Re:Ultimately it comes down to human responsibilit
on
I, Robot Hits the Theaters
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Robots, in the strictest sense, aren't... but when does an AI become a being? When does our ability to create a limited-intelligence entity expand to the point where we create an entity with unlimited intelligence? And when we reach that point, is the AI's housing, be it a mainframe or a robot, going to be considered a being?
I would argue that it has to be. The entire philosophical idea the United States was built on is that an individual can make decisions for him-, her-, itself (!) and that that individual has the right to live, be free of oppression and pursue happiness.
If God created us in his image, then what happens when we create beings in ours?
Unlike you, who seems to be perfectly fine placing his bet on the PS3 before he's even seen the damn thing in action. Why?
Two reasons:
1) Because I have been playing video games since the late 70s and have seen the rise and fall of so many "sure things" that I no longer count on a console's manufacturer as being important. It is, and always has been, about the games and the marketing. Those are the two things a successful console must have. The PS3 already has all of the PS1 and PS2 games. That alone gives it a massive edge over the Xbox Next which, according to all indicators, will not have any sort of backwards-compatibility.
3) Because I have had to use Microsoft products for the past 20 years from DOS end-user to Win 2K sys admin (and beyond) and have never been happy with their support, vision or follow-through. Their modus operandi is to be complacent until the time comes that their dominance is threatened. It is extraordinarily rare that MS eyes a market and manages to take it over (IE being one of the rare cases, with, perhaps, Pocket PC eventually gaining dominance - but both of those items are "tied" to the operating system). MSN, WebTV, Ultimate TV, the non-Xbox gaming hardware, etc., eventually loses money and MS shuns it for a few years until it becomes obsolete. MS, for all of its hunger, has no clear goal on what it wants to be. Thus, it tries to be everything to everyone... and then doesn't manage to get reliable, usable, popular products with strong support into the hands of the consumers. It's not that I hate MS, it's that I don't trust they're a mature enough company to follow-through in the areas that it matters.
The Xbox is not a behemoth. It's not even close. The Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1, PS2 were and are behemoths. The Game Boy series is the granddaddy of all behemoths. The Xbox is floating at the same level of market penetration that NEC saw with the TurboGrafx, that Atari saw with the Atari 5200, that Nintendo saw with N64, and that Sega saw with the Master System, the Saturn and the Dreamcast. You are fighting facts with personal anecdotes. But, if we want to go the anecotal route: My Atari 2600 from 24 years ago, is still up and running, and I'm still buying games for it, and there are people still selling 2600s on the net (Want one with S-Video output? It's out there.). The games were compelling and fun, and still are now.
If you can look at me in 20 years and tell me that you are still playing your Xbox on a regular basis, then I will concede your point.
My suspicion is, however, if Sony learns from its mistakes on the PS2 (and everything they've said on that front point to the answer being "yes") and creates the PS3 most of us want, then players such as you and your friends will not be looking at the Xbox Next. Just a guess.;)
Wait, he may be eltist, but he's right. MS had the money to create the Xbox in less than 18 months and to buy Bungie and Rare. MS did not come out of nowhere.
The reason Sony took the lead because they had the money to spend (and because Nintendo was lazy). The reason Sony hasn't lost the lead is because the Xbox does not have a lot of compelling games to convince people like me, who have over 20 consoles at home, to go out and buy it.
Sony, unlike Nintendo, has leanred its lessons and is applying them not only to the PS3 but the PS2 as well. And, since we are seeing all three of the new consoles next May, all three will have the chance to learn from what the others are doing.
I predict continued Sony dominance, a resurgance for Nintendo, and continued losses for MS. I just don't think Steve and Bill have their hearts in gaming...
Read what was said at the call: the issue is with IBM, not Apple. That's why they have yet to announce the G5 iMac - they don't have enough chips from IBM to roll that out and fulfill orders like yours. So they are choosing to fulfill orders like yours first and then roll the iMac out over eight weeks from now.
Don't you see the irony in that request? Postings critical of Macintosh get modded down haphazardly and you want people to sacrifice their karma? Sorry, Mac debates aren't worth it.
Then here's a crazy idea: don't get involved in them. It's real easy to do. If you don't want to be honest, upfront and forthright about who you are and what you believe, then we don't want to hear it. The title isn't "Anonymous Coward" for nothing.
We've seen female homosexuality, at least alluded to, in games for years now: Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Fear Effect, Enter the Matrix...
I'm sure I could go on. For a while.
As for the argument that homosexual characters could be used to bring in female players, I think that's on target. There have been more than a few essays written about the fact that most of the Kirk-Spock erotica out there is written by women for women. A lot of the male-on-male sexual encounters in Japanese pop culture are designed for women. It was only a matter of time before, in the game companies' driving need to grow their audience, this began.
In all honesty, I'm waiting to see if any Japanese dating sims are brought over here in the next few years - maybe for the PS3 (or even the Nintendo Revolution, if they want to go that route).
As far as I'm concerned: it's not my cup of tea, but as long as stores don't go selling soft-core videogames (straight or gay) to kids, I could care less what markets the game companies go after.
Quit whining. And quit being AC. If you want to be taken seriously, and you want people to listen to you, you have to:
1) Not attack an entire group of people when you are talking very few moderators. When you attack a group for the actions of a few, you are acting in a prejudiced manner that will cause most of the readers to ignore your argument;
2) Make your argument and make it stick. This argument, with no stats, not even anecdotal evidence, to back it up means to me that you're reacting emotionally and not thinking things through. You learned how to make rational arguments in high school - utilize that knowledge;
3) And, finally, stop posting as AC! Stand up for yourself and admit who you are instead of hiding behind the AC pretenses. I know that I, and every slashdoter I personally know, have more respect for those who disagree with me if they are honest about who they are. Hiding behind AC means you think your own argument lacks credibility.
And you are broad-brushing all of us. It only took a few moderators to take the parent down... yet it is the entire community? Looks like you have a lot of thinking to do on the subject of hypocrisy.
That said, I think the parent makes a damn good point (he wrote, sitting at his PM G4 running Mac OS X) about Dashboard (not about OS X, since I have Apple's X11 running on here, too). Frankly, I think the name makes sense for the function, but, if the Gnome package has been around for a while, then Apple should change the name, yes.
Susan Calvin is in the movie and is a primary chracter. But, of course, the question is did she become Susan Calvin through the "magic" of Hollywood or was she Susan Calvin from the get-go?
To be honest, this one came out of nowhere for me. I know Harlan Ellison wrote an I, Robot screenplay quite a few years back... but I think Calvin was the main character. And Ellison had given up on getting the picture made. I just looked at IMDB - no Ellison credit. Too bad, really. I liked his screenplay.
Now that I've looked at IMDB, I will say one thing positive about it: Alex Proyas directed it, so it may not be as bad as I originally thought (but, damn it, the trailer looks horrible). Maybe I'll catch it at the dollar show. Ugh. Two people I respect (Asimov and Proyas) and now I have to decide if I want to hold one in higher esteem than the other...
1) Do you have stats to support that? I know, at least in my area, the dropout rate has fallen and there are more kids going to college.
2) Use an RSS aggragator and only read the topics that are truly interesting.
3) I work a 37.5 hour work week. As does my wife. Not too shabby. If you're working 40+ hours, you're being screwed... and not in a good way.
As for the TV: get TiVo. We got ours in March and we spend FAR less time in front of the TV now. It's amazing how much time you save not channel surfing.
Speaking as one who was going to be an English professor (I have the MA... stopped myself before I applied for any doctoral programs): It's an academic thing... something like Oprah is looked down upon by the "academe" because it's populist. God forbid that books become popular... I can imagine the mass beatnik suicides if Bukowski somehow made it on to Oprah's list...
BTW: You've hit on one of the many things that made me stop applying for English doctoral programs...;)
Actually, there is a reason why one book is chosen for the entire class in cases like this: so everyone has the common experience and can discuss the book as a group. I will agree that it also makes it easier on the teacher, as he or she only has to read one book. However, while you may not find the material interesting, there is a reason why it is the required book.
When I've read a new book, the first thing I want to do is discuss it with other people. However, since relatively few people have read the same book. The meme hasn't propagated.
It's called a reading group. They do exist. For many years I was involved in one at the University of Michigan, and it is still going.
But you do not have to be connected academically to start a group. You have seen people at Borders and B&N and your local coffee shop, right? They are all holding the same book in many cases...
If, for some reason, a physical reading group doesn't work for you, then there is always the Usenet (it's not all porn and warez) and other sites on the Web.
Don't blame your lack of reading on those around you. While the Internet may very well to blame for the severe downturn in reading over the past 12 years, it is also the greatest tool you have to discuss things.
Viewer participation goes back to early Sesame Street and Mr. Rodgers. Blue, on Blue's Clues, does the same thing as Dora.
I will tell you - my friends and coworkers' kids who watch Dora and Blue are a hell of a lot better behaved and more attentive than the ones allowed to watch merchandising cartoons, like Transformers...
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I would argue that it has to be. The entire philosophical idea the United States was built on is that an individual can make decisions for him-, her-, itself (!) and that that individual has the right to live, be free of oppression and pursue happiness.
If God created us in his image, then what happens when we create beings in ours?
Two reasons:
1) Because I have been playing video games since the late 70s and have seen the rise and fall of so many "sure things" that I no longer count on a console's manufacturer as being important. It is, and always has been, about the games and the marketing. Those are the two things a successful console must have. The PS3 already has all of the PS1 and PS2 games. That alone gives it a massive edge over the Xbox Next which, according to all indicators, will not have any sort of backwards-compatibility.
3) Because I have had to use Microsoft products for the past 20 years from DOS end-user to Win 2K sys admin (and beyond) and have never been happy with their support, vision or follow-through. Their modus operandi is to be complacent until the time comes that their dominance is threatened. It is extraordinarily rare that MS eyes a market and manages to take it over (IE being one of the rare cases, with, perhaps, Pocket PC eventually gaining dominance - but both of those items are "tied" to the operating system). MSN, WebTV, Ultimate TV, the non-Xbox gaming hardware, etc., eventually loses money and MS shuns it for a few years until it becomes obsolete. MS, for all of its hunger, has no clear goal on what it wants to be. Thus, it tries to be everything to everyone... and then doesn't manage to get reliable, usable, popular products with strong support into the hands of the consumers. It's not that I hate MS, it's that I don't trust they're a mature enough company to follow-through in the areas that it matters.
And who says gamers can't get exercise! :)
Dude... M-W.com. Try it, please?
The Xbox is not a behemoth. It's not even close. The Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1, PS2 were and are behemoths. The Game Boy series is the granddaddy of all behemoths. The Xbox is floating at the same level of market penetration that NEC saw with the TurboGrafx, that Atari saw with the Atari 5200, that Nintendo saw with N64, and that Sega saw with the Master System, the Saturn and the Dreamcast. You are fighting facts with personal anecdotes. But, if we want to go the anecotal route: My Atari 2600 from 24 years ago, is still up and running, and I'm still buying games for it, and there are people still selling 2600s on the net (Want one with S-Video output? It's out there.). The games were compelling and fun, and still are now.
If you can look at me in 20 years and tell me that you are still playing your Xbox on a regular basis, then I will concede your point.
My suspicion is, however, if Sony learns from its mistakes on the PS2 (and everything they've said on that front point to the answer being "yes") and creates the PS3 most of us want, then players such as you and your friends will not be looking at the Xbox Next. Just a guess. ;)
The reason Sony took the lead because they had the money to spend (and because Nintendo was lazy). The reason Sony hasn't lost the lead is because the Xbox does not have a lot of compelling games to convince people like me, who have over 20 consoles at home, to go out and buy it.
Sony, unlike Nintendo, has leanred its lessons and is applying them not only to the PS3 but the PS2 as well. And, since we are seeing all three of the new consoles next May, all three will have the chance to learn from what the others are doing.
I predict continued Sony dominance, a resurgance for Nintendo, and continued losses for MS. I just don't think Steve and Bill have their hearts in gaming...
Not to mention, you will get a free DeLorean with every purchase (while supplies last, of course).
The CRT iMac is now the eMac, which isn't a bad machine once you trick it out.
I just refurbed about 12 of them for some friends who bought them from a local university. They really are pretty easy to handle.
Now the original iMac, that was a bitch to upgrade...
You realize that Jobs has gone on the record as saying that he expects Mac users to be on a 4-5 year refresh cycle, right?
Go play in the street, Timmy, and let the men talk about the big things that make your brain hurt.
Then here's a crazy idea: don't get involved in them. It's real easy to do. If you don't want to be honest, upfront and forthright about who you are and what you believe, then we don't want to hear it. The title isn't "Anonymous Coward" for nothing.
I'm sure I could go on. For a while.
As for the argument that homosexual characters could be used to bring in female players, I think that's on target. There have been more than a few essays written about the fact that most of the Kirk-Spock erotica out there is written by women for women. A lot of the male-on-male sexual encounters in Japanese pop culture are designed for women. It was only a matter of time before, in the game companies' driving need to grow their audience, this began.
In all honesty, I'm waiting to see if any Japanese dating sims are brought over here in the next few years - maybe for the PS3 (or even the Nintendo Revolution, if they want to go that route).
As far as I'm concerned: it's not my cup of tea, but as long as stores don't go selling soft-core videogames (straight or gay) to kids, I could care less what markets the game companies go after.
1) Not attack an entire group of people when you are talking very few moderators. When you attack a group for the actions of a few, you are acting in a prejudiced manner that will cause most of the readers to ignore your argument;
2) Make your argument and make it stick. This argument, with no stats, not even anecdotal evidence, to back it up means to me that you're reacting emotionally and not thinking things through. You learned how to make rational arguments in high school - utilize that knowledge;
3) And, finally, stop posting as AC! Stand up for yourself and admit who you are instead of hiding behind the AC pretenses. I know that I, and every slashdoter I personally know, have more respect for those who disagree with me if they are honest about who they are. Hiding behind AC means you think your own argument lacks credibility.
Your company needs to get licensing manager if they are running software from 15+ years ago. I'm shocked you have an XP desktop to run that thing on.
No matter: we will wait ti hear how much you cry once XP SP2 breaks your program... cause there is a good chance it will.
Gates spent more than a little bit of money on Bush's campaign, and has been funding Republican candidates since.
As you said: ignorance is knowledge.
That said, I think the parent makes a damn good point (he wrote, sitting at his PM G4 running Mac OS X) about Dashboard (not about OS X, since I have Apple's X11 running on here, too). Frankly, I think the name makes sense for the function, but, if the Gnome package has been around for a while, then Apple should change the name, yes.
Susan Calvin is in the movie and is a primary chracter. But, of course, the question is did she become Susan Calvin through the "magic" of Hollywood or was she Susan Calvin from the get-go?
To be honest, this one came out of nowhere for me. I know Harlan Ellison wrote an I, Robot screenplay quite a few years back... but I think Calvin was the main character. And Ellison had given up on getting the picture made. I just looked at IMDB - no Ellison credit. Too bad, really. I liked his screenplay.
Now that I've looked at IMDB, I will say one thing positive about it: Alex Proyas directed it, so it may not be as bad as I originally thought (but, damn it, the trailer looks horrible). Maybe I'll catch it at the dollar show. Ugh. Two people I respect (Asimov and Proyas) and now I have to decide if I want to hold one in higher esteem than the other...
I know: I'll blame it on Will Smith. :)
1) Do you have stats to support that? I know, at least in my area, the dropout rate has fallen and there are more kids going to college.
2) Use an RSS aggragator and only read the topics that are truly interesting.
3) I work a 37.5 hour work week. As does my wife. Not too shabby. If you're working 40+ hours, you're being screwed... and not in a good way.
As for the TV: get TiVo. We got ours in March and we spend FAR less time in front of the TV now. It's amazing how much time you save not channel surfing.
Ummm... go to the library?
BTW: You've hit on one of the many things that made me stop applying for English doctoral programs... ;)
Actually, there is a reason why one book is chosen for the entire class in cases like this: so everyone has the common experience and can discuss the book as a group. I will agree that it also makes it easier on the teacher, as he or she only has to read one book. However, while you may not find the material interesting, there is a reason why it is the required book.
When I've read a new book, the first thing I want to do is discuss it with other people. However, since relatively few people have read the same book. The meme hasn't propagated.
It's called a reading group. They do exist. For many years I was involved in one at the University of Michigan, and it is still going.
But you do not have to be connected academically to start a group. You have seen people at Borders and B&N and your local coffee shop, right? They are all holding the same book in many cases...
If, for some reason, a physical reading group doesn't work for you, then there is always the Usenet (it's not all porn and warez) and other sites on the Web.
Don't blame your lack of reading on those around you. While the Internet may very well to blame for the severe downturn in reading over the past 12 years, it is also the greatest tool you have to discuss things.
Like we are now. ;)
I will tell you - my friends and coworkers' kids who watch Dora and Blue are a hell of a lot better behaved and more attentive than the ones allowed to watch merchandising cartoons, like Transformers...
My wife keeps asking me why I don't want to see the movie. I keep telling her that Will Smith makes for one very butch-looking Susan Calvin...