"Can somebody better acquainted with the mechanics of sending a vehicle to the Moon and back please explain why Buzz Aldrin recommends taking a sextant?"
Because Aldrin previously demonstrated that you could maneuver in orbit using a sextant if your computer failed? On one Gemini flight he used the sextant to perform the rendevouz rather than the computer and radar, if I remember correctly.
Yes, rendezvous has been peformed with a sextant and a set of look up tables - but navigating to and from the moon still requires a computer and an accurate time reference to go with the sextant.
The Moon is like Iceland - easier to get to from Europe but there's not much there besides scenery. The Mars system (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) are New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. I guess this makes Mars-Earth L1 the Hudson River?
ROTFLMAO. You can only have a body X/body Y L point when one is in orbit around the other. (The rest of your post is in general of an equal or lesser factual content - but the writing isn't of sufficient quality to use as fiction.)
As the folks at Goddard expained it during the Moon Math student competition, "When you go camping, isn't it a good idea to try setting up the campsite in your backyard first, 600 inches away, so you can try out everything, or run back in the house if you forgot your flashlight, make sure you remember to bring everything, and *THEN* go camping for real to somewhere 600 miles away?"
Except - that doesn't reflect reality. A closer analogy would be "Isn't it a good idea to skin dive in the Bahamas to try out your equipment for camping in the Sahara desert?". The two environments (Moon, Mars), and the equipment required for exploring them are just about that different. (For example - if you wear a spacesuit designed for the Moon on Mars, you'll die. Period. The two suits, among many other things, require very different insulation, joint design, and cooling methods.)
That's a largely non-obvious reason for using the same basic vehicle for both mission sets.
Except - nobody is planning, even dreaming, about doing that. If a CEV goes to Mars - it will do so as passive cargo for the re-entry phase. The crew will actually live in (and draw life support from) a much larger crew module. (Among other things, the CEV can't support it's crew for more than a couple of weeks. Nor does it have sufficient elbow room for a multi-year mission.)
though, methinks that this whole "return to the moon" wouldn't even have been brought up had the Chinese not boasted about what they hope to accomplish.
Had the Chinese boasted about what they hope to accomplish - you'd have a point. But a press release from a low level bureaucrat attempting to drum up funding and support for his agency does not equate to national policy. The facts support a very different picture: The Chinese have just enough of a (manned) space program to show that they are technologically capable and in fact should be counted as a first rank nation and a superpower - and not one bit more. If nothing else - look at their flight rate.
"A skip re-entry is riskier," Lockheed's Johns concedes. "The Apollo traditionalists worry about it." The Russians performed a couple of successful skip re-entries with their unmanned Zond moon probes in the late 1960s, however.
They also had a couple of failures - and the failures/sucesses were dotted pretty evenly across the attempts. Zond was a percursor to a Soviet attempt to perform an Apollo 8 flyby to steal NASA's thunder - in fact, it was the Zond tests that lead to Apollo 8 being a lunar mission rather than a high earth orbit mission so as to steal the Russians thunder!
Before the budget cuts of 65/66 and the Fire, NASA planned on as many as *6* manned flights in LEO and an indeterminate number of lunar flights before committing to a landing attempt. Those budget cuts, the time lost after the fire, and the growing realization that the Soviets might be able to trump them forced their hand.
So much for the myth of Apollo-era NASA being the brave and bold agency they are so often portrayed as of late. Until forced, they were just as conservative as they are today.
They suck dollars from non-manned (i.e., robotic) missions whose focus IS actually collecting data for research.
Well, yes and no. The unmanned (science) side asked for large increases in their budget - and got smaller increases instead. So it's not 'precisely' sucking money from unmanned to manned.
His statement about missions being cancelled is particularly disingenuous - because he fails to tell you that it's normal for more missions/instruments to be proposed/planned than actually fly. Having projects be cancelled in midstream isn't something happening recently because of the VSE - it happens on a regular basis. (Partly because the unmanned side is no better than the manned when it comes to delivering on time and on budget.)
Regarding manned missions: "It's fine to do it for national spirit or exploring the cosmos, but the problem is that it comes at the cost of observing and protecting our home planet."
Given that his job is to conduct climatalogical studies - he's not exactly an unbiased source.
Have fun changing light bulbs and having higher power bills.
I change a light bulb every two months or so - so changing bulbs isn't a biggie. At any given time there is a generally no more than three bulbs lit in the house - so higher power bills isn't a biggie.
I'm sure there are a ton of great uses for this technology. I just don't think that we are anywhere near diong all of the things the article wants, and even if we were, it would end up making more work for people. With that said, consider how this might affect our brains. When I was young, I had my closest friends' phone numbers memorized, along as a few of their addresses. Once I got a cell phone, I slowly forgot every number I knew.
The problem isn't the technology - it's you. I own a cell phone, and I haven't forgotten any of the numbers I have memorized. On the basis that since I have them memorized, there was/is no point in entering them into the fun. It's not the technology - it's your own laziness.
Outsourcing your work to a team of digital artists to polish up your vision is not my idea of artistry. There's some respect to be paid for the director who, apart from adding sound effects and rearranging scenes, is directly responsible for what's on the developed film.
Right. And once the director hands it over to the digital artists - he has no further input or control over what happens. Just like when he outsources the sounds, and the film developing, and the editing, etc... etc...
In my mind, there's a world of difference between Lucas being behind the camera and shooting/directing the same scene in Star Wars over and over again until it's visually perfect and him shooting a scene of Ewan McGregor in front of a green screen and dumping the rest on the ILM team.
Right. The ILM team created perfection on the first attempt - with no guidance or input from Lucas. He didn't change or modify anything they created.
I view the former as a complete art form on Lucas's part, while the latter isn't.
Right. Lucas handing over portions of the film to digital artists is so different than him handing over the soundtrack to other artists, or handing over the negatives to the developers, or handing over the developed film to the editors...
No, the fact that the asteroids and ships, while not "real" in Empire, were physical objects being filmed had more to do with it. For whatever reason, my brain was faked out enough by real photos of real objects, but it was not by a similar CG scene.
I gave you the reason - twenty years ago, you weren't jaded by twenty years of CGI and SFX. Along with that, in subsequent years, you have decided (without foundation) that the director handing over portions of the film is somehow 'different' from all the other portions he hands over.
Most of the people I talk to who object to CF lights and how they "look funny", don't have a single one in their house.
So? I object to them (on the basic of their odd color balance) - and *because* of that, I don't have a single one in my house. Not owning one does not equate to not having seen one. I've been to friends houses and to offices that have them, I've seen them in lighting displays at the store - without ever owning a single one, I know how bad their lighting is.
While I don't have problems with such retouching, I do think that it makes it tough to consider films and photographs that have been doctored genuine art forms anymore.
Right. Any clod with photoshop can retouch a photograph that very few will be able to tell was photoshopped - and also will be able to convey a message. Movies? Not a problem, the same clod can retouch Star Wars into Star Wars - The Special Edition over a long weekend.
Oh, wait...
Certainly, much of anything that comes out of Hollywood cannot be taken at face value, but it's become even less genuine over the past 20 years. Before the 80's, if you saw a buxom, beautiful woman (or man, for you ladies out there), you could be much more certain that her hair color, bust size, and other features tied to "beauty" were more or less genuine.
Right. Airbrushes, girdles, toupees, body forming bras, hose, makeup, hair dye, etc... etc... were all invented in 1980. (Or to put it simply, you have a very rose colored - and false, perspective on the history of Hollywood and its attempts to create beauty and consistency.)
Another example. While I appreciate the digital eye candy of Star Wars: 1-3, I don't think they hold a candle to the *artwork* of Episodes 4-6. One example I always trot out is the asteroid flight/fight scenes in Empire vs Clones. The flight of the Millennium Falcon through the asteroids in Empire made me sway in my seat when I watched it on the big screen as a kid. The scene with Obi-Wan and Fett in Clones had nowhere near the same impact, though it may have been visually more "clean".
And of course being twenty years older and having been jaded by twenty years of ever more sophisticated SFX and CGI has nothing to do with it. Again, your glasses have a distinct rose tint.
This is just a case of the police force trying to intimidate someone who caught an officer doing something maybe they should not have been doing.
Sadly for your gross overgeneralization and kneejerk stereotyping - that's not quite the truth. The couple in question have been brought up on stalking charges: because they repeatedly emailed the officer in question at his personal email adress.
Shall we compare that behavior to the law you you quote?
A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person.
It seems you are more interested in handwaving away what the couple did to reach your true agenda: Which isn't justice or truth - but simply slamming the police force.
Why pay to play a game, and then have a computer play it for you?
Funny because it's true. In actuality, such games are not so much about the 'enjoyment of playing' but the 'enjoyment of collection'. It's like when I was a kid and spend endless money on football cards. Sometimes obsessively so to try and get a special card from a pack, or go to 'specialty stores' to buy it specifically from someone else.
Like that, WoW and other MMO's are about collection or completing 'sets' of things. In this case, leveling your character to the level cap.
That's an attitude I've never been able to understand. In game after game I see the same thing: "I've ground my $template to $levelcap and I'm bored! There's nothing to do but $handful of stuff!"
Well, duh idiot. You ground yourself right past all the content! WTF did you expect? When you play a console game or PC RPG you don't try and leap right to the boss fight - why do you do that in a MMO?
Regular theft leaves evidence behind - the stolen item is gone - you know you have been robbed. Stealing a copy of something leaves behind no evidence. If you do not know it has been stolen, you can not even begin to start looking for the thief.
kevinbr (689680)
Over and over.....copying is not stealing. It is copying. There is a difference. The powers that be LOVE when people call copying stealing. If I steal an object - you no longer have the object. If I copy an object, you still have the object. Copyright is a givernment granted monopoly so what I am doing in copying is ignoring your monopoly.
The powers that be call it stealing because under the law - that is what it is. This usage goes back decades, and in some cases nearly half a millenia. Grow the fuck up and drop the sophmoric word games to pretend that you aren't breaking the law.
I grew up copying my friends albums on tapes. We all bought stuff, but no one bleated then about stealing. We called it sharing.
It doesn't matter what you call it - not one bit.
Someone is likely to pipe in that there is evidence of theft - the stolen item/copy itself. Before that someone starts piping, ask yourself just how many crimes are investigated because the cops found a guy with stolen items versus how many are investigated because something went missing? I am going to SWAG and say at least 1:10,000 maybe even 1:100,000, which is about as good an example of unenforceable as you are going to get.
The ratio doesn't matter at all. The fact that you can be prosecuted for having someone elses goods inexplicably in your possesion matters, the fact that the law exists, and can be enforced matters.
Of course those 1 out of 10 thousand cases have about a 100% success rate, but that's only because the crimes are already solved by the time they are discovered.
Actually - they aren't 'solved by discovery'. The cops/prosection have to prove that the goods in question were stolen. Again, you confuse sophmoric word games with how the law works.
If you have something specific that is incorrect in the calculations or economics, please inform me.
Any engineer worth his salt will tell you that there is a vast difference between calculations on a simplified and idealized system and actual design calculation on an actual design. Therefore, since you don't have an actual design, your calculation are meaningless for serious evaluation. Your economics section contains nothing but airy handwaving - no numbers. Therefore, it is meaningless.
The energytower.org project is not-for-profit and is about collecting ideas on a scalable and location independent renewable energy source, presented to draw positive input from others. All of the individual components of the system are in use commercially, but not in a complete system.
The error in your assumptions and thinking about running an open source engineering project I debunked in my posting to your first appearance on slashdot. That all the indivual components are in use elsewhere is meaningless - interfaces matter, they matter a great deal. (And your intent is starkly revealed by the phrase 'positive input' - you aren't interested in facts.)
Many engineers and physics experts have looked at the energytower idea. Negative critism from a/. reader didn't RTFA isn't exactly "debunking" a system.
Many engineers and physicists have looked over all manner of things, so what? Such a statement is typicaly of hype - or someone trying to present his idea as proven and practical, when it is niether.
Slashdot is a slashvertisement for Linux and open source. If you want the $6.36 I have made from Google adsense, give me your pay-pal account and I will send it right along.
Slashdot is a slashvertisement? Methinks you have a very loose grasp of the meaning of the word.
I suspect he doesn't actually work for an ISP - but is more interested in adding to his 'featured in the media' page and getting attention for his schemes.
I've wondered why most A/C units for buildings seem to rely on radiating heat via waste air. There must be a decent use for that heat nearby (at least in densely populated areas). Find a pool that needs heating, or help run the hot water tanks, or create a public hot shower or something!
Because the waste heat is very low grade - it's diffuse and not greatly above local ambient. By the time you add the needed piping, pumps, heat exchangers, etc... you've added greatly to the cost - but won't be able to noteably dimish energy needs without creating a system with a payback time on the order of several decades.
It's fascinating, Jimbo Wales claims that "running ads on Wikipedia is not his decision to make". Yet, despite the fact that he stepped down from Wikipedia in November, but is still making (dictating) policy decisions in January.
I found it very interesting how in the beginning the _game designer_ was actually promoted with his name on the cover! We've come such a long ways downhill, where publishers don't realize its the game designer, and game dev studios that make great games
No, what's happened is that the publishers have realized that the public doesn't care who the designer is. Which is actually a good thing - because the Will Wright and Sid Meir are virtually unique. It's a rare designer who has more than one or two great games inside him - thus the company must promote (read: hype) a new designer every six months or so, while avoiding looking like losers because of the number of previously hyped designers now demoted to the 'B' list (or lower) grows.
The game industry isn't like the music or (book) publishing industry. EA learned that lesson early and well. The general public (as exemplified by the OP) continues to operate under the delusion that the games industry is like music or books.
It's called fluidics, and it's decades old. It uses compressed air or water to create logic circuits.
Yeah, I think the only real innovation here is describing the gates by Boolean concepts. His other accomplishment is no moving parts
Niether 'accomplishment' is particularly impressive. I first saw the exact components he built described (and illustrated) back in the late 70's/early 80's- I considered building one for a high school science fair.
And I find it bitterly amusing that the same Slashdot community who wants to put the blame on the parents in this case - raises a huge outcry whenever someone floats the idea of logging software as limiting the rights of the child.
We don't raise outcry when parents log their kids' behaviour.
First day on Slashdot or first day off of mind altering substances? Because that outcry is raised every time such software is touted. Every time.
I think most people here rightly believe that the best way to deal with your children is not to go all "big brother" on them, and install monitoring software and cameras, but instead to take the time to foster the sort of relationship with your child that makes those measures unnecessary.
That's fine in some fantasy fuzzy world where being your child's best friend is 100% percent certain to work. But it doesn't. Sometimes a parent needs to be a parent.
That being said, I don't know of anyone here who disputes that parents have the right to do those things should they choose to do so.
Then this must be your first day on Slashdot - because those things are roundly condemmed whenever they are proposed.
To hold them [MySpace] accountable would literally kill the internet in this country, because every site could be held liable for every post, and, even more frightening, all real world actions that occur because of that post.
And why shouldn't a site be held accountable for actions it facilitates? I'm sorry, but "it would kill the internet" simply isn't enough justification for not doing so. (Besides being nonsense.)
Excellent ruling.
I wonder how many will agree when an ISP refuses to give up the ID of a child pornographer - or facilitates a spammer. Probably exactly zero. You can't have it both ways - but you and the OP seem to want to.
Myspace is not liable for this any more than the phone company is liable for the prank and threatening phone calls. I don't know about the rest of the/. community, but I am dead tired of the continuous attempts to impose liability on the carrier for the content.
If MySpace was a carrier - you'd have a point. But MySpace has nothing in common with the phone company (while the ISP providing acess to MySpace does). Don't confuse levels.
I if built a building - and allowed kids to come in and hang out, decorate, dance, whatever... Under the law I'd sure as hell be liable if a adult or older child was preying on younger children in my building - but the transport system they used to get there wouldn't be. (Check out the legal concepts of in loco parentis and attractive nusiance.) Why should MySpace be any different?
Verdict for the plaintiff would have been a horrible precedent.
On the contrary - a verdict for the plaintiff would have been a wonderful precedent. Why? Because it would establish that the owner of a space is responsible for what happens there of he can reasonably prevent it. Whether that space is physical *or* virtual. It's the same as the pool in my backyard - if I don't take adequate measures to limit acess to it, then I am liable if a child drowns himself in it. (Hence, my backyard is fenced and has a locked gate as per code.) I don't see whay virtual spaces should be exempt from the same kind of regulation.
This goes to the very core of undermining the openness and freedom of the internet, as a neutral medium for communication and sharing of information.
On the contrary - reasonable regulation and openess and freedom are not mutually exclusionary. Consider the Federal highway system - anyone can acess it and go anywhere it goes as and when they will. But they may not drive on in such a fashion as to endanger the life and health of others. I can use the telephone system for a variety of purposes, entertainment or business - but I may not use telemarketing except under a fairly strict set of circumstances.
And if you want the internet to open and free - then that applies to spammers and sites that open a dozen pornographic popups when you visit it as much as it does to MySpace. You can't have it both ways.
And I find it bitterly amusing that the same Slashdot community who wants to put the blame on the parents in this case - raises a huge outcry whenever someone floats the idea of logging software as limiting the rights of the child. You can't have it both ways folks - either the parent is reponsible for the behavior (and thus has the authority to limit those rights), or they aren't and don't. Responsobilitiy and authority are twin sides of the same coin.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, rendezvous has been peformed with a sextant and a set of look up tables - but navigating to and from the moon still requires a computer and an accurate time reference to go with the sextant.
ROTFLMAO. You can only have a body X/body Y L point when one is in orbit around the other. (The rest of your post is in general of an equal or lesser factual content - but the writing isn't of sufficient quality to use as fiction.)
Except - that doesn't reflect reality. A closer analogy would be "Isn't it a good idea to skin dive in the Bahamas to try out your equipment for camping in the Sahara desert?". The two environments (Moon, Mars), and the equipment required for exploring them are just about that different. (For example - if you wear a spacesuit designed for the Moon on Mars, you'll die. Period. The two suits, among many other things, require very different insulation, joint design, and cooling methods.)
Except - nobody is planning, even dreaming, about doing that. If a CEV goes to Mars - it will do so as passive cargo for the re-entry phase. The crew will actually live in (and draw life support from) a much larger crew module. (Among other things, the CEV can't support it's crew for more than a couple of weeks. Nor does it have sufficient elbow room for a multi-year mission.)
Had the Chinese boasted about what they hope to accomplish - you'd have a point. But a press release from a low level bureaucrat attempting to drum up funding and support for his agency does not equate to national policy. The facts support a very different picture: The Chinese have just enough of a (manned) space program to show that they are technologically capable and in fact should be counted as a first rank nation and a superpower - and not one bit more. If nothing else - look at their flight rate.
They also had a couple of failures - and the failures/sucesses were dotted pretty evenly across the attempts. Zond was a percursor to a Soviet attempt to perform an Apollo 8 flyby to steal NASA's thunder - in fact, it was the Zond tests that lead to Apollo 8 being a lunar mission rather than a high earth orbit mission so as to steal the Russians thunder!
Before the budget cuts of 65/66 and the Fire, NASA planned on as many as *6* manned flights in LEO and an indeterminate number of lunar flights before committing to a landing attempt. Those budget cuts, the time lost after the fire, and the growing realization that the Soviets might be able to trump them forced their hand.
So much for the myth of Apollo-era NASA being the brave and bold agency they are so often portrayed as of late. Until forced, they were just as conservative as they are today.
Well, yes and no. The unmanned (science) side asked for large increases in their budget - and got smaller increases instead. So it's not 'precisely' sucking money from unmanned to manned.
His statement about missions being cancelled is particularly disingenuous - because he fails to tell you that it's normal for more missions/instruments to be proposed/planned than actually fly. Having projects be cancelled in midstream isn't something happening recently because of the VSE - it happens on a regular basis. (Partly because the unmanned side is no better than the manned when it comes to delivering on time and on budget.)
Given that his job is to conduct climatalogical studies - he's not exactly an unbiased source.
I change a light bulb every two months or so - so changing bulbs isn't a biggie. At any given time there is a generally no more than three bulbs lit in the house - so higher power bills isn't a biggie.
The problem isn't the technology - it's you. I own a cell phone, and I haven't forgotten any of the numbers I have memorized. On the basis that since I have them memorized, there was/is no point in entering them into the fun. It's not the technology - it's your own laziness.
Right. And once the director hands it over to the digital artists - he has no further input or control over what happens. Just like when he outsources the sounds, and the film developing, and the editing, etc... etc...
Right. The ILM team created perfection on the first attempt - with no guidance or input from Lucas. He didn't change or modify anything they created.
Right. Lucas handing over portions of the film to digital artists is so different than him handing over the soundtrack to other artists, or handing over the negatives to the developers, or handing over the developed film to the editors...
I gave you the reason - twenty years ago, you weren't jaded by twenty years of CGI and SFX. Along with that, in subsequent years, you have decided (without foundation) that the director handing over portions of the film is somehow 'different' from all the other portions he hands over.
So? I object to them (on the basic of their odd color balance) - and *because* of that, I don't have a single one in my house. Not owning one does not equate to not having seen one. I've been to friends houses and to offices that have them, I've seen them in lighting displays at the store - without ever owning a single one, I know how bad their lighting is.
Right. Any clod with photoshop can retouch a photograph that very few will be able to tell was photoshopped - and also will be able to convey a message. Movies? Not a problem, the same clod can retouch Star Wars into Star Wars - The Special Edition over a long weekend.
Oh, wait...
Right. Airbrushes, girdles, toupees, body forming bras, hose, makeup, hair dye, etc... etc... were all invented in 1980. (Or to put it simply, you have a very rose colored - and false, perspective on the history of Hollywood and its attempts to create beauty and consistency.)
And of course being twenty years older and having been jaded by twenty years of ever more sophisticated SFX and CGI has nothing to do with it. Again, your glasses have a distinct rose tint.
Sadly for your gross overgeneralization and kneejerk stereotyping - that's not quite the truth. The couple in question have been brought up on stalking charges: because they repeatedly emailed the officer in question at his personal email adress.
Shall we compare that behavior to the law you you quote?
It seems you are more interested in handwaving away what the couple did to reach your true agenda: Which isn't justice or truth - but simply slamming the police force.
That's an attitude I've never been able to understand. In game after game I see the same thing: "I've ground my $template to $levelcap and I'm bored! There's nothing to do but $handful of stuff!"
Well, duh idiot. You ground yourself right past all the content! WTF did you expect? When you play a console game or PC RPG you don't try and leap right to the boss fight - why do you do that in a MMO?
kevinbr (689680)
The powers that be call it stealing because under the law - that is what it is. This usage goes back decades, and in some cases nearly half a millenia. Grow the fuck up and drop the sophmoric word games to pretend that you aren't breaking the law.
It doesn't matter what you call it - not one bit.
The ratio doesn't matter at all. The fact that you can be prosecuted for having someone elses goods inexplicably in your possesion matters, the fact that the law exists, and can be enforced matters.
Actually - they aren't 'solved by discovery'. The cops/prosection have to prove that the goods in question were stolen. Again, you confuse sophmoric word games with how the law works.
It's not clear that copyright violation is occurring - because it is not clear that a linkware 'license' is a valid one under the law.
Any engineer worth his salt will tell you that there is a vast difference between calculations on a simplified and idealized system and actual design calculation on an actual design. Therefore, since you don't have an actual design, your calculation are meaningless for serious evaluation. Your economics section contains nothing but airy handwaving - no numbers. Therefore, it is meaningless.
The error in your assumptions and thinking about running an open source engineering project I debunked in my posting to your first appearance on slashdot. That all the indivual components are in use elsewhere is meaningless - interfaces matter, they matter a great deal. (And your intent is starkly revealed by the phrase 'positive input' - you aren't interested in facts.)
Many engineers and physicists have looked over all manner of things, so what? Such a statement is typicaly of hype - or someone trying to present his idea as proven and practical, when it is niether.
Slashdot is a slashvertisement? Methinks you have a very loose grasp of the meaning of the word.
Nope.
I suspect he doesn't actually work for an ISP - but is more interested in adding to his 'featured in the media' page and getting attention for his schemes.
Because the waste heat is very low grade - it's diffuse and not greatly above local ambient. By the time you add the needed piping, pumps, heat exchangers, etc... you've added greatly to the cost - but won't be able to noteably dimish energy needs without creating a system with a payback time on the order of several decades.
It's fascinating, Jimbo Wales claims that "running ads on Wikipedia is not his decision to make". Yet, despite the fact that he stepped down from Wikipedia in November, but is still making (dictating) policy decisions in January.
This is nothing more than a slashvertisement for Rohar's crackpot 'green' energy schemes. (One of which was recently debunked on Slashdot.)
No, what's happened is that the publishers have realized that the public doesn't care who the designer is. Which is actually a good thing - because the Will Wright and Sid Meir are virtually unique. It's a rare designer who has more than one or two great games inside him - thus the company must promote (read: hype) a new designer every six months or so, while avoiding looking like losers because of the number of previously hyped designers now demoted to the 'B' list (or lower) grows.
The game industry isn't like the music or (book) publishing industry. EA learned that lesson early and well. The general public (as exemplified by the OP) continues to operate under the delusion that the games industry is like music or books.
Niether 'accomplishment' is particularly impressive. I first saw the exact components he built described (and illustrated) back in the late 70's/early 80's- I considered building one for a high school science fair.
First day on Slashdot or first day off of mind altering substances? Because that outcry is raised every time such software is touted. Every time.
That's fine in some fantasy fuzzy world where being your child's best friend is 100% percent certain to work. But it doesn't. Sometimes a parent needs to be a parent.
Then this must be your first day on Slashdot - because those things are roundly condemmed whenever they are proposed.
And why shouldn't a site be held accountable for actions it facilitates? I'm sorry, but "it would kill the internet" simply isn't enough justification for not doing so. (Besides being nonsense.)
I wonder how many will agree when an ISP refuses to give up the ID of a child pornographer - or facilitates a spammer. Probably exactly zero. You can't have it both ways - but you and the OP seem to want to.
If MySpace was a carrier - you'd have a point. But MySpace has nothing in common with the phone company (while the ISP providing acess to MySpace does). Don't confuse levels.
I if built a building - and allowed kids to come in and hang out, decorate, dance, whatever... Under the law I'd sure as hell be liable if a adult or older child was preying on younger children in my building - but the transport system they used to get there wouldn't be. (Check out the legal concepts of in loco parentis and attractive nusiance.) Why should MySpace be any different?
On the contrary - a verdict for the plaintiff would have been a wonderful precedent. Why? Because it would establish that the owner of a space is responsible for what happens there of he can reasonably prevent it. Whether that space is physical *or* virtual. It's the same as the pool in my backyard - if I don't take adequate measures to limit acess to it, then I am liable if a child drowns himself in it. (Hence, my backyard is fenced and has a locked gate as per code.) I don't see whay virtual spaces should be exempt from the same kind of regulation.
On the contrary - reasonable regulation and openess and freedom are not mutually exclusionary. Consider the Federal highway system - anyone can acess it and go anywhere it goes as and when they will. But they may not drive on in such a fashion as to endanger the life and health of others. I can use the telephone system for a variety of purposes, entertainment or business - but I may not use telemarketing except under a fairly strict set of circumstances.
And if you want the internet to open and free - then that applies to spammers and sites that open a dozen pornographic popups when you visit it as much as it does to MySpace. You can't have it both ways.
And I find it bitterly amusing that the same Slashdot community who wants to put the blame on the parents in this case - raises a huge outcry whenever someone floats the idea of logging software as limiting the rights of the child. You can't have it both ways folks - either the parent is reponsible for the behavior (and thus has the authority to limit those rights), or they aren't and don't. Responsobilitiy and authority are twin sides of the same coin.