Games. Not math exercises thinly veiled as games, but GAMES. When I was a kid, Rocky's Boot and the followup robot game taught me more about electronics, physics, math, programming, and logic than most of my straight math classes. There were also a few games, such as "math blasters," that were fucking awful and I hated playing. Most educational software is crap, and there's a reason kids never play those games. They're designed by teachers to educate first and entertain second, instead of looking at both goals as equal. That's why Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail were both successful back when I was in the target audience, they were both greatly entertaining.
That's awesome! I love hearing about stuff like this, and I didn't in any way mean to sound like the services you provide is somehow inferior to the services I or others like me provide.
However, you also have to admit that you're the exception, not the rule.
I work as a support rep for a company that charges our customers tens of thousands of dollars a year for support on a large-scale web-based application. A lot of what I do is phone-based, but let me tell you: Our customers don't have to wait on hold, they don't have to post in a newsgroup or hit an FAQ, and they don't have to hit some irc channel where the developers will sneer at them for not reading a serpentine and outdated man page before they can get any help. And they sure as hell aren't advised to scrub and re-install.
They get zero bullshit, instant-response support, day or night, because that's what they pay for. I solve technical issues, sure, and I take great pride in my work. But I develop relationships with my problem clients, and work hard to make them happy. I communicate with them in a way that lets them know that it is a personal affront to me that their product is not performing exactly as they expect, and they know that they have an advocate within the company that fights through bureaucracy for their needs long after the sale has been made and their account manager has moved on to chasing the next dollar. Our development team works very closely with us and if we identify an issue as being a top customer support, it's fixed in the next release. If that's not soon enough, we'll get the engineering schedule re-arranged to produce a patch for our customer. Our shortest-time support rep has been with the company for four years, and at this stage, perhaps only the director of engineering has an equal understanding of the product. We cost a lot, but we're worth it.
Now, my little rant in defense of commercial support aside: I agree, there's many positive things to be said for open-source software. But it's an investment, something that must be embraced. You can't just install a single open-source app in a mission critical environment and not be sure how it will be supported. There needs to be either a project-wide commitment to F/OSS software, with staffing brought on that can completely supports it, or you need to only use F/OSS tools that are so widespread that they are well understood, and free support is ubiquitous (Apache). It doesn't make sense to keep a highly trained cadre of admins on staff to take care of one application when a very specialized commercial support rep who has the director of engineering's cell phone # is a dial tone away. The difference between a few $80k sysadmins and a few $30k support contracts is substantial enough to catch the eye of more than one CTO, especially once you take employee turnover into account. Why not make that someone else's problem?
Again, this all changes depending on the situation. Obviously, if that previously mentioned hypothetical $80k admin can replace five commercial applications that would cost $30k apiece in support contracts, he's a bargain. And we all of us know of many shops that manage to do this successfully. We also all of us (at least those who've spent a few years in IT) know of many shops that do not.
So, I guess where I'm going with this probably ill-advised 2:30am rant is this: Commercial support can be an extremely important thing at times like these (2:30am), and it's not something you should discount so quickly. A lot of us are very good at what we do.
In the discussion following a similar article a few months ago, someone posted a list of the different states for the broadcast flag, and their corresponding values (ie. 000 forever, 001 1 hour, 010 2 hours, etc.). However, I've been unable to find it again.
Does anyone have this information that they could re-post here? It's pretty relevant to the current discussion.
SWF files are significantly smaller than.gif files for this sort of presentation, and can be generated dynamically from a database of performance numbers with little effort.
An example, using the Aquamark 3d graph under "Directx9 Performance." First, I saved the page. Then I took a screenshot of the web browser, cut out just the graph, and exported it optimized for the web using Fireworks.
The results:.gif: 21,514 bytes.swf: 6,582 bytes
And the.gif file, might I add, didn't look nearly as good.
Now, 15K might not seem like much, but when you multiply it by the considerable amount of traffic Anandtech receives, the savings quickly become significant.
You know, the first thing my girlfriend said when we unpacked the TiVO from its box and placed the remote face-down on the table was, "Why did you buy me a dildo to go with your new toy?"
I mean, great remote, but it really DOES look like a sex toy. Also it's too easy to hold it upside down if you're not looking. A couple of weights in the bottom of the unit would have taken care of that (I mean more weight than the batteries).
I'm throwing my hat into the DirecTivo camp. I've been a customer for about eight months, and while I can't speak to snow interference (I live in NorCal), I can say that rain has little to no effect.
Digital Cable here is a total joke, compression artifacts and noise on the video stream are so bad that DirecTV (which still looks cruddy) looks great in comparison. In both cases you're going to notice a serious drop in video quality over DVD or even OTA broadcast with a good antenna, but it's better than VHS.
TiVO changed my damn life. That it comes with DirecTV is a plus.
If High Definition matters, most cable systems now get the local stations in HD, but DirecTV doesn't yet do that, and only certain markets can get CBS in high-def (Fox, ABC, NBC, UPN are all unannounced, although Fox should happen sooner than the rest). HDTivo for DirecTV should be out in April / May timeframe, and uses tuners to pull OTA HD broadcasts. Both systems already get (for the most part) the movie stations, ESPN, and HDNet in HD.
On the whole the DirecTV with Tivo option is really your best bet, I can't stress enough really how much having a Tivo will change your life if you watch 4 or more hours of TV a week.
Xbox Live Tetris has a mode that's specifically built for this. You can chat with people while a leisurely game goes by. It's not the end-all be-all, but it is pretty fun & relaxed.
Not to mention the VOIP quality is good enough that using it for xbox -> xbox chat instead of a telephone is a viable option. Save on long distance.
I kicked caffiene 2 years ago today, and let me tell you, it's one of the best things I've ever done. I sleep better, I have more (not less!) energy, and I'm more pleasant to be around in the morning. (For the record, it was merely movement from "asshole" to "tolerable," but still an improvement, to be sure)
The only caffiene I take in anymore comes in the form of chocolate, Excedrin headache capsules, and decaf coffee. I miss Coca-Cola (caffiene free just doesn't taste right), but aside from that I'm really much, much happier without it in my life.
Some prefer to forego soda altogether. I'm not one of them. You'll find yourself getting creative at the soda machine. Root beer & sprite/7-Up/Sierra Mist get old fast. Mixing the lemonade in with the sprite at the self-serve soda fountain gets you a sparkling super-sweet death beverage. Squirt is caffiene-free though, where you can find it. Various orange sodas are or are not caffienated. Barq's Root Beer IS caffienated, but Mug isn't. Hot chocolate actually has tons of caffiene, as I found out the hard way.
Once it's been out of your system for a few months, you'll find yourself very, very sensitive to it. The aforementioned cup of hot chocolate left me bouncing off the walls like a 5-year-old for the better part of an afternoon.
The only other detriment is that, like TiVO, it makes you a bit boring at parties for a while. The change in your life this seemingly innocuous thing you have done causes is so positive that you begin to evangelize and people don't talk to you about it for a little bit.
You're in for a rough two or three weeks, but it's all worth it. Good luck.
TiVO (out of the box) doesn't have a commercial-skip feature per se. However, it can fast-forward through a large block of commercials in about 5 seconds. The system is also smart enough to estimate your reflexes well enough that once you stop fast-forwarding, it backs up just enough that you don't wind up skipping part of your show or seeing the tail end of an ad.
Believe it or not, there's a point to the practice of showing you the same ad time after time. The idea is to burn the idea of the product and logo deep into your brain. They want you to associate the ad, and the situation in the ad, no matter how poorly acted/presented, with a product.
Repeatedly showing the same scenario to you - say, the white nuclear family is talking about Timmy's grades over dinner, Whippy Mayonnaise in the new plastic container falls off the table and falls, bounces, but does not break - is done intentionally, and designed so that over time, when you're sitting at dinner talking about grades, you'll think fleetingly of the new container for Whippy Mayonnaise. Since you've seen it hundreds of times, it occupies that same kind of memory space that your favorite songs do, and will be recalled by associated moments and events. Thus you will be more likely to buy Whippy (because you think about Whippy every night at dinner when you ask your kid about school today). These are called "impressions," and they are carefully crafted by psychologists and marketing people to take over your thoughts about particular events.
In essence, they're trying to take over a part of your brain forever, and all you get for "free" in return is.... television, which frankly sucks.
I realize that they've changed management and ownership since 2000, but as a former employee of PCs For Everyone, I strongly caution against buying your computer there.
You are wrong. The bill of rights only applies to adults, not children (for the most part). Kids do not have the right to bear arms, or the right of freedom to assembly. There is no free speech right for children either. The courts know that kids lack the experiance to make the best choices for themselves. Amen.
Cute, but you're offloading the blame from the people who are supposed to know what their children are doing (parents) onto the people who supply a product to meet market demand (videogame marketers). When children don't have the experience to make the best choices for themselves, that's when it's time for parents to step in, not the courts. Free speech is the most important thing in this country, and the right to say fucked-up things is more important than whether your kid gets fucked-up* for listening when you didn't shield him.
I grew up on videogames. I played Leisure Suit Larry before I hit puberty. I hacked off heads and slew monsters crawling dungeons. I was thanked copiously, but the princess was in another castle.
Golgo 13 got it on with the informant in the hotel room. The monster at the end of Mystic Defender had bare breasts and was a biomechanical monstrosity. Possessed zombies begged me to kill them while swinging lengths of pipe at my skull.
That mechademon appeared atop a glowing pentagram at the end of Doom shareware and I 'bout wet myself.
All of these experiences have been mine virtually via videogames. And you know what? I've never laid a hand on someone in anger in all of my adult life.
I realize this is mere anecdotal evidence and bears no statistical relevance, but my friends in this life have all been like me. We weren't corrupted by D&D or led to the dark side by Doom. We just use them as entertainment, and they let us live out our fantasies of cutting up the head of satan with a chainsaw.
As an adult, I continue to play videogames. They aren't children's toys anymore. I'm nearly thirty, and can reasonably be said to be a grownup (ask any teenager, life ENDS at 30, and at 25 you're just coasting). I play videogames every day, and will likely continue to play videogames nearly daily for the rest of my life.
There's a lot of people out there just like me, and we're a demographic that wants to be served. We can handle themes like sex, extreme violence, and drug use in the context of a story told on film, and we can handle it in the context of a story told in videogame form.
I think your problem is that perhaps you still regard videogames, comics, animation, and the like as mediums of expression that are purely useful for the relation of children's tales, and that is no longer true.
*yes, this is my catchphrase for the evening. Fucked. Up.
Said it before on/., seems I say it every time this topic comes up:
Movie ratings are a voluntary system adopted by exhibitors and the MPAA in order to classify content. I'll say it again: It's voluntary.
If a 12-year-old goes into an R-rated movie, the only penalties facing the exhibitor are economic ones levied by the MPAA and perhaps distribution trouble in the future.
There is no criminal penalty for showing r-rated content to minors.*
Now mind you, it's not that I want 12-year-olds playing Manhunt1 , but making it illegal is arguably in violation of the first amendment.
Yes yes, I know, this is the same fucked-up country where a judge ruled games aren't speech. Thank god that one got overturned.
Anyway.
Movie ratings: voluntary.
ESRB ratings: voluntary.
Therefore: both qualify as constitutional.
Proposed law: mandatory.
Therefore: likely in violation of the first amendment.
*(I'm leaving X-rated films out of this discussion b/c then we breach the topic of pornography law and that's a lot murkier)
1 The objective of Manhunt to kill as many unsuspecting victims as possible as brutally and graphically as possible for the adulation of the twisted pervert watching you on TV. You're armed with weapons like meat cleavers, garottes, and plastic bags, and gain extra points for how fucked up your kill is.
I read with great interest a news article about Gamespy siccing its lawyer brigade on an Italian security researcher who, after making good-faith efforts to make Gamespy aware of its security shortcomings and receiving no response, went public with the exploits he found.
It's a pity you're so short-sighted. Now, instead of working with a co-operative third party researcher willing to perform QA on your product for free, you instead face the prospect of having much more of this kind of attention being focused on your organization by some very, very clever individuals. Further, from now on, nobody's going to be stupid enough to tell you when they find an exploit. Instead, all of their findings will be released into the cracker underground, as anonymously as possible. In the future, when exploits are found for Gamespy's servers, Gamespy won't know until they've already been pwned.
gg.
Hear that? It's the sound of me uninstalling your software, calling all my friends and advising them to do the same, telling our ad-blocker software not to display your ads anymore, and then all of us getting out our credit cards so we can reward the fine people who created the All-Seeing Eye.
Hope you enjoyed it, you had a pretty good run while it lasted.
After spending the last two years going over like a Lead Balloon,Pressplay just rebranded itself with the Napster name.
The corporate overlords may want to buy into the customer goodwill that surrounds the Napster brand name instead of the apathy that surrounds the Pressplay brand name, but they're just polishing a turd. People didn't want to rent their music then, and they won't want to rent it now.
The emperor has a little kittyface mask on, but he's still naked.
automatically record programs for you based on your past viewing habits?
contribute to aggregate ratings information that networks actually listen to?
grab video data straight from the satellite feed and dump it directly to disk, with no loss in quality from the original signal?
record two programs at once while watching a third pre-recorded program?
use an 8-second rewind feature, so you can see those "OH SHIT DID I JUST SEE THAT" moments again?
record obscure films starring your favorite actors that you didn't even know existed from channels you never watch, giving you a nice surprise when you get home?
calculate your TV schedule on the fly, and catch that oddball halloween episode of Simpsons run on a weekday instead of on a weekend without your intervention?
fast-forward through an entire block of commercials in less than 5 seconds, and somehow manage to get within 3 seconds of the beginning of your program every single time you stop it?
pause / rewind live TV, on those rare occasions you find yourself watching live TV?
almost be considered a member of the family, waiting with arms full of brainkilling, timewasting presents for you when you get home every night?
People who haven't joined The Cult Of TiVO think that TiVO's just some kind of overglorified VCR that automates tasks they could do themselves anyway, were they so inclined. Nothing but experience, I've found, can change their minds. It takes real talent and engineering skill to design a system as rich and powerful as the one the people at TiVO has created.
Slashdot Mirror
Games. Not math exercises thinly veiled as games, but GAMES. When I was a kid, Rocky's Boot and the followup robot game taught me more about electronics, physics, math, programming, and logic than most of my straight math classes. There were also a few games, such as "math blasters," that were fucking awful and I hated playing. Most educational software is crap, and there's a reason kids never play those games. They're designed by teachers to educate first and entertain second, instead of looking at both goals as equal. That's why Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail were both successful back when I was in the target audience, they were both greatly entertaining.
After reading Anand's article, I'm left thinking that while nice, these benchmarks aren't super-impressive.
I mean, they're good, but I get the feeling that a bunch of marketing weasels at ATI are breathing a big sigh of relief right about now.
That's awesome! I love hearing about stuff like this, and I didn't in any way mean to sound like the services you provide is somehow inferior to the services I or others like me provide.
However, you also have to admit that you're the exception, not the rule.
I work as a support rep for a company that charges our customers tens of thousands of dollars a year for support on a large-scale web-based application. A lot of what I do is phone-based, but let me tell you: Our customers don't have to wait on hold, they don't have to post in a newsgroup or hit an FAQ, and they don't have to hit some irc channel where the developers will sneer at them for not reading a serpentine and outdated man page before they can get any help. And they sure as hell aren't advised to scrub and re-install.
They get zero bullshit, instant-response support, day or night, because that's what they pay for. I solve technical issues, sure, and I take great pride in my work. But I develop relationships with my problem clients, and work hard to make them happy. I communicate with them in a way that lets them know that it is a personal affront to me that their product is not performing exactly as they expect, and they know that they have an advocate within the company that fights through bureaucracy for their needs long after the sale has been made and their account manager has moved on to chasing the next dollar. Our development team works very closely with us and if we identify an issue as being a top customer support, it's fixed in the next release. If that's not soon enough, we'll get the engineering schedule re-arranged to produce a patch for our customer. Our shortest-time support rep has been with the company for four years, and at this stage, perhaps only the director of engineering has an equal understanding of the product. We cost a lot, but we're worth it.
Now, my little rant in defense of commercial support aside: I agree, there's many positive things to be said for open-source software. But it's an investment, something that must be embraced. You can't just install a single open-source app in a mission critical environment and not be sure how it will be supported. There needs to be either a project-wide commitment to F/OSS software, with staffing brought on that can completely supports it, or you need to only use F/OSS tools that are so widespread that they are well understood, and free support is ubiquitous (Apache). It doesn't make sense to keep a highly trained cadre of admins on staff to take care of one application when a very specialized commercial support rep who has the director of engineering's cell phone # is a dial tone away. The difference between a few $80k sysadmins and a few $30k support contracts is substantial enough to catch the eye of more than one CTO, especially once you take employee turnover into account. Why not make that someone else's problem?
Again, this all changes depending on the situation. Obviously, if that previously mentioned hypothetical $80k admin can replace five commercial applications that would cost $30k apiece in support contracts, he's a bargain. And we all of us know of many shops that manage to do this successfully. We also all of us (at least those who've spent a few years in IT) know of many shops that do not.
So, I guess where I'm going with this probably ill-advised 2:30am rant is this: Commercial support can be an extremely important thing at times like these (2:30am), and it's not something you should discount so quickly. A lot of us are very good at what we do.
This seems like as good a time as any to ask:
In the discussion following a similar article a few months ago, someone posted a list of the different states for the broadcast flag, and their corresponding values (ie. 000 forever, 001 1 hour, 010 2 hours, etc.). However, I've been unable to find it again.
Does anyone have this information that they could re-post here? It's pretty relevant to the current discussion.
Nice pipe dream, but since the series wasn't cancelled due to lack of interest, I doubt it'll happen.
#portupgrade -a
or, if you prefer packages
#portupgrade -aP
Okay, so according to Slashdot this morning:
-Apple is dead
-Tivo is dead
Where's the BSD story?
SWF files are significantly smaller than .gif files for this sort of presentation, and can be generated dynamically from a database of performance numbers with little effort.
.gif: 21,514 bytes .swf: 6,582 bytes
.gif file, might I add, didn't look nearly as good.
An example, using the Aquamark 3d graph under "Directx9 Performance." First, I saved the page. Then I took a screenshot of the web browser, cut out just the graph, and exported it optimized for the web using Fireworks.
The results:
And the
Now, 15K might not seem like much, but when you multiply it by the considerable amount of traffic Anandtech receives, the savings quickly become significant.
Plus, modem users will appreciate it.
NickToons does still play 2 episodes of Invader Zim every weekend & Monday. It's pretty desirable for that reason alone.
You know, the first thing my girlfriend said when we unpacked the TiVO from its box and placed the remote face-down on the table was, "Why did you buy me a dildo to go with your new toy?"
I mean, great remote, but it really DOES look like a sex toy. Also it's too easy to hold it upside down if you're not looking. A couple of weights in the bottom of the unit would have taken care of that (I mean more weight than the batteries).
I'm throwing my hat into the DirecTivo camp. I've been a customer for about eight months, and while I can't speak to snow interference (I live in NorCal), I can say that rain has little to no effect.
Digital Cable here is a total joke, compression artifacts and noise on the video stream are so bad that DirecTV (which still looks cruddy) looks great in comparison. In both cases you're going to notice a serious drop in video quality over DVD or even OTA broadcast with a good antenna, but it's better than VHS.
TiVO changed my damn life. That it comes with DirecTV is a plus.
If High Definition matters, most cable systems now get the local stations in HD, but DirecTV doesn't yet do that, and only certain markets can get CBS in high-def (Fox, ABC, NBC, UPN are all unannounced, although Fox should happen sooner than the rest). HDTivo for DirecTV should be out in April / May timeframe, and uses tuners to pull OTA HD broadcasts. Both systems already get (for the most part) the movie stations, ESPN, and HDNet in HD.
On the whole the DirecTV with Tivo option is really your best bet, I can't stress enough really how much having a Tivo will change your life if you watch 4 or more hours of TV a week.
Xbox Live Tetris has a mode that's specifically built for this. You can chat with people while a leisurely game goes by. It's not the end-all be-all, but it is pretty fun & relaxed.
Not to mention the VOIP quality is good enough that using it for xbox -> xbox chat instead of a telephone is a viable option. Save on long distance.
I kicked caffiene 2 years ago today, and let me tell you, it's one of the best things I've ever done. I sleep better, I have more (not less!) energy, and I'm more pleasant to be around in the morning. (For the record, it was merely movement from "asshole" to "tolerable," but still an improvement, to be sure)
The only caffiene I take in anymore comes in the form of chocolate, Excedrin headache capsules, and decaf coffee. I miss Coca-Cola (caffiene free just doesn't taste right), but aside from that I'm really much, much happier without it in my life.
Some prefer to forego soda altogether. I'm not one of them. You'll find yourself getting creative at the soda machine. Root beer & sprite/7-Up/Sierra Mist get old fast. Mixing the lemonade in with the sprite at the self-serve soda fountain gets you a sparkling super-sweet death beverage. Squirt is caffiene-free though, where you can find it. Various orange sodas are or are not caffienated. Barq's Root Beer IS caffienated, but Mug isn't. Hot chocolate actually has tons of caffiene, as I found out the hard way.
Once it's been out of your system for a few months, you'll find yourself very, very sensitive to it. The aforementioned cup of hot chocolate left me bouncing off the walls like a 5-year-old for the better part of an afternoon.
The only other detriment is that, like TiVO, it makes you a bit boring at parties for a while. The change in your life this seemingly innocuous thing you have done causes is so positive that you begin to evangelize and people don't talk to you about it for a little bit.
You're in for a rough two or three weeks, but it's all worth it. Good luck.
TiVO (out of the box) doesn't have a commercial-skip feature per se. However, it can fast-forward through a large block of commercials in about 5 seconds. The system is also smart enough to estimate your reflexes well enough that once you stop fast-forwarding, it backs up just enough that you don't wind up skipping part of your show or seeing the tail end of an ad.
Really, it's fantastic and more than adequate.
Believe it or not, there's a point to the practice of showing you the same ad time after time. The idea is to burn the idea of the product and logo deep into your brain. They want you to associate the ad, and the situation in the ad, no matter how poorly acted/presented, with a product.
Repeatedly showing the same scenario to you - say, the white nuclear family is talking about Timmy's grades over dinner, Whippy Mayonnaise in the new plastic container falls off the table and falls, bounces, but does not break - is done intentionally, and designed so that over time, when you're sitting at dinner talking about grades, you'll think fleetingly of the new container for Whippy Mayonnaise. Since you've seen it hundreds of times, it occupies that same kind of memory space that your favorite songs do, and will be recalled by associated moments and events. Thus you will be more likely to buy Whippy (because you think about Whippy every night at dinner when you ask your kid about school today). These are called "impressions," and they are carefully crafted by psychologists and marketing people to take over your thoughts about particular events.
In essence, they're trying to take over a part of your brain forever, and all you get for "free" in return is.... television, which frankly sucks.
I realize that they've changed management and ownership since 2000, but as a former employee of PCs For Everyone, I strongly caution against buying your computer there.
You are wrong. The bill of rights only applies to adults, not children (for the most part). Kids do not have the right to bear arms, or the right of freedom to assembly. There is no free speech right for children either. The courts know that kids lack the experiance to make the best choices for themselves. Amen.
Cute, but you're offloading the blame from the people who are supposed to know what their children are doing (parents) onto the people who supply a product to meet market demand (videogame marketers). When children don't have the experience to make the best choices for themselves, that's when it's time for parents to step in, not the courts. Free speech is the most important thing in this country, and the right to say fucked-up things is more important than whether your kid gets fucked-up* for listening when you didn't shield him.
I grew up on videogames. I played Leisure Suit Larry before I hit puberty. I hacked off heads and slew monsters crawling dungeons. I was thanked copiously, but the princess was in another castle.
Golgo 13 got it on with the informant in the hotel room. The monster at the end of Mystic Defender had bare breasts and was a biomechanical monstrosity. Possessed zombies begged me to kill them while swinging lengths of pipe at my skull.
That mechademon appeared atop a glowing pentagram at the end of Doom shareware and I 'bout wet myself.
All of these experiences have been mine virtually via videogames. And you know what? I've never laid a hand on someone in anger in all of my adult life.
I realize this is mere anecdotal evidence and bears no statistical relevance, but my friends in this life have all been like me. We weren't corrupted by D&D or led to the dark side by Doom. We just use them as entertainment, and they let us live out our fantasies of cutting up the head of satan with a chainsaw.
As an adult, I continue to play videogames. They aren't children's toys anymore. I'm nearly thirty, and can reasonably be said to be a grownup (ask any teenager, life ENDS at 30, and at 25 you're just coasting). I play videogames every day, and will likely continue to play videogames nearly daily for the rest of my life.
There's a lot of people out there just like me, and we're a demographic that wants to be served. We can handle themes like sex, extreme violence, and drug use in the context of a story told on film, and we can handle it in the context of a story told in videogame form.
I think your problem is that perhaps you still regard videogames, comics, animation, and the like as mediums of expression that are purely useful for the relation of children's tales, and that is no longer true. *yes, this is my catchphrase for the evening. Fucked. Up.
Said it before on /., seems I say it every time this topic comes up:
Movie ratings are a voluntary system adopted by exhibitors and the MPAA in order to classify content. I'll say it again: It's voluntary.
If a 12-year-old goes into an R-rated movie, the only penalties facing the exhibitor are economic ones levied by the MPAA and perhaps distribution trouble in the future.
There is no criminal penalty for showing r-rated content to minors.*
Now mind you, it's not that I want 12-year-olds playing Manhunt1 , but making it illegal is arguably in violation of the first amendment.
Yes yes, I know, this is the same fucked-up country where a judge ruled games aren't speech. Thank god that one got overturned.
Anyway.
Movie ratings: voluntary.
ESRB ratings: voluntary.
Therefore: both qualify as constitutional.
Proposed law: mandatory.
Therefore: likely in violation of the first amendment.
*(I'm leaving X-rated films out of this discussion b/c then we breach the topic of pornography law and that's a lot murkier)
1 The objective of Manhunt to kill as many unsuspecting victims as possible as brutally and graphically as possible for the adulation of the twisted pervert watching you on TV. You're armed with weapons like meat cleavers, garottes, and plastic bags, and gain extra points for how fucked up your kill is.
You are so boned.
Bandwidth: SELECT `Available_Kbps` FROM `raped_dsl` WHERE 'dsl_bridge_reaction'="Cry_like_little_bitch";
Thanks for the link! Here's what I sent them:
I read with great interest a news article about Gamespy siccing its lawyer brigade on an Italian security researcher who, after making good-faith efforts to make Gamespy aware of its security shortcomings and receiving no response, went public with the exploits he found.
It's a pity you're so short-sighted. Now, instead of working with a co-operative third party researcher willing to perform QA on your product for free, you instead face the prospect of having much more of this kind of attention being focused on your organization by some very, very clever individuals. Further, from now on, nobody's going to be stupid enough to tell you when they find an exploit. Instead, all of their findings will be released into the cracker underground, as anonymously as possible. In the future, when exploits are found for Gamespy's servers, Gamespy won't know until they've already been pwned.
gg.
Hear that? It's the sound of me uninstalling your software, calling all my friends and advising them to do the same, telling our ad-blocker software not to display your ads anymore, and then all of us getting out our credit cards so we can reward the fine people who created the All-Seeing Eye.
Hope you enjoyed it, you had a pretty good run while it lasted.
Hatchet? Laserdisc? Please elaborate.
After spending the last two years going over like a Lead Balloon, Pressplay just rebranded itself with the Napster name.
The corporate overlords may want to buy into the customer goodwill that surrounds the Napster brand name instead of the apathy that surrounds the Pressplay brand name, but they're just polishing a turd. People didn't want to rent their music then, and they won't want to rent it now.
The emperor has a little kittyface mask on, but he's still naked.
I agree with the parent in spirit, but just to be fair & combat FUD:
Outlook Web Access is built into the Exchange server, not the Outlook client. Further, OWA works very, very well under Mozilla.
Yes, but can your $150 videocard:
People who haven't joined The Cult Of TiVO think that TiVO's just some kind of overglorified VCR that automates tasks they could do themselves anyway, were they so inclined. Nothing but experience, I've found, can change their minds. It takes real talent and engineering skill to design a system as rich and powerful as the one the people at TiVO has created.