The right wing lost all right to hide behind that pretense long ago. "Protect the children" has been the rallying call to give them an excuse to attack those they disapprove of for quite some time now. They don't really care whether any children are hurt, and it's not as if arresting some guy in Hungary with 50 gigs of kddie pr0n will save a helpless little girl in Alabama from being molested. They just want to attack the sort of people who view the pr0n. I concur with others above in this thread, where I say virtual child pornography is to the real thing as DOOM is to Columbine, and we ALL know how unrealistic both comparisons are. Good luck getting the christian fundamentalists to see a freedom of speech issue in their anti obscenity rampage, though.
and closed the browser window. I don't have time to waste reading articles by numskulls.
Though "infiltrating" sounds fun, I personally tend to think there might be a REASON why condemned buildings are condemned, so I recommend you do some research and infiltrate at your own risk...
Why do we assume Hollywood is the only way to get a film made? Independant filmmakers make great movies every year, and if the movie does well, the studio execs will fall all over themselves saying they thought it was a great idea in the first place, trying to get the rights.
How did we get into this situation, where we let Hollywood resign us to glitzy, no-quality crap movies year-in year-out? Why not start your own studio? With modern computing technology, filming this one isn't as much of a problem as it used to be. The reason Hollywood has such a stranglehold on entertainment is because no one has the get-up-and-go to make them competitive anymore. And when corporate groups become monopolistic and have no competition, they always cease providing quality good and services.
Some capitalist enterprise is what we need.;-)
-Kasreyn
Re:I don't understand this pacifist bleating
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'Thirteen Days'
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Disclaimer: if the above was a troll and not your true views, disregard my post. =P Though I must say, it wasn't funny at all.
First off, there are still wars. I think it arrogant of you not to even count the continuing battles in places in central Africa, the Balkans, and the Yugoslav peninsula, most of which have seen near-constant fighting for the last, oh, 50 years or so.
There's something I think you're failing to see. While it's true that nuclear arms are a means of defense (don't attack us or you'll get nuked), they won't save us all as you suggest. Nuclear powers aren't immune to greed or simple human stupidity. The snafu principle alone should indicate that sooner or later, a nuclear "incident" if not a war is bound to happen. Rationalism does NOT always win through even when the stakes are high; one must be irrational to rise high in politics, and usually power-hungry as well. Such people make mistakes easily.
Or, put more simply: Laser and missile defense systems are already very far along in development. What do you think will happen to this "balance of terror" when they start to come online? All of a sudden, these oh-so-peaceful nuclear powers will no longer be afraid of war, feeling (over)confident that their defense systems can shoot down the nukes. They will once again begin to initiate wars. The worst-case scenario is a preemptive first strike against any nation who even ATTEMPTS to put such a defense system online. You can't argue that they won't, because whether out of self-interest or out of true commitment to their citizens' safety, every nation will try to build nuclear defense systems. The reason we have had world peace for so long has been the nuclear impasse and the self-destruction of the soviet union. Take away the Mutually Assured Destruction, and you'll suddenly see wars being fought again.
No one technology is the arbiter of war or peace; human beliefs and motives are. Someday someone will invent some new weapon, let's call it, say, the "plasma bomb", which might be used between warring planets to destroy each other; it cannot be detected or stopped. All war ceases as all the leaders are too scared to be the bullies they'd like to be. Then someone comes up with a deflector screen for it. War recommences, and planets start blowing up.
Education and communication are much safer deterrents to war than technological impasse.
-Kasreyn
I'm hoping your post was just satiric / a troll, or else I worry about you.
Drug Users = Modern Witches (NOT ot)
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"Traffic"
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(bear with me and read this through before you label it offtopic)
Just think about it...
In the dark ages in europe, the people had many woes. Illiteracy, poor sanitation, short lifespan, but among the chiefest of their troubles were oppressive authoritarian government - princes and lords. The princes and lords caroused and hunted all day, and the peasants payed the price. In that twisted system, a farmer's young daughter could be raped by some lord looking for some fun, and if the farmer protested he'd be fed to the lord's dogs. Whenever the lords started a war, the peasants were sent off to die in it. If a peasant's family was starving, he had to work on his own stark and unprofitable plot of land; if he went into the neighboring hunting preserve and shot a deer to feed his crying babies, he would be hung for his crime. If a lord's profits were down, he could always sell some "freedmen" into slavery.
Have you ever wondered WHY these lords and princes got away with this? It was only in the 18th century that the French lords were overthrown, and that was after they had mostly ceased their oppressive behavior. AFAIK those resonsible in Britain and Germany were never punished by any uprising by the people. Do you want to know why?
Witches. You can blame it all, on witches. Did your cow die? Witches did it. Was your baby stillborn? Witches again. Were your crops a failure? Those evil witches, how dare they!
The lords and the church sponsored these superstitions, which caused the people to misdirect their wrath. The lords and clergy were the REAL source of their anguish and misery, but they were led to believe witches were responsible, and so the lords went free, while the witches were treated to all the pent-up frustration and rage of the people.
There was of course, the additional side bonus of the fact that whenever a "witch" (usually some wandering stranger who couldn't provide a background, or some poor non-Christian) was caught, tortured, and killed, the government inherited all his and his family's property. Then the witch crazes began, where people turned in everyone around them out of fear, and the witch hunters appropriated all they owned for the lords. But when someone was foolish enough to declare they had seen the local lord or bishop at the sabbat, they were never believed.
These witch superstitions were SO strong and so well-accepted that even when some europeans created colonies in the New World, where they would theoretically no longer be under the direct control of those lords, they perpetuated their beliefs and more witch hunts occurred.
Now, there were other means the lords used to stay in power, like keeping the population in ignorance *coughdaytimeTVcough*, but in all, this misdirection tactic has been the most useful tool for authoritarians, ever.
Drug users, gun owners, teenagers, and "hackers" (actually crackers but for the media's stupidity) are our modern-day "witches". The populace is being so expertly distracted with these non-threats that they are failing to notice how they are being sold down the river.
do { Work(); PayTaxes(); Eat(); Sleep(); } while (alive)
You forgot to add a call for HaveFun(); in that Do statement. Without calling HaveFun() then there is no point in being (alive), and so the Do statement should immediately exit and call Die().
Come to think of it, you should rewrite as a nested loop with HaveFun() executing 3 or 4 times per execution of the above Do loop. Just a thought.
-Kasreyn
P.S. you might want to throw in HaveSex() in there too. You wouldn't want to exit that statement without calling THAT function at least once... would you? =P
P.P.S. to moderators, yes this is ot but it's for bool to read and he left no email address.
Sorry I'm so late getting back to the topic, I waited for a day or so and it didn't appear so I decided they must not have posted it... I only found out this morning by email.
I'm rather stunned by the amount of replies, and the amount of flameage. I noticed I've been accused of being a troll or flamebait; that honestly wasn't my intention. I asked for nonbiased discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of various nations, and on the whole that's what I saw.
On various topics,
Many asked what I meant by "freedoms" and "quality of life". I understand the concept that one must give up SOME freedoms to live under any government, obviously. The only truly, totally free government is no government at all, ie., anarchy, but there is no chance of safety there. Additionally, anarchy would never last long by the very nature of humanity - it would always be replaced with some sort of strongman dictatorship.
So obviously, some sort of democratic or republic nation is the idea. I understand that/., being a news service, mostly posts bad news. This is pretty understandable. But still, even taking this into account, things seem to be slipping away. By freedom, I meant my personal individual freedom to control my life. Freedoms like the freedoms to murder, rape, and destroy, I can do without. That's what the government is for - to take those freedoms away. But it seems like it has forgotten what freedoms it shouldn't take away.
Many expressed confusion over how corporations could steal my freedoms. The answer is, of course, they can't, unless the government helps them. Which it is. Legislation that benefits no one in our society except the mega-corporations is passed all the time, partially because of the power of special-interest money in our governments, and partly due to apathy on the part of its citizens (I posted something along these lines a few weeks ago).
Yes, I'm getting active, politically. I believe that if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain, and I've been doing a LOT of complaining. =P I try to convince my friends to vote, but many of them are convinced it's a waste of time. The system doesn't help very much, though - I'm a democratic/libertarian agnostic living in a heavily republican/christian state. I'm outvoted every time. I'm not sure what good it would do to move to another state that is heavily democratic, because then my individual vote would bear no weight either. I've tried writing my "representative", but I've never even been honored with a reply. He apparently doesn't feel the need to consider whether he is representing ME appropriately.
And I'm not really interested in going full-blast into politics myself. Becoming part of the system to beat it? I couldn't stand that. Besides, I have other things I want to do with my life, and a career in politics isn't something I would enjoy. I'm not power-hungry. I don't enjoy controlling others. I just want to live my life without others capriciously wielding unneccessary, assumed powers over me. Without the sort of people I hate, controlling whether I will be happy or miserable, live or die.
I want to be able to think and say whatever comes into my head. I want to be able to appreciate art and express myself without being banished or silenced for it. I want to be able to choose whether or not to worship, and how, without undue influence from the government. I want to be accorded the respect due an adult human, and have no one try to tell me what's right for me to see, read, hear, or do. I want to die of old age, not in a civil war or a bomb attack or in a shooting in a Burger King. I want the freedom to raise my children, if I ever have children, the way *I* want them to be raised. And I want a place to live that would be safe to raise those children IN.
I want to find a nation or place where I can have these things, as well as a chance to do some meaningful work in computers if possible, or where I could write books and not see them censored or whatever. =)
That's all I meant by my question. You've given me some ideas, and I'll certainly look into Canada and Iceland (though I hate the cold!).
Thanks for all your discussion and insight. And I agree with the poster who said, how bad can it be when we can still have a huge discussion about it on/.?
Weren't you listening earlier when/. had the story about HR 46? Our dear old lovely Congress voted down an amendment to their little wiretap rider, which had the exact language of the 4th amendment to the Constitution. It was voted down by over 300 to 100 something.
This of course means that if the 4th amendment were thought up TODAY, it would never have been included in the Constitution or teh Bill of Rights.
A little tip: enforcement works 2 ways. Both enforcement of the government over its people, and enforcement of the people over the government; unfortunately, when one waxes the other wanes. When a government decides to stop believing in its old ideals, it is a short step from there to deciding to not obey them anymore, either. If they wouldn't vote for the 4th amendment, something tells me they'd gladly extirpate it if they could.
I posted this same message to the DSF (Diablo Strategy Forum, where the old D1 players hang out) approximately 5 months ago.
...The Unhackable Brags. First off, NOTHING is unhackable, especially if it is connected to the internet, for god's sake. Who do Blizzard think they are, the Pentagon? And the pentagon has been hacked. So have the CIA, FBI, White House, NATO, you name it. And Blizzard thinks just because they've made a serverside game, it will be "unhackable"? Gimme a break. Some bright little cracker with nothing better to do will crack in there some day soon and give himself 999,999 hitpoints and mana, and go on a PKing rampage. Or he'll randomly delete character accounts for fun (higher level the better, right?). Or he'll write a program to do these things and distribute it for free on the web (Delete anyone's character you don't like if you know their accnt #). I'm not a hacker or much of a programmer myself, so I'm unsure how much of this is possible. But I know of nothing to say these CAN'T be done. I mean, come ON. In D1, the hacks were annoying, but you wouldn't lose your character to a hacked player, not even your gear to an MKer if you were quick to quit... All they did was annoy you and ruin your game, they couldn't really kill your character (unless you were playing Immortal that is;P). The serverside characters have the chance of being a VERY bad thing. All you do when you say something is "unhackable" or "very difficult to hack into" is waving a big red flag in front of crackers. Many of them do it for the SHEER challenge, nothing more. You tell them there is challenge, and they try to crack it. It's very simple to understand.
Of course, no one paid me any mind then. =P
Personally, I'm surprised it took this long for it to happen, if Blizzard weren't such all-around numskulls I'd almost be impressed.
(happy little sigh of vindication)
-Kasreyn
(P.S.: I had to get this off my chest. If I have to be modded down for it, so be it. =)
The article IS interesting, I'll give it that... but the writer is sadly misguided (in addition to having diarrhoea of the metaphor).
The "Machine", as he capitalizes it, may well be a fascinating invention, but all these references that seem to call for its worship as some sort of god really disturb me. He never comes out and says that, but he gets into the subjects of religion and deism, dropping smug references to "Waiting for Godot" and in general, clearing a path for the Lord in the desert. =P
It's just a tangle of wires and some reaaaaally high-tech gadgetry. It's not a god; it's not the final solution. Free, safe, clean power is a Good Thing, that is true. But it won't answer all the problems, and he holds to one of the most common fallacious beliefs in existence today. I quote Poul Anderson, from his short story "Superstition", set in a post-apocalyptic future :
"...But the superstition is this, son: that science could understand everything, and do everything, and make everything good... I wonder how they could have held so odd a belief, even then."
It's a good idea, and a great new technology, and so it deserves a reference on/. But please, don't go around hailing it as the ultimate solution for world peace and ending man's inhumanity to man. It's not. We already have the technology AND the resources, as a race, to lift much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance, improve their lifestyles, and improve mankind as a whole thereby. We haven't, not because we cant, but because we just don't care to. We just can't be bothered, and to tell the truth, many of those in high places prefer things this way.
Before a technological advance can "cure all of society's ills", it first needs to cure the common flaw of society - human nature.
...a person who depends on his job to put FOOD ON HIS TABLE can just "not work for" a boss who is a bastard? This is not the way it works. Have YOU ever had to hold down a crappy job with an asshole boss, just for bare subsistence? I doubt it, or else you'd be slightly less flippant about people's futures and fortunes, which are at stake.
You might be lucky enough to have a job with an understanding and compassionate boss, but you are in the minority. Most people don't have the luxury of picking and choosing which jobs they can work, and if they get fired, they don't just take it with a shrug as you seem to indicate. It can really mess up their lives. Sure, we can all complain about our bosses, but when it comes down to the bottom line, most can't just quit.
As to the government restricting employers' decisions on hiring and firing: such controls would be unneccessary if employers (like the one from the article) didn't prove themselves to be assholes. Not hiring someone because their skin is too dark or their age is too great is no better than not hiring them because they are afflicted with a medical condition through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately, when eugenics finally comes along, it will be discriminatory people such as yourself making the decisions as to what people should be like. Thus, there will be no one left to even understand the argument within 100 years. =P
If, in a generation or two, your children, friends, or other loved ones are denied access to employment, higher education, or affordable housing due to genetic testing... will you still be saying "so what"?
...you'd think these guys would realize fan sites are FREE ADVERTISING FOR THEIR PRODUCT.
Concept: Someone hears of Harry Potter by hearsay. Is interested to learn more. Hops on Yahoo and searches, finds Official Site, little useful info except how to buy it. Finds fan site instead. Pages and pages of gushing praise for Harry Potter. Decides to buy it.
Where's the problem?
(Yeah yeah, I see THEIR problem, with the trademarks and all... "If they're using our TM they must be making money off it somehow! No one does anything except for money! WE sure don't!")
It seems very simple to me. In the corporate mentality, the perfect world would be one where anyone who says, thinks, reads, hears, uses, or sees their trademark/copyright/patent/(insert other no-fair-use-allowed word here) has to pay them a dollar per instance. Otherwise their intellectual property is being "stolen".
I move for all people who have a demonstrated lack of intellect to be stripped of their "intellectual property". Who's with me?? =P
-Kasreyn
P.S. I'm in a bad mood tonight, excuse harsh language of post.;-)
I mean, come ON. These guys used to be unbeatable. They used to plan for everything! They're just a pale ghost now of what they were in the 60's, trumpeting as achievements things we could have done as early as 1970.
Gimme a break. Problems with the air scrubbers, so they have to send back to earth for more? What happened to the old Nasa "Triple-redundant-everything-even-toilet-paper" game plan? In the Apollo 13 mission, when everything was going down the crapper all at once, the air scrubbers started going out, too. So some really smart guys on the ground worked out a plan to fix the scrubbing system with nothing more than the spare junk the astronauts had with 'em in the spacecraft. Now THAT's enterprising.
The reason behind all this is simple, it seems to me: funding. Remember that Mars lander the US government spent millions on, which we lost contact with? They believe it might have been a failure due to a faulty communications component that should have been caught in quality control. Quite simply, if you look at the numbers, the US government has been cutting NASA's funding back since the early 70's, basically strangling them. The government has NEVER taken NASA seriously, or the benefits of space travel.
In the 60's, the government's view towards space was "beat the ruskies". In the 70's it was "well we have this new space shuttle, let's use it". In the 80's and 90's, it was "let's let the science guys have their fun, it's good entertainment." Like their very own science fiction movie! The only reason we still have a space program is because the government knows it needs it for PR purposes. Quite simply, space exploration today is a pitiful shadow of what it could be. We could have had a moon base AND a mars base by now. We could be researching lunar and asteroid mining. We could be researching zero-g manufacturing and medical techniques. We could be looking into using space-age technology to build floating cities to use the 75% of earth's surface area we can't inhabit. Instead, we have a massive financial boondoggle and a tiny little space station that's falling apart as fast as we can build it.
Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and inventor of the communications satellite, was predicting such things as zero-g medical facilities saving lives and asteroid mining and mars colonies. He was predicting these things back in the 50's, and certainly expected them before 1980, as he should have - everyone mistook NASA's government support as a support of science, rather than simply a oneupmanship contest with the Russians. Now, 50 years later, we have done NOTHING.
I think it's time for something to be done. What, I'm not sure. Suggestions?
MOGLEN:..."we were programmers - not of video games, but of really heavy stuff - we were youngsters who were allowed to work in ways that youngsters are not now allowed to work because the whole industry is professionalized to the point where you can't get in without some of the same kinds of credentialing that you get into any other business with."
This is 100% the way I've felt about this issue for years, only better expressed than I could have put it. It is continually annoying to me that because I have the misfortune to be born 20 years late, I don't get the chance to take part in REAL computing work. It's become a business like any other... There is a whole generation of young would-be programmers like myself who would eagerly take part in the Information Age, if only we were ALLOWED to learn and help.
The rest of his remarks were also well-thought out and thought-provoking, but this is the one that has the most relevance to my personal situation.
"Planet" gamers and Gamespy and such sites have been using somewhat less overt coercion to grab the market for game fans for years... when did this become news? I don't know how many great sites operated by individual fans have been gobbled up by these syndicates and turned into worthless joke sites.
Pass the monopoly, please.
-Kasreyn
(Yeah I know this is kinda a weak post but compared to the offtopic flamebait and trolls in this conversation already, it's downright Insightful 5 if ya ask me;)
Since many of these old games (and applications) don't generate revenue in any way, shape or form for the company any longer, why don't they release them under a license so that the general public can use them without fear of breaking EULAs or copywrite law?
Kinda like the GPL frinstance? I have an idea why. Read on.
For example, I liked the game Quarantine for the PC. You're a taxi driver taking people around a futuristic city that's filled with psychos and diseased people (yeah, I'm pretty twisted, get used to it). I'm 99.99% sure they haven't sold a copy of this in 3 or 4 years, so why not throw it on a FTP or web site somewhere with a new license and make it available to anyone who wants it?
Everyone has a piece of Abandonware they'd like to see revived and available; personally, I'd love to be able to get the original Wing Commander and Masters of Orion, but I can't, legally.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
Did you read the article? There is an expiration; the same 75 year limit on all copyrights if they're not renewed. I think it's up to our generation to explain to the copyright lawyers why 75 years is a tad long for a copyright on a computer game.
Basically, this is about greed. Companies feel like giving ANYTHING away for free is anathema, even the lint from their pockets and the contents of the urinals in their mens' rooms - even if they couldn't get anyone to pay for it. Additionally, they don't want to release abandonware because they WANT these titles to be dead (not the developers, the suits with the copyrights). Why? Several reasons. If you're happy with your old games, why buy new? By ruining and making unavailable old titles, they force everyone to buy new. Blizzard has demonstrated this principle quite adeptly with its recent axe-job on Diablo 1, aimed at increasing sales of Diablo 2.
Also, some of these games vanished for good reason - though they may have a devoted little following, perhaps they just made everyone else retch. Maybe these companies don't want bad games from the past ruining their "image".
There are a lot of factors, but greed is the most simple one. They can't stand the thought that people might use the product somehow to make a buck, or to get an idea for a new game, or just to enjoy it for free, or anything. The only thought in their minds is, "We spent x amount of money and y amount of time developing that game back in '91, and they want it for FREE?? Who do they think they ARE?" In their mind, there is no difference between the 14 year old w4r3z d00d who burns cracked copies of Quake 3 for his friends, and the 30 year old sysadmin who wants to play a 10 year old game for old time's sake. No difference, at all.
You're dealing with the corporate mentality. Get used to it.
It's strange that, as stated in that lengthy article just above, there's no basis for this in legal precedent, but judges go ahead and make wrongheaded moves like this one.
The best reason I can come up with is that it's confusing to them. They don't really know what a computer is, what the internet is, what it can be used for, who is doing the using and how it is done. Without this information, they're effectively making their decisions blind. Imagine, if you will, making decisions on gun control but not knowing: a.) what a gun is for, b.) how one is operated, or c.) what types of people are involved with them. It'd be sheer folly to even try! But they do it all the time with "internet control" rulings.
I think we need some better educated judges, so people will stop seeing this area as a field day for spurious lawsuits like this one. The U.S.A.'s judicial system has 2 battle cries these days: Get Me Off the Hook and I Want Your Money. The latter is overhauling the former in popularity rather rapidly, too.;)
M$ has the worst "evil empire" rep in the world right now, and they're doing pretty well. They still have the vast majority convinced that they're the best thing since sliced bread, in terms of computing. Do you realize what salary you can start at if you have a slip of paper saying you're an MCSE? Their public image is only now beginning to come into *mild* doubt. It's another example of Hitler's "If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough..." concept.
If you mean the publicity of crushing a smaller company like a bug under foot would hurt them, you're mistaken. Microsoft has crushed many a company and most simply regard it as the dog-eat-dog world of business. There's less romanticism in the public opinion than you think, unfortunately. I think if Microsoft made a determined effort to buck the GPL, it could, and that scares me. And in any case, the media know which side their bread is buttered on, so it's not too likely there'll be much open criticism of Microsoft if they decide to chew Linux up and spit it out.
It's a damned shame I know, but I think it's best to be realistic about things and try to find a solution...
I'm beginning to wonder what future the Open Source movement has, if there's not way to legally enforce some piece of code's open-ness. I mean, how do you take M$ to court? Cmon! Gates carries around more money in his WALLET as spending cash than most Linux-developing companies have as net worth. I'm starting to doubt the supposed MS breakup will ever happen. There needs to be a legally unshakeable means to protect Open Source from Micro$oft's usual hijack move. Or at least, in a perfect world there would be.
The problem with the movie is that it was definetly orintaed towards D&D players
No, the problem was that it WASN'T. They oriented it for mass-market appeal instead of making it D&D-ish. I understand the arguments for campiness, and I agree in part. I personally prefer a more serious campaign, but everyone has their own opinions. This wasn't campy though, this was just poorly-done.
I have not seens any magic items that permit contorl of dragons:P
Potion of Dragon Control. Dragon Orb. Certain high-level charm and control spells could do it, too. You stand corrected. =P
Personally, I'd have preferred a movie aimed solely at D&Ders, or one aimed solely for mass-market appeal. Part of the trouble here is that the producers couldn't decide which and so decided to try some half-assed mixture of the two. The directing did suck, and few movies overcome that. This one couldn't, though it might have if other things had been done differently.
Space Station Alpha, huh? A little while ago it was "The International Space Station." And before that it was "Space Station Freedom."
Ummm... excuse me folks... What the hell was wrong with "SS Freedom"?? I mean, did someone PROTEST??! Maybe some despotic 3rd world junta protested. =P "We protest at the naming of the international space station as "Freedom." For it to be truly international it must embrace the ideals of all nations, including tin-plated dictatorial regimes like ours. We don't allow freedom here in our nation, we don't like it, and we find it an insult to our great authoritarian, anti-life traditions. We demand the name be changed to "Space Station Slavery" at ONCE. All hail Comrade Napoleon! That is all."
Maybe it was just a concession after all... Politicians do nothing so well as waffling. I just can't believe after all those ships named freedom, friendship, and such, NASA would choose "Alpha" over "Freedom". Heheheh, I'm amused, I think I'll call it SS Slavery from now on...=P
The US Government tried to administer Apache, as well as other indian tribes, and look what happened to General Custer and the 7th Calvary.
Unfortunately, that was the Sioux, and G.A. Custer led the 7th Cavalry. Calvary was a hill where a young carpenter from Bethlehem who pissed off the Romans was supposedly executed around 3 A.D. =P
Accurate data is NOT what we want here! Accurate data, to put it bluntly, looks like it will give us 4 years of that gladhanding texan shrub. Accurate data = 4 years of punishment for minority religions and beliefs, 4 years of erosion of the environment, and 4 more years of backsliding on many other issues that I think most U.S. slashdotters want to move FORWARD on. Accurate data = more gay men found beaten to death in remote areas. Accurate data = more wives unable to escape abusive husbands. And so on and on. Are you getting me?
The point of the vote swapping sites is not to give accurate data, and it is not Garbage in Garbage out - or rather, it is, but deliberately! The point is to use the system (ruthlessly at that) to put the man in office (Gore) who is NOT wanted by the majority (Bush supporters), and also to open the way for 3rd party attention - which will lead to a system in which voting your heart WILL be worthwhile. It is an attempt to defeat the indirect democratic process for (I hope) its own good. (3 equally powerful parties > 2 equally powerful parties).
If you think this is reprehensible, go look for Bush support sites online. If they aren't using this tool as well, then that's another reason they deserve to be defeated. Get with the times.
This has nothing to do with voting your heart. This is a no-holds-barred knock-down drag-out, and I thought you should know.
Kasreyn
________
.sig's are for lamers. Oh, wait - D'OH!!
Hmm, perhaps there is an upper end to reflex speed
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Quickie Twister
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I thought mine were fast, but I just can't seem to go faster than.22 seconds. I thought I was faster than that. I've tried it for about 15 minutes (it IS addictive) and I consistently get.22 seconds. Apparently that is the maximum speed of data transfer between my brain and my finger, round trip, including time to decide to click. Interesting thing to know about oneself =P
Slashdot Mirror
The right wing lost all right to hide behind that pretense long ago. "Protect the children" has been the rallying call to give them an excuse to attack those they disapprove of for quite some time now. They don't really care whether any children are hurt, and it's not as if arresting some guy in Hungary with 50 gigs of kddie pr0n will save a helpless little girl in Alabama from being molested. They just want to attack the sort of people who view the pr0n. I concur with others above in this thread, where I say virtual child pornography is to the real thing as DOOM is to Columbine, and we ALL know how unrealistic both comparisons are. Good luck getting the christian fundamentalists to see a freedom of speech issue in their anti obscenity rampage, though.
-Kasreyn
"gateway drug"...
and closed the browser window. I don't have time to waste reading articles by numskulls.
Though "infiltrating" sounds fun, I personally tend to think there might be a REASON why condemned buildings are condemned, so I recommend you do some research and infiltrate at your own risk...
-Kasreyn
Why do we assume Hollywood is the only way to get a film made? Independant filmmakers make great movies every year, and if the movie does well, the studio execs will fall all over themselves saying they thought it was a great idea in the first place, trying to get the rights.
;-)
How did we get into this situation, where we let Hollywood resign us to glitzy, no-quality crap movies year-in year-out? Why not start your own studio? With modern computing technology, filming this one isn't as much of a problem as it used to be. The reason Hollywood has such a stranglehold on entertainment is because no one has the get-up-and-go to make them competitive anymore. And when corporate groups become monopolistic and have no competition, they always cease providing quality good and services.
Some capitalist enterprise is what we need.
-Kasreyn
Disclaimer: if the above was a troll and not your true views, disregard my post. =P Though I must say, it wasn't funny at all.
First off, there are still wars. I think it arrogant of you not to even count the continuing battles in places in central Africa, the Balkans, and the Yugoslav peninsula, most of which have seen near-constant fighting for the last, oh, 50 years or so.
There's something I think you're failing to see. While it's true that nuclear arms are a means of defense (don't attack us or you'll get nuked), they won't save us all as you suggest. Nuclear powers aren't immune to greed or simple human stupidity. The snafu principle alone should indicate that sooner or later, a nuclear "incident" if not a war is bound to happen. Rationalism does NOT always win through even when the stakes are high; one must be irrational to rise high in politics, and usually power-hungry as well. Such people make mistakes easily.
Or, put more simply: Laser and missile defense systems are already very far along in development. What do you think will happen to this "balance of terror" when they start to come online? All of a sudden, these oh-so-peaceful nuclear powers will no longer be afraid of war, feeling (over)confident that their defense systems can shoot down the nukes. They will once again begin to initiate wars. The worst-case scenario is a preemptive first strike against any nation who even ATTEMPTS to put such a defense system online. You can't argue that they won't, because whether out of self-interest or out of true commitment to their citizens' safety, every nation will try to build nuclear defense systems. The reason we have had world peace for so long has been the nuclear impasse and the self-destruction of the soviet union. Take away the Mutually Assured Destruction, and you'll suddenly see wars being fought again.
No one technology is the arbiter of war or peace; human beliefs and motives are. Someday someone will invent some new weapon, let's call it, say, the "plasma bomb", which might be used between warring planets to destroy each other; it cannot be detected or stopped. All war ceases as all the leaders are too scared to be the bullies they'd like to be. Then someone comes up with a deflector screen for it. War recommences, and planets start blowing up.
Education and communication are much safer deterrents to war than technological impasse.
-Kasreyn
I'm hoping your post was just satiric / a troll, or else I worry about you.
(bear with me and read this through before you label it offtopic)
Just think about it...
In the dark ages in europe, the people had many woes. Illiteracy, poor sanitation, short lifespan, but among the chiefest of their troubles were oppressive authoritarian government - princes and lords. The princes and lords caroused and hunted all day, and the peasants payed the price. In that twisted system, a farmer's young daughter could be raped by some lord looking for some fun, and if the farmer protested he'd be fed to the lord's dogs. Whenever the lords started a war, the peasants were sent off to die in it. If a peasant's family was starving, he had to work on his own stark and unprofitable plot of land; if he went into the neighboring hunting preserve and shot a deer to feed his crying babies, he would be hung for his crime. If a lord's profits were down, he could always sell some "freedmen" into slavery.
Have you ever wondered WHY these lords and princes got away with this? It was only in the 18th century that the French lords were overthrown, and that was after they had mostly ceased their oppressive behavior. AFAIK those resonsible in Britain and Germany were never punished by any uprising by the people. Do you want to know why?
Witches. You can blame it all, on witches. Did your cow die? Witches did it. Was your baby stillborn? Witches again. Were your crops a failure? Those evil witches, how dare they!
The lords and the church sponsored these superstitions, which caused the people to misdirect their wrath. The lords and clergy were the REAL source of their anguish and misery, but they were led to believe witches were responsible, and so the lords went free, while the witches were treated to all the pent-up frustration and rage of the people.
There was of course, the additional side bonus of the fact that whenever a "witch" (usually some wandering stranger who couldn't provide a background, or some poor non-Christian) was caught, tortured, and killed, the government inherited all his and his family's property. Then the witch crazes began, where people turned in everyone around them out of fear, and the witch hunters appropriated all they owned for the lords. But when someone was foolish enough to declare they had seen the local lord or bishop at the sabbat, they were never believed.
These witch superstitions were SO strong and so well-accepted that even when some europeans created colonies in the New World, where they would theoretically no longer be under the direct control of those lords, they perpetuated their beliefs and more witch hunts occurred.
Now, there were other means the lords used to stay in power, like keeping the population in ignorance *coughdaytimeTVcough*, but in all, this misdirection tactic has been the most useful tool for authoritarians, ever.
Drug users, gun owners, teenagers, and "hackers" (actually crackers but for the media's stupidity) are our modern-day "witches". The populace is being so expertly distracted with these non-threats that they are failing to notice how they are being sold down the river.
-Kasreyn
I noticed your .sig:
do { Work(); PayTaxes(); Eat(); Sleep(); } while (alive)
You forgot to add a call for HaveFun(); in that Do statement. Without calling HaveFun() then there is no point in being (alive), and so the Do statement should immediately exit and call Die().
Come to think of it, you should rewrite as a nested loop with HaveFun() executing 3 or 4 times per execution of the above Do loop. Just a thought.
-Kasreyn
P.S. you might want to throw in HaveSex() in there too. You wouldn't want to exit that statement without calling THAT function at least once... would you? =P
P.P.S. to moderators, yes this is ot but it's for bool to read and he left no email address.
Wow...
/., being a news service, mostly posts bad news. This is pretty understandable. But still, even taking this into account, things seem to be slipping away. By freedom, I meant my personal individual freedom to control my life. Freedoms like the freedoms to murder, rape, and destroy, I can do without. That's what the government is for - to take those freedoms away. But it seems like it has forgotten what freedoms it shouldn't take away.
/.?
Sorry I'm so late getting back to the topic, I waited for a day or so and it didn't appear so I decided they must not have posted it... I only found out this morning by email.
I'm rather stunned by the amount of replies, and the amount of flameage. I noticed I've been accused of being a troll or flamebait; that honestly wasn't my intention. I asked for nonbiased discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of various nations, and on the whole that's what I saw.
On various topics,
Many asked what I meant by "freedoms" and "quality of life". I understand the concept that one must give up SOME freedoms to live under any government, obviously. The only truly, totally free government is no government at all, ie., anarchy, but there is no chance of safety there. Additionally, anarchy would never last long by the very nature of humanity - it would always be replaced with some sort of strongman dictatorship.
So obviously, some sort of democratic or republic nation is the idea. I understand that
Many expressed confusion over how corporations could steal my freedoms. The answer is, of course, they can't, unless the government helps them. Which it is. Legislation that benefits no one in our society except the mega-corporations is passed all the time, partially because of the power of special-interest money in our governments, and partly due to apathy on the part of its citizens (I posted something along these lines a few weeks ago).
Yes, I'm getting active, politically. I believe that if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain, and I've been doing a LOT of complaining. =P I try to convince my friends to vote, but many of them are convinced it's a waste of time. The system doesn't help very much, though - I'm a democratic/libertarian agnostic living in a heavily republican/christian state. I'm outvoted every time. I'm not sure what good it would do to move to another state that is heavily democratic, because then my individual vote would bear no weight either. I've tried writing my "representative", but I've never even been honored with a reply. He apparently doesn't feel the need to consider whether he is representing ME appropriately.
And I'm not really interested in going full-blast into politics myself. Becoming part of the system to beat it? I couldn't stand that. Besides, I have other things I want to do with my life, and a career in politics isn't something I would enjoy. I'm not power-hungry. I don't enjoy controlling others. I just want to live my life without others capriciously wielding unneccessary, assumed powers over me. Without the sort of people I hate, controlling whether I will be happy or miserable, live or die.
I want to be able to think and say whatever comes into my head. I want to be able to appreciate art and express myself without being banished or silenced for it. I want to be able to choose whether or not to worship, and how, without undue influence from the government. I want to be accorded the respect due an adult human, and have no one try to tell me what's right for me to see, read, hear, or do. I want to die of old age, not in a civil war or a bomb attack or in a shooting in a Burger King. I want the freedom to raise my children, if I ever have children, the way *I* want them to be raised. And I want a place to live that would be safe to raise those children IN.
I want to find a nation or place where I can have these things, as well as a chance to do some meaningful work in computers if possible, or where I could write books and not see them censored or whatever. =)
That's all I meant by my question. You've given me some ideas, and I'll certainly look into Canada and Iceland (though I hate the cold!).
Thanks for all your discussion and insight. And I agree with the poster who said, how bad can it be when we can still have a huge discussion about it on
-Kasreyn
Weren't you listening earlier when /. had the story about HR 46? Our dear old lovely Congress voted down an amendment to their little wiretap rider, which had the exact language of the 4th amendment to the Constitution. It was voted down by over 300 to 100 something.
This of course means that if the 4th amendment were thought up TODAY, it would never have been included in the Constitution or teh Bill of Rights.
A little tip: enforcement works 2 ways. Both enforcement of the government over its people, and enforcement of the people over the government; unfortunately, when one waxes the other wanes. When a government decides to stop believing in its old ideals, it is a short step from there to deciding to not obey them anymore, either. If they wouldn't vote for the 4th amendment, something tells me they'd gladly extirpate it if they could.
Kasreyn
Hi,
...The Unhackable Brags. First off, NOTHING is unhackable, especially if it is connected to the internet, for god's sake. Who do Blizzard think they are, the Pentagon? And the pentagon has been hacked. So have the CIA, FBI, White House, NATO, you name it. And Blizzard thinks just because they've made a serverside game, it will be "unhackable"? Gimme a break. Some bright little cracker with nothing better to do will crack in there some day soon and give himself 999,999 hitpoints and mana, and go on a PKing rampage. Or he'll randomly delete character accounts for fun (higher level the better, right?). Or he'll write a program to do these things and distribute it for free on the web (Delete anyone's character you don't like if you know their accnt #). I'm not a hacker or much of a programmer myself, so I'm unsure how much of this is possible. But I know of nothing to say these CAN'T be done. I mean, come ON. In D1, the hacks were annoying, but you wouldn't lose your character to a hacked player, not even your gear to an MKer if you were quick to quit... All they did was annoy you and ruin your game, they couldn't really kill your character (unless you were playing Immortal that is ;P). The serverside characters have the chance of being a VERY bad thing. All you do when you say something is "unhackable" or "very difficult to hack into" is waving a big red flag in front of crackers. Many of them do it for the SHEER challenge, nothing more. You tell them there is challenge, and they try to crack it. It's very simple to understand.
I posted this same message to the DSF (Diablo Strategy Forum, where the old D1 players hang out) approximately 5 months ago.
Of course, no one paid me any mind then. =P
Personally, I'm surprised it took this long for it to happen, if Blizzard weren't such all-around numskulls I'd almost be impressed.
(happy little sigh of vindication)
-Kasreyn
(P.S.: I had to get this off my chest. If I have to be modded down for it, so be it. =)
The article IS interesting, I'll give it that... but the writer is sadly misguided (in addition to having diarrhoea of the metaphor).
/. But please, don't go around hailing it as the ultimate solution for world peace and ending man's inhumanity to man. It's not. We already have the technology AND the resources, as a race, to lift much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance, improve their lifestyles, and improve mankind as a whole thereby. We haven't, not because we cant, but because we just don't care to. We just can't be bothered, and to tell the truth, many of those in high places prefer things this way.
The "Machine", as he capitalizes it, may well be a fascinating invention, but all these references that seem to call for its worship as some sort of god really disturb me. He never comes out and says that, but he gets into the subjects of religion and deism, dropping smug references to "Waiting for Godot" and in general, clearing a path for the Lord in the desert. =P
It's just a tangle of wires and some reaaaaally high-tech gadgetry. It's not a god; it's not the final solution. Free, safe, clean power is a Good Thing, that is true. But it won't answer all the problems, and he holds to one of the most common fallacious beliefs in existence today. I quote Poul Anderson, from his short story "Superstition", set in a post-apocalyptic future :
"...But the superstition is this, son: that science could understand everything, and do everything, and make everything good... I wonder how they could have held so odd a belief, even then."
It's a good idea, and a great new technology, and so it deserves a reference on
Before a technological advance can "cure all of society's ills", it first needs to cure the common flaw of society - human nature.
And there's no cure for that.
-Kasreyn.
...a person who depends on his job to put FOOD ON HIS TABLE can just "not work for" a boss who is a bastard? This is not the way it works. Have YOU ever had to hold down a crappy job with an asshole boss, just for bare subsistence? I doubt it, or else you'd be slightly less flippant about people's futures and fortunes, which are at stake.
You might be lucky enough to have a job with an understanding and compassionate boss, but you are in the minority. Most people don't have the luxury of picking and choosing which jobs they can work, and if they get fired, they don't just take it with a shrug as you seem to indicate. It can really mess up their lives. Sure, we can all complain about our bosses, but when it comes down to the bottom line, most can't just quit.
As to the government restricting employers' decisions on hiring and firing: such controls would be unneccessary if employers (like the one from the article) didn't prove themselves to be assholes. Not hiring someone because their skin is too dark or their age is too great is no better than not hiring them because they are afflicted with a medical condition through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately, when eugenics finally comes along, it will be discriminatory people such as yourself making the decisions as to what people should be like. Thus, there will be no one left to even understand the argument within 100 years. =P
If, in a generation or two, your children, friends, or other loved ones are denied access to employment, higher education, or affordable housing due to genetic testing... will you still be saying "so what"?
-Kasreyn.
...you'd think these guys would realize fan sites are FREE ADVERTISING FOR THEIR PRODUCT.
;-)
Concept: Someone hears of Harry Potter by hearsay. Is interested to learn more. Hops on Yahoo and searches, finds Official Site, little useful info except how to buy it. Finds fan site instead. Pages and pages of gushing praise for Harry Potter. Decides to buy it.
Where's the problem?
(Yeah yeah, I see THEIR problem, with the trademarks and all... "If they're using our TM they must be making money off it somehow! No one does anything except for money! WE sure don't!")
It seems very simple to me. In the corporate mentality, the perfect world would be one where anyone who says, thinks, reads, hears, uses, or sees their trademark/copyright/patent/(insert other no-fair-use-allowed word here) has to pay them a dollar per instance. Otherwise their intellectual property is being "stolen".
I move for all people who have a demonstrated lack of intellect to be stripped of their "intellectual property". Who's with me?? =P
-Kasreyn
P.S. I'm in a bad mood tonight, excuse harsh language of post.
I mean, come ON. These guys used to be unbeatable. They used to plan for everything! They're just a pale ghost now of what they were in the 60's, trumpeting as achievements things we could have done as early as 1970.
Gimme a break. Problems with the air scrubbers, so they have to send back to earth for more? What happened to the old Nasa "Triple-redundant-everything-even-toilet-paper" game plan? In the Apollo 13 mission, when everything was going down the crapper all at once, the air scrubbers started going out, too. So some really smart guys on the ground worked out a plan to fix the scrubbing system with nothing more than the spare junk the astronauts had with 'em in the spacecraft. Now THAT's enterprising.
The reason behind all this is simple, it seems to me: funding. Remember that Mars lander the US government spent millions on, which we lost contact with? They believe it might have been a failure due to a faulty communications component that should have been caught in quality control. Quite simply, if you look at the numbers, the US government has been cutting NASA's funding back since the early 70's, basically strangling them. The government has NEVER taken NASA seriously, or the benefits of space travel.
In the 60's, the government's view towards space was "beat the ruskies". In the 70's it was "well we have this new space shuttle, let's use it". In the 80's and 90's, it was "let's let the science guys have their fun, it's good entertainment." Like their very own science fiction movie! The only reason we still have a space program is because the government knows it needs it for PR purposes. Quite simply, space exploration today is a pitiful shadow of what it could be. We could have had a moon base AND a mars base by now. We could be researching lunar and asteroid mining. We could be researching zero-g manufacturing and medical techniques. We could be looking into using space-age technology to build floating cities to use the 75% of earth's surface area we can't inhabit. Instead, we have a massive financial boondoggle and a tiny little space station that's falling apart as fast as we can build it.
Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and inventor of the communications satellite, was predicting such things as zero-g medical facilities saving lives and asteroid mining and mars colonies. He was predicting these things back in the 50's, and certainly expected them before 1980, as he should have - everyone mistook NASA's government support as a support of science, rather than simply a oneupmanship contest with the Russians. Now, 50 years later, we have done NOTHING.
I think it's time for something to be done. What, I'm not sure. Suggestions?
-Kasreyn.
MOGLEN: ..."we were programmers - not of video games, but of really heavy stuff - we were youngsters who were allowed to work in ways that youngsters are not now allowed to work because the whole industry is professionalized to the point where you can't get in without some of the same kinds of credentialing that you get into any other business with."
This is 100% the way I've felt about this issue for years, only better expressed than I could have put it. It is continually annoying to me that because I have the misfortune to be born 20 years late, I don't get the chance to take part in REAL computing work. It's become a business like any other... There is a whole generation of young would-be programmers like myself who would eagerly take part in the Information Age, if only we were ALLOWED to learn and help.
The rest of his remarks were also well-thought out and thought-provoking, but this is the one that has the most relevance to my personal situation.
-Kasreyn
"Planet" gamers and Gamespy and such sites have been using somewhat less overt coercion to grab the market for game fans for years... when did this become news? I don't know how many great sites operated by individual fans have been gobbled up by these syndicates and turned into worthless joke sites.
;)
Pass the monopoly, please.
-Kasreyn
(Yeah I know this is kinda a weak post but compared to the offtopic flamebait and trolls in this conversation already, it's downright Insightful 5 if ya ask me
Since many of these old games (and applications) don't generate revenue in any way, shape or form for the company any longer, why don't they release them under a license so that the general public can use them without fear of breaking EULAs or copywrite law?
Kinda like the GPL frinstance? I have an idea why. Read on.
For example, I liked the game Quarantine for the PC. You're a taxi driver taking people around a futuristic city that's filled with psychos and diseased people (yeah, I'm pretty twisted, get used to it). I'm 99.99% sure they haven't sold a copy of this in 3 or 4 years, so why not throw it on a FTP or web site somewhere with a new license and make it available to anyone who wants it?
Everyone has a piece of Abandonware they'd like to see revived and available; personally, I'd love to be able to get the original Wing Commander and Masters of Orion, but I can't, legally.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
Did you read the article? There is an expiration; the same 75 year limit on all copyrights if they're not renewed. I think it's up to our generation to explain to the copyright lawyers why 75 years is a tad long for a copyright on a computer game.
Basically, this is about greed. Companies feel like giving ANYTHING away for free is anathema, even the lint from their pockets and the contents of the urinals in their mens' rooms - even if they couldn't get anyone to pay for it. Additionally, they don't want to release abandonware because they WANT these titles to be dead (not the developers, the suits with the copyrights). Why? Several reasons. If you're happy with your old games, why buy new? By ruining and making unavailable old titles, they force everyone to buy new. Blizzard has demonstrated this principle quite adeptly with its recent axe-job on Diablo 1, aimed at increasing sales of Diablo 2.
Also, some of these games vanished for good reason - though they may have a devoted little following, perhaps they just made everyone else retch. Maybe these companies don't want bad games from the past ruining their "image".
There are a lot of factors, but greed is the most simple one. They can't stand the thought that people might use the product somehow to make a buck, or to get an idea for a new game, or just to enjoy it for free, or anything. The only thought in their minds is, "We spent x amount of money and y amount of time developing that game back in '91, and they want it for FREE?? Who do they think they ARE?" In their mind, there is no difference between the 14 year old w4r3z d00d who burns cracked copies of Quake 3 for his friends, and the 30 year old sysadmin who wants to play a 10 year old game for old time's sake. No difference, at all.
You're dealing with the corporate mentality. Get used to it.
-Kasreyn.
It's strange that, as stated in that lengthy article just above, there's no basis for this in legal precedent, but judges go ahead and make wrongheaded moves like this one.
;)
The best reason I can come up with is that it's confusing to them. They don't really know what a computer is, what the internet is, what it can be used for, who is doing the using and how it is done. Without this information, they're effectively making their decisions blind. Imagine, if you will, making decisions on gun control but not knowing: a.) what a gun is for, b.) how one is operated, or c.) what types of people are involved with them. It'd be sheer folly to even try! But they do it all the time with "internet control" rulings.
I think we need some better educated judges, so people will stop seeing this area as a field day for spurious lawsuits like this one. The U.S.A.'s judicial system has 2 battle cries these days: Get Me Off the Hook and I Want Your Money. The latter is overhauling the former in popularity rather rapidly, too.
-Kasreyn.
M$ has the worst "evil empire" rep in the world right now, and they're doing pretty well. They still have the vast majority convinced that they're the best thing since sliced bread, in terms of computing. Do you realize what salary you can start at if you have a slip of paper saying you're an MCSE? Their public image is only now beginning to come into *mild* doubt. It's another example of Hitler's "If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough..." concept.
If you mean the publicity of crushing a smaller company like a bug under foot would hurt them, you're mistaken. Microsoft has crushed many a company and most simply regard it as the dog-eat-dog world of business. There's less romanticism in the public opinion than you think, unfortunately. I think if Microsoft made a determined effort to buck the GPL, it could, and that scares me. And in any case, the media know which side their bread is buttered on, so it's not too likely there'll be much open criticism of Microsoft if they decide to chew Linux up and spit it out.
It's a damned shame I know, but I think it's best to be realistic about things and try to find a solution...
-Kasreyn.
I'm beginning to wonder what future the Open Source movement has, if there's not way to legally enforce some piece of code's open-ness. I mean, how do you take M$ to court? Cmon! Gates carries around more money in his WALLET as spending cash than most Linux-developing companies have as net worth. I'm starting to doubt the supposed MS breakup will ever happen. There needs to be a legally unshakeable means to protect Open Source from Micro$oft's usual hijack move. Or at least, in a perfect world there would be.
-Kasreyn.
The problem with the movie is that it was definetly orintaed towards D&D players
:P
No, the problem was that it WASN'T. They oriented it for mass-market appeal instead of making it D&D-ish. I understand the arguments for campiness, and I agree in part. I personally prefer a more serious campaign, but everyone has their own opinions. This wasn't campy though, this was just poorly-done.
I have not seens any magic items that permit contorl of dragons
Potion of Dragon Control. Dragon Orb. Certain high-level charm and control spells could do it, too. You stand corrected. =P
Personally, I'd have preferred a movie aimed solely at D&Ders, or one aimed solely for mass-market appeal. Part of the trouble here is that the producers couldn't decide which and so decided to try some half-assed mixture of the two. The directing did suck, and few movies overcome that. This one couldn't, though it might have if other things had been done differently.
Kasreyn
...are you one of those poor unfortunates who missed out on Willow? That must suck. Poor guy. You should really watch that when you get a chance. =P
-Kasreyn.
Space Station Alpha, huh? A little while ago it was "The International Space Station." And before that it was "Space Station Freedom."
Ummm... excuse me folks... What the hell was wrong with "SS Freedom"?? I mean, did someone PROTEST??! Maybe some despotic 3rd world junta protested. =P "We protest at the naming of the international space station as "Freedom." For it to be truly international it must embrace the ideals of all nations, including tin-plated dictatorial regimes like ours. We don't allow freedom here in our nation, we don't like it, and we find it an insult to our great authoritarian, anti-life traditions. We demand the name be changed to "Space Station Slavery" at ONCE. All hail Comrade Napoleon! That is all."
Maybe it was just a concession after all... Politicians do nothing so well as waffling. I just can't believe after all those ships named freedom, friendship, and such, NASA would choose "Alpha" over "Freedom". Heheheh, I'm amused, I think I'll call it SS Slavery from now on...=P
Kasreyn
The US Government tried to administer Apache, as well as other indian tribes, and look what happened to General Custer and the 7th Calvary.
Unfortunately, that was the Sioux, and G.A. Custer led the 7th Cavalry. Calvary was a hill where a young carpenter from Bethlehem who pissed off the Romans was supposedly executed around 3 A.D. =P
Kasreyn
Accurate data is NOT what we want here! Accurate data, to put it bluntly, looks like it will give us 4 years of that gladhanding texan shrub. Accurate data = 4 years of punishment for minority religions and beliefs, 4 years of erosion of the environment, and 4 more years of backsliding on many other issues that I think most U.S. slashdotters want to move FORWARD on. Accurate data = more gay men found beaten to death in remote areas. Accurate data = more wives unable to escape abusive husbands. And so on and on. Are you getting me?
The point of the vote swapping sites is not to give accurate data, and it is not Garbage in Garbage out - or rather, it is, but deliberately! The point is to use the system (ruthlessly at that) to put the man in office (Gore) who is NOT wanted by the majority (Bush supporters), and also to open the way for 3rd party attention - which will lead to a system in which voting your heart WILL be worthwhile. It is an attempt to defeat the indirect democratic process for (I hope) its own good. (3 equally powerful parties > 2 equally powerful parties).
If you think this is reprehensible, go look for Bush support sites online. If they aren't using this tool as well, then that's another reason they deserve to be defeated. Get with the times.
This has nothing to do with voting your heart. This is a no-holds-barred knock-down drag-out, and I thought you should know.
Kasreyn
________
.sig's are for lamers. Oh, wait - D'OH!!
I thought mine were fast, but I just can't seem to go faster than .22 seconds. I thought I was faster than that. I've tried it for about 15 minutes (it IS addictive) and I consistently get .22 seconds. Apparently that is the maximum speed of data transfer between my brain and my finger, round trip, including time to decide to click. Interesting thing to know about oneself =P
Kasreyn