Wow, what nonsense. While it's true that nostalgia plays a part, it is also true that some decades just create better music than others. Don't believe me? Try comparing the good music produced in the 60s to the good music produced in the 80s. Both are old enough to have the nostlgia effect, but you'll find that there is far more quality music from the 60s than the 80s, and the cream-of-the-crop of the 60s is also of higher quality than the cream-of-the-crop from the 80s. This decade so far is another dry spell all-in-all, even though there is some decent stuff out there. The 80's did have U2, Depeche mode, Good Metallica, Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Guns and roses, Prince, good Micheal Jackson, the Beastie Boys, run DMC etc... There was good music as well. Compared to the 60's? It's more a different flavor then any drastic change in quality. People who like depech mode may not enjoy the Jimmy Hendrix, people who like the Doors may not be a fan of Cyndi Lauper but they each wrote some good songs.
What do you define as quality music? Music that endures? Music with some value? Music that a 50 year old guy at rolling stones magazine says is good?
What is your definition? Music sales? Cultural influence?
The problem the parent eludes to is that many developers think graphics are more important than the game. Graphics are nice, but if the game sucks, a polished turd is still a turd. I'd rather play a great game with decent graphics than a mediocre game that awes me with shiny for the 30 minutes I play until I decide that it sucks. Graphics are one part of a whole. Very few successful games take the route you mentioned. Heavenly sword looks very good, but it's also a pretty decent brawler; Gears of war was gorgeous, and was a fun third person shooter; Ratchet and Clank future:TOD was really good looking, and an awesome combat platformed.
Where is this mythical "graphics before gameplay" game that sold really well? Madden 08? Lair (hahaha sells well? haha)? Halo 3 (if you call terrible normal/bump maps looking good)?
Almost any game on top of the charts does try to balance graphics and gameplay. Only PC tech demos (DOOM3)really forgo gameplay for graphics.
Good times when the hardware was limited and the focus was in the game itself, not only in the graphics as we see in lots of games nowadays. I find the trend towards minimalist nostalgia a bit too rampant on games.slashdot. The old games were sometimes fun but were more frequently exercises in repetitive game play. Pac man was interesting for it's time but boring as all hell now. Super Mario brothers was fun for it's time but highly repetitive. Back then the focus was on making a buck and you've neatly forgotten the 80% of the games in the bad old days that were just pure unadultered dreck. These days it's still 80% dreck but the EA factory produced dreck still has better basic playability then some of the gems of yore. It's sort of like music, so many older people remember fondly how great music was back in 1960 and gee how bad and crappy music is now. But really there was dreck and one hit pop wonders back int he 60's too and it was also 80% dreck. You've just forgotten all the dreck, summed up a decades worth of music in 40 good songs and compared it to whats on the top 40 now which represents only the preceding month. Similarly the "gameplay" folk take all the games they liked in their youth (10-20 years) and compared it to the last month of releases. No wonder it compares poorly, because you are comparing all the gems from 10-20 years to whats just got released and your nostalgic memory taints the whole endevour.
Go back and play galaga then play another shooter like Raiden 3, play X-men:the arcade game and compare it to X-men legends II, play Hogans Alley and compare it to Time crisis 4, play pitfall and compare it to Ratchet and Clank future:TOD, or play donkey kong and compare it to Mario Galaxy.
You'll find the "Good times" weren't so great and we are likely in the midst of a gaming renaissances but you're too caught up in nostalgia to notice.
The exception that proves the rule, I guess. That phrase always bugged me. Logically the exception weakens the rule. With enough exceptions the rule becomes meaningless. So how exactly does the exception prove the rule? It's a very odd phrase.
I agree that the claim that macroevolution was driven by God or some other intelligent designer is inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. However, the claim that it was driven by random mutation is equally inadequately supported by reproducible evidence. If you are aware of evidence that directly reflects on the mechanism of macroevolution which the scientific community is not aware of, won't you share it with us? If you are not, aren't you indeed a bigot? Macroevolution/microevolution is purely a artificial designation. There is no difference. The underlying mechanism is mutation and selection. I am aware that any 100 and 200 level courses in genetics/biochemistry will dispel any quaint notions that we don't understand or can't figure it out the mechanism. The entire idea of macro/micro evolution is not a current part of modern genetics, biochemistry or biology. I went through 2.5 years of genetics and never heard the term until I switched to Comp sci and started visiting slashdot. If you investigate the issue you'll find there is one side pushing the fact that macro evolution exists and is different from normal evolution. They say things like "happens at above species level " blah blah blah. In actuality species and genus etc... are all unreal taxonomic distinctions. Species, Genus, Kingdom phyla are all human constructs. The emergence of new species do not occur with the build up of genetics changes or any such garbage but instead it's an artificial distinction when we choose to call it a new species. some species are merely geographically separated and we name it a separate species. Some rare cases the same "species" can't interbreed and we persist in calling it one species. There are rule but they give way to "tradition". To see how artificial it is, the kingdom Archaea has more genetic diversity then all 5 of the other kingdoms. It's a meaningless divination.
fundamentally the underlying mechanism of evolution is genetic mutation which occurs because of well known mechanism like point mutations and frame shift mutations and selection which is very well understood as "die before you have kids". Mutations occasionally change the phenotype. Taxonomically if there occurs any mutation which which break computability with the previous genome and if it isn't a one off occurrence then we ought have speciation. Simple point mutations can have drastic effects on phenotype. Protein shapes determine function. Mutations change the function by changing the shape. If it happens that a particular mutation occurs withing a important or active area of a protein then it transforms the protein. Proteins determine phenotypes. There are documented cases where a single point mutation changes the color of size of a organism. thus a single mutation could change it's ability to breed and thus ought to change it's species.
What the "macro evolution" camp is saying is nonsense. One species is incredibly unlikely to mutate into another existing species which seems to be what they want us to show. It's gibbrish. A cat will not become a dog but a cat could gain dog like traits through mutation and selection (size, fur length, snout size). They want us to show it can become a dog. They don't understand evolution and what it is. Mutations + selection. It's a meaningless idea because it's used entirely as a red herring. What exactly do you need to prove? We've documented mutations, we've derived where and how it happened, we've witnessed speciation due to mutations, we've seen animals adapt drastically different phenotypes features in human time scales, we've seen population separate and cease interbreeding, but we will never seen a cat become exactly a dog because that is not evolution thats an idiots idea of evolution.
the evidence is legion, it's the bulk of biology, subscribe here to pull up examples.
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences. The idea rests on the presupposition that a creator exists. Proving a designer exists is where the whole thing falls on it's head. The circular logic that anything complex needs a design forgets that the designer would have to be complex and thus need a designer etc... The whole things is pseudo science because it requires these presuppositions which must be taken on faith. I believe there is a god, however none of this garbage is science nor is it necessary for faith. Creationists/ID makes my type of Christian wince.
So, when a darwinist copies something, it's fair-use, but if a creationist copies something it's a copyright violation? Darwinists do not exist. It's simply a pejorative label certain obstinate creation story supporters place on their opposition.
What always gets me is that one group will flame another group, then call it bigotry if that group flames them back, or disagrees with them. This goes for copyrighted material users, file-sharers/industry, race, religion, Operating Systems, etc. Just read the posts above this one and you'll see a lot of bashing already in progress. See bigotry at its' finest. I wouldn't be surprised if my post gets modded down. I rarely see the "pro-science" side call creationists bigots. More often it's "knowledge deficient" or some synonym there of. Tolerance is a funny idea. You ought only tolerate what doesn't harm you or others. In this case I cannot tolerate creationism. You have already prematurely labeled me a bigot but if it means simply I am intolerant of inadequately supported ideas then thank you I must be a bigot.
I have used this video in my intro biology class, telling them it is an absolutely marvelous video and that by the time they graduate they will understand the complex processes depicted. I have spoken through it, thereby adding my own narration. Does this mean I am going to get sued too? Only if you proclaim you made this video in print, a Harvard lawyer is in your classroom, the author of the video is in your classroom, and your are a person of note.
Well there are still the issues stemming from the long-term abuse on many reserves by churches, who were given the keys by a lazy, disinterested government, and being good churches, somehow managed to put pedophiles and psychopaths in charge of children. You mean the ones they put under heavy scrutiny in 1990's and closed down completely by 1998, and attempted to pay restitution for?
I don't advocate the censure of Canada; but the issue seemed to have been Canada's treatment of natives and immigrants. Given that the poor fellow that was administered an improvised electro shock therapy by Canadian officials was a Polish immigrant; the motion to censure mightn't be so much of a stretch.
That such a motion 'nearly passed' says more about the decline of the status of Canada than about the UN. So a belligerent polish guy gets tasered and dies and it's an indictment on how we treat immigrants? As an immigrant myself I can attest I wasn't tasered at the airport when I came. He ought not have been tasered but it's really about overzealous policing and not some latent policy against polish people and immigrants.
The supporters of the censure Pakistan, Venezuela, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Belarus were all bastions of human rights? Canada is as good on human rights as it's ever been. It was distinctly worse 30 years ago. even 20 years ago. The whole affair is an attempt by Iran and a bunch of nations that are usually on the receiving end of such censures successfully making a mockery of the UN system.
Wrong. Even today, the Fraser Institute (which is by no means a left-wing thinktank) calls the situation "Canada's Aparteid". I suppose your rosy outlook on our native reserves conveniently ignores the fact that the poverty comes out of the poor treatment of 30 years ago. Even today we can't be bothered to make sure that they have sanitary drinking water. You are referring to the situations on some reservations. Most are self administered and are funded just as well or better as a municipality of the same size. It isn't for lack of money or good intentions from the government side that induces these situations. It's lack of demand for fiscal responsibility and a lack of interest in reform from the government that causes this to continues. The difference from apartheid in Africa so many years ago and the situation in Canada is Canada is not actively trying to exclude the native population from opportunities. Perhaps you'd have a case 30 years ago but right now it's just the inertia from being down for so long keeping them down. In general there have been a lot done to help them pull out of that but it will take time.
That's a good example of an ad hominem argument. The fact that it was Iran doesn't change the fact that Canada probably has committed such abuses, especially in our treatment of our native people. I was replying to his assertion the UN has issues. Our modern treatment of the native population is better then we treat anyone else in similar situations. The problem is how we treated them 30 years ago and before. However being censured for 30 year old transgressions would in fact indict the UN further. The native populations have affirmative action, no taxes, free education, and depending on treaty/reserve additional benefits. What their suffering from is poverty. There are many programs that try to help this as well.
Iran on the other hand has ongoing issues with religious and racial minorities.
I've always viewed the U.N as a corrupt orginization and an enemy of the US. I'm sure many agree. Well the fact that Iran nearly passed a motion to censure Canada for human rights abuses seems to support your hypothesis that the structure of the UN is essentially broke. It's difficult to take that organization seriously.
It seems that police use it as a extra form or untraceable corporal punishment. It's meant to be used as a next to lethal last resort but increasingly it's just replaced "couple punches to the face with a phone book in between". Stories vary but often after a person has put up a fight the police subdue him and then taser them. or use the taser to subdue him but then give a couple of extra shock to show whose boss etc... I find the people to gravitate to or are allowed to be policemen in my city aren't much different then the thugs that watch the exit at bars nor the bullies on the play ground. Anecdotally, a athletic friend of mine who had a black belt was turned down for enrollment into the police academy because he "lack life experience" while an acquaintance who spent a year as a bouncer at a strip club got accepted.
star wars is fairly cool in other peoples hands (Original trilogy, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, Republic comanda etc..) but when Lucas has direct and unchecked control of it he ruins it because basically he isn't a fan of his own work. That and he gets really bad ideas along with pretty good ideas. When othe rpeople have their hand in it it editorilizes his ideas and the shit gets dropped.
Before:
Lucas: "hey harrison, I want you to shoot after guido shoots at you."
Harrison: "You know what george, fuck you. Han is supposed to be a bad ass with a good side not a boy scout with a furry for a friend."
Now:
Lucas: "I want you to put in a CG rhasta with teeth grindingly bad dialogue"
ILM grunt: "Yes mr. pays my bills and whose opinion my career hinges on"
To be fair, my Dell Vostro 1000 came preloaded with Vista home basic, and it bluescreened after 30 minutes. I installed opensuse 10.3 shortly thereafter. Not that the Linux ATI X200 drivers are any better - I get X corruption all over the place and 1 month later I still can't get compiz working right. And you haven't returned it?
I think your analysis certainly identifies a factor, but I would suggest that the larger problem is this: media organizations are run by middle aged (or even old) white guys. They use a computer for email and Google; that's it. Online banking? Are you crazy?
Media coverage (outside the local level, where it's mired in "if if bleeds it leads") generally fits into the following cubbyholes: National (political) news, local (political) news, sports, and business. "Features" is everything from restaurant reviews to comics. Where exactly does coverage of computer security fit? I certainly agree that the "journalist" demographic doesn't frequently overlap the "tech guru" demographic and the lack of overlap likely leads to poor or infrequent reporting on that topic.
Vista is the new ME, the sooner it dies and MS dumps it the better off we'll all be. Vista would have to re-animate the dead into blood thirsty zombies before it could rival the utter horror of ME.
Certainly possible. However, as a guy who spent over two decades producing content for media companies (although back in my day we used to call it writing for the newspaper) I never, ever had anybody stop me from writing something. Heck, I rarely had anybody telling me what to cover, since as the designated expert, I was the guy telling my bosses what was important. But do go on... The problem isn't so much blatant censorship int hat fashion it's more like this: Neo-con journalists tend to write Neo-con articles. Neo-Con editors tend to hire Neo-con journalists. Neo-con paper owners tend to hire Neo-Con editors. Thus The guy at the top influences the content being output through editorial/selective means. A story of "Man dies after police taser him" can be spun as "Belligerent suspect dies after struggle with police" or "Unarmed immigrant murdered by police."
This tyep of spin is true for Marxists, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates etc...
It's not a huge problem if there is a diversity of media but major media is held by very few parties.
We'll see how this plays out. Back in the 80's I pirated lots of software, and I heard stories of other teenagers being caught for it. Now that I'm an adult, I'm no longe a pirate. The prosecution of software pirates in the 1980s didn't push me into a life of hoisting the Jolly Roger; on the contrary, once I got a job and learned more about how the real world works, I prefer to respect the copyright of others. Piracy did wonders for Microsoft and likely photo, Maya, Lightwave, and many other programs. The cost of these programs puts them out of reach of kids, and kids are the ones who will pick up these essential skills fastest. So if you acclimatized children to your software you basically create future customers. A kid may find he loves 3d work and set his life on a course as a Maya guru. Anyone else will think it's insane spending $3,000 on a box and a CD. So it's int he best interest of people to ensure some version of their software is pirated or provide a non business free non-expiring demo but to also ensure businesses are prosecuted for use without paying. This way you get the benefit of more paying users.
The thing with piracy is once you get enough money (first job) it's less attractive to spend 2h filtering through torrents to download a season 30 min TV show then it is to spend $80 on the box set. So Piracy may set up the appetites the same way it does for software and convenience and economics convert them to customers.
Sometimes it's not about the money. Sometimes, it's about right and wrong. These are kids who should know better, and are committing lots of infringement (and worse than that, think it's OK). It's a self-reinforcing behavior to see lots of people around you pirating, but if instead you see people suffering the consequences for their illegal downloading, that activity will be deterred. I agree, Right and wrong must be considered. So you have a very minor wrong of college kids viewing content without paying for it, and a very major wrong of sacrificing peoples privacy and introducing a new potential source of security compromises. It's very clear this initiative must be rejected on the ground you specified.
There is also a bit of thorn here. People who consume more will often consider it more important. There is a very strong correlation with "Frequent Copyright infringer" and "good customer". So the MPAA wants to reduce one without reducing the other. The RIAA completely botched it and didn't see the correlation. Their sales may hurt as people try to find alternatives. MPAA is slightly more fortunate that since movies are larger infringement is less casual and high quality products mroe difficult to produce (for music the difference between a $1500 recording and a $5 million recording isn't always obvious. But the difference between a $1500 movies and a $5 movie sis blatant).
The Russians aren't too happy about this new side to NASA... they're trying to distance themselves from the whole idea... Perhaps in the past they were very geek friendly and carried many niche goods but these days Radio Shack/Circuit City seems to be the Compaq of electronics. Thats is premium quality priced for below average quality goods. Want to pay 25% more for stuff you can find at semi-expensive best buy? go to Radio Shack/Circuit city? Want to speak to someone without a clue about what they sell? Go to Radio Shack/Circuit City. Want a novel piece of junk that doesn't do anything? Go to radio shack/ circuit city.
It's sort of appalling that anyone would partner with them.
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What do you define as quality music? Music that endures? Music with some value? Music that a 50 year old guy at rolling stones magazine says is good?
What is your definition? Music sales? Cultural influence?
Where is this mythical "graphics before gameplay" game that sold really well? Madden 08? Lair (hahaha sells well? haha)? Halo 3 (if you call terrible normal/bump maps looking good)?
Almost any game on top of the charts does try to balance graphics and gameplay. Only PC tech demos (DOOM3)really forgo gameplay for graphics.
Go back and play galaga then play another shooter like Raiden 3, play X-men:the arcade game and compare it to X-men legends II, play Hogans Alley and compare it to Time crisis 4, play pitfall and compare it to Ratchet and Clank future:TOD, or play donkey kong and compare it to Mario Galaxy.
You'll find the "Good times" weren't so great and we are likely in the midst of a gaming renaissances but you're too caught up in nostalgia to notice.
fundamentally the underlying mechanism of evolution is genetic mutation which occurs because of well known mechanism like point mutations and frame shift mutations and selection which is very well understood as "die before you have kids". Mutations occasionally change the phenotype. Taxonomically if there occurs any mutation which which break computability with the previous genome and if it isn't a one off occurrence then we ought have speciation. Simple point mutations can have drastic effects on phenotype. Protein shapes determine function. Mutations change the function by changing the shape. If it happens that a particular mutation occurs withing a important or active area of a protein then it transforms the protein. Proteins determine phenotypes. There are documented cases where a single point mutation changes the color of size of a organism. thus a single mutation could change it's ability to breed and thus ought to change it's species.
What the "macro evolution" camp is saying is nonsense. One species is incredibly unlikely to mutate into another existing species which seems to be what they want us to show. It's gibbrish. A cat will not become a dog but a cat could gain dog like traits through mutation and selection (size, fur length, snout size). They want us to show it can become a dog. They don't understand evolution and what it is. Mutations + selection. It's a meaningless idea because it's used entirely as a red herring. What exactly do you need to prove? We've documented mutations, we've derived where and how it happened, we've witnessed speciation due to mutations, we've seen animals adapt drastically different phenotypes features in human time scales, we've seen population separate and cease interbreeding, but we will never seen a cat become exactly a dog because that is not evolution thats an idiots idea of evolution.
the evidence is legion, it's the bulk of biology, subscribe here to pull up examples.
That such a motion 'nearly passed' says more about the decline of the status of Canada than about the UN. So a belligerent polish guy gets tasered and dies and it's an indictment on how we treat immigrants? As an immigrant myself I can attest I wasn't tasered at the airport when I came. He ought not have been tasered but it's really about overzealous policing and not some latent policy against polish people and immigrants.
The supporters of the censure Pakistan, Venezuela, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Belarus were all bastions of human rights? Canada is as good on human rights as it's ever been. It was distinctly worse 30 years ago. even 20 years ago. The whole affair is an attempt by Iran and a bunch of nations that are usually on the receiving end of such censures successfully making a mockery of the UN system.
Iran on the other hand has ongoing issues with religious and racial minorities.
It seems that police use it as a extra form or untraceable corporal punishment. It's meant to be used as a next to lethal last resort but increasingly it's just replaced "couple punches to the face with a phone book in between". Stories vary but often after a person has put up a fight the police subdue him and then taser them. or use the taser to subdue him but then give a couple of extra shock to show whose boss etc... I find the people to gravitate to or are allowed to be policemen in my city aren't much different then the thugs that watch the exit at bars nor the bullies on the play ground. Anecdotally, a athletic friend of mine who had a black belt was turned down for enrollment into the police academy because he "lack life experience" while an acquaintance who spent a year as a bouncer at a strip club got accepted.
I don't see a Microsoft store, do you? Best buy?
star wars is fairly cool in other peoples hands (Original trilogy, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, Republic comanda etc..) but when Lucas has direct and unchecked control of it he ruins it because basically he isn't a fan of his own work. That and he gets really bad ideas along with pretty good ideas. When othe rpeople have their hand in it it editorilizes his ideas and the shit gets dropped.
Before:
Lucas: "hey harrison, I want you to shoot after guido shoots at you."
Harrison: "You know what george, fuck you. Han is supposed to be a bad ass with a good side not a boy scout with a furry for a friend."
Now:
Lucas: "I want you to put in a CG rhasta with teeth grindingly bad dialogue"
ILM grunt: "Yes mr. pays my bills and whose opinion my career hinges on"
Media coverage (outside the local level, where it's mired in "if if bleeds it leads") generally fits into the following cubbyholes: National (political) news, local (political) news, sports, and business. "Features" is everything from restaurant reviews to comics. Where exactly does coverage of computer security fit? I certainly agree that the "journalist" demographic doesn't frequently overlap the "tech guru" demographic and the lack of overlap likely leads to poor or infrequent reporting on that topic.
This tyep of spin is true for Marxists, Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates etc...
It's not a huge problem if there is a diversity of media but major media is held by very few parties.
The thing with piracy is once you get enough money (first job) it's less attractive to spend 2h filtering through torrents to download a season 30 min TV show then it is to spend $80 on the box set. So Piracy may set up the appetites the same way it does for software and convenience and economics convert them to customers.
There is also a bit of thorn here. People who consume more will often consider it more important. There is a very strong correlation with "Frequent Copyright infringer" and "good customer". So the MPAA wants to reduce one without reducing the other. The RIAA completely botched it and didn't see the correlation. Their sales may hurt as people try to find alternatives. MPAA is slightly more fortunate that since movies are larger infringement is less casual and high quality products mroe difficult to produce (for music the difference between a $1500 recording and a $5 million recording isn't always obvious. But the difference between a $1500 movies and a $5 movie sis blatant).
And its not even funny.. Color me foolish. It's sort of a deep pink.
It's sort of appalling that anyone would partner with them.