100% agreed. One side says he's flip-flopping. The other says his position is 'evolving'.
Well...I don't see much difference between EITHER platform, which, when really dissected means "we're going to promise everyone anything their hearts desire, knowing we can't do it, because, well, at least we'll get the gullible vote, and most voters are too stupid/busy/cynical to pay attention enough to hold us to account for our statements four years from now."
Personally, after we're done (mostly) in Iraq, I'd love to see at least half of the annual Iraq costs go to paying down the deficit and the remainder to the space program. But then, I'm a voting bloc of one, with no lobbyists or trade organizations.
Absolutely, 100% wrong. He was NOT mocking unsanctioned argument - he was mocking the egoism of bloggers in general and the young specifically; that for some reason they believe that their perception of the world is somehow original, is the clearest, the most correct, and that the ideas that they have are somehow ENTITLED to respect despite a complete lack of life experience or credentials.
He is utterly NOT criticizing free speech and debate, he's criticizing those who step up to the podium to speak with nothing worthwhile to say but the ignorance not to know it. Look up the root meaning of the word sophomore, for example.
I can see how you might misperceive this, if you were already prone to disliking the man. He's also not, I believe, saying that people can't argue issues without credential or standing - hardly so. But words coming from Joe Public or from Water-Cooler Pundit or Internet Expert are not prima facie of any credibility. This doesn't mean that they can't accidentally be wise; it does mean that they are UNLIKELY to be valuable in most contexts outside their actual experience. I can't comment extensively on geopolitics and expect to be taken as seriously as, say, Kissinger.
Let me guess: You are a young man You are quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, you are so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else You understand the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. You believe that to be especially true with many of your elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as you can tell, was that they had been born before you and consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of your insights. You have opinions on everything, and you are always right. You love to argue, and you can become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with you. With your superior qualities so obvious, it is an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So you rarely do. All their resistance to your brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proves is that they possess an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God has blessed you with, and you feel it is your clear duty to so inform them. You and your Floppy, Hoppy Bunnies feel very much at home in the blogosphere.
Gee you're right, he must be TOTALLY wrong. I'm convinced.
Actually, the 21st century left you a message in return. It mentioned that the guys using that crappy old measurement system successfully landed men on the moon repeatedly nearly 40 years ago. It asked how many 'metric system' countries can say the same?
I think it's a fair point, and being an outside observer to the system, I credit you for at least paying attention and trying to understand it.
I will say that I think you're mistaken, sort of. If Obama went on O'Reilly or Limbaugh, he would be (intellectually) attacked, in that I agree. It would be polite, but his ideas, philosophies, beliefs, and statements would all be brought up for scrutiny and dissection.
If a Republican (in this case McCain) goes on a liberal-leaning show, it's the same exact process.
Here's the point: that's a GOOD thing.
Both parties spend far, far too much time preaching to their own crowds, where nobody asks tough questions or calls out contradictions. Both party platforms are FULL of issues that DESERVE critical, even aggressive, questioning. In many cases, there are two very different approaches to solving the same problem and (something the US electorate has a hard time understanding) neither one is 'righter' than the other. They're just different. These differences MUST be explored, and you're not going to get a critical examination when the interviewer loves the candidate.
I find that I always benefit from discussion with people that disagree with me - they highlight the weaknesses in my arguments and, if I'm intellectually honest, should prompt me to re-examine these weak points and either figure them out or *GASP* consider changing my mind on the issue.
Now, I'm not foolish enough to suggest that the guest or interviewer will change anything based on the 'confrontational' discussion - but the strengths and weaknesses there revealed ARE useful to watching voters.
Then again, only about 20% of the voters ever pay attention, and they're the die-hard fanatics who aren't listening from one side or the other ANYWAY./cynicism. Sigh.
SOMEONE has to have a final say on something, or the issues continue to spin unresolved forever. I'd be curious for you to list the 'unconstitutional' decisions they've made (you imply multiple decisions 'directly against' the Constitution) - I'd bet within the first two I can predict how you've voted in the last 4 elections. I'll make my point directly and without internet-common innuendo: yes, I expect that your point is made from base political motives, with really very little intent toward purely protecting the Constitution.
The point of the SCOTUS was that the people of the highest judicial wisdom would be selected for the positions, and since they are for life, they would be somewhat immune to tampering or at least immune to the need to appeal to a voter demographic every X years.
By and large, it works on a cyclical system, just on bigger circles: - you have two years to figure out if you like/don't like your congressional representative. If you don't like them, quit always re-electing the sitting candidate. - you have four years to figure out if you like/don't like your president. If you don't like them, vote for someone else in the next election. - you have six years to figure out if you like/don't like your senator (staggered). If you don't like him or her, quit always re-electing the sitting candidate. - if you don't like the way the SCOTUS is ruling, you need to persistently vote in presidents/senators that agree with you to ensure that in the next nomination of a judge, they are at least likely to share your philosophical approach.* There have been 100-some judges since 1800, so that it's likely that each president will appoint 1 or 2 per term. * this is not a euphemism for "politics"
There's a REASON our government was designed the way it was by the founders, gentlemen whose brilliance impresses me more with every passing year. The management and control of government is a deliberately SLOW process - the Founders understood that people are inflamed by the passion of the moment, and in the heat of a war, or a national emergency, or perceived crisis, they are prone to make hasty decisions which can have long lasting negative consequences. Much of the process of government is meant not to 'enable needed change' but to act as a BRAKE on change.
I know this might be hard for the typical (young) slashdotter to understand, but there's a reason people tend toward more conservative government choices as they age: they understand better that one of the key requirements for a successful society is for people to make long term commitments - buying homes, having children, putting down roots, becoming involved in their community. But for people to make long-term plans the key requirement is stability and predictability.
The reason "both sides" tend to agree that the SCOTUS is the 'weak link' as you put it, is because SCOTUS has continued to remain largely impermeable to political manipulation, with some Judges nominated by conservative presidents turning in extremely liberal interpretations. This bothers the impatient evangelists on both sides of the fence. Unfortunately, the politicization of everything deeply tainted the SCOTUS nominations really starting in the '80s, but even since then the process has limped along largely intact, with political 'poster children' losing in the court of public opinion and presidents forced to pick more moderate, less impassioned candidates as 'back ups'...which is what we want.
In point of fact, you're wrong about the impact and permanence of SCOTUS decisions. SCOTUS only rules on the constitutionality of legislation; if they rule it unconstitutional, there's nothing preventing legislators from drafting new legislation again and again until they either finesse it to make it constitutional or are finally forced to yes, make an Amendment. So, precisely as the founders intended, the Supreme Court is a high hurdle to pass but ULTIMATELY (!) if the public widely and persistently wants som
Not sure what your point is? That the commentator is tendentious, superficial, hurling accusations based purely on party politics? How does this differ from Conservatives going on primarily-liberal broadcasts like Air America or the Colbert Report? Colbert is particularly funny because his humor is well-done satire: "I'm taking your talking points, lifestyle, beliefs, and extrapolating them to infinity to show what an ass I am" which is damn funny.
But seriously, I don't get your point. That because Bill Clinton was attacked on one issue, no Liberals ever DARE set foot in Conservative studios ever again? Because that would be absurd.
"If we can wage war at no risk to ourselves, then war will become a more viable option - which is a bad development."
Of course, this is only really bad when asymmetric- when robots are dying on one side, and people on the other. If both sides fought with robots, do we return to the era of small professional armies that fight largely with agreed-upon terms and leave the peasants (ie. the rest of us) alone?
"You want to make China a better place? Don't whine in the basement, that won't change anything. Come here, bring your grand vision, your next big thing."
I'll wait until there's reasonable certainty that the government cannot simply take what I've built. Granted, this percentage is not zero even in the USA, but after watching how the Chinese government quite literally bulldozed people's homes and businesses to build the Olympic venues, appropriated ALL adspace for Olympic sponsors, and have simply ordered all businesses which might be pollution contributors to shut down - well, frankly the idea of investing or building something in China where you ultimately have no recourse if the Chinese government decides it wants was you have? Thanks but no.
Now we have a wonderful rationale to implement a totalitarian world government because ONLY THEY have the ability to stop those dirty, pollution-making people with their freedoms and their poor personal choices. Finally!
"One year doesn't cast a question over the long term trend. Many years do. Why? becasue it's a trend."...which is an entirely empty statement. Is 5 years a trend? 50 years? 500? 500,000? When is a shift a 'variation' in a trend or a new trend? You name a timeframe and I'll say that it's either too short or too long, and probably can find a trend either a little longer or a little shorter that make the opposite illustration.
One of the failures of the 'global warming' chicken littling is that the parameters of the statistical sample are always shifting, depending on what is being 'proven'. Most global warming deniers will point to the IPCC report as being far too short a time span to draw CLIMATOLOGICAL conclusions - with our shortage of data (timewise) it's hard to find it persuasive.
(Daily chart showing icepack compared to last year and to previous 20 average.)
So yes, there's less ice than there used to be, but the somewhat under-reported increase this year over last year casts some question over the long-term trend, it could simply be long term climate oscillation.
"Does this process ever reach a point where it stops? Is there only so much carbon that can be converted/sequestered? If conditions change enough, will this huge carbon sink disappear rapidly, adding a HUGE amount of carbon to the atmosphere?"
From the historical evidence, the answer is robustly NO.
The earth has been much, much cooler than this, and much much warmer than this. In both cases, the extremes were moderated by something else in the system, suggesting that the Earth's capability to weather (pun intended) climate extremes and return the system to a stable norm is massive.
Let's also remember that we're not MAKING carbon, either - we're RELEASING carbon that was (unless you subscribe to abiogenic oil theories) freely floating around the atmosphere at one time or another.
Finally, let's not forget that the current climate is in no way the 'norm' - that seems to get lost in this debate. It's not even the norm for us (if you take the 2-3 million years of our existence into account), these hairless primates that keep insisting they are so important.
"Just saying, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt."
This is SLASHDOT. Everything here should be salted, marinated in salt water, then baked in an encrustation of rock salt for 8 hours before consumption.
I think it's a paradigm shift, and an unwelcome one since it's being rammed down our throats rather than any sort of general evolution.
You can't just say that "it's fine" without understanding the market standard. Previously, if you BOUGHT a computer game, it was YOURS, FOREVER. Yes, gameplay got old and computer systems changed, but essentially like a piece of art, or a book, you could always go back and appreciate it again.
EA is trying to forcefully change that paradigm; how would the art community like it if new creators sold you their works for a 'finite but undefined time'? Do you think they should just roll over and accept it? How about authors? What if 'buying a book' only meant you could keep it for 2 or perhaps 3 years, yet (and here's the lame kicker) they tried to sell it for the SAME PRICE as all the other books?
That's a retarded idea, as is this DRM scheme. Sadly, I won't be buying Spore, and I will probably d/l the hacked version as soon as it comes out as a way of 'double voting' against it. I take pleasure in financially supporting/rewarding software developers whom I think have made a good product. But I won't when I don't.
A similar DRM system has been employed in Mass Effect for the PC, so again, no purchase for me.
"Granted, I think lasers are cool and all, but we already have anti-rocket systems like the Navy's phalanx which seem to be much more effective."
People keep posting about the effectiveness of phalanx, and it IS awesome.
However, one would have to be particularly oblivious to not notice the advantages in a CIWS system that DOESN'T throw 3000x19g = 57 kg of lead into the sky or about 45000 kJ of energy... that has to fall down somewhere else.
First time I saw a phalanx in operation, I was like 'wow'. Second time, I thought that if I was a terrorist attacking a US base and wanting to make the locals hate it, I'd try to figure out some way to put up just dumb, resistant rounds to make that sucker fire CONSTANTLY. 5 minutes of fire from a phalanx could obliterate a neighborhood at the far end of its arc of fire.
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore republican! or democrat! charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
Are they sure they didn't just accidentally stumble onto the NYT's (or LA times, or Star/Trib, etc.) 'random headline story' generator?
Throw in a sprinkling of verbs, articles, and pronouns, and you've pretty much got the meat of every news story since about 2004.
"One could also say that Europe sees the advantage earlier while Americans stick with what they have for better or for worse."
Meh, nice try.
One could say the same thing in the terms of 'Europeans are more attracted to technology for tech sake, while Americans are more willing to make do.'
Which by and large is true - cf. the difference in meaning between "good enough" and "gut genug" in German.
Good enough - usually a positive statement in English, avoiding excessive frills or chrome or such. It's good enough, leave it alone, move on. Gut genug - tending to be negative, in terms of someone doing the minimum possible, which, in a nation of perfectionists, is clearly saying someone's lazy.
From TFA: "As crowds surged into Kenmore Square early yesterday, firecrackers exploded. Small fires were set. A trash can crashed against a restaurant window. Eight people were arrested, and 16 others suffered what police said were minor injuries....
The turbulent, lethal night in the aftermath of a titanic sporting triumph held echoes of February's post-Super Bowl celebration, when troublemakers overturned cars, threw rocks at police, and started fires. In that disturbance, one young man was killed when he was run over by a vehicle."
Personally, I have a 100% success record of NOT 'accidentally' being in the location of a riot. Riots don't just spontaneously appear around crowds of peaceable people.
While I believe that the officer that fired that round was unjustified and should be fired (and possibly prosecuted for non-lawful use of force), it's really not that hard to never be in a situation where this could ever happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. This isn't precisely computer animation, it's motion capture minus a lot of steps.
100% agreed.
One side says he's flip-flopping.
The other says his position is 'evolving'.
Well...I don't see much difference between EITHER platform, which, when really dissected means "we're going to promise everyone anything their hearts desire, knowing we can't do it, because, well, at least we'll get the gullible vote, and most voters are too stupid/busy/cynical to pay attention enough to hold us to account for our statements four years from now."
Personally, after we're done (mostly) in Iraq, I'd love to see at least half of the annual Iraq costs go to paying down the deficit and the remainder to the space program. But then, I'm a voting bloc of one, with no lobbyists or trade organizations.
Absolutely, 100% wrong. He was NOT mocking unsanctioned argument - he was mocking the egoism of bloggers in general and the young specifically; that for some reason they believe that their perception of the world is somehow original, is the clearest, the most correct, and that the ideas that they have are somehow ENTITLED to respect despite a complete lack of life experience or credentials.
He is utterly NOT criticizing free speech and debate, he's criticizing those who step up to the podium to speak with nothing worthwhile to say but the ignorance not to know it. Look up the root meaning of the word sophomore, for example.
I can see how you might misperceive this, if you were already prone to disliking the man. He's also not, I believe, saying that people can't argue issues without credential or standing - hardly so. But words coming from Joe Public or from Water-Cooler Pundit or Internet Expert are not prima facie of any credibility. This doesn't mean that they can't accidentally be wise; it does mean that they are UNLIKELY to be valuable in most contexts outside their actual experience. I can't comment extensively on geopolitics and expect to be taken as seriously as, say, Kissinger.
Let me guess:
You are a young man
You are quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, you are so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else
You understand the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people.
You believe that to be especially true with many of your elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as you can tell, was that they had been born before you and consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of your insights.
You have opinions on everything, and you are always right.
You love to argue, and you can become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with you.
With your superior qualities so obvious, it is an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So you rarely do.
All their resistance to your brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proves is that they possess an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God has blessed you with, and you feel it is your clear duty to so inform them.
You and your Floppy, Hoppy Bunnies feel very much at home in the blogosphere.
Gee you're right, he must be TOTALLY wrong. I'm convinced.
Actually, the 21st century left you a message in return. It mentioned that the guys using that crappy old measurement system successfully landed men on the moon repeatedly nearly 40 years ago. It asked how many 'metric system' countries can say the same?
I think it's a fair point, and being an outside observer to the system, I credit you for at least paying attention and trying to understand it.
I will say that I think you're mistaken, sort of. If Obama went on O'Reilly or Limbaugh, he would be (intellectually) attacked, in that I agree. It would be polite, but his ideas, philosophies, beliefs, and statements would all be brought up for scrutiny and dissection.
If a Republican (in this case McCain) goes on a liberal-leaning show, it's the same exact process.
Here's the point: that's a GOOD thing.
Both parties spend far, far too much time preaching to their own crowds, where nobody asks tough questions or calls out contradictions. Both party platforms are FULL of issues that DESERVE critical, even aggressive, questioning. In many cases, there are two very different approaches to solving the same problem and (something the US electorate has a hard time understanding) neither one is 'righter' than the other. They're just different. These differences MUST be explored, and you're not going to get a critical examination when the interviewer loves the candidate.
I find that I always benefit from discussion with people that disagree with me - they highlight the weaknesses in my arguments and, if I'm intellectually honest, should prompt me to re-examine these weak points and either figure them out or *GASP* consider changing my mind on the issue.
Now, I'm not foolish enough to suggest that the guest or interviewer will change anything based on the 'confrontational' discussion - but the strengths and weaknesses there revealed ARE useful to watching voters.
Then again, only about 20% of the voters ever pay attention, and they're the die-hard fanatics who aren't listening from one side or the other ANYWAY. /cynicism. Sigh.
Well that's the rub, isn't it?
SOMEONE has to have a final say on something, or the issues continue to spin unresolved forever. I'd be curious for you to list the 'unconstitutional' decisions they've made (you imply multiple decisions 'directly against' the Constitution) - I'd bet within the first two I can predict how you've voted in the last 4 elections. I'll make my point directly and without internet-common innuendo: yes, I expect that your point is made from base political motives, with really very little intent toward purely protecting the Constitution.
The point of the SCOTUS was that the people of the highest judicial wisdom would be selected for the positions, and since they are for life, they would be somewhat immune to tampering or at least immune to the need to appeal to a voter demographic every X years.
By and large, it works on a cyclical system, just on bigger circles:
- you have two years to figure out if you like/don't like your congressional representative. If you don't like them, quit always re-electing the sitting candidate.
- you have four years to figure out if you like/don't like your president. If you don't like them, vote for someone else in the next election.
- you have six years to figure out if you like/don't like your senator (staggered). If you don't like him or her, quit always re-electing the sitting candidate.
- if you don't like the way the SCOTUS is ruling, you need to persistently vote in presidents/senators that agree with you to ensure that in the next nomination of a judge, they are at least likely to share your philosophical approach.* There have been 100-some judges since 1800, so that it's likely that each president will appoint 1 or 2 per term.
* this is not a euphemism for "politics"
There's a REASON our government was designed the way it was by the founders, gentlemen whose brilliance impresses me more with every passing year. The management and control of government is a deliberately SLOW process - the Founders understood that people are inflamed by the passion of the moment, and in the heat of a war, or a national emergency, or perceived crisis, they are prone to make hasty decisions which can have long lasting negative consequences. Much of the process of government is meant not to 'enable needed change' but to act as a BRAKE on change.
I know this might be hard for the typical (young) slashdotter to understand, but there's a reason people tend toward more conservative government choices as they age: they understand better that one of the key requirements for a successful society is for people to make long term commitments - buying homes, having children, putting down roots, becoming involved in their community. But for people to make long-term plans the key requirement is stability and predictability.
The reason "both sides" tend to agree that the SCOTUS is the 'weak link' as you put it, is because SCOTUS has continued to remain largely impermeable to political manipulation, with some Judges nominated by conservative presidents turning in extremely liberal interpretations. This bothers the impatient evangelists on both sides of the fence. Unfortunately, the politicization of everything deeply tainted the SCOTUS nominations really starting in the '80s, but even since then the process has limped along largely intact, with political 'poster children' losing in the court of public opinion and presidents forced to pick more moderate, less impassioned candidates as 'back ups'...which is what we want.
In point of fact, you're wrong about the impact and permanence of SCOTUS decisions. SCOTUS only rules on the constitutionality of legislation; if they rule it unconstitutional, there's nothing preventing legislators from drafting new legislation again and again until they either finesse it to make it constitutional or are finally forced to yes, make an Amendment. So, precisely as the founders intended, the Supreme Court is a high hurdle to pass but ULTIMATELY (!) if the public widely and persistently wants som
Not sure what your point is?
That the commentator is tendentious, superficial, hurling accusations based purely on party politics? How does this differ from Conservatives going on primarily-liberal broadcasts like Air America or the Colbert Report? Colbert is particularly funny because his humor is well-done satire: "I'm taking your talking points, lifestyle, beliefs, and extrapolating them to infinity to show what an ass I am" which is damn funny.
But seriously, I don't get your point. That because Bill Clinton was attacked on one issue, no Liberals ever DARE set foot in Conservative studios ever again? Because that would be absurd.
Nevertheless they continue to try, which is admirable.
When I see Obama go on Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, then I'll respect them for 'reaching out' across party lines.
It'll be a race of Penis-shaped contestants?
"If we can wage war at no risk to ourselves, then war will become a more viable option - which is a bad development."
Of course, this is only really bad when asymmetric- when robots are dying on one side, and people on the other. If both sides fought with robots, do we return to the era of small professional armies that fight largely with agreed-upon terms and leave the peasants (ie. the rest of us) alone?
"You want to make China a better place? Don't whine in the basement, that won't change anything. Come here, bring your grand vision, your next big thing."
I'll wait until there's reasonable certainty that the government cannot simply take what I've built.
Granted, this percentage is not zero even in the USA, but after watching how the Chinese government quite literally bulldozed people's homes and businesses to build the Olympic venues, appropriated ALL adspace for Olympic sponsors, and have simply ordered all businesses which might be pollution contributors to shut down - well, frankly the idea of investing or building something in China where you ultimately have no recourse if the Chinese government decides it wants was you have? Thanks but no.
Now we have a wonderful rationale to implement a totalitarian world government because ONLY THEY have the ability to stop those dirty, pollution-making people with their freedoms and their poor personal choices. Finally!
"One year doesn't cast a question over the long term trend. Many years do. Why? becasue it's a trend." ...which is an entirely empty statement. Is 5 years a trend? 50 years? 500? 500,000? When is a shift a 'variation' in a trend or a new trend? You name a timeframe and I'll say that it's either too short or too long, and probably can find a trend either a little longer or a little shorter that make the opposite illustration.
One of the failures of the 'global warming' chicken littling is that the parameters of the statistical sample are always shifting, depending on what is being 'proven'. Most global warming deniers will point to the IPCC report as being far too short a time span to draw CLIMATOLOGICAL conclusions - with our shortage of data (timewise) it's hard to find it persuasive.
Actually, there's more polar ice than there was last year.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
(Daily chart showing icepack compared to last year and to previous 20 average.)
So yes, there's less ice than there used to be, but the somewhat under-reported increase this year over last year casts some question over the long-term trend, it could simply be long term climate oscillation.
Yes, but they MAY lose their laptops without any sort of appeal process.
"Does this process ever reach a point where it stops? Is there only so much carbon that can be converted/sequestered? If conditions change enough, will this huge carbon sink disappear rapidly, adding a HUGE amount of carbon to the atmosphere?"
From the historical evidence, the answer is robustly NO.
The earth has been much, much cooler than this, and much much warmer than this. In both cases, the extremes were moderated by something else in the system, suggesting that the Earth's capability to weather (pun intended) climate extremes and return the system to a stable norm is massive.
Let's also remember that we're not MAKING carbon, either - we're RELEASING carbon that was (unless you subscribe to abiogenic oil theories) freely floating around the atmosphere at one time or another.
Finally, let's not forget that the current climate is in no way the 'norm' - that seems to get lost in this debate. It's not even the norm for us (if you take the 2-3 million years of our existence into account), these hairless primates that keep insisting they are so important.
"Just saying, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt."
This is SLASHDOT. Everything here should be salted, marinated in salt water, then baked in an encrustation of rock salt for 8 hours before consumption.
I think it's a paradigm shift, and an unwelcome one since it's being rammed down our throats rather than any sort of general evolution.
You can't just say that "it's fine" without understanding the market standard.
Previously, if you BOUGHT a computer game, it was YOURS, FOREVER. Yes, gameplay got old and computer systems changed, but essentially like a piece of art, or a book, you could always go back and appreciate it again.
EA is trying to forcefully change that paradigm; how would the art community like it if new creators sold you their works for a 'finite but undefined time'? Do you think they should just roll over and accept it? How about authors? What if 'buying a book' only meant you could keep it for 2 or perhaps 3 years, yet (and here's the lame kicker) they tried to sell it for the SAME PRICE as all the other books?
That's a retarded idea, as is this DRM scheme. Sadly, I won't be buying Spore, and I will probably d/l the hacked version as soon as it comes out as a way of 'double voting' against it. I take pleasure in financially supporting/rewarding software developers whom I think have made a good product. But I won't when I don't.
A similar DRM system has been employed in Mass Effect for the PC, so again, no purchase for me.
"Granted, I think lasers are cool and all, but we already have anti-rocket systems like the Navy's phalanx which seem to be much more effective."
People keep posting about the effectiveness of phalanx, and it IS awesome.
However, one would have to be particularly oblivious to not notice the advantages in a CIWS system that DOESN'T throw 3000x19g = 57 kg of lead into the sky or about 45000 kJ of energy ... that has to fall down somewhere else.
First time I saw a phalanx in operation, I was like 'wow'.
Second time, I thought that if I was a terrorist attacking a US base and wanting to make the locals hate it, I'd try to figure out some way to put up just dumb, resistant rounds to make that sucker fire CONSTANTLY. 5 minutes of fire from a phalanx could obliterate a neighborhood at the far end of its arc of fire.
Let's see:
Are they sure they didn't just accidentally stumble onto the NYT's (or LA times, or Star/Trib, etc.) 'random headline story' generator?
Throw in a sprinkling of verbs, articles, and pronouns, and you've pretty much got the meat of every news story since about 2004.
"One could also say that Europe sees the advantage earlier while Americans stick with what they have for better or for worse."
Meh, nice try.
One could say the same thing in the terms of 'Europeans are more attracted to technology for tech sake, while Americans are more willing to make do.'
Which by and large is true - cf. the difference in meaning between "good enough" and "gut genug" in German.
Good enough - usually a positive statement in English, avoiding excessive frills or chrome or such. It's good enough, leave it alone, move on.
Gut genug - tending to be negative, in terms of someone doing the minimum possible, which, in a nation of perfectionists, is clearly saying someone's lazy.
"No one really knows a canned formula for making a good movie."
This is right, but it's being equally disingenuous.
There are many, many (an apparently growing number) of movies that are BOUND to be horrendous stinkers FROM THE OUTSET.
Norbit?
Epic Movie?
Whatever is the next 70's sitcom that they are going to rip from the landfill and try to make a movie?
From TFA: ...
"As crowds surged into Kenmore Square early yesterday, firecrackers exploded. Small fires were set. A trash can crashed against a restaurant window. Eight people were arrested, and 16 others suffered what police said were minor injuries.
The turbulent, lethal night in the aftermath of a titanic sporting triumph held echoes of February's post-Super Bowl celebration, when troublemakers overturned cars, threw rocks at police, and started fires. In that disturbance, one young man was killed when he was run over by a vehicle."
Personally, I have a 100% success record of NOT 'accidentally' being in the location of a riot.
Riots don't just spontaneously appear around crowds of peaceable people.
While I believe that the officer that fired that round was unjustified and should be fired (and possibly prosecuted for non-lawful use of force), it's really not that hard to never be in a situation where this could ever happen.
I'd love to hear Red Ken's take on this.
The guy is a socialist right down to the soles of his feet, but here's an event where his city would be losing MASSIVE amounts of money.