Really? Debateable, but off-topic. I'd like to see a printing press that makes information available, in full-motion color video with sound, to millions of people, only moments after it's been created. I think you mean "important". What can the printing press do that the internet can't? Now, ask the question in reverse.
Apply this test to the spam: If someone sent that same image to a child via the post office, could they be prosecuted under federal statutes? In many cases, the answer to the question is "yes". Why, then, is spam treated any differently from regular mail?
Why is offering porn to minors criminal? You need this explained? Imagine an old man standing outside a candy store, offering graphic pornography to small children. If that doesn't make you queasy, you're a sociopath.
pictures of naked people is required for minors via public education.
"Education", indeed. Keep in mind, nudity != pornography.
Yeah, cause they law is like this impenetrable barrier and stuff.
Oh, shut up. Seriously. You asked what was stopping predators from calling children on their cell phones, and I answered: it's illegal. There's nothing stopping said predators from attacking children in a number of scenarios. I guess your solution would be to surgically attach children to their parents, and prosecute any parent who's child is victimized somehow, instead of holding the predator responsible. You are a jackass, still, and a coward. Eat it, champ.
that's like saying that Girls Gone Wild is offering anyone watching TV at night, despite age, and should be punished.
A Girls Gone Wild commercial contains no nudity, no graphic descriptions of sex acts. It airs during the late-night hours, when children are likely to be in bed. It does not air on childrens' television stations. There are rules governing content like that, in order to lessen its exposure to minors. In other words, your analogy is crap.
hate spam and wished it would die, but people need to take responsibility for their own actions
And what actions would those be? Receiving unsolicited porn email? Yeah, I say hang 'em! Nice one, champ.
If your child is too young to be viewing pornographic material and you provide them with their own unsupervised e-mail address, you should be held liable by state law.
Email is not a broadcast medium. What you are saying amounts to holding the parents of children specifically targetted with pornography responsible for fighting it off. If you are selling age-restricted materials, it is up to you to make effort to insure that those materials are not purposefully sent to a minor. This is the law with all age-restricted materials. You don't have any children, obviously, but if you did, are you aware that they would have a physical address? Should alchohol, tobacco, and pornography companies send their products to your (theoretical) minor child? Get your head out of your ass.
Why are these people so poor? Maybe cause they sit on their asses, watching their "free tv" all fucking day.
Maybe, jackass. However, as citizens, that bandwidth belongs to them, and it's unfair to expect them to give up a free service so that you and your jackass friends don't have to plug any cables together in order to play Ghost Recon.
Take it away and maybe they'll go to the library, pick up a book, learn a skill, get a better job, and stop being "poor".
Oh, so that's how it works? Just go to the library, get a book, and then you're not "'poor'" anymore! You insight is underwhelming. Why is "poor" in "quotes"?
People not entitled to have access to television
The Hell they aren't. Their airwaves are being used to transmit it, and every broadcast station must carry a certain amount of educational programming. It's mandated by law.
and if you think NBC, FOX, ABC, et al. are "free public television" you need to get with the proverbial program.
For a certain percentage of the broadcast day, they are public. And they most certainly are free. Not to mention PBS, which is always free and always public. Maybe you're the one with the program that needs getting with.
How would someone who lives in an apartment mount a giant C-band dish? Where would they get the receiver? Who would help them set it up? And, more importantly, why should they have to go through any time and trouble to replace a service that was previously free so that some nerds can IM each other in the park?. Think.
Losing TV in its current state is one of the healthiest things the public can do, especially the poor.
I call bullshit. Where would poor people get free news? How would poor children watch Sesame Street? Do have any idea how many children of immigrant parents learned English watching free television?
Myself, I send PBS $50/year, instead of the cable company $50/month. I'm with you that modern broadcast television is 99% garbage, but you can choose not to watch it. You can't choose to watch the 1% that would no longer be broadcast.
Losing a free service is almost never a benefit to the poor, regardless of the usefulness of that service.
Yeah, I mean what use is there for free television? Poor people are so last year.
I all seriousness, are you guys that excited to buy more gadgets that you would deny the public access to free public television?? This idea is disgusting.
"If anything, the space between the sample points in a digital recording is "lost", whereas a new vinyl record with a new needle is as perfect a recording as you're going to find. "
Just read the rest of this thread, and the above statement is totally untrue. Sorry 'bout that.
Doesn't mean I'll be giving up records any time soon, though.
"vinyl is lossy, much like mp3.. u pretty much can't store analog sound in a lossless medium"
Huh? Says who? Vinyl is an analog recording. Terms like "loss" don't apply. If anything, the space between the sample points in a digital recording is "lost", whereas a new vinyl record with a new needle is as perfect a recording as you're going to find. The difference is not just audible, it's palpable.
A greater amount of games, with the same signal to noise ratio
You're working on the assumption that the S/N ratio will stay the same. I say that everybody using the same game engines will restrict their creativity. The difference is that everybody is using the same game engines nowadays, and their creativity (at least according to the article) is restricted. Reality speaks to my point.
Anyway, modable game engine do mean that many more people can work out their idea...and with more people trying, you'll automatically get more idea's worked out, and thus more original games.
More developers != more creative ideas, neccessarily. Especially when they're all hacking away on the same two or three game engines. In fact, I posit that you'll have fewer truly original and creative games, because everybody's looking at the same code to begin their project. Everybody's using the same platform. The large amount of truly uncreative mods out there are testament to this.
From writing my own (unpublished) mod in C++, using the HL engine as a framework. Whoops!
A game engine is the tool you use to construct a game.
No, it's not. The game engine is a set of libraries and routines used to draw graphics, make sounds, and keep "score", etc. Microsoft Visual C++ is a tool you can use to make games with.
Even if you want to call it a framework, what's the difference between a framework and a tool?
A framework is something in place that can be built upon. A tool is something you build with.
That means that publishers take sure bets...sequels and known game concepts.
Anything done well is costly and time-consuming. Making games easier to build is not going to make creative ideas flow automatically. It will just make already-existing creative ideas easier to implement. Case in point: there's about a million mods out there. Only a few of them have any real creativity. Making games easier to make doesn't improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it just improves the overall number of games.
If one equates different looking graphics with innovation, then all Mods are doomed to fail.
I should have said seems instead of looks. CS, HL and NS are all games where you run around shooting people. For the most part, games made with the HL engine are going to be about running around and shooting people.
So, you were saying that game engines are storytelling genres? Unlikely. You were saying that game engines and storytelling genres share qualities. That's an analogy. And a bad one. Here's why:
In each and every one of those cases the rules make the creative content more accessible because the user/viewer/reader/player/whatever doesn't need to learn a whole lot of stuff to get into the work.
The game engine is only exposed to the developer, whereas the storytelling genre is exposed to the consumer. Completely different sides of the coin. Plus, the game engine has to do with the mechanics of the game, not the story.
or the mod makers haven't been all that creative-- again, not unreasonable
Slashdot Mirror
I'd think something like the printing press was.
Really? Debateable, but off-topic. I'd like to see a printing press that makes information available, in full-motion color video with sound, to millions of people, only moments after it's been created. I think you mean "important". What can the printing press do that the internet can't? Now, ask the question in reverse.
Apply this test to the spam: If someone sent that same image to a child via the post office, could they be prosecuted under federal statutes? In many cases, the answer to the question is "yes". Why, then, is spam treated any differently from regular mail?
Excellent point, and well put.
Why? Why is it bad? Why is it criminal?
Why is offering porn to minors criminal? You need this explained? Imagine an old man standing outside a candy store, offering graphic pornography to small children. If that doesn't make you queasy, you're a sociopath.
pictures of naked people is required for minors via public education.
"Education", indeed. Keep in mind, nudity != pornography.
Yeah, cause they law is like this impenetrable barrier and stuff.
Oh, shut up. Seriously. You asked what was stopping predators from calling children on their cell phones, and I answered: it's illegal. There's nothing stopping said predators from attacking children in a number of scenarios. I guess your solution would be to surgically attach children to their parents, and prosecute any parent who's child is victimized somehow, instead of holding the predator responsible. You are a jackass, still, and a coward. Eat it, champ.
that's like saying that Girls Gone Wild is offering anyone watching TV at night, despite age, and should be punished.
A Girls Gone Wild commercial contains no nudity, no graphic descriptions of sex acts. It airs during the late-night hours, when children are likely to be in bed. It does not air on childrens' television stations. There are rules governing content like that, in order to lessen its exposure to minors. In other words, your analogy is crap.
hate spam and wished it would die, but people need to take responsibility for their own actions
And what actions would those be? Receiving unsolicited porn email? Yeah, I say hang 'em! Nice one, champ.
If your child is too young to be viewing pornographic material and you provide them with their own unsupervised e-mail address, you should be held liable by state law.
Email is not a broadcast medium. What you are saying amounts to holding the parents of children specifically targetted with pornography responsible for fighting it off. If you are selling age-restricted materials, it is up to you to make effort to insure that those materials are not purposefully sent to a minor. This is the law with all age-restricted materials. You don't have any children, obviously, but if you did, are you aware that they would have a physical address? Should alchohol, tobacco, and pornography companies send their products to your (theoretical) minor child? Get your head out of your ass.
you gave her a cell phone whats to stop some creep from calling her and talking nasty and/or lurring her out someplace.
The law, jackass.
the internet is a similar place.. 18 and over seriously!
Yeah, what use could children possibly have for the most powerful educational tool in the history of Man? More thinky, less typey.
Yes you should, pussy.
As a 28-year-old white male who lives in an inner city, I have the authorization to call you a poser.
Had he had some cojones[...]
Ironic, Anonymous Coward. Ironic.
Why are these people so poor? Maybe cause they sit on their asses, watching their "free tv" all fucking day.
Maybe, jackass. However, as citizens, that bandwidth belongs to them, and it's unfair to expect them to give up a free service so that you and your jackass friends don't have to plug any cables together in order to play Ghost Recon.
Take it away and maybe they'll go to the library, pick up a book, learn a skill, get a better job, and stop being "poor".
Oh, so that's how it works? Just go to the library, get a book, and then you're not "'poor'" anymore! You insight is underwhelming. Why is "poor" in "quotes"?
People not entitled to have access to television
The Hell they aren't. Their airwaves are being used to transmit it, and every broadcast station must carry a certain amount of educational programming. It's mandated by law.
and if you think NBC, FOX, ABC, et al. are "free public television" you need to get with the proverbial program.
For a certain percentage of the broadcast day, they are public. And they most certainly are free. Not to mention PBS, which is always free and always public. Maybe you're the one with the program that needs getting with.
You're an idiot.
How would someone who lives in an apartment mount a giant C-band dish? Where would they get the receiver? Who would help them set it up? And, more importantly, why should they have to go through any time and trouble to replace a service that was previously free so that some nerds can IM each other in the park?. Think.
Losing TV in its current state is one of the healthiest things the public can do, especially the poor.
I call bullshit. Where would poor people get free news? How would poor children watch Sesame Street? Do have any idea how many children of immigrant parents learned English watching free television?
Myself, I send PBS $50/year, instead of the cable company $50/month. I'm with you that modern broadcast television is 99% garbage, but you can choose not to watch it. You can't choose to watch the 1% that would no longer be broadcast.
Losing a free service is almost never a benefit to the poor, regardless of the usefulness of that service.
Character limit, champ. You'll notice it's nowhere near the original quote, either. This is due to the character limit in signatures also.
wireless internet would be nice
Yeah, I mean what use is there for free television? Poor people are so last year.
I all seriousness, are you guys that excited to buy more gadgets that you would deny the public access to free public television?? This idea is disgusting.
I bet they just hate me.
When I'm not downloading mp3s, I'm buying records. Used records.
I have little tolerance for idiots who are making a judgement based on feeling.
Especially when it comes to something as objective and easily quantifiable as listening pleasure. I bet you're a great lay.
"If anything, the space between the sample points in a digital recording is "lost", whereas a new vinyl record with a new needle is as perfect a recording as you're going to find. "
Just read the rest of this thread, and the above statement is totally untrue. Sorry 'bout that.
Doesn't mean I'll be giving up records any time soon, though.
"vinyl is lossy, much like mp3.. u pretty much can't store analog sound in a lossless medium"
Huh? Says who? Vinyl is an analog recording. Terms like "loss" don't apply. If anything, the space between the sample points in a digital recording is "lost", whereas a new vinyl record with a new needle is as perfect a recording as you're going to find. The difference is not just audible, it's palpable.
and just how would a vinyl do a square wave?
Who cares?
A greater amount of games, with the same signal to noise ratio
You're working on the assumption that the S/N ratio will stay the same. I say that everybody using the same game engines will restrict their creativity. The difference is that everybody is using the same game engines nowadays, and their creativity (at least according to the article) is restricted. Reality speaks to my point.
Anyway, if modable game engines aren't a key part in getting innovative gameplay, what is?
I have no idea. I just think that moddable game engines are not it.
Anyway, modable game engine do mean that many more people can work out their idea...and with more people trying, you'll automatically get more idea's worked out, and thus more original games.
More developers != more creative ideas, neccessarily. Especially when they're all hacking away on the same two or three game engines. In fact, I posit that you'll have fewer truly original and creative games, because everybody's looking at the same code to begin their project. Everybody's using the same platform. The large amount of truly uncreative mods out there are testament to this.
Good post. Good thinking.
Where the hell do you get that from?
From writing my own (unpublished) mod in C++, using the HL engine as a framework. Whoops!
A game engine is the tool you use to construct a game.
No, it's not. The game engine is a set of libraries and routines used to draw graphics, make sounds, and keep "score", etc. Microsoft Visual C++ is a tool you can use to make games with.
Even if you want to call it a framework, what's the difference between a framework and a tool?
A framework is something in place that can be built upon. A tool is something you build with.
That means that publishers take sure bets...sequels and known game concepts.
Anything done well is costly and time-consuming. Making games easier to build is not going to make creative ideas flow automatically. It will just make already-existing creative ideas easier to implement. Case in point: there's about a million mods out there. Only a few of them have any real creativity. Making games easier to make doesn't improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it just improves the overall number of games.
If one equates different looking graphics with innovation, then all Mods are doomed to fail.
I should have said seems instead of looks. CS, HL and NS are all games where you run around shooting people. For the most part, games made with the HL engine are going to be about running around and shooting people.
It wasn't an analogy. It was a direct comparison.
So, you were saying that game engines are storytelling genres? Unlikely. You were saying that game engines and storytelling genres share qualities. That's an analogy. And a bad one. Here's why:
In each and every one of those cases the rules make the creative content more accessible because the user/viewer/reader/player/whatever doesn't need to learn a whole lot of stuff to get into the work.
The game engine is only exposed to the developer, whereas the storytelling genre is exposed to the consumer. Completely different sides of the coin. Plus, the game engine has to do with the mechanics of the game, not the story.
or the mod makers haven't been all that creative-- again, not unreasonable
Bingo! My point exactly.