What part of "whether my children can make their own mind up" did you fail to understand?
YOU should have no say in whether I allow MY children to buy something without my knowledge.
I think you're the only one failing to understand something. Kids are not able to comprehend consequences or the effects things have on their lives. That is why 2 year olds will get mad at their reflections for not playing with them. That is why you lock up anti-freeze to prevent your kids from drinking it. That is why kids are not allowed to purchase firearms, or cigarettes, or alcohol.
But your kids must be special because they have the same decision making skills the day they're born as you. Right?
How, exactly, would your rights have been limited by this law?
I can't speak for him, but my right to decide whether my children can make their own mind up about what to read/play is a right that I don't want limited.
The law would not restrict that. You could still purchase any game you wanted and hand it over to your kid with no legal repercussions. Same as a glock.
If you're an adult and you're offended by anybody, including the government, in a questionable situation telling your kid "Ask your mom for permission first", you're... weird.
That's a silly generalization to make. Maybe the kid did ask his parent, and they said yes. the law wouldn't have required a permission slip, it would have prevented anyone under 18 from buying a game at all. The parent would be required to come down to the store to buy it for them, which is not the same as getting permission.
You're right. One requires you to put down the potato chips and TV remote, pick up your laptop, and order the game. Requiring you to physically go to the store (or physically pick up your laptop and click a couple links), is effectively the same thing as a permission slip that was notarized to prove that the actual parent gave permission.
So you're telling me that, my hypothetical "kid", who is 17, drives a car, and has graduated high school, who I may even trust with a credit card, shouldn't be allowed to buy a video game that you think might be too violent for him?
No. I think I don't want my 12 year old to buy the same without my permission. Since the level of effort such a ban ads to your day or parenting style is negligible, the ban is reasonable. Same as requiring a driver's license is a reasonable requirement to drive a car. Just because I know how to drive well doesn't mean you do. The extra effort it takes me to prove I know how to do it is negligible compared to letting any idiot with a key get on the road and kill people.
It's really none of your business, and that's where these lines are drawn.
You're right. Go to the store, buy Leisure Suit Larry for 5 year old. I don't care. I won't try to stop you. If you think your kid is ready for it, enjoy it. I merely think its reasonable to say stores can't sell the same game to MY 5 year old. While you're at it, buy 'em a 40 and a 9mm. Two more legal choices you get to make that require your physical presence @ the store.
You're a Nosy Nelly who thinks they know what is best for everyone, and I think you should MYOB.
Silly sounding insults are still insults and another excellent reflection of your anti-social, possibly anarchist beliefs.
I think that for every law that prevents my kid from doing something you think is dangerous or bad for them, there should be a corresponding law from my perspective. So, California gets a law preventing minors from buying Call of Duty, and Texas gets a law preventing minors from buying bibles or attending church without their parents, because I believe that religion is more harmful to minors than just about anything else. Sound like a fair trade?
So, you think firearms, tobacco, alcohol, cars, small explosives, pornography, sudafed, joining the military, getting married to pedophiles, and every other thing currently restricted to 16,18,21+ or any other age is an insanely stupid law that infringes on your right to raise your kid? huh.
Well, no, I think its a horrible trade. I think kids should not be allowed to buy ammunition, crossbows, large knives, antifreeze, razor blades, or anything else that is questionably harmful to them without the express persmission of their parents.. And I believe requiring the actual physical actions of the parent to procure those items is a reasonable requirement.
It's about paternalistic busybodies versus those that believe the right of free speech (and thought) is of paramount importance to our way of life. Either you believe you have the right to tell other people how to live or you don't.
Speech is not guns or alcohol, nor is it rape or imprisonment. All analogies comparing speech to "things that are not speech" are nonsense.
pornography.
Those who seek to control speech really seek to control thought.
If you're a kid being affected by this ruling or the law, you probably shouldn't be posting here.
If you're an adult and you're offended by anybody, including the government, in a questionable situation telling your kid "Ask your mom for permission first", you're... weird.
Though I guess if you're already letting EA parent your kid, you should be offended by any law that prevents it.
Do you lock up the anti-freeze until your kid is old enough to understand why drinking it is bad? Or do you just store it in their closet and tell them "dont touch."?
Do you just tell your baby to not lean out the 3rd floor window looking at birds? Or do you install window bars to make sure they don't fall to their death?
Do you secure your 55" TV to the wall, or just tell your kid "dont pull this on top of yourself."?
You baby proof your house or you go to jail for negligence while crying "I told him to stay away from the pool." But since you can't baby-proof the world, certain things need to be banned from being given/sold/offered to kids without the parent's explicit permission.
Is violent video games one of those things? I'm not getting into that argument here. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the extreme argument of "nothing should ever be banned to kids ever because you're violating MY right to raise my kid by shadowing the little robotic automatons 24 hours a day to make sure my programming is not faulty."
And on a side note, I have yet to see anybody explain the difference between violent video games and pornography. Why is shooting somebody in the face "art", but a naked lady not?
According to a related article at The Register, as recently as October of 2010, Steve Jobs himself publicly called Apple's app store "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone." So it would appear that even Cupertino is using the phrase app store generically in reference to its competitors. I'd call this tidbit a crushing blow to Apple's case.
Thanks, Steve! We all app-reciate it.
"Genericizing" a trademark after the fact doesn't invalidate it, unless the owner fails to enforce it. Since the trademark was applied for in 2008, what Steve said in 2010 is irrelevant, since Apple can do what it wants with its own trademark and is indeed trying to enforce it.
Whether or not an IP/MAC address can be faked doesn't decide whether or not a warrant is justified. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it is the most likely action.
Most people don't know how or why you spoof MAC/IP addresses. That probably goes for pedophiles too. So, barring research that proves otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that most ip addresses do match the actual offender; which means its enough to get a search warrant to confirm it. Even with research saying that 50% or 75% of these people are smart enough to hide on somebody else's network, the ip address could still contribute to reasonable suspicion and get a search warrant when combined with other evidence that again, by itself, would not be enough.
Not anymore. Blitzkrieg raids have become SOP for anything more severe than unpaid parking tickets, and will probably remain that way until more citizens start greeting these home invasions with kinetic resistance.
Which would lead to the SOP preemptive kinetic pacification of any residence about to be raided.
Which prompts more active resistance until it becomes a full-blown rebellion against the tyrants.
Well he was innocent. But that doesn't mean he couldn't be arrested and tried. That fact that his IP address was the offending IP Address was enough probable clause for an Arrest Warrant. Just as if you left your car unlocked some one stole your car, and robbed a bank with it. Chances are Police will get an arrest Warrant and you will be arrested.
You, and the police, and the judge issuing the warrant are all wrong.
Identification of the IP address is probable cause for a SEARCH warrant. To search his computer(s) and other electronic devices to see if the person owning that router was indeed the person that downloaded the images.
What they did was akin to hearing about a shooting at a club, and tackling, abusing, and arresting the very first person they see leave the club, while not even looking inside the club to see if anybody else is in there, maybe, holding a gun.
However, email generally flies around in clear text, which is the equivalent of postcards.
I thought it traveled around on a wire, like an unencrypted phone call, and is stored on a disk, like voice mail left for me on my cell phone... which requires a warrant to hear... unless... did Verizon switch to magic flying postcards and not tell us?
What is sci-fi/fantasy but a fantastical attempt to overcome real-world limitations on our lives? We don't have cyborgs, dragons, magic, telepathy, or gods; and death is the guaranteed final end to all of us.
With death/resurrection, like the other well-used plot points, it is not the individual issue, but how the story is told that determines if it was appropriate and gripping or trite and ignored.
So, I agree that death is "yet another plot point" and is nothing special in today's fantasy, but as pointed out by others I don't think that is new, nor do I think its a problem. Bad writing & pushy producers I'm sure ruin far more shows than any single plot device.
I don't have an issue with Constitutional rights being restricted for those who are registered criminals. They broke the law, proved their untrustworthiness and now are having to contend with that... it's called consequences. However, there ARE no such clauses in the Constitution and until such exist this is unreasonable search and seizure, regardless of who the man is, what he's done and what they've found.
Right to bear arms is not afforded to most felons. Nor is the right to vote, and numerous other rights. That is pretty much a dead issue.
You're going to tell the fifteen year old with cancer that she can't get chemo because we spent all of our money on grandmothers?
The money isn't infinite. At some point there is going to be a cutoff. It's not a question of do we draw a line or not, it's where the line is drawn. The current pace is not sustainable.
No, I'm going to tell the 15 year old with cancer she can't get chemo because some greedy, short-sighted people decided to put spending caps instead of really fixing the system.
Fat people, old people, smokers, cancer patients, drug users, and all other patients are not bankrupting the health care system. Insurance companies are. 2.5 million health insurance employees are getting paid with money that should be going to treat 15 year old cancer patients. The top 5 insurance companies together made $60 billion dollars profit in 2009. That is 1% of the money spent on health care with those 5 companies that year. 20% of the total is kept for "administrative" purposes, that's $1.2 trillion dollars, on just 5 insurance companies.
So, YOU tell Suzy her $40,000 cancer treatment costs too much while $1.2 trillion dollars is burned in a giant bon-fire.
A system that can not (or should not) deny service to anybody simply can not function with profit makers in the middle that do not provide any real service.
As for medical spending... why is it such a horrible idea to have defined limits for government medical aid. Something like "everyone is entitled to 100k worth of government insurance. After that you're on your own." The idea that we should provide aid to people who can't pay for it is great - the idea that it should be practically unlimited aid, when available medical care is only going to become *more* unlimited in scope, is just untenable.
Ok. You're going to tell Grandma she is s.o.l. on those heart meds?
Don't tax burgers, bacon and booze. Tax oatmeal and cereal bars, fresh fruit, mineral water and anything with "whole" in the name.
You're dancing around it without getting to the heart of the matter. Food is just one piece of the picture. Gyms, safe cars, doctors, drugs, clean air... they all play a part in the problem. There are then more factors that we don't even fully understand yet like genetics, global warming, population density, and mental state. You can't possibly put a tax on everything that affects this most burdening problem.
But you can easily and readily identify the hated result, and tax it:
I remember buying a TGI Friday's back of chips from a vending machine. The ingredients claimed it contained 6 servings. Why are they allowed to get away with shit like this? If the fat / sugar / calories sounds too high they increase the number of servings in a packet.
If retailers were forced to separately package each serving (or perhaps be liable for a serving tax), it might make them think a bit harder about the packet size and calorie content in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
What part of "whether my children can make their own mind up" did you fail to understand?
YOU should have no say in whether I allow MY children to buy something without my knowledge.
I think you're the only one failing to understand something. Kids are not able to comprehend consequences or the effects things have on their lives. That is why 2 year olds will get mad at their reflections for not playing with them. That is why you lock up anti-freeze to prevent your kids from drinking it. That is why kids are not allowed to purchase firearms, or cigarettes, or alcohol.
But your kids must be special because they have the same decision making skills the day they're born as you. Right?
How, exactly, would your rights have been limited by this law?
I can't speak for him, but my right to decide whether my children can make their own mind up about what to read/play is a right that I don't want limited.
The law would not restrict that. You could still purchase any game you wanted and hand it over to your kid with no legal repercussions. Same as a glock.
If you're an adult and you're offended by anybody, including the government, in a questionable situation telling your kid "Ask your mom for permission first", you're... weird.
That's a silly generalization to make. Maybe the kid did ask his parent, and they said yes. the law wouldn't have required a permission slip, it would have prevented anyone under 18 from buying a game at all. The parent would be required to come down to the store to buy it for them, which is not the same as getting permission.
You're right. One requires you to put down the potato chips and TV remote, pick up your laptop, and order the game. Requiring you to physically go to the store (or physically pick up your laptop and click a couple links), is effectively the same thing as a permission slip that was notarized to prove that the actual parent gave permission.
So you're telling me that, my hypothetical "kid", who is 17, drives a car, and has graduated high school, who I may even trust with a credit card, shouldn't be allowed to buy a video game that you think might be too violent for him?
No. I think I don't want my 12 year old to buy the same without my permission. Since the level of effort such a ban ads to your day or parenting style is negligible, the ban is reasonable. Same as requiring a driver's license is a reasonable requirement to drive a car. Just because I know how to drive well doesn't mean you do. The extra effort it takes me to prove I know how to do it is negligible compared to letting any idiot with a key get on the road and kill people.
It's really none of your business, and that's where these lines are drawn.
You're right. Go to the store, buy Leisure Suit Larry for 5 year old. I don't care. I won't try to stop you. If you think your kid is ready for it, enjoy it. I merely think its reasonable to say stores can't sell the same game to MY 5 year old. While you're at it, buy 'em a 40 and a 9mm. Two more legal choices you get to make that require your physical presence @ the store.
You're a Nosy Nelly who thinks they know what is best for everyone, and I think you should MYOB.
Silly sounding insults are still insults and another excellent reflection of your anti-social, possibly anarchist beliefs.
I think that for every law that prevents my kid from doing something you think is dangerous or bad for them, there should be a corresponding law from my perspective. So, California gets a law preventing minors from buying Call of Duty, and Texas gets a law preventing minors from buying bibles or attending church without their parents, because I believe that religion is more harmful to minors than just about anything else. Sound like a fair trade?
So, you think firearms, tobacco, alcohol, cars, small explosives, pornography, sudafed, joining the military, getting married to pedophiles, and every other thing currently restricted to 16,18,21+ or any other age is an insanely stupid law that infringes on your right to raise your kid? huh.
Well, no, I think its a horrible trade. I think kids should not be allowed to buy ammunition, crossbows, large knives, antifreeze, razor blades, or anything else that is questionably harmful to them without the express persmission of their parents.. And I believe requiring the actual physical actions of the parent to procure those items is a reasonable requirement.
Naked women are lewd, disgusting, and harmful to children... unless you interactively rape one.
Just to make it a separate post:
What, exactly, is the difference between a naked lady, and raping said naked lady?
Why is a "choose your own rape adventure" protected "art", but a plain old picture of the same naked lady lewd and bannable?
It's amazing how vocal people can be about making sure that the rights of other people are limited so as not to offend their own sensibilities.
How, exactly, would your rights have been limited by this law?
It's about paternalistic busybodies versus those that believe the right of free speech (and thought) is of paramount importance to our way of life. Either you believe you have the right to tell other people how to live or you don't.
Speech is not guns or alcohol, nor is it rape or imprisonment. All analogies comparing speech to "things that are not speech" are nonsense.
pornography.
Those who seek to control speech really seek to control thought.
If you're a kid being affected by this ruling or the law, you probably shouldn't be posting here.
If you're an adult and you're offended by anybody, including the government, in a questionable situation telling your kid "Ask your mom for permission first", you're... weird.
Though I guess if you're already letting EA parent your kid, you should be offended by any law that prevents it.
Do you lock up the anti-freeze until your kid is old enough to understand why drinking it is bad? Or do you just store it in their closet and tell them "dont touch."?
Do you just tell your baby to not lean out the 3rd floor window looking at birds? Or do you install window bars to make sure they don't fall to their death?
Do you secure your 55" TV to the wall, or just tell your kid "dont pull this on top of yourself."?
You baby proof your house or you go to jail for negligence while crying "I told him to stay away from the pool." But since you can't baby-proof the world, certain things need to be banned from being given/sold/offered to kids without the parent's explicit permission.
Is violent video games one of those things? I'm not getting into that argument here. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the extreme argument of "nothing should ever be banned to kids ever because you're violating MY right to raise my kid by shadowing the little robotic automatons 24 hours a day to make sure my programming is not faulty."
And on a side note, I have yet to see anybody explain the difference between violent video games and pornography. Why is shooting somebody in the face "art", but a naked lady not?
How would you expect them to deal with a public that wants to kill them?
By getting psychiatric and/or psychological help for their persecution complex.
According to a related article at The Register, as recently as October of 2010, Steve Jobs himself publicly called Apple's app store "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone." So it would appear that even Cupertino is using the phrase app store generically in reference to its competitors. I'd call this tidbit a crushing blow to Apple's case. Thanks, Steve! We all app-reciate it.
"Genericizing" a trademark after the fact doesn't invalidate it, unless the owner fails to enforce it. Since the trademark was applied for in 2008, what Steve said in 2010 is irrelevant, since Apple can do what it wants with its own trademark and is indeed trying to enforce it.
You mean like things like "Windows" right?
No, this is slashdot. He must have meant Freeware. The clever combination of "Free" and "Software".
Start packing...
Most people don't know how or why you spoof MAC/IP addresses. That probably goes for pedophiles too. So, barring research that proves otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that most ip addresses do match the actual offender; which means its enough to get a search warrant to confirm it. Even with research saying that 50% or 75% of these people are smart enough to hide on somebody else's network, the ip address could still contribute to reasonable suspicion and get a search warrant when combined with other evidence that again, by itself, would not be enough.
In the UK, they operate on the basis that you can return anything you get delivered for any reason or none.
Ya, my kid tried to return a banana.
Now my computer has creepy-crawlies all over it.
A technology story from MSNBC. The worst news organization supported by the worst technology organization.
Not anymore. Blitzkrieg raids have become SOP for anything more severe than unpaid parking tickets, and will probably remain that way until more citizens start greeting these home invasions with kinetic resistance.
Which would lead to the SOP preemptive kinetic pacification of any residence about to be raided.
Which prompts more active resistance until it becomes a full-blown rebellion against the tyrants.
Well he was innocent. But that doesn't mean he couldn't be arrested and tried. That fact that his IP address was the offending IP Address was enough probable clause for an Arrest Warrant. Just as if you left your car unlocked some one stole your car, and robbed a bank with it. Chances are Police will get an arrest Warrant and you will be arrested.
You, and the police, and the judge issuing the warrant are all wrong.
Identification of the IP address is probable cause for a SEARCH warrant. To search his computer(s) and other electronic devices to see if the person owning that router was indeed the person that downloaded the images.
What they did was akin to hearing about a shooting at a club, and tackling, abusing, and arresting the very first person they see leave the club, while not even looking inside the club to see if anybody else is in there, maybe, holding a gun.
However, email generally flies around in clear text, which is the equivalent of postcards.
I thought it traveled around on a wire, like an unencrypted phone call, and is stored on a disk, like voice mail left for me on my cell phone... which requires a warrant to hear... unless... did Verizon switch to magic flying postcards and not tell us?
With death/resurrection, like the other well-used plot points, it is not the individual issue, but how the story is told that determines if it was appropriate and gripping or trite and ignored.
So, I agree that death is "yet another plot point" and is nothing special in today's fantasy, but as pointed out by others I don't think that is new, nor do I think its a problem. Bad writing & pushy producers I'm sure ruin far more shows than any single plot device.
I don't have an issue with Constitutional rights being restricted for those who are registered criminals. They broke the law, proved their untrustworthiness and now are having to contend with that... it's called consequences. However, there ARE no such clauses in the Constitution and until such exist this is unreasonable search and seizure, regardless of who the man is, what he's done and what they've found.
Right to bear arms is not afforded to most felons. Nor is the right to vote, and numerous other rights. That is pretty much a dead issue.
You're going to tell the fifteen year old with cancer that she can't get chemo because we spent all of our money on grandmothers?
The money isn't infinite. At some point there is going to be a cutoff. It's not a question of do we draw a line or not, it's where the line is drawn. The current pace is not sustainable.
No, I'm going to tell the 15 year old with cancer she can't get chemo because some greedy, short-sighted people decided to put spending caps instead of really fixing the system.
Fat people, old people, smokers, cancer patients, drug users, and all other patients are not bankrupting the health care system. Insurance companies are. 2.5 million health insurance employees are getting paid with money that should be going to treat 15 year old cancer patients. The top 5 insurance companies together made $60 billion dollars profit in 2009. That is 1% of the money spent on health care with those 5 companies that year. 20% of the total is kept for "administrative" purposes, that's $1.2 trillion dollars, on just 5 insurance companies.
So, YOU tell Suzy her $40,000 cancer treatment costs too much while $1.2 trillion dollars is burned in a giant bon-fire.
A system that can not (or should not) deny service to anybody simply can not function with profit makers in the middle that do not provide any real service.
I figured as much. But I just couldn't resist. :)
As for medical spending... why is it such a horrible idea to have defined limits for government medical aid. Something like "everyone is entitled to 100k worth of government insurance. After that you're on your own." The idea that we should provide aid to people who can't pay for it is great - the idea that it should be practically unlimited aid, when available medical care is only going to become *more* unlimited in scope, is just untenable.
Ok. You're going to tell Grandma she is s.o.l. on those heart meds?
So ya, I find any law based on what the CDC says is obese to be highly suspect.
In that case, there's one obvious solution.
Don't tax burgers, bacon and booze. Tax oatmeal and cereal bars, fresh fruit, mineral water and anything with "whole" in the name.
You're dancing around it without getting to the heart of the matter. Food is just one piece of the picture. Gyms, safe cars, doctors, drugs, clean air... they all play a part in the problem. There are then more factors that we don't even fully understand yet like genetics, global warming, population density, and mental state. You can't possibly put a tax on everything that affects this most burdening problem.
But you can easily and readily identify the hated result, and tax it:
Old people
I remember buying a TGI Friday's back of chips from a vending machine. The ingredients claimed it contained 6 servings. Why are they allowed to get away with shit like this? If the fat / sugar / calories sounds too high they increase the number of servings in a packet.
If retailers were forced to separately package each serving (or perhaps be liable for a serving tax), it might make them think a bit harder about the packet size and calorie content in the first place.
The serving size listed on packaging is supposed to be an estimate of how much the person will consume in a single sitting, as defined by the FDA:
http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/Inspections/InspectionGuides/ucm074948.htm#Serving%20Size
http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/Inspections/InspectionGuides/ucm114097.htm
Chips recommended serving size is 30grams. Since the TGI Friday's chips come in 6oz sizes (thats 180g), that is 6 servings.
Did you eat the whole bag fatty?