Were you the guy asking about "Starflight" by any chance?
If so, I found a copy of Starflight for the Genesis a few months ago at Funcoland. That would be a good place to look for it. Of course, the PC version is better because you have a keyboard, and you can find that at The Underdogs.
That Mom might have been simpy meant "I'd prefer it wasn't a violent first-person shooter game with so-and-so elements in it." She may have simply been not bothering to spell out her thought in detail. Of course, I definitely wouldn't let my 9-year-old play South Park, but for different reasons.
My only question for you is whether you'll let your children play more scary and/or violent games when they get older.
It depends on the game and the child. I would gladly let my 9-year-old watch "The Lord of the Rings", which he would love (I read him the Hobbit when he was 4), but I know from experience that the Nazgul would scare the crap out of him. Not so much at the time, but he would come crying a 11 o'clock at night because he can't sleep. He'd done it over something much less scary (quite benign, IMO). That aside, I would have no problem letting him see the movie.
As far as Baldur's Gate... the game is probably a little too hard for him now (my three-year-old insists on trying to play games that are WAY to hard* for him because his older siblings do, and it always ends in extreme frustration for all parties... although we can usually solve that by playing with him), but I could see letting him play that in a few years, depending. On the other hand though, there are so many cool games he can play that it's probably not going to be a real problem, at least for now.
*He's been bugging me to let him play Majesty the last couple days. He just doesn't udnerstand that he cant understand the game, but I let him sit with me and participate.
Me, too. That was one of the reasons why it (and System Shock) was so good, because the atmosphere was created so well.
That, the RPG elements, and the story were what turned what otherwise would have been another dull Doom clone (System Shock) into a really gripping game. SS2 kept the formula and it worked again.
I for one welcome our new game killing parental overlords.
That's just what we need on a case-by-case basis (i.e., each parent is an overlord for his or her kids). In my house, with children from 3 to 10, I evaluate everything they play. Some things are obviously appropriate for all ages, like "Thomas the Tank Engine"... others are a judgement call... like the T-rated games "Skies of Arcadia", "Total Annihilation", or "Descent", just to name a couple... that I think are despite their ratings. Fortunately, there are very few games that I play that I would not consider appropriate for the kids, which makes my life easier because I don't have to "hide" what I'm doing. Notable examples are the excellent "System Shock 2", which was rated M, or "Baldur's Gate", which was T, that I played. The kids understand and respect that these games are too violent and scary (especially 'scary' for SS2) for them, and they (usually) don't mind that they might not get a chance to see those really cool games because I make a point to find games that are really cool that they can play.
I don't consider myself some kind of parenting expert (quite the opposite really), I just care, and make a point to act like I care.
Also, raising children in a solid moral context is important too. For instance, we enjoyed "Need for Speed III", which involves eluding the police, but the kids understand that this is just for fun and we would never do anything like this in real life. The kids also see the respect I show for authority figures and it has rubbed off on them, so even though we have fun eluding the dumb cops on the computer (or spray-painting the city in Jet Grind Radio, or banging up vehicles and buldings in Super Runabout, or whacking the crap out of opponents in Road Rash, or relentlessly nuking your adversaries in Worms), they have a solid grounding in reality to distinguish between that and real life.
In fact, I think the only thing that was actually filmed was Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman sitting on a green screen mat mumbling to each other.
Yeah, I'm sure Microsoft will just open up its wallet and say, "Uh, you got change for a billion?", I left my small bills on the nightstand.
As far as punishments go, this is peeing in the ocean... and on top of it all, MS ends up getting thousands of up-and-coming customers by flooding the schools with their software.
Correct. However, it is hackish tradition (cf. The Jargon File) to borrow pluralizing conventions from other languages. Thus, we get amusing words like "vaxen", "fora" or even "fen". It's all meant for fun.
However, when you apply the sample plural construction to "virus" as you do to other words like "octopus" or "cactus" or "radius", one would think the result would be "viri", not "virii". I don't know where the extra 'i' comes from, but seeing as how both constructions are not standard, I suppose it is particularly pedantic of me to complain.
I considered that. Actually, I'd say it is. No one talks about OKC hat any more. I've also heard numerous rumors that he had Middle Eastern connections, but I suppose that's either a complete non-story or they just don't want us to know that we were a victim or Muslim terrorism before 9/11.
Oh, no. They'll put him on double secret probation for the rest of his life, but because he's not brown, Muslim or from a country with "istan" in its name, they won't throw him in a cage in Gitmo with no access to lawyers.
Of course, all that can change if/when we find someone whose not a wild-eyed, foaming-mouth Muslim radical behind an attack or attempted attack. After all, it was only a couple years ago that the biggest domestic terrorist threat in the U.S. was supposedly those radical environmental groups. As soon as the profile changes, so will the heavy-handedness.
As a matter of fact, this country, as well as the country that was started in 1788 bears little resemblance to the country started in 1776. For one thing, that country didn't start until 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were ratified. Under these, iirc, Alexander Hamilton was elected president.
Actually it was John Hanson, and I believe it was actually 1789. I was well aware of this fact, but help it was an unnecessary detail to mention in what was, admittedly, a bit of a tirade.
As a corollary, he fought for the right to run the country as we see fit
True, but is the country really run as we, the people, see fit, or as the annointed few see fit. We are still, cynicism aside, a representational democracy, but I really have to wonder how much effect our elections really have. After all, almost every candidate that is elected to the presidency runs on a campaign of "change", and this change, such as it is, is never radical and seldom noticeable.
Did Patrick Henry say "Deny me the use of my property because someone spotted an endangered Northern red-crested spotted skunk beetle there, or give me death"?
No, he didn't, but think about it. Do we know enough about the man to say that he supported genocide?
I don't follow you.
One thing you didn't quote was my comment about the near irrelevancy of the Bill of Rights... can I take this as a tacit agreement of my point?
No, we won't. We changed the government in 2000. While foreign policy was handled differently than it might have been under a President Gore, domestic policy has generally headed in the same direction it has for the last 50 years, increase in the size of government, and a not-so-discreet erosion of individual liberties.
When did Congress ever refrain from doing something because of the 9th or 10th Amendments? We did the Supreme Court ever strike down a law based on those amendments. Nowadays, all you have to do is find someone who looked cross-eyed over a state line and you've got instant Federal "authority" to do all kinds of arbitrary things. Can you believe that some of the Founders of the Constitution thought that the Bill of Rights was superfluous and unnecessary? I read that a recent poll found many respondants not only didn't recognize those rights as constitutional, but in fact took the position that those rights were excessive and should not be granted... the irony being that the Bill of Rights does not grant any rights, but asserts those preexisting rights that Congress cannot take away.
Is this the country that was started in 1776? Does it have anything in common besides the superficial structure and organization stated in the Articles of the Constitution?
Did George Washington fight for the creation of a country whose government would regulate the kind of toilets we can own?
Did Thomas Jefferson work so hard to help design and organize a government that can declare its own citizens foreign combatants and lock them up without trial or counsel?
Did Patrick Henry say "Deny me the use of my property because someone spotted an endangered Northern red-crested spotted skunk beetle there, or give me death"?
Did Nathan Hale regret that he only had one life to give for a country that would grant public monies to "artists" in the media of blasphemy and human excrement, yet deny a public expression of the unarguable fact that the biblical Ten Commandments is one of the most significant bases of Western society and law? That someone's right to not be made to feel "uncomfortable" trumps freedom of expression, religion and common sense?
I would argue that regardless who we elect in 2004, we will have a country that those men would not have recognized, nor could they have believed it could exist under the Constitution created in their lifetimes.
Hear that? It's not Ross Perot's great sucking sound... it's the greatest statesmen in Western Civilization spinning in their graves. With the direction this country is going, I'm surprised they're not boring all the way through to China!
Tobacco companies... they've been systematically deploying chemical weapons for hundreds of years.
Don't fotget the fertilizer people who conspire with the fuel oil manufacturers.
Mmmmmm... the U.S. response to terrorism, declare everyone a terrorist and them impress the public with the numbers you put away.
Or you could just cut out the wait and move to China now. This thing is just scary. I wonder how long it will be before the three branches of government stop even pretending they are following the Constitution.
Try that with your health insurance company. Since they are de facto the fourth branch of government, when they decide to screw you over for not cooperating, you're screwed over.
No, it hasn't. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. We've got the history books, newsreels and photographs that prove it. I've alerted Minitrue to your identity and whereabouts. Remain where you are.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, enabling region encoding is like getting the player "fixed" because you are disabling built-in functionality.
At least you won't have a pile of pocket-sized DVD players to unload.
Am I the only one who momentarily read that as "Colin J. Zick, Holey Fag lawyer?
That's my point. It's a rant against all those who want to use the word "virii". See my journal for more details.
Were you the guy asking about "Starflight" by any chance?
If so, I found a copy of Starflight for the Genesis a few months ago at Funcoland. That would be a good place to look for it. Of course, the PC version is better because you have a keyboard, and you can find that at The Underdogs.
That Mom might have been simpy meant "I'd prefer it wasn't a violent first-person shooter game with so-and-so elements in it." She may have simply been not bothering to spell out her thought in detail. Of course, I definitely wouldn't let my 9-year-old play South Park, but for different reasons.
My only question for you is whether you'll let your children play more scary and/or violent games when they get older.
It depends on the game and the child. I would gladly let my 9-year-old watch "The Lord of the Rings", which he would love (I read him the Hobbit when he was 4), but I know from experience that the Nazgul would scare the crap out of him. Not so much at the time, but he would come crying a 11 o'clock at night because he can't sleep. He'd done it over something much less scary (quite benign, IMO). That aside, I would have no problem letting him see the movie.
As far as Baldur's Gate... the game is probably a little too hard for him now (my three-year-old insists on trying to play games that are WAY to hard* for him because his older siblings do, and it always ends in extreme frustration for all parties... although we can usually solve that by playing with him), but I could see letting him play that in a few years, depending. On the other hand though, there are so many cool games he can play that it's probably not going to be a real problem, at least for now.
*He's been bugging me to let him play Majesty the last couple days. He just doesn't udnerstand that he cant understand the game, but I let him sit with me and participate.
Me, too. That was one of the reasons why it (and System Shock) was so good, because the atmosphere was created so well.
That, the RPG elements, and the story were what turned what otherwise would have been another dull Doom clone (System Shock) into a really gripping game. SS2 kept the formula and it worked again.
That's nothing... thermal expansion and vibration have been unseating my circuit boards for years.
I for one welcome our new game killing parental overlords.
That's just what we need on a case-by-case basis (i.e., each parent is an overlord for his or her kids). In my house, with children from 3 to 10, I evaluate everything they play. Some things are obviously appropriate for all ages, like "Thomas the Tank Engine"... others are a judgement call... like the T-rated games "Skies of Arcadia", "Total Annihilation", or "Descent", just to name a couple... that I think are despite their ratings. Fortunately, there are very few games that I play that I would not consider appropriate for the kids, which makes my life easier because I don't have to "hide" what I'm doing. Notable examples are the excellent "System Shock 2", which was rated M, or "Baldur's Gate", which was T, that I played. The kids understand and respect that these games are too violent and scary (especially 'scary' for SS2) for them, and they (usually) don't mind that they might not get a chance to see those really cool games because I make a point to find games that are really cool that they can play.
I don't consider myself some kind of parenting expert (quite the opposite really), I just care, and make a point to act like I care.
Also, raising children in a solid moral context is important too. For instance, we enjoyed "Need for Speed III", which involves eluding the police, but the kids understand that this is just for fun and we would never do anything like this in real life. The kids also see the respect I show for authority figures and it has rubbed off on them, so even though we have fun eluding the dumb cops on the computer (or spray-painting the city in Jet Grind Radio, or banging up vehicles and buldings in Super Runabout, or whacking the crap out of opponents in Road Rash, or relentlessly nuking your adversaries in Worms), they have a solid grounding in reality to distinguish between that and real life.
I'm only 13 you insensitive clod!
(That'll get 2 points.)
Face recognition software, dude! It's worked wonders in Tampa! The technology is so staggeringly sucessful that it's being implemented everywhere.
I hear MS is calling it "Vaporsearch".
Yeah, Geocities... the only Web host where you exceed your daily bandwidth quota while the banner ads are still loading.
In fact, I think the only thing that was actually filmed was Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman sitting on a green screen mat mumbling to each other.
"Punished"?
Yeah, I'm sure Microsoft will just open up its wallet and say, "Uh, you got change for a billion?", I left my small bills on the nightstand.
As far as punishments go, this is peeing in the ocean... and on top of it all, MS ends up getting thousands of up-and-coming customers by flooding the schools with their software.
Correct. However, it is hackish tradition (cf. The Jargon File) to borrow pluralizing conventions from other languages. Thus, we get amusing words like "vaxen", "fora" or even "fen". It's all meant for fun.
However, when you apply the sample plural construction to "virus" as you do to other words like "octopus" or "cactus" or "radius", one would think the result would be "viri", not "virii". I don't know where the extra 'i' comes from, but seeing as how both constructions are not standard, I suppose it is particularly pedantic of me to complain.
Then why do people who employ the same contruction with the word "virus", use two i's?
I considered that. Actually, I'd say it is. No one talks about OKC hat any more. I've also heard numerous rumors that he had Middle Eastern connections, but I suppose that's either a complete non-story or they just don't want us to know that we were a victim or Muslim terrorism before 9/11.
Does that mean Jim Gray proved to someone over a computer terminal that he was human?
Oh, no. They'll put him on double secret probation for the rest of his life, but because he's not brown, Muslim or from a country with "istan" in its name, they won't throw him in a cage in Gitmo with no access to lawyers.
Of course, all that can change if/when we find someone whose not a wild-eyed, foaming-mouth Muslim radical behind an attack or attempted attack. After all, it was only a couple years ago that the biggest domestic terrorist threat in the U.S. was supposedly those radical environmental groups. As soon as the profile changes, so will the heavy-handedness.
As a matter of fact, this country, as well as the country that was started in 1788 bears little resemblance to the country started in 1776. For one thing, that country didn't start until 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were ratified. Under these, iirc, Alexander Hamilton was elected president.
Actually it was John Hanson, and I believe it was actually 1789. I was well aware of this fact, but help it was an unnecessary detail to mention in what was, admittedly, a bit of a tirade.
As a corollary, he fought for the right to run the country as we see fit
True, but is the country really run as we, the people, see fit, or as the annointed few see fit. We are still, cynicism aside, a representational democracy, but I really have to wonder how much effect our elections really have. After all, almost every candidate that is elected to the presidency runs on a campaign of "change", and this change, such as it is, is never radical and seldom noticeable.
Did Patrick Henry say "Deny me the use of my property because someone spotted an endangered Northern red-crested spotted skunk beetle there, or give me death"?
No, he didn't, but think about it. Do we know enough about the man to say that he supported genocide?
I don't follow you.
One thing you didn't quote was my comment about the near irrelevancy of the Bill of Rights... can I take this as a tacit agreement of my point?
No, we won't. We changed the government in 2000. While foreign policy was handled differently than it might have been under a President Gore, domestic policy has generally headed in the same direction it has for the last 50 years, increase in the size of government, and a not-so-discreet erosion of individual liberties.
When did Congress ever refrain from doing something because of the 9th or 10th Amendments? We did the Supreme Court ever strike down a law based on those amendments. Nowadays, all you have to do is find someone who looked cross-eyed over a state line and you've got instant Federal "authority" to do all kinds of arbitrary things. Can you believe that some of the Founders of the Constitution thought that the Bill of Rights was superfluous and unnecessary? I read that a recent poll found many respondants not only didn't recognize those rights as constitutional, but in fact took the position that those rights were excessive and should not be granted... the irony being that the Bill of Rights does not grant any rights, but asserts those preexisting rights that Congress cannot take away.
Is this the country that was started in 1776? Does it have anything in common besides the superficial structure and organization stated in the Articles of the Constitution?
Did George Washington fight for the creation of a country whose government would regulate the kind of toilets we can own?
Did Thomas Jefferson work so hard to help design and organize a government that can declare its own citizens foreign combatants and lock them up without trial or counsel?
Did Patrick Henry say "Deny me the use of my property because someone spotted an endangered Northern red-crested spotted skunk beetle there, or give me death"?
Did Nathan Hale regret that he only had one life to give for a country that would grant public monies to "artists" in the media of blasphemy and human excrement, yet deny a public expression of the unarguable fact that the biblical Ten Commandments is one of the most significant bases of Western society and law? That someone's right to not be made to feel "uncomfortable" trumps freedom of expression, religion and common sense?
I would argue that regardless who we elect in 2004, we will have a country that those men would not have recognized, nor could they have believed it could exist under the Constitution created in their lifetimes.
Hear that? It's not Ross Perot's great sucking sound... it's the greatest statesmen in Western Civilization spinning in their graves. With the direction this country is going, I'm surprised they're not boring all the way through to China!
Tobacco companies... they've been systematically deploying chemical weapons for hundreds of years.
Don't fotget the fertilizer people who conspire with the fuel oil manufacturers.
Mmmmmm... the U.S. response to terrorism, declare everyone a terrorist and them impress the public with the numbers you put away.
Or you could just cut out the wait and move to China now. This thing is just scary. I wonder how long it will be before the three branches of government stop even pretending they are following the Constitution.
"I don't do drugs; I am drugs."
Salvador Dali
And he was right.
Turn it on, Salvador!
Q: How hard would it be to MD5 all 1 billion possible SSN's and create a reverse lookup table.
A: Give me a few minutes.
Try that with your health insurance company. Since they are de facto the fourth branch of government, when they decide to screw you over for not cooperating, you're screwed over.
No, it hasn't. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. We've got the history books, newsreels and photographs that prove it. I've alerted Minitrue to your identity and whereabouts. Remain where you are.