Games are designed with the input device in mind, this is merely a translation device from reality to abstract (kick = a button = different kick on screen). Thus it's not that worthwhile in the sense of a substitution in a game that was designed for a traditional stick interface.
*however*
How cool would it be if a game was *designed* with this in mind? Your character was a 3d rendition of the entity meshed in IR beams (it would have to be wider swept IR beams to get a total picture of your body and everything you did) but this would be infinitely cool, the computer opponents would have whatever moves they had and the player would be able to respond in *any* way... Those of us with martial arts experience have often looked on screen at some ridiculously flashy triple spinning back kick that takes 3 seconds to execute and thought, hmm, what if I just delivered a quick knee to the base of the spinal column whilst he's just put extreme amounts of kinetic energy into a spin.
That would be so cool, I would absolutely love one of these things for that purpose.
However;
Weaponry would be even more fun (mmm sai / katana nunchaku shenanigans abound) and would probably make it a bit unbalanced.
air moves with no resistance but an on screen impact reaction would be just plain weird, I wonder if there would be a way to give resistance in the way of quick-inflating VR suits that deliver impacts to certain parts of the body.
anyway, I want one, of the above, not what this article is about.
Not enough sleep, need to stop ranting.
:)
to give a little background to begin with, I'm only 21 years old, I guess this is old compared to an eleven year old, but I have been playing the tech game since I was about 4 years old programming BASIC on a Vic20.
Anyway, from my recent memories of childhood I've gotta tell you, if I wanted to learn about something, the net, or bulletin boards were most definitely a first stop for that, I knew that my parents were both somewhat conservative and I did develop some misguided notions based on the research that I had undertaken using these resources and was unwilling to discuss these notions with my parents precisely because I didn't feel that I could trust them not to judge me.
It seems to me that a lot of people here are acting like it's the responsibility of the child to earn the trust of the parents, however this is not true, a self-sufficient intelligent child will not consider themselves to be the ward or protectorate of their parents any more than your average self-sufficient adult would consider themselves to be loyal subjects of their government, it's demeaning, they will attempt to gain knowledge the best way that they know how and research as far as they feel comfortable researching and not verify it any further than that, if you really want your daughter to get the most out of her experience with the net, I would advise setting an example, demonstrate that she can trust you with things, it will be a gradual process and she will ask you more intimate questions as you gain more of her trust, most important of all, try not to judge her opinions as if they are set in stone, people make choices, people change their minds, but people won't change their minds out of pure human nature when they're being shouted at to do so, They'll just dig their claws into the dirt harder.
Right at this point in time I have provided shell access to my nephew on my linux box in the hope of cultivating his interest in the arcane arts which we weave;) I don't monitor what he does, he could start a shell vending service, he could start an FTP server with 0 day warez, he could make hack attempts on federal government computers, he doesn't, and the reason he doesn't isn't because he knows that he's being watched, and it isn't because he knows that he'll feel my wrath if he does, it's because he knows that I trust him not to and he trusts me to provide him with help, not hinderance.
If you live in Australia you really should not need the irony/irony tags, should you? Or are you a recent blow-in?
I am 21 years old, I have been here for 20 of those years, and I was born here.
My point was that mainstream Australians, while they may be cynical about politicians, are not overly concerned about the abuses of state power.
You obviously don't know the same people that I do, the only people who I know who aren't concerned with the abuse of state power are bleeding hearts, leftists, or downright corrupt powermongering fuckers in power themselves, of course. Furthermore, I really wouldn't be bragging about being more in touch with the mainstream sector of the Australian community, that's not a particularily impressive thing at all, perhaps on the contrary actually. My point was more that by saying something about a group of people, especially as large as an entire country, you're bound to end up being wrong, even if it is only about 13% of the population, and I have a strong feeling that you pulled that statistic out in the fashion of a reverse suppository.
Besides which, of what possible relevance are your opinions when it comes to assessing the popular sentiment of mainstream Australia?
Absolutely none, but then again I don't claim to be representing them, In fact I'd more agree with you about that 87% statistic, It doesn't matter, I am an Australian, and you made a blanket statement which included me, so I stuck my head up and told you you were wrong, you remain wrong.:D
Your rabid opposition to gun control puts you against the 87% or so of the population who were in favour of it.
You're now sounding a hell of a lot like John Howard protesting the nature of those who would supress the censors saying "Those people do not connect with middle australia". You know what? You're right, and thank fuck for that.
Moreover, your belief that firearms are for "self defense" (sic) places you in the even smaller minority of crazies who think that guns are for killing people --there not, they're for killing rabbits, wild pigs and assorted other vermin.
Interesting theory, but in fact, firearms were created as objects of war, and contrary to popular belief of the Australian majority Rabbits, Wild Pigs, and Assorted Other Vermin are not nearly as worthy of extermination as those who would attempt to violate the liberties of other people.
Admit it, your not a local, you're a seppo, aren't ya mate?
America is one of the few countries in the world that I have *not* been to.
Critical as I am of the political culture which denigrates civil liberties and privileges the hip-pocket
Typical socialist, the solution to the problem of corporations having too much power is to give more power to the government, which, in turn, when paid and lobbied by corporations, acts as a proxy power for corporate interests. You socialists really aren't too bright at all.
I must express my relief that your ideology remains that of the lunatic fringe in this country.
Of course, turn the other cheek, ignore the agressor, under all circumstances you should submit and under no circumstances should you consider fighting back against the oppresor, Please give me your name and address and I will send around a removalist to acquire all of your personal posessions and wives, daughters, whatever I may find of some personal use, I hereby instruct you not to resist, and as you are a nice little subject and so happy with your position as a pawn, I'm sure that you'll readily comply with my requests.This is not a threat, this is sarcasm
the lunatic fringe does not necessarily need to be smaller than the rational minded fringe, one should keep that in mind when seeking validity of opinion in safety through numerical superiority, frankly I find it quite lunatic that you would not be prepared to defend yourself from intrusions on your life, be it by government or thief or invading power.
Note further that I have recorded your/. id and that I will pass it on to the Australian Federal Police should you make good your threat to begin bombing government buildings.
Thankyou, Mr McCarthy Sir, I will surely cooperate with you now that you have decided at the end of this post to advocate the use of violent means of stopping that which you disapprove of whilst throughout the prior parts of it decrying these exact same actions.
Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and Double Standards, Indeed, You are in touch with the moral majority of Australia
I take offense at this, I am not a smelly hippy, nor am I a professional protestor, nor am I a do-gooder, I live in Australia, and the power of the government to take my money and tell me what to do at gunpoint, at the same time having the nerve to say that I don't have the same rights to self defense as they do to force their ridiculous petty little agendas on me, as it is already disgusts me.
That they could have even more power just makes me want to start blowing things up to show them what it's like to have the threat of violence hanging over them and their friends and families to further personal agendas of someone who has no relation to them feels like.
I am not a smelly hippy because I don't believe in intruding in the business of others just so that the white spotted tail southern australasian squaw bird can escape extinction.
I am not a professional protestor because I've never been to a protest in my life.
and I am not a do-gooder because as far as I'm concerned if you were stupid enough to get yourself in a bad position and/or not intelligent enough to get yourself back out again you deserve the consequences of being there, notable exception is when you're forced into such a situation, you were mugged, you couldn't defend yourself because you couldn't legally carry a weapon in order to do so, you end up paraplegic because a bullet severs your spine, in my opinion the government is responsible for this for forcibly stopping you from defending yourself.
Don't make blanket statements about populations that you obviously don't know everything about.
Sorry mate, the Australian system is no better than yours. Meaningless voting intricacies aside, in Australia we work on a two party system as well. Of course there are third parties, but they are as insignificant as the third parties in America as well.
Moral policy is fundamentally identical between the two major parties, They both seem to be under the impression they've got the rights to dictate peoples lifestyles to them. Economic policy is very close between the two parties as well, for Labour it's slightly left of center, for Liberal it's slightly right of center.
I don't think I could adequately draw parallels between American and Australian political parties though. Australia doesn't have an equivalent to the Republican party really. Liberals line up pretty well with the Democratic party. The Australian Democrats line up pretty well with Ralph Nader's views. Unfortunately there is no Libertarian party in Australia, there is a wowserish far out right wing party called One Nation who is roughly analogous to Pat Buchanan and his knights templar (ahem):). Then there are special interest parties such as the greens and farmers party (actually these parties could be the same party, I haven't researched them much past the point of deciding that they don't agree with me on anything at all so fuck 'em)
Furthermore, voting is compulsory over here, Everytime I haven't voted I've had to pay a fifty dollar fine. I've never voted though and I've got no intention of doing so until there's a political party in Australia which matches 100% of my opinion on the issues. In my view a vote for a party you consider the lesser of x amount of evils is first and foremost an approval for that party and secondly an approval for the process.
What is it that they say? Where everyone gets what the majority deserves?
Weren't a bunch of techno-libertarian anarchists going to create a state from steel and concrete off the coast of florida and implement a true modern free state? Whatever the hell happened to that? I'm sick to death of Australia.
It's not an acceptable standard of living for me, so I don't join the crew. That doesn't mean I should have to subsidise the lifestyle they choose. That doesn't even make sense.
I did mention in the previous message that I had no problem with paying for the services I used. That would include a police service used to enforce common sense laws, and if I happened to drive I'd intend on paying for roads, too.
Libertarian doesn't mean anarchist, that's what you seem to be implying though. As far as I can see it's just acknowledgement that government is a necessary evil and should be restricted as much as is practical.
Yes, but equal to what degree? For example I'd be perfectly happy if the government totally withdrew any future support for me and didn't tax me anything and I had to pay for whatever services I used and nothing else. This would be very fair to me and I'd be perfectly happy if everyone else were treated in entirely the same way. But I can guaruntee you there would be a great many people who would not be particularily happy about this.
As it stands, I don't think all men are treated equally at all. You only need look at the liberal trend to favour the minorities and left-leaning special interest groups, or the right-conservative trend to favour the socioeconomic upper class and right-leaning special interest groups, for evidence of this.
But really this is very off topic now, as I've already pointed out this isn't a political debate. I don't care to discuss politics as they're very boring, and in my humble opinion I will never have a large impact on anything political.
This was just about contentment, your typical member of the proletariat of the IT labour market's general dissatisfaction with life.
Thankyou for the statistical analysis. I don't doubt what you're saying is true, however I live in a country with a specially bad reputation for abusing the welfare system. It's certainly not the case here. I personally knew a few people who ended up on the street. I used to go to school with a fair amount of people who are now deeply entrenched welfare recipients, or homeless altogether and living on the street.
These people that I know, in this country, are certainly capable of rational thought. They have no mental disabilities which would impair them from acquiring the skills necessary to get a job which would pay well.
They're simply extremely lazy people and don't want to work, so I have to pay for them. That annoys me just a little
This entire thread though is getting to be quite off topic due to the fact that it's coming down to a discussion between the pros and cons of available systems of government in modern society.
All it started out as was a discussion on the fact that a bunch of people are discontent, I don't think that has a whole lot to do with government.
Oh, so state-funded childcare limits your freedom to work? An efficient public transport system limits your freedom to work? An education limits your freedom to work?
No, more like it limits your ability to earn money from this work. I didn't specify whether this was a good or bad thing, merely that it was a fact.
Not having to step over hundreds of beggars limits your freedom to work?
There are hundreds of beggars already. I have never been to the U.K. and I am unfamiliar with the state of that particular issue in that country, but I assure you in mine there are plenty of beggars around. And there were plenty in Germany and the rest of Europe when I visited as well.
And to be perfectly frank with you I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for those people, I had to live on an extremely low amount of my entire life until I started pulling money for myself. I don't believe this is simply because I am different to them, it comes down to effort. I am currently a little uncertain about this though, I don't know if all men really were created equal anymore, I am beginning to lose faith in that.
Maybe if you're a monk or a mercenary the government wouldn't be much help. Otherwise, get serious and think before you troll.
It amuses me greatly when people jump to conclusions purely because they want to be combative and then accuse others of trolling.
I think you're being very defensive here, I never implied that socialism or even communism was a flawed concept in some way. Although for the record, I do believe every system of government currently available is a flawed concept in some way, capitalism included. I actually thought the content of my comment reflected that view.
A non-socialist individual is a very obvious term, I don't think you really need me to explain what that means, but in case I'm wrong, it means an individual who does not believe socialism is the best form of government available.
I'm a perfectionist and an individualist who has set personal goals actually higher than what a more conservative person might consider realistic. To my mind taking risks and trying to exceed my own expectations is the only way to really achieve something. That's my choice.
Yeah, it is your choice, and if it's working for you, that's a good thing. What I was pointing out however is that for a lot of people, they're either unhappy with their choice, or they see no choice worth making
You've got an old fashioned idea of what socialism is if you think it somehow limits your freedom to work hard, earn money and achieve high level of success in your own field.
That statement doesn't quite make sense, I mean, everything limits your freedom to work hard earn money and achieve a high level of success in your own field aside from the total absence of any regulations on the fruits of your labour at all. And as far as I'm aware, aside from a few small places such as Andorra and Vanuatu, there aren't any places which are totally absent of income tax. Even then you could argue sales tax or any other given tax "limits" you.
That shouldn't really be the question though, the question should be what's the balance between acceptable limits for the greater good and unacceptable burden on the people who achieve the most in order to assist the people who don't achieve at all. If your opinion is that socialism is that acceptable limit, and that works for you, that's good, you've got answers for yourself
But it's flawed to imply that socialism is *less* limiting to the complete absence of any intervention in order to distribute the fruits of your labour as you see fit, that doesn't make sense.
I don't think it has anything to do with IT as a phenomenon in itself. I think it has more to do with the common drive present in nearly all non-communist non-socialist individuals to achieve a high level of success in whatever their chosen field happens to be. Often though, when people climb to the top of their respective ladders they realise that the view isn't so good after all, and they wondered why they bothered to expend the effort to climb up there in the first place.
Thoughts such as this often lead to depression, and when on top of this you're expected to every single day except for perhaps four weeks of the year, go to work and do as your boss tells you, even if a lot of the time whatever your boss happens to be telling you to do is just plain stupid, this also leads to stress.
I think it's very shortsighted to blame this entire phenomenon on the IT industry. As far as I can see it isn't a problem that occured because of the IT industry, it's a problem that has been exposed because of the nature of the world today.
Fifty years ago , the amount of information available to your average person was not nearly as high as what is available to your average person today. I think this amount of information and the fact that so many people out there are absorbing it is perhaps leading to a critical mass of people wondering what the hell it's all about.
Another reason IT might be getting blamed for this is because people in this industry have an even higher amount of information than your average person who perhaps only researches subjects that they've specifically seen on their local news program via a search engine.
Nearly everyone who I've ever worked with in this industry, if not keeping their brains occupied with the intricacies of their chosen profession, seem to me to be primarily dissatisfied with their lot in life. Yeah, sure, you've got your moments where the whole thing just sounds like an excerpt from a User Friendly comic strip, but when all that's over, nothing really makes any sense anymore.
I noticed here that it says it's got a PCMCIA slot and there's a seperately available wireless ethernet card. Does this mean it also has a TCP/IP stack? what protocols does it talk? Can I run a daemon on aforementioned cyberpooch and have my home PC (with what type of wireless ethernet card) give it instructions and perhaps store data for it effectively giving it a much larger memory access size than the paltry 8mb card it comes with for personallity storage? Do I care? No, not particularily, but hey, this is just the place to get curious.;)
That's very amusing, I'm assuming that you don't very often use swords. All Highlander tomfoolery and ludicrousness aside, every single woman I'm currently friends with I've become friends with through the teaching of Iaido and the study of the metallurgical properties of your "typical" shinsakuto;).
I do not think just because one holds an interest in swords is enough to label them as juvenile. Even those differentially heat treated Shadow-S 1086 steel forge folded Highlander replica swords with the kevlar enhanced tsukas are pretty and functional, so you can't readily say that Highlander fans are just interested in your everyday junkmetal 100$ Taiwan blades.
Swords are fun, women are fun too, they make better students than men (Wow, three generalisations in just one rant, how disturbing).
The other obvious activity with which your typical man would partake with two beautiful woman is actually I think far more worthy of being labelled typical than "playing with swords";).
Actually, perhaps not for your typical male *geek*... (God I hate that word..)
Slashdot Mirror
A few thoughts,
Games are designed with the input device in mind, this is merely a translation device from reality to abstract (kick = a button = different kick on screen). Thus it's not that worthwhile in the sense of a substitution in a game that was designed for a traditional stick interface.
*however*
How cool would it be if a game was *designed* with this in mind? Your character was a 3d rendition of the entity meshed in IR beams (it would have to be wider swept IR beams to get a total picture of your body and everything you did) but this would be infinitely cool, the computer opponents would have whatever moves they had and the player would be able to respond in *any* way... Those of us with martial arts experience have often looked on screen at some ridiculously flashy triple spinning back kick that takes 3 seconds to execute and thought, hmm, what if I just delivered a quick knee to the base of the spinal column whilst he's just put extreme amounts of kinetic energy into a spin.
That would be so cool, I would absolutely love one of these things for that purpose.
However;
Weaponry would be even more fun (mmm sai / katana nunchaku shenanigans abound) and would probably make it a bit unbalanced.
air moves with no resistance but an on screen impact reaction would be just plain weird, I wonder if there would be a way to give resistance in the way of quick-inflating VR suits that deliver impacts to certain parts of the body.
anyway, I want one, of the above, not what this article is about.
Not enough sleep, need to stop ranting.
:)
to give a little background to begin with, I'm only 21 years old, I guess this is old compared to an eleven year old, but I have been playing the tech game since I was about 4 years old programming BASIC on a Vic20.
;) I don't monitor what he does, he could start a shell vending service, he could start an FTP server with 0 day warez, he could make hack attempts on federal government computers, he doesn't, and the reason he doesn't isn't because he knows that he's being watched, and it isn't because he knows that he'll feel my wrath if he does, it's because he knows that I trust him not to and he trusts me to provide him with help, not hinderance.
Anyway, from my recent memories of childhood I've gotta tell you, if I wanted to learn about something, the net, or bulletin boards were most definitely a first stop for that, I knew that my parents were both somewhat conservative and I did develop some misguided notions based on the research that I had undertaken using these resources and was unwilling to discuss these notions with my parents precisely because I didn't feel that I could trust them not to judge me.
It seems to me that a lot of people here are acting like it's the responsibility of the child to earn the trust of the parents, however this is not true, a self-sufficient intelligent child will not consider themselves to be the ward or protectorate of their parents any more than your average self-sufficient adult would consider themselves to be loyal subjects of their government, it's demeaning, they will attempt to gain knowledge the best way that they know how and research as far as they feel comfortable researching and not verify it any further than that, if you really want your daughter to get the most out of her experience with the net, I would advise setting an example, demonstrate that she can trust you with things, it will be a gradual process and she will ask you more intimate questions as you gain more of her trust, most important of all, try not to judge her opinions as if they are set in stone, people make choices, people change their minds, but people won't change their minds out of pure human nature when they're being shouted at to do so, They'll just dig their claws into the dirt harder.
Right at this point in time I have provided shell access to my nephew on my linux box in the hope of cultivating his interest in the arcane arts which we weave
If you live in Australia you really should not need the irony/irony tags, should you? Or are you a recent blow-in?
I am 21 years old, I have been here for 20 of those years, and I was born here.
My point was that mainstream Australians, while they may be cynical about politicians, are not overly concerned about the abuses of state power.
You obviously don't know the same people that I do, the only people who I know who aren't concerned with the abuse of state power are bleeding hearts, leftists, or downright corrupt powermongering fuckers in power themselves, of course. Furthermore, I really wouldn't be bragging about being more in touch with the mainstream sector of the Australian community, that's not a particularily impressive thing at all, perhaps on the contrary actually. My point was more that by saying something about a group of people, especially as large as an entire country, you're bound to end up being wrong, even if it is only about 13% of the population, and I have a strong feeling that you pulled that statistic out in the fashion of a reverse suppository.
Besides which, of what possible relevance are your opinions when it comes to assessing the popular sentiment of mainstream Australia?
Absolutely none, but then again I don't claim to be representing them, In fact I'd more agree with you about that 87% statistic, It doesn't matter, I am an Australian, and you made a blanket statement which included me, so I stuck my head up and told you you were wrong, you remain wrong. :D
Your rabid opposition to gun control puts you against the 87% or so of the population who were in favour of it.
You're now sounding a hell of a lot like John Howard protesting the nature of those who would supress the censors saying "Those people do not connect with middle australia". You know what? You're right, and thank fuck for that.
Moreover, your belief that firearms are for "self defense" (sic) places you in the even smaller minority of crazies who think that guns are for killing people --there not, they're for killing rabbits, wild pigs and assorted other vermin.
Interesting theory, but in fact, firearms were created as objects of war, and contrary to popular belief of the Australian majority Rabbits, Wild Pigs, and Assorted Other Vermin are not nearly as worthy of extermination as those who would attempt to violate the liberties of other people.
Admit it, your not a local, you're a seppo, aren't ya mate?
America is one of the few countries in the world that I have *not* been to.
Critical as I am of the political culture which denigrates civil liberties and privileges the hip-pocket
Typical socialist, the solution to the problem of corporations having too much power is to give more power to the government, which, in turn, when paid and lobbied by corporations, acts as a proxy power for corporate interests. You socialists really aren't too bright at all.
I must express my relief that your ideology remains that of the lunatic fringe in this country.
Of course, turn the other cheek, ignore the agressor, under all circumstances you should submit and under no circumstances should you consider fighting back against the oppresor, Please give me your name and address and I will send around a removalist to acquire all of your personal posessions and wives, daughters, whatever I may find of some personal use, I hereby instruct you not to resist, and as you are a nice little subject and so happy with your position as a pawn, I'm sure that you'll readily comply with my requests.This is not a threat, this is sarcasm
the lunatic fringe does not necessarily need to be smaller than the rational minded fringe, one should keep that in mind when seeking validity of opinion in safety through numerical superiority, frankly I find it quite lunatic that you would not be prepared to defend yourself from intrusions on your life, be it by government or thief or invading power.
Note further that I have recorded your /. id and that I will pass it on to the Australian Federal Police should you make good your threat to begin bombing government buildings.
Thankyou, Mr McCarthy Sir, I will surely cooperate with you now that you have decided at the end of this post to advocate the use of violent means of stopping that which you disapprove of whilst throughout the prior parts of it decrying these exact same actions.
Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and Double Standards, Indeed, You are in touch with the moral majority of Australia
Cheers :)
I take offense at this, I am not a smelly hippy, nor am I a professional protestor, nor am I a do-gooder, I live in Australia, and the power of the government to take my money and tell me what to do at gunpoint, at the same time having the nerve to say that I don't have the same rights to self defense as they do to force their ridiculous petty little agendas on me, as it is already disgusts me.
That they could have even more power just makes me want to start blowing things up to show them what it's like to have the threat of violence hanging over them and their friends and families to further personal agendas of someone who has no relation to them feels like.
I am not a smelly hippy because I don't believe in intruding in the business of others just so that the white spotted tail southern australasian squaw bird can escape extinction.
I am not a professional protestor because I've never been to a protest in my life.
and I am not a do-gooder because as far as I'm concerned if you were stupid enough to get yourself in a bad position and/or not intelligent enough to get yourself back out again you deserve the consequences of being there, notable exception is when you're forced into such a situation, you were mugged, you couldn't defend yourself because you couldn't legally carry a weapon in order to do so, you end up paraplegic because a bullet severs your spine, in my opinion the government is responsible for this for forcibly stopping you from defending yourself.
Don't make blanket statements about populations that you obviously don't know everything about.
Thanks for the update, I will be keeping my eye on this and if it does as it seems to be shaping up to do, I will be there in a snap.
I follow now, hence the argument a few people who would otherwise vote for Ralph Nader have for not doing so, that they could in fact be helping Bush.
You're right, that system is pretty fucked up right there.
Sorry mate, the Australian system is no better than yours. Meaningless voting intricacies aside, in Australia we work on a two party system as well. Of course there are third parties, but they are as insignificant as the third parties in America as well.
Moral policy is fundamentally identical between the two major parties, They both seem to be under the impression they've got the rights to dictate peoples lifestyles to them. Economic policy is very close between the two parties as well, for Labour it's slightly left of center, for Liberal it's slightly right of center.
I don't think I could adequately draw parallels between American and Australian political parties though. Australia doesn't have an equivalent to the Republican party really. Liberals line up pretty well with the Democratic party. The Australian Democrats line up pretty well with Ralph Nader's views. Unfortunately there is no Libertarian party in Australia, there is a wowserish far out right wing party called One Nation who is roughly analogous to Pat Buchanan and his knights templar (ahem) :). Then there are special interest parties such as the greens and farmers party (actually these parties could be the same party, I haven't researched them much past the point of deciding that they don't agree with me on anything at all so fuck 'em)
Furthermore, voting is compulsory over here, Everytime I haven't voted I've had to pay a fifty dollar fine. I've never voted though and I've got no intention of doing so until there's a political party in Australia which matches 100% of my opinion on the issues. In my view a vote for a party you consider the lesser of x amount of evils is first and foremost an approval for that party and secondly an approval for the process.
What is it that they say? Where everyone gets what the majority deserves?
Weren't a bunch of techno-libertarian anarchists going to create a state from steel and concrete off the coast of florida and implement a true modern free state? Whatever the hell happened to that? I'm sick to death of Australia.
It's not an acceptable standard of living for me, so I don't join the crew. That doesn't mean I should have to subsidise the lifestyle they choose. That doesn't even make sense.
I'm not a George
I did mention in the previous message that I had no problem with paying for the services I used. That would include a police service used to enforce common sense laws, and if I happened to drive I'd intend on paying for roads, too.
Libertarian doesn't mean anarchist, that's what you seem to be implying though. As far as I can see it's just acknowledgement that government is a necessary evil and should be restricted as much as is practical.
Why is this thread still here?
Yes, but equal to what degree? For example I'd be perfectly happy if the government totally withdrew any future support for me and didn't tax me anything and I had to pay for whatever services I used and nothing else. This would be very fair to me and I'd be perfectly happy if everyone else were treated in entirely the same way. But I can guaruntee you there would be a great many people who would not be particularily happy about this.
As it stands, I don't think all men are treated equally at all. You only need look at the liberal trend to favour the minorities and left-leaning special interest groups, or the right-conservative trend to favour the socioeconomic upper class and right-leaning special interest groups, for evidence of this.
But really this is very off topic now, as I've already pointed out this isn't a political debate. I don't care to discuss politics as they're very boring, and in my humble opinion I will never have a large impact on anything political.
This was just about contentment, your typical member of the proletariat of the IT labour market's general dissatisfaction with life.
Thankyou for the statistical analysis. I don't doubt what you're saying is true, however I live in a country with a specially bad reputation for abusing the welfare system. It's certainly not the case here. I personally knew a few people who ended up on the street. I used to go to school with a fair amount of people who are now deeply entrenched welfare recipients, or homeless altogether and living on the street.
These people that I know, in this country, are certainly capable of rational thought. They have no mental disabilities which would impair them from acquiring the skills necessary to get a job which would pay well.
They're simply extremely lazy people and don't want to work, so I have to pay for them. That annoys me just a little
This entire thread though is getting to be quite off topic due to the fact that it's coming down to a discussion between the pros and cons of available systems of government in modern society.
All it started out as was a discussion on the fact that a bunch of people are discontent, I don't think that has a whole lot to do with government.
Oh, so state-funded childcare limits your freedom to work? An efficient public transport system limits your freedom to work? An education limits your freedom to work?
No, more like it limits your ability to earn money from this work. I didn't specify whether this was a good or bad thing, merely that it was a fact.
Not having to step over hundreds of beggars limits your freedom to work?
There are hundreds of beggars already. I have never been to the U.K. and I am unfamiliar with the state of that particular issue in that country, but I assure you in mine there are plenty of beggars around. And there were plenty in Germany and the rest of Europe when I visited as well.
And to be perfectly frank with you I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for those people, I had to live on an extremely low amount of my entire life until I started pulling money for myself. I don't believe this is simply because I am different to them, it comes down to effort. I am currently a little uncertain about this though, I don't know if all men really were created equal anymore, I am beginning to lose faith in that.
Maybe if you're a monk or a mercenary the government wouldn't be much help. Otherwise, get serious and think before you troll.
It amuses me greatly when people jump to conclusions purely because they want to be combative and then accuse others of trolling.
I think you're being very defensive here, I never implied that socialism or even communism was a flawed concept in some way. Although for the record, I do believe every system of government currently available is a flawed concept in some way, capitalism included. I actually thought the content of my comment reflected that view.
A non-socialist individual is a very obvious term, I don't think you really need me to explain what that means, but in case I'm wrong, it means an individual who does not believe socialism is the best form of government available.
I'm a perfectionist and an individualist who has set personal goals actually higher than what a more conservative person might consider realistic. To my mind taking risks and trying to exceed my own expectations is the only way to really achieve something. That's my choice.
Yeah, it is your choice, and if it's working for you, that's a good thing. What I was pointing out however is that for a lot of people, they're either unhappy with their choice, or they see no choice worth making
You've got an old fashioned idea of what socialism is if you think it somehow limits your freedom to work hard, earn money and achieve high level of success in your own field.
That statement doesn't quite make sense, I mean, everything limits your freedom to work hard earn money and achieve a high level of success in your own field aside from the total absence of any regulations on the fruits of your labour at all. And as far as I'm aware, aside from a few small places such as Andorra and Vanuatu, there aren't any places which are totally absent of income tax. Even then you could argue sales tax or any other given tax "limits" you.
That shouldn't really be the question though, the question should be what's the balance between acceptable limits for the greater good and unacceptable burden on the people who achieve the most in order to assist the people who don't achieve at all. If your opinion is that socialism is that acceptable limit, and that works for you, that's good, you've got answers for yourself
But it's flawed to imply that socialism is *less* limiting to the complete absence of any intervention in order to distribute the fruits of your labour as you see fit, that doesn't make sense.
I don't think it has anything to do with IT as a phenomenon in itself. I think it has more to do with the common drive present in nearly all non-communist non-socialist individuals to achieve a high level of success in whatever their chosen field happens to be. Often though, when people climb to the top of their respective ladders they realise that the view isn't so good after all, and they wondered why they bothered to expend the effort to climb up there in the first place.
Thoughts such as this often lead to depression, and when on top of this you're expected to every single day except for perhaps four weeks of the year, go to work and do as your boss tells you, even if a lot of the time whatever your boss happens to be telling you to do is just plain stupid, this also leads to stress.
I think it's very shortsighted to blame this entire phenomenon on the IT industry. As far as I can see it isn't a problem that occured because of the IT industry, it's a problem that has been exposed because of the nature of the world today.
Fifty years ago , the amount of information available to your average person was not nearly as high as what is available to your average person today. I think this amount of information and the fact that so many people out there are absorbing it is perhaps leading to a critical mass of people wondering what the hell it's all about.
Another reason IT might be getting blamed for this is because people in this industry have an even higher amount of information than your average person who perhaps only researches subjects that they've specifically seen on their local news program via a search engine.
Nearly everyone who I've ever worked with in this industry, if not keeping their brains occupied with the intricacies of their chosen profession, seem to me to be primarily dissatisfied with their lot in life. Yeah, sure, you've got your moments where the whole thing just sounds like an excerpt from a User Friendly comic strip, but when all that's over, nothing really makes any sense anymore.
But hey, I don't have any answers.
I noticed here that it says it's got a PCMCIA slot and there's a seperately available wireless ethernet card. Does this mean it also has a TCP/IP stack? what protocols does it talk? Can I run a daemon on aforementioned cyberpooch and have my home PC (with what type of wireless ethernet card) give it instructions and perhaps store data for it effectively giving it a much larger memory access size than the paltry 8mb card it comes with for personallity storage? Do I care? No, not particularily, but hey, this is just the place to get curious. ;)
That's very amusing, I'm assuming that you don't very often use swords. All Highlander tomfoolery and ludicrousness aside, every single woman I'm currently friends with I've become friends with through the teaching of Iaido and the study of the metallurgical properties of your "typical" shinsakuto ;).
I do not think just because one holds an interest in swords is enough to label them as juvenile. Even those differentially heat treated Shadow-S 1086 steel forge folded Highlander replica swords with the kevlar enhanced tsukas are pretty and functional, so you can't readily say that Highlander fans are just interested in your everyday junkmetal 100$ Taiwan blades.
Swords are fun, women are fun too, they make better students than men (Wow, three generalisations in just one rant, how disturbing).
The other obvious activity with which your typical man would partake with two beautiful woman is actually I think far more worthy of being labelled typical than "playing with swords" ;).
Actually, perhaps not for your typical male *geek*... (God I hate that word..)