Yeah, I have to wonder what his reaction at that unusual ending would have been. "I've killed all these creatures so *this* can happen?" Kind of a shame he didn't finish...
Mr. Causey and his ilk are the exceptions to a much more prevalent rule. Granted, capital offenses are not magically protected against by the corporate veil, but *much* malfeasance is perpetrated behind it and then ignored on the personal level because "I didn't know - punish the company please and leave me and my mansions alone".
The new corporate accountability laws that were passed (in large part as damage control for the repeated implosion of companies where the c-level employees got fat and the investors took it in the shorts) are still largely untested as to how effective they will be in the courts. The rules don't affect most of the business owners I know (too small) but I have heard rumblings in the larger ones that hiring a CFO has become *much* harder because the probability of being pinned with the bad mojo is scaring off the usual crop of candidates... That's a good thing I think, as it must mean the new laws are seen to have teeth. It is a potential bad thing because CFO salaries just jumped another order of magnitude to compensate for the fact it is the fall guy position now.
An independent game developer with zero track record attacks one of the most thorny game development problems (the MMO) and fails. I think I'm going to die of not-surprise.
Good grief, just go back and take a *quick* look at the company they are in and it becomes quickly apparent just how many have delusions of grandeur and then take the fall. Even the "big boys" screw up MMO development with alarming (some would say with near 100%) failure rates.
Sadly, these kinds of companies are often trying to take the high road and do something innovative with the MMO space, but that only *adds* to the likelihood of failure. I used to code and admin MUDs and even with a fraction of the user base, trying to be innovative only brought us grief 80% of the time... and we weren't financially vested in the outcome to we *could* be innovative without worrying about ticking off investors.
I isn't illegal though: they provided exactly the service the promised and paid the claim. Where it falls apart is that they are not forced to renew your policy when it expires nor is anyone forced to accept your business. Again, all legal. There are "high risk" markets that you can then go to (or as the poster pointed out, your lender will go to for you) but you pay a much higher premium.
The reality on the ground in the insurance industry of America is that you can only make catastrophic claims and even then you run the risk of being un-insurable. I personally ran into this problem because we were hit by a nasty micro bust that ripped our cooler off the roof and flooded the house with water. Because we made a claim for that (it was significant damage requiring roof and walls to be replaced) and also simply *inquired* about our washed out drive (which was far less significant), we were unable to renew. The problem wasn't the big claim, it was the *inquiry* about a small one that blew us out of the water.
I work in providing technology to insurance companies, and I can tell you this isn't unique or even unusual. If your local laws are different, well bully for you, but here in the states insurance has become a massive scam where the insurance company makes money off investing premiums, segmenting the market by risk factors (which defeats the purpose of "pooling" risks) and then punishing those who make claims. Welcome to American "Insurance".
The amount of work the vendor is doing is irrelevent. Proprietary software can be licensed at any terms the vendor wants. My point is that, as a proprietary vendor who charges for software, the "per machine" model opens up the option of running a 16 processor box and hosting applications for many more "uses" than a single processor box... all for the same license fee. I know I would do some server consolidation in a heartbeat if "per box" was available for some of my tools.
I'm not saying that Microsoft has been kind or anything, simply that the licenses are *reasonable compromises*. However, Professional editions of Windows have allowed dual processor machines since 4.0. Office allows "work at home" installs. Reasonable choices, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, the server products are licensed either by CPU (which puts a ever increasing upper limit on the amount of "work" per license) or by CAL (which puts a fixed upper limit on the amount of work by metering users). Both are reasonable choices and the ability to select between them makes it more reasonable yet.
Would I prefer per machine? Sure I would. Even better would be a reasonable cost "enterprise" license which allowed multiple machines. In fact, I purchased just such an enterprise license of a development tool a while back and it is a wonderful thing: all the programmers can use the product without a license server or worrying about compliance. However, there is nothing to force a vendor to offer such a term.
Client CALs are an attempt to balance between extremes of licensing. At one end you have Oracle and the infamous "processing units" where every 100 MHz of chip speed present was billable (no matter if it was due to a single fast chip or multiple slow chips). At the other is a license per machine which can be abused by having a high end multi processor machines.
Microsoft (since you use the term CAL) has given most products the option of either being per processor (a decent compromise in "bang for your buck" at the high end) or per server with CALs (a decent compromise at the low end, while scaling the revenue with usage). Frankly, I don't find it odd at all, unless you want to contrast it with free software.
I'm happy using Standard Time. The data is stored in Access by default so I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but since I use it as a single user it has been very stable. The PocketPC version synchronizes so I can keep track of time while out and about on the PDA and while in the office use the full client. With the ability to dump to a file format compatible with QuickBooks and the cycle is complete.
I think you are on the right track. Many of my "highly rated" games in my collection hit strange itches of mine. I like turn based strategy games. I like more story-driven RPGs. While I also like "mainstream" games (Need For Speed, Most Wanted is awesome once you get past the cringe worthy FMV garbage at the beginning) I tend to pick up games from smaller publishers that cover obscure wars. Highly rated, not they *can't* be a hot seller.
Atari threatened that they would slash payments for games that didn't get a minimum score (can't recall if they backed out of that or not). Of course publishers care about reviews: a good review acts as some amount of "free" advertising. But the bigger story is that sales and reviews are at cross purposes. A sequel to a "big" game may sell very well but be docked by reviewers as "not innovative".
Of course, a company like Atari might have commissioned the research to ensure they were not slicing thier own throats. If high scores equal *poor* sales, they would be better of with the EA factory of sequels and licensed games approach and just forget about the reviews.
Reviews are (supposedly) an objective opinion of the merits of the game from various perspectives: game play, art, value, etc. Sales reflect something different entirely: marketing dollars spent, brand recognition by purchasers, perceived "coolness" of the game.
There is a hard core contingent (I'm one of them) who reads reviews before purchasing games. They are the minority.
Aside from wondering what language the IT Observer Staff speak natively (because it isn't English) I have to wonder why "hardware" is necessary to detect a root-kit. I'm all for being able to flag memory as executable (and thus "read only" to programs) and data (and thus unable to execute code) because the last time I wrote self modifying code for a legitimate purpose was on the C64. But what does "a small chip on a PCs motherboard" have to do with rootkits? A rootkit fools the *operating system*, not the processor.
Either this is only memory protection (which I thought we could already do in modern processors and thus would make an additional chip redundant) or it is going to "connect the computers directly to the data" which is content free market speak. Or trusted computing, but it that market speak sounds different.
Correction: This story incorrectly stated the affiliation of Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's results in verifying the Firefox 1.5 flaw, and the nature of the problem. Schroepfer is vice president of engineering with Mozilla Corp., and Mozilla has not been able to verify its browser can crash and lead to a denial-of-service condition. The problem itself was a not security vulnerability but actually a flaw in the browser.
Wow, that is accurate reporting, which was then amplified in the summary to the point of absurdity.
There is nothing in the technology that requires a save button for typical programs and uses. KJots is my preferred "scribble a note" repository for that reason: I can't forget to save the note. However, with larger files the delay of doing a "full save" may be an issue. It only takes a second to save most reasonable sized files, but if poorly implemented that second could make the software appear unresponsive. Still, it doesn't require rocket science to save during pauses (if the user stops for more than five seconds, they probably have stopped for long enough that a second to save won't hurt anything).
For larger, more complex document types, a "transactional" file where you only write out the changes since the last save point may be appropriate. Apparently this is harder than it would seem though, as almost every program I have seen with this kind of technology seems to be more apt to corrupt the document than standard saves (actual databases not included). For efficiency, closing the document could cause a final version to be automatically composed and the transaction history removed. This would also be good for security and privacy (so a recipient doesn't see how the document got the way it is.)
Of course the new problem becomes "how do I forget the giant mess I just turned the document into". With a transactional file, reverting to a prior edit should be a snap, but if it was just background saving you would run the risk of saving a version that the user didn't really want. In KJots it is a non issue because of the type of document it is, but in a "real" application backing up the original version would be mandatory.
Another adjustment would be asking for file name and location at the start of a new document... minor but potentially jarring for those used to the old methods.
Perhaps the *real* reason is laziness on the part of programmers. Backing up documents, allowing restore to a prior version, transactional formats... that is all more work than "dump the data on request".
Having known those who suffered identity theft, I don't need an article to imply this. It takes five years before you can even *start* to breath easier: the first two are full of collection agencies attempting to recover on the "bad debt" in your name. Unlike other businesses who have to stop calling if you ask, collection agencies are exempt from do not call requirements. Attempting to purchase anything major becomes impossible because the three major companies still report your credit as bad, but "contested". They *don't* strike the charges completely off your record. Meanwhile, the company that fumbled the ball claims "we have done what we can" by sending a letter to the credit companies saying that the charger "may" be related to identity theft.
You end up carrying police reports and your own copy of the credit report, annotated to indicate the problem when trying to buy a car. But it doesn't help because the lacky who is the "loan officer" for the dealership has no real power to make a decision. You receive "mechanics leans" on your property and have to fight repeatedly to not lose ownership of perperty you already owned because of state laws (at least here in Arizona) that allow a mechanic to force the sale of property to pay for "services rendered". Even if the services were rendered to a crook instead of you, they are not barred from trying until you sue them into submission.
All while the company that screwed up claims that they are faultless because they sent three letters out, and that perhaps "there are other issues here".
So those of you that *actually* suffer identity theft... well, you are just a small, inconsequential number of people compared to those who got lucky. Since you are so outnumbered we can safely continue to fail to safeguard your data, and we will use these results to claim it is your fault, not ours, that you suffered identity theft. After all, you are only one in a thousand, right? Heck, losing a tenth of a percentage of our customers won't hurt *us* that much... and all this notification stuff is hurting us *much* more than that.
Upon questioning my wife, the power of the non thyroid related cancer studies is in question. The cleanup workers were the most exposed and the soldiers recruited to do so were not properly protected, but the studies that were done were poorly designed (in part due to the difficulties of obtaining proper exposure data from a government who failed to provide radiological gear to the soldiers in question).
On the animal studies, apparently there were two distinct results. Unlike the people, the animals were left behind.
The reference to hairless and dead animals apparently only applies to the high contamination zone immediately around the reactor soon after the accident, but was "of a nature that statistics would be redundant" according to my wife. Apparently those who fed for extended periods in highly contaminated areas were affected strongly by cesium injestion. In the long run "those who were affected died or did not reproduce successfully. The current generation of animals that are highly contaminated," (ground animals near the plant have up to 10 times the internalized radioactives as ordinary animals) "exhibit slightly higher mutation rates in inconsequential ways".
Frankly I found that interesting. At the end of the day, it would appear that the initial very noticeable short term impact on animals has been reduced to slightly higher than normal minor mutations... which can not be seen without extensive amounts of research. The impact on humans is far less than even I had initially understood. Thanks 60 Minutes for false reporting when I was an impressionable teed.
Of course India is going to be important: the US universities have finally been surpassed by several other countries in the creation of degreed workers. It only makes sense that a large population country that modernizes would be able to eventually do so. I think we are on the cusp of a real shift in power to Asia from the western countries.
Meanwhile...
I never thought with so little product companies software services sector will grow so strong as it has grown here.
Whisky Tango Foxtrot does that mean? I'm not pedantic about language, but that's just absurd. Perhaps the true impact of this shift will be the reduction of English to verb tense confused propaganda?
Look, I know this link is from a biased source (my wife is an epidemiologist and I will ask her for a more scientific foundation later), but I'm curious why you are so willing to accept the consequences of Chernobyl as if they didn't exist.
You have acknowledged the thyroid cancer. If there is a high multiplier (claimed at x30 here) to the risk rate of thyroid cancer *that alone* would seem to indicate a "problem". Liukemia here is claimed to have a x1.5 risk factor and other cancers at x1.4. Birth defects are listed as x3 risk factor and the chart here seems interesting:
With one region showing a fairly impressive spike [5, 21, 39, 84, 50 over 1985-1989 with 89 data being a half year] (although the data range and group could have been selected with care).
I'm not saying that nuclear power shouldn't be used... in fact, I live in Arizona and pass the plant here without worry (and was amused by the glow in the dark baseball caps given to the workers: my friend's father worked at the plant). But to claim that Chernobyl didn't have bad effects is disingenuous and *harms* a realistic and reasonable discussion of risk. The bad effects were no where near what the doom criers said, but they do exist and need to be factored into design and construction discussions. (Near the plant the wildlife is mutated at very high rates, although it turns out that sci-fi type mutations are pretty rare: the handful of two headed animals that you find at fairs in *non* elevated radiation areas being trotted out don't indicate the realities of balding animals and the like.)
You know, it is sad when you have to look up someone's history to determine if they are joking anymore. Because to "get" a joke you have to respect someone enough to know they aren't that stupid. Here on slashdot I have to check peoples prior comments *just to make sure* they aren't *really* that dense.:)
to get the original article back. Ok, maybe it isn't an *exact* match, but I heard this line of tripe (including the supposed "experts") when I was a kid about playing D&D. Somehow I managed to not end up an axe murderer, as did the majority of the others. Those who did experience problems did so at a lower rate than the community at large. (26 suicides out of a population which would have expected 300 per year for its size).
That said, I still put *limits* on the games that enter this house. I have no problem with the Dynasty Warriors "hack 1000 soldiers" type games, or 3D "run and gun" games like Ratchet and Clank... because they are clearly *unrealistic*. Musou attacks and Lombaxes are pretty much fine with me.
GTA on the other hand has a story line that is much more founded in the real world. It isn't that I think that my son will *emulate* the story, per se, as much as I would prefer he not be exposed to the topics the story *covers* at his age. The same way I avoid giving him books and film covering similar topics. Emotional readiness for ideas is a real issue that gets discarded in the annoyance with the bad reputation games are being hounded with.
On the up side, this site isn't trying to censor, ban or otherwise ruin the adult's fun.
Hate to break it to you, but my visa became a mastercard during the "visa won't allow your logo" time period. It still starts with a 4 and yet bears the mastercard logo. I hate sites (and the people behind them) that assume things about credit cards that are not true.
... but I would never work in the games industry. I like spending time with my family and earning a decent living too much to replace it with perpetual crunch time and "this 18 year old will work for half what you want, so a decent wage is out of the question" mindsets. Business software development may not be glamorous, but it pays the bills and I can (sometimes) spend time with my family at night.
If these kids going to video game design schools think they are going to play video games all day, they will be quickly disabused of such a nonsensical viewpoint. Game development is hard work.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I have to wonder what his reaction at that unusual ending would have been. "I've killed all these creatures so *this* can happen?" Kind of a shame he didn't finish...
Mr. Causey and his ilk are the exceptions to a much more prevalent rule. Granted, capital offenses are not magically protected against by the corporate veil, but *much* malfeasance is perpetrated behind it and then ignored on the personal level because "I didn't know - punish the company please and leave me and my mansions alone".
The new corporate accountability laws that were passed (in large part as damage control for the repeated implosion of companies where the c-level employees got fat and the investors took it in the shorts) are still largely untested as to how effective they will be in the courts. The rules don't affect most of the business owners I know (too small) but I have heard rumblings in the larger ones that hiring a CFO has become *much* harder because the probability of being pinned with the bad mojo is scaring off the usual crop of candidates... That's a good thing I think, as it must mean the new laws are seen to have teeth. It is a potential bad thing because CFO salaries just jumped another order of magnitude to compensate for the fact it is the fall guy position now.
An independent game developer with zero track record attacks one of the most thorny game development problems (the MMO) and fails. I think I'm going to die of not-surprise.
Good grief, just go back and take a *quick* look at the company they are in and it becomes quickly apparent just how many have delusions of grandeur and then take the fall. Even the "big boys" screw up MMO development with alarming (some would say with near 100%) failure rates.
Sadly, these kinds of companies are often trying to take the high road and do something innovative with the MMO space, but that only *adds* to the likelihood of failure. I used to code and admin MUDs and even with a fraction of the user base, trying to be innovative only brought us grief 80% of the time... and we weren't financially vested in the outcome to we *could* be innovative without worrying about ticking off investors.
I isn't illegal though: they provided exactly the service the promised and paid the claim. Where it falls apart is that they are not forced to renew your policy when it expires nor is anyone forced to accept your business. Again, all legal. There are "high risk" markets that you can then go to (or as the poster pointed out, your lender will go to for you) but you pay a much higher premium.
The reality on the ground in the insurance industry of America is that you can only make catastrophic claims and even then you run the risk of being un-insurable. I personally ran into this problem because we were hit by a nasty micro bust that ripped our cooler off the roof and flooded the house with water. Because we made a claim for that (it was significant damage requiring roof and walls to be replaced) and also simply *inquired* about our washed out drive (which was far less significant), we were unable to renew. The problem wasn't the big claim, it was the *inquiry* about a small one that blew us out of the water.
I work in providing technology to insurance companies, and I can tell you this isn't unique or even unusual. If your local laws are different, well bully for you, but here in the states insurance has become a massive scam where the insurance company makes money off investing premiums, segmenting the market by risk factors (which defeats the purpose of "pooling" risks) and then punishing those who make claims. Welcome to American "Insurance".
The amount of work the vendor is doing is irrelevent. Proprietary software can be licensed at any terms the vendor wants. My point is that, as a proprietary vendor who charges for software, the "per machine" model opens up the option of running a 16 processor box and hosting applications for many more "uses" than a single processor box... all for the same license fee. I know I would do some server consolidation in a heartbeat if "per box" was available for some of my tools.
I'm not saying that Microsoft has been kind or anything, simply that the licenses are *reasonable compromises*. However, Professional editions of Windows have allowed dual processor machines since 4.0. Office allows "work at home" installs. Reasonable choices, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, the server products are licensed either by CPU (which puts a ever increasing upper limit on the amount of "work" per license) or by CAL (which puts a fixed upper limit on the amount of work by metering users). Both are reasonable choices and the ability to select between them makes it more reasonable yet.
Would I prefer per machine? Sure I would. Even better would be a reasonable cost "enterprise" license which allowed multiple machines. In fact, I purchased just such an enterprise license of a development tool a while back and it is a wonderful thing: all the programmers can use the product without a license server or worrying about compliance. However, there is nothing to force a vendor to offer such a term.
Client CALs are an attempt to balance between extremes of licensing. At one end you have Oracle and the infamous "processing units" where every 100 MHz of chip speed present was billable (no matter if it was due to a single fast chip or multiple slow chips). At the other is a license per machine which can be abused by having a high end multi processor machines.
Microsoft (since you use the term CAL) has given most products the option of either being per processor (a decent compromise in "bang for your buck" at the high end) or per server with CALs (a decent compromise at the low end, while scaling the revenue with usage). Frankly, I don't find it odd at all, unless you want to contrast it with free software.
I'm happy using Standard Time. The data is stored in Access by default so I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but since I use it as a single user it has been very stable. The PocketPC version synchronizes so I can keep track of time while out and about on the PDA and while in the office use the full client. With the ability to dump to a file format compatible with QuickBooks and the cycle is complete.
I think you are on the right track. Many of my "highly rated" games in my collection hit strange itches of mine. I like turn based strategy games. I like more story-driven RPGs. While I also like "mainstream" games (Need For Speed, Most Wanted is awesome once you get past the cringe worthy FMV garbage at the beginning) I tend to pick up games from smaller publishers that cover obscure wars. Highly rated, not they *can't* be a hot seller.
*chirp* *chirp* *chirp*
</crickets>
Atari threatened that they would slash payments for games that didn't get a minimum score (can't recall if they backed out of that or not). Of course publishers care about reviews: a good review acts as some amount of "free" advertising. But the bigger story is that sales and reviews are at cross purposes. A sequel to a "big" game may sell very well but be docked by reviewers as "not innovative".
Of course, a company like Atari might have commissioned the research to ensure they were not slicing thier own throats. If high scores equal *poor* sales, they would be better of with the EA factory of sequels and licensed games approach and just forget about the reviews.
Movie reviews don't make box office smashes.
Reviews are (supposedly) an objective opinion of the merits of the game from various perspectives: game play, art, value, etc. Sales reflect something different entirely: marketing dollars spent, brand recognition by purchasers, perceived "coolness" of the game.
There is a hard core contingent (I'm one of them) who reads reviews before purchasing games. They are the minority.
Aside from wondering what language the IT Observer Staff speak natively (because it isn't English) I have to wonder why "hardware" is necessary to detect a root-kit. I'm all for being able to flag memory as executable (and thus "read only" to programs) and data (and thus unable to execute code) because the last time I wrote self modifying code for a legitimate purpose was on the C64. But what does "a small chip on a PCs motherboard" have to do with rootkits? A rootkit fools the *operating system*, not the processor.
Either this is only memory protection (which I thought we could already do in modern processors and thus would make an additional chip redundant) or it is going to "connect the computers directly to the data" which is content free market speak. Or trusted computing, but it that market speak sounds different.
Wow, that is accurate reporting, which was then amplified in the summary to the point of absurdity.
There is nothing in the technology that requires a save button for typical programs and uses. KJots is my preferred "scribble a note" repository for that reason: I can't forget to save the note. However, with larger files the delay of doing a "full save" may be an issue. It only takes a second to save most reasonable sized files, but if poorly implemented that second could make the software appear unresponsive. Still, it doesn't require rocket science to save during pauses (if the user stops for more than five seconds, they probably have stopped for long enough that a second to save won't hurt anything).
For larger, more complex document types, a "transactional" file where you only write out the changes since the last save point may be appropriate. Apparently this is harder than it would seem though, as almost every program I have seen with this kind of technology seems to be more apt to corrupt the document than standard saves (actual databases not included). For efficiency, closing the document could cause a final version to be automatically composed and the transaction history removed. This would also be good for security and privacy (so a recipient doesn't see how the document got the way it is.)
Of course the new problem becomes "how do I forget the giant mess I just turned the document into". With a transactional file, reverting to a prior edit should be a snap, but if it was just background saving you would run the risk of saving a version that the user didn't really want. In KJots it is a non issue because of the type of document it is, but in a "real" application backing up the original version would be mandatory.
Another adjustment would be asking for file name and location at the start of a new document... minor but potentially jarring for those used to the old methods.
Perhaps the *real* reason is laziness on the part of programmers. Backing up documents, allowing restore to a prior version, transactional formats... that is all more work than "dump the data on request".
Having known those who suffered identity theft, I don't need an article to imply this. It takes five years before you can even *start* to breath easier: the first two are full of collection agencies attempting to recover on the "bad debt" in your name. Unlike other businesses who have to stop calling if you ask, collection agencies are exempt from do not call requirements. Attempting to purchase anything major becomes impossible because the three major companies still report your credit as bad, but "contested". They *don't* strike the charges completely off your record. Meanwhile, the company that fumbled the ball claims "we have done what we can" by sending a letter to the credit companies saying that the charger "may" be related to identity theft.
You end up carrying police reports and your own copy of the credit report, annotated to indicate the problem when trying to buy a car. But it doesn't help because the lacky who is the "loan officer" for the dealership has no real power to make a decision. You receive "mechanics leans" on your property and have to fight repeatedly to not lose ownership of perperty you already owned because of state laws (at least here in Arizona) that allow a mechanic to force the sale of property to pay for "services rendered". Even if the services were rendered to a crook instead of you, they are not barred from trying until you sue them into submission.
All while the company that screwed up claims that they are faultless because they sent three letters out, and that perhaps "there are other issues here".
So those of you that *actually* suffer identity theft... well, you are just a small, inconsequential number of people compared to those who got lucky. Since you are so outnumbered we can safely continue to fail to safeguard your data, and we will use these results to claim it is your fault, not ours, that you suffered identity theft. After all, you are only one in a thousand, right? Heck, losing a tenth of a percentage of our customers won't hurt *us* that much... and all this notification stuff is hurting us *much* more than that.
Upon questioning my wife, the power of the non thyroid related cancer studies is in question. The cleanup workers were the most exposed and the soldiers recruited to do so were not properly protected, but the studies that were done were poorly designed (in part due to the difficulties of obtaining proper exposure data from a government who failed to provide radiological gear to the soldiers in question).
b yl010424.html?view=Standard
On the animal studies, apparently there were two distinct results. Unlike the people, the animals were left behind.
http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/features/science/cherno
The reference to hairless and dead animals apparently only applies to the high contamination zone immediately around the reactor soon after the accident, but was "of a nature that statistics would be redundant" according to my wife. Apparently those who fed for extended periods in highly contaminated areas were affected strongly by cesium injestion. In the long run "those who were affected died or did not reproduce successfully. The current generation of animals that are highly contaminated," (ground animals near the plant have up to 10 times the internalized radioactives as ordinary animals) "exhibit slightly higher mutation rates in inconsequential ways".
Frankly I found that interesting. At the end of the day, it would appear that the initial very noticeable short term impact on animals has been reduced to slightly higher than normal minor mutations... which can not be seen without extensive amounts of research. The impact on humans is far less than even I had initially understood. Thanks 60 Minutes for false reporting when I was an impressionable teed.
Meanwhile...
Whisky Tango Foxtrot does that mean? I'm not pedantic about language, but that's just absurd. Perhaps the true impact of this shift will be the reduction of English to verb tense confused propaganda?
Look, I know this link is from a biased source (my wife is an epidemiologist and I will ask her for a more scientific foundation later), but I'm curious why you are so willing to accept the consequences of Chernobyl as if they didn't exist.
w 10.antenna.nl/wise/330/3294.html
http://www.chernobyl-international.org/facts.html
You have acknowledged the thyroid cancer. If there is a high multiplier (claimed at x30 here) to the risk rate of thyroid cancer *that alone* would seem to indicate a "problem". Liukemia here is claimed to have a x1.5 risk factor and other cancers at x1.4. Birth defects are listed as x3 risk factor and the chart here seems interesting:
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://ww
With one region showing a fairly impressive spike [5, 21, 39, 84, 50 over 1985-1989 with 89 data being a half year] (although the data range and group could have been selected with care).
I'm not saying that nuclear power shouldn't be used... in fact, I live in Arizona and pass the plant here without worry (and was amused by the glow in the dark baseball caps given to the workers: my friend's father worked at the plant). But to claim that Chernobyl didn't have bad effects is disingenuous and *harms* a realistic and reasonable discussion of risk. The bad effects were no where near what the doom criers said, but they do exist and need to be factored into design and construction discussions. (Near the plant the wildlife is mutated at very high rates, although it turns out that sci-fi type mutations are pretty rare: the handful of two headed animals that you find at fairs in *non* elevated radiation areas being trotted out don't indicate the realities of balding animals and the like.)
You know, it is sad when you have to look up someone's history to determine if they are joking anymore. Because to "get" a joke you have to respect someone enough to know they aren't that stupid. Here on slashdot I have to check peoples prior comments *just to make sure* they aren't *really* that dense. :)
:)
BTW, you passed, welcome to my friends list
to get the original article back. Ok, maybe it isn't an *exact* match, but I heard this line of tripe (including the supposed "experts") when I was a kid about playing D&D. Somehow I managed to not end up an axe murderer, as did the majority of the others. Those who did experience problems did so at a lower rate than the community at large. (26 suicides out of a population which would have expected 300 per year for its size).
That said, I still put *limits* on the games that enter this house. I have no problem with the Dynasty Warriors "hack 1000 soldiers" type games, or 3D "run and gun" games like Ratchet and Clank... because they are clearly *unrealistic*. Musou attacks and Lombaxes are pretty much fine with me.
GTA on the other hand has a story line that is much more founded in the real world. It isn't that I think that my son will *emulate* the story, per se, as much as I would prefer he not be exposed to the topics the story *covers* at his age. The same way I avoid giving him books and film covering similar topics. Emotional readiness for ideas is a real issue that gets discarded in the annoyance with the bad reputation games are being hounded with.
On the up side, this site isn't trying to censor, ban or otherwise ruin the adult's fun.
Hate to break it to you, but my visa became a mastercard during the "visa won't allow your logo" time period. It still starts with a 4 and yet bears the mastercard logo. I hate sites (and the people behind them) that assume things about credit cards that are not true.
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+defence
Note that this is a legal spelling. Defense (American English) and defence (British English and Canadian English).
Actually, until Microsoft and the X-Box, the "lose money on the hardware" idea was a myth:
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http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02
... but I would never work in the games industry. I like spending time with my family and earning a decent living too much to replace it with perpetual crunch time and "this 18 year old will work for half what you want, so a decent wage is out of the question" mindsets. Business software development may not be glamorous, but it pays the bills and I can (sometimes) spend time with my family at night.
If these kids going to video game design schools think they are going to play video games all day, they will be quickly disabused of such a nonsensical viewpoint. Game development is hard work.