I don't believe it can impact words that aren't (true) threats, can it? That would clearly be unconstitutional.
Although opening "harassment" is a whole can of worms when "feeling really, really bad" about what someone says to you can be interpreted as authorizing overriding freedom of speech (as it is in the workplace.)
The confusion is cleared up when you realize the Constitution gives the government certain powers, and none others.
States have much more power, though they are bound by the same Constitutional protections as the Federal government.
IANAL, but IIRC, just because the Feds weren't authorized by the Constitution to do X, that doesn't mean the states, by the 14th Ammendment, are also no longer authorized. They are, however, restricted from abridging the same set of rights.
Exactly. Unlike most countries, the US constructs its government with the Constitution, which creates a government, giving it explicit powers (not "rights"), and none others.
The Bill of Rights was fought over by two factions. Both agreed on the rights therein, but one didn't want it for fear that, by listing them, future politicians would try to pretend those, and only those, were the rights protected. The other side felt it was needed for fear of encroachment by future politicians who would try to pretend, in the absence of any listing, that they didn't exist.
In the end, both were right. And that's truly sad.
I never could figure out why they could successfully conceal advanced robotics (metal, computers, highly energetic power sources) in flesh and successfully trick the time machine restrictions, but they couldn't put a few advanced guns inside the big T's torso for later use.
In T2, they kind of tricked around it with the T-1000 being able to form simple shapes, so that was still intact (assuming it could duplicate human skin closely enough to, again, trick the time machine restrictions.)
But in T3, the 5' 10" blonde amazon lesbian was capable of forming weapons and whatnot. But I suppose it could be argued that this happened after the time transmission, and hence there were no weapons to block transmission.
Never forget that principle is a facade in politics. People pick and choose their positions based on emotional investment combined with thirst for power. Then they back-fill the rationale to support the decision.
There is no need for consistency in philosophy -- if a political theory supports one position, it is touted for that position. If it opposes a position of the same politician on a different issue, it is ignored.
Hence you get Democrats all bent out of shape over "every vote counts" for Al Gore, but ignoring it wholesale when it gets in their way, as it does here (or in counting the mailed military votes in Florida for 2000, for that matter.)
> least one is likely to eventually encounter a planet.
Not unless there are thousands of things headed starward. Given stars have thousands of times the cross section of a planet, the likelihood of hitting a star is thousands of times greater than a planet. Therefore statistically you could expect thousands to hit stars per single one hitting a planet.
Now throw into the mix just getting near a star would heat it so much it would be sterilized, and you're up to hundreds of thousands or millions or even billions of star "near misses" per legitimate planet hit.
Now let's presume that we must hit a planet going in our general direction (i.e. away from Earth, not towards it) to stand any chance of surviving re-entry (well, entry, as it never left that planet!) You've cut it down by half, if not quartered it.
Now plug in some of the Drake Equation variables, like percent of planets that are Earthlike and percent of planets that are in Earth's "sweet zone" (which would be required for Earthlike bacteria to survive), and so on, and you're really looking at god knows how many billions of rockets/booster modules/probes needed per successful "touchdown".
It's wishful thinking, far worse than hoping that you, and exactly you, win the lottery.
And why? Because people actually get upset at this:
"I can't believe the Germans are marching across France atm. They're getting in my way of my crosscountry journey to join my buddy for rat hunting in Paris. I HATE THIS GAME!"
It's a world most of you, unfortunately, want. No world events "messing up" your rat hunting parties.
People also don't want to go kill rats and stuff like that, but game makers haven't learned that lesson yet, either.
But it's true -- the best wizards on the planet were 20,000+ years old, yet could barely whip up a decent fireball or flip each other around with simple telekinetic tricks. These are not the wizards of Disney movies. A lame caster in most online games could take them out no problem.
But let's face it -- the cames cater to the, uhhh, incompetency of the average player. No level one million guy is going to beat up 100 orcs, much less goblins, at the same time. No group of goblins is gonna stand there and watch while you kill another little group 20 feet away. No caster is gonna ignore someone swinging a sword at them as they delicately cast a spell, a simple shove is all it would take to disrupt the spell, to say nothing of an easy, instant, guaranteed death for the caster.
I'm up for such a world, but I doubt most of you are. Some day, I can always dream.
> Gandalf you know and love is probably like level 100 or something.
Far greater than that. I know of no games where a topped out caster class could win a melee fight against a giant flaming demon.
And that's ironic because caster classes in games are far better at ignoring giant swords swung at them from point blank range by ogres. Isn't it odd that they can't wear armor because it "disrupts their delicate spell-casting hand movements", yet they can completely ignore a 10 foot tall, 4000 lb. ogre standing right in front of them, swinging a 10 foot long, 200 lb. sword, and not even flinch?
It is a sarcastic comment on hoi polloi invading a well-defined fictional world with modern l33tsp34k.
ZOMG -- OMG, Oh My God, with a Z in front of it as a flourish, similar to "pwned".
u - You
cn - can
tlak - deliberate misspelling resembling fast-typing mistakes, "talk", similar to "teh".
2 - to
VADAR - Vader, Darth Vader
!!1! - Exclamation point stream with humerous "1" mistype, as if shift was released accidentally while typing exclamation points.
Oh my god, you can talk to Darth Vader! -- a play on not very in-character players expressing astonishment at the coolness of the world in this online role-playing game.
Neither of these are really major problems -- even if they were, they could be fixed fairly quickly (and usually are -- when the exploit is to the advantage of the player the servers are frequently torn down that evening and patches installed. If it's a bug to the disadavantage of players, it won't be fixed until the next release next week or month, if even then.)
Pet casters can cast multiple pets? Servers torn down immediately. Pet casters have high end pets disabled by several levels? Meh, that can wait a week.
> They lost over $1 billion because of the theft? > > It's gotta suck only having one copy of the code. Now they gotta write it > again from scratch, or hope the other company gives it back.
Exactly my thoughts. What do you know? Real life really is like movies!
> The argument here is that a game in which the outcome is known is fundamentally > a different (and possibly better) form of gameplay than that the current rage of > emergent-gameplay sandbox weak storied games. A challenging idea.
I should like to point out the only reason this is true is because the gods cheat.
Lord British: Dead The Sleeper: Dead
As long as the game mechanics allow it, people will figure out a way to do it. Hence the only reason good will win is because good will cheat.
And this isn't the first time. Star Wars Galaxies also has a destiny, though I have no idea if anyone has killed Darth Vader or Luke (to say nothing of Wedge), but is that because they're tough or because the game cheats making them not attackable?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe it can impact words that aren't (true) threats, can it? That would clearly be unconstitutional.
Although opening "harassment" is a whole can of worms when "feeling really, really bad" about what someone says to you can be interpreted as authorizing overriding freedom of speech (as it is in the workplace.)
> User Generated Content
Hence the "penis fairy" outfit in Second Life.
Yeah, I wish I were making that up.
The confusion is cleared up when you realize the Constitution gives the government certain powers, and none others.
States have much more power, though they are bound by the same Constitutional protections as the Federal government.
IANAL, but IIRC, just because the Feds weren't authorized by the Constitution to do X, that doesn't mean the states, by the 14th Ammendment, are also no longer authorized. They are, however, restricted from abridging the same set of rights.
Exactly. Unlike most countries, the US constructs its government with the Constitution, which creates a government, giving it explicit powers (not "rights"), and none others.
The Bill of Rights was fought over by two factions. Both agreed on the rights therein, but one didn't want it for fear that, by listing them, future politicians would try to pretend those, and only those, were the rights protected. The other side felt it was needed for fear of encroachment by future politicians who would try to pretend, in the absence of any listing, that they didn't exist.
In the end, both were right. And that's truly sad.
If some people had their way, yes.
> every scam has its believers...But, yes, fake religions, real religions
"Real" religions?
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> [Dad] kept putting the kid on to explain computer problems. Very weird.
What's weird about that? That's pretty normal.
I never could figure out why they could successfully conceal advanced robotics (metal, computers, highly energetic power sources) in flesh and successfully trick the time machine restrictions, but they couldn't put a few advanced guns inside the big T's torso for later use.
In T2, they kind of tricked around it with the T-1000 being able to form simple shapes, so that was still intact (assuming it could duplicate human skin closely enough to, again, trick the time machine restrictions.)
But in T3, the 5' 10" blonde amazon lesbian was capable of forming weapons and whatnot. But I suppose it could be argued that this happened after the time transmission, and hence there were no weapons to block transmission.
On the other hand, a few more movies starring a 5' 10" blonde amazon lesbian wouldn't suck too badly.
Never forget that principle is a facade in politics. People pick and choose their positions based on emotional investment combined with thirst for power. Then they back-fill the rationale to support the decision.
There is no need for consistency in philosophy -- if a political theory supports one position, it is touted for that position. If it opposes a position of the same politician on a different issue, it is ignored.
Hence you get Democrats all bent out of shape over "every vote counts" for Al Gore, but ignoring it wholesale when it gets in their way, as it does here (or in counting the mailed military votes in Florida for 2000, for that matter.)
And yes, the Republicans do this wholesale, too.
I have just one question: Can the hip and waist sliders achieve a hip-to-waist ratio of 1.6 or better on female characters?
> least one is likely to eventually encounter a planet.
Not unless there are thousands of things headed starward. Given stars have thousands of times the cross section of a planet, the likelihood of hitting a star is thousands of times greater than a planet. Therefore statistically you could expect thousands to hit stars per single one hitting a planet.
Now throw into the mix just getting near a star would heat it so much it would be sterilized, and you're up to hundreds of thousands or millions or even billions of star "near misses" per legitimate planet hit.
Now let's presume that we must hit a planet going in our general direction (i.e. away from Earth, not towards it) to stand any chance of surviving re-entry (well, entry, as it never left that planet!) You've cut it down by half, if not quartered it.
Now plug in some of the Drake Equation variables, like percent of planets that are Earthlike and percent of planets that are in Earth's "sweet zone" (which would be required for Earthlike bacteria to survive), and so on, and you're really looking at god knows how many billions of rockets/booster modules/probes needed per successful "touchdown".
It's wishful thinking, far worse than hoping that you, and exactly you, win the lottery.
Wait for it...
3...
2...
1...
0...
"Hello, US Credit Agency? Someone locked my account and set up a password for it without my permission. What do I do?"
And why? Because people actually get upset at this:
"I can't believe the Germans are marching across France atm. They're getting in my way of my crosscountry journey to join my buddy for rat hunting in Paris. I HATE THIS GAME!"
It's a world most of you, unfortunately, want. No world events "messing up" your rat hunting parties.
People also don't want to go kill rats and stuff like that, but game makers haven't learned that lesson yet, either.
But it's true -- the best wizards on the planet were 20,000+ years old, yet could barely whip up a decent fireball or flip each other around with simple telekinetic tricks. These are not the wizards of Disney movies. A lame caster in most online games could take them out no problem.
But let's face it -- the cames cater to the, uhhh, incompetency of the average player. No level one million guy is going to beat up 100 orcs, much less goblins, at the same time. No group of goblins is gonna stand there and watch while you kill another little group 20 feet away. No caster is gonna ignore someone swinging a sword at them as they delicately cast a spell, a simple shove is all it would take to disrupt the spell, to say nothing of an easy, instant, guaranteed death for the caster.
I'm up for such a world, but I doubt most of you are. Some day, I can always dream.
> Gandalf you know and love is probably like level 100 or something.
Far greater than that. I know of no games where a topped out caster class could win a melee fight against a giant flaming demon.
And that's ironic because caster classes in games are far better at ignoring giant swords swung at them from point blank range by ogres. Isn't it odd that they can't wear armor because it "disrupts their delicate spell-casting hand movements", yet they can completely ignore a 10 foot tall, 4000 lb. ogre standing right in front of them, swinging a 10 foot long, 200 lb. sword, and not even flinch?
It is a sarcastic comment on hoi polloi invading a well-defined fictional world with modern l33tsp34k.
ZOMG -- OMG, Oh My God, with a Z in front of it as a flourish, similar to "pwned".
u - You
cn - can
tlak - deliberate misspelling resembling fast-typing mistakes, "talk", similar to "teh".
2 - to
VADAR - Vader, Darth Vader
!!1! - Exclamation point stream with humerous "1" mistype, as if shift was released accidentally while typing exclamation points.
Oh my god, you can talk to Darth Vader! -- a play on not very in-character players expressing astonishment at the coolness of the world in this online role-playing game.
Greeeeeeeeeaaaaat.
I can't wait to do a newbie quest to find my first force crystal in a cave, only to find out it only boosts my light saber by about 0.03%.
Assuming I don't have to unlock a force slot first, of course, by becoming an expert bantha masseusse first, among a dozen other things.
(dials number) Hello? Is your mercury disposal system running? It is? Well then you'd better go catch it hahahaha (slam)
For Christ's sake, people. In 2 or 3 hundred years, just send microbots through there gathering it all up.
I also determined that a ball of mercury (from a broken thermometer) will still not solidify even when placed in a home freezer.
I think I ended up putting it down the drain. Or it got lost on the floor. Who knows...
So they have a patent on a workable LED "bulb", or they have a patent on replacing your fluorescent bulb with an LED one?
Like "ha ha, you invented it, but you can't sell it because it's my idea to use these as light bulbs!"
Neither of these are really major problems -- even if they were, they could be fixed fairly quickly (and usually are -- when the exploit is to the advantage of the player the servers are frequently torn down that evening and patches installed. If it's a bug to the disadavantage of players, it won't be fixed until the next release next week or month, if even then.)
Pet casters can cast multiple pets? Servers torn down immediately. Pet casters have high end pets disabled by several levels? Meh, that can wait a week.
> They lost over $1 billion because of the theft?
>
> It's gotta suck only having one copy of the code. Now they gotta write it
> again from scratch, or hope the other company gives it back.
Exactly my thoughts. What do you know? Real life really is like movies!
> The argument here is that a game in which the outcome is known is fundamentally
> a different (and possibly better) form of gameplay than that the current rage of
> emergent-gameplay sandbox weak storied games. A challenging idea.
I should like to point out the only reason this is true is because the gods cheat.
Lord British: Dead
The Sleeper: Dead
As long as the game mechanics allow it, people will figure out a way to do it. Hence the only reason good will win is because good will cheat.
And this isn't the first time. Star Wars Galaxies also has a destiny, though I have no idea if anyone has killed Darth Vader or Luke (to say nothing of Wedge), but is that because they're tough or because the game cheats making them not attackable?