I think it was disgusting that this content was even considered, let alone included in the actual game!
My 12 year old son has this game, and he could easily have been affected by these scenes of depravity. I'll be taking it back to the shop as soon as possible and demanding they exchange it with a copy that is suitable for a child of his age.
What would the reason be to put it in there then? Perhaps the publicity that they are getting now?
Unlikely. The coders really have no idea about marketting. The marketting people are too clueless to realise thta it would be possible to put in content that was inaccessible without a patch, and any explicit request to do so would be politically dangerous since it would leave a paper trail.
It was probably something that they threw together for a demo to rpove it could be done, but didn't make it into the actual game on account of it being stupid and likely to make them lose the "Mature" rating
I think that 1950's chart is rather good. The relationship between the lantacides and actinides to the lighter group 3 elements is a lot clearer than on Mendeleev's table. This change could be applied, but this would give us a very very long table.
The spiral makes sense too. Chemistry isn't my expertise, but is there any reason why the noble gasses couldn't have been put at the left of the table instead of the right?
Lemme guess - your friend just got out of Law School and you've been out with your CS for five years or more?
Nope. He finished a year before me. Law pays well, but not everyone get's to be a corporate legal advocate.
In the longrun I'd place my bets on the Lawyer having a larger/more stable income.
More stable - certainly. Larger - I might strike lucky and work for a successful startup or produce a killer app. I'll have to shift career track slightly at some point since codemonkeys only get paid up to about 25% more than I get, but even so, it's a comfortable amount, and as long as I keep my skills up to date, my employability remains.
Software engineering changes over the years. Programming changes even more so.
A good CS degree will have taught basic skills and concepts. Not specifics. You can learn specifics yourself. You do have to teach yourself anything usefulm but the whole point is that you can. Learning a programmng language takes very little time. Even becoming well versed in a field doesn't take that long, as long as you understand basic principles.
At the time I was disappointed. I still am a little about some of the courses, but since working in the computer industry, I have a better understanding of exactly what I was being trained for.
Looking at my peers - One did biochemistry. I earn twice what she does. Another did law. I earn a little more than him. Another did politics. He stayed in Academia. Another did Mathematics. She's hoping to get a decent job soon.
Out of my peer group, the only people who earn more than me did engineering. And they did it not because it paid well, but because they loved computers. I don't fear outsourcing and neither do they. Some people want skills that can't be outsourced.
This is the same Bill Gates that wants to completely eliminate H-1B quotas (that is, allow an unlimited number of foreign software developers in). This is the same Bill Gates that is constructing a huge, sprawling Microsoft Campus in India.
Does Bill Gates want to do that? I'd have thought that was a corporate decision from Microsoft for the benfit of the shreholders. Bill Gates may have a decent chunk of the pie, but by no means does he have a controlling interest.
He's just trolling. I'm trying real hard to give up biting trolls and posting on message boards... but damn it, this troll was just too dumb.
But it's a good troll. Why is the CC a good idea? By asking this, he forces us to ask ourselves, and to explain. This allows us to analyse our own opinions more deeply.
And as far as I can see, the point is purely political. Creative Commons is just a brand. It's indicating that people subscribe to a belief.
The belief is that while copyright has its uses, in many cases sharing copyrighted material is a good thing, and creators of original content encourage this. It already has reached the public perception in a small way.
The public and the politicians need to be made aware of this. They need to realise how many creators of original content there are who enjoy some form of protection but don't want excessive powers like the DMCA and eternal copyright extensions.
At least that's how I see it. If you see it differently, please share.
Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy article written by John C. Dvorak? Dubbed Creative Commons Humbug, this article is some sort of secondary ramble that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair balance" provisos of existing journalism. This is one of the dumbest stories ever put forth by the computer press. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes
If OS/2 truly contains nothing but obsolete code that IBM no longer has any use for, then they might do this to throw a bone to the Open Source community, but it might not be of much use to anyone but OS/2 zealots.
I'm not so sure. Hadn't Netscape been neglected for a while before it was resurected as Mozilla? It would be a decent foundation for a free modern desktop OS if nothing else.
It had longer tapes. This is what people were after at the time. This was a substantial difference at a time when betamax tapes were limited to just one hour.
If this trend continues, by the time I'm 50 (another 20 years) A new (but not high-end) desktop-computer will have 4 terabytes of RAM, operate at 4 teraherz with 256bit operands and have more disk-space than Google today.
Indeed it will.
But what will it do that your current PC doesn't do? It will still have a very similar GUI, store more music than you could ever want to listen to. Most raw infomration will be in text, because it's still convenient. Games will look (slightly) prettier but will they do more?
The difference between Eniac and an Athlon 64 PC are.. speed and storage..
Not really. A modern PC is small enough to fit on a desk, is a lot more reliable, has a pixel adressable display, has a WIMP GUI, can communicate with other computers, has long term storage capability, software dedicated to office tasks, and completely different IO. All of which were features of my PC in 1997.
But then I don't think the PC has been doing anything interesting for ages. The internet was a nice advance, but we still have these nasty big beige boxes targetted primarily at offices. I agree with you about PDAs and cellphones. We've seen some serious improvements in those over the years.
It's nice to look at the changes between 1971 and 1979. Clearly there were a lot of aspects of the book that looked ancient after 8 years of progress. Punch cards had been replaced by VDUs. Presumably magnetic drums were no longer used for storage by 1979, and would have been seen as outdated as a 5.25 inch floppy disk.
Makes me feel progress has slowed. The difference between a modern PC and one from 8 years ago is simply speed and storage.
Slashdot Mirror
Or how about "Hah! I'm willing to die for my beliefs! What are you going to do?"
Ahhh. "Common sense".
I love that term. It's always used by people with unbalanced views as self justification for their views.
I think you are wrong for letting a 12 year old get the game without the sex.
You think it would be better to let him play the game with the sex?
Let me guess.
You're one of those people who considers Tom and Jerry excessively violent aren't you.
I think it was disgusting that this content was even considered, let alone included in the actual game!
My 12 year old son has this game, and he could easily have been affected by these scenes of depravity. I'll be taking it back to the shop as soon as possible and demanding they exchange it with a copy that is suitable for a child of his age.
It's really something where people have to be bullied into doing something that may save their own lives. And then people complain about it.
If everyone was a little less ineptm and a little less ready to blame everyone else we wouldn't need to do this sort of thing.
What would the reason be to put it in there then? Perhaps the publicity that they are getting now?
Unlikely. The coders really have no idea about marketting. The marketting people are too clueless to realise thta it would be possible to put in content that was inaccessible without a patch, and any explicit request to do so would be politically dangerous since it would leave a paper trail.
It was probably something that they threw together for a demo to rpove it could be done, but didn't make it into the actual game on account of it being stupid and likely to make them lose the "Mature" rating
I think that 1950's chart is rather good. The relationship between the lantacides and actinides to the lighter group 3 elements is a lot clearer than on Mendeleev's table. This change could be applied, but this would give us a very very long table.
The spiral makes sense too. Chemistry isn't my expertise, but is there any reason why the noble gasses couldn't have been put at the left of the table instead of the right?
Let me guess - you're from the UK.
You guessed right.
Is there really that big a difference? I'm quite surprised.
Lemme guess - your friend just got out of Law School and you've been out with your CS for five years or more?
Nope. He finished a year before me. Law pays well, but not everyone get's to be a corporate legal advocate.
In the longrun I'd place my bets on the Lawyer having a larger/more stable income.
More stable - certainly. Larger - I might strike lucky and work for a successful startup or produce a killer app. I'll have to shift career track slightly at some point since codemonkeys only get paid up to about 25% more than I get, but even so, it's a comfortable amount, and as long as I keep my skills up to date, my employability remains.
Software engineering changes over the years. Programming changes even more so.
A good CS degree will have taught basic skills and concepts. Not specifics. You can learn specifics yourself. You do have to teach yourself anything usefulm but the whole point is that you can. Learning a programmng language takes very little time. Even becoming well versed in a field doesn't take that long, as long as you understand basic principles.
At the time I was disappointed. I still am a little about some of the courses, but since working in the computer industry, I have a better understanding of exactly what I was being trained for.
Oh, rubbish.
Looking at my peers - One did biochemistry. I earn twice what she does. Another did law. I earn a little more than him. Another did politics. He stayed in Academia. Another did Mathematics. She's hoping to get a decent job soon.
Out of my peer group, the only people who earn more than me did engineering. And they did it not because it paid well, but because they loved computers. I don't fear outsourcing and neither do they. Some people want skills that can't be outsourced.
This is the same Bill Gates that wants to completely eliminate H-1B quotas (that is, allow an unlimited number of foreign software developers in). This is the same Bill Gates that is constructing a huge, sprawling Microsoft Campus in India.
Does Bill Gates want to do that? I'd have thought that was a corporate decision from Microsoft for the benfit of the shreholders. Bill Gates may have a decent chunk of the pie, but by no means does he have a controlling interest.
I did.
Most of my friends did too.
I could claim this was because I went to a prestigious university, but really this was because I graduated before the end of the dotcom boom.
There were other golden times as well. We're not in one of them.
He's just trolling. I'm trying real hard to give up biting trolls and posting on message boards... but damn it, this troll was just too dumb.
But it's a good troll. Why is the CC a good idea? By asking this, he forces us to ask ourselves, and to explain. This allows us to analyse our own opinions more deeply.
Just because you disagree with what he says doesn't mean you shouldn't go to his site.
Disagreement is important to freedom of speech. He provides this valuable service.
But asked in a stupid way.
And as far as I can see, the point is purely political. Creative Commons is just a brand. It's indicating that people subscribe to a belief.
The belief is that while copyright has its uses, in many cases sharing copyrighted material is a good thing, and creators of original content encourage this. It already has reached the public perception in a small way.
The public and the politicians need to be made aware of this. They need to realise how many creators of original content there are who enjoy some form of protection but don't want excessive powers like the DMCA and eternal copyright extensions.
At least that's how I see it. If you see it differently, please share.
Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy article written by John C. Dvorak? Dubbed Creative Commons Humbug, this article is some sort of secondary ramble that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair balance" provisos of existing journalism. This is one of the dumbest stories ever put forth by the computer press. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes
Well, that wasn't what I was suggesting, but why not. It's a lot easier to write a complete OS when you have something to base it on.
If OS/2 truly contains nothing but obsolete code that IBM no longer has any use for, then they might do this to throw a bone to the Open Source community, but it might not be of much use to anyone but OS/2 zealots.
I'm not so sure. Hadn't Netscape been neglected for a while before it was resurected as Mozilla? It would be a decent foundation for a free modern desktop OS if nothing else.
VHS was superior.
It had longer tapes. This is what people were after at the time. This was a substantial difference at a time when betamax tapes were limited to just one hour.
If this trend continues, by the time I'm 50 (another 20 years) A new (but not high-end) desktop-computer will have 4 terabytes of RAM, operate at 4 teraherz with 256bit operands and have more disk-space than Google today.
Indeed it will.
But what will it do that your current PC doesn't do? It will still have a very similar GUI, store more music than you could ever want to listen to. Most raw infomration will be in text, because it's still convenient. Games will look (slightly) prettier but will they do more?
The difference between Eniac and an Athlon 64 PC are .. speed and storage..
Not really. A modern PC is small enough to fit on a desk, is a lot more reliable, has a pixel adressable display, has a WIMP GUI, can communicate with other computers, has long term storage capability, software dedicated to office tasks, and completely different IO. All of which were features of my PC in 1997.
But then I don't think the PC has been doing anything interesting for ages. The internet was a nice advance, but we still have these nasty big beige boxes targetted primarily at offices. I agree with you about PDAs and cellphones. We've seen some serious improvements in those over the years.
It's nice to look at the changes between 1971 and 1979. Clearly there were a lot of aspects of the book that looked ancient after 8 years of progress. Punch cards had been replaced by VDUs. Presumably magnetic drums were no longer used for storage by 1979, and would have been seen as outdated as a 5.25 inch floppy disk.
Makes me feel progress has slowed. The difference between a modern PC and one from 8 years ago is simply speed and storage.
Most DVDs allow you to skip them anyway.