"Of course they don't have the First Amendment. They don't have the Declaration of Independance or the Proclamation of Emancipation, either; the First Amendment is part of the American constitution."
Your new word for today is "analogy". Your homework assignment is to learn its definition and compose five sentences using the word.
"This intentionally emotion-provoking phrase intends to say "they don't have freedom of speech","
IMO (I'm not the original poster), he meant that Europeans don't have "hard" freedom of speech. The US is more or less unique with the wording of its constitution. Most national documents (including and especially western European countries) state that its people have "freedom of speech" but don't say much more than those magic three words, leaving the government to figure out just what they mean (yes, I know I'm cynical, but...). In the US, "Congress shall make no law." If this law were passed in the US verbatim, it would be smacked down by the courts in about three seconds flat (and heads would probably roll during the next election year). Most European democracies have few fundamental laws that restrict their legislatures quite this "severely," so it's more than fair to say that they don't have a "First Amendment."
"This reads like a third-grader's "your momma's so fat" joke; it seems like it's just there to try to make Europe seem bad, without any justifying context."
Metaphor time!
"Tim's momma's so fat, etc etc... And now, according to national law, I must inform you that Tim has presented a signed affidavit from a doctor that his mother is not clinically 'obese.'"
Just imagine the chaos at your average soccer game!
"With the implication that in pursuit of respect for Free Speech,"
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."
"Respect For Small Government,"
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectivley, or to the People."
"the states aren't any better at any of this than their peers in democracy."
If anything, I'd argue that we've at least done a better job of putting these ideals into words and putting them in our fundamental laws.
"College kids don't get their life-savings yanked for producing search engines in free-speech respecting nations."
I'll get flamed for doing this, but he was free to say "no" to the settlement offer.
"why'd you have to ruin it by trying to make America the moral of the story?"
Because he know how much of a resposne it would incite. Duh!
"3) Your private website is not covered by this law, only professional on-line media."
And where, praytell, is that line drawn?
"Far from chilling, this opens up free speech to those with fewer means."
But it limits what those people can say. They can only respond to criticisms made by the big media folks, which means that the big media folks are the ones who get to choose the topics of debate, and name where and when. So the "little guy" can only fight defensively.
Or he could scrounge pennies (or whatever the euro equivalent is) and buy his own printing press (metaphoricly speaking), but then he crosses that line into "media company" and must himself now pay for his opponents' responses. Which means you just effectively doubled the price of that printing press.
"it will keep people from posting what they really feel if they have to deal with the consequences."
"People in today's society (well, at least the U.S. for you foreign devils out there;)) want to do what they want in a consequence-free environment."
Name one US state or territory that doesn't have slander and libel laws on the books.
Bearing the burden of publishing a rebuttal isn't about taking responsibility for your own actions, it's about taking responsibility for theirs as well. In the US, you are penalized if you say something you know to be untrue, especially if you do it maliciously. This law will effectively penalize you for saying anything, because you now have to buy two soapboxes instead of just the one.
For all the talk about media consolidation in the US and about how the situation is "better" in the EU, this law helps to ensure that only the powerful media conglomerates can publish criticisms. Freedom of the press now belongs to only those who can afford two.
"Not so. If you do not want the company's reply to be seen, then you are stifling *their* free speech, not the other way round."
This reminds me of the confusion around "free" software. This law says that you have a right to freely (as in "speech") speak about someone so long as you offer the subject free (as in "beer") speech as well. So you're not allowed to complain unless you're willing to pay for your opponent's bandwidth.
This has got to have some interesting effects on political debate...
"Indeed we should all be on some prozium (see Equilibrium) and Drug Evasion should be a cime (see THX 1138) and our minds should be filled with Trivia (see Farenheight 451),"
It looks like your mind is already filled with trivia as it is.
Re:What would they rather have?
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 1
"Natural Gas - Clean compared to other fossil fuels, but still requires us to fight wars for it."
First off, "clean compared to other fossil fuels" isn't the same thing as "clean."
Secondly, most US oil (the half that we don't produce ourselves, that is), comes from the western hemisphere. Very little oil in the US comes from the Middle East, because it's a heck of a lot more expensive to ship oil from half-way around the world (an eight month trip for a tanker) than it is to ship it from Venezuela, Mexico and Canada.
"Nuclear - Cart toxic waste across country to bury it in Yucca Mountain. Also, BOOOM!"
Unless you're completely idiotic (like the Soviets), there is nothing in a nuclear power plant that can explode. Period. And even in Chernobyl, it wasn't the reactor core that exploded but one of the steam boilers (the only thing in a nuclear power plant that could possibly explode), which is a component in all fossil fuel plants as well (and even a few solar test cases).
And the "toxic waste" churned out by nuclear reactors is both small and easier to manage. Everybody knows exactly where all the radioactive material is, because it's important to them. Fossil fuel plants, on the other hand, really don't care about the radioactive carbon-14 they're dumping up the stack, and that doesn't consider the trace heavy elements that may be mixed in with what they're burning.
When it comes to shipping power-related materials cross-country, I am far, far more concerned with trains laden with fuel oil, liquified natural gas or coal dust. Unlike nuclear reactors, they can and do explode, and they rival nuclear weapons for destructive potential. Think about that (and how easy it would be for a terrorist to attatch a time bomb to a passing train) when next you're waiting at a railroad crossing.
"So, I've actually wondered why we don't just build a huge nucelar power complex in Nevada someplace on land already owned by the federal government and then ship that power nationwide."
Because the "Not In My State" syndrom is just as bad. And they have congresscritters and senators to try to shut this idea down.
Of course, the Pennsylvania state^H^H^H^H^Hcommonwealth government is within eyesight of Three Mile Island and they seem to be doing OK...
"Windfarms are, in my experience, very beautiful, quiet, aesthetically pleasing things."
Huh? Windfarms in my experience are anything but quiet, with each windmill making "woosh-woosh-woosh" sounds as the blades turn and the generator in each making a high-pitched whine. When you have farms bigger than a dozen or so, you can hear them from miles away.
While I for one think they sound cool and wouldn't mind living near one, I know I'm in the small minority. I also like airplane noise.
No, it doesn't. The GBC introduced a fork when it came to coloring old games, and GBC and SGB code don't talk to each other.
With b/w games, the SGB can only display four colors. You can decide whatever you want those four colors to be, but there is never more than four. A GBC (and GBA, same hardware), however, can manage to squeeze 10-12 colors into that 4-color game. They manage this by applying different 4-color pallets to sprites and backgrounds. So Metroid II looks a little better on a GBC than it did on the SGB.
Games designed with the SGB in mind can put out 10-12 colors through it, as well as some other bells and whistles. Off the top of my head, Donkey Kong had some 16-bit sound clips, and Space Invaders had a full-fledged 16-bit game on the cartridge. Unfortunately, the GBC doesn't understand SGB code, and treats SGB games as normal 4-color games, which means colors get lost in the process. Donkey Kong simply doesn't look as good on a GBC as it does on your SNES.
The GBC in and of itself can display 52 colors at a time, but again the language it uses to do so is completely different from the SGB. In order to get cartridges to work on both the GBC and older Game Boy systems (including the SGB), developers essentially needed to put two copies of the game on the one cartridge: one color, one not. When you put this cartridge into an SGB, it's fed the b/w copy of the game (and any half-assed SGB code that was put into that version). Sure, the game may "technically" have some SGB code in it (ie. a custom border), but more often than not the SGB is given the shaft. Tetris DX on an SGB actually looks less colorful than the original, and the only difference between Link's Awakening and Link's Awakening DX is that DX has a border.
In my dream world, this new GB Player will take the best of both worlds and allow you to mix and match, just like any decent Game Boy emulator. I want to play Link's Awakening DX in 52 colors but with the snazzy SGB border they put in the game. Hell, at this point I'd be happy if the GB Player simply recognized the presence of SGB code (so that my copy of Donkey Kong looks and sounds just like it does on my SNES).
But looking at the way the SGB has gotten the shaft, I'm not about to hold my breath.
I went out of my way to get an indigo GameCube to match my indigo GBA (it was more difficult than it sounds), and the only color you're releasing is black?
Seriously, I'm tempted to put my purchase of this on hold to see if they intend to release different colors in the future.
"(presumably people who buy gameboy use it places where a console would not go, hence portable gaming system)"
Statements like this have irked the hell out of me ever since the release of the Super Game Boy. Even IGN themselves are quite guilty of having this kind of attitude.
Game Boy (and all its descendants) isn't a "handheld game system," it is a game system that happens to fit in your hand. I sure as hell didn't buy my GBA because I need a quick fix when I've been away from my GCN for too long. I got it for Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, three Castlevania games and a slew of other titles. Writing off Game Boy and the games it plays as "just a portable" is doing a disservice to both the games and yourself.
Heck, one of the main reasons the Game Boy is still going strong after a decade is that Nintendo has never conformed to your two-tiered view of the industry. They still dominate the handheld market because most of their competitors sold mediocre "just a handhelds" and "just a portable games" that were simply unable to stand on their own.
If you want something to just kill time between your console fixes, save your money for an N-Gage (that seems to be Nokia's target market). If you're looking for real (and really good) games, then it shouldn't matter if they're played on a handheld or a television.
"Do they really think that it can be completely safe?"
Nuclear-propelled spacecraft, just like nuclear reactors, do not blow up. There's nothing explosive involved. It's the chemical rockets we currently use as launch vehicles that are the explosive hazard, complete with toxic/caustic fuel mixtures. It wasn't too long ago that a Delta III blew up shortly after launch and people were made ill by the fumes.
"What if it crashes onto earth just after launch?"
It makes a big dent in the ground. Nuclear propulsion lets you add more weight in other components, including (but not limited to) shielding.
"Or it blows up in the air, so radioactive particles get spread all around?"
Slashdot Mirror
"Europeans (encouraged by the press) are currently outraged at spammers sending hardcore porn to their children."
Where are the spammers' replies in said press?
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;"
Interpreted by whom?
"this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference"
Only if you don't consider having to pick up the tab for publishing rebuttals "interference." At the very least, it's debatable.
"and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
However, it is not reguardless of topic.
"So, it is very wrong to state that EU lacks a "First Amendment""
Point out the phrase "shall make no law" (or its equivalent) in that sentence, and I'll agree with you.
"Of course they don't have the First Amendment. They don't have the Declaration of Independance or the Proclamation of Emancipation, either; the First Amendment is part of the American constitution."
Your new word for today is "analogy". Your homework assignment is to learn its definition and compose five sentences using the word.
"This intentionally emotion-provoking phrase intends to say "they don't have freedom of speech","
IMO (I'm not the original poster), he meant that Europeans don't have "hard" freedom of speech. The US is more or less unique with the wording of its constitution. Most national documents (including and especially western European countries) state that its people have "freedom of speech" but don't say much more than those magic three words, leaving the government to figure out just what they mean (yes, I know I'm cynical, but...). In the US, "Congress shall make no law." If this law were passed in the US verbatim, it would be smacked down by the courts in about three seconds flat (and heads would probably roll during the next election year). Most European democracies have few fundamental laws that restrict their legislatures quite this "severely," so it's more than fair to say that they don't have a "First Amendment."
"This reads like a third-grader's "your momma's so fat" joke; it seems like it's just there to try to make Europe seem bad, without any justifying context."
Metaphor time!
"Tim's momma's so fat, etc etc... And now, according to national law, I must inform you that Tim has presented a signed affidavit from a doctor that his mother is not clinically 'obese.'"
Just imagine the chaos at your average soccer game!
"With the implication that in pursuit of respect for Free Speech,"
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."
"Respect For Small Government,"
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectivley, or to the People."
"the states aren't any better at any of this than their peers in democracy."
If anything, I'd argue that we've at least done a better job of putting these ideals into words and putting them in our fundamental laws.
"College kids don't get their life-savings yanked for producing search engines in free-speech respecting nations."
I'll get flamed for doing this, but he was free to say "no" to the settlement offer.
"why'd you have to ruin it by trying to make America the moral of the story?"
Because he know how much of a resposne it would incite. Duh!
"3) Your private website is not covered by this law, only professional on-line media."
And where, praytell, is that line drawn?
"Far from chilling, this opens up free speech to those with fewer means."
But it limits what those people can say. They can only respond to criticisms made by the big media folks, which means that the big media folks are the ones who get to choose the topics of debate, and name where and when. So the "little guy" can only fight defensively.
Or he could scrounge pennies (or whatever the euro equivalent is) and buy his own printing press (metaphoricly speaking), but then he crosses that line into "media company" and must himself now pay for his opponents' responses. Which means you just effectively doubled the price of that printing press.
"So if you wrote something then they should reply with writing."
I criticize in stripped-down HTML. They respond with obfuscated Word XP. Or maybe even Powerpoint. "But, hey, it's both writing!"
"it will keep people from posting what they really feel if they have to deal with the consequences."
;)) want to do what they want in a consequence-free environment."
"People in today's society (well, at least the U.S. for you foreign devils out there
Name one US state or territory that doesn't have slander and libel laws on the books.
Bearing the burden of publishing a rebuttal isn't about taking responsibility for your own actions, it's about taking responsibility for theirs as well. In the US, you are penalized if you say something you know to be untrue, especially if you do it maliciously. This law will effectively penalize you for saying anything, because you now have to buy two soapboxes instead of just the one.
For all the talk about media consolidation in the US and about how the situation is "better" in the EU, this law helps to ensure that only the powerful media conglomerates can publish criticisms. Freedom of the press now belongs to only those who can afford two.
When was the last time they published a submission by Bill Gates?
"Freedom of the press is for those who have one."
"Not so. If you do not want the company's reply to be seen, then you are stifling *their* free speech, not the other way round."
This reminds me of the confusion around "free" software. This law says that you have a right to freely (as in "speech") speak about someone so long as you offer the subject free (as in "beer") speech as well. So you're not allowed to complain unless you're willing to pay for your opponent's bandwidth.
This has got to have some interesting effects on political debate...
"Nintendo does it vice-versa and write the data to the disks from the outside in."
:)
Like a record! Who could possibly guess that?
"we are worth 200 million if we throw in the coffie pot..."
If they're like most pre-burst IT companies, they're only worth 150 million sans coffee pot.
"Indeed we should all be on some prozium (see Equilibrium) and Drug Evasion should be a cime (see THX 1138) and our minds should be filled with Trivia (see Farenheight 451),"
It looks like your mind is already filled with trivia as it is.
"Natural Gas - Clean compared to other fossil fuels, but still requires us to fight wars for it."
First off, "clean compared to other fossil fuels" isn't the same thing as "clean."
Secondly, most US oil (the half that we don't produce ourselves, that is), comes from the western hemisphere. Very little oil in the US comes from the Middle East, because it's a heck of a lot more expensive to ship oil from half-way around the world (an eight month trip for a tanker) than it is to ship it from Venezuela, Mexico and Canada.
"Nuclear - Cart toxic waste across country to bury it in Yucca Mountain. Also, BOOOM!"
Unless you're completely idiotic (like the Soviets), there is nothing in a nuclear power plant that can explode. Period. And even in Chernobyl, it wasn't the reactor core that exploded but one of the steam boilers (the only thing in a nuclear power plant that could possibly explode), which is a component in all fossil fuel plants as well (and even a few solar test cases).
And the "toxic waste" churned out by nuclear reactors is both small and easier to manage. Everybody knows exactly where all the radioactive material is, because it's important to them. Fossil fuel plants, on the other hand, really don't care about the radioactive carbon-14 they're dumping up the stack, and that doesn't consider the trace heavy elements that may be mixed in with what they're burning.
When it comes to shipping power-related materials cross-country, I am far, far more concerned with trains laden with fuel oil, liquified natural gas or coal dust. Unlike nuclear reactors, they can and do explode, and they rival nuclear weapons for destructive potential. Think about that (and how easy it would be for a terrorist to attatch a time bomb to a passing train) when next you're waiting at a railroad crossing.
"So, I've actually wondered why we don't just build a huge nucelar power complex in Nevada someplace on land already owned by the federal government and then ship that power nationwide."
Because the "Not In My State" syndrom is just as bad. And they have congresscritters and senators to try to shut this idea down.
Of course, the Pennsylvania state^H^H^H^H^Hcommonwealth government is within eyesight of Three Mile Island and they seem to be doing OK...
"Windfarms are, in my experience, very beautiful, quiet, aesthetically pleasing things."
Huh? Windfarms in my experience are anything but quiet, with each windmill making "woosh-woosh-woosh" sounds as the blades turn and the generator in each making a high-pitched whine. When you have farms bigger than a dozen or so, you can hear them from miles away.
While I for one think they sound cool and wouldn't mind living near one, I know I'm in the small minority. I also like airplane noise.
No, they just happen to have the broadband adapter connected at the same time. Don't forget that the GCN has three ports on the bottom.
"The GBA already uses the SGB colors."
No, it doesn't. The GBC introduced a fork when it came to coloring old games, and GBC and SGB code don't talk to each other.
With b/w games, the SGB can only display four colors. You can decide whatever you want those four colors to be, but there is never more than four. A GBC (and GBA, same hardware), however, can manage to squeeze 10-12 colors into that 4-color game. They manage this by applying different 4-color pallets to sprites and backgrounds. So Metroid II looks a little better on a GBC than it did on the SGB.
Games designed with the SGB in mind can put out 10-12 colors through it, as well as some other bells and whistles. Off the top of my head, Donkey Kong had some 16-bit sound clips, and Space Invaders had a full-fledged 16-bit game on the cartridge. Unfortunately, the GBC doesn't understand SGB code, and treats SGB games as normal 4-color games, which means colors get lost in the process. Donkey Kong simply doesn't look as good on a GBC as it does on your SNES.
The GBC in and of itself can display 52 colors at a time, but again the language it uses to do so is completely different from the SGB. In order to get cartridges to work on both the GBC and older Game Boy systems (including the SGB), developers essentially needed to put two copies of the game on the one cartridge: one color, one not. When you put this cartridge into an SGB, it's fed the b/w copy of the game (and any half-assed SGB code that was put into that version). Sure, the game may "technically" have some SGB code in it (ie. a custom border), but more often than not the SGB is given the shaft. Tetris DX on an SGB actually looks less colorful than the original, and the only difference between Link's Awakening and Link's Awakening DX is that DX has a border.
In my dream world, this new GB Player will take the best of both worlds and allow you to mix and match, just like any decent Game Boy emulator. I want to play Link's Awakening DX in 52 colors but with the snazzy SGB border they put in the game. Hell, at this point I'd be happy if the GB Player simply recognized the presence of SGB code (so that my copy of Donkey Kong looks and sounds just like it does on my SNES).
But looking at the way the SGB has gotten the shaft, I'm not about to hold my breath.
"Examples include Power Rangers, Transformers, Pokemon..."
Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones...
I went out of my way to get an indigo GameCube to match my indigo GBA (it was more difficult than it sounds), and the only color you're releasing is black?
Seriously, I'm tempted to put my purchase of this on hold to see if they intend to release different colors in the future.
"(presumably people who buy gameboy use it places where a console would not go, hence portable gaming system)"
Statements like this have irked the hell out of me ever since the release of the Super Game Boy. Even IGN themselves are quite guilty of having this kind of attitude.
Game Boy (and all its descendants) isn't a "handheld game system," it is a game system that happens to fit in your hand. I sure as hell didn't buy my GBA because I need a quick fix when I've been away from my GCN for too long. I got it for Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, three Castlevania games and a slew of other titles. Writing off Game Boy and the games it plays as "just a portable" is doing a disservice to both the games and yourself.
Heck, one of the main reasons the Game Boy is still going strong after a decade is that Nintendo has never conformed to your two-tiered view of the industry. They still dominate the handheld market because most of their competitors sold mediocre "just a handhelds" and "just a portable games" that were simply unable to stand on their own.
If you want something to just kill time between your console fixes, save your money for an N-Gage (that seems to be Nokia's target market). If you're looking for real (and really good) games, then it shouldn't matter if they're played on a handheld or a television.
The crashed probe would be easy enough to find. Just look for the patch of the DPRK that's less radioactive than the rest.
"Do they really think that it can be completely safe?"
Nuclear-propelled spacecraft, just like nuclear reactors, do not blow up. There's nothing explosive involved. It's the chemical rockets we currently use as launch vehicles that are the explosive hazard, complete with toxic/caustic fuel mixtures. It wasn't too long ago that a Delta III blew up shortly after launch and people were made ill by the fumes.
"What if it crashes onto earth just after launch?"
It makes a big dent in the ground. Nuclear propulsion lets you add more weight in other components, including (but not limited to) shielding.
"Or it blows up in the air, so radioactive particles get spread all around?"
Again, there is nothing explosive involved.
"If you think about it, normal lightning bolts would cause any excess hydrogen to release its energy and become water."
Except there are dozens (if not hundreds) of miles between the ozone layer and the nearest lightning bolts.
"ETHANOL IS PEOPLE!"
Yes, and his name was apparently "Jack Daniels."
Ethanol-powered cars is going to redefine open container laws...
The real question is how long it will be before goatse.la gets reserved.