It'd also be a HUGE slap to all the assholes who own MS stock and support them, not because they're right, but simply because it's the best thing for their stock portfolio. I'd *LOVE* to remove immunity, for people who knowingly invest in a company involved in illegal actions.
Um, I think it's the responsibility of the management to make sure the company is complying with laws, and that of the board of directors to fire management that breaks laws, and the stock holders to make money while laws are broken and lose it when they are fined for breaking laws. I'd hate to get fined if a company was prosecuted for a crime, and I happened to own stock through a mutual fund.
Besides, I like to follow the strategy Neal Stephenson mentions in Zodiac: buy one share of stock from companies you think are doing bad things, so that you can get the financial statements and other investor materials. They make for interesting reading when you have your cynical glasses on.
Every Linux Geek should read the decision, both so they know what they are talking about, and to recognize Microsoft strategy when they see it. Microsoft is still very clever and plays good strategy, and we should be aware of it...
In the first few pages (around page 19), the decision reports that the Appeals Court upheld that MiddleWare would not count when determining that Microsoft was a monopoly. Microsoft defined middleware as any system that supplied an API for applications programming (Java was an example). If the middleware layer became an industry standard, then the API could be mapped to other operating systems, making Microsoft's monopoly irrelevalent. Application designers could write an application, using the API, that ran on Windows as well as other operating systems, and consumers could then move to another operating system with a significantly lessened cost-of-entry. Thus, Microsoft would be unable to leverage it's monopoly power - the market would take care of the remedy. With increased processing power making indirect APIs more attractive, Microsoft thinks this is a real threat.
The Appeals Court upheld what we all know - the current middleware software (Java et all) isn't good enough - you can't write a fully portable, fully powered application on top of it. Thus, it doesn't factor into the court's decision that Microsoft is a monopoly.
So, what does Microsoft do? They try to invent an API that is powerful enough -.NET, C#, and the rest. Why? For one, if it is standardized, then Microsoft could claim anyone could make a.NET clone, it's just that consumers and developers, acting as consumers with full market knowledge, yada, yada, decide to purchase the superior Microsoft produce. Freedom to Innovate. Checkmate, bastards.
What if they don't buy it, and split the company up anyway? Well, Microsoft, while it was one company, already created the application-to-operating system interface, and can seemlessly use it as two companies. Plus, they can port it to other systems, and leverage their market share on office applications in other markets.
So, yeah, I expect a Linux port of C# and.NET in the works, although it may not be released until the last second, and will be a business and legal win for the company. In time, your grandmother (or, by that time, your mother) will be running Linux on her home system - but it will be the Microsoft distro, running.NET and Passport.
So do stock market investors not RTFA? MS's stock is up 5%. It doesn't seem like MS is that much better off.
But MS is ina an excellent position! The case will go to another judge, another round of court hearings, another round of appeals. If the Justice Department sticks to the case, then it will take another 10 years for a final decision (at least one more president to buy off). By that time, Microsoft can change the market so that any remedy doesn't hurt the stock-holders. Still a good buy.
And if the Justice Department decides that (perhaps looking at budget cuts due to the tax cut) there isn't enough funds to go after Microsoft any more? Then the laywers are free to go after other important targets, such as small companies, new EULAs, and weaking the GPL! Again, still a good buy for investors.
Isn't dark matter stuff we can't observe by its emmisions? Like the moon?
Since no one else responded...
Dark matter is part of an astronomical theory. When the astrophysicists calculate how fast the universe is expanding, and how much matter is in it, they come up short - they figure there should be about 10 times as much matter as there is. Dark matter is the additional stuff that the scientists haven't observed. Either the theory is wrong, or there's a lot of stuff out there that doesn't radiate.
Then there are black body objects in physics, which (if I remember correctly) absorb all light that shines on them. They also emit energy in the form of light, and the light's spectrum matches quantum mechanical theory (in fact, one of the reasons for coming up with the quantum theory is to explain black-body radiation). The sun is the closest black-body object (I know, it seems a little confusing, but some definitions are counter-intuitive).
But that may not be your question. Scientists can observe other stars directly, black holes and dust clouds somewhat indirectly, and anything else that emits energy or blocks light or bends it (anything of significant mass). We've even reached the point that we can detect massive planets orbiting other stars by the way they effect the star they orbit. But even if every star had 10 Jupiters, that would only be about 10% or less of the mass of the star. Dark matter, if the current calculations are correct, would out number stars 10 to 1 - and we should be able to see the effect.
This either means we have to look elsewhere, or change the theory. If a bunch of aliens kept some massive, galaxy-sized black holes around, at a significant distance from other galaxies, then that may account for dark matter. And what else would the aliens store in those black holes?
...we still have to go for about 200 year before we reach this speed.
I find it interesting that, for the most part, Moore's law has been an accurate indicator of future computing speed, and the accompying engineering and theoretical knowledge needed to reach that speed. It is amazing to think that, if the law hold up, in 200 years we would have the physics and engineering needed to build such a computer, and perhaps the knowledge to know what steps to take to make an even faster computer!
The logical solution seems to be to tap into parallel universes (quantum calculations done in a massive parallel fashion?). It also seems that intense sheilding of some sort would be needed, both to keep quantum influences out, and to keep the user from being incinerated. Unless you didn't care, because your computer was outputing to some insignificant parallel universe. Even line-of-sight lasers would be too slow of a bandwidth, since the output would be 3-D light.
Just think, about 300 years from the first radio signals to black-hole computers - no wonder Seti@Home is failing - all the aliens are playing CounterStrike on their black-hole systems! Who would have guessed that the dark matter was simply off-site storage for 5-D pron?!?
I glanced around their homepage, and codeweavers don't even seem to be open source, as far as I can tell. Their mission statement is a perfect piece of corporate doublethink, which might be more plainly interpreted as: "To free Macromedia and Real Networks from the hassle of ever having to support anything except windows ever again."
It's too early to tell if this is a good thing or not. It may even be better if itis closed source...
Remember how the KDE/Gnome wars started over the fact that one was using components not compatible with the GPL? We got desktop competition, better desktop support, and now both are on a solid open-source footing (some may disagree, but I believe this is a goal of both parties). What started to look like a loss for Linux turned into a big win.
What does this new plug-in tool mean for Linux? It's another step to kicking the Win partition off my drive, or at least uninstalling MSIE. If many people use a tool like this, plug-in makers may find a significant portion of the audience using Linux, at least through an emulator.
If the plugin is good, then others may decide using propriatary components is a bad thing, and start making GPL'd clones. It would take a while, but if it's a large enough itch, it will get scratched.
Soon, the plug-in makers are seeing that a Linux native plug-in is beating their own plug-in, see their downloads and purchases decrease, and may decide it would be a good thing to make a native plug-in...
I could be wrong, but this is just one possible path to the big vendors making Linux-specific drivers and plug-ins.
You're sitting comfortably in front of the console of your server happily clickity-clicking away, the syslog quietly printing its timestamps every 5 minutes, load is normal, users are quiet and the world seems to be in place.
Suddenly alarm rings, your syslog becomes all red and the security specialist comes storming through the door shouting "someone executed 'rm -rf/&' as root"...
At this point, would you prefer to have a filesystem that is *sooo* fast deleting that it's already gone through/bin and moved on to/home/, or would you like to have one that has barely just started?:)
At this point, I quit my job, and wander the wastes, warning about using "password" for the root password...
Seriously - this is what full backups are for. Over the lifetime of the system, fast deletes by every user may compensate for the lost time of doing a full restore, rather than catching the global rm halfway through. Plus, a fast delete often means that nothing is really being deleted, file system references are just being dropped - there may be some easy recovery tool for this old worst-case-scenario.
I think Microsoft has a more hidden purpose to it's "shared source" initiative. Everyone who gets to look at their source code undoubtedly must sign an NDA saying that they'll never reveal the source to the public, nor use the code or ideas for any other project.
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY - These Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") operating system components, including any "online" or electronic documentation ("OS Components") are subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement under which you have licensed the applicable Microsoft operating system product ("OS Product") described below (each an "End User License Agreement" or "EULA") and the terms and conditions of this Supplemental EULA. BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE OS COMPONENTS, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE APPLICABLE OS PRODUCT EULA AND THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE OS COMPONENTS.
By Clicking "I Agree", you agree to be bound to a Non-Disclousure Agreement (NDA) that prohibits you from using this Microsoft-owned code fragment in any non-Microsoft product, whether or not for profit...
..more pages of legalese..
Select One:
I Agree
I Disagree (will quit instalation)
I Agree, and I happen to be Linus Torvalds
This information will be transmitted to Microsoft, to record that you agree to the terms on this Agreement.
C++ is heavily used in the industry, and especially in Windows shops. If Linux industries want to steal that developer-share from Windows, they need to hammer out what C++ libs and standards compliance will be considered a part of "standards compliance" linux.
Is the absence of C++ standards due to gcc not having a ISO C++ compliant release? I know that 3.0 is in the works and that Red Hat ships a snapshot of GCC in an attempt to get better libstdc++. Is this lack of a viable free option the reason for no C++ standardization?
I'm grabbing my copy of C/C++ User's Journal, April 2001, which had a Compiler Conformance check (see it online). They have always avoided rating compilers, but now that there is a standard, they decided there was now a somewhat objective means to judging a compiler - conformance to standards. They go on for about 5 pages, explaining the tests and giving justifications for testing. The folks who create the test suites get to comment, the folks who wrote the compiler get to comment, and it looks like everyone involved will work toward meeting the standard in the next release.
Gnu gcc 2.95.2 was tested, as well as Borland BCC 5.5, Microsoft's Visual C++ 6.0, Intel's C/C++ 4.5, as well as 6 others. While just about everyone else commented on the results, there was no spokeperson for gcc.
You'll have to go to the web-site for full results, but here's a few. Three test suites were used, from Dinkumware, Perennial, and Plum Hall. The compiler was tested as well as the library, and results were given as percentage compliance.
You can look up the other number if you so desire.
As you can see, as far as compliance goes, Gnu C++ is pretty good for a compiler, but is lacking in the library department. I find it interesting, and I'm sure the GNU C++ team is looking at the numbers, considering how important the library is to the standard (it really does make C++ more powerful).
Such is the price of progress. It's a far cry from the day when one teenager could write a best-selling game (Jet Set Willy) or two undergraduates could introduce a totally new genre into gaming with one game (Elite). The question is, have we lost something? Does all this glitz and glamour stifle true innovation?
Yeah, no teenager is going to make a new 3-D engine that makes John Carmackv say "Time to retire". The tools are too expensive, it takes too much time, and there are teams that can do it faster and quicker. We're in the age of Boeing and Lockhead-Martin, not the age of the Wright Brothers.
There is still plenty of room for the amateur developer, however. Look at the mapping scene - individuals have made some of the best Counter-Strike map, and a few even got paid for it. Check out Newgrounds for some cool Flash games, bringing the joy back to little games and demos. The failing of many strategy games is in the AI - when a Civ 3 or Masters of Orion 3 comes out with hooks to add your own AI, we should see some amatuer AI writers coming up with bots that beat the game all the time, and a good number of the expert players.
Sure, it's not the way things were done back in the 80's, but a clever kid can work with high-level tools and get himself or herself noticed by the big boys - it's still about the quality.
The Portal Of Evil just underwent a little redesigning, which might explain in part why there's been so little updating at OMM in recent weeks
Weeks? Take a look at those dates again: the last formal review was last year. That's months, not weeks.
OMM was a good gaming site, but Chet and Erik have gotten bored with it. At least Daily Radar was updated on a nearly daily basis, and I could see someone's opinion on a new game. Instead, I have to wait for the Game of the Trimester from OMM. I was a little surprised that Hemos thought OMM would be a good replacement for sites that actually reviewed games.
I'm becoming disenchanted with OMM. I used to visit there every day, hoping for a review or two. Now they don't even review. Tribes 2 and Black and White have come out without a serious review, except to make fun of those who post at the B&W message boards...
There are new "news" items once every other week, including the most recent gem, a complaint about a Windows messagebox without a message attached. No, not in a game they were playing - in the driver update to their sound card.
Here's the list of shame:
Last "news": 4/27/2001
Last Feature (Serious Sam Interview): 3/27/2001
Forums ("Shack Attack", complaining about Steve of shugashack asking for donations): 3/06/2001
Long Review ("Freedom", review of Freedom, the First Resistance - it blows up your monitor): 12/21/2000
Short Review (8 Quickies - Including Rune, No One Lives Forever, and Gunman Cronicles): 10/27/2000
Rants (Pop-Up Apology - a letter about something that happened on a different portal of evil site): 8/12/2000 (Last true OMM rant, about Paul Steed(!) , 2/10/2000)
The site is dead. If they are playing games that companies send them, then they are not telling us about them. Their latest contribution to the world was publicizing Serious Sam, which is a good thing. However, the lack of updates is a Bad Thing. Eventually, people will stop coming by to see if it is updated, even the hard-core OMM worshippers will stop coming by the forums, and the site will be another link in someone's link list that never got updated (OMM! That must be a dead link by now - Wow! Chet posted a complaint about philips-head screws!)
Maybe it's a money thing. Maybe they have budgeted bandwidth, and, when they reach the monthly quota, they stop posting new stuff. Maybe they need ad-banner click-throughs, saving up enough money for a modern machine to play the new games. Maybe they moved, and forgot to tell game companies the new address, so some undeserving college kid is getting all the cool new games. Who knows. And, increasingly, who cares?
IMHO, the whole Slashdot Cool Links box displays a bad trend toward the unneccessary, starting with the OMM link. Who would use Everything2 as a resource, or sees it as other than a interesting idea unfortunately turned into a Community? I think themes.org is up there because Rob Malda once posted a Enlightenment theme that never got updated to new versions. The list doesn't change, but stays a testament to what the Slashdot editors were thinking about a year ago, much like the other static content on the site (the FAQ, etc.)
Wow, that's a lot of bitching for a Tuesday. That Karma Kap makes you old and bitter pretty fast...
The thing that seperates the uber-geek system from the consumer electronics system is the interface. A geek doesn't mind hammering away at a command line, piping commands through 6 different utilities, or other gymnastics, while a consumer wants to point and click, or something even better.
The very fact that we think functionality before interface means we will fail in creating a consumer product. An interface is always restrictive, in the name of simplicity, while we desire full functionality. Just look at the VCR - all households (I hope) have learned how to play and eject a tape, some know how to set the clock, and many don't even know how to set up a timed recording. It is popular, not because of the 26-page man file for play(1), but because you play a tape by pressing a big green arrow.
So, what would the interface be? We're looking at database searching, which has always meant typing or long lists before. Remote controls are not made for alphabetical entry, and I've seem some good hacks, but not great hacks. This leaves a keyboard interfacer, or a voice interface. How far are we from that? We haven't even talked about what the display looks like, or if it has a CLI yet.
What about wires? This is where even consumer electronics leave room to be desired - the backs of these things look ugly, and air-flow requirements mean that they can't be shoved in a pretty, fully enclosed cabinet. A unified interface between subsystems, like 100 base T ethernet, may make things prettier, but begs for a home network. My 1930's house isn't quite ready for that.
And yes, you will want subsystems. CD's won't be around forever, and a seperate subsystems allows for removal and additions. I don't want to buy another $3000 system just because the replacement for DVDs has arrived. And Hollywood will probably come out with a new format every 5 years, when the previous copyright protection hack has become trivially breakable.
This isn't a small matter of money or programming. It's designing across disciplines. Is it OK to send audio over ethernet, and decode it at the speakers? That would reduce wires, but may not please audiphiles, and make for expensive speakers. Is the system a rack-mounted system, too ugly to keep in the main room? Do you require a off-line computer, or have a full system running on the borg box, with perhaps a wireless keyboard? Note, I haven't even gotten to the software, and it already looks pretty hairy.
Still, I'm salivating over the possibilities. I think I'll make a research budget...
I thought Ximian had stopped helix-update service after releasing Red Carpet to replace it.
This appears to be the case. In the previous version I was running, helix-update was used to update the system. In this new release, that I just installed, it has been replaced with Red Carpet. This installation finalizes the transition.
The recommended install procudure (lynx -source http://go-gnome.com|sh) does not work, presumably due to server load.
Again, thats:
lynx -source http://go-gnome.com | sh
It is working for me, right now. It did fail the first time, though. I ran it under X, in a terminal window, after running su (you have to run the script as superuser).
It downloaded over Akamai as well, at about 70kbps, which is about the maximum my office pipe can take. I'm download the full install, which is about 150MB.
I just tried this - you need to be the superuser, and it failed the first time, but it actually worked, when the graphical update tool did not. Very fast, as well - the Akamai downloads ran at about 70kbps.
Akamai is one of the mirror site option, and usually the fastest for this Mid-Westerner. However, when I try to run helix-update (by clicking the can icon) it returns "Unable to download mirrors.xml". It looks like one of the bottlenecks is the server that reports what the mirror sites are.
BTW, the situation has improved somewhat. Before I went to lunch an hour ago, it took a minute for that message to come up. Now it takes about 2 seconds to tell me it can't tell me what the mirrors are. That's about a 30x speed up - good job, Ximian!
Very solid suggestions. In these days of Microsoft PageBuilder, etc, it's easy to forget that graphics, etc, cost bandwidth, and bandwidth often costs money.
I'd like to see browser tech that helps out, as well. I like a page with some pretty pictures (such as Slashdot's title, and the topic pics). Since I visit SlashDot everyday, I wish my browser would hold onto the images, so I wouldn't have to download them again, while flushing the ads that I download one times and look at zero times.
Microsoft was never one to cut down on bloat, however, so I doubt MSIE will get any smarter in the future. Is there any standards work out there to deal with this kind of problem?
I offer this humble (not original) proposal for deciding when it is OK to make something a crime. Find a victim. Oh, and the perpetrator and victim may not be the same person.
<standard lame answer> Think of the children!!! </standard lame answer>
But seriously, most aren't concerned with the adults. There are plenty of adults stupid enough to spend their days smoking crack, getting busted, and being sent to jail. If there was no crack, they would use something else, and crack is invented because of these people. These kinds of people need help, both with an addiction and some basic training on how to live their own lives. If we as a society don't think they are worth the money to rehabilitate, then we will just build jails for them or lower the threshold for the death penalty.
It's kids that I'm worried about. Not from abuse or neglect, but from them using the drugs. Adolescents have the most powerful drugs imaginable already going through their systems - hormones. What other drug on earth can make you moody, estatic, and several inches taller? What other drugs makes you develop sex organs and grow hair in new places? Anyone who remembers their middle-school and high-school days knows that this is a very intense time in your life, when everything is of great significance, when it seems to make sense to kill yourself just because you aren't popular or others are making fun of you. Kids have a hard enough time with these hormones going through their bodies.
Drugs complicate the picture. If they learn to cope with their life by using drugs, then it may become part of their coping toolkit for the rest of their lives. There is always the danger of addiction when you take drugs, but I argue that it is more likely a young kid, because they are developing.
Some may say "I took drugs as a kid, and I'm alright!" Congratulations. I think you were lucky. Not smart, not talented, not better than the kid that is now addicted, just lucky. D&D players can argue what dice you would roll, but I won't. It's just a risky proposition.
That's my answer - kids that take drugs are more likely to be damaged at an early age. They won't be as productive. They may go to jail, and we will have to pay for their incarceration. They may become mentally unstable, and we will have to pay for the mental institutions. They may decide to come clean, and we would have to pay for drug treatment programs. They may just not be great achievers, and be more of a drain on society than an asset. The point is, if someone gets fundamentally damaged at a young age, we as a society have to deal with them for the rest of their lives.
Is it moral to make something illegal just to keep it away from kids? Maybe not. But I still can't quite swallow the Libertarian line of "If it doesn't hurt anyone but me, it's OK". I haven't really decided on the alternative, but that's OK - I don't make laws, I just vote on them.
It was tried - Alcohol Prohibition was a Failure and currently, canabis prohibition IS a failure. No matter how you look at it, the current stigma and treatment of people who like to cut off flowers and smoke them is a crime again humanity and nature. Period. Consider what prohibition gets you: an ounce of pot is worth more than an ounce of GOLD!!! If that isn't an invitation to for criminal element to step in I don't know what is.
I'm not so sure the comparision of alcohol prohibition to canabis prohibition is a perfect one.
Alcohol prohibition came after centuries of alcohol use. The Egyptians brewed beer, Jesus turned water into wine (and was probably drinking some himself), and I even saw a nature show where animals ate fermented berries in Africa (have you ever seen a drunk elephant or giraffe?). It has been fully integrated in our culture, for better or worse. For a time, idealistic Americans tried to do something about its huge negative potential, resulting in the failed experiment of prohibition.
Canabis is not part of the American culture, or even western culture. It has no place in religious ceremonies, no accepted place in normal social situations. Major events like weddings are not celebrated with the bride and groom lighting each other's ceremonial fatties.
It has a second-class status to alcohol, which means that most people that try it are discovering it without any cultural background. This is an invitation to use it without social norms or practices, to use it to excess, without "wiser and older" users telling them what is good and what is excessive.
Don't underestimate the value of a social network in the use of intoxicants. Kids learn early that almost everyone can drink a little champagne, but that Uncle Earl is gross and loud when he drinks too much. Teenagers feel important when their parent gives them a little wine at a holiday meal, and the parents teach them that it is something adults do, with moderation. I'm not worried about minors getting alcohol whis way. I am worried about the kids who steal their parent's whiskey and share it with friends in the dark. One of the major hurdles to overcome in college life is alcohol - more students just don't make it because they can't regulate their own drinking, sometimes for psycological reasons, sometimes because they were never taught the proper role of alcohol.
I'm not worried about adults smoking canabis every once in a while. I'd be much more comfortable if they could do it in social situations. But we as a society have no accepted way to smoke up, which makes it even more dangerous for the teenagers who discover it for themselves. With legalization, we'd be a lot like those teenagers, we'd mess it up for a few decades, and, even worse, the marketers at Philip-Morris would be pushing the product. I'm not so sure that would be a good thing.
The harder drugs also cause less deaths than alcohol or tobacco, both of which are legal and no one complains about tearing families apart.
I mostly agree with you, but I couldn't let this one pass. If alcohol gets to the point where it is killing people (drunk driving, domestic abuse, etc.), then it is breaking families apart. It is so obvious that it is no longer fashionable to make movies or T.V. shows on the issue, but they are made occasionaly, from the real pulpit and the media pulpit (The Apostle and Affliction come to mind).
People don't think of smoking as tearing families apart, but it is a wedge. My father smokes, but keeps it a "secret" from us kids, never smoking in the house, or smoking around the side, where there are no windows. Some relatives do smoke in the house, and it is hard for non-smokers to spend any time in the house. My wife seriously offended her parents as a girl when she got the anti-smoking education, and tried (as many kids do) to save her parents from cigarretes. They have both quit, though.
I drink, and my wife will bum a cigarette off a friend if she's in a smoking bar (she says you are almost smoking, anyway). They key is, we are doing it in a social situation, where there are norms, where people have a good idea where the line is between use and abuse. Alcohol and nicotine can be addictive, and many Americans are addicted, but there are treatment programs, and addiction is considered a weakness that people should avoid.
I think the jury is still out if legalization of illegal drugs would result in a similar situation, or if legalization in other countries is a good indication of how legalization would work in the U.S. I do think that we should start working on this question, rather than consistantly ignore it. We should have more scientific studies on Schedule A drugs and their long-term effects, so that we can make decisions based on facts rather than politics and prejudices.
I believe there are two ways the media can "harm" people. The first is to expose them to an idea that they had never personally considered. The second is to promote one, anti-social method of problem-solving over other methods.
For the first example, consider a youth growing up, dealing with homosexuality. If they are raised in a community where it is considered a sin and not promoted as a possible lifestyle, then that person may even deny their own feelings, force themselves to live the straight life, and ignore their impulses ("Sex is for procreation, anyway - why should there be any pleasure or desire?").
T.V. and movies would tell the same person that there are places where those feelings are accepted, that all it may take is to move to a different city, and that person may act on this new knowledge. In the eyes of the community, media has harmed the person from having the "good" life, and tempted the person into the lifestyle. Others here may disagree. That's why we have freedom of speech here - we believe the pursuit of happiness is meaningless without alternatives.
The second way is a little more damaging, in my opinion. Sex and violence is the meat and potatos of media - they are exciting, get the blood racing, and sometimes make the audience more engrossed in the story. The CBS version of the Sopranos probably wouldn't be as critically lauded as the HBO version, for instance. However, when this is taken to extremes, all male-female relationships become sex, with the women's figures taken straight out of Playboy, and the more ellicit the sex, the better. There are few representations of less-than-perfect women being sex partners (although the guys get away with looking like Tony Soprano or that King-of-Queens guy), and most sex is framed in one-night-stands or affairs, little of it within a marriage. If a kid was only exposed to these representations, they would get a very skewed image of male-female relationships, what women are desirable, and a very narrow view of the purpose of sex.
Those of us who have been exposed in the real world to a fuller spectrum of humanity (good parents, role models, etc.), recognize the media as entertainment, blowing up the more exciting parts of life to un-lifelike proportions. Those who don't see those alternatives think that the media is telling the whole story, and form their mental landscape around thse stories.
For most of us, Quake, Counter-strike, and the like are just games, diversions that get our heart pumping, but have little relevance in our lives. We may fantacize that we are building skills that may help us if war ever breaks out, and we are practicing amateur squad combat in the streets, but it is just fantasy for us, relegated to a proper role in our psyche.
For some, that have no experience working out problems by talking them out, who see only violence in human relationships, who have the "bad" parents, these are not just games, but they are the alternative. You either get picked on and take it, or you get a gun and get even. There is no middle ground, of going to an administrator or a parent, or working out and dealing with it with a little punching. It's stay quiet, until you get "brave" enough to get a gun.
Sure, it's the parent's fault, because they didn't have a loving home environment that taught the alternatives to violence. Sure, it's the administrators fault, for not stopping bullys and not being approachable. Sure, it's the grand-parents fault for raising the parents so badly. Sure, it's society's fault, for teaching that football players are more valuable than the computer geeks, and that power is everthing, and that guns are a shortcut to power. But isn't it also the media's fault, for going to the extremes, selling violent and anti-social products for their "entertainment" value, not considering if they are using free-speech as a cover, or if they are promoting an alternative that may point to happiness?
I hope the lawsuit loses. Games are usually better than T.V. and movies, in that the situations are obviously not real-life situation. I know Quake is fantasy, but HBO tries to convey that the Sopranos is one flavor of real life. At the same time, I hope the manufacturers question the wisdom of selling this violent entertainment to 13-year-old boys, who have enough hormonal problems to work out, for whom the lines between fantasy and real-life are blurred anyway.
Re:create some bad press for the school
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 1
Someone should contact the local public news-station down there in McKinney. (And while you're talking to them, tell them what a Slashdot is.)
The school website says that, if the school is closed due to snow or bad weather, that they will inform the Dallas/Ft. Worth area radio and television.
This will be the first of two such "significant" events in 2001, the second being 01:46:39 UTC on 2001-09-09, when the clock will read 999999999 (and then of course "roll over" to 1000000000 one second later).
The other significant thing that will happen on that date is that moderators the world over will be confused, wondering if the moderation guidelines actually changed or not.
(This is in reference to the message moderators get saying "Have you read the Moderation Guidelines yet? Updated 9.9". They were updated 9/9/1999, which I guess was such a cool date that they never bothered changing it again, just updated the FAQ. Of course, saying "Updated 9.9.99" would be even cooler. Maybe CmdrTaco is waiting for 1.1.11 to update them again, or even 2.2.2222...
Slashdot Mirror
Um, I think it's the responsibility of the management to make sure the company is complying with laws, and that of the board of directors to fire management that breaks laws, and the stock holders to make money while laws are broken and lose it when they are fined for breaking laws. I'd hate to get fined if a company was prosecuted for a crime, and I happened to own stock through a mutual fund.
Besides, I like to follow the strategy Neal Stephenson mentions in Zodiac: buy one share of stock from companies you think are doing bad things, so that you can get the financial statements and other investor materials. They make for interesting reading when you have your cynical glasses on.
Every Linux Geek should read the decision, both so they know what they are talking about, and to recognize Microsoft strategy when they see it. Microsoft is still very clever and plays good strategy, and we should be aware of it...
.NET, C#, and the rest. Why? For one, if it is standardized, then Microsoft could claim anyone could make a .NET clone, it's just that consumers and developers, acting as consumers with full market knowledge, yada, yada, decide to purchase the superior Microsoft produce. Freedom to Innovate. Checkmate, bastards.
.NET in the works, although it may not be released until the last second, and will be a business and legal win for the company. In time, your grandmother (or, by that time, your mother) will be running Linux on her home system - but it will be the Microsoft distro, running .NET and Passport.
In the first few pages (around page 19), the decision reports that the Appeals Court upheld that MiddleWare would not count when determining that Microsoft was a monopoly. Microsoft defined middleware as any system that supplied an API for applications programming (Java was an example). If the middleware layer became an industry standard, then the API could be mapped to other operating systems, making Microsoft's monopoly irrelevalent. Application designers could write an application, using the API, that ran on Windows as well as other operating systems, and consumers could then move to another operating system with a significantly lessened cost-of-entry. Thus, Microsoft would be unable to leverage it's monopoly power - the market would take care of the remedy. With increased processing power making indirect APIs more attractive, Microsoft thinks this is a real threat.
The Appeals Court upheld what we all know - the current middleware software (Java et all) isn't good enough - you can't write a fully portable, fully powered application on top of it. Thus, it doesn't factor into the court's decision that Microsoft is a monopoly.
So, what does Microsoft do? They try to invent an API that is powerful enough -
What if they don't buy it, and split the company up anyway? Well, Microsoft, while it was one company, already created the application-to-operating system interface, and can seemlessly use it as two companies. Plus, they can port it to other systems, and leverage their market share on office applications in other markets.
So, yeah, I expect a Linux port of C# and
But MS is ina an excellent position! The case will go to another judge, another round of court hearings, another round of appeals. If the Justice Department sticks to the case, then it will take another 10 years for a final decision (at least one more president to buy off). By that time, Microsoft can change the market so that any remedy doesn't hurt the stock-holders. Still a good buy.
And if the Justice Department decides that (perhaps looking at budget cuts due to the tax cut) there isn't enough funds to go after Microsoft any more? Then the laywers are free to go after other important targets, such as small companies, new EULAs, and weaking the GPL! Again, still a good buy for investors.
Since no one else responded...
Dark matter is part of an astronomical theory. When the astrophysicists calculate how fast the universe is expanding, and how much matter is in it, they come up short - they figure there should be about 10 times as much matter as there is. Dark matter is the additional stuff that the scientists haven't observed. Either the theory is wrong, or there's a lot of stuff out there that doesn't radiate.
Then there are black body objects in physics, which (if I remember correctly) absorb all light that shines on them. They also emit energy in the form of light, and the light's spectrum matches quantum mechanical theory (in fact, one of the reasons for coming up with the quantum theory is to explain black-body radiation). The sun is the closest black-body object (I know, it seems a little confusing, but some definitions are counter-intuitive).
But that may not be your question. Scientists can observe other stars directly, black holes and dust clouds somewhat indirectly, and anything else that emits energy or blocks light or bends it (anything of significant mass). We've even reached the point that we can detect massive planets orbiting other stars by the way they effect the star they orbit. But even if every star had 10 Jupiters, that would only be about 10% or less of the mass of the star. Dark matter, if the current calculations are correct, would out number stars 10 to 1 - and we should be able to see the effect.
This either means we have to look elsewhere, or change the theory. If a bunch of aliens kept some massive, galaxy-sized black holes around, at a significant distance from other galaxies, then that may account for dark matter. And what else would the aliens store in those black holes?
I find it interesting that, for the most part, Moore's law has been an accurate indicator of future computing speed, and the accompying engineering and theoretical knowledge needed to reach that speed. It is amazing to think that, if the law hold up, in 200 years we would have the physics and engineering needed to build such a computer, and perhaps the knowledge to know what steps to take to make an even faster computer!
The logical solution seems to be to tap into parallel universes (quantum calculations done in a massive parallel fashion?). It also seems that intense sheilding of some sort would be needed, both to keep quantum influences out, and to keep the user from being incinerated. Unless you didn't care, because your computer was outputing to some insignificant parallel universe. Even line-of-sight lasers would be too slow of a bandwidth, since the output would be 3-D light.
Just think, about 300 years from the first radio signals to black-hole computers - no wonder Seti@Home is failing - all the aliens are playing CounterStrike on their black-hole systems! Who would have guessed that the dark matter was simply off-site storage for 5-D pron?!?
It's too early to tell if this is a good thing or not. It may even be better if itis closed source...
Remember how the KDE/Gnome wars started over the fact that one was using components not compatible with the GPL? We got desktop competition, better desktop support, and now both are on a solid open-source footing (some may disagree, but I believe this is a goal of both parties). What started to look like a loss for Linux turned into a big win.
What does this new plug-in tool mean for Linux? It's another step to kicking the Win partition off my drive, or at least uninstalling MSIE. If many people use a tool like this, plug-in makers may find a significant portion of the audience using Linux, at least through an emulator.
If the plugin is good, then others may decide using propriatary components is a bad thing, and start making GPL'd clones. It would take a while, but if it's a large enough itch, it will get scratched.
Soon, the plug-in makers are seeing that a Linux native plug-in is beating their own plug-in, see their downloads and purchases decrease, and may decide it would be a good thing to make a native plug-in...
I could be wrong, but this is just one possible path to the big vendors making Linux-specific drivers and plug-ins.
Suddenly alarm rings, your syslog becomes all red and the security specialist comes storming through the door shouting "someone executed 'rm -rf /&' as root"...
At this point, would you prefer to have a filesystem that is *sooo* fast deleting that it's already gone through /bin and moved on to /home/, or would you like to have one that has barely just started? :)
At this point, I quit my job, and wander the wastes, warning about using "password" for the root password...
Seriously - this is what full backups are for. Over the lifetime of the system, fast deletes by every user may compensate for the lost time of doing a full restore, rather than catching the global rm halfway through. Plus, a fast delete often means that nothing is really being deleted, file system references are just being dropped - there may be some easy recovery tool for this old worst-case-scenario.
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY - These Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") operating system components, including any "online" or electronic documentation ("OS Components") are subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement under which you have licensed the applicable Microsoft operating system product ("OS Product") described below (each an "End User License Agreement" or "EULA") and the terms and conditions of this Supplemental EULA. BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE OS COMPONENTS, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE APPLICABLE OS PRODUCT EULA AND THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE OS COMPONENTS.
Section 11.1 - Here's some source code:
By Clicking "I Agree", you agree to be bound to a Non-Disclousure Agreement (NDA) that prohibits you from using this Microsoft-owned code fragment in any non-Microsoft product, whether or not for profit...Select One:
I Agree
I Disagree (will quit instalation)
I Agree, and I happen to be Linus Torvalds
This information will be transmitted to Microsoft, to record that you agree to the terms on this Agreement.
Is the absence of C++ standards due to gcc not having a ISO C++ compliant release? I know that 3.0 is in the works and that Red Hat ships a snapshot of GCC in an attempt to get better libstdc++. Is this lack of a viable free option the reason for no C++ standardization?
I'm grabbing my copy of C/C++ User's Journal, April 2001, which had a Compiler Conformance check (see it online). They have always avoided rating compilers, but now that there is a standard, they decided there was now a somewhat objective means to judging a compiler - conformance to standards. They go on for about 5 pages, explaining the tests and giving justifications for testing. The folks who create the test suites get to comment, the folks who wrote the compiler get to comment, and it looks like everyone involved will work toward meeting the standard in the next release.
Gnu gcc 2.95.2 was tested, as well as Borland BCC 5.5, Microsoft's Visual C++ 6.0, Intel's C/C++ 4.5, as well as 6 others. While just about everyone else commented on the results, there was no spokeperson for gcc.
You'll have to go to the web-site for full results, but here's a few. Three test suites were used, from Dinkumware, Perennial, and Plum Hall. The compiler was tested as well as the library, and results were given as percentage compliance.
Borland
Dinkumware: library - 75%
Perennial: compiler - 63%, library - 67%
Plum Hall: compiler - 89%, library - 74%
Gnu C++
Dinkumware: not tested
Perennial: compiler - 98%, library - 41%
Plum Hall: compiler - 94%, library - 21%
IBM C++
Dinkumware: library - 99%
Perennial: compiler - 99%, library - 97%
Plum Hall: compiler - 95%, library - 85%
Intel
Dinkumware: not tested
Perennial: compiler - 96%, library - 72%
Plum Hall: compiler - 90%
Microsoft
Dinkumware: library - 84%
Perennial: compiler - 77%, library - 64%
Plum Hall: compiler - 83%, library - 74%
You can look up the other number if you so desire.
As you can see, as far as compliance goes, Gnu C++ is pretty good for a compiler, but is lacking in the library department. I find it interesting, and I'm sure the GNU C++ team is looking at the numbers, considering how important the library is to the standard (it really does make C++ more powerful).
Yeah, no teenager is going to make a new 3-D engine that makes John Carmackv say "Time to retire". The tools are too expensive, it takes too much time, and there are teams that can do it faster and quicker. We're in the age of Boeing and Lockhead-Martin, not the age of the Wright Brothers.
There is still plenty of room for the amateur developer, however. Look at the mapping scene - individuals have made some of the best Counter-Strike map, and a few even got paid for it. Check out Newgrounds for some cool Flash games, bringing the joy back to little games and demos. The failing of many strategy games is in the AI - when a Civ 3 or Masters of Orion 3 comes out with hooks to add your own AI, we should see some amatuer AI writers coming up with bots that beat the game all the time, and a good number of the expert players.
Sure, it's not the way things were done back in the 80's, but a clever kid can work with high-level tools and get himself or herself noticed by the big boys - it's still about the quality.
Weeks? Take a look at those dates again: the last formal review was last year. That's months, not weeks.
OMM was a good gaming site, but Chet and Erik have gotten bored with it. At least Daily Radar was updated on a nearly daily basis, and I could see someone's opinion on a new game. Instead, I have to wait for the Game of the Trimester from OMM. I was a little surprised that Hemos thought OMM would be a good replacement for sites that actually reviewed games.
There are new "news" items once every other week, including the most recent gem, a complaint about a Windows messagebox without a message attached. No, not in a game they were playing - in the driver update to their sound card.
Here's the list of shame:
Last "news": 4/27/2001
Last Feature (Serious Sam Interview): 3/27/2001
Forums ("Shack Attack", complaining about Steve of shugashack asking for donations): 3/06/2001
Long Review ("Freedom", review of Freedom, the First Resistance - it blows up your monitor): 12/21/2000
Short Review (8 Quickies - Including Rune, No One Lives Forever, and Gunman Cronicles): 10/27/2000
Rants (Pop-Up Apology - a letter about something that happened on a different portal of evil site): 8/12/2000 (Last true OMM rant, about Paul Steed(!) , 2/10/2000)
The site is dead. If they are playing games that companies send them, then they are not telling us about them. Their latest contribution to the world was publicizing Serious Sam, which is a good thing. However, the lack of updates is a Bad Thing. Eventually, people will stop coming by to see if it is updated, even the hard-core OMM worshippers will stop coming by the forums, and the site will be another link in someone's link list that never got updated (OMM! That must be a dead link by now - Wow! Chet posted a complaint about philips-head screws!)
Maybe it's a money thing. Maybe they have budgeted bandwidth, and, when they reach the monthly quota, they stop posting new stuff. Maybe they need ad-banner click-throughs, saving up enough money for a modern machine to play the new games. Maybe they moved, and forgot to tell game companies the new address, so some undeserving college kid is getting all the cool new games. Who knows. And, increasingly, who cares?
IMHO, the whole Slashdot Cool Links box displays a bad trend toward the unneccessary, starting with the OMM link. Who would use Everything2 as a resource, or sees it as other than a interesting idea unfortunately turned into a Community? I think themes.org is up there because Rob Malda once posted a Enlightenment theme that never got updated to new versions. The list doesn't change, but stays a testament to what the Slashdot editors were thinking about a year ago, much like the other static content on the site (the FAQ, etc.)
Wow, that's a lot of bitching for a Tuesday. That Karma Kap makes you old and bitter pretty fast...
The very fact that we think functionality before interface means we will fail in creating a consumer product. An interface is always restrictive, in the name of simplicity, while we desire full functionality. Just look at the VCR - all households (I hope) have learned how to play and eject a tape, some know how to set the clock, and many don't even know how to set up a timed recording. It is popular, not because of the 26-page man file for play(1), but because you play a tape by pressing a big green arrow.
So, what would the interface be? We're looking at database searching, which has always meant typing or long lists before. Remote controls are not made for alphabetical entry, and I've seem some good hacks, but not great hacks. This leaves a keyboard interfacer, or a voice interface. How far are we from that? We haven't even talked about what the display looks like, or if it has a CLI yet.
What about wires? This is where even consumer electronics leave room to be desired - the backs of these things look ugly, and air-flow requirements mean that they can't be shoved in a pretty, fully enclosed cabinet. A unified interface between subsystems, like 100 base T ethernet, may make things prettier, but begs for a home network. My 1930's house isn't quite ready for that.
And yes, you will want subsystems. CD's won't be around forever, and a seperate subsystems allows for removal and additions. I don't want to buy another $3000 system just because the replacement for DVDs has arrived. And Hollywood will probably come out with a new format every 5 years, when the previous copyright protection hack has become trivially breakable.
This isn't a small matter of money or programming. It's designing across disciplines. Is it OK to send audio over ethernet, and decode it at the speakers? That would reduce wires, but may not please audiphiles, and make for expensive speakers. Is the system a rack-mounted system, too ugly to keep in the main room? Do you require a off-line computer, or have a full system running on the borg box, with perhaps a wireless keyboard? Note, I haven't even gotten to the software, and it already looks pretty hairy.
Still, I'm salivating over the possibilities. I think I'll make a research budget...
My whole front page is in itallics...
This appears to be the case. In the previous version I was running, helix-update was used to update the system. In this new release, that I just installed, it has been replaced with Red Carpet. This installation finalizes the transition.
Again, thats:
It is working for me, right now. It did fail the first time, though. I ran it under X, in a terminal window, after running su (you have to run the script as superuser).It downloaded over Akamai as well, at about 70kbps, which is about the maximum my office pipe can take. I'm download the full install, which is about 150MB.
lynx -source http://go-gnome.com/ | sh
I just tried this - you need to be the superuser, and it failed the first time, but it actually worked, when the graphical update tool did not. Very fast, as well - the Akamai downloads ran at about 70kbps.
BTW, the situation has improved somewhat. Before I went to lunch an hour ago, it took a minute for that message to come up. Now it takes about 2 seconds to tell me it can't tell me what the mirrors are. That's about a 30x speed up - good job, Ximian!
I'd like to see browser tech that helps out, as well. I like a page with some pretty pictures (such as Slashdot's title, and the topic pics). Since I visit SlashDot everyday, I wish my browser would hold onto the images, so I wouldn't have to download them again, while flushing the ads that I download one times and look at zero times.
Microsoft was never one to cut down on bloat, however, so I doubt MSIE will get any smarter in the future. Is there any standards work out there to deal with this kind of problem?
<standard lame answer> Think of the children!!! </standard lame answer>
But seriously, most aren't concerned with the adults. There are plenty of adults stupid enough to spend their days smoking crack, getting busted, and being sent to jail. If there was no crack, they would use something else, and crack is invented because of these people. These kinds of people need help, both with an addiction and some basic training on how to live their own lives. If we as a society don't think they are worth the money to rehabilitate, then we will just build jails for them or lower the threshold for the death penalty.
It's kids that I'm worried about. Not from abuse or neglect, but from them using the drugs. Adolescents have the most powerful drugs imaginable already going through their systems - hormones. What other drug on earth can make you moody, estatic, and several inches taller? What other drugs makes you develop sex organs and grow hair in new places? Anyone who remembers their middle-school and high-school days knows that this is a very intense time in your life, when everything is of great significance, when it seems to make sense to kill yourself just because you aren't popular or others are making fun of you. Kids have a hard enough time with these hormones going through their bodies.
Drugs complicate the picture. If they learn to cope with their life by using drugs, then it may become part of their coping toolkit for the rest of their lives. There is always the danger of addiction when you take drugs, but I argue that it is more likely a young kid, because they are developing.
Some may say "I took drugs as a kid, and I'm alright!" Congratulations. I think you were lucky. Not smart, not talented, not better than the kid that is now addicted, just lucky. D&D players can argue what dice you would roll, but I won't. It's just a risky proposition.
That's my answer - kids that take drugs are more likely to be damaged at an early age. They won't be as productive. They may go to jail, and we will have to pay for their incarceration. They may become mentally unstable, and we will have to pay for the mental institutions. They may decide to come clean, and we would have to pay for drug treatment programs. They may just not be great achievers, and be more of a drain on society than an asset. The point is, if someone gets fundamentally damaged at a young age, we as a society have to deal with them for the rest of their lives.
Is it moral to make something illegal just to keep it away from kids? Maybe not. But I still can't quite swallow the Libertarian line of "If it doesn't hurt anyone but me, it's OK". I haven't really decided on the alternative, but that's OK - I don't make laws, I just vote on them.
I'm not so sure the comparision of alcohol prohibition to canabis prohibition is a perfect one.
Alcohol prohibition came after centuries of alcohol use. The Egyptians brewed beer, Jesus turned water into wine (and was probably drinking some himself), and I even saw a nature show where animals ate fermented berries in Africa (have you ever seen a drunk elephant or giraffe?). It has been fully integrated in our culture, for better or worse. For a time, idealistic Americans tried to do something about its huge negative potential, resulting in the failed experiment of prohibition.
Canabis is not part of the American culture, or even western culture. It has no place in religious ceremonies, no accepted place in normal social situations. Major events like weddings are not celebrated with the bride and groom lighting each other's ceremonial fatties.
It has a second-class status to alcohol, which means that most people that try it are discovering it without any cultural background. This is an invitation to use it without social norms or practices, to use it to excess, without "wiser and older" users telling them what is good and what is excessive.
Don't underestimate the value of a social network in the use of intoxicants. Kids learn early that almost everyone can drink a little champagne, but that Uncle Earl is gross and loud when he drinks too much. Teenagers feel important when their parent gives them a little wine at a holiday meal, and the parents teach them that it is something adults do, with moderation. I'm not worried about minors getting alcohol whis way. I am worried about the kids who steal their parent's whiskey and share it with friends in the dark. One of the major hurdles to overcome in college life is alcohol - more students just don't make it because they can't regulate their own drinking, sometimes for psycological reasons, sometimes because they were never taught the proper role of alcohol.
I'm not worried about adults smoking canabis every once in a while. I'd be much more comfortable if they could do it in social situations. But we as a society have no accepted way to smoke up, which makes it even more dangerous for the teenagers who discover it for themselves. With legalization, we'd be a lot like those teenagers, we'd mess it up for a few decades, and, even worse, the marketers at Philip-Morris would be pushing the product. I'm not so sure that would be a good thing.
I mostly agree with you, but I couldn't let this one pass. If alcohol gets to the point where it is killing people (drunk driving, domestic abuse, etc.), then it is breaking families apart. It is so obvious that it is no longer fashionable to make movies or T.V. shows on the issue, but they are made occasionaly, from the real pulpit and the media pulpit (The Apostle and Affliction come to mind).
People don't think of smoking as tearing families apart, but it is a wedge. My father smokes, but keeps it a "secret" from us kids, never smoking in the house, or smoking around the side, where there are no windows. Some relatives do smoke in the house, and it is hard for non-smokers to spend any time in the house. My wife seriously offended her parents as a girl when she got the anti-smoking education, and tried (as many kids do) to save her parents from cigarretes. They have both quit, though.
I drink, and my wife will bum a cigarette off a friend if she's in a smoking bar (she says you are almost smoking, anyway). They key is, we are doing it in a social situation, where there are norms, where people have a good idea where the line is between use and abuse. Alcohol and nicotine can be addictive, and many Americans are addicted, but there are treatment programs, and addiction is considered a weakness that people should avoid.
I think the jury is still out if legalization of illegal drugs would result in a similar situation, or if legalization in other countries is a good indication of how legalization would work in the U.S. I do think that we should start working on this question, rather than consistantly ignore it. We should have more scientific studies on Schedule A drugs and their long-term effects, so that we can make decisions based on facts rather than politics and prejudices.
For the first example, consider a youth growing up, dealing with homosexuality. If they are raised in a community where it is considered a sin and not promoted as a possible lifestyle, then that person may even deny their own feelings, force themselves to live the straight life, and ignore their impulses ("Sex is for procreation, anyway - why should there be any pleasure or desire?").
T.V. and movies would tell the same person that there are places where those feelings are accepted, that all it may take is to move to a different city, and that person may act on this new knowledge. In the eyes of the community, media has harmed the person from having the "good" life, and tempted the person into the lifestyle. Others here may disagree. That's why we have freedom of speech here - we believe the pursuit of happiness is meaningless without alternatives.
The second way is a little more damaging, in my opinion. Sex and violence is the meat and potatos of media - they are exciting, get the blood racing, and sometimes make the audience more engrossed in the story. The CBS version of the Sopranos probably wouldn't be as critically lauded as the HBO version, for instance. However, when this is taken to extremes, all male-female relationships become sex, with the women's figures taken straight out of Playboy, and the more ellicit the sex, the better. There are few representations of less-than-perfect women being sex partners (although the guys get away with looking like Tony Soprano or that King-of-Queens guy), and most sex is framed in one-night-stands or affairs, little of it within a marriage. If a kid was only exposed to these representations, they would get a very skewed image of male-female relationships, what women are desirable, and a very narrow view of the purpose of sex.
Those of us who have been exposed in the real world to a fuller spectrum of humanity (good parents, role models, etc.), recognize the media as entertainment, blowing up the more exciting parts of life to un-lifelike proportions. Those who don't see those alternatives think that the media is telling the whole story, and form their mental landscape around thse stories.
For most of us, Quake, Counter-strike, and the like are just games, diversions that get our heart pumping, but have little relevance in our lives. We may fantacize that we are building skills that may help us if war ever breaks out, and we are practicing amateur squad combat in the streets, but it is just fantasy for us, relegated to a proper role in our psyche.
For some, that have no experience working out problems by talking them out, who see only violence in human relationships, who have the "bad" parents, these are not just games, but they are the alternative. You either get picked on and take it, or you get a gun and get even. There is no middle ground, of going to an administrator or a parent, or working out and dealing with it with a little punching. It's stay quiet, until you get "brave" enough to get a gun.
Sure, it's the parent's fault, because they didn't have a loving home environment that taught the alternatives to violence. Sure, it's the administrators fault, for not stopping bullys and not being approachable. Sure, it's the grand-parents fault for raising the parents so badly. Sure, it's society's fault, for teaching that football players are more valuable than the computer geeks, and that power is everthing, and that guns are a shortcut to power. But isn't it also the media's fault, for going to the extremes, selling violent and anti-social products for their "entertainment" value, not considering if they are using free-speech as a cover, or if they are promoting an alternative that may point to happiness?
I hope the lawsuit loses. Games are usually better than T.V. and movies, in that the situations are obviously not real-life situation. I know Quake is fantasy, but HBO tries to convey that the Sopranos is one flavor of real life. At the same time, I hope the manufacturers question the wisdom of selling this violent entertainment to 13-year-old boys, who have enough hormonal problems to work out, for whom the lines between fantasy and real-life are blurred anyway.
The school website says that, if the school is closed due to snow or bad weather, that they will inform the Dallas/Ft. Worth area radio and television.
Here's some of the Dallas/Ft. Worth stations:
CBS 11 (KTVT), with contact information
NBC 5 (KXAS)
UPN 21 (KTXA), which has a news segment called the Teen Files, they may be interested.
Someone in the area may want to contact one or more of these stations, and give contact information to explain what Slashdot is.
The other significant thing that will happen on that date is that moderators the world over will be confused, wondering if the moderation guidelines actually changed or not.
(This is in reference to the message moderators get saying "Have you read the Moderation Guidelines yet? Updated 9.9". They were updated 9/9/1999, which I guess was such a cool date that they never bothered changing it again, just updated the FAQ. Of course, saying "Updated 9.9.99" would be even cooler. Maybe CmdrTaco is waiting for 1.1.11 to update them again, or even 2.2.2222...