The act of creating a whole world from art, sounds, abstract personalities, key events, etc, and all the interactions involved is NOT yet an act people will just do on their own, even for a large group working together. It's such a large undertaking in most cases, that money, enough money to pay people to stay in one place with promises of more money, is required in almost all cases to make a truly captivating world.
Even with idealized tools, there's just so many decsions, so many interactions that need to at least be looked into, that by sheer force of choices, the visions of the designers get lost along the way - any only the most simple of stories get told by those who can't devote most of their waking lives to it.
Can more, better open source games be created? Yes. But it's going to take amazing people, people who can establish ever-improving processes, and people who can stay true to their visions on the very long road to making a captivating little world.
Otherwise, we'll get a lot more abstract puzzle games, but the real power of developer imagination may be lost to complexity.
Episode 8-12 has already been circulating in the TV-Torrent sites for a while. Not to spoil anything, but Claudia's character in it is a rather cliched, yet entertaining character because of it.
For some reason, the episode had odd the feeling of a Bioware RPG scenario, with all the strange choices and snarky replies flying around.
It's a method for the transportation of data - it in no way encourages any specific type of traffic. I could mention several straw-men arguments about telephones and vehicles that also could be used for horrible child crimes...
Relative anonymity isn't inherently destructive - nor is the anonymity offered here absolute. Conventional methods of online social investigation will still catch the people you imagine, as there is still a source and destination. With child crimes in particular, the investigation should move offline as soon as possible anyway as soon as suspicions arise.
People who attack and cruelly manipulate children deserve punishment - the rest of the world does not need to close entire realms of technology down for the sake of that punishment. The nerds of the world shouldn't be forced to think about punishing criminals when they make their tools any more than car manufacturers.
I've tried FireFox, and I like it - but I still prefer Mozilla. I just prefer having several individual browsers rather than tabbed browsers by default from a middle-mouse click. Tabbed browsing isn't so bad when you get the keyboard commands down - but when selecting between several applications, I just find it faster to use the taskbar and alt-tab to go between browsers rather than select Mozilla, then hunt for the right tab.
If Firefox could allow me to change the action of the middle-mouse button back to Mozilla-style new browser, then I'd gladly switch over - but there's no need now, so I prefer Mozilla for my own systems.
Not only that, but these devices are very basic. There's no directory management or playlists, no random play, just play-in-order of the files on the USB drive. Also, the audio quality will inherently be worse than a devoted car CD player.
But the usage of one of these things would be different than a CD. I personally mostly want to listen to voice (books, philosophy, debates, talk shows, etc.), so the linear play is fine. I also want to casually pull out the USB stick from my pocket, throw something on in 5 seconds rather than 5 minutes to burn a disc, then go right to the car. I'd never want to have my whole library - just what I was interested in.
So, to me, it's a better value than the failure-prone MP3-cd players I've tried before. And it's an interesting gadget, at least.
Strangely enough, it seems to be the only Car MP3 player out there that takes a USB card - the discontinued "EMPEG" used to have such an input, but it's hard to get now. I've been wanting to use a nice cheap USB stick instead of CDs for the sheer convenience of popping it into the car and listening with an interface that's much more casual than CDs. Instead of plugging into the car's existing audio system, it works by sending out a short-range FM signal across the 87.7-88.7 dial (you select which subrange). That makes setup easy (so long as you have a good radio in the car), but I can't help but wonder how many radio markets have that FM signal open at that range, and what interference this would have with nearby cars. Fortunately, the device is fairly cheap to experiment with - you can find it for around $50 on pricewatch.
Obvious question: But any idea on the release date for the full extended trilogy?
After seeing the first one, I realised that I didn't want to begin watching the rest of them until they were in the full extended format - I didn't want to watch the rest without the extra scenes.
Now I can get all the movies in extended format - but I'm sure there's many like me who'd prefer to just get them all in one go, with all the goodies.
1. Because we've got vast resources. We're a large nation with relatively few people in it, but with many diverse communities. This allows cheap expansion, effective regional competition, cheap natural resources, etc.
2. Because we've got good cooperative neighbors to take advantage of. Canada and Mexico also have vast resources that compliment US corporations' ability to gain money on a large scale. From labor, to timber, to mining to many other things, they expand on what gives American businesses a large edge already.
I doubt that having the local burger joint employee pulling a 40-hour work week as opposed to a 35-hour one is going to count so much as much as the sheer resource considerations. Employee hours and benefits are more an issue of pushing money around than losing it.
So long as all businesses are kept to the same environmental pressures to keep employees happy or equivalent, the effect after competition will result in most companies ending up the same finantially. Again, compared to base resources available and other supply chain considerations, reasonable employee standards are a very minor issue.
I'm just a CS guy with business-owning relatives, and I haven't even slept at a Holiday Inn Express or anything. I can understand how some businesses would be affected differently than others - but I believe that so long as the burden of payment standards is somewhat even between companies, lower hours would NOT be a significant drain on most industries.:^)
Assembly 2004 just got out a couple days ago - check it out if you're at all interesting in the graphics "Demo/Intro Scene" or just really cool computer art of all sorts.
One of the most amazing things to come out of these parties/competitions has been the rather amazing 64k intros. If you have any modern 3d hardware, and haven't heard of them - definetly have a look. The things these folks can pack in under 65536 bytes is nothing short of amazing. Even if you don't have the hardware, you can download the.avi versions and wonder how they can do it.
Getting logical, recognizeable data from the brain to a computer would a remarkable, world-transforming achievement!
It would open up the possibility of a certain form of immortality - of being able to save all the things that make a person recognizeably unique, and having the possibility of re-creating that. In effect, creating a society where death is more a philosophical concept than an innevitability.
Actually, the transfer in the other direction, computer-to-brain might not be something we want to be pushing anytime soon. The possibility of overwriting memories is the somewhat more creepy side of such technologies. What's the difference between killing someone and making them unrecognizeable by changing everything about their memories?
But to offer some way of saving human minds - forgetting virtual immortality, to be able to have your memories, your real memories there instead of some history for future generations would be an amazing thing.:^)
I've been looking at Office 2003's "Information Rights Management", which uses Windows Server 2003 as a key-keeper, along with.net Passport to prevent various kinds of spoofing. It's an interesting setup - but there's next to no deep independant analysis of the process out in public anywhere, compared to previous MS encryption schemes I've looked at.
I really get the sense that people are scared of being the first to get hurt for publishing holes they've found in the system, rather than because the standards themselves are in flux.
It's a little creepy - on one side, you get people saying why DRM is wrong in so many ways, and should be avoided, but not allowing themselves to actually look at the system. On the other side, you've got people praising the idea with lavish strings of superlatives, saying that governments should use it amongst other things - it would be hard for a businessman to say anything other than Microsoft is fellow businessmen, and the other guys are crazy folks who don't know what they're talking about.
The FUD is working - the smart ones are staying quiet, and the dumb ones are making the rest look like they're all crazy.
Well, I essentially mean any argument that isn't based on a well-tested set of observations that is not biased to one side or another - arguments not completely based on the scientific method, that don't freely change based on evidence and counter-arguments. Of course, many arguments are more or less 'unfair' along those lines. It's a very high bar, almost unreacheable to be completley fair in your arguments!
There's just too many forms of these arguments to bring them all up in a Slashdot post. We all have to make these sorts of arguments as a part of life. The idea is that when more and more faith and power is put behind such arguments, the more the arguments SHOULD be made to go towards the ideals of a "fair" argument in most people's minds.
We all bullshit. We all shape our evidence and language to prevent counter-argument. It's when we see groups being snubbed on the basis of such unfair arguments that our ire grows.
But we also have to realise that we can't always meet the ideals of a 'fair' argument. We have to accept that our side is going to misuse their facts to their own benefit every once in a while - that's politics, that's how you have to get things done. We SHOULD regard it as a bad thing when we do it too - but in a highly charged political environment, a side expecting to win can't hide their rhetoric anymore.
So, shame the rhetoric as you will, and call a lie a lie - but don't claim any side is completely corrupt just for playing the game. THAT is an unfair argument in this environment.
Extremists are necissary in a complex society. Unfair arguments WORK. Would it be logical for a political party to choose to not use unfair arguments?
That's why true freedom of speech on all levels - even when it comes to one-sided or unfair arguments is also necissary for any level of political freedom.
Why? Because innevitably, any form of censorship about non-violence-inciting words will be enforced selectively by the side that controls the enforcement arm. French censorship is not going to arrest people who use words against the non-French, but will use censorship against someone saying something sufficiently controversial about the current leadership, if the issue is a sore one, ESPECIALLY if the statement may be true, but in dispute.
Unfair arguments usually come in the form of someone presuming something, then picking and choosing facts and observations based on how they can "prove" their point. They are used with almost all subjects, in all cultures. For instance, believers in alien abductions surround themselves with many levels of unverifiable and unfair arguments about how people should believe in aliens who choose to abduct people.
Many forms of humor are entirely composed of people making unfair arguments, with a glint in their eye. It's often very surprising and amusing the way different people can connect the things they see, and how that can show the biases they have.
If the audience is small, then unfair arguments can usually be effectively countered by showing WHY the argument is unfair from other perspectives - but even then, many people will still staunchly believe in the validity of known unfair arguments, and will dismiss all other perspectives as "leaving unknowns" - implying that only the unfair argument can fill in the blanks.
When the audience is larger, unfair arguments will be just a part of the environment. Jokes and tenative arguments will form in conversations, and there will not be a chance to counter all of them all the time. Unfortunately, those with the best unfair arguments can usually pull out win on a topic by sheer weight of their unfair arguments. That's why Rush Limbaugh can change the outcome of elections, why every company has their sneaky gossip, etc. Logic alone cannot change this about our cultures.
That's part of why I'm glad that the left in America is finally fighting back. Not because I like their unfair arguments - but I do like the humor, and I realise that it IS necissary. Lead by commedians, the left is unmasking their rhetoric - and they are loosing unfair arguments because there really are not any other ways to combat them anymore.
And it's definetly fun watching both sides try to hoodwink eachother with sneaky arguments. It's like watching a pickpocketing competition between two skilled theives and one rich man with a monacle. Funny and more funny at every step.
Usually, the political parties have thier muckracking organizations separate from their party at large. But now, unfair arguments are so effective and needed by both sides, that the distinction is gone.
And for those of you who are "disgusted" with the left's arguments now - welcome to the world that Rush created. The genie ain't going back. Hopefully the media itself will learn to distinguish fair and unfair arugments better than the CNN/Fox News split we have now, and we'll have a better arguing environment after everything. Until then, get used to the administration being called the equivanent of baby-killers using their own words.
I doubt there's anyone in America that could not be charged and convicted of a real legal offense that exists on the books somewhere in America in a given week. This isn't some nebulous concept of sin - I'm speaking of real laws that exist.
Still - the thought of being arrested for just walking around without a wallet, or not wanting to tell a strange officer your name is going further into the "oh, come on" realm.
I can imagine many ways to spin this both ways. Drunk people can be charged for even more crimes now if they get caught ashamed and unwilling to name themselves. So can plain embarassed or even crazy people.
Still - the judges had to decide based on the issues handed to them. I'd have preferred greater freedom here, but as a matter of law, they may be correct that this isn't a constitutional requirement. Always strange how legal decisions get made.
Lots of REALLY overdone camera-swoops of battlescenes, taking up lots of player time when they are expecting a chance to actually exert some control the events of the game.
Hey - it's what happened to the Final Fantasy Series, and several other console games once designers got the power. There's only so many bullet-time-style uses of cinema-style art that is compatible with player freedom.
Get together, purchase the tools or access to the tools to create music directly, make CDs, and together, negotiate to sell them to stores.
You don't need any RIAA "representation" - your music is yours to do what you want with. This is your life, and the lives of countless other artists - so work with other artists to cut these brain-dead suits out of the picture finally!
Will do - checked out the prologue. A little bit "fakey", but worth reading for the concepts.
I always thought the topic was a great one for pure comedy, in a futurama-kind of way. I believe Phillip K Dick wrote a few stories along these lines too.
..Treating the brain like a ROM, and being able to get a complete "brain state"? I imagine it would be difficult, a bit like reading a quantum computer, in that using any signal to read the state may reinforce some linkages, thus changing the system.
Being able to "back up" a mind would definetly be one of those day-the-universe-changed moments. If death could mean more a loss of short-term memory since last backup, rather than loss of known existence, almost every aspect of our culture would be shaken to its core. Any number of results could be imagined.
Even if not in ROM-style form, some form of human-as-information seems innevitable. From emulation, to virtual-life recreation, to any number of things, the human experience may not be limited to DNA & brains forever. What that means for the presumed entities behind our eyes, we do not know. But perhaps that expansion of information is part of whatever human nature is.
So, effectively, they'll be asserting through de-facto law made through government mandate, that stopping the transfer of anything that sounds like what they are looking for can take precidence over the free trade of information.
Fine. Really - highly annoying, and a misuse of power, but fine. If they want to take the time to listen to a small percentage of those files, suing people and publicising it, fine. Let the reign of terror continue. I honestly don't listen to their music anymore anyway.
As a consequence, however, software which will encrypt content and sender/reciever identification will become much more robust and ubiquitous. That I wouldn't mind seeing.
I empathise with the music "industry" - many of these people are acting out of a motive of self-preservation. But they make their living by offering a service - they can't just threaten people into choosing that service. Here, they are demanding the whole nation change it's rules of conduct to meet it's desires... they may get their rule change, but they won't change people's conduct, nor will they convince people to pay for their services this way. They have to provide better services for that to happen.
Hopefully the music industry will wise up to their real source of self-preservation - dissolving the RIAA as a legal-punishment agency, and turning it into a real service-enchancement agency. Make us want you, don't keep trying to force us to need you!
"Guys. Really. Mars is REALLY boring." Says Scientist studying Mars.
"It's not funny anymore guys! I was into the whole robot thing for a while. That was cool. But it's been like, weeks now, and the that time delay thing is REALLY getting to me." Says Mark McGraffy, associate technician on the Spirit & Opportunity Mars data-gathering projects.
"Look... see! There it is... more...ROUND THINGS! I mean geesh - you want us to just sit here and guess and dream about them more? Ask me last week, and I would have been able to give you 5 theories, but... I just don't want to play the game anymore. They're round things... really boring... round things. Just because they're red and uniform doesn't make them magic people! Hey - maybe they're altoids, great! Let's dream about that for a while!"
Mr. McGraff then ran off screaming. More news as it happens.
Is this like one of those commercials where a company says "We're the leading provider of...", which translates to "We're a company" given the meaninglessness of the words? Except here, they're claiming they are gong to such the blood from such a "top" company?
Or perhaps they are going to sue themselves? I'd bet they would STILL get a stock boost off of that. Kind of like the old crazy guy who gets on the subway who gets more uneasy respect the more irrational he acts.
Imaginary Investor: "They're just crazy enough to make it happen - I'll really be bucking the trend if I go with them! And a whole bunch of other innapropriate cliches too!"
Slashdot Mirror
The act of creating a whole world from art, sounds, abstract personalities, key events, etc, and all the interactions involved is NOT yet an act people will just do on their own, even for a large group working together. It's such a large undertaking in most cases, that money, enough money to pay people to stay in one place with promises of more money, is required in almost all cases to make a truly captivating world.
Even with idealized tools, there's just so many decsions, so many interactions that need to at least be looked into, that by sheer force of choices, the visions of the designers get lost along the way - any only the most simple of stories get told by those who can't devote most of their waking lives to it.
Can more, better open source games be created? Yes. But it's going to take amazing people, people who can establish ever-improving processes, and people who can stay true to their visions on the very long road to making a captivating little world.
Otherwise, we'll get a lot more abstract puzzle games, but the real power of developer imagination may be lost to complexity.
Ryan Fenton
Bush is back in office. The Iraq war still rages. Non-business interests are losing ground in most intellectual property conflicts.
Yeah - I'd say the net effect of bloggers is... well, a lot of interest, but few positive results as of yet. Here's hoping next year is better.
Ryan Fenton
Episode 8-12 has already been circulating in the TV-Torrent sites for a while. Not to spoil anything, but Claudia's character in it is a rather cliched, yet entertaining character because of it.
For some reason, the episode had odd the feeling of a Bioware RPG scenario, with all the strange choices and snarky replies flying around.
Ryan Fenton
It's a method for the transportation of data - it in no way encourages any specific type of traffic. I could mention several straw-men arguments about telephones and vehicles that also could be used for horrible child crimes...
Relative anonymity isn't inherently destructive - nor is the anonymity offered here absolute. Conventional methods of online social investigation will still catch the people you imagine, as there is still a source and destination. With child crimes in particular, the investigation should move offline as soon as possible anyway as soon as suspicions arise.
People who attack and cruelly manipulate children deserve punishment - the rest of the world does not need to close entire realms of technology down for the sake of that punishment. The nerds of the world shouldn't be forced to think about punishing criminals when they make their tools any more than car manufacturers.
Ryan Fenton
I've tried FireFox, and I like it - but I still prefer Mozilla. I just prefer having several individual browsers rather than tabbed browsers by default from a middle-mouse click. Tabbed browsing isn't so bad when you get the keyboard commands down - but when selecting between several applications, I just find it faster to use the taskbar and alt-tab to go between browsers rather than select Mozilla, then hunt for the right tab.
If Firefox could allow me to change the action of the middle-mouse button back to Mozilla-style new browser, then I'd gladly switch over - but there's no need now, so I prefer Mozilla for my own systems.
Ryan Fenton
Not only that, but these devices are very basic. There's no directory management or playlists, no random play, just play-in-order of the files on the USB drive. Also, the audio quality will inherently be worse than a devoted car CD player.
But the usage of one of these things would be different than a CD. I personally mostly want to listen to voice (books, philosophy, debates, talk shows, etc.), so the linear play is fine. I also want to casually pull out the USB stick from my pocket, throw something on in 5 seconds rather than 5 minutes to burn a disc, then go right to the car. I'd never want to have my whole library - just what I was interested in.
So, to me, it's a better value than the failure-prone MP3-cd players I've tried before. And it's an interesting gadget, at least.
Ryan Fenton
There's a product along these lines I've been interested in checking out.
It's called the "MP-308 Car USB / FM Transmitter", Here's a review of it.
Strangely enough, it seems to be the only Car MP3 player out there that takes a USB card - the discontinued "EMPEG" used to have such an input, but it's hard to get now. I've been wanting to use a nice cheap USB stick instead of CDs for the sheer convenience of popping it into the car and listening with an interface that's much more casual than CDs. Instead of plugging into the car's existing audio system, it works by sending out a short-range FM signal across the 87.7-88.7 dial (you select which subrange). That makes setup easy (so long as you have a good radio in the car), but I can't help but wonder how many radio markets have that FM signal open at that range, and what interference this would have with nearby cars. Fortunately, the device is fairly cheap to experiment with - you can find it for around $50 on pricewatch.
Ryan Fenton
Simple question: What is the role of war?
Ryan Fenton
Obvious question: But any idea on the release date for the full extended trilogy?
After seeing the first one, I realised that I didn't want to begin watching the rest of them until they were in the full extended format - I didn't want to watch the rest without the extra scenes.
Now I can get all the movies in extended format - but I'm sure there's many like me who'd prefer to just get them all in one go, with all the goodies.
Ryan Fenton
1. Because we've got vast resources. We're a large nation with relatively few people in it, but with many diverse communities. This allows cheap expansion, effective regional competition, cheap natural resources, etc.
:^)
2. Because we've got good cooperative neighbors to take advantage of. Canada and Mexico also have vast resources that compliment US corporations' ability to gain money on a large scale. From labor, to timber, to mining to many other things, they expand on what gives American businesses a large edge already.
I doubt that having the local burger joint employee pulling a 40-hour work week as opposed to a 35-hour one is going to count so much as much as the sheer resource considerations. Employee hours and benefits are more an issue of pushing money around than losing it.
So long as all businesses are kept to the same environmental pressures to keep employees happy or equivalent, the effect after competition will result in most companies ending up the same finantially. Again, compared to base resources available and other supply chain considerations, reasonable employee standards are a very minor issue.
I'm just a CS guy with business-owning relatives, and I haven't even slept at a Holiday Inn Express or anything. I can understand how some businesses would be affected differently than others - but I believe that so long as the burden of payment standards is somewhat even between companies, lower hours would NOT be a significant drain on most industries.
Ryan Fenton
Assembly 2004 just got out a couple days ago - check it out if you're at all interesting in the graphics "Demo/Intro Scene" or just really cool computer art of all sorts.
One of the most amazing things to come out of these parties/competitions has been the rather amazing 64k intros. If you have any modern 3d hardware, and haven't heard of them - definetly have a look. The things these folks can pack in under 65536 bytes is nothing short of amazing. Even if you don't have the hardware, you can download the
Ryan Fenton
Getting logical, recognizeable data from the brain to a computer would a remarkable, world-transforming achievement!
It would open up the possibility of a certain form of immortality - of being able to save all the things that make a person recognizeably unique, and having the possibility of re-creating that. In effect, creating a society where death is more a philosophical concept than an innevitability.
Actually, the transfer in the other direction, computer-to-brain might not be something we want to be pushing anytime soon. The possibility of overwriting memories is the somewhat more creepy side of such technologies. What's the difference between killing someone and making them unrecognizeable by changing everything about their memories?
But to offer some way of saving human minds - forgetting virtual immortality, to be able to have your memories, your real memories there instead of some history for future generations would be an amazing thing.
Ryan Fenton
I've been looking at Office 2003's "Information Rights Management", which uses Windows Server 2003 as a key-keeper, along with
I really get the sense that people are scared of being the first to get hurt for publishing holes they've found in the system, rather than because the standards themselves are in flux.
It's a little creepy - on one side, you get people saying why DRM is wrong in so many ways, and should be avoided, but not allowing themselves to actually look at the system. On the other side, you've got people praising the idea with lavish strings of superlatives, saying that governments should use it amongst other things - it would be hard for a businessman to say anything other than Microsoft is fellow businessmen, and the other guys are crazy folks who don't know what they're talking about.
The FUD is working - the smart ones are staying quiet, and the dumb ones are making the rest look like they're all crazy.
Ryan Fenton
Well, I essentially mean any argument that isn't based on a well-tested set of observations that is not biased to one side or another - arguments not completely based on the scientific method, that don't freely change based on evidence and counter-arguments. Of course, many arguments are more or less 'unfair' along those lines. It's a very high bar, almost unreacheable to be completley fair in your arguments!
There's just too many forms of these arguments to bring them all up in a Slashdot post. We all have to make these sorts of arguments as a part of life. The idea is that when more and more faith and power is put behind such arguments, the more the arguments SHOULD be made to go towards the ideals of a "fair" argument in most people's minds.
We all bullshit. We all shape our evidence and language to prevent counter-argument. It's when we see groups being snubbed on the basis of such unfair arguments that our ire grows.
But we also have to realise that we can't always meet the ideals of a 'fair' argument. We have to accept that our side is going to misuse their facts to their own benefit every once in a while - that's politics, that's how you have to get things done. We SHOULD regard it as a bad thing when we do it too - but in a highly charged political environment, a side expecting to win can't hide their rhetoric anymore.
So, shame the rhetoric as you will, and call a lie a lie - but don't claim any side is completely corrupt just for playing the game. THAT is an unfair argument in this environment.
Ryan Fenton
Extremists are necissary in a complex society. Unfair arguments WORK. Would it be logical for a political party to choose to not use unfair arguments?
:^)
That's why true freedom of speech on all levels - even when it comes to one-sided or unfair arguments is also necissary for any level of political freedom.
Why? Because innevitably, any form of censorship about non-violence-inciting words will be enforced selectively by the side that controls the enforcement arm. French censorship is not going to arrest people who use words against the non-French, but will use censorship against someone saying something sufficiently controversial about the current leadership, if the issue is a sore one, ESPECIALLY if the statement may be true, but in dispute.
Unfair arguments usually come in the form of someone presuming something, then picking and choosing facts and observations based on how they can "prove" their point. They are used with almost all subjects, in all cultures. For instance, believers in alien abductions surround themselves with many levels of unverifiable and unfair arguments about how people should believe in aliens who choose to abduct people.
Many forms of humor are entirely composed of people making unfair arguments, with a glint in their eye. It's often very surprising and amusing the way different people can connect the things they see, and how that can show the biases they have.
If the audience is small, then unfair arguments can usually be effectively countered by showing WHY the argument is unfair from other perspectives - but even then, many people will still staunchly believe in the validity of known unfair arguments, and will dismiss all other perspectives as "leaving unknowns" - implying that only the unfair argument can fill in the blanks.
When the audience is larger, unfair arguments will be just a part of the environment. Jokes and tenative arguments will form in conversations, and there will not be a chance to counter all of them all the time. Unfortunately, those with the best unfair arguments can usually pull out win on a topic by sheer weight of their unfair arguments. That's why Rush Limbaugh can change the outcome of elections, why every company has their sneaky gossip, etc. Logic alone cannot change this about our cultures.
That's part of why I'm glad that the left in America is finally fighting back. Not because I like their unfair arguments - but I do like the humor, and I realise that it IS necissary. Lead by commedians, the left is unmasking their rhetoric - and they are loosing unfair arguments because there really are not any other ways to combat them anymore.
And it's definetly fun watching both sides try to hoodwink eachother with sneaky arguments. It's like watching a pickpocketing competition between two skilled theives and one rich man with a monacle. Funny and more funny at every step.
Usually, the political parties have thier muckracking organizations separate from their party at large. But now, unfair arguments are so effective and needed by both sides, that the distinction is gone.
And for those of you who are "disgusted" with the left's arguments now - welcome to the world that Rush created. The genie ain't going back. Hopefully the media itself will learn to distinguish fair and unfair arugments better than the CNN/Fox News split we have now, and we'll have a better arguing environment after everything. Until then, get used to the administration being called the equivanent of baby-killers using their own words.
In other words - thanks, Michael!
Ryan Fenton
I doubt there's anyone in America that could not be charged and convicted of a real legal offense that exists on the books somewhere in America in a given week. This isn't some nebulous concept of sin - I'm speaking of real laws that exist.
Still - the thought of being arrested for just walking around without a wallet, or not wanting to tell a strange officer your name is going further into the "oh, come on" realm.
I can imagine many ways to spin this both ways. Drunk people can be charged for even more crimes now if they get caught ashamed and unwilling to name themselves. So can plain embarassed or even crazy people.
Still - the judges had to decide based on the issues handed to them. I'd have preferred greater freedom here, but as a matter of law, they may be correct that this isn't a constitutional requirement. Always strange how legal decisions get made.
Ryan Fenton
Meanwhile, "Fox News" is still called news, and few people complain about the classification.
Ryan Fenton
Lots of REALLY overdone camera-swoops of battlescenes, taking up lots of player time when they are expecting a chance to actually exert some control the events of the game.
Hey - it's what happened to the Final Fantasy Series, and several other console games once designers got the power. There's only so many bullet-time-style uses of cinema-style art that is compatible with player freedom.
Ryan Fenton
Get together, purchase the tools or access to the tools to create music directly, make CDs, and together, negotiate to sell them to stores.
You don't need any RIAA "representation" - your music is yours to do what you want with. This is your life, and the lives of countless other artists - so work with other artists to cut these brain-dead suits out of the picture finally!
Ryan Fenton
Will do - checked out the prologue. A little bit "fakey", but worth reading for the concepts.
I always thought the topic was a great one for pure comedy, in a futurama-kind of way. I believe Phillip K Dick wrote a few stories along these lines too.
Ryan Fenton
Being able to "back up" a mind would definetly be one of those day-the-universe-changed moments. If death could mean more a loss of short-term memory since last backup, rather than loss of known existence, almost every aspect of our culture would be shaken to its core. Any number of results could be imagined.
Even if not in ROM-style form, some form of human-as-information seems innevitable. From emulation, to virtual-life recreation, to any number of things, the human experience may not be limited to DNA & brains forever. What that means for the presumed entities behind our eyes, we do not know. But perhaps that expansion of information is part of whatever human nature is.
Ryan Fenton
I thought Gojira was HUGE in Japan!
Er...
Ryan Fenton
So, effectively, they'll be asserting through de-facto law made through government mandate, that stopping the transfer of anything that sounds like what they are looking for can take precidence over the free trade of information.
Fine. Really - highly annoying, and a misuse of power, but fine. If they want to take the time to listen to a small percentage of those files, suing people and publicising it, fine. Let the reign of terror continue. I honestly don't listen to their music anymore anyway.
As a consequence, however, software which will encrypt content and sender/reciever identification will become much more robust and ubiquitous. That I wouldn't mind seeing.
I empathise with the music "industry" - many of these people are acting out of a motive of self-preservation. But they make their living by offering a service - they can't just threaten people into choosing that service. Here, they are demanding the whole nation change it's rules of conduct to meet it's desires... they may get their rule change, but they won't change people's conduct, nor will they convince people to pay for their services this way. They have to provide better services for that to happen.
Hopefully the music industry will wise up to their real source of self-preservation - dissolving the RIAA as a legal-punishment agency, and turning it into a real service-enchancement agency. Make us want you, don't keep trying to force us to need you!
Ryan Fenton
"Guys. Really. Mars is REALLY boring." Says Scientist studying Mars.
... more ...ROUND THINGS! I mean geesh - you want us to just sit here and guess and dream about them more? Ask me last week, and I would have been able to give you 5 theories, but... I just don't want to play the game anymore. They're round things... really boring... round things. Just because they're red and uniform doesn't make them magic people! Hey - maybe they're altoids, great! Let's dream about that for a while!"
"It's not funny anymore guys! I was into the whole robot thing for a while. That was cool. But it's been like, weeks now, and the that time delay thing is REALLY getting to me." Says Mark McGraffy, associate technician on the Spirit & Opportunity Mars data-gathering projects.
"Look... see! There it is
Mr. McGraff then ran off screaming. More news as it happens.
Ryan Fenton
"Top 1000?"
Is this like one of those commercials where a company says "We're the leading provider of
Or perhaps they are going to sue themselves? I'd bet they would STILL get a stock boost off of that. Kind of like the old crazy guy who gets on the subway who gets more uneasy respect the more irrational he acts.
Imaginary Investor: "They're just crazy enough to make it happen - I'll really be bucking the trend if I go with them! And a whole bunch of other innapropriate cliches too!"
Ryan Fenton