I'm personally a Kerry supporter, but I don't think his campaign has been handled terribly well. One of the most frequent complaints I've seen levied against Kerry has been that he hasn't presented a clear plan for what he would do if he were president. People seem to feel that, whether or not they agree with what Bush says, he seems very forward in his message and they feel like they have a good idea what to expect if he served another term. Kerry, on the other hand, has given vague suggestions about what he'd do, but hasn't presented much in the way of a solid plan. Now, his attacks this week about Iraq were quite a bit more specific than what he's done in the past, but Iraq is such a volatile issue that I doubt it's going to rally undecided voters much.
Edwards will likely do well in the vice presidential debate, regardless of how Kerry does, just by virtue as coming across as generally more likeable than Cheney. This probably won't mean much, of course. But if Kerry comes out and answers questions directly, without trying to skirt the issues, he could see quite a gain from his debate performance. He's a much better speaker than Bush, and if he comes out directly with solid goals for when he becomes president, he could raise undecided voters' passion quite a bit.
Of course, who knows what Kerry will actually do. I don't have that much confidence that he'll be able to pull it off. But I think if he makes a solid effort to present himself as decisive in the debates, it could very well change the momentum in the election. Or he may just fuck it up like he's been doing the rest of the campaign. We'll have to wait and see.
Really, if these jobs are going to Indians with CS degrees...why wouldn't they deserve the job? If they're qualified, why not give them work? I mean, if two workers are both qualified, and one will work cheaper, you hire the cheaper one.
And if you think they're not qualified, then one of two things would happen: either companies will see the difference in quality, decide it's not worth the cost savings, and start bringing the jobs back...or they'll decide the quality is good enough, that it offers a better value for their money, and there'll start to be a lot less high pay programming jobs in the US. Companies may just not need as highly skilled programmers as they thought. To them, it'd be like hiring an engineer to be a janitor, when he was still demanding an engineer's salary. Either he's gotta drop his price, or the job's going to someone else.
I guess people just need to realize that programming, as it's done by most large software companies, isn't really skilled work. It requires a lot of training, yes, but so does being an auto mechanic. Sure, there'll always be smaller companies that have a need for highly skilled programmers. Id isn't going to start outsourcing. But a young, technically-minded individual will just have to consider other career paths than programming. Low-level programming jobs aren't going to disappear in the US, but they'll prolly pay a lot less and just generally be a lot less glamorous.
And what's the betting those preferred creditors just happen to be the upper management team, hence them asking for chapter 7 instead of 11? I somehow doubt my stock will be worth anything, but it's those employees who claim that their pensions have been *ahem* lightened (let alone their wages not being paid) who I feel sorry for. If their claims are accurate I guess Mirrorsoft and Enron didn't teach the authorities anything. But I guess it will all come out in the wash.
Unless upper management has made loans to the company or is owed back pay, they're not getting shit. The decision to liquidate is simply a reflection of management's view of the company's potential to make money. Your stock is now worthless because it is equity, not debt. In other words, you own a small piece of a company that doesn't exist anymore.
Yeah, the employees got screwed, cause there's no money to pay them with. It sucks, but no one wants the company to go out of business. This is a bankruptcy, not a scandal. The creditors will divide up the remaining assets of the company, because the company was in debt to them. They're still going to lose a lot of money, because the money to pay them isn't there.
So yeah, pretty much everyone who was involved with a company gets screwed when that company goes under. Is that supposed to be shocking?
You think those kids with laptops in class are taking notes? Hah.
That said, if someone is seriously stalking your shit, following you back to your dorm to figure out where you live, just so he can jack it, you've got pretty big problems. More likely you leave your door unlocked or something, or maybe someone just walks right up when no one's looking and takes it. One of those laptop locks, easily broken though it is, is more than sufficient to stop 99% of the likely ways your laptop's gonna get stolen. Most thieves aren't going to think about how they're going to steal your laptop...they're gonna just see it there and take it.
If you use some common sense when carrying your laptop around, it's pretty unlikely to get stolen. And if you own a laptop you take anywhere, you should already know the common sense shit I'm talking about. Don't worry about it so much...if you want some peace of mind, see if you or your parents have any sort of insurance that would cover it. Hell, a lot of those locks come with an insurance policy of some sort, although I wonder if anyone ever actually collects.
The amazing thing is that people think they can be right about anything but the most basic. Economics is at least as complex as the weather, which we know we get wrong much of the time, except with all the added predictability of being a social science...
This is actually a much better metaphor than it appears.
Economics is a lot like meteorology. Meteorology is far from random...it's very, very complex, and it's often easy to look back and say 'this is why that happened.' You can come up with general principles...how certain things are likely to interact. And then you go to apply it...and you're still wrong 60% (number pulled out of my ass) of the time. Does that mean that meteorology is complete junk and worthless, and that all those principles they found were completely wrong? No, it just means that the influencing factors are so numerous that it's hard to make a solid prediction.
Is economics perfect? Of course not, especially when it comes to trying to influence change on a major economy. But that doesn't make it worthless. That just means that it's damn hard to make a prediction about how any system that complex is going to behave.
That said, most slashdotters would be well-served by pulling their heads out of their asses, and actually learning something about business and economics before shooting their mouths off about it. (??? PROFIT! HAHA THOSE BUSINESS GUYS ARE SO DUMB) The article is really, really basic market economics. Just laughing at it and declaring it bullshit without understanding it is about equivilent to if an MBA started arguing with a compsci guy about how all the computers in a company should be running some flavor of Windows because 'so many people run it, it must be the best, right?' It just reveals him as a retard when it comes to computers, just like the sort of reactions I'm seeing in this article reveal the average slashdotter to be a retard when it comes to economics.
I must admit, it's sad to see the Terminator/Matrix movies get so much play in this genre. These are passable action films that don't stand up to much pondering post viewing.
Neither of these were exactly hard sci-fi, but...
They were kick ass action movies (i question the sanity of anyone who says Terminator 2 was a 'passable' action movie) that were just smart enough to make the plots interesting. I doubt they trying to be 'deep' in any way, just trying to be a bit different from every other Hollywood plot out there.
I'm a college student. I have very little income, but lots of free time. (Well, not really lots of free time, but more than most employed adults.) When I buy a game, the *very first thing* I consider is the 'time i'm gonna get out of this game'/price ratio. I won't buy a game that's only gonna give me ten hours of playtime. A game that's 20 hours would have to come down in price a lot before I'd buy it. Even massive rpgs that promise 70+ hours of gameplay...I still think, 'yeah, but is it worth 50 bucks?' Cause let's face it, 50 bucks is a lot of fucking money for a toy.
Basically...fuck short and sweet. I hate playing a game for a little bit and then tossing it aside never to played again. Maybe it's such a huge factor for me these days because games have virtually zero replay value anymore. I personally think this can be blamed squarely on systems with memory cards. Wonderful idea...but the problem is, when even your favorite dumb action game has savepoints, it just makes it so that when you beat the last level, you're done. I mean, looking back to when I was a kid...I probably put about 200 hours into something like contra, and probably 150 of those were the first few levels. I'm not saying memory cards are bad, cause they're great, but they've really changed the way we play games and how much enjoyment we get out of them (in terms of hours) for the worse.
So maybe it's just because I don't buy into the whole 'video games are art, they're great storytelling!' thing. I call bullshit on that. Video game storytelling is as awful and childish as ever, by and large. No, if I'm going to throw down a large chunk of money on a game, I want to spend the largest amount of time possible enjoying it. I don't want some supposed masterpiece that's short and sweet but tells a great story. I want something that'll literally kill hours and hours and hours. Because video games are, and always have been, a timekiller. Forget whatever else.
Just because something is hard to quantify doesn't preclude it from being referred to as a single entity.
What everyone seems to be dancing around here is that while the Internet may be an abstract concept, that doesn't mean it can't be referred to as a proper noun. Most things we give names to are ultimately abstract concepts. I challenge you to find the exact physical boundaries of Bill Gates down to the individual atom.
Remember that many successful sitcom stars make well over a million an episode. The fact that they've been working on the show for so long, and it's been so successful, and yet they're making a pittance compared to sitcom actors on similarly successful shows. And why? Because they're doing a cartoon, not a live action sitcom. Maybe there's also an element of wanting to set a precedent. If the simpsons voice actors can't get respected at the same level as other successful tv stars, then what voice actor can?
The author gives a detailed description about the child's play project, telling about how touching the effort was, etc. And they mention penny-arcade.com many times. Yet they don't seem to have any clue about the content of the site, even saying that the readers of the site are 'apparantly gamers.' Perhaps they should've checked out the site a little more...I suspect that the content of certain strips could possibly offend people who would regularly read a column written by a 'child advocate.'
If we're gonna have these ask slashdot style articles in the games section, couldn't they get their own category? I don't like the regular ask slashdot, and I'd really rather not have it filtering into my games section stuff.
You can dismiss a slippery slope argument as false logic, and you're technically right. A does not necessarily always lead to B.
There's nothing technical about it. A slippery slope argument is invalid; it proves nothing, and makes your argument weaker. Think of it this way: you're saying 'this isn't particularly wrong, but if it happens, *this* wrong thing could happen.' You've just said the thing you're arguing against isn't wrong. It's self-defeating. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean your conclusion is wrong, but it does make you look foolish.
But when the topic is the defense of our rights, why would you take chances? A lot of people like to quote Ben Franklin: "Those who are willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security." That is a *classic* slippery slope argument, but few Americans disagree with it. Look at the outcry over the Patriot Act, etc for details.
This is, in fact, not a slippery slope argument. He says nothing about getting rid of one form of liberty leading to the loss of others. Rather, he makes a broad statement indicating that he values liberty over security. You may agree with this or not, but given the fact that there isn't even an argument to disprove, it's hard to call it a fallacy.
Furthermore, your mention of the Patriot Act would seem to be yet another logical fallacy: a red herring. The Patriot Act has nothing to do with the matter at hand (or if it does, you've certainly not shown any particular link).
For what it's worth, I disagree with both laws as well. I don't believe that giving the ratings of a private and unaccountable entity (the ESRB) legal weight is wise in general. Furthermore, I think that restricting the sales of certain things based on content is bad on its face, especially when there's no proof either way on whether such things are harmful to children. Finally, the definitions contained within the law are fairly nebulous and open to broad interpretation. That is likely to give them problems should they ever be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Of course, that may well be why this is two bills instead of one. It's very possible that the bill about 'harmful matter' will be struck down while the other one will stand.
It's also worth pointing out that under US law, commercial speech doesn't receive full protection. This pretty much makes any first amendment arguments regarding spam null.
Interesting enough topic, and I don't actually disagree with the guy's main point, but...this guy is a moron. In trying to defend the fact that rpgs are inherently unrealistic, he brings up the fact that final fantasy games use blue boxes to represent dialog? That was the best example you could come up with? He doesn't mention things like the fact that random encounters are what allow you to build up your characters in most games. A game can have as fancy a class/ability system as it wants, but if there's no fodder for your characters to practice against, then the system is going to be pretty limited. Several games have used static encounters, and the result is usually that if you didn't build your characters properly the first time through, you'll have no chance against the final boss. Finally, the guy takes a pot shot against what's generally considered to be one of the best rpgs ever with absolutely no justification whatsoever. If you don't like CT, fine, but I think if you're gonna say it sucks in a gamespot editorial, you need to back it up a little.
I like these 'food for thought' style articles that the games section has been posting lately, but I think we could use a somewhat higher standard for the quality of the articles.
Call it semi-professional interest, but what exactly are you finding "unbalanced" about the game? Sure you're reading the rules right?
The biggest problem with the whole feats aspect of the game is that it reads like a shopping list for a certain type of player. 'Now, let's see, what will let me kill the most monsters...' But really, this is a problem with any rpg that has so many rules/dice involved. You will always get some players who try to completely twink out their characters. The solution to this is a DM who's willing to either ignore the rules at times(and is able to get the rules lawyers to stop whining), or ignore dice when it's appropriate. I've never found purely dice-based combat that fun. D&D has always been a good framework, and a common base rpg that everyone knows, but it's really easy to get carried away paying attention to every single rule. 'Sides, what's so fun about spending the whole time fighting monsters anyway? I guess the biggest problem with the feats system is DMs who make the whole campaign centered on combat, so the non-combat oriented feats seem useless.
i remember my copy of spectre vr(years ago) came with a copy of snow crash. i actually avoided reading it for years, since i assumed it was a game novelization and it sucked. imagine my surprise when i actually did decide to start reading it one day...
y'know, one thing that has influenced my view of the oscars...
my freshman year of college, i had a roommate that was from around LA. he used to get screeners of movies all the time. one day i asked him how he got them, and he told me that his friend's mother was a member of the academy. i was kinda impressed, and asked 'oh, what does she do?' he tells me 'she's mel gibson's personal hairdresser.'
now i'm not exactly sure who votes for what, but it really makes me wonder if the people voting actually have any qualifications, or if the majority of them are just regular workers who happen to be involved with hollywood.
judging from the comments here, people don't seem to be getting this.
these *aren't* the people who committed the fraud. those people are gone. these are people who have come in afterwards and are trying to save the company. these are people who more than likely could easily go somewhere else and get more money. they're trying to give them incentive to stay and do the work that needs done. if you think the damage done to investors and employees is bad now, just see how bad they'd be screwed if the company completely liquidated.
forgetting it's a game
on
Gaming Zone?
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· Score: 2, Offtopic
My experience with this is that it can apply to lots of different areas. I think the key is that you're working within a special set of rules, and at some point, you forget what you're actually doing. Normally you still know you're just sitting in a chair playing a game, or coding a program, or maybe throwing around a football. But at some point you just forget all that, and it's like in your mind, the rules of the game are the 'rules' of the real world. To you, there's nothing going on outside of what you're doing. Thinking about it that way, I see no reason it couldn't apply to anything that requires heavy concentration and operates on a set of rules that's different from those of every day life. I think most of us have experienced it in different contexts.
I think it's interesting that this is a phenomenon that a lot of us have discovered on our own, but they're just starting to understand why it happens. I'd like to see more research on this subject in other contexts.
How can you possibly expect any company to openly endorse a law-breaking event?"
Gee, because its already happened and is happening. Companies that openly endorse breaking the law:
Microsoft (monopoly, unfair competition)
Yes, they spent all the money on their defense because they were openly endorsing that they broke the law.
Nike (child-labor in 3rd world countries)
Yes, they love to advertise this fact. (And I'm not sure what they do is against the law, either. It may not be right, but that's not the same thing as illegal.)
Martha Stewart's company (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
You seem to have a good deal of trouble distinguishing between endorsing something openly and doing something illegal. Not to mention confusing individuals within a corporation with the corporation itself.
The reason there's such a mess in the market right now is because shareholders are not happy with these actions. People broke the law, and the companies and shareholders got fucked. It's quite rare that a public company is going to openly do an illegal action and not only admit to it, but "endorse" it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm personally a Kerry supporter, but I don't think his campaign has been handled terribly well. One of the most frequent complaints I've seen levied against Kerry has been that he hasn't presented a clear plan for what he would do if he were president. People seem to feel that, whether or not they agree with what Bush says, he seems very forward in his message and they feel like they have a good idea what to expect if he served another term. Kerry, on the other hand, has given vague suggestions about what he'd do, but hasn't presented much in the way of a solid plan. Now, his attacks this week about Iraq were quite a bit more specific than what he's done in the past, but Iraq is such a volatile issue that I doubt it's going to rally undecided voters much.
Edwards will likely do well in the vice presidential debate, regardless of how Kerry does, just by virtue as coming across as generally more likeable than Cheney. This probably won't mean much, of course. But if Kerry comes out and answers questions directly, without trying to skirt the issues, he could see quite a gain from his debate performance. He's a much better speaker than Bush, and if he comes out directly with solid goals for when he becomes president, he could raise undecided voters' passion quite a bit.
Of course, who knows what Kerry will actually do. I don't have that much confidence that he'll be able to pull it off. But I think if he makes a solid effort to present himself as decisive in the debates, it could very well change the momentum in the election. Or he may just fuck it up like he's been doing the rest of the campaign. We'll have to wait and see.
Just something I wanted to toss out here...
Really, if these jobs are going to Indians with CS degrees...why wouldn't they deserve the job? If they're qualified, why not give them work? I mean, if two workers are both qualified, and one will work cheaper, you hire the cheaper one.
And if you think they're not qualified, then one of two things would happen: either companies will see the difference in quality, decide it's not worth the cost savings, and start bringing the jobs back...or they'll decide the quality is good enough, that it offers a better value for their money, and there'll start to be a lot less high pay programming jobs in the US. Companies may just not need as highly skilled programmers as they thought. To them, it'd be like hiring an engineer to be a janitor, when he was still demanding an engineer's salary. Either he's gotta drop his price, or the job's going to someone else.
I guess people just need to realize that programming, as it's done by most large software companies, isn't really skilled work. It requires a lot of training, yes, but so does being an auto mechanic. Sure, there'll always be smaller companies that have a need for highly skilled programmers. Id isn't going to start outsourcing. But a young, technically-minded individual will just have to consider other career paths than programming. Low-level programming jobs aren't going to disappear in the US, but they'll prolly pay a lot less and just generally be a lot less glamorous.
And what's the betting those preferred creditors just happen to be the upper management team, hence them asking for chapter 7 instead of 11? I somehow doubt my stock will be worth anything, but it's those employees who claim that their pensions have been *ahem* lightened (let alone their wages not being paid) who I feel sorry for. If their claims are accurate I guess Mirrorsoft and Enron didn't teach the authorities anything. But I guess it will all come out in the wash.
Unless upper management has made loans to the company or is owed back pay, they're not getting shit. The decision to liquidate is simply a reflection of management's view of the company's potential to make money. Your stock is now worthless because it is equity, not debt. In other words, you own a small piece of a company that doesn't exist anymore.
Yeah, the employees got screwed, cause there's no money to pay them with. It sucks, but no one wants the company to go out of business. This is a bankruptcy, not a scandal. The creditors will divide up the remaining assets of the company, because the company was in debt to them. They're still going to lose a lot of money, because the money to pay them isn't there.
So yeah, pretty much everyone who was involved with a company gets screwed when that company goes under. Is that supposed to be shocking?
You think those kids with laptops in class are taking notes? Hah.
That said, if someone is seriously stalking your shit, following you back to your dorm to figure out where you live, just so he can jack it, you've got pretty big problems. More likely you leave your door unlocked or something, or maybe someone just walks right up when no one's looking and takes it. One of those laptop locks, easily broken though it is, is more than sufficient to stop 99% of the likely ways your laptop's gonna get stolen. Most thieves aren't going to think about how they're going to steal your laptop...they're gonna just see it there and take it.
If you use some common sense when carrying your laptop around, it's pretty unlikely to get stolen. And if you own a laptop you take anywhere, you should already know the common sense shit I'm talking about. Don't worry about it so much...if you want some peace of mind, see if you or your parents have any sort of insurance that would cover it. Hell, a lot of those locks come with an insurance policy of some sort, although I wonder if anyone ever actually collects.
The amazing thing is that people think they can be right about anything but the most basic. Economics is at least as complex as the weather, which we know we get wrong much of the time, except with all the added predictability of being a social science...
This is actually a much better metaphor than it appears.
Economics is a lot like meteorology. Meteorology is far from random...it's very, very complex, and it's often easy to look back and say 'this is why that happened.' You can come up with general principles...how certain things are likely to interact. And then you go to apply it...and you're still wrong 60% (number pulled out of my ass) of the time. Does that mean that meteorology is complete junk and worthless, and that all those principles they found were completely wrong? No, it just means that the influencing factors are so numerous that it's hard to make a solid prediction.
Is economics perfect? Of course not, especially when it comes to trying to influence change on a major economy. But that doesn't make it worthless. That just means that it's damn hard to make a prediction about how any system that complex is going to behave.
That said, most slashdotters would be well-served by pulling their heads out of their asses, and actually learning something about business and economics before shooting their mouths off about it. (??? PROFIT! HAHA THOSE BUSINESS GUYS ARE SO DUMB) The article is really, really basic market economics. Just laughing at it and declaring it bullshit without understanding it is about equivilent to if an MBA started arguing with a compsci guy about how all the computers in a company should be running some flavor of Windows because 'so many people run it, it must be the best, right?' It just reveals him as a retard when it comes to computers, just like the sort of reactions I'm seeing in this article reveal the average slashdotter to be a retard when it comes to economics.
I must admit, it's sad to see the Terminator/Matrix movies get so much play in this genre. These are passable action films that don't stand up to much pondering post viewing.
Neither of these were exactly hard sci-fi, but...
They were kick ass action movies (i question the sanity of anyone who says Terminator 2 was a 'passable' action movie) that were just smart enough to make the plots interesting. I doubt they trying to be 'deep' in any way, just trying to be a bit different from every other Hollywood plot out there.
I'm a college student. I have very little income, but lots of free time. (Well, not really lots of free time, but more than most employed adults.) When I buy a game, the *very first thing* I consider is the 'time i'm gonna get out of this game'/price ratio. I won't buy a game that's only gonna give me ten hours of playtime. A game that's 20 hours would have to come down in price a lot before I'd buy it. Even massive rpgs that promise 70+ hours of gameplay...I still think, 'yeah, but is it worth 50 bucks?' Cause let's face it, 50 bucks is a lot of fucking money for a toy.
Basically...fuck short and sweet. I hate playing a game for a little bit and then tossing it aside never to played again. Maybe it's such a huge factor for me these days because games have virtually zero replay value anymore. I personally think this can be blamed squarely on systems with memory cards. Wonderful idea...but the problem is, when even your favorite dumb action game has savepoints, it just makes it so that when you beat the last level, you're done. I mean, looking back to when I was a kid...I probably put about 200 hours into something like contra, and probably 150 of those were the first few levels. I'm not saying memory cards are bad, cause they're great, but they've really changed the way we play games and how much enjoyment we get out of them (in terms of hours) for the worse.
So maybe it's just because I don't buy into the whole 'video games are art, they're great storytelling!' thing. I call bullshit on that. Video game storytelling is as awful and childish as ever, by and large. No, if I'm going to throw down a large chunk of money on a game, I want to spend the largest amount of time possible enjoying it. I don't want some supposed masterpiece that's short and sweet but tells a great story. I want something that'll literally kill hours and hours and hours. Because video games are, and always have been, a timekiller. Forget whatever else.
Just because something is hard to quantify doesn't preclude it from being referred to as a single entity.
What everyone seems to be dancing around here is that while the Internet may be an abstract concept, that doesn't mean it can't be referred to as a proper noun. Most things we give names to are ultimately abstract concepts. I challenge you to find the exact physical boundaries of Bill Gates down to the individual atom.
Remember that many successful sitcom stars make well over a million an episode. The fact that they've been working on the show for so long, and it's been so successful, and yet they're making a pittance compared to sitcom actors on similarly successful shows. And why? Because they're doing a cartoon, not a live action sitcom. Maybe there's also an element of wanting to set a precedent. If the simpsons voice actors can't get respected at the same level as other successful tv stars, then what voice actor can?
The author gives a detailed description about the child's play project, telling about how touching the effort was, etc. And they mention penny-arcade.com many times. Yet they don't seem to have any clue about the content of the site, even saying that the readers of the site are 'apparantly gamers.' Perhaps they should've checked out the site a little more...I suspect that the content of certain strips could possibly offend people who would regularly read a column written by a 'child advocate.'
If we're gonna have these ask slashdot style articles in the games section, couldn't they get their own category? I don't like the regular ask slashdot, and I'd really rather not have it filtering into my games section stuff.
You can dismiss a slippery slope argument as false logic, and you're technically right. A does not necessarily always lead to B.
There's nothing technical about it. A slippery slope argument is invalid; it proves nothing, and makes your argument weaker. Think of it this way: you're saying 'this isn't particularly wrong, but if it happens, *this* wrong thing could happen.' You've just said the thing you're arguing against isn't wrong. It's self-defeating. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean your conclusion is wrong, but it does make you look foolish.
But when the topic is the defense of our rights, why would you take chances? A lot of people like to quote Ben Franklin: "Those who are willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security." That is a *classic* slippery slope argument, but few Americans disagree with it. Look at the outcry over the Patriot Act, etc for details.
This is, in fact, not a slippery slope argument. He says nothing about getting rid of one form of liberty leading to the loss of others. Rather, he makes a broad statement indicating that he values liberty over security. You may agree with this or not, but given the fact that there isn't even an argument to disprove, it's hard to call it a fallacy.
Furthermore, your mention of the Patriot Act would seem to be yet another logical fallacy: a red herring. The Patriot Act has nothing to do with the matter at hand (or if it does, you've certainly not shown any particular link).
For what it's worth, I disagree with both laws as well. I don't believe that giving the ratings of a private and unaccountable entity (the ESRB) legal weight is wise in general. Furthermore, I think that restricting the sales of certain things based on content is bad on its face, especially when there's no proof either way on whether such things are harmful to children. Finally, the definitions contained within the law are fairly nebulous and open to broad interpretation. That is likely to give them problems should they ever be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Of course, that may well be why this is two bills instead of one. It's very possible that the bill about 'harmful matter' will be struck down while the other one will stand.
Hmmm...I forget the full name of it, but there was a spider-man game for snes(and possibly other platforms) that featured a soundtrack by Green Jello.
It's also worth pointing out that under US law, commercial speech doesn't receive full protection. This pretty much makes any first amendment arguments regarding spam null.
Interesting enough topic, and I don't actually disagree with the guy's main point, but...this guy is a moron. In trying to defend the fact that rpgs are inherently unrealistic, he brings up the fact that final fantasy games use blue boxes to represent dialog? That was the best example you could come up with? He doesn't mention things like the fact that random encounters are what allow you to build up your characters in most games. A game can have as fancy a class/ability system as it wants, but if there's no fodder for your characters to practice against, then the system is going to be pretty limited. Several games have used static encounters, and the result is usually that if you didn't build your characters properly the first time through, you'll have no chance against the final boss. Finally, the guy takes a pot shot against what's generally considered to be one of the best rpgs ever with absolutely no justification whatsoever. If you don't like CT, fine, but I think if you're gonna say it sucks in a gamespot editorial, you need to back it up a little.
I like these 'food for thought' style articles that the games section has been posting lately, but I think we could use a somewhat higher standard for the quality of the articles.
just because a lot of people have said things like 'this guy can't write'...
notice how every page is written by different people.
Call it semi-professional interest, but what exactly are you finding "unbalanced" about the game? Sure you're reading the rules right?
The biggest problem with the whole feats aspect of the game is that it reads like a shopping list for a certain type of player. 'Now, let's see, what will let me kill the most monsters...' But really, this is a problem with any rpg that has so many rules/dice involved. You will always get some players who try to completely twink out their characters. The solution to this is a DM who's willing to either ignore the rules at times(and is able to get the rules lawyers to stop whining), or ignore dice when it's appropriate. I've never found purely dice-based combat that fun. D&D has always been a good framework, and a common base rpg that everyone knows, but it's really easy to get carried away paying attention to every single rule. 'Sides, what's so fun about spending the whole time fighting monsters anyway? I guess the biggest problem with the feats system is DMs who make the whole campaign centered on combat, so the non-combat oriented feats seem useless.
i remember my copy of spectre vr(years ago) came with a copy of snow crash. i actually avoided reading it for years, since i assumed it was a game novelization and it sucked. imagine my surprise when i actually did decide to start reading it one day...
anyone else thinking, "if i wanted to be using phoenix, i'd be using goddamn phoenix"?
y'know, one thing that has influenced my view of the oscars...
my freshman year of college, i had a roommate that was from around LA. he used to get screeners of movies all the time. one day i asked him how he got them, and he told me that his friend's mother was a member of the academy. i was kinda impressed, and asked 'oh, what does she do?' he tells me 'she's mel gibson's personal hairdresser.'
now i'm not exactly sure who votes for what, but it really makes me wonder if the people voting actually have any qualifications, or if the majority of them are just regular workers who happen to be involved with hollywood.
judging from the comments here, people don't seem to be getting this.
these *aren't* the people who committed the fraud. those people are gone. these are people who have come in afterwards and are trying to save the company. these are people who more than likely could easily go somewhere else and get more money. they're trying to give them incentive to stay and do the work that needs done. if you think the damage done to investors and employees is bad now, just see how bad they'd be screwed if the company completely liquidated.
My experience with this is that it can apply to lots of different areas. I think the key is that you're working within a special set of rules, and at some point, you forget what you're actually doing. Normally you still know you're just sitting in a chair playing a game, or coding a program, or maybe throwing around a football. But at some point you just forget all that, and it's like in your mind, the rules of the game are the 'rules' of the real world. To you, there's nothing going on outside of what you're doing. Thinking about it that way, I see no reason it couldn't apply to anything that requires heavy concentration and operates on a set of rules that's different from those of every day life. I think most of us have experienced it in different contexts.
I think it's interesting that this is a phenomenon that a lot of us have discovered on our own, but they're just starting to understand why it happens. I'd like to see more research on this subject in other contexts.
--b.
Actually, believing that shareholders "own" the company,
It's hard to let this pass. Owning the company is the definition of what a shareholder is. This is not a misguided view, it is simple fact.
--b.
How can you possibly expect any company to openly endorse a law-breaking event?"
Gee, because its already happened and is happening. Companies that openly endorse breaking the law:
Microsoft (monopoly, unfair competition)
Yes, they spent all the money on their defense because they were openly endorsing that they broke the law.
Nike (child-labor in 3rd world countries)
Yes, they love to advertise this fact. (And I'm not sure what they do is against the law, either. It may not be right, but that's not the same thing as illegal.)
Enron (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
Global Crossings (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
And that worked out so well for these companies.
Martha Stewart's company (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
You seem to have a good deal of trouble distinguishing between endorsing something openly and doing something illegal. Not to mention confusing individuals within a corporation with the corporation itself.
The reason there's such a mess in the market right now is because shareholders are not happy with these actions. People broke the law, and the companies and shareholders got fucked. It's quite rare that a public company is going to openly do an illegal action and not only admit to it, but "endorse" it.
--b.
Many people are opposed to murder, yet correspond with jailed murderers.
I'm opposed to linux zealots, yet I read slashdot. The best way to refine your view on something is to listen to the people you disagree with.