(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
Mr. Thompson, would you like to explain how the "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" of anything is different for minors than for other people?
The Science of Chemistry includes the power to transform base materials into substances suitable to your purpose, whether that purpose is meth production, explosives production, or something 'legitimate', such as self-education or any of ten thousand beneficial things.
It's no surprise that the government wants to restrict the power to do 'bad' things. The problem is that the government's method is to restrict the power to do things -- all things. If these methods succeed, the consequence will be boring. That is, nothing will change.
Jay: Why is Hasselhoff such a big star? People have taste, they should know better. Kay: A person has taste. People are dumb, anxiety-ridden, cliquey herd animals and you know it.
Why shouldn't that 1% pay for downloading 50GB,100GB (or in one guy's case, 600GB) of data?
Certainly, the providers could price service on a model of max 5Mbps bandwidth with a data cap at 10 or 50 or 200GB or 1200GB of volume per month . It would even be more honest. But they like calling their service "unlimited data". They want to have their cake (unused bandwidth) and sell it too (pretend to be selling unlimited data service). There are several good reasons for the providers not to admit to capping their service:
It would be a hard sell to convince Joe Consumer to buy 'crippled' service now, since 'he used to have full service' (or so he thinks). They'd have to lower prices, which they don't want to do.
When Joe Consumer hit the cap mid-month, it would generate a tech support call, which would generate work for the provider, which might decrease their effective margin.
Also, they know that content drives subscriptions. It's not in their interest to have Joe Consumer start rationing his downloading. If Joe starts thinking of data as a limited quantity, he might not choose to buy all that online music and video. Consumers not buying stuff is, from the companies' perspective, A Bad Thing (TM).
Let me get this straight. 60% of the refund will go to non-comsumers (i.e. businesses with people whose job it is to file forms claiming the money). The other 40% of the refund might go to consumers if they have records and if they remember to file.
And this is being spun as 'the phone companies sticking up for the little guy'? That's some mighty fine spin, my friend!
You nailed it. There are any number of reasons why even the best parent wouldn't play a game through before giving it to their child, e.g. (a) they'd have to buy it first, (b) lack of desire to play it, (c) lack of skill to play it, or (d) lack of time to play it.
And then, there are those pesky easter eggs.
I suppose a parent could find a magazine review and read that, but reviews are inconsistent in the way they describe content and often don't try to comprehensively assess the content. A well standardized labeling system would be a big help.
From TFA: What studies? . . . I'm so tired of people stating their opinion as fact and the media reporting it without context. . . . Do the statistics support his claims? If not, don't give him the headline. . . . Yes, I blame the media... for being irresponsible and lazy.
You gotta love an article that complains about a lack of studies, but doesn't cite a single study showing lack of correlation between playing violent games and performing violent acts.
Those overall crime stats are nice, but let's see a study that compares game playing behavior to criminal acts, or the lack thereof.
Can laws help? Yes, absolutely. What a parent who is doing his/her job needs is a content label that tells them what's in the game (mild language, strong language, extreme sexuality, moderate violence, etc.).
The first problem ratings, e.g. motion picture ratins, has always been that they don't tell you what's in the film. Instead, they tell you if the film is 'safe' or 'dangerous'. Now, video game ratings are the same way.
The second problem is that no sooner does a work get labeled than some @$$hat write a law restricting sale/ viewing of works with particular ratings.
The only law that's worth having here is one mandating content labelling to give partents information. After than, leave it to the parents to decide.
I thought the actual nouns in these strings were important and had some kind of meaning.
In a sense, they do have meaning, I think. That is, English speakers will recognize that, when expressed, the string "The cat and the dog" produces something different from the string "the hat and the dog". The next step will be to learn what effects the various differences in the genetic sequence produce.
assay: test for existence/amount of some component
Had they said only "durable assay", the thought would have been somewhat incomplete. Saying what it was suitable for was probably the right idea. Unfortunately, they said "suitable for use almost anywhere", which is not helpful. The point they probably should have made was "suitable for use by consumers" (who won't store it safely before use and will expect it to produce accurate results in beverages from 0C to 199C).
Step 1: develop caffiene assay Step 2: make it durable and simple enough for direct-to-consumer sales Step 3: profit!
A total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error.
C'mon. We've gotta be impressed that they had the capability to pull this off at all. In just 24 hours, they wrote the questions, executed the poll, and tabulated the results. To be sure, they could only get to a 5% margin of error, instead of the more typical 3%. To be sure, they were asking for opinions on a topic that most respondents hadn't even heard of yet. But, it's an impressive feat nonetheless.
Too right. And they plan to pressure the government and/or private shippers to conduct the searches they want conducted.
Step 1: Develop a tool that can do the searches. Step 2: Demo said tool in live tests. Step 3: Apply pressure to make all shippers use tool on regular basis. Step 4: Profit.
And now, let us pause for a moment to be thankful playdoh was patented, rather than copyrighted. That patent has been expired for decades. Had copyright applied to playdoh, the stuff would still be proprietary.
I'm impressed. I had assumed when LucasFilm released the last of the films on DVD that the only way for them to milk more money out of us was to release a 6-movie boxed set (probably in 4Q 2006). How wrong I was. Clearly, their schwartz is bigger than mine.
Any argument that can be made for taxing games is going to be equally valid to any other entertainment medium.
As with every sin tax, the argument is "video games are bad for you, so we will tax them so that . .." What I've never been sure about is whether it's so that (a) you'll stop playing or so that (b) we'll make lots of money off your addiction.
Wait, wait, wait. There's a whole theory based on an audience cheering for the person they expect to see win?
I'm shocked. No, no, not shocked that the audience sided with the obvious soon-to-be victor. That's predictable. I'm shocked that anyone places stock in a theory that suggests that the winner's traits matter in whether the audience sided with that character.
A 'blunder' that still holds 85% market share? Yeah, right. Not to mention IIS, Frontpage, and all the other business it drove MS's way.
Sure, welding IE to the OS caused them antitrust trouble and neverending security problems. But, IE has to go on the books as a net gain for M$. Consider what the last 11 years would have looked like for them without it.
Google had bettered use Vint's clout to best advantage, and use anything else it has handy, too. The proponents of a tiered Internet are old, entrenched companies that are experts at the lobbying/PR game. They have plenty of tools (i.e. lobbyists with access) at their disposal.
Google will be lucky to get out of this conflict without having its shorts pulled up around its ears and its hair swirleed.
TFA wrote: "As a result, many residents are still paying for monthly landline connections." TFP wrote: Is this surprising, or some kind of a sign of failure?
(a) It's a sign that the thing's only been up for a month. (b) It's a sign that not everyone using a tethered connection has WiFi hardware. (c) What is this "many" number, anyway?
Slashdot Mirror
(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
Mr. Thompson, would you like to explain how the "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" of anything is different for minors than for other people?
[crickets]
The Science of Chemistry includes the power to transform base materials into substances suitable to your purpose, whether that purpose is meth production, explosives production, or something 'legitimate', such as self-education or any of ten thousand beneficial things.
It's no surprise that the government wants to restrict the power to do 'bad' things. The problem is that the government's method is to restrict the power to do things -- all things. If these methods succeed, the consequence will be boring. That is, nothing will change.
Power to the people!
Jay: Why is Hasselhoff such a big star? People have taste, they should know better.
Kay: A person has taste. People are dumb, anxiety-ridden, cliquey herd animals and you know it.
Certainly, the providers could price service on a model of max 5Mbps bandwidth with a data cap at 10 or 50 or 200GB or 1200GB of volume per month . It would even be more honest. But they like calling their service "unlimited data". They want to have their cake (unused bandwidth) and sell it too (pretend to be selling unlimited data service). There are several good reasons for the providers not to admit to capping their service:
Let me get this straight. 60% of the refund will go to non-comsumers (i.e. businesses with people whose job it is to file forms claiming the money). The other 40% of the refund might go to consumers if they have records and if they remember to file.
And this is being spun as 'the phone companies sticking up for the little guy'? That's some mighty fine spin, my friend!
You nailed it. There are any number of reasons why even the best parent wouldn't play a game through before giving it to their child, e.g. (a) they'd have to buy it first, (b) lack of desire to play it, (c) lack of skill to play it, or (d) lack of time to play it.
And then, there are those pesky easter eggs.
I suppose a parent could find a magazine review and read that, but reviews are inconsistent in the way they describe content and often don't try to comprehensively assess the content. A well standardized labeling system would be a big help.
From TFA: What studies? . . . I'm so tired of people stating their opinion as fact and the media reporting it without context. . . . Do the statistics support his claims? If not, don't give him the headline. . . . Yes, I blame the media... for being irresponsible and lazy.
You gotta love an article that complains about a lack of studies, but doesn't cite a single study showing lack of correlation between playing violent games and performing violent acts.
Those overall crime stats are nice, but let's see a study that compares game playing behavior to criminal acts, or the lack thereof.
Can laws help? Yes, absolutely. What a parent who is doing his/her job needs is a content label that tells them what's in the game (mild language, strong language, extreme sexuality, moderate violence, etc.).
The first problem ratings, e.g. motion picture ratins, has always been that they don't tell you what's in the film. Instead, they tell you if the film is 'safe' or 'dangerous'. Now, video game ratings are the same way.
The second problem is that no sooner does a work get labeled than some @$$hat write a law restricting sale/ viewing of works with particular ratings.
The only law that's worth having here is one mandating content labelling to give partents information. After than, leave it to the parents to decide.
I thought the actual nouns in these strings were important and had some kind of meaning.
In a sense, they do have meaning, I think. That is, English speakers will recognize that, when expressed, the string "The cat and the dog" produces something different from the string "the hat and the dog". The next step will be to learn what effects the various differences in the genetic sequence produce.
"42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
--Steven Wright as Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
(but surely he was not the first to make up this particular statistic)
C'mon. Admit it. PowerMac, PowerBook, iMac, iBook, eMac, Mac mini, MacBook?
Any minute now it'll be QuadMac, QuadBook, MacCore, . . .
Could be a typo. Could be one seriously modded espresso machine.
Only my barista knows for sure.
assay: test for existence/amount of some component
Had they said only "durable assay", the thought would have been somewhat incomplete. Saying what it was suitable for was probably the right idea. Unfortunately, they said "suitable for use almost anywhere", which is not helpful. The point they probably should have made was "suitable for use by consumers" (who won't store it safely before use and will expect it to produce accurate results in beverages from 0C to 199C).
Step 1: develop caffiene assay
Step 2: make it durable and simple enough for direct-to-consumer sales
Step 3: profit!
A total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error.
C'mon. We've gotta be impressed that they had the capability to pull this off at all. In just 24 hours, they wrote the questions, executed the poll, and tabulated the results. To be sure, they could only get to a 5% margin of error, instead of the more typical 3%. To be sure, they were asking for opinions on a topic that most respondents hadn't even heard of yet. But, it's an impressive feat nonetheless.
For instance, a T-shirt could be solid blue one day and striped the next, she said.
Then dingy, then splotchy, then stiff, then . . . then self-aware.
MPAA ... are a PRESSURE GROUP, not government.
Too right. And they plan to pressure the government and/or private shippers to conduct the searches they want conducted.
Step 1: Develop a tool that can do the searches.
Step 2: Demo said tool in live tests.
Step 3: Apply pressure to make all shippers use tool on regular basis.
Step 4: Profit.
And now, let us pause for a moment to be thankful playdoh was patented, rather than copyrighted. That patent has been expired for decades. Had copyright applied to playdoh, the stuff would still be proprietary.
I'm impressed. I had assumed when LucasFilm released the last of the films on DVD that the only way for them to milk more money out of us was to release a 6-movie boxed set (probably in 4Q 2006). How wrong I was. Clearly, their schwartz is bigger than mine.
Any argument that can be made for taxing games is going to be equally valid to any other entertainment medium.
." What I've never been sure about is whether it's so that (a) you'll stop playing or so that (b) we'll make lots of money off your addiction.
As with every sin tax, the argument is "video games are bad for you, so we will tax them so that . .
Wait, wait, wait. There's a whole theory based on an audience cheering for the person they expect to see win?
I'm shocked. No, no, not shocked that the audience sided with the obvious soon-to-be victor. That's predictable. I'm shocked that anyone places stock in a theory that suggests that the winner's traits matter in whether the audience sided with that character.
A 'blunder' that still holds 85% market share? Yeah, right. Not to mention IIS, Frontpage, and all the other business it drove MS's way.
Sure, welding IE to the OS caused them antitrust trouble and neverending security problems. But, IE has to go on the books as a net gain for M$. Consider what the last 11 years would have looked like for them without it.
Google had bettered use Vint's clout to best advantage, and use anything else it has handy, too. The proponents of a tiered Internet are old, entrenched companies that are experts at the lobbying/PR game. They have plenty of tools (i.e. lobbyists with access) at their disposal.
Google will be lucky to get out of this conflict without having its shorts pulled up around its ears and its hair swirleed.
TFA wrote: "As a result, many residents are still paying for monthly landline connections."
TFP wrote: Is this surprising, or some kind of a sign of failure?
(a) It's a sign that the thing's only been up for a month. (b) It's a sign that not everyone using a tethered connection has WiFi hardware. (c) What is this "many" number, anyway?