I've started an old style BBS type system for the web in the last month or so that has many of the features that were thought to be lost. It has a game called Assassin where users can work to take out the founder of a multi-billion dollar company that's monopolistic practices have threatened to rule the world. The game works much like the old fashion doors we all miss, but is made 100% for the web, not requiring any kind of java telnet interface like most other systems still existing out there.
On InnerSpace there is private email, a message forum for the users to post on, real-time chat, a who's online list (okay, so it doesn't work too well, but the who's online list still works pseudo-well), and online games, just like the old BBSes used to have.
I hear myself screaming inside and I know that I hear the cries of millions.
Every day I go to school wishing for it to be different. Wanting a place for hope, a place to learn, a place without hate, and a place where being different isn't so wrong. But instead I find myself trapped in a prison of conformity. They tell me how I should be just like everybody else, how I should play their sports, how I should join their clubs, and how I should give up everything I have to be like them. They all want me to conform to their rules, but they won't tell me why. They have no answers to the questions I ask. No one can tell me why I should put up with so much torment; they only tell me that I should.
The bell rings and horror fills my heart. It's so hard to force myself into the halls, into the torment of loneliness. I hear their shouts from all around; I can feel their cold stares into what they don't understand; and I can taste their bitterness as they mock me and laugh at what's different from them, what they don't understand. Their hate is so much, and their reason so little. It's like a fire in their hearts, not caring what it consumes, just as long as it can keep burning. Today it consumed me, and I saw no sorrow in them, only the smile on their faces as they watched me burn.
This fire burns in my school every day, and no one tries to stop it. We're all too afraid of being bitten by the flames of their wrath. We sit by and watch as the world burns, just so we can try to stay away from the blaze. Now it's time to stand up, and not just sit idly by. It's time to let our ideas run free in the world and not be scared of the ridicule of being different.
I ask you to stand up and shout your cry now, the cry you've held in all your life, but never let out because you were too afraid. Wear this ribbon on your sites around the world to help put out the blaze...
The guys who don't want this law to pass are only scared that they won't get any action and that the woman will say no. They figure that if they don't ask then they won't feel so bad when they wake up the next morning because she never actually told them no. This is still rape, but they can fool themselves into thinking it's not if they don't have to ask permission before having sex. In their minds they can 'assume she's ready' without having real consent. This is the whole idea of date rape, and it has to stop. There is no reason to not ask and make sure your partner is ready before your first time together, and making it a law is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time.
Slashdot Mirror
I've started an old style BBS type system for the web in the last month or so that has many of the features that were thought to be lost. It has a game called Assassin where users can work to take out the founder of a multi-billion dollar company that's monopolistic practices have threatened to rule the world. The game works much like the old fashion doors we all miss, but is made 100% for the web, not requiring any kind of java telnet interface like most other systems still existing out there.
On InnerSpace there is private email, a message forum for the users to post on, real-time chat, a who's online list (okay, so it doesn't work too well, but the who's online list still works pseudo-well), and online games, just like the old BBSes used to have.
Take a look at www.innerspace.org if you're interested.
Lord Kinbote
I hear myself screaming inside and I know that I hear the cries of millions.
Every day I go to school wishing for it to be different. Wanting a place for hope, a place to learn, a place without hate, and a place where being different isn't so wrong. But instead I find myself trapped in a prison of conformity. They tell me how I should be just like everybody else, how I should play their sports, how I should join their clubs, and how I should give up everything I have to be like them. They all want me to conform to their rules, but they won't tell me why. They have no answers to the questions I ask. No one can tell me why I should put up with so much torment; they only tell me that I should.
The bell rings and horror fills my heart. It's so hard to force myself into the halls, into the torment of loneliness. I hear their shouts from all around; I can feel their cold stares into what they don't understand; and I can taste their bitterness as they mock me and laugh at what's different from them, what they don't understand. Their hate is so much, and their reason so little. It's like a fire in their hearts, not caring what it consumes, just as long as it can keep burning. Today it consumed me, and I saw no sorrow in them, only the smile on their faces as they watched me burn.
This fire burns in my school every day, and no one tries to stop it. We're all too afraid of being bitten by the flames of their wrath. We sit by and watch as the world burns, just so we can try to stay away from the blaze. Now it's time to stand up, and not just sit idly by. It's time to let our ideas run free in the world and not be scared of the ridicule of being different.
I ask you to stand up and shout your cry now, the cry you've held in all your life, but never let out because you were too afraid. Wear this ribbon on your sites around the world to help put out the blaze...
(Head to http://innerspace.hypermart.net/youth cry.html to get the ribbon)
The guys who don't want this law to pass are only scared that they won't get any action and that the woman will say no. They figure that if they don't ask then they won't feel so bad when they wake up the next morning because she never actually told them no. This is still rape, but they can fool themselves into thinking it's not if they don't have to ask permission before having sex. In their minds they can 'assume she's ready' without having real consent. This is the whole idea of date rape, and it has to stop. There is no reason to not ask and make sure your partner is ready before your first time together, and making it a law is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time.
Lord Kinbote