First off, I am neither a merchant mariner nor a USCG officer. I just know a few and have listened in on coversations.
"Salvers may be more ethical (I don't know any so I can't say) but I know that the mentality of a lot of divers is that it's finders keepers."
A wreck belongs to whoever is able to first make a claim to it. If whoever owned the ship before it sank is unwilling or unable to stake a claim, then it's up for grabs to the first people who can get there. Anybody else (even those divers you mentioned trying to take things from the Andrea Doria) is a pirate.
(No, not the watered-down ??AA variety, the kind that say "arr" and get fired upon by the USCG cutters. If they're lucky, it will only be small arms fire.)
"But...most wrecks are found by private individuals and then pilfered of all the interesting stuff before they notify the government."
They have to notify the government in order to make a legal claim on the wreck. If they don't, they get shot at.
"It's a HUGE debate in the diving community, about whether artifacts should stay on the wreck or if they should be collected...but ethics....hrm."
I have the feeling the USCG still owns USCGS MESQUITE and everything still on it. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the idiots that advertised what they were selling are currently in a federal prison somewhere.
"but probably what is registered is an e-mail address like 3215551212@sprintpcs.com which is how e-mail can find its way to SprintPCS phones."
Am I the only Sprint PCS customer that doesn't have an e-mail address like this? Mine has the same user name as my standard e-mail account and the phone number is only useful if you use Sprint PCS's web form to send a text message.
"How is your SSN any of these things? How about your photograph? Your name?"
Ignoring the way it's unreasonable search and seisure (it's a simple purchase of commercial goods, not a felony), it deprives me of my right to live in privacy, which falls under the two categories "life" and "liberty."
"I don't believe it's illegal for them to ask. It's just illegal to discriminate."
It's illegal to force you to answer to conduct the transaction.
"I point this out because it gets grating every time it's suggested that the RIAA is some giant monopoly that controls what gets published and whatnot. It isn't."
It's a price-fixing cartel that has established oligopoly control of the entire market, just like OPEC. I feel it's perfectly justified to call its actions "monopolistic" since they're identical to what a monopolistic entity (like Microsoft) would do.
I've heard of splitting hairs before, but sheesh...
"In the US, it's illegal for the government to ask you for this information without a law stating they can, and they have to explain to you why they need it and quote the law authorizing it."
For what it's worth:
No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
I don't see anything in there specifying that this rule only applies to what the government can do to you.
"None of this applies to the private world. A company is perfectly within their rights to ask you for your SSN as part of a transaction."
Just like it's within their rights as a private company to ask me my race as part of a transaction? It's exactly the same logic...
"I would think that this would set precedent so that other defense attorneys will be able to strengthen their cases by citing this."
You apparently don't watch enough Law & Order. District courts don't set precendents. The only way this could have set a precendent is if the case were appealed at least once.
I was under the impression that an airship is a controlled (controllable?) lighter-than-air craft. And since spherical balloons are a real PITA to steer, they're simply referred to as "balloons."
BTW, derigible=blimp=structureless Airships with structures are zeppelins.
Nintendo has an interested press release on their website. Metroid Prime was released the same day as Xbox Live and has the same price. Yet Metroid Prime outsold it by around 50%.
Going to jump on me for comparing software to hardware? Remember that hardware needs to outsell software.
"It's as if Miyamoto is successful due to some magic he alone possesses, rather than because he was able to build on lessons of the past in the right ways."
You're brushing dangerously close to hypocricy. While whether or not he started the genre Zelda is in, there are several genres he undisputedly invented. As examples:
He inveted the platformer with Donkey Kong
He invented the side-scrolling platformer with Super Mario Bros.
He invented the 3D platformer with Super Mario 64.
He's also responsible for a number of hardware innovations. While the plus-shaped directional pad belongs to the late, great Gunpei Yokoi (demi-god to all things handheld), let's not forget who developed the controllers for both the N64 and the GameCube. He may have even been involved in the development of the SNES pads (first with shoulder buttons), but I don't know for sure one way or the other.
"This also happens to be the largest gamer demographic."
Um... no. 15-25 is generally the smallest. The older players have real jobs and disposable incomes, and the younger ones have parents with real jobs and disposable incomes.
"Or do I have to see Mario in depression because he has lost the love of his life before getting an Uzi and killing all the bad guys?"
Who needs an Uzi? I got to see Link's depression over his inability to live "happily ever after" with Saria. A subtle theme that ran through both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. He'll grow up, grow old and die while she'll always be the same.
Oh, but wait, it's a Miyamoto game so it's just kid's stuff.
" Seamus Blackley of MS says: "He is not helping things.... He's reinforcing stereotypes about games, not pushing them to a place where they can become something different and truly awesome.""
And that right there is the huge difference between Miyamoto and Sony and Microsoft. Miyamoto has never "pushed" in his life. He doesn't make games to "push the technological envelope" (but they usually end up doing so). He doesn't make games to "push to a new demographic" (which he doesn't need to do, he hits everybody).
Miyamoto writes games! Miyamoto games are the perfect example of ars gratia artis. He doesn't make these games for the money or the fame, he writes them for himself. Which is exactly why he gets all the money and the fame.
It's just a shame so many people refuse to understand this one simple concept.
"The creator of some of the most popular franchises, and the head of most of Nintendo's creative development, constantly aims his games at children."
Spoken like someone who's never played a Miyamoto game. Miyamoto games aren't aimed at children, XXX BMX and the like are aimed at children (yes, prepubescent boys and those that think like them are children). Miyamoto makes games for everyone. I dare anybody who says otherwise to sit down and play Majora's Mask and try saying that again.
I mean, seriously, the article contradicts itself. To wit:
"His path to Olympus has been paved with games that appeal unabashedly, if not exclusively, to children."
Two sentences later:
"Devise controls that are intuitively engaging, puzzles that make players feel as though they're discovering solutions rather than being led to them, and characters that are disarmingly cute."
Intuitive controls cater exclusively to children? I've seen some crappy interfaces on T and M games, so the converse must be true?
Puzzles that allow the players to freely explore the situation on their own? What, adults only go for games that are on rails? All FMV glitz, no game?
Oh, and I see that all "disarmingly cute" character designs are aimed only at children. I guess I shouldn't be watching anything by Tartakovsky, either. Why the heck do we have Sasami as the anime icon on Slashdot?
"Yet his cartoonish aesthetic has nothing to do with the darker, more complex and ambiguous flavor of contemporary existence."
Majora's Mask plot: Link, while on a personal quest to find something he lost in years gone by, gets attacked and mugged by Skull Kid, who (it turns out) is also trying to destroy the world. Why is he so bad? Any other game would have the excuse of "The script says so" (think Final Fantasy). Miyamoto, on the other hand, takes you on a quest that explores aspects of the nature vs. nurture debate. Does Link ever find what he's looking for? Yes and no.
Yeah, nothing like real life at all. We all know that real life is that watered-down, over-simplified stuff that MTV puts out. Hell, Skull Kid is a heck of a lot more of a believable character than Anakin Skywalker has turned out to be.
Anybody who says Miyamoto games are aimed at children are people attempting to cover up their own childeshness. They have an overwhelming need to feel "mature" and "sophisticated." In many ways their words and deeds remind me of homophobes.
Miyamoto is to video games as Mozart is to music. That's all there is to it. Anybody who tries to pigeonhole him beyond that doesn't know what they're talking about.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to play some Super Smash Bros and get my daily quota of cartoon violence.
Re:Cable is Better in YOUR area
on
DSL Rising
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
"Europe didn't spend the 50s,60s and 70s installing a cable TV network, it went straight from terrestrial to Satellite."
Which may very well be the reason why cable is "better" in the US.
Of course, Europe didn't really need to run much coax to begin with. They don't need anywhere near the same amount of UHF/VHF broadcasters to cover their entire country.
"Following my company's Christmas party on Friday, I found myself the proud recipient of... a bobble head doll of the company CEO! Needless to say I was PISSED."
Then what you need is a voodoo bobble head doll of the company CEO.
"I am still amazed by the north american values that sex and nudity are BAD,"
If certain members of French Parlement have their way, prostitution will be illegal. Which means there will be more legal prostitutes in the US than in France. IIRC, similar legislation is floating around in other European legislatures, legislation that is constitutionally barred from US Congress.
"Wired article, Ford has developed one of these systems (they're calling it the third age suit), designed to add thirty years to your age so that their designers can get a sense of how old people feel in their cars."
Does it slouch you down so that you're looking under the top of the steering wheel? Does it come with a silly hat? Does the suit keep the turn signal on? I thought the suit was only used on Crown Vics and the likes.
They have one very important feature in common: Neither of them are cable.
DirecTV is competing directly with the cable companies (and doing damn good job of it, IMHO). The cable companies, what with their government-mandated monopoly on coax, gets to offer "deals" where you can subscribe to digital cable for X years and get "free" (or at least "cheap") cable internet service. DirecTV wanted to compete against this with their own broadband offering, but DirecWay is still too pricey and still (for the most part) requires USB. So they decided to offer DSL service as well. The theory was that, just like with Cox/Comcast/TW/etc, you could have TV and broadband on one bill. That, and you get to continue to tell your local cable company to sit on it and rotate.
Anybody know when EarthLink will lower the price of their DirecWay prices and/or offer ethernet hardware?
Slashdot Mirror
First off, I am neither a merchant mariner nor a USCG officer. I just know a few and have listened in on coversations.
"Salvers may be more ethical (I don't know any so I can't say) but I know that the mentality of a lot of divers is that it's finders keepers."
A wreck belongs to whoever is able to first make a claim to it. If whoever owned the ship before it sank is unwilling or unable to stake a claim, then it's up for grabs to the first people who can get there. Anybody else (even those divers you mentioned trying to take things from the Andrea Doria) is a pirate.
(No, not the watered-down ??AA variety, the kind that say "arr" and get fired upon by the USCG cutters. If they're lucky, it will only be small arms fire.)
"But...most wrecks are found by private individuals and then pilfered of all the interesting stuff before they notify the government."
They have to notify the government in order to make a legal claim on the wreck. If they don't, they get shot at.
"It's a HUGE debate in the diving community, about whether artifacts should stay on the wreck or if they should be collected...but ethics....hrm."
I have the feeling the USCG still owns USCGS MESQUITE and everything still on it. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the idiots that advertised what they were selling are currently in a federal prison somewhere.
"but probably what is registered is an e-mail address like 3215551212@sprintpcs.com which is how e-mail can find its way to SprintPCS phones."
Am I the only Sprint PCS customer that doesn't have an e-mail address like this? Mine has the same user name as my standard e-mail account and the phone number is only useful if you use Sprint PCS's web form to send a text message.
"How is your SSN any of these things? How about your photograph? Your name?"
Ignoring the way it's unreasonable search and seisure (it's a simple purchase of commercial goods, not a felony), it deprives me of my right to live in privacy, which falls under the two categories "life" and "liberty."
"I don't believe it's illegal for them to ask. It's just illegal to discriminate."
It's illegal to force you to answer to conduct the transaction.
"yeah, but the difference is, the sysadmin is a criminal, a CEO that's stealing is just unethical..."
No, these are CEO's we're talking about. It's getting caught that's unethical.
When your job is to busily whore yourself out to investors, just how "ethical" can you be?
"I point this out because it gets grating every time it's suggested that the RIAA is some giant monopoly that controls what gets published and whatnot. It isn't."
It's a price-fixing cartel that has established oligopoly control of the entire market, just like OPEC. I feel it's perfectly justified to call its actions "monopolistic" since they're identical to what a monopolistic entity (like Microsoft) would do.
I've heard of splitting hairs before, but sheesh...
For what it's worth:I don't see anything in there specifying that this rule only applies to what the government can do to you.
"None of this applies to the private world. A company is perfectly within their rights to ask you for your SSN as part of a transaction."
Just like it's within their rights as a private company to ask me my race as part of a transaction? It's exactly the same logic...
"I would think that this would set precedent so that other defense attorneys will be able to strengthen their cases by citing this."
You apparently don't watch enough Law & Order. District courts don't set precendents. The only way this could have set a precendent is if the case were appealed at least once.
"Airships refer to any lighter-than-air vehicle."
I was under the impression that an airship is a controlled (controllable?) lighter-than-air craft. And since spherical balloons are a real PITA to steer, they're simply referred to as "balloons."
BTW, derigible=blimp=structureless Airships with structures are zeppelins.
If that were true, I would have won against Billy Tauzin last month.
"Not after they crash in a fireball, they're not."
Only the Nazis were crazy enough to call solid rocket fuel "paint."
"will supply spherical airships"
If they're spherical, are they still airships?
Nintendo has an interested press release on their website. Metroid Prime was released the same day as Xbox Live and has the same price. Yet Metroid Prime outsold it by around 50%.
Going to jump on me for comparing software to hardware? Remember that hardware needs to outsell software.
"It's as if Miyamoto is successful due to some magic he alone possesses, rather than because he was able to build on lessons of the past in the right ways."
You're brushing dangerously close to hypocricy. While whether or not he started the genre Zelda is in, there are several genres he undisputedly invented. As examples:
He inveted the platformer with Donkey Kong
He invented the side-scrolling platformer with Super Mario Bros.
He invented the 3D platformer with Super Mario 64.
He's also responsible for a number of hardware innovations. While the plus-shaped directional pad belongs to the late, great Gunpei Yokoi (demi-god to all things handheld), let's not forget who developed the controllers for both the N64 and the GameCube. He may have even been involved in the development of the SNES pads (first with shoulder buttons), but I don't know for sure one way or the other.
"This also happens to be the largest gamer demographic."
Um... no. 15-25 is generally the smallest. The older players have real jobs and disposable incomes, and the younger ones have parents with real jobs and disposable incomes.
"Surely the next target of a suit should be UU.Net."
And then what? Kinda hard to get money from a bankrupt corporation.
"Or do I have to see Mario in depression because he has lost the love of his life before getting an Uzi and killing all the bad guys?"
Who needs an Uzi? I got to see Link's depression over his inability to live "happily ever after" with Saria. A subtle theme that ran through both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. He'll grow up, grow old and die while she'll always be the same.
Oh, but wait, it's a Miyamoto game so it's just kid's stuff.
" Seamus Blackley of MS says: .... He's reinforcing stereotypes about games, not pushing them to a place where they can become something different and truly awesome.""
"He is not helping things
And that right there is the huge difference between Miyamoto and Sony and Microsoft. Miyamoto has never "pushed" in his life. He doesn't make games to "push the technological envelope" (but they usually end up doing so). He doesn't make games to "push to a new demographic" (which he doesn't need to do, he hits everybody).
Miyamoto writes games! Miyamoto games are the perfect example of ars gratia artis. He doesn't make these games for the money or the fame, he writes them for himself. Which is exactly why he gets all the money and the fame.
It's just a shame so many people refuse to understand this one simple concept.
"The creator of some of the most popular franchises, and the head of most of Nintendo's creative development, constantly aims his games at children."
Spoken like someone who's never played a Miyamoto game. Miyamoto games aren't aimed at children, XXX BMX and the like are aimed at children (yes, prepubescent boys and those that think like them are children). Miyamoto makes games for everyone. I dare anybody who says otherwise to sit down and play Majora's Mask and try saying that again.
I mean, seriously, the article contradicts itself. To wit:
"His path to Olympus has been paved with games that appeal unabashedly, if not exclusively, to children."
Two sentences later:
"Devise controls that are intuitively engaging, puzzles that make players feel as though they're discovering solutions rather than being led to them, and characters that are disarmingly cute."
Intuitive controls cater exclusively to children? I've seen some crappy interfaces on T and M games, so the converse must be true?
Puzzles that allow the players to freely explore the situation on their own? What, adults only go for games that are on rails? All FMV glitz, no game?
Oh, and I see that all "disarmingly cute" character designs are aimed only at children. I guess I shouldn't be watching anything by Tartakovsky, either. Why the heck do we have Sasami as the anime icon on Slashdot?
"Yet his cartoonish aesthetic has nothing to do with the darker, more complex and ambiguous flavor of contemporary existence."
Majora's Mask plot: Link, while on a personal quest to find something he lost in years gone by, gets attacked and mugged by Skull Kid, who (it turns out) is also trying to destroy the world. Why is he so bad? Any other game would have the excuse of "The script says so" (think Final Fantasy). Miyamoto, on the other hand, takes you on a quest that explores aspects of the nature vs. nurture debate. Does Link ever find what he's looking for? Yes and no.
Yeah, nothing like real life at all. We all know that real life is that watered-down, over-simplified stuff that MTV puts out. Hell, Skull Kid is a heck of a lot more of a believable character than Anakin Skywalker has turned out to be.
Anybody who says Miyamoto games are aimed at children are people attempting to cover up their own childeshness. They have an overwhelming need to feel "mature" and "sophisticated." In many ways their words and deeds remind me of homophobes.
Miyamoto is to video games as Mozart is to music. That's all there is to it. Anybody who tries to pigeonhole him beyond that doesn't know what they're talking about.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to play some Super Smash Bros and get my daily quota of cartoon violence.
"Europe didn't spend the 50s,60s and 70s installing a cable TV network, it went straight from terrestrial to Satellite."
Which may very well be the reason why cable is "better" in the US.
Of course, Europe didn't really need to run much coax to begin with. They don't need anywhere near the same amount of UHF/VHF broadcasters to cover their entire country.
"At what point does snooping around for information on others cross the line into stalking?"
My personal litmus test: When you start to spend money.
"Maybe I shouldn't be speaking since I'm a college student and only have myself to feed, but I sure hope I don't ever say "I'd rather be a suit.""
So, how are you paying for college?
"Putting food on the table with money I think I might have next week/month/year" doesn't quite cut it.
"Following my company's Christmas party on Friday, I found myself the proud recipient of... a bobble head doll of the company CEO! Needless to say I was PISSED."
Then what you need is a voodoo bobble head doll of the company CEO.
"I am still amazed by the north american values that sex and nudity are BAD,"
If certain members of French Parlement have their way, prostitution will be illegal. Which means there will be more legal prostitutes in the US than in France. IIRC, similar legislation is floating around in other European legislatures, legislation that is constitutionally barred from US Congress.
"Wired article, Ford has developed one of these systems (they're calling it the third age suit), designed to add thirty years to your age so that their designers can get a sense of how old people feel in their cars."
Does it slouch you down so that you're looking under the top of the steering wheel? Does it come with a silly hat? Does the suit keep the turn signal on? I thought the suit was only used on Crown Vics and the likes.
"What does DSL have to do with a dish service?"
They have one very important feature in common: Neither of them are cable.
DirecTV is competing directly with the cable companies (and doing damn good job of it, IMHO). The cable companies, what with their government-mandated monopoly on coax, gets to offer "deals" where you can subscribe to digital cable for X years and get "free" (or at least "cheap") cable internet service. DirecTV wanted to compete against this with their own broadband offering, but DirecWay is still too pricey and still (for the most part) requires USB. So they decided to offer DSL service as well. The theory was that, just like with Cox/Comcast/TW/etc, you could have TV and broadband on one bill. That, and you get to continue to tell your local cable company to sit on it and rotate.
Anybody know when EarthLink will lower the price of their DirecWay prices and/or offer ethernet hardware?