Firstly, I should lay the cards on the table. I hold a role with my local LUG (LEGO User Group) of "Ambassador" which means I act as a middle man between LEGO and my LUG, so I do talk with the LEGO company regularly
But I am sick to death of wankers in the media making this grand claims of LEGO losing their creativity. Yes, we have seen an increase of licensed product lines, and yes we have seen LEGO increasingly venture into other areas such as games and video games which some people may view as LEGO selling out their traditional values. but that simply is not the case
LEGO has seen a massive resurgence in the last few years and has weathered the GFC well, probably due to the fact that that the early 2000's were bad for the company and saw them streamline their products and processes. As an also organiser of a LEGO show in Australia called Brickvention (coming up in a few weeks, 19th and 20th Jan, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne) I have to say that the creativity of kids is not lacking and parents recognise this. LEGO kits have ALWAYS come with instructions save buckets/tubs of bricks.
And how many companies would have a department who's sole goal is to engage with the fans of their products? LEGO have the CEE (Community Engagement) team who appoints "Ambassadors" that are nominated by LUGs, sends representatives to LEGO shows run by the fans (Brickvention, BrickExpo, BrickFete, Steam and Brickfair to name a few) and they have a senior management who keeps a very close eye on the use of their product and reflects that in new products (look at the modular houses series originally designed by Jamie Berard to get an idea of this)
This article does have some excellent comments by figureheads of the community (Josh Wedin, also an Ambassador, not sure if is currently though) but it's one of those stories that the media rolls out every year.
The first language I learnt in Highschool was Hypertalk, more of a HTML forerunner (it was 1990) than a real programming language. when I got to Uni and was studing Engineering they taught us C. When I started my Computing course the first language they taught us was Smalltalk, if you start talking about real OO languages you cannot ignore Smalltalk
Objective-C is really a bastard child of C and Smalltalk, and this messaging behaviour really flows back to Smalltalk's influence on the language. I hated Smalltalk back then, as did most of my classmates, but I guess it has made Objective-C a but more straightforward for me as I have played in a language that communicates like that.
I have heard from my Programming friends (mostly Games programmers) that C++ is losing traction. C# is taking it's place (Not a massive departure syntax wise, and C# is used by 3rd party suites like Unity) and Objective-C is gaining popularity, even if it is from a GUI design point of view.
I'm not sure if I believe that Objective-C has overtaken C++, but the trend is there.
Having read the article, and the comments I have noticed that people love to drag "insert company name here" into arguments based on what they provide. Android is, above all, a method of getting Google a market position on all mobile devices (yes, Google's motivation isn't about just making your life better). It does this by giving handset manufactures an OS that they can 'freely' use and modify (of course, that is another can of worms) Apple provide, in their words "A user experience" and their approach reflects that. Sure, they limit what can be installed in their environment, but they have not made a move (as yet) to track everything that their users do. but Google, Apple, Microsoft have fallen afoul of lot of users of late, and you know what, of course they have.
We do need to be aware of EVERYTHING that is going on. So much of what is out there for mobile access is convenient, but that always comes at a cost. I had a friend rave last week about how awesome this Kindle Fire was going to be and how it will break out of Apple's walled garden approach...
Yeah, sure it will. Here is a news flash everyone, these companies are out to make profit, that's all. They will do so by providing the user with what they want in the most cost effective way possible, and that will usually involve data collection to better market and understand what the user is doing. It's not malicious, it just is. Amazon are just the latest addition to the club
#1. Actual, technical users understand that AV is important, they just recognise the signs of infection as well as any AV does and will take steps when they detect them. For us, AV clients are just a way to be lazy.
You know, in relation to that point, back in 1999 the most effective Virus detection software I had was "Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit". Back in the days of the rapidly spreading Win.CIH virus as soon as that got into my system it would end up in that executable (because I used it so often I guess) and that would cause the game to hang. When that occurred it was time to break out the trusty command line removal tool.
hehe, well spotted. I used to work in IT support, moved into IT education... Sadly the technical knowledge of the users doesn't change that much between the two.
Linux, I don't really know, I don't have a lot of experience with it. Mac and Windows, I have a LOT of experience with, and let's be honest, the way Mac/Linux deal with programs running is a lot more secure than the way Windows does, but when the core of your system is a tried and true mature system, you will get that.
But in my experience I know a lot of people with Mac's who don't have any AV or idea about security because "it's immune" 6 months later when they have bogged their system down with crap I like to remind them of that.
Yes, AV is a band-aid approach, but it is not an invalid approach in any way, shape or form. Sure there are products out there that are WOEFUL and bog the system down for no perceivable benefit, but there are some that simply provide the ability to check files for viruses, scan email attachments and the like and can be taken out of the system when they are not required.
You shouldn't require a AV package to run all the time, and I fully agree with point #1. but sadly, they are a very small percentage of the computer using populace. Linux is an interesting case because to use the system effectively you have to have some idea of such things, Mac on the other hand does not have the same hurdle to overcome, and there are some real idiots out there, and with the advent of visualisation the lines between OSes are crossable (that is files can be passed between OSes and two layers of protection are better than one) but there will always be a price to pay, and system performance is sometimes that price.
And let me say this, I work with in the Victorian education sector in Australia, and I cannot imagine that the Tasmanian department is that different from us, given that, then damn straight they will need AV protection across all platforms.
Let me ask you a question, do you hand out your credit card number to anyone who asks? Of course you don't because you have some common sense and realise that some people would take that information and use it for malicious purposes. Mac's and Linux can be compromised, of course, there are not as often targeted as if you are going to write a virus/malware you will pick the most popular platform, but if you are a Mac/Linux user and you don't run AV or expect that your OS is 'immune' then you are part of the problem.
ALL users should run AntiVirus, or at the very least, be aware of the security of their systems, regardless of what platform they are running as their OS. If putting a AV package on Mac/Linux educates users that you should ensure that your system is secure, then absolutely.
Let's add something else into the mix, and people seem to be forgetting this and it is a cause of some fear in the Japanese populace, particular older generations.
Japan has had TWO Nuclear weapons dropped on them.
Not a debate about whether or not it was deserved, but that has a massive effect of the consciousness of a country. So yes, I can fully understand why the Japanese are scared shitless of the nuclear bogey man right now. I doubt that censoring 'The Simpsons' will help alleviate anything, particularly as this censoring is in Europe...
But as many have pointed out, there are far more pressing concerns in Japan right now, but the nation has been hit by a massive natural disaster that has spawned a rather un-natural one and the country is holding it's breath...
and I hope that Japan remembers to breath once more
Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago?
Really, and where do you get these numbers from? I hope to hell that these numbers are not coming from battle.net.
I have been playing Starcraft/Warcraft multiplayer for years. only in the last 1 1/2 have I been playing "online" and only War 3 gets that through battle.net. for some reason Starcraft is frankly unplayable through battle.net so it gets Hamachi, where as War 3 is fine with minimal lag. Should I "assume" that Blizzard have a telepathic ability to know in which scenarios every one of their games is being played in. Here is a big bloody clue for you, if you are collecting your data about online play from an online source, it's going to be skewed. I know that adding LAN play IS a technical challenge, anyone here who thinks that a cracked release will magically add LAN play into the game is fooling themselves. There may (well, probably will) be a way of hijacking the connection and forcing a LAN enviroment, but syncing data over a LAN is different to syncing data over an Internet connection. Having said that it is not a substantial amount of work, unless you network code is screwed up to begin with, and this is a large project with a lot of coding, it should be a drop in the ocean deal.
Just my views, of course, I'm sure they will be ignored by Blizzard, since these answers are just sidestepping the issue anyway.
Blizzard flat out has made a *stupid* call that serves *no* purpose. It costs them *nothing* to implement LAN play and in fact this very well could *increase* the chances their game gets pirated, because the pirated game will eventually have LAN play.
Although I disagree with the removal of LAN there is a fair bit of work in making the LAN connectivity work properly with sequencing and all. Having said that, if they are building network code to run from Battle.net then extending it into LAN isn't a large deviation, but it is a deviation never-the-less, so the argument that is cost nothing is completely incorrect. I will be buying the game (Like I did with Red Alert 3) but I may never end up installing the brought copy of the game (like Red Alert 3) because I may find a hacked version that gives me what I want (like LAN). sure, I'm a pirate, but it's not as if it cost them a sale. I'm a paying customer and I want LAN!
I wonder what the situation would be for servicemen overseas?
Yes, valid concern that. Almost as valid as the vast majority of people who don't live in America...
I'm happy to wait until it's done. I'm not happy about the no LAN aspect except through battle.net because most people still do not have reliable fast internet. I'm sure a lot of the slashdot crowd do, but we are the minority, by a long way.
The problem with a democracy is that it relies on an educated populace do exercise their vote on the candidate/party that provides them with what is needed to better society. what happens of course is that people vote for the candidate/party that gives them what they want. it's about gratification.
There is no country in this world that can implement an effective democracy. sorry, there just isn't.
That's not to say Democracy is bad, but like any governmental system it has it's limitations.
You know, this is a great example of why the Law is an arse.
What is the purpose of this law on child pornography? I would suggest (and I hope that others agree) that it is to protect our children from exploitation and allow them to have a safe childhood and protect them from harm.
Given that, how would these charges protect these children?
The real problem here is, and it's not just a US problem, there is a bit of it going around in Australia too, that those in charge are failing to see the law as a method of protecting our children from harm, but a method to enforce morality.
I'll say it again, just so you can all hear it
The Law DOES NOT exist to enforce morality.
There are certain acts that are illegal and immoral, many of them may be immoral because of their legal status. but the Law is not a tool to enforce morality
These teens did something, something incredibly stupid, but they didn't exploit children, they didn't cause harm to others (themselves, possibly) so I have to say, I'm not sure the Law has a place here.
Having said that, I can see why there is a moral outrage here, but deal with in in a method that suits the act.
Well, it began a bit more innocently than that. Over the last 5 years or so the Media in Australia has given a lot of airtime to child porn rings. The Federal Police have broken a few and when they do it s HEADLINE news across the whole country. As a result parents are getting worried that the lonesome guy next door is a pedophile (It is like a witchhunt, but this is my opinion, not the facts).
So the Howard Government (Liberal Party, Conservative) put forth all these ideas about "Protecting" the children. Tacked onto this was the issue that it is too easy to access porn on the internet, so the idea of putting up a filter to prevent children having access to these materials was floated. Now the Media has pushed forth these ideas that the Government must protect us from the big bad world and completely ignored the issues of parental interaction (again, this is filtered by my opinions)
Last year the Howard Government was defeated in the election and the Rudd Government (Labor Party, left leaning) came to power. they spent a lot of the campaign pushing for "Working Families" (Industrial relations, Tax benefits etc) and one of those platforms was keeping the kids away from "questionable" material. The government has put a lot of money into providing access to free filters for parents to access and police their children's use of the internet. Personally, I think that is a good think, the parents being involved with how their children access the internet is a good thing (Again, opinion, not facts)
Now, however, we have a problem. In it's goal to be the Family friendly government the men in power have decided that the internet needs to be filtered to keep "Questionable" material out. This is how we got to this point. and there are a few factors working towards this
1) The Family First Party
There is a relatively new party representing voters in the senate in Australia and that is "Family First" a quasi religious party pushing "Family Values" the problem is that the one senator from this party effectivly holds the balance of power in the senate (Upper house) so that if the government wants his support, they have to appease him. I am sure that this internet plan plays into this (Opinion, not fact)
2) Terrorism
Of course, Terrorists are out to get us all, and as a subset of this pedophiles are out to get our kids. this belief is a product of the media, for they are only interested in the next big shocking story, and child porn is shocking. but there are already a lot of ways to violate civil liberties in place because of the "War on Terrorism" and that has created an environment where this kind of censorship is acceptable to the public
3) The Stigma of Porn
No-One wants to come out and oppose this. MP's do not want to come out as say "No, the Australian internet should not be censored" because the media will read that as "Mr Whomever supports Porn" and that would be political suicide.
So what can we do from here, it's a good question. I know that I personally and raising the issue with everyone I know, sending letters (yes, paper letters, they are harder to ignore than email) and what-not, but there seems to be no organisation in place to fight this. so if anyone knows of one, please forward me the details. travisDOTmatheson(atSymbol)gmail.com
I teach Website Development at a TAFE and I have found Notpad++ to be pretty good. It is still a simple text editor, but it's free and it colour-codes your text (useful for finding those unclosed tags or quotation marks).
Dreamweaver does more, but it depends greatly what you are doing. I use Dreamweaver a lot, but I spend nearly all my time in code view anyway. The only major problem I have with Dreamweaver is it's inability to handle frames properly. but frankly, no WYSIWYG editor does. You're better off setting frames and framesets in text editors anyway, if you are using them at all.
They are not stealing it. I don't know about the law down under, but in the states, if you receive a copy from someone who made the copy, not only have you not stolen it, you also have not received stolen goods nor violated copyright law. Please explain this whole stealing business.
O.K. Let me come out and say this. I live in Australia and I regularly download TV episodes from the States, and the reason, you cannot trust Aussie TV stations. Many years ago in Australia a show was broadcast called American Gothic. it had received good reviews and Network Ten had the rights to it. So I watched the first episode, it seemed good, I watched the second episode, it was alright, I watched the third episode... And I had no idea what was going on. I spoke to friends in Oz, seeing if I had missed something, and they too found the show confusing and odd. I stopped watching.
I later discovered the Network ten screened (and I apologise if I get the numbers wrong here, it was a while ago) episodes 1,2,13. Thirteen! when a TV station cannot even screen a TV show in order there is a problem. "My Name is Earl" was screened out of sequence last year on Aussie TV. Seven screened at US children's puppet show called "Greg the Bunny" a few years back during the School Holidays at 11:00 am in the morning, so the kiddies could see it. If any of you have seen "Greg The Bunny" you will know that this IS NOT, nor could any reasonable person conclude that it WAS EVER aimed at children. but why would a TV exec actually WATCH the show before airing it. (Seven dealt with a large numbers of complaints from concerned parents)
So now I download almost all the TV I regularly watch. But the problem lies deeper that just this. as someone earlier mentioned is that when a TV station in Australia buys the show they buy the Distribution rights in Australia. Network Ten used to own the rights for "Xena" in Australia and that caused a few problems with Pay TV.
So am I stealing, nope, I am not. am I violating copyright. yes, yes I am. Funny thing is, legally I would be better off stealing. if I stole a CD from a music store I could be caught, fined $200-$500. If I am caught SINGING a SONG whilst walking down the STREET I can be fined $1230 for illegal broadcast of copyrighted material. Also applies to "Happy Birthday" (copyrighted until 2030 as I understand) so who in Australia isn't guilty of copyright violation?
When you make criminals of your population, you're population will commit crimes. It's pretty simple
To give you a horrible taste, it mentions V'ger, from the first Star Trek movie, in connection with the Borg's origin
William Shatner wrote a book, The Return (I believe it was his first Star Trek novel too) which dealt with two things. Kirk (because you just can't kill him by killing his body inside a space warpy thing!) and the Borg along side V'ger. I suspect that they were just expanding this idea
oh my lord, here we have the Senior Vice President of Spherion telling us about credit. let me tell you a little bit about Spherion and their financial management.
This happened in Australia, Spherion, the recruitment and training company from America purchased the training provider Interim, formally "Computer Power". it went well for a few years until Spherion starting "Streamlining" the company, closing campuses, and wondering why the student enrolments had fallen. so Spherion, in their wisdom, decided to sell the company, o.k. fair enough. So they prepared some finacial reports and showed them to potential buyers. then they "loaned" 1.1 million dollars from their former Australian based training, don't know why, I'm sure there is a reason though. so they sold this training group to "Easy Call" and it was renamed back to "Computer Power" and things were well again.
The company started to cut back their losses, although they were still there. in December 2005 Easy call decided that they had enough and ceased funding computer power. the staff turned up on the 3rd of January, after the chrismas break to be told that the company was in the hands of administrators and they no longer had jobs. now this has nothing to do with Spherion, obviously
So, as a staff member of "Computer Power" I got to attend the creditors meeting. Spherion never paid back that 1.1 million, and claimed that "Computer Power" OWED them about 1 million dollars. and Easy Call claimed that Spherion's finacial reports were in error, as they were not informed of the complete finacial condition of the company (which may well be posing for the court case that they were engaged in) however the 1.1 million dollar loan and 1 million dollar claim on the company are correct (according to my notes anyway, but the amount may have been as low as $900,000)
Obviously this account is tainted, but you know, Carl Greenberg may be right
manager
"hmmmmm so I see from your credit report that your ability to manage money may be in doubt" applicant
"well, you see, I really needed a couple of thousand, so I put it on credit, and well, I needed that credit to offset this other credit I had arranged, so I had to cover that from this credit. but if you look at it my way it all makes sense" manager
"It sure does, this is exactly the kind of fiscal incompetence we need more of in the corporate world"
In the very first release of the film it did not contain any reference to Episode IV. that wasn't added until it became clear that it would be a successful movie.
According to the Lego Companies Fair play policy the LEGO trademark is used as an adjective, not as a noun. So you buy Lego, not Legos. you own a lego brick and many bricks are lego, not legos.
Lucas had said once (long before any sort of announcement about prequals) that the Star Wars trilogy was told from the droids POV. Lucas has often spoken about how the Droids tie the characters together. They were always going to feature in the prequals. Though that does raise some interesting questions.
Well the first half hour or whatever of Star Wars shows that C-3PO and R2-D2 had never met before.
When R2-D2 and C-3PO are talking to Luke about this Obi-Wan character C-3PO states that "Our last master was captain Antillies" Ours would imply that R2 and 3PO knew each other I would think.
Or at least that C-3PO was totally lost of Tatooine
Well, C-3PO did state that he didn't know what planet he was on, and Luke's answer "If there is a bright center of the universe this is the planet that it's farerst from" didn't actually reveal that they were on Tatooine.
For a much better dicussion about the droids check out the Star Wars Technical Commentaries. This explains a few of these nagging issues with the droids
I usually stop playing such a game when vision of said game appear in my sleep... that's just too freaky for me
I had that problem a few years ago with Tetris for Windows. As soon as I closed my eyes I could see the bricks falling, sort them into place etc...
I don't know how many people have seen it but if I remember correctly the MS version of Tetris used to only go up to 32,000 or so then count down to -32,000. When I got to the point where I had *32,000 (which was 64,000 after -32,000 I think) I decided to give it away. Now my computer doesn't even have Tetris on it anymore. But my mobile phone does, but that's a whole different kettle of fish
Instead he chose to be depressed, and whine about all the things he didn't like in his life.
People don't chose to be depressed, people become depressed. Once your suffer from depression then you choose how to deal with it, or let it control you etc.
Unless you are not talking about depression but being sad and alienated. Depression is a very real problem and people throw the word around to mean many things that it doesn't really mean. If he became upset about how his life inside and outside the game was going and began to whine about it does not mean that he was depressed.
To truely understand depression and what it is in the mental condition sense of the word you really need to have been there or dealt with people who have.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello Kitty is Mega Blocks. I would LOVE it if LEGO did that though.
Firstly, I should lay the cards on the table. I hold a role with my local LUG (LEGO User Group) of "Ambassador" which means I act as a middle man between LEGO and my LUG, so I do talk with the LEGO company regularly
But I am sick to death of wankers in the media making this grand claims of LEGO losing their creativity. Yes, we have seen an increase of licensed product lines, and yes we have seen LEGO increasingly venture into other areas such as games and video games which some people may view as LEGO selling out their traditional values. but that simply is not the case
LEGO has seen a massive resurgence in the last few years and has weathered the GFC well, probably due to the fact that that the early 2000's were bad for the company and saw them streamline their products and processes. As an also organiser of a LEGO show in Australia called Brickvention (coming up in a few weeks, 19th and 20th Jan, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne) I have to say that the creativity of kids is not lacking and parents recognise this. LEGO kits have ALWAYS come with instructions save buckets/tubs of bricks.
And how many companies would have a department who's sole goal is to engage with the fans of their products? LEGO have the CEE (Community Engagement) team who appoints "Ambassadors" that are nominated by LUGs, sends representatives to LEGO shows run by the fans (Brickvention, BrickExpo, BrickFete, Steam and Brickfair to name a few) and they have a senior management who keeps a very close eye on the use of their product and reflects that in new products (look at the modular houses series originally designed by Jamie Berard to get an idea of this)
This article does have some excellent comments by figureheads of the community (Josh Wedin, also an Ambassador, not sure if is currently though) but it's one of those stories that the media rolls out every year.
Very Disappointing.
If they do "Empire on Ice" I think they will have to pay royalties to Robot Chicken, it was their idea after all...
Actually, I would see that, "Empire on Ice" could be cool.
The first language I learnt in Highschool was Hypertalk, more of a HTML forerunner (it was 1990) than a real programming language.
when I got to Uni and was studing Engineering they taught us C. When I started my Computing course the first language they taught us was Smalltalk, if you start talking about real OO languages you cannot ignore Smalltalk
Objective-C is really a bastard child of C and Smalltalk, and this messaging behaviour really flows back to Smalltalk's influence on the language.
I hated Smalltalk back then, as did most of my classmates, but I guess it has made Objective-C a but more straightforward for me as I have played in a language that communicates like that.
I have heard from my Programming friends (mostly Games programmers) that C++ is losing traction. C# is taking it's place (Not a massive departure syntax wise, and C# is used by 3rd party suites like Unity) and Objective-C is gaining popularity, even if it is from a GUI design point of view.
I'm not sure if I believe that Objective-C has overtaken C++, but the trend is there.
Having read the article, and the comments I have noticed that people love to drag "insert company name here" into arguments based on what they provide. Android is, above all, a method of getting Google a market position on all mobile devices (yes, Google's motivation isn't about just making your life better). It does this by giving handset manufactures an OS that they can 'freely' use and modify (of course, that is another can of worms) Apple provide, in their words "A user experience" and their approach reflects that. Sure, they limit what can be installed in their environment, but they have not made a move (as yet) to track everything that their users do. but Google, Apple, Microsoft have fallen afoul of lot of users of late, and you know what, of course they have.
We do need to be aware of EVERYTHING that is going on. So much of what is out there for mobile access is convenient, but that always comes at a cost. I had a friend rave last week about how awesome this Kindle Fire was going to be and how it will break out of Apple's walled garden approach...
Yeah, sure it will. Here is a news flash everyone, these companies are out to make profit, that's all. They will do so by providing the user with what they want in the most cost effective way possible, and that will usually involve data collection to better market and understand what the user is doing. It's not malicious, it just is. Amazon are just the latest addition to the club
#1. Actual, technical users understand that AV is important, they just recognise the signs of infection as well as any AV does and will take steps when they detect them. For us, AV clients are just a way to be lazy.
You know, in relation to that point, back in 1999 the most effective Virus detection software I had was "Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit". Back in the days of the rapidly spreading Win.CIH virus as soon as that got into my system it would end up in that executable (because I used it so often I guess) and that would cause the game to hang. When that occurred it was time to break out the trusty command line removal tool.
hehe, well spotted. I used to work in IT support, moved into IT education... Sadly the technical knowledge of the users doesn't change that much between the two.
Linux, I don't really know, I don't have a lot of experience with it. Mac and Windows, I have a LOT of experience with, and let's be honest, the way Mac/Linux deal with programs running is a lot more secure than the way Windows does, but when the core of your system is a tried and true mature system, you will get that.
But in my experience I know a lot of people with Mac's who don't have any AV or idea about security because "it's immune" 6 months later when they have bogged their system down with crap I like to remind them of that.
Yes, AV is a band-aid approach, but it is not an invalid approach in any way, shape or form. Sure there are products out there that are WOEFUL and bog the system down for no perceivable benefit, but there are some that simply provide the ability to check files for viruses, scan email attachments and the like and can be taken out of the system when they are not required.
You shouldn't require a AV package to run all the time, and I fully agree with point #1. but sadly, they are a very small percentage of the computer using populace. Linux is an interesting case because to use the system effectively you have to have some idea of such things, Mac on the other hand does not have the same hurdle to overcome, and there are some real idiots out there, and with the advent of visualisation the lines between OSes are crossable (that is files can be passed between OSes and two layers of protection are better than one) but there will always be a price to pay, and system performance is sometimes that price.
And let me say this, I work with in the Victorian education sector in Australia, and I cannot imagine that the Tasmanian department is that different from us, given that, then damn straight they will need AV protection across all platforms.
Well, does a Mac or Linux require Anti Virus?
Let me ask you a question, do you hand out your credit card number to anyone who asks? Of course you don't because you have some common sense and realise that some people would take that information and use it for malicious purposes. Mac's and Linux can be compromised, of course, there are not as often targeted as if you are going to write a virus/malware you will pick the most popular platform, but if you are a Mac/Linux user and you don't run AV or expect that your OS is 'immune' then you are part of the problem.
ALL users should run AntiVirus, or at the very least, be aware of the security of their systems, regardless of what platform they are running as their OS. If putting a AV package on Mac/Linux educates users that you should ensure that your system is secure, then absolutely.
Let's add something else into the mix, and people seem to be forgetting this and it is a cause of some fear in the Japanese populace, particular older generations.
Japan has had TWO Nuclear weapons dropped on them.
Not a debate about whether or not it was deserved, but that has a massive effect of the consciousness of a country. So yes, I can fully understand why the Japanese are scared shitless of the nuclear bogey man right now. I doubt that censoring 'The Simpsons' will help alleviate anything, particularly as this censoring is in Europe...
But as many have pointed out, there are far more pressing concerns in Japan right now, but the nation has been hit by a massive natural disaster that has spawned a rather un-natural one and the country is holding it's breath...
and I hope that Japan remembers to breath once more
Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago?
Really, and where do you get these numbers from? I hope to hell that these numbers are not coming from battle.net.
I have been playing Starcraft/Warcraft multiplayer for years. only in the last 1 1/2 have I been playing "online" and only War 3 gets that through battle.net. for some reason Starcraft is frankly unplayable through battle.net so it gets Hamachi, where as War 3 is fine with minimal lag. Should I "assume" that Blizzard have a telepathic ability to know in which scenarios every one of their games is being played in. Here is a big bloody clue for you, if you are collecting your data about online play from an online source, it's going to be skewed. I know that adding LAN play IS a technical challenge, anyone here who thinks that a cracked release will magically add LAN play into the game is fooling themselves. There may (well, probably will) be a way of hijacking the connection and forcing a LAN enviroment, but syncing data over a LAN is different to syncing data over an Internet connection. Having said that it is not a substantial amount of work, unless you network code is screwed up to begin with, and this is a large project with a lot of coding, it should be a drop in the ocean deal.
Just my views, of course, I'm sure they will be ignored by Blizzard, since these answers are just sidestepping the issue anyway.
Blizzard flat out has made a *stupid* call that serves *no* purpose. It costs them *nothing* to implement LAN play and in fact this very well could *increase* the chances their game gets pirated, because the pirated game will eventually have LAN play.
Although I disagree with the removal of LAN there is a fair bit of work in making the LAN connectivity work properly with sequencing and all. Having said that, if they are building network code to run from Battle.net then extending it into LAN isn't a large deviation, but it is a deviation never-the-less, so the argument that is cost nothing is completely incorrect. I will be buying the game (Like I did with Red Alert 3) but I may never end up installing the brought copy of the game (like Red Alert 3) because I may find a hacked version that gives me what I want (like LAN). sure, I'm a pirate, but it's not as if it cost them a sale. I'm a paying customer and I want LAN!
I wonder what the situation would be for servicemen overseas?
Yes, valid concern that. Almost as valid as the vast majority of people who don't live in America...
I'm happy to wait until it's done. I'm not happy about the no LAN aspect except through battle.net because most people still do not have reliable fast internet. I'm sure a lot of the slashdot crowd do, but we are the minority, by a long way.
The problem with a democracy is that it relies on an educated populace do exercise their vote on the candidate/party that provides them with what is needed to better society. what happens of course is that people vote for the candidate/party that gives them what they want. it's about gratification.
There is no country in this world that can implement an effective democracy. sorry, there just isn't.
That's not to say Democracy is bad, but like any governmental system it has it's limitations.
You know, this is a great example of why the Law is an arse.
What is the purpose of this law on child pornography? I would suggest (and I hope that others agree) that it is to protect our children from exploitation and allow them to have a safe childhood and protect them from harm.
Given that, how would these charges protect these children?
The real problem here is, and it's not just a US problem, there is a bit of it going around in Australia too, that those in charge are failing to see the law as a method of protecting our children from harm, but a method to enforce morality.
I'll say it again, just so you can all hear it
The Law DOES NOT exist to enforce morality.
There are certain acts that are illegal and immoral, many of them may be immoral because of their legal status. but the Law is not a tool to enforce morality
These teens did something, something incredibly stupid, but they didn't exploit children, they didn't cause harm to others (themselves, possibly) so I have to say, I'm not sure the Law has a place here.
Having said that, I can see why there is a moral outrage here, but deal with in in a method that suits the act.
Well, it began a bit more innocently than that. Over the last 5 years or so the Media in Australia has given a lot of airtime to child porn rings. The Federal Police have broken a few and when they do it s HEADLINE news across the whole country. As a result parents are getting worried that the lonesome guy next door is a pedophile (It is like a witchhunt, but this is my opinion, not the facts).
So the Howard Government (Liberal Party, Conservative) put forth all these ideas about "Protecting" the children. Tacked onto this was the issue that it is too easy to access porn on the internet, so the idea of putting up a filter to prevent children having access to these materials was floated. Now the Media has pushed forth these ideas that the Government must protect us from the big bad world and completely ignored the issues of parental interaction (again, this is filtered by my opinions)
Last year the Howard Government was defeated in the election and the Rudd Government (Labor Party, left leaning) came to power. they spent a lot of the campaign pushing for "Working Families" (Industrial relations, Tax benefits etc) and one of those platforms was keeping the kids away from "questionable" material. The government has put a lot of money into providing access to free filters for parents to access and police their children's use of the internet. Personally, I think that is a good think, the parents being involved with how their children access the internet is a good thing (Again, opinion, not facts)
Now, however, we have a problem. In it's goal to be the Family friendly government the men in power have decided that the internet needs to be filtered to keep "Questionable" material out. This is how we got to this point. and there are a few factors working towards this
1) The Family First Party
There is a relatively new party representing voters in the senate in Australia and that is "Family First" a quasi religious party pushing "Family Values" the problem is that the one senator from this party effectivly holds the balance of power in the senate (Upper house) so that if the government wants his support, they have to appease him. I am sure that this internet plan plays into this (Opinion, not fact)
2) Terrorism
Of course, Terrorists are out to get us all, and as a subset of this pedophiles are out to get our kids. this belief is a product of the media, for they are only interested in the next big shocking story, and child porn is shocking. but there are already a lot of ways to violate civil liberties in place because of the "War on Terrorism" and that has created an environment where this kind of censorship is acceptable to the public
3) The Stigma of Porn
No-One wants to come out and oppose this. MP's do not want to come out as say "No, the Australian internet should not be censored" because the media will read that as "Mr Whomever supports Porn" and that would be political suicide.
So what can we do from here, it's a good question. I know that I personally and raising the issue with everyone I know, sending letters (yes, paper letters, they are harder to ignore than email) and what-not, but there seems to be no organisation in place to fight this. so if anyone knows of one, please forward me the details. travisDOTmatheson(atSymbol)gmail.com
I teach Website Development at a TAFE and I have found Notpad++ to be pretty good. It is still a simple text editor, but it's free and it colour-codes your text (useful for finding those unclosed tags or quotation marks).
Dreamweaver does more, but it depends greatly what you are doing. I use Dreamweaver a lot, but I spend nearly all my time in code view anyway. The only major problem I have with Dreamweaver is it's inability to handle frames properly. but frankly, no WYSIWYG editor does. You're better off setting frames and framesets in text editors anyway, if you are using them at all.
O.K. Let me come out and say this. I live in Australia and I regularly download TV episodes from the States, and the reason, you cannot trust Aussie TV stations. Many years ago in Australia a show was broadcast called American Gothic. it had received good reviews and Network Ten had the rights to it. So I watched the first episode, it seemed good, I watched the second episode, it was alright, I watched the third episode... And I had no idea what was going on. I spoke to friends in Oz, seeing if I had missed something, and they too found the show confusing and odd. I stopped watching.
I later discovered the Network ten screened (and I apologise if I get the numbers wrong here, it was a while ago) episodes 1,2,13. Thirteen! when a TV station cannot even screen a TV show in order there is a problem. "My Name is Earl" was screened out of sequence last year on Aussie TV. Seven screened at US children's puppet show called "Greg the Bunny" a few years back during the School Holidays at 11:00 am in the morning, so the kiddies could see it. If any of you have seen "Greg The Bunny" you will know that this IS NOT, nor could any reasonable person conclude that it WAS EVER aimed at children. but why would a TV exec actually WATCH the show before airing it. (Seven dealt with a large numbers of complaints from concerned parents)
So now I download almost all the TV I regularly watch. But the problem lies deeper that just this. as someone earlier mentioned is that when a TV station in Australia buys the show they buy the Distribution rights in Australia. Network Ten used to own the rights for "Xena" in Australia and that caused a few problems with Pay TV.
So am I stealing, nope, I am not. am I violating copyright. yes, yes I am. Funny thing is, legally I would be better off stealing. if I stole a CD from a music store I could be caught, fined $200-$500. If I am caught SINGING a SONG whilst walking down the STREET I can be fined $1230 for illegal broadcast of copyrighted material. Also applies to "Happy Birthday" (copyrighted until 2030 as I understand) so who in Australia isn't guilty of copyright violation? When you make criminals of your population, you're population will commit crimes. It's pretty simple
William Shatner wrote a book, The Return (I believe it was his first Star Trek novel too) which dealt with two things. Kirk (because you just can't kill him by killing his body inside a space warpy thing!) and the Borg along side V'ger. I suspect that they were just expanding this idea
This happened in Australia, Spherion, the recruitment and training company from America purchased the training provider Interim, formally "Computer Power". it went well for a few years until Spherion starting "Streamlining" the company, closing campuses, and wondering why the student enrolments had fallen. so Spherion, in their wisdom, decided to sell the company, o.k. fair enough. So they prepared some finacial reports and showed them to potential buyers. then they "loaned" 1.1 million dollars from their former Australian based training, don't know why, I'm sure there is a reason though. so they sold this training group to "Easy Call" and it was renamed back to "Computer Power" and things were well again.
The company started to cut back their losses, although they were still there. in December 2005 Easy call decided that they had enough and ceased funding computer power. the staff turned up on the 3rd of January, after the chrismas break to be told that the company was in the hands of administrators and they no longer had jobs. now this has nothing to do with Spherion, obviously
So, as a staff member of "Computer Power" I got to attend the creditors meeting. Spherion never paid back that 1.1 million, and claimed that "Computer Power" OWED them about 1 million dollars. and Easy Call claimed that Spherion's finacial reports were in error, as they were not informed of the complete finacial condition of the company (which may well be posing for the court case that they were engaged in) however the 1.1 million dollar loan and 1 million dollar claim on the company are correct (according to my notes anyway, but the amount may have been as low as $900,000)
Obviously this account is tainted, but you know, Carl Greenberg may be right
manager
"hmmmmm so I see from your credit report that your ability to manage money may be in doubt"
applicant
"well, you see, I really needed a couple of thousand, so I put it on credit, and well, I needed that credit to offset this other credit I had arranged, so I had to cover that from this credit. but if you look at it my way it all makes sense"
manager
"It sure does, this is exactly the kind of fiscal incompetence we need more of in the corporate world"
In the very first release of the film it did not contain any reference to Episode IV. that wasn't added until it became clear that it would be a successful movie.
According to the Lego Companies Fair play policy the LEGO trademark is used as
an adjective, not as a noun. So you buy Lego, not Legos. you own a lego brick and many bricks are lego, not legos.
Well the first half hour or whatever of Star Wars shows that C-3PO and R2-D2 had never met before.
When R2-D2 and C-3PO are talking to Luke about this Obi-Wan character C-3PO states that "Our last master was captain Antillies" Ours would imply that R2 and 3PO knew each other I would think.
Or at least that C-3PO was totally lost of Tatooine
Well, C-3PO did state that he didn't know what planet he was on, and Luke's answer "If there is a bright center of the universe this is the planet that it's farerst from" didn't actually reveal that they were on Tatooine.
For a much better dicussion about the droids check out the Star Wars Technical Commentaries. This explains a few of these nagging issues with the droids
I had that problem a few years ago with Tetris for Windows. As soon as I closed my eyes I could see the bricks falling, sort them into place etc...
I don't know how many people have seen it but if I remember correctly the MS version of Tetris used to only go up to 32,000 or so then count down to -32,000. When I got to the point where I had *32,000 (which was 64,000 after -32,000 I think) I decided to give it away. Now my computer doesn't even have Tetris on it anymore. But my mobile phone does, but that's a whole different kettle of fish
People don't chose to be depressed, people become depressed. Once your suffer from depression then you choose how to deal with it, or let it control you etc.
Unless you are not talking about depression but being sad and alienated. Depression is a very real problem and people throw the word around to mean many things that it doesn't really mean. If he became upset about how his life inside and outside the game was going and began to whine about it does not mean that he was depressed.
To truely understand depression and what it is in the mental condition sense of the word you really need to have been there or dealt with people who have.
That's my two cents anyway