There's sort of a corollary to the respect idea in all of this, which I tend to live by.
Always treat the secretary/administrative assistants/etc. nicely.
While its true that they, technically, hold no power, the truth is that they can often do things to make your life a heck of a lot eaiser. Usually, they are saddled with the day to day duties of ordering supplies, checking out equipment, and scheduling. If they like you, they can often use that position to fudge stuff in your direction.
Am I the only one who played, and loved Sentinel Worlds I? Next to Starflight this was one of the games which turned me forever in to a computer gaming freak. It had a rather good story, and the gameplay was very enjoyable. Also, the way it was handled visually was great.
The biggest tragedy was that no sequel was ever made. At the end of the game, you can save you characters for use in Sentinel Worlds II. A game which never made it. I actually kept my characters for quite some time hoping that it would release, but it was never to be. A sort of followup "Hard Nova" was created, but it was sort of a lackluster nod to the fans of the original game.
I tried to play Inca back when it was new, and the controls on it were just horrible. I agree that the game looked pretty, but it was so frustrating to play that I just couldn't get into it. I was lucky that, at that time, my brother worked for Software Etc. and was able to check games out to be tried at home.
Starflight rocked. This was one of the first computer games I ever played, and it was responsible for many sleepless nights duing summer vacation. If you're still looking to play the original, might I suggest DOSBox. If makes nearly all of the old games playable on a new system, without the timing issues.
Done. Fox News
The claim is right there in their tag line "Fair & Balanced". Yes, we all know it's bullshit, but they do claim it. CNet Reviews claims that they offer "unbiased" reviews, read the page title.
The word "unbiased" is all over the place on the internet. Actual unbiased information is harder to come by. About the only, truly, unbiased information you are going to come by are hard facts like 2+2=4. Get beyond that and it all gets subjective.
Character models.
on
Girls Got Game
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
One thing, which I think might go a long way in not pissing off female games is, change some of the character and NPC models. My fiancee and I are playing through Everquest: Champions of Norrath on the PS2 right now, and some of the female NPC's are absolutly ridiculous. For example, one of the NPC's you come across is a female vampire who is, of course, wearing a thong, a see through sarrong, and two metal nipple caps where a bra might be. And to top it off, the voice acting sounds like it was done by a porn star. She sends you off on a quest to find a "Bloodvine." From the way she talked about it, I think it was really just a code name for a vibrator. And when we brought it back and actually ate it, I was even more convinced that the "Bloodvine" was a code name for a really damn good vibrator. It sounded a lot like a porn actress faking an orgasm while she ate it. And this is about the level of the female voice acting throughout the game. Before this, we had Baldur's Gate: Dark Alligence 1 & 2. In one, if that barmaid had breathed wrong, she would have had to charge us for the peep show. And of course we had to beat down a dark elf in a string bikini. Who, once again, seemed to be voice acted by a porn star and even broke into an impromptu pole dance on her quaterstaff during the cutscean. Two was actually unmemorable enough that I don't recall any specific instances, but I do know that they were there.
Why is it that the fantasy genere insists on doing this to female characters. I realize that its not new, even D&D did this, but isn't it time we grew up? Yes, I like pictures of women in chain mail bikini's, but lets leave that sort of stuff to Boris Valejo and hentai.
Let's face it, if a woman had a choice between the metal thong and a more practical, and infinatly more comfortable set of armor which one do you think she would choose?
The one thing the PSP has going for it than something like the Lynx did not is that it seems it is coming out with a very solid library of quality games. That's what really matters.
You and I must be reading different lists. All I saw was a mish-mash of sports and racing games, with one RPG game in there, which the fanboys at IGN could only call a very good attempt. I'm holding out a little hope for the system, the upcomming titles seemed to have a few good ideas in them, but then upcomming titles don't mean a thing until they release, cancelations can and do happen.
You have it all wrong, Microsoft is working hard to make your reality browsing experience better. With the new features they have added to Reality Explorer people will be able to deliver exciting dynamic content to your reality experience. While some features may not work in all browsers, this is in no way Microsoft's fault. In fact, if you do not have the latest version of Reality Explorer you should upgrade immediately, to take advantage of all the new and exciting features. It is available free from the Microsoft site!
This ad in no way offers any express or implied warranty of gurantee or of the suitability of Reality Explorer for any purpose. Use of the software is at your own risk. In case of dispute the user agrees to the jurisdiction of Microsoft Land, and all rulings will be final and binding.
I have to wonder how much this will really help? Personally, I only buy a few games a year anymore, and I'm somewhat selective in doing so. Usually, I'll try to wait for games to hit the bargin rack, or I'll wait for a friend to buy it, finish it, and borrow it from him. I'll grant that there are some games that I will buy at full price, but those are getting to be fewer. This year, the only game I'm looking at paying full price for is Rainbow 6: 4. And that assumes that it hits this year, and doesn't have a ton of bugs at release. The sad part is, I'll probably only play through it in co-op mode with some friends, whom I've played through 3 with. We just enjoy that sort of thing, and we all need to have our own copies.
The other problem with the prices climbing higher, is going to be piracy. Let's face it, pirating a game is easy these days. And all of the silly key codes are doing nothing to slow it down. Do a quick google for "half life 2 cd key" and you'll see what I mean. Granted, this won't help people with online play, but if all they want is the single player version, then it'll get the job done.
At some point, higher prices are not going to result in higher returns. Too many people will wait for the price to drop or outright pirate the game. Are we there yet, who knows, but we'll probably get to find out soon when the companies start charging more.
A new study conducted by California-based firm Macrovision
Just stop there, with that source, the rest of the article is worthless.
I would be willing to grant that such piracy probably happens, but this sounds like a scare tactic comming out of Macrovision trying to prop up sales of their anti-copying technologies. I expect a study to follow which claims that games with their newest technology are pirated far less. It will, of course, be the same level of bullshit at this study, but if it drives one or two companies to adopt their technology then it will easily pay for the minimum wage they paid someone for half a day to call random gamers and ask a misleading question.
Yes, but we'd have to go through Belgium first, and who knows what they have up their sleeve? Besides, people might actually discover that we've been getting Belgium Fries with their Big Macs, and then what would rename in a Jingoistic furor the next time France doesn't kow-tow to Pax Americanium?
On the other hand, unlike FedEx, they do tend to train people to drive the fork-lift before letting them loose in the warehouse. The last company I worked at had several servers, which we had configured for customers, lost due to this type of on the job training. Not once, but twice.
Just gave captive-ntfs a go under Knoppix 3.7. It's still broken. It is necessary to add the captive user and group through KUser before you can mount NTFS partitions. Also, I tend to manually copy in the ntfs.sys and ntoskrnl.exe from floppy, as I had problems with captive under 3.6 if those files weren't from XP-SP1a, and I don't have any computers around that aren't SP2 already.
Two words: Deep Freeze.
Let the user dick around with the computer all they want. But always do the following:
Do not have it attached to any network larger than maybe one or two other demo PC.
Along with 1, never, never, NEVER, have it connected to the corporate network. I would almost go so far as to say that there should be no physical connection at all. Granted, with a good router, this wouldn't be an issue, but why take a chance?
Have something similar to Deep Freeze running on the system to keep the configuration from being changed permanently. Or, just have the system boot from a remote image on a read-only media.
Periodically, through out the day, reboot the system and let the precautions taken in 3 have effect.
Keeping a public computer from being a problem is possible, even under windows. But, like anything that is going to be on the front lines, you have to take precautions.
Better yet, if they really want to store data, without broadcasting, and no need for a battery, use a contact smart-card. Those little guys can store all the data you would need for a photo, plus a few lines of text, and a signature of some sort. And, the only way you can read it, is by placing the chip physically in a reader. the only drawback I see with it, is that the contacts may wear out over time. Honestly, I'm not sure how many reads one can get before they wear down, but I do know that its a rather large number.
If anything, this is just irresponsibility from the governemnt at its finest. Putting unencrypted data on a device that can be queried from a distance is unbelievably stupid. And I don't see how this is going to help security in the long run. Anybody can buy RFID smart cards. All a "terrorist" would have to do is pose as a security company, and buy the cards, in bulk, from a supplier. Figure out the algorithim to make a correct digital signature, and then start printing their own cards. Embed them is a halfway convincing passport (no longer even needs to hold up to close visual inspection), and viola! instant "Get into the US free" card.
It never ceases to amaze me, the government is spending all of its effort running around trying to convince people to "fear the terrorist", but in the end, they are just making it easier for them to get in. I guess this "War on Terror" is little more than a thinly vield effort to erode civil rights. Its the perfect scam really, pretend to be doing everything to make people safer, while, in reality you relax security. More terrorist style attacks get through, and people get more scared. They then will be willing to give up even more liberty for security. Wash, rinse, repeat. In a few short years, you have the people willing to put up with anything, so long as it makes thing think that they will be safer. Machiavelli would be proud.
At the risk of being called isolationist, I agree. Why wasn't this game made by a US company? It often strikes me that the US government should be doing everything it can to spend money locally. Basically, if its a military purchase, buy from a US company. If the government is solving a problem in a particular state or town, buy the supplies and labor from companies in that state or town. This way, not only to you get the immediate effect of the solution to whatever problem is being solved, you also get the secondary effect of that money going into that local economy, which will help speed recovery.
This rule should also extend to international endevors. For example, the rebuilding in Iraq, why are US companies involved in this? The US government should be hiring local companies to supply the parts/materials/labor for the reconstruction. I understand having US companies involved in the military supply train, that is a security matter, but the civilian reconstruction should be using local Iraqi companies. If there aren't currently any, then we put some loans out there into the community to bootstrap a few to do the work.
Same idea in Thailand, and everywere else hit by the Boxing Day Tsunami. Get local companies to do the rebuilding. If they can't because they have been effectivly wiped out, we loan them the money (at no interest, and with a realistic repayment schedule) to get them running, so that they can do the work and reap the economic benefits.
Am I really a bad person for thinking that tax money should be spent locally?
Does anybody else find it amusing that the recruitment tool for the US Army is being made in Montreal, Canada? Arguably the city in North America most opposed to the invasion of Iraq?
Its being made in Montreal, a city that was largely opposed to the war in Iraq. By a company based in France, a country which was most certainly not part of the Coalition of the Willing.
You'd think that the jigoistic reaction that the US had to France's position against the war in Iraq would have kept this from happening, but then, the Anti-France thing was all just a show to galavinze US support for the war in Iraq. It gave the people another enemy to hate, other than the US government which was running us into a war on false pretenses.
This ought to be fun:
Hi, I'm 28 with a herniated disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. I think that Bush is a terrorist who should be tried for treason for his crimes against the country, along with the rest of his cabinet. Can I have a free copy of the game now?
BTW, I support the military, and think you guys do a good job at what you are trained to do, kill people and break stuff. Why the past several presidents have decided that you should work as a world police force is beyond me, but no I have no interest in joining, I watched the government screw my father out of pretty much all of the benefits promised to him when he joined. So about that game....
That is one thing I have to give lawyers, and the guys over at CastleCops, the tone of that letter was a hell of a lot nicer than anything I could have brought myself to draft. If the internet community at large is calling a company's software spyware, and that company sent me a C&D for calling it spyware, I don't think I could have put together a letter which didn't question the parentage of the people sending it, and threatening them with a counter-suit if they had the audacity to sue me over the branding.
BTW, thank you, nice link.
Forgive me if I am misunderstanding you this morning, half my brain is still asleep, the other half is thinking about coffee (mmm, coffee). Ok, disclaimer out of the way.
Don't you think governments wouldn't want to or try to censor some opinions absolutely? Hate speech, for example? Think futher, something like: earn-1000-for-killing-president-X.org? That'd mean involvement with the rootservers or corporations behind the DNS hosting.
I agree, governments would want to censor some opinions absolutely. And, I view this is a bad thing. Who gets to decide which opinions are censorable? If any government can go to the domain body and say, "I don't like this opinion, shut it off," then we might as just pack up this whole internet thing and put it in a landfill, because its going to be rendered worthless, quick. If we only let "free" countries do this, we're still just as bad. Afterall, which form of "freedom" do we follow?
The US version? Ok, so we can have hate speech, but anything which supports Islamic exteremists is gone. Which doesn't sound bad, until you realize that the US government might just fudge intellegence a bit to have its way and silence unpopular opinions. We are the country which brought you Watergate, afterall.
The EU version? So, no hate speech. Again, who gets to decide what that is, are those people beyond corruption? Not likely.
So, we create an international standards body, which decides acceptable speech. I give this body about two days before it becomes so politicized and lobbied that it is effectivly worthless, and just used as a way to censor opinions which the big governements don't like. Just what the people of the world need, a big, international body, accountable to no one deciding what gets censored.
Simply put, I don't see a way to allow any sort of censorship, and still maintain an open and free environment in which to exchange information and ideas. Maybe I've missed something, but as far as I can tell, once you allow any governmental body to start censoring speech, we're just a slippery slope ride away from Fahrenheit 451.
Needless to say, I don't have much hope for the current state of free speech in the US.
Seriously. I think it would have been better if the USA just used.us and after which every country just managed their own rootservers and own domains. Futhermore we could still have e.g. news.cctld, net.cctld. If so, we'd unfortunately have a major backwards compatibility problem... (IOW: too late)
Agreed, and agreed. If there was a good way to nuke the.com,.net,.org, etc. TLD's, we'd be better off. Let every country have its own TLD and administer it in the way they see fit. Though, I think I would add one TLD, which just hands out any domain to anyone, call it.free. First come, first serve. No forcable transfers allowed. Some punk beat you to YourTrademark.free, and wants a million dollars to sell it to you? Too bad, pony up, or just make sure you point your customers YourTrademark.YourCountry'sTLD.
This extra TLD would be run by two people. One guy makes sure the root servers are up to date and running. The other one handles the phones. The phone guy would have a big book with the following phrases in every language:
It costs <insert some small, reasonable number> <insert caller's currency, see appendix A> to register that domain.
Thank you, you now own <insert registered domain name here>, Have a nice day.
I'm sorry that domain is already taken, please check our website to see who owns it
I'm sorry, but we don't take down domains except by the owner's request, fuck off, and have a nice day.
I'm sorry, but we don't transfer domains except at the owner's request, fuck off, and have a nice day.
Sir, you are behind on your domain payment, you have 10 days to become current, or you will forfiet you rights to
Personally, I couldn't care less who controls passing out domains, as long as two factors are in place:
Any one can register any domain, trademarks not withstanding. Along with this, if I get there before you have a trademark, you lose.
Nothing is censored, period. Once I have a domain, I can do whatever I damn well please with it. If I want to put up a page which repeats "Kill the President, heil Hitler!" a thousand times, with images of the Goatse guy interspersed, no one is allowed to force me to take it down. Local laws may mean you get arrested for it, but the domain registry doesn't get involved.
Granted, at the moment, ICANN doesn't really fit this either, so I don't mind them losing it, just as long as the people who get it are better. And, somehow, I don't see the UN as being better. Maybe we should give the whole thing to Jamaica, I've never seen them get up in arms about "indecancy".
The point is more that the debater should be able to get their point across without stooping to that level.
That, of course, begs the question: is it stooping to use it? I mean, this is a real part of histroy, and a good example of what can happen when many things in a country get out of hand. I agree that it is often used in a scarist way, to sway a debate on emotional reaction, but it is still a valid piece of human history. Perhaps it would be better to call a person a loser in a debate when they resort to scarist tactics, rather than just pointing to a particular part of history.
Slashdot Mirror
There's sort of a corollary to the respect idea in all of this, which I tend to live by.
Always treat the secretary/administrative assistants/etc. nicely.
While its true that they, technically, hold no power, the truth is that they can often do things to make your life a heck of a lot eaiser. Usually, they are saddled with the day to day duties of ordering supplies, checking out equipment, and scheduling. If they like you, they can often use that position to fudge stuff in your direction.
Am I the only one who played, and loved Sentinel Worlds I? Next to Starflight this was one of the games which turned me forever in to a computer gaming freak. It had a rather good story, and the gameplay was very enjoyable. Also, the way it was handled visually was great.
The biggest tragedy was that no sequel was ever made. At the end of the game, you can save you characters for use in Sentinel Worlds II. A game which never made it. I actually kept my characters for quite some time hoping that it would release, but it was never to be. A sort of followup "Hard Nova" was created, but it was sort of a lackluster nod to the fans of the original game.
I tried to play Inca back when it was new, and the controls on it were just horrible. I agree that the game looked pretty, but it was so frustrating to play that I just couldn't get into it. I was lucky that, at that time, my brother worked for Software Etc. and was able to check games out to be tried at home.
Starflight rocked. This was one of the first computer games I ever played, and it was responsible for many sleepless nights duing summer vacation. If you're still looking to play the original, might I suggest DOSBox. If makes nearly all of the old games playable on a new system, without the timing issues.
Done.
Fox News
The claim is right there in their tag line "Fair & Balanced". Yes, we all know it's bullshit, but they do claim it.
CNet Reviews claims that they offer "unbiased" reviews, read the page title.
The word "unbiased" is all over the place on the internet. Actual unbiased information is harder to come by. About the only, truly, unbiased information you are going to come by are hard facts like 2+2=4. Get beyond that and it all gets subjective.
One thing, which I think might go a long way in not pissing off female games is, change some of the character and NPC models. My fiancee and I are playing through Everquest: Champions of Norrath on the PS2 right now, and some of the female NPC's are absolutly ridiculous. For example, one of the NPC's you come across is a female vampire who is, of course, wearing a thong, a see through sarrong, and two metal nipple caps where a bra might be. And to top it off, the voice acting sounds like it was done by a porn star. She sends you off on a quest to find a "Bloodvine." From the way she talked about it, I think it was really just a code name for a vibrator. And when we brought it back and actually ate it, I was even more convinced that the "Bloodvine" was a code name for a really damn good vibrator. It sounded a lot like a porn actress faking an orgasm while she ate it. And this is about the level of the female voice acting throughout the game. Before this, we had Baldur's Gate: Dark Alligence 1 & 2. In one, if that barmaid had breathed wrong, she would have had to charge us for the peep show. And of course we had to beat down a dark elf in a string bikini. Who, once again, seemed to be voice acted by a porn star and even broke into an impromptu pole dance on her quaterstaff during the cutscean. Two was actually unmemorable enough that I don't recall any specific instances, but I do know that they were there.
Why is it that the fantasy genere insists on doing this to female characters. I realize that its not new, even D&D did this, but isn't it time we grew up? Yes, I like pictures of women in chain mail bikini's, but lets leave that sort of stuff to Boris Valejo and hentai.
Let's face it, if a woman had a choice between the metal thong and a more practical, and infinatly more comfortable set of armor which one do you think she would choose?
The one thing the PSP has going for it than something like the Lynx did not is that it seems it is coming out with a very solid library of quality games. That's what really matters.
You and I must be reading different lists. All I saw was a mish-mash of sports and racing games, with one RPG game in there, which the fanboys at IGN could only call a very good attempt. I'm holding out a little hope for the system, the upcomming titles seemed to have a few good ideas in them, but then upcomming titles don't mean a thing until they release, cancelations can and do happen.
You have it all wrong, Microsoft is working hard to make your reality browsing experience better. With the new features they have added to Reality Explorer people will be able to deliver exciting dynamic content to your reality experience. While some features may not work in all browsers, this is in no way Microsoft's fault. In fact, if you do not have the latest version of Reality Explorer you should upgrade immediately, to take advantage of all the new and exciting features. It is available free from the Microsoft site!
This ad in no way offers any express or implied warranty of gurantee or of the suitability of Reality Explorer for any purpose. Use of the software is at your own risk. In case of dispute the user agrees to the jurisdiction of Microsoft Land, and all rulings will be final and binding.
Might I suggest changing your reality browser settings. It would seem that it failed to render the fairly obvious tags on the parent comment.
I have to wonder how much this will really help? Personally, I only buy a few games a year anymore, and I'm somewhat selective in doing so. Usually, I'll try to wait for games to hit the bargin rack, or I'll wait for a friend to buy it, finish it, and borrow it from him. I'll grant that there are some games that I will buy at full price, but those are getting to be fewer. This year, the only game I'm looking at paying full price for is Rainbow 6: 4. And that assumes that it hits this year, and doesn't have a ton of bugs at release. The sad part is, I'll probably only play through it in co-op mode with some friends, whom I've played through 3 with. We just enjoy that sort of thing, and we all need to have our own copies.
The other problem with the prices climbing higher, is going to be piracy. Let's face it, pirating a game is easy these days. And all of the silly key codes are doing nothing to slow it down. Do a quick google for "half life 2 cd key" and you'll see what I mean. Granted, this won't help people with online play, but if all they want is the single player version, then it'll get the job done.
At some point, higher prices are not going to result in higher returns. Too many people will wait for the price to drop or outright pirate the game. Are we there yet, who knows, but we'll probably get to find out soon when the companies start charging more.
A new study conducted by California-based firm Macrovision
Just stop there, with that source, the rest of the article is worthless.
I would be willing to grant that such piracy probably happens, but this sounds like a scare tactic comming out of Macrovision trying to prop up sales of their anti-copying technologies. I expect a study to follow which claims that games with their newest technology are pirated far less. It will, of course, be the same level of bullshit at this study, but if it drives one or two companies to adopt their technology then it will easily pay for the minimum wage they paid someone for half a day to call random gamers and ask a misleading question.
Yes, but we'd have to go through Belgium first, and who knows what they have up their sleeve? Besides, people might actually discover that we've been getting Belgium Fries with their Big Macs, and then what would rename in a Jingoistic furor the next time France doesn't kow-tow to Pax Americanium?
On the other hand, unlike FedEx, they do tend to train people to drive the fork-lift before letting them loose in the warehouse. The last company I worked at had several servers, which we had configured for customers, lost due to this type of on the job training. Not once, but twice.
Game #1 for the N64: Conker's Bad Fud Day.
There might be a few others worth mentioning on the system, but I could never find them.
Just gave captive-ntfs a go under Knoppix 3.7. It's still broken. It is necessary to add the captive user and group through KUser before you can mount NTFS partitions. Also, I tend to manually copy in the ntfs.sys and ntoskrnl.exe from floppy, as I had problems with captive under 3.6 if those files weren't from XP-SP1a, and I don't have any computers around that aren't SP2 already.
If it spreads through Thunderbird it could be:
The Avian Flu?
Let the user dick around with the computer all they want. But always do the following:
- Do not have it attached to any network larger than maybe one or two other demo PC.
- Along with 1, never, never, NEVER, have it connected to the corporate network. I would almost go so far as to say that there should be no physical connection at all. Granted, with a good router, this wouldn't be an issue, but why take a chance?
- Have something similar to Deep Freeze running on the system to keep the configuration from being changed permanently. Or, just have the system boot from a remote image on a read-only media.
- Periodically, through out the day, reboot the system and let the precautions taken in 3 have effect.
Keeping a public computer from being a problem is possible, even under windows. But, like anything that is going to be on the front lines, you have to take precautions.Better yet, if they really want to store data, without broadcasting, and no need for a battery, use a contact smart-card. Those little guys can store all the data you would need for a photo, plus a few lines of text, and a signature of some sort. And, the only way you can read it, is by placing the chip physically in a reader. the only drawback I see with it, is that the contacts may wear out over time. Honestly, I'm not sure how many reads one can get before they wear down, but I do know that its a rather large number.
If anything, this is just irresponsibility from the governemnt at its finest. Putting unencrypted data on a device that can be queried from a distance is unbelievably stupid. And I don't see how this is going to help security in the long run. Anybody can buy RFID smart cards. All a "terrorist" would have to do is pose as a security company, and buy the cards, in bulk, from a supplier. Figure out the algorithim to make a correct digital signature, and then start printing their own cards. Embed them is a halfway convincing passport (no longer even needs to hold up to close visual inspection), and viola! instant "Get into the US free" card.
It never ceases to amaze me, the government is spending all of its effort running around trying to convince people to "fear the terrorist", but in the end, they are just making it easier for them to get in. I guess this "War on Terror" is little more than a thinly vield effort to erode civil rights. Its the perfect scam really, pretend to be doing everything to make people safer, while, in reality you relax security. More terrorist style attacks get through, and people get more scared. They then will be willing to give up even more liberty for security. Wash, rinse, repeat. In a few short years, you have the people willing to put up with anything, so long as it makes thing think that they will be safer. Machiavelli would be proud.
At the risk of being called isolationist, I agree. Why wasn't this game made by a US company? It often strikes me that the US government should be doing everything it can to spend money locally. Basically, if its a military purchase, buy from a US company. If the government is solving a problem in a particular state or town, buy the supplies and labor from companies in that state or town. This way, not only to you get the immediate effect of the solution to whatever problem is being solved, you also get the secondary effect of that money going into that local economy, which will help speed recovery.
This rule should also extend to international endevors. For example, the rebuilding in Iraq, why are US companies involved in this? The US government should be hiring local companies to supply the parts/materials/labor for the reconstruction. I understand having US companies involved in the military supply train, that is a security matter, but the civilian reconstruction should be using local Iraqi companies. If there aren't currently any, then we put some loans out there into the community to bootstrap a few to do the work.
Same idea in Thailand, and everywere else hit by the Boxing Day Tsunami. Get local companies to do the rebuilding. If they can't because they have been effectivly wiped out, we loan them the money (at no interest, and with a realistic repayment schedule) to get them running, so that they can do the work and reap the economic benefits.
Am I really a bad person for thinking that tax money should be spent locally?
Does anybody else find it amusing that the recruitment tool for the US Army is being made in Montreal, Canada? Arguably the city in North America most opposed to the invasion of Iraq?
Its being made in Montreal, a city that was largely opposed to the war in Iraq. By a company based in France, a country which was most certainly not part of the Coalition of the Willing.
You'd think that the jigoistic reaction that the US had to France's position against the war in Iraq would have kept this from happening, but then, the Anti-France thing was all just a show to galavinze US support for the war in Iraq. It gave the people another enemy to hate, other than the US government which was running us into a war on false pretenses.
This ought to be fun:
Hi, I'm 28 with a herniated disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. I think that Bush is a terrorist who should be tried for treason for his crimes against the country, along with the rest of his cabinet. Can I have a free copy of the game now?
BTW, I support the military, and think you guys do a good job at what you are trained to do, kill people and break stuff. Why the past several presidents have decided that you should work as a world police force is beyond me, but no I have no interest in joining, I watched the government screw my father out of pretty much all of the benefits promised to him when he joined. So about that game....
That is one thing I have to give lawyers, and the guys over at CastleCops, the tone of that letter was a hell of a lot nicer than anything I could have brought myself to draft. If the internet community at large is calling a company's software spyware, and that company sent me a C&D for calling it spyware, I don't think I could have put together a letter which didn't question the parentage of the people sending it, and threatening them with a counter-suit if they had the audacity to sue me over the branding.
BTW, thank you, nice link.
Don't you think governments wouldn't want to or try to censor some opinions absolutely? Hate speech, for example? Think futher, something like: earn-1000-for-killing-president-X.org? That'd mean involvement with the rootservers or corporations behind the DNS hosting.
I agree, governments would want to censor some opinions absolutely. And, I view this is a bad thing. Who gets to decide which opinions are censorable? If any government can go to the domain body and say, "I don't like this opinion, shut it off," then we might as just pack up this whole internet thing and put it in a landfill, because its going to be rendered worthless, quick. If we only let "free" countries do this, we're still just as bad. Afterall, which form of "freedom" do we follow?
The US version? Ok, so we can have hate speech, but anything which supports Islamic exteremists is gone. Which doesn't sound bad, until you realize that the US government might just fudge intellegence a bit to have its way and silence unpopular opinions. We are the country which brought you Watergate, afterall.
The EU version? So, no hate speech. Again, who gets to decide what that is, are those people beyond corruption? Not likely.
So, we create an international standards body, which decides acceptable speech. I give this body about two days before it becomes so politicized and lobbied that it is effectivly worthless, and just used as a way to censor opinions which the big governements don't like. Just what the people of the world need, a big, international body, accountable to no one deciding what gets censored.
Simply put, I don't see a way to allow any sort of censorship, and still maintain an open and free environment in which to exchange information and ideas. Maybe I've missed something, but as far as I can tell, once you allow any governmental body to start censoring speech, we're just a slippery slope ride away from Fahrenheit 451.
Needless to say, I don't have much hope for the current state of free speech in the US.
Seriously. I think it would have been better if the USA just used
Agreed, and agreed. If there was a good way to nuke the
This extra TLD would be run by two people. One guy makes sure the root servers are up to date and running. The other one handles the phones. The phone guy would have a big book with the following phrases in every language:
- Any one can register any domain, trademarks not withstanding. Along with this, if I get there before you have a trademark, you lose.
- Nothing is censored, period. Once I have a domain, I can do whatever I damn well please with it. If I want to put up a page which repeats "Kill the President, heil Hitler!" a thousand times, with images of the Goatse guy interspersed, no one is allowed to force me to take it down. Local laws may mean you get arrested for it, but the domain registry doesn't get involved.
Granted, at the moment, ICANN doesn't really fit this either, so I don't mind them losing it, just as long as the people who get it are better. And, somehow, I don't see the UN as being better. Maybe we should give the whole thing to Jamaica, I've never seen them get up in arms about "indecancy".The point is more that the debater should be able to get their point across without stooping to that level.
That, of course, begs the question: is it stooping to use it? I mean, this is a real part of histroy, and a good example of what can happen when many things in a country get out of hand. I agree that it is often used in a scarist way, to sway a debate on emotional reaction, but it is still a valid piece of human history. Perhaps it would be better to call a person a loser in a debate when they resort to scarist tactics, rather than just pointing to a particular part of history.