in front of stores for the latest game consoles, hottest movies, etc, but its truely unique to see that kind of reception for a book. Instead of rotting their brains in front of the tv sets, kids are exercising their imaginations with these books and *gasp* even picking up other books along the way. Kids who may not have otherwise gotten into reading for pleasure have been introduced to it from reading Harry Potter.
If this is "catering to the lowest common denominator", then I say we need much more of it.
Hasn't worked in my family. My wife and I had read them all, but my kids haven't. I can read any single Harry Potter book in 2-3 nights. We've never had a problem picking up a Harry Potter book once it went on sale. I'm waiting for more books from these authors: David Weber, John Ringo, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jack L. Chalker, David Drake, Leo Frankowski, Eric Flint, Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Larry Niven, Glen Cook and Wen Spencer. I'm sorry, one series doesn't an author make for me. I like having 2-3 series and alot of books to go through. I didn't touch Harry Potter until there were 4 books in the series to go through. You are right, any reading is better than no reading, but then she made movies out of the books...
All jokes aside it's impressive accomplishment to go from a single mother on the dole to the most successful author of all time and she's still relatively young. The big question really has to be what next?
Um, nothing. I like Harry Potter, but I read tons of stuff. The only reason my wife and I bought Harry Potter was for the kids... Ok. We've read them more than the kids. I don't think Harry Potter is as good as the Discworld, the Miles series, (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=lmb ujold), the Honor verse, or Ringos set of novels. To me, Harry Potter is just another series of books. It's good and all, but it isn't all that great. Here is my simple prediction. She will withdraw from publicly writing books, yet attempt to publish other books under pen names. If the publishers don't know who she is, they'll reject her next book. She will then either politely let a publisher know who she is and that is supposed to be released under a pen name. The book will be released. We won't even notice it or the pen name. The publisher won't release the news that she was writing under the pen name even though it would make the book an instant best seller. The publisher will keep publishing her books under her pen name in hopes that she gets ticked at their sales numbers and releases the information herself. Once her "pen name" becomes public. The publisher of her books will finally get its money for publishing her second series. She will make best seller lists worldwide if only for those former Harry Potter readers that want to read anything by the same author. We will find the subject or characters of her new book will either been aimed at young adults or adults rather than kids; it will be "different" from Harry Potter. You will find massive amounts of Harry Potter fans that become divided in if they like the book/series. Most of them buy a copy so the publisher is happy. The writer doesn't need to write for money. She is doing for herself. She may decide to just write until her death and then have them all published after she's dead and buried. I don't know if Harry Potter will last that long into the future. Harry Potter isn't Sponge Bob and will be forgotten, but remembered as a kid thing when they hit college. Hmm... I might be wrong on that one. My kids will see Harry Potter as a kid's book that their parents liked to read, but they just never felt like finishing themselves. The movies were ok, but we've not let the kids see any of the latter ones. Our kids will like the forbidden fruit part of Harry Potter, but that'd disappear quickly. It's easy to read through the current Harry Potter series in about two weeks for a good reader. If my kids get into reading, Harry Potter will only be one plot line amongst many.
This leads to what I like to refer to as the 'abusive relationship situation'. This is where once an employee gives notice their life is made HELL until they are out. The abuse comes from peers and all levels of management. Peers think you are a traitor for leaving them with the workload and having to train up someone new, and management resent you for leaving, prolly 'cos they never had the guts to.
That sounds like a place slashot would want to blacklist on working for. Personally, I'm of the opinion if I've got another job and another employeer, I'll give you an hour's notice and except you to pay me for all my untaken sick leave and vacation leave. If I was getting fired or laid off, I'd get no notice and escorted to the door. Why should you give them more than an hours notice? Give me one valid reason other than you think that what they have is enforcable against you. Take it to a lawyer and ask. I'll be you you can get out of that job in an hour if you want. Of course, the problem being is that you need to have a place to walk right into and you've burnt your bridge back. Of course, it sounds like its not a place that you'd like to go back, but that's just how its sounds from your very brief description. For a regular pay check making much more than min. wage, I'll put up with alot of crap at work as long as I only have to work 8-5 M-F at it stays just at work.
Much of the criticism is being lead by a prominent user named Thomas Hawk who also happens to be CEO of Zooomr, a direct competitor to Flickr. Am I the only one who finds it strange that the CEO of a direct competitor would be a prominent user of Flickr?
I just took it to mean that even though Flickr now sucks, it doesn't suck nearly as hard and as much as his service Zoomr.
BTW, this "vegas-like attitude" doesn't exist. Nobody in universities actively tries to keep their research to themselves, because that would harm them more than anyone else. Academia runs on reputations, and you can't build up a reputation (and thus get grant money) unless you release your research. The reason that a lot of university research stays in the universities is that nobody comes asking for it. Nearly all research professors are delighted to talk the ear off anyone who shows an interest in their research. So, if you want to know what they are doing, just ask!
I think more like an engineer than a researcher. I like to build something that I know can be done rather then looking for ways of maybe doing something or might be useful. It sounds like the more that I see this is that we need a central.gov or.edu clearing house site that all peer reviewed information past and present gets kept and is easily searchable. Who knows what was pie in the sky in the 30s or 40s maybe practical now with better materials. Some researchers may have tons of information about something that you could use or would love to pay for and get it licensed for your use. Problem is that you don't know that the reseacher/research exists and there isn't a quick easy place for small, medium, or large companies to search all public research. Not just companies would/should be reading that site. Other researchers, the general public and the media would use it as well. Something like a peer reviewed wikipedia where only you can edit your research, only your acdemic peers can review it, but any one could view it, comment on it, fund it, or license it. It should be something simple like www.science.gov. Just checked http://www.science.gov/about.html who knew? Well it let's folks search. Its a start, but we could do better.
I don't understand. You apparently have internet access, yet you are having trouble seeing boobs?
Nah, he just want's a slashdot article about boobs and a thread where slashdotters have gathered what they consider the best open source boobs on the internet.
It's not that people always aren't willing to switch to a new tool/system, often they are, but it needs to offer them what their old system did. You can't present a half-assed solution and expect people to love you for it, even if it is free.
Hey, last time that I looked at Linux it was ok. It was the Linux apps and community that are the problems.
Yet all the time I see GIMP advocated as a replacement. I get the same thing with pro audio. I've asked, in all seriousness, for tools that can replace the expensive commercial tools like Cubase and Sonar. Invariably I get pointed to Audacity and Ardour. When I point out the massive flaws and shortcommings, I get yelled at, told to "fix it yourself the code is open", and so on.
This is the single reason why OSS will never make it in the corporate world and some home users of the professional product would avoid OSS as well. Not everyone is a freaking programmer or cares. If I use Photoshop, I'm trying to edit a photo. I'm not trying to program some thing. If you are trying to tell me Gimp is better or a replacement for Photoshop, it better do "everything" that I need done. If there are short comings taht I tell you Gimp doesn't do. I'm not going to fix your solution. I have a solution. It's worth $650 to have that rather than a $0 solution that doesn't solve my personal problems. Personally, Gimp most likely does do what I need. Its other things like Outlook/Exchange or heck an Access replacement rather than SQL Server replacement. Access is great for quick and dirty databases. I'm sure that there is an OSS solution for quick and dirty databases that you don't want CS professors to look at, but would get your problem fixed. If I don't have quick and easy access to exactly what I need, its your fault not mine. I have Office with Access. I didn't ask for a server database backend solution. I asked for a Access replacement. MySQL can be better than Access, but for the new or average user, Access beats MySQL easy. SQL is just "too hard." What the OSS crowd needs to learn is that their $0 dollar solution isn't a solution if it doesn't fit the needs of my $300-$1,500 current solution. It doesn't matter if its windows, office, exchange, photoshop, IE, autocad, or arcview. If the OSS can't do what our current solution is or is a drop in replacement for it. Then it isn't a viable replacement product. It's noticable that FireFox is the only major OSS program that most folks use because it runs on windows and is better than IE for most people. OSS has alot of catching up to do. It can be done, just don't tell me to do it myself when I've already paid someone else to do it, and they have a solution. You know the business standard software products. Be better and compatiable with them, and you have a chance otherwise don't bother folks time with your religious rantings when they are trying to do something other than program with the tools. Apps are tools for most people.
What it comes down to is: There is nothing wrong with Linux. We just don't have a killer office suite, or a killer server based productivity suite. End of story.
Um, wrong if you don't have the killer office suite or a killer server based productivity suit you don't have a corporate OS end of story. Go back and develop them and then try to get business to convert.
But being that most colleges don't use exchange especially for students the amount of work done to make Linux work with exchange is pathetic at best. Having people use the web interface, or a terminal service is stupid and most and requires more horse power then currently, and they get a worse experience.
In college, I had the whole office 2000 Pro on my desktop, but never used Outlook for e-mail. I found other apps. If I remember currently my uni used pegasus for pop3 mail. I wasn't exposed to Outlook, and its full glory until work. Seeing the calendars, notes, tasks, and mail and having my boss easily assign me such items, well if there isn't a quick/easy drop in replacement for that Linux will have a very difficult time in the corporate world. E-mail over pop3 is trival and Linux has always had those apps, but that's not outlook. Outlook is the experience of the shared resources of being assigned crap and your boss tracking it all. I don't have an attachment to Outlook or Exchange, but we'd need those basics before my employeers would even consider anything else.
[CANNED ANSWER]Because WalMart am eeeeee333333vil![/CANNED ANSWER]
I go to the GameStop near my house because:
1. It's *really* near my house. I mean, I can walk to it in 2 minutes. 2. I like to support a local store. 3. There's cute girls who actually know about gaming working there. 4. Nice selection of used games.
I bust out laughing at this. I live in Texarkana, AR. Walmart has been in Texarkan for over twenty years. It is the local business. We've gotten two GameSpots within maybe the last 5-6 years. One is in the mall, the other is across the street from Wal-mart. There is also a clothing store that opened up there as well. I wish that I could walk to walmart within 2 minutes, but it is an hour walk there and well gamespot is across the street, but it takes 1-2 minutes to drive there. I'm sorry, but the last time I checked my GameSpot there were just male cashiers. Walmart on the otherhand usually has 4-6 cashiers, several CSMs, stockers, buggy pushers, door greeters, and alot more customers one of them is bound to be a female that you could flirt with. In used merchanised, Game Spot beats Walmart.
Walmart sells damn never everything else though, and they've got an great no recipt needed exchange/gift card policy. A $20 Walmart gift card is almost as usable as cash. A $20 Gamespot Store credit will only get you video games. Let's face it sometimes you just have to exchange those video games for some groceies. You just can't do that at Gamespot or GameXchange.;)
I buy most of my video games at Wal-mart. We have a Gamespot and GameXchange though I've only used the GameXchange once. Why buy from Gamespot when the same exact game can be had cheaper and with a better return policy at Walmart? Gamespot will check if you've opened video game and won't take it back. Walmart will as long as its a video game and not a computer game. I support the business with cheaper products and a better return policy.
* "(a) Al Gore believes in global warming. (b) Al Gore is a liberal. Thus global warming is a liberal conspiracy"
* "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud"
* "There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry"
* "I like warm weather, so I don't care"
* "Climatologists are just fishing for more grants, which they want to steal out of my pockets"
* "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now"
* "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright"
Is there anything wrong with holding those opinions to be true? I watched Al Gore's video expecting to see GW stuff. I found lots of ice melting, which I couldn't careless about. The video also presented that he'd have focused on this issue heavily. I had the impression that instead of a war on terror; we'd have had a war on carbon emmissions or something thing. The Climatologists fishing for more grants is the most/easiest to believe. I graduated highschool in 1996. At that time, it was a big undecided on global warming. Everything was atleast 50-100 years out though before we'd see any changes. Um, I'd have to see some local/national changes rather than the most inhabitable places on earth having their ice melt. That's not enough to get me or others to change things. I believe that we need 100-200 years of solid climate date before we use any of it for policy making. "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now" Um, this is an issue, but its also an issue that our climate scientist can't predict our climates either. Weather is different from climate, but if they can't predict it and prove that they've actually predicted it, then we won't use their models as a base for long term policy changes. "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright" I hate these people. My wife and inlaws are part of this crowd. I want science to help me live for ever or atleast 200-300 years. I certainly plan on living out another 50-70 years at my current standard of living. "I like warm weather, so I don't care" Um, I hate both warm weather and cold. Where I live we usually only get one day of snow a year. Or summers are hot and humid. I like living inside a climate controlled building over weather of any flavor.
"There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry" Um, I'd say we influence the environment, but we don't know enough at this time to use them to make any decision off of. "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud" It seemed to me that the mass of liberals in the north didn't start believing in GW until our 2-3 summers of record highs therefore GW exists and we need to social engineer the country so summer won't be over 100 on any given day. Rolls eyes at both crowds.
Yeah, that stupid "'sky is falling' crowd." Such idiots! Also the "'pi is irrational' crowd," the "'Earth goes around the Sun' crowd," the "'infectious disease is caused by microbes' crowd," the "'current species evolved from previous species' crowd"... why won't these loudmouths just shut up already?
Because the "sky is falling" crowd is political and can use any off dozens of topics to scare people be it terrorism, asteriods, global climate change, natural disasters, wars, or is a year ending with "100" so the entire Earth must be on the verge of collasping due to some ancient text about with signs and portents of our present times.
I've no problem witht he "'pi is irrational' crowd," because they can't do too much damage to society. The "Earth goes around the Sun' crowd" is only of use to use warning us if big rocks are going ot fall on us. The "'current species evolved from previous species' crowd" is religious/moral issue with many, and I wouldn't even go there. The "infectious disease is caused by microbes' crowd" are the only useful crowd because they could save my life by increasing public sanitation. So yes, I'd like those loudmouths to shut up already because the sealevels would have to raise and flood both the East and the West coasts before I'd take any action. Have you ever done any research of the early industrial revolution in England? During the time of no air controls and industry literally turning the skys gray um blackish with pollution. It was that type of visible within their life time effects that caused England to enact alot of pollution controls and clean up drives. It'll have to be the same with GW. I'm not listening to some maybe or might be, or some ice is melting that might cause me discomfort as a bad thing. One hurricane in New Orleans isn't a sign of GW. It's a sign that New Orleans and the state of LA didn't listen to engineers and didn't prepare for any hurricane of a certain class for decades. Hurrcanes are a known threat. Widespread global flooding is an unknown pontential threat and the only thing that most of us have to compare it with are bibical accounts of a worldwide flood. I was raised a Christian, but don't really buy it. To me, the GW crowd seems to be predicting Noahs flood. I'll ignore them as I ignore all religious folks.
Kinda like when I was in High School and they banned backpacks (but not purses, which is a whole other story) from classrooms because bombs could be hidden in them, which, according to the administration, would make for a lot more effort for a bomb squad to find a bomb in case a bomb threat was called in.
I'm glad that I graduted just before in 96 just before all that backpack management crap kicked in my area. Here the back packs had to be clear or mesh to allow easier searching for knives, guns, drugs, or other contraband (anything the school officals didn't like nowadays that could be a bag of halls, asprin, or heck swag that is popular that the officals just don't like.) I always said that our public schools are training us to live in a police state. Would you put up with it if your city tried making a city policy that all clothing had to be transparent or mesh because there are some criminals out there that hide things under their clothing so we need to make it slightly easier for the cops to visually scan a crowd and find criminals. We wouldn't be put up with (mainly because of nudity taboos and the nudity equals sexuality thing in this country), but its the same exact concept. Would you put up with someone trying to make cars or houses clear and easily searchable by any passerby just because you or your neighbor might be a criminal? People treat minors like pieces of property that don't have any inhirent rights and then are surprised because the 18-24 crowd doesn't generally know how to change the world. We've been raised in the public schools to be randomly searched with no cause. When my generation finally makes it to adulthood, we'd generally accept it as normal that the authorities have that right to search and your property without your consent or any cause other than their thoughts of you being guilty of something.
Seriously... that's the only reason I switched from going to google.com to using Firefox's search box. I ignored to search box for years until I learned that you can just hit Ctrl+k and it will take you up to the search box. I now regularly do "Ctrl+T -> Ctrl+K" to get a new tab and then head into the search box.
Also... Ctrl+L will take you to the address bar....
You've been the most informative slashdot post that I've read in ages. Now if I'll only remember those 2 shortcuts tomorrow.
I would imagine it's because a HUGE population out there just doesn't understand or care what a "default page" is, how to change it, or that someone (or some kitty'n'virus download executable) left their computer with such a page as the default. They know they want to "look it up on the Googles" so they get to it by typing google in the "slot" or "address bar" that's right there in the middle of the screen every time they launch "the Internet."
Hey, I have google as my homepage, and am running firefox with that nifty google search bar. 9 times out of 10 I'd rather type google in the address bar and then put the search term in the google box rather than using the googl search bar in firefox. This is weird user behavior and CS folks are the wrong crowd to guess at why its happening. We need some folks that study how the average behaves and what normal oddness is to give us some feed back. I do use fire foxe's search bar for dictionary.com and sometimes for amazon, but for google, I'd rather just have the search box in the middle of the screen and start typing their rather than that little box in the upper right hand corner. I haven't used yahoo's search engine in ages though I still use the yahoo mail account that I made back in college sometimes. Some times rather than trying to find a site in a bookmark, or say my co-worker that doesn't have internet access asks me to look up a business phone number that he uses that I don't. I could book mark it, but if he ever need it again, I just reuse google to get to that companies main page. I'm wondering how many people are too lazy to bookmark either google or yahoo or ignorant about address bars and just have one set as the default home page and then use their default search engine's to get to other sites and clicking the link. It's odd the number of folks that I consider computer savy around the office don't type anything in the address bar. They'll some time use book markes, but usally they like to click links to get to places. I'm talking about places that they go daily and often like google, yahoo, foxnews, msnbc, cnn, and cnet and not some obscure site that you'd need to bookmark rather than remember it. It's like some people think that its o.k. only to type in the webpage and not in the address bar. How could you fix that user behavior?
The whole DRM thing concerns high definition media. Have you tried playing Blu-Ray on said laptop? HD-DVD? If you did, I think you'd find that you can't play it in high definition. It will downgrade the signal if you try to play it on your 2-year old Celeron, and will not play in full 1080p glory.
What two year old consumer laptop had a blu-ray or HD DVD drive in it? He has most likely has a CDR/DVD combo drive or DVD burner either of which could read DVDs fine. I've been sick and tired of this whole HD tv crap for years already. I don't care. I'm not buying a $2000+ HDTV or drive gear that costs $800+ and re-buying my entire movie collection to watch it slightly differently. I might at some point in time spend $100-$200 on a HD/Blu-Ray combo player from Walmart and watch it on my existing TV so I wouldn't get any improvement. I could just some media companies only releasing their crap on one of the two formats and not DVD, which forces an upgrade. The only positive thing that I see about HDTV is that there are now more TVs that you can use for large low resolution computer monitors.
In 1998 when Apple released the original bondi blue iMac without a floppy drive, the floppy disc was ALREADY so absurdly useless that no computer user needed them. So, I proffer that this story is late by about a decade.
Nah, in 1998 CD burners weren't in my college's computer labs. They had CD readers, but those handy US flash drives weren't really around back in 1998. I actually sunk some money into an external zip drive because I could connect it to all the computers that I had access to, and it would work with little hassle. Highspeed college downloading in the computer labs wasn't that useful when you had a 1.44 MB storage limit. Oh, you could chat til midnight fine, but getting downloaded warez'd games off those computers was a chore. It wasn't until 2002-2003 or so that WinXP and desktops with USB drives and CD/DVD burners really became standard for my work computers. On the lan, you don't need USB drives, but it is very helpful to have 512MB of easily carriable storage. Of course for those that download anime and such the 4.5 GBs of DVDs just don't cut it, I have to lug around my external 300 GB HD for that kind of storage. I'm just waiting for the day that we have 1 TB of removable easily to transport storage.
Alright, sarcasm aside, surely there are bound to be some less-than-good effects on the surrounding enviroment if large amounts of water are 'sucked' out of the atmosphere prematurely?
Ah, you don't see the real use for these things. Put tons of them in the Gulf of Mexico and along the east coast and hope that they absorb all that atmospheric water before the hurricane hits.
As adults, we have the ability to make these decisions for ourselves. We can stay out all night, we can stay up late whenever we want so we can play video games or read slashdot.... we can try to exist on pizza and ice cream, although we wouldn't exist for very long, would we? And so we don't try to exist on pizza and ice cream, we even force ourselves to eat vegetables, god forbid! Do you think your average 10 year old is going to have that kind of restraint?
Kids simply don't make very good choices, that's all their is to it, and that's why PARENTS (stop bringing school, nannies, the government into it - that's not the issue, that's not what I was responding to). Parents don't always make great choices, either, but at least we take responsibility for our actions. When some 16 year old gets in an alcohol related car accident at 2:00 in the morning, the first thing we ask is why on earth the parents let a 16 year old out that late - WITH THE CAR? What were the parents thinking?
About the only food difference between my diet and the kids is quantity and lunches. They get public school lunches for about $5 the week. I pay $6.15 for McDonalds for a slightly larger meal. I try to enforce a 9 pm ish bedtime. They get baths anywhere from 7-9. I get a shower in the morning somewhere betwen 6:45-7:15. I don't think that I could handle them taking morning showers. They'd use up all the hotwater. You know. Humans don't make very good choices. I'm more along the lines of let folks find out the hard way rather than try to prevent the hardway from existing through government regs, school policies, parnoid parnets, and jailing/forever labeling all those that look at attractive 15-18 yearold girls as sexoffenders. If an 15 year old commits a felony odds are that they'll be treated and sentenced as an adult. The kids that are criminals get adult punishments, but have never had the chance to change the laws/morals under which they were judged. Where you ever asked to make the public school rules? Nope, we spend the first day reading the school rules, then signing them, and then taking them home to get your parents to sign them. I never had an chance to change them. Heck, even as an adult I don't know how to get a public school rule changed if I don't agree with it.
I hate to be cruel, but I support God's decision to allow us to have free will and that means that I should let idiots and their childern make bad/stupid decisions that could cost them their life. Every law/rule that we make and attempt to enforce only limits free will. Some day, some one will figure out how to make humans behave like perfect little robots. There will be an outcry to have unruly kids and criminals treated like that. Then it would be applied to those that disagreed with the system and then shortly everyone would just be mindless robots.
So why not just ban parenthood? Parenthood seems much more risky to children than the net.
Do orphans in an orphanage feel better off than their friends with a family? I don't disagree that it can't be done, but you'd have to create an environment that those that come out of it see it as better than the tradional family. Here is another requirement. Those that have kids should want to put their kids into that enivornment for their educational/social advantage and not to get rid of them or just to send them to a boarding school. Once we figure out how to do that long term profitably, then your tradional family structure will be in trouble. The family isn't going any where any time soon because we know that we can provide more educational/social advantages to our childern under our direction rather than under any one else's direction.
So no, I don't necessarily agree with this law, but I also don't agree with the attitude that kids should have all the rights that adults have, including viewing all the content they want on the internet without restriction, when the parents are responsible, and the attitude that parents are some kind of Nazis when they restrict what their kids can do.
I think that only kids 12-18 should be allowed to vote. The only ones allowed to hold office ought to be those over 18. I think that AC is right. Kids have always been treated as property until they had enough income to break out on their own. I'm an adult on the verge of thirty. I get angry alwasy reading this comments that basically say that parents, schools or the government should take away such and such rights of kids. Public school kids aren't taught to live in a democracy; they are taught to live in jail and do what they are told from their betters. Just because you are a parent, teacher, government offical doesn't make you magically better than either the average citizen or the average school kid. Life experience is overrated. We only use that as an excuse to keep kids in their place. It's the same sort of excuse nobles used that the peasants shouldn't have rights because the nobles are better and more experienced at ruling than those peasants. Well, we are using age the same way now a days.
Heh, the BSA goes to a judge and the judge gives them power to force entry and seize all hardware at your facilities. Depending on where you are, the local or federal police will even help them.
Um, please cite 2-3 examples of this. It is easy for the cops to get a warrant for your personnal computer when they can prove to a judge that they think that you are doing something illegal with the equipment. The cops have to have some proof to show a judge, and most judges will not just sign everything as slashdot implies. The BSA can't generally get the cops to shut down a oompany unless the BSA can give the cops enough evidence that the company was doing something illegal with enough proof that a judge will agree to a warrant. Generally the cops would take said equipment and it would await in their property room until trail. Well, being without business hardware kinda could kill a business. Even if it was later found out in 3-4 months that the company wasn't doing anything illegal with said computers, the company would not have usage of the equipment for 3-4 months and isn't likely to be able to pay employees for that long without income reserves. I want examples rather than slashdot flame comments.
Could you imagine what ever companies that make and sell cash registers auditing McDonals or Wendys for not buying enough cash registers from their companies? In the physical world, the business would generally just say shove off and won't pay out.
Tell them that there is a nifty program on a website somewhere that they can download, burn to a CD and they will walk away and do it when they have time, which is never. Have you ever wondered why AOL sent so many CDs instead of telling people that the program is on the internet?
Because AOL is an ISP and without their software their targeted users wouldn't be on the internet to download anything?
Slashdot Mirror
Konami recently announced a DDR game for the Wii that will combine the traditional DDR gameplay with motion controls.
We just got a DDR for Christmas... We also got 3 RPGs. I was on the DDR for an hour after work and then it was about one RPG for two weeks. I just started FFXII earlier this week. The hour of DDR first didn't make it till Feb. I liked the DDR, but there are several not so small issues that I have with it. Number one is that it has a really steep learning curve. The tutorial is almost a joke. It took two solid weeks of playing it an hour to two hours to slowly move from beginner to basic. I'm still the only one in my family that can do any of them on basic. I liked the concept of the floor mat, but it moves far too much. I've watched my kids play it and they have their feet in the same relative places except the mat has moved so they are missing now. It happens with me as well except I can adjust better than the kids can. After playing with DDR, I wanted to use it for walking around in those RPGs. Problem is that the mat doesn't map all the control buttons that the RPGs use. We need some ankle bracklets that track relative foot positions and movements so our on screen character can match our actual jumping/kicking motions. I tend to think this feature will be rolled out in the system after the Wii.
All this aside, when has there been this much hoopla over a book in recent times? People will camp out in front of stores for the latest game consoles, hottest movies, etc, but its truely unique to see that kind of reception for a book. Instead of rotting their brains in front of the tv sets, kids are exercising their imaginations with these books and *gasp* even picking up other books along the way. Kids who may not have otherwise gotten into reading for pleasure have been introduced to it from reading Harry Potter.
If this is "catering to the lowest common denominator", then I say we need much more of it.
Hasn't worked in my family. My wife and I had read them all, but my kids haven't. I can read any single Harry Potter book in 2-3 nights. We've never had a problem picking up a Harry Potter book once it went on sale. I'm waiting for more books from these authors: David Weber, John Ringo, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jack L. Chalker, David Drake, Leo Frankowski, Eric Flint, Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Larry Niven, Glen Cook and Wen Spencer. I'm sorry, one series doesn't an author make for me. I like having 2-3 series and alot of books to go through. I didn't touch Harry Potter until there were 4 books in the series to go through. You are right, any reading is better than no reading, but then she made movies out of the books...
All jokes aside it's impressive accomplishment to go from a single mother on the dole to the most successful author of all time and she's still relatively young. The big question really has to be what next?
b ujold), the Honor verse, or Ringos set of novels. To me, Harry Potter is just another series of books. It's good and all, but it isn't all that great. Here is my simple prediction. She will withdraw from publicly writing books, yet attempt to publish other books under pen names. If the publishers don't know who she is, they'll reject her next book. She will then either politely let a publisher know who she is and that is supposed to be released under a pen name. The book will be released. We won't even notice it or the pen name. The publisher won't release the news that she was writing under the pen name even though it would make the book an instant best seller. The publisher will keep publishing her books under her pen name in hopes that she gets ticked at their sales numbers and releases the information herself. Once her "pen name" becomes public. The publisher of her books will finally get its money for publishing her second series. She will make best seller lists worldwide if only for those former Harry Potter readers that want to read anything by the same author. We will find the subject or characters of her new book will either been aimed at young adults or adults rather than kids; it will be "different" from Harry Potter. You will find massive amounts of Harry Potter fans that become divided in if they like the book/series. Most of them buy a copy so the publisher is happy. The writer doesn't need to write for money. She is doing for herself. She may decide to just write until her death and then have them all published after she's dead and buried. I don't know if Harry Potter will last that long into the future. Harry Potter isn't Sponge Bob and will be forgotten, but remembered as a kid thing when they hit college. Hmm... I might be wrong on that one. My kids will see Harry Potter as a kid's book that their parents liked to read, but they just never felt like finishing themselves. The movies were ok, but we've not let the kids see any of the latter ones. Our kids will like the forbidden fruit part of Harry Potter, but that'd disappear quickly. It's easy to read through the current Harry Potter series in about two weeks for a good reader. If my kids get into reading, Harry Potter will only be one plot line amongst many.
Um, nothing. I like Harry Potter, but I read tons of stuff. The only reason my wife and I bought Harry Potter was for the kids... Ok. We've read them more than the kids. I don't think Harry Potter is as good as the Discworld, the Miles series, (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=lm
This leads to what I like to refer to as the 'abusive relationship situation'. This is where once an employee gives notice their life is made HELL until they are out. The abuse comes from peers and all levels of management. Peers think you are a traitor for leaving them with the workload and having to train up someone new, and management resent you for leaving, prolly 'cos they never had the guts to.
That sounds like a place slashot would want to blacklist on working for. Personally, I'm of the opinion if I've got another job and another employeer, I'll give you an hour's notice and except you to pay me for all my untaken sick leave and vacation leave. If I was getting fired or laid off, I'd get no notice and escorted to the door. Why should you give them more than an hours notice? Give me one valid reason other than you think that what they have is enforcable against you. Take it to a lawyer and ask. I'll be you you can get out of that job in an hour if you want. Of course, the problem being is that you need to have a place to walk right into and you've burnt your bridge back. Of course, it sounds like its not a place that you'd like to go back, but that's just how its sounds from your very brief description. For a regular pay check making much more than min. wage, I'll put up with alot of crap at work as long as I only have to work 8-5 M-F at it stays just at work.
Much of the criticism is being lead by a prominent user named Thomas Hawk who also happens to be CEO of Zooomr, a direct competitor to Flickr.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that the CEO of a direct competitor would be a prominent user of Flickr?
I just took it to mean that even though Flickr now sucks, it doesn't suck nearly as hard and as much as his service Zoomr.
BTW, this "vegas-like attitude" doesn't exist. Nobody in universities actively tries to keep their research to themselves, because that would harm them more than anyone else. Academia runs on reputations, and you can't build up a reputation (and thus get grant money) unless you release your research. The reason that a lot of university research stays in the universities is that nobody comes asking for it. Nearly all research professors are delighted to talk the ear off anyone who shows an interest in their research. So, if you want to know what they are doing, just ask!
.gov or .edu clearing house site that all peer reviewed information past and present gets kept and is easily searchable. Who knows what was pie in the sky in the 30s or 40s maybe practical now with better materials. Some researchers may have tons of information about something that you could use or would love to pay for and get it licensed for your use. Problem is that you don't know that the reseacher/research exists and there isn't a quick easy place for small, medium, or large companies to search all public research. Not just companies would/should be reading that site. Other researchers, the general public and the media would use it as well. Something like a peer reviewed wikipedia where only you can edit your research, only your acdemic peers can review it, but any one could view it, comment on it, fund it, or license it. It should be something simple like www.science.gov. Just checked http://www.science.gov/about.html who knew? Well it let's folks search. Its a start, but we could do better.
I think more like an engineer than a researcher. I like to build something that I know can be done rather then looking for ways of maybe doing something or might be useful. It sounds like the more that I see this is that we need a central
I don't understand. You apparently have internet access, yet you are having trouble seeing boobs?
Nah, he just want's a slashdot article about boobs and a thread where slashdotters have gathered what they consider the best open source boobs on the internet.
It's not that people always aren't willing to switch to a new tool/system, often they are, but it needs to offer them what their old system did. You can't present a half-assed solution and expect people to love you for it, even if it is free.
Hey, last time that I looked at Linux it was ok. It was the Linux apps and community that are the problems.
Yet all the time I see GIMP advocated as a replacement. I get the same thing with pro audio. I've asked, in all seriousness, for tools that can replace the expensive commercial tools like Cubase and Sonar. Invariably I get pointed to Audacity and Ardour. When I point out the massive flaws and shortcommings, I get yelled at, told to "fix it yourself the code is open", and so on.
This is the single reason why OSS will never make it in the corporate world and some home users of the professional product would avoid OSS as well. Not everyone is a freaking programmer or cares. If I use Photoshop, I'm trying to edit a photo. I'm not trying to program some thing. If you are trying to tell me Gimp is better or a replacement for Photoshop, it better do "everything" that I need done. If there are short comings taht I tell you Gimp doesn't do. I'm not going to fix your solution. I have a solution. It's worth $650 to have that rather than a $0 solution that doesn't solve my personal problems. Personally, Gimp most likely does do what I need. Its other things like Outlook/Exchange or heck an Access replacement rather than SQL Server replacement. Access is great for quick and dirty databases. I'm sure that there is an OSS solution for quick and dirty databases that you don't want CS professors to look at, but would get your problem fixed. If I don't have quick and easy access to exactly what I need, its your fault not mine. I have Office with Access. I didn't ask for a server database backend solution. I asked for a Access replacement. MySQL can be better than Access, but for the new or average user, Access beats MySQL easy. SQL is just "too hard." What the OSS crowd needs to learn is that their $0 dollar solution isn't a solution if it doesn't fit the needs of my $300-$1,500 current solution. It doesn't matter if its windows, office, exchange, photoshop, IE, autocad, or arcview. If the OSS can't do what our current solution is or is a drop in replacement for it. Then it isn't a viable replacement product. It's noticable that FireFox is the only major OSS program that most folks use because it runs on windows and is better than IE for most people. OSS has alot of catching up to do. It can be done, just don't tell me to do it myself when I've already paid someone else to do it, and they have a solution. You know the business standard software products. Be better and compatiable with them, and you have a chance otherwise don't bother folks time with your religious rantings when they are trying to do something other than program with the tools. Apps are tools for most people.
What it comes down to is: There is nothing wrong with Linux. We just don't have a killer office suite, or a killer server based productivity suite. End of story.
Um, wrong if you don't have the killer office suite or a killer server based productivity suit you don't have a corporate OS end of story. Go back and develop them and then try to get business to convert.
But being that most colleges don't use exchange especially for students the amount of work done to make Linux work with exchange is pathetic at best. Having people use the web interface, or a terminal service is stupid and most and requires more horse power then currently, and they get a worse experience.
In college, I had the whole office 2000 Pro on my desktop, but never used Outlook for e-mail. I found other apps. If I remember currently my uni used pegasus for pop3 mail. I wasn't exposed to Outlook, and its full glory until work. Seeing the calendars, notes, tasks, and mail and having my boss easily assign me such items, well if there isn't a quick/easy drop in replacement for that Linux will have a very difficult time in the corporate world. E-mail over pop3 is trival and Linux has always had those apps, but that's not outlook. Outlook is the experience of the shared resources of being assigned crap and your boss tracking it all. I don't have an attachment to Outlook or Exchange, but we'd need those basics before my employeers would even consider anything else.
[CANNED ANSWER]Because WalMart am eeeeee333333vil![/CANNED ANSWER]
;)
I go to the GameStop near my house because:
1. It's *really* near my house. I mean, I can walk to it in 2 minutes.
2. I like to support a local store.
3. There's cute girls who actually know about gaming working there.
4. Nice selection of used games.
I bust out laughing at this. I live in Texarkana, AR. Walmart has been in Texarkan for over twenty years. It is the local business. We've gotten two GameSpots within maybe the last 5-6 years. One is in the mall, the other is across the street from Wal-mart. There is also a clothing store that opened up there as well. I wish that I could walk to walmart within 2 minutes, but it is an hour walk there and well gamespot is across the street, but it takes 1-2 minutes to drive there. I'm sorry, but the last time I checked my GameSpot there were just male cashiers. Walmart on the otherhand usually has 4-6 cashiers, several CSMs, stockers, buggy pushers, door greeters, and alot more customers one of them is bound to be a female that you could flirt with. In used merchanised, Game Spot beats Walmart.
Walmart sells damn never everything else though, and they've got an great no recipt needed exchange/gift card policy. A $20 Walmart gift card is almost as usable as cash. A $20 Gamespot Store credit will only get you video games. Let's face it sometimes you just have to exchange those video games for some groceies. You just can't do that at Gamespot or GameXchange.
I buy most of my video games at Wal-mart. We have a Gamespot and GameXchange though I've only used the GameXchange once. Why buy from Gamespot when the same exact game can be had cheaper and with a better return policy at Walmart? Gamespot will check if you've opened video game and won't take it back. Walmart will as long as its a video game and not a computer game. I support the business with cheaper products and a better return policy.
* "(a) Al Gore believes in global warming. (b) Al Gore is a liberal. Thus global warming is a liberal conspiracy"
* "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud"
* "There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry"
* "I like warm weather, so I don't care"
* "Climatologists are just fishing for more grants, which they want to steal out of my pockets"
* "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now"
* "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright"
Is there anything wrong with holding those opinions to be true? I watched Al Gore's video expecting to see GW stuff. I found lots of ice melting, which I couldn't careless about. The video also presented that he'd have focused on this issue heavily. I had the impression that instead of a war on terror; we'd have had a war on carbon emmissions or something thing. The Climatologists fishing for more grants is the most/easiest to believe. I graduated highschool in 1996. At that time, it was a big undecided on global warming. Everything was atleast 50-100 years out though before we'd see any changes. Um, I'd have to see some local/national changes rather than the most inhabitable places on earth having their ice melt. That's not enough to get me or others to change things. I believe that we need 100-200 years of solid climate date before we use any of it for policy making. "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now" Um, this is an issue, but its also an issue that our climate scientist can't predict our climates either. Weather is different from climate, but if they can't predict it and prove that they've actually predicted it, then we won't use their models as a base for long term policy changes. "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright" I hate these people. My wife and inlaws are part of this crowd. I want science to help me live for ever or atleast 200-300 years. I certainly plan on living out another 50-70 years at my current standard of living. "I like warm weather, so I don't care" Um, I hate both warm weather and cold. Where I live we usually only get one day of snow a year. Or summers are hot and humid. I like living inside a climate controlled building over weather of any flavor.
"There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry" Um, I'd say we influence the environment, but we don't know enough at this time to use them to make any decision off of. "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud" It seemed to me that the mass of liberals in the north didn't start believing in GW until our 2-3 summers of record highs therefore GW exists and we need to social engineer the country so summer won't be over 100 on any given day. Rolls eyes at both crowds.
Yeah, that stupid "'sky is falling' crowd." Such idiots! Also the "'pi is irrational' crowd," the "'Earth goes around the Sun' crowd," the "'infectious disease is caused by microbes' crowd," the "'current species evolved from previous species' crowd" ... why won't these loudmouths just shut up already?
Because the "sky is falling" crowd is political and can use any off dozens of topics to scare people be it terrorism, asteriods, global climate change, natural disasters, wars, or is a year ending with "100" so the entire Earth must be on the verge of collasping due to some ancient text about with signs and portents of our present times.
I've no problem witht he "'pi is irrational' crowd," because they can't do too much damage to society. The "Earth goes around the Sun' crowd" is only of use to use warning us if big rocks are going ot fall on us. The "'current species evolved from previous species' crowd" is religious/moral issue with many, and I wouldn't even go there. The "infectious disease is caused by microbes' crowd" are the only useful crowd because they could save my life by increasing public sanitation. So yes, I'd like those loudmouths to shut up already because the sealevels would have to raise and flood both the East and the West coasts before I'd take any action. Have you ever done any research of the early industrial revolution in England? During the time of no air controls and industry literally turning the skys gray um blackish with pollution. It was that type of visible within their life time effects that caused England to enact alot of pollution controls and clean up drives. It'll have to be the same with GW. I'm not listening to some maybe or might be, or some ice is melting that might cause me discomfort as a bad thing. One hurricane in New Orleans isn't a sign of GW. It's a sign that New Orleans and the state of LA didn't listen to engineers and didn't prepare for any hurricane of a certain class for decades. Hurrcanes are a known threat. Widespread global flooding is an unknown pontential threat and the only thing that most of us have to compare it with are bibical accounts of a worldwide flood. I was raised a Christian, but don't really buy it. To me, the GW crowd seems to be predicting Noahs flood. I'll ignore them as I ignore all religious folks.
Kinda like when I was in High School and they banned backpacks (but not purses, which is a whole other story) from classrooms because bombs could be hidden in them, which, according to the administration, would make for a lot more effort for a bomb squad to find a bomb in case a bomb threat was called in.
I'm glad that I graduted just before in 96 just before all that backpack management crap kicked in my area. Here the back packs had to be clear or mesh to allow easier searching for knives, guns, drugs, or other contraband (anything the school officals didn't like nowadays that could be a bag of halls, asprin, or heck swag that is popular that the officals just don't like.) I always said that our public schools are training us to live in a police state. Would you put up with it if your city tried making a city policy that all clothing had to be transparent or mesh because there are some criminals out there that hide things under their clothing so we need to make it slightly easier for the cops to visually scan a crowd and find criminals. We wouldn't be put up with (mainly because of nudity taboos and the nudity equals sexuality thing in this country), but its the same exact concept. Would you put up with someone trying to make cars or houses clear and easily searchable by any passerby just because you or your neighbor might be a criminal? People treat minors like pieces of property that don't have any inhirent rights and then are surprised because the 18-24 crowd doesn't generally know how to change the world. We've been raised in the public schools to be randomly searched with no cause. When my generation finally makes it to adulthood, we'd generally accept it as normal that the authorities have that right to search and your property without your consent or any cause other than their thoughts of you being guilty of something.
Ctrl+K FTW!
Seriously... that's the only reason I switched from going to google.com to using Firefox's search box. I ignored to search box for years until I learned that you can just hit Ctrl+k and it will take you up to the search box. I now regularly do "Ctrl+T -> Ctrl+K" to get a new tab and then head into the search box.
Also... Ctrl+L will take you to the address bar....
You've been the most informative slashdot post that I've read in ages. Now if I'll only remember those 2 shortcuts tomorrow.
I would imagine it's because a HUGE population out there just doesn't understand or care what a "default page" is, how to change it, or that someone (or some kitty'n'virus download executable) left their computer with such a page as the default. They know they want to "look it up on the Googles" so they get to it by typing google in the "slot" or "address bar" that's right there in the middle of the screen every time they launch "the Internet."
Hey, I have google as my homepage, and am running firefox with that nifty google search bar. 9 times out of 10 I'd rather type google in the address bar and then put the search term in the google box rather than using the googl search bar in firefox. This is weird user behavior and CS folks are the wrong crowd to guess at why its happening. We need some folks that study how the average behaves and what normal oddness is to give us some feed back. I do use fire foxe's search bar for dictionary.com and sometimes for amazon, but for google, I'd rather just have the search box in the middle of the screen and start typing their rather than that little box in the upper right hand corner. I haven't used yahoo's search engine in ages though I still use the yahoo mail account that I made back in college sometimes. Some times rather than trying to find a site in a bookmark, or say my co-worker that doesn't have internet access asks me to look up a business phone number that he uses that I don't. I could book mark it, but if he ever need it again, I just reuse google to get to that companies main page. I'm wondering how many people are too lazy to bookmark either google or yahoo or ignorant about address bars and just have one set as the default home page and then use their default search engine's to get to other sites and clicking the link. It's odd the number of folks that I consider computer savy around the office don't type anything in the address bar. They'll some time use book markes, but usally they like to click links to get to places. I'm talking about places that they go daily and often like google, yahoo, foxnews, msnbc, cnn, and cnet and not some obscure site that you'd need to bookmark rather than remember it. It's like some people think that its o.k. only to type in the webpage and not in the address bar. How could you fix that user behavior?
The whole DRM thing concerns high definition media. Have you tried playing Blu-Ray on said laptop? HD-DVD? If you did, I think you'd find that you can't play it in high definition. It will downgrade the signal if you try to play it on your 2-year old Celeron, and will not play in full 1080p glory.
What two year old consumer laptop had a blu-ray or HD DVD drive in it? He has most likely has a CDR/DVD combo drive or DVD burner either of which could read DVDs fine. I've been sick and tired of this whole HD tv crap for years already. I don't care. I'm not buying a $2000+ HDTV or drive gear that costs $800+ and re-buying my entire movie collection to watch it slightly differently. I might at some point in time spend $100-$200 on a HD/Blu-Ray combo player from Walmart and watch it on my existing TV so I wouldn't get any improvement. I could just some media companies only releasing their crap on one of the two formats and not DVD, which forces an upgrade. The only positive thing that I see about HDTV is that there are now more TVs that you can use for large low resolution computer monitors.
In 1998 when Apple released the original bondi blue iMac without a floppy drive, the floppy disc was ALREADY so absurdly useless that no computer user needed them. So, I proffer that this story is late by about a decade.
Nah, in 1998 CD burners weren't in my college's computer labs. They had CD readers, but those handy US flash drives weren't really around back in 1998. I actually sunk some money into an external zip drive because I could connect it to all the computers that I had access to, and it would work with little hassle. Highspeed college downloading in the computer labs wasn't that useful when you had a 1.44 MB storage limit. Oh, you could chat til midnight fine, but getting downloaded warez'd games off those computers was a chore. It wasn't until 2002-2003 or so that WinXP and desktops with USB drives and CD/DVD burners really became standard for my work computers. On the lan, you don't need USB drives, but it is very helpful to have 512MB of easily carriable storage. Of course for those that download anime and such the 4.5 GBs of DVDs just don't cut it, I have to lug around my external 300 GB HD for that kind of storage. I'm just waiting for the day that we have 1 TB of removable easily to transport storage.
Alright, sarcasm aside, surely there are bound to be some less-than-good effects on the surrounding enviroment if large amounts of water are 'sucked' out of the atmosphere prematurely?
Ah, you don't see the real use for these things. Put tons of them in the Gulf of Mexico and along the east coast and hope that they absorb all that atmospheric water before the hurricane hits.
As adults, we have the ability to make these decisions for ourselves. We can stay out all night, we can stay up late whenever we want so we can play video games or read slashdot.... we can try to exist on pizza and ice cream, although we wouldn't exist for very long, would we? And so we don't try to exist on pizza and ice cream, we even force ourselves to eat vegetables, god forbid! Do you think your average 10 year old is going to have that kind of restraint?
Kids simply don't make very good choices, that's all their is to it, and that's why PARENTS (stop bringing school, nannies, the government into it - that's not the issue, that's not what I was responding to). Parents don't always make great choices, either, but at least we take responsibility for our actions. When some 16 year old gets in an alcohol related car accident at 2:00 in the morning, the first thing we ask is why on earth the parents let a 16 year old out that late - WITH THE CAR? What were the parents thinking?
About the only food difference between my diet and the kids is quantity and lunches. They get public school lunches for about $5 the week. I pay $6.15 for McDonalds for a slightly larger meal. I try to enforce a 9 pm ish bedtime. They get baths anywhere from 7-9. I get a shower in the morning somewhere betwen 6:45-7:15. I don't think that I could handle them taking morning showers. They'd use up all the hotwater. You know. Humans don't make very good choices. I'm more along the lines of let folks find out the hard way rather than try to prevent the hardway from existing through government regs, school policies, parnoid parnets, and jailing/forever labeling all those that look at attractive 15-18 yearold girls as sexoffenders. If an 15 year old commits a felony odds are that they'll be treated and sentenced as an adult. The kids that are criminals get adult punishments, but have never had the chance to change the laws/morals under which they were judged. Where you ever asked to make the public school rules? Nope, we spend the first day reading the school rules, then signing them, and then taking them home to get your parents to sign them. I never had an chance to change them. Heck, even as an adult I don't know how to get a public school rule changed if I don't agree with it.
I hate to be cruel, but I support God's decision to allow us to have free will and that means that I should let idiots and their childern make bad/stupid decisions that could cost them their life. Every law/rule that we make and attempt to enforce only limits free will. Some day, some one will figure out how to make humans behave like perfect little robots. There will be an outcry to have unruly kids and criminals treated like that. Then it would be applied to those that disagreed with the system and then shortly everyone would just be mindless robots.
So why not just ban parenthood? Parenthood seems much more risky to children than the net.
Do orphans in an orphanage feel better off than their friends with a family? I don't disagree that it can't be done, but you'd have to create an environment that those that come out of it see it as better than the tradional family. Here is another requirement. Those that have kids should want to put their kids into that enivornment for their educational/social advantage and not to get rid of them or just to send them to a boarding school. Once we figure out how to do that long term profitably, then your tradional family structure will be in trouble. The family isn't going any where any time soon because we know that we can provide more educational/social advantages to our childern under our direction rather than under any one else's direction.
So no, I don't necessarily agree with this law, but I also don't agree with the attitude that kids should have all the rights that adults have, including viewing all the content they want on the internet without restriction, when the parents are responsible, and the attitude that parents are some kind of Nazis when they restrict what their kids can do.
I think that only kids 12-18 should be allowed to vote. The only ones allowed to hold office ought to be those over 18. I think that AC is right. Kids have always been treated as property until they had enough income to break out on their own. I'm an adult on the verge of thirty. I get angry alwasy reading this comments that basically say that parents, schools or the government should take away such and such rights of kids. Public school kids aren't taught to live in a democracy; they are taught to live in jail and do what they are told from their betters. Just because you are a parent, teacher, government offical doesn't make you magically better than either the average citizen or the average school kid. Life experience is overrated. We only use that as an excuse to keep kids in their place. It's the same sort of excuse nobles used that the peasants shouldn't have rights because the nobles are better and more experienced at ruling than those peasants. Well, we are using age the same way now a days.
Heh, the BSA goes to a judge and the judge gives them power to force entry and seize all hardware at your facilities. Depending on where you are, the local or federal police will even help them.
Um, please cite 2-3 examples of this. It is easy for the cops to get a warrant for your personnal computer when they can prove to a judge that they think that you are doing something illegal with the equipment. The cops have to have some proof to show a judge, and most judges will not just sign everything as slashdot implies. The BSA can't generally get the cops to shut down a oompany unless the BSA can give the cops enough evidence that the company was doing something illegal with enough proof that a judge will agree to a warrant. Generally the cops would take said equipment and it would await in their property room until trail. Well, being without business hardware kinda could kill a business. Even if it was later found out in 3-4 months that the company wasn't doing anything illegal with said computers, the company would not have usage of the equipment for 3-4 months and isn't likely to be able to pay employees for that long without income reserves. I want examples rather than slashdot flame comments.
Could you imagine what ever companies that make and sell cash registers auditing McDonals or Wendys for not buying enough cash registers from their companies? In the physical world, the business would generally just say shove off and won't pay out.
Tell them that there is a nifty program on a website somewhere that they can download, burn to a CD and they will walk away and do it when they have time, which is never.
Have you ever wondered why AOL sent so many CDs instead of telling people that the program is on the internet?
Because AOL is an ISP and without their software their targeted users wouldn't be on the internet to download anything?