I was just at Best Buy last night, and while I was there, I just made a quick rundown of the games section. The first thing I noticed were the big yellow 'WE ID' stickers every 2 feet on the shelves. If you are under a certain age, you are not allowed to purchase video games that fall into certain categories. I'm not exactly sure which categories those are, but I'm sure that GTA: San Andreas falls into that category. Now there are two problems here.
1. Some game store allowed a young person to buy this game. This is bad, but not *THAT* bad in my opinion.
2. Some parent either a) allowed it or b) didn't know about it. Either of those two options is completely unacceptable. Its called Parenting. Mrs. Clinton needs to let the rest of us play the games that we like and start focusing on the real problem: bad parents.
I've seen sites that have links to pages that show you how to draw and quarter a human body. Now IANAL but I'm pretty sure that cutting up a dead body is illegal. Should those sites get dinged as well?
What about links to legitimate news sites that happen to run a story on "how easy it is to steal an oldsmobile with a screwdriver" only to see the theft rate of oldsmobiles increaseed sharply in the next 5 days after the article? That happened to my parents some time ago. Now I'd bet a small amount of money that the person who stole their car saw how to do it (in some great detail I might add) on the news. Shouldn't the news station be responsible for that?
The fact that this happened in Australia comforts me slightly, but only slightly. I'm waiting for some RIAA executive to put a bug in a congressman's ear about the same type of thing here. The part that really scares me is things like that can become law easily by tailing it onto the back of some sure-to-pass appropriations bill or other popular piece of legislature....
Which leads me to a slightly offtopic but (IMO) a completely legitimate idea:
Congress should pass a law prohibiting bills from coattail-riding on other unrelated bills. If its important enough to pass a law about, its important enough to deserve its own vote.
With articles posted like this one, people wonder why that previous article, the one about wasting time at work had such high statistics... we might be able to get more work done in less time than before, but with things like this and Google Earth to play with, is it any wonder?
Its a simple concept. Most people have an excess of one of two things, time or money. Most people believe that time IS money, so people spend whichever they have more surplus of.
The part that I think its funny is that I've played WoW for over 4 months now, have a level 60 priest, and alts of various levels. The only thing that I've ever really needed money for was to train in my spells. Almost never have I had to borrow money from anyone, except about 20g for my horse when I hit level 40. I promptly paid that back within 2 days. (Again, I didn't NEED a horse, but it was a nice thing to have.)
Point being, what do these people do with all this money? I'd rather have REAL money to spend on REAL things. I don't NEED to have all that WoW money. Buying that extra cool sword or mace at the in-game auction house, or that piece of armor isn't going to *snap* level your character light that. Nothing in game is *THAT* unbalancing to allow a few farm-bought pieces to completely change the game. Frankly half the fun for me was getting into those big dungeons to get the items. Even then I'd end up playing my alt after it was done, who couldn't even use that equipment.
I'd actually like to alter my original statement some... Its still true that people spend time or money, but those who spend lots and lots of money on things they don't need are just plain foolish.
Back in my Ultima Online days, I watched an auction on eBay close... it was a castle (the biggest house type available in the game) on the server I played on, for $1,300. Over one thousand dollars! For something that doesn't really exist! If UO had shut down the next day, that guy would have been really upset. Fortunately for him its still around, but 1300 bucks? C'mon. I can see buying something online for $5 or something, but thats just ridiculous.
People are always asking why should selling gold/items for real money be illegal? This is precisely the reason, at least in my opinion.
Blizzard has announced several times that they have caught and banned/suspended some of the gold farmers, but the hard truth remains: You will never catch all of these people. If Blizzard starts monitoring large sums of gold in in-game mail, the farmers will just start setting up fake auctions, where they sell a grey (vendor trash) item for thousands of gold. Those would be easy to spot, but again, there are always more creative people out there to come up with more ideas.
the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
No, I would liken it to a retailer employee taking a generic competitor's product off the shelf and pushing it into my face while I'm looking at the name brand thing. If you want to be like the generic product sitting next to the brand-name, then make the add on the page, next to it, not pop-up, forcing you to close the window to continue with your shopping.
Just because 60% of the user base of Sims was female, why does it matter that only 40% of the developers were female? If the developers as a whole were providing content that matched their users expectations and desires, then why should it matter what their gender ratio is? These are the kinds of studies and reports that just make the gender gap even wider. Males and females (note the lack of use of the word 'girl' here, since I don't feel it belongs in this article at all) both program, they both play, but why do the gender proportions have to match up? Is it not physically possible for a male to contribute something useful to a game that is played by a female, and vice versa?
I know the lines have been drawn between the Nvidia folks and the ATI folks. Having used both myself, I'm more of an Nvidia guy personally, but I respect both sides... I'm just glad that both companies are actively involved in making better products, because without competition, I think the market would stagnate pretty quick. Its competition that drives us (ok, them!)
As much as I'm not happy about a $600 card, I'll probably wait a year or two until it drops to maybe around $400, then I'll bite. I'd like to keep my kidneys as long as possible, and not have to sell one off just to by hardware that will eventually become obsolete. I guess that competition is a double-edged sword after all!;)
35% + 40% = 75%. Where is the other 25%? Shouldn't it basically be just the two options, either legal or illegal? Are the 35% and the 40% based on some kind of different counts? If so, where are the 65% and the 60% to match them?
Seriously though, you're going to have malicious people do that kind of thing anywhere, but to blame one particular site's users for that kind of behavior is just wrong. "Tech-Savvy" doesn't mean malicious. Its like the adjectives Yellow and Big. Just because you're Big, doesn't mean you're Yellow, but there are definitely some Big Yellow folks out there.. (Big Bird?) Ok, maybe that was a bad analogy...
I'd like to know, if the number of programming jobs has decreased that much in three years time, who is getting the work done? Are the rest of the programmers working longer hours? Are the businesses just getting along with no new applications or maintenance on their existing applications?
In this age of technology, who do we expect to do the programming work if there are fewer and fewer programmers out there? Does this report take into account consultants and temporary contract work?
Obviously some types of businesses probably wouldn't need a full time programmer on their payroll, but thats how its always been. The big corporations that are constantly developing newer and better applications (especially software companies themselves) wouldn't be able to function without their programmers.
Based on that argument, if I take a photograph of something (ie copying its likeness to a paper medium for my own perusal later) doesn't it mean that I own whatever I "make a copy of"?
Hell, that means I should be receiving the deed to the Russian winter castle, the parthenon, the sistine chapel... hrm, so many monuments to lay claim to. (I can't forget about stonehenge and the white house! They can keep that washington monument. Its too pointy for my taste.)
So what evidence do you have that 'popular belief' is wrong? The release of Windows Media player 8 was around 2001, not 1998. This was the first time that the player was directly tied with Windows, which is when the big push to get Mp3 off the chart. At this point, Mp3 wasn't a blip, it was pretty much the standard.
I've got my facts straight. Get your argument straight. Maybe I should have been more clear in my original comment, because you're not even talking about the same thing as me. At this point, real audio had been pretty much dead for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just at Best Buy last night, and while I was there, I just made a quick rundown of the games section. The first thing I noticed were the big yellow 'WE ID' stickers every 2 feet on the shelves. If you are under a certain age, you are not allowed to purchase video games that fall into certain categories. I'm not exactly sure which categories those are, but I'm sure that GTA: San Andreas falls into that category. Now there are two problems here.
1. Some game store allowed a young person to buy this game. This is bad, but not *THAT* bad in my opinion.
2. Some parent either a) allowed it or b) didn't know about it. Either of those two options is completely unacceptable. Its called Parenting. Mrs. Clinton needs to let the rest of us play the games that we like and start focusing on the real problem: bad parents.
I've seen sites that have links to pages that show you how to draw and quarter a human body. Now IANAL but I'm pretty sure that cutting up a dead body is illegal. Should those sites get dinged as well?
What about links to legitimate news sites that happen to run a story on "how easy it is to steal an oldsmobile with a screwdriver" only to see the theft rate of oldsmobiles increaseed sharply in the next 5 days after the article? That happened to my parents some time ago. Now I'd bet a small amount of money that the person who stole their car saw how to do it (in some great detail I might add) on the news. Shouldn't the news station be responsible for that?
The fact that this happened in Australia comforts me slightly, but only slightly. I'm waiting for some RIAA executive to put a bug in a congressman's ear about the same type of thing here. The part that really scares me is things like that can become law easily by tailing it onto the back of some sure-to-pass appropriations bill or other popular piece of legislature....
Which leads me to a slightly offtopic but (IMO) a completely legitimate idea:
Congress should pass a law prohibiting bills from coattail-riding on other unrelated bills. If its important enough to pass a law about, its important enough to deserve its own vote.
Ok, rant over. *whew*
Stella!
With articles posted like this one, people wonder why that previous article, the one about wasting time at work had such high statistics... we might be able to get more work done in less time than before, but with things like this and Google Earth to play with, is it any wonder?
You might get a visit from Steve, who might say:
"Dude, You're gettin' a Cell!"
I wonder which is worse anyway, downloading music, or Smoking pot. Good job, Steve!
Those responsible for shredding the important documents, have been sacked. ...
...
We apologize again for the inconvienence. Those responsible for sacking the people who were shredding documents have also been sacked.
A moose once bit my sister...
Its a simple concept. Most people have an excess of one of two things, time or money. Most people believe that time IS money, so people spend whichever they have more surplus of.
The part that I think its funny is that I've played WoW for over 4 months now, have a level 60 priest, and alts of various levels. The only thing that I've ever really needed money for was to train in my spells. Almost never have I had to borrow money from anyone, except about 20g for my horse when I hit level 40. I promptly paid that back within 2 days. (Again, I didn't NEED a horse, but it was a nice thing to have.)
Point being, what do these people do with all this money? I'd rather have REAL money to spend on REAL things. I don't NEED to have all that WoW money. Buying that extra cool sword or mace at the in-game auction house, or that piece of armor isn't going to *snap* level your character light that. Nothing in game is *THAT* unbalancing to allow a few farm-bought pieces to completely change the game. Frankly half the fun for me was getting into those big dungeons to get the items. Even then I'd end up playing my alt after it was done, who couldn't even use that equipment.
I'd actually like to alter my original statement some... Its still true that people spend time or money, but those who spend lots and lots of money on things they don't need are just plain foolish.
Back in my Ultima Online days, I watched an auction on eBay close... it was a castle (the biggest house type available in the game) on the server I played on, for $1,300. Over one thousand dollars! For something that doesn't really exist! If UO had shut down the next day, that guy would have been really upset. Fortunately for him its still around, but 1300 bucks? C'mon. I can see buying something online for $5 or something, but thats just ridiculous.
People are always asking why should selling gold/items for real money be illegal? This is precisely the reason, at least in my opinion.
Blizzard has announced several times that they have caught and banned/suspended some of the gold farmers, but the hard truth remains: You will never catch all of these people. If Blizzard starts monitoring large sums of gold in in-game mail, the farmers will just start setting up fake auctions, where they sell a grey (vendor trash) item for thousands of gold. Those would be easy to spot, but again, there are always more creative people out there to come up with more ideas.
I bet in another 5 years, they'll come out with some ultra-new technology that is REALLY crackproof.
Its like Tide... its new and improved? You mean there are people STILL working on Tide? (Yeah I know, Seinfeld!)
We just need to merge this robot with an "outer skin" like that from the RealDoll!
Wonder how long the backorder list would be for something like that...
the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
No, I would liken it to a retailer employee taking a generic competitor's product off the shelf and pushing it into my face while I'm looking at the name brand thing. If you want to be like the generic product sitting next to the brand-name, then make the add on the page, next to it, not pop-up, forcing you to close the window to continue with your shopping.
I'd just like to know how many times the original poster re-read (previewed) his post to make sure there weren't any spelling or grammatical errors.
;)
More than once I'd bet.
The are billions of people of Earth, and they gov'y knows where to find the ones who won't be noticed... i.e. prostitutes etc.
Hey, I notice prostitutes!
... you will receive your first three months of sunlight, FREE! (With purchase of a new Family-sized heater!)
Just because 60% of the user base of Sims was female, why does it matter that only 40% of the developers were female? If the developers as a whole were providing content that matched their users expectations and desires, then why should it matter what their gender ratio is? These are the kinds of studies and reports that just make the gender gap even wider. Males and females (note the lack of use of the word 'girl' here, since I don't feel it belongs in this article at all) both program, they both play, but why do the gender proportions have to match up? Is it not physically possible for a male to contribute something useful to a game that is played by a female, and vice versa?
I know the lines have been drawn between the Nvidia folks and the ATI folks. Having used both myself, I'm more of an Nvidia guy personally, but I respect both sides... I'm just glad that both companies are actively involved in making better products, because without competition, I think the market would stagnate pretty quick. Its competition that drives us (ok, them!)
;)
As much as I'm not happy about a $600 card, I'll probably wait a year or two until it drops to maybe around $400, then I'll bite. I'd like to keep my kidneys as long as possible, and not have to sell one off just to by hardware that will eventually become obsolete. I guess that competition is a double-edged sword after all!
35% + 40% = 75%. Where is the other 25%? Shouldn't it basically be just the two options, either legal or illegal? Are the 35% and the 40% based on some kind of different counts? If so, where are the 65% and the 60% to match them?
If you didn't get the Monty Python reference, I pity you. Its from a song, surprisingly titled 'I like Chinese'.
Couldn't be more than 65/35!
Seriously though, you're going to have malicious people do that kind of thing anywhere, but to blame one particular site's users for that kind of behavior is just wrong. "Tech-Savvy" doesn't mean malicious. Its like the adjectives Yellow and Big.
Just because you're Big, doesn't mean you're Yellow, but there are definitely some Big Yellow folks out there.. (Big Bird?) Ok, maybe that was a bad analogy...
I like Chinese...
There's 900 million of them in the world today, so you better get to like them, thats what I say...
I like Chinese....
I like Chinese Food... The waiters never are rude...
I'd like to know, if the number of programming jobs has decreased that much in three years time, who is getting the work done? Are the rest of the programmers working longer hours? Are the businesses just getting along with no new applications or maintenance on their existing applications?
In this age of technology, who do we expect to do the programming work if there are fewer and fewer programmers out there? Does this report take into account consultants and temporary contract work?
Obviously some types of businesses probably wouldn't need a full time programmer on their payroll, but thats how its always been. The big corporations that are constantly developing newer and better applications (especially software companies themselves) wouldn't be able to function without their programmers.
Hrm apparently I didn't RTFA... I need more coffee...
Based on that argument, if I take a photograph of something (ie copying its likeness to a paper medium for my own perusal later) doesn't it mean that I own whatever I "make a copy of"?
Hell, that means I should be receiving the deed to the Russian winter castle, the parthenon, the sistine chapel... hrm, so many monuments to lay claim to. (I can't forget about stonehenge and the white house! They can keep that washington monument. Its too pointy for my taste.)
Go to http://www.google.com/ and type this in:
microsoft "competes with mp3"
So what evidence do you have that 'popular belief' is wrong? The release of Windows Media player 8 was around 2001, not 1998. This was the first time that the player was directly tied with Windows, which is when the big push to get Mp3 off the chart. At this point, Mp3 wasn't a blip, it was pretty much the standard.
I've got my facts straight. Get your argument straight. Maybe I should have been more clear in my original comment, because you're not even talking about the same thing as me. At this point, real audio had been pretty much dead for a while.