"Is this the birth of a new trend or is this simply geeks doing what they always do... spreading the word about something new and different going on in their world?"
Am I the only one around here aggrevated by the whole starry-eyed view that geeks are some sort gods among men? For example, they're not "spreading the word," they're making some programming to talk about the 'con to each other. This isn't some sort of geek gospel that's going to be broadcast.
" I guess Nintendo's stance on the dead-pixel, offering to replace any DS that has a dead-pixel, forced them into this...otherwise it would've been a blackeye for them."
Sony still seems to be dragging their feet on this, though. From what I've heard, Nintendo's policy is "Ship us back your defective DS when you receive the new one, so you can keep on playing," while Sony won't even pay for the cost of shipping.
"How can they say it isn't a defect? Of course it's a defect."
Because it has the "Sony" logo glued on it. It's the same kind of corporate hubris that gave us disk read errors on the PS2 and cracked lenses on the PSX. They're able to push it through by having the device seen as a cultural icon, one that must be bought despite of its manufacturing flaws.
It may catch up to Sony and bite them in the ass at some point, but that doesn't look like it will be today. It might hurt Sony for the launch of the PS3, which will be happening when this whole disk-ejecting, button-sticking, pixel-killing debacle will still be fresh in peoples' minds. Ultimately, of course, I wouldn't bet on it.
So long as they take the attitude of "We're Sony, you'll like what we give you" (the attitude that gave us Betamax, Minidiscs and now Memory Sticks), you're going to continue seeing "logic" like the "It's not a defect!" statement to continue to pour out of them.
"I guess it depends on if you are following the story or just playing in the environment of GTA."
From personal experience, 9-year-olds don't "follow the story," in any game. Too much reading, too much like homework. They want to pick up the controller and just go, and generally have to be fooled into reading (ala Pokemon).
For a while I would babysit my 9-year-old neighbor, and he loved it mostly because I could help in in video games, especially Zelda (OoT and MM). Most of the stuff he needed help with were because he never bothered to read anything any of the NPCs ever said to him ("Well, if you listend to so-and-so, you'd know you have to go here and do this...").
Yes, the little girl talked about in the original post probably wasn't making any "progress" (by your standards, or the standards of the scoring mechanisms), but I doubt she'd notice, let alone care.
"The goals of the game seem pretty clear to me. Violate every law imaginable and do so in as violent a way as possible, and you get a better score."
No, the goal of the game, as with any game, is to have fun. You play the game in a way that you enjoy. If your measure of joy is that number up in the corner, more power to you, but other people will play it in their own way.
"What we lack: 3 months of snow, subways, and george Steinbrenner."
You're also lacking progress on gay rights. You had to have one of your anti-sodomy laws struck down in court, while NY seems to be moving towards Massachusetts.
At any rate, in general, New Yorkers want to be around Texans about as much as Texans want to be around New Yorkers.
(Oh, I think I'd rather have to deal with a New York City subway than I-10 through Houston.)
"First, corporations should not be attempting to lay down the law."
If it's civil law and civil damages, then Microsoft has just as much right as you or I to seek reparation for damages done to their property.
" there should be criminal prosecution of those who break the law."
But no civil remedies for those directly harmed by the illegal act?
"While US spammers can reasonably be expected to evolve"
"Reasonably?" Interesting word choice.
Even ignoring the (You) CAN SPAM Act, most (if not all) unsolicited email advertisements violated local, state and national laws in the US, usually those covering things like fraud. There has been no "evoltion" within spam away from this; if anything, spam has been evolving to becoming more fraudulent, since it seems to work for them.
"Lastly, spam is a problem that will, eventually, go away by itself."
No, they legislate the protection of rights. You seem to be confusing justice and morality.
"Laws banning lewd acts with siblings and offspring are perfectly valid moral laws that have sound logic behind them."
Then you'd have numbers and links supporting your statement, correct? And what's the point of these laws with today's contraceptives? Better yet, there are many types of "lewd acts" that can't possibly lead to impregnation, should they be banned as well?
Alternatively, even if you can demonstrate that children that are the product of incest will have greatly increased risk of birth defects, what about legislating against couples that aren't related yet would have a similar risk of birth defects, due to one parent or the other passing on a flawed gene? If you're going to restrict having a child on the grounds of possible genetic defects, why are you singling out one particular kind of problem area over another? Your blessed morality?
I do agree with you that anti-incest laws are an example of legislating morality, but for me that's an example of what's wrong with the concept, not what's right.
"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences."
Oh, come now! The United States Senate itself is "a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences!" If Congress spent half of the energy it spends on trying to reform us on reforming itself, we might actually have a respectable national government for once.
I play video games to get away from stuff like this, and now some USS wants to take that away from me as well?
"Communist" is not a race. You can get away with playing the race card for the wording of the subject, but as for the body, the poster seemed to make a pretty clear distinction between, say, PRC and ROC.
"I'm sorry, if I allready paid for the machine, and on top of that, I'm paying a monthly fee for the service, I do *not* find it acceptable to have the service push ads at me."
You're paying for the cable/satellite service to begin with, aren't you? It's the latest business model: work both ends. The channels get paid both by the advertisers and the cable providers, just as the phone companies get paid by both the telemarketers and the folks who get caller ID. This isn't exactly new to TiVo, nor is it likely something to be new for you.
Well, because they're bastards, their pointy-eared-ness could probably be inferred.
And, for all we know, everybody then knew the Romulans were pointy-eared bastards, but there was a Vulcan cover-up in the Federation after the war. Adjust your round-eared deflector beanie!
Yeah, he may have given us Babylon 5, but don't forget he also gave us Crusade and Legend of the Rangers. After those last two, even with B5, I'd be very wary of whatever JMS gives us in the future.
"Spock was probably older than Kirk and went through the Academy before him."
I've thought of that as well, but then I keep remembering Spock's human mother and her age in relation to Kirk. Spock may be older, but we're talking maybe a handful of years at most, not "decades" like it could be.
I dunno, I think the latest WB Superman cartoon (before it all got rolled together into JL) did some pretty good work with Superman as a character. Aside from the xenophobia angle (justified a bit by the arc where he's brainwashed into invading Earth), one of the episodes I got a kick out of was where Clark Kent was going to be a hero (for once) until he was blown up by a car bomb...
Who cares what you want, I wanna see the Earth-Romulus War already! I wanna see the humans take all their anti-Vulcan aggression out on the other green-blooded, pointy-ear bastards!
In the episode where the Romulans were first introduced in TOS, they show a map of the Neutral Zone and it has Romulus on it, and yet Earth is nowhere on the map, as if the Neutral Zone is a whole lot closer to Romulus than it is to Earth. I wanna see that happen.:)
"give me BORG again."
God... why not ask for more Janeway while you're at it? The Borg were introduced as a whim to make a particular Q episode a little more interesting, and now the dead horse has been beaten for the better part of a decade. They can't even stay consistent for three seconds. How do you resolve the whole lustful Borg Queen with the way the Borg were originally portrayed, for example? They're supposed to be Daleks on legs, not the latest pin-up of the month!
Slashdot Mirror
"Woe unto he who Fails this Test, for he is Truly not but a lamb, but also a Foolish Lamb, and shall be Eaten by many Bear!"
That, or modded down, whichever comes first, apparently.
"Given some of their ultraconservative politics towards including software"
Aw, man, I can hear the George Bush jokes now...
"Is this the birth of a new trend or is this simply geeks doing what they always do... spreading the word about something new and different going on in their world?"
Am I the only one around here aggrevated by the whole starry-eyed view that geeks are some sort gods among men? For example, they're not "spreading the word," they're making some programming to talk about the 'con to each other. This isn't some sort of geek gospel that's going to be broadcast.
" I guess Nintendo's stance on the dead-pixel, offering to replace any DS that has a dead-pixel, forced them into this...otherwise it would've been a blackeye for them."
Sony still seems to be dragging their feet on this, though. From what I've heard, Nintendo's policy is "Ship us back your defective DS when you receive the new one, so you can keep on playing," while Sony won't even pay for the cost of shipping.
"How can they say it isn't a defect? Of course it's a defect."
Because it has the "Sony" logo glued on it. It's the same kind of corporate hubris that gave us disk read errors on the PS2 and cracked lenses on the PSX. They're able to push it through by having the device seen as a cultural icon, one that must be bought despite of its manufacturing flaws.
It may catch up to Sony and bite them in the ass at some point, but that doesn't look like it will be today. It might hurt Sony for the launch of the PS3, which will be happening when this whole disk-ejecting, button-sticking, pixel-killing debacle will still be fresh in peoples' minds. Ultimately, of course, I wouldn't bet on it.
So long as they take the attitude of "We're Sony, you'll like what we give you" (the attitude that gave us Betamax, Minidiscs and now Memory Sticks), you're going to continue seeing "logic" like the "It's not a defect!" statement to continue to pour out of them.
Yeah, they should have waited until the PSP was of legal age before exposing its naughty bits.
"I guess it depends on if you are following the story or just playing in the environment of GTA."
From personal experience, 9-year-olds don't "follow the story," in any game. Too much reading, too much like homework. They want to pick up the controller and just go, and generally have to be fooled into reading (ala Pokemon).
For a while I would babysit my 9-year-old neighbor, and he loved it mostly because I could help in in video games, especially Zelda (OoT and MM). Most of the stuff he needed help with were because he never bothered to read anything any of the NPCs ever said to him ("Well, if you listend to so-and-so, you'd know you have to go here and do this...").
Yes, the little girl talked about in the original post probably wasn't making any "progress" (by your standards, or the standards of the scoring mechanisms), but I doubt she'd notice, let alone care.
"The goals of the game seem pretty clear to me. Violate every law imaginable and do so in as violent a way as possible, and you get a better score."
No, the goal of the game, as with any game, is to have fun. You play the game in a way that you enjoy. If your measure of joy is that number up in the corner, more power to you, but other people will play it in their own way.
So you wanted to be a pasty white geek living in her basement through your 20's and 30's?
"What we lack: 3 months of snow, subways, and george Steinbrenner."
You're also lacking progress on gay rights. You had to have one of your anti-sodomy laws struck down in court, while NY seems to be moving towards Massachusetts.
At any rate, in general, New Yorkers want to be around Texans about as much as Texans want to be around New Yorkers.
(Oh, I think I'd rather have to deal with a New York City subway than I-10 through Houston.)
"bitching about how judges weren't "representing the will of the people."
Last time I checked, that wasn't the role of the judiciary; that is the role of the legislature."
Yet, in many (most?) states, the judges are all demoractically elected by the people at large just the same.
"First, corporations should not be attempting to lay down the law."
If it's civil law and civil damages, then Microsoft has just as much right as you or I to seek reparation for damages done to their property.
" there should be criminal prosecution of those who break the law."
But no civil remedies for those directly harmed by the illegal act?
"While US spammers can reasonably be expected to evolve"
"Reasonably?" Interesting word choice.
Even ignoring the (You) CAN SPAM Act, most (if not all) unsolicited email advertisements violated local, state and national laws in the US, usually those covering things like fraud. There has been no "evoltion" within spam away from this; if anything, spam has been evolving to becoming more fraudulent, since it seems to work for them.
"Lastly, spam is a problem that will, eventually, go away by itself."
"A sucker is born every minute." --P. T. Barnum.
"Yes he's broken laws and done bad things, we suppose, but does he really deserve to owe $49 million?"
That's the question the courts are there to answer. They say "yes."
After all, how much as MSFT spent to try to protect their own networks from such messages?
"If he did wrong and has been convicted he deserves to be punished, but the legal system as it stands can bankrupt an innocent all too easily."
You're no longer an "innocent" if you've been proven guilty already.
"Laws that prevent murder legislate morality."
No, they legislate the protection of rights. You seem to be confusing justice and morality.
"Laws banning lewd acts with siblings and offspring are perfectly valid moral laws that have sound logic behind them."
Then you'd have numbers and links supporting your statement, correct? And what's the point of these laws with today's contraceptives? Better yet, there are many types of "lewd acts" that can't possibly lead to impregnation, should they be banned as well?
Alternatively, even if you can demonstrate that children that are the product of incest will have greatly increased risk of birth defects, what about legislating against couples that aren't related yet would have a similar risk of birth defects, due to one parent or the other passing on a flawed gene? If you're going to restrict having a child on the grounds of possible genetic defects, why are you singling out one particular kind of problem area over another? Your blessed morality?
I do agree with you that anti-incest laws are an example of legislating morality, but for me that's an example of what's wrong with the concept, not what's right.
"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences."
Oh, come now! The United States Senate itself is "a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences!" If Congress spent half of the energy it spends on trying to reform us on reforming itself, we might actually have a respectable national government for once.
I play video games to get away from stuff like this, and now some USS wants to take that away from me as well?
"Communist" is not a race. You can get away with playing the race card for the wording of the subject, but as for the body, the poster seemed to make a pretty clear distinction between, say, PRC and ROC.
"Without a body like the UN to delay movements"
That's a double-edged sword.
"I'm sorry, if I allready paid for the machine, and on top of that, I'm paying a monthly fee for the service, I do *not* find it acceptable to have the service push ads at me."
You're paying for the cable/satellite service to begin with, aren't you? It's the latest business model: work both ends. The channels get paid both by the advertisers and the cable providers, just as the phone companies get paid by both the telemarketers and the folks who get caller ID. This isn't exactly new to TiVo, nor is it likely something to be new for you.
Well, because they're bastards, their pointy-eared-ness could probably be inferred.
And, for all we know, everybody then knew the Romulans were pointy-eared bastards, but there was a Vulcan cover-up in the Federation after the war. Adjust your round-eared deflector beanie!
"I personally think that J. Michael Straczynski"
Yeah, he may have given us Babylon 5, but don't forget he also gave us Crusade and Legend of the Rangers. After those last two, even with B5, I'd be very wary of whatever JMS gives us in the future.
"Spock was probably older than Kirk and went through the Academy before him."
I've thought of that as well, but then I keep remembering Spock's human mother and her age in relation to Kirk. Spock may be older, but we're talking maybe a handful of years at most, not "decades" like it could be.
I dunno, I think the latest WB Superman cartoon (before it all got rolled together into JL) did some pretty good work with Superman as a character. Aside from the xenophobia angle (justified a bit by the arc where he's brainwashed into invading Earth), one of the episodes I got a kick out of was where Clark Kent was going to be a hero (for once) until he was blown up by a car bomb...
I think West parodied himself better in his appearence in Johnny Bravo.
"To the Adam West-mobile!"
"I could care less about what happened BEFORE"
:)
Who cares what you want, I wanna see the Earth-Romulus War already! I wanna see the humans take all their anti-Vulcan aggression out on the other green-blooded, pointy-ear bastards!
In the episode where the Romulans were first introduced in TOS, they show a map of the Neutral Zone and it has Romulus on it, and yet Earth is nowhere on the map, as if the Neutral Zone is a whole lot closer to Romulus than it is to Earth. I wanna see that happen.
"give me BORG again."
God... why not ask for more Janeway while you're at it? The Borg were introduced as a whim to make a particular Q episode a little more interesting, and now the dead horse has been beaten for the better part of a decade. They can't even stay consistent for three seconds. How do you resolve the whole lustful Borg Queen with the way the Borg were originally portrayed, for example? They're supposed to be Daleks on legs, not the latest pin-up of the month!
"(Its not like the women's starfleet uniforms are all that revealing anyways)"
:)
You forget: If we're going back to the early days of Jim & Co, we're going back to the days of miniskirts and green slave women.