The parent walks in the room every 30 minutes for one reason or another, even if just passing through.
I know plenty of 20-something parents (even teen parents) who are quite happy using the television as a cheap babysitter.
MadAve knows this. They count on it.
Enough said on this subject. If you think your life is perfect, it probably is... but have a look around you some day and you may find plenty of people who don't think so...
Frankly, the complaints on that website reflect value systems conservative enough to belong back in the early 1900's.
As opposed to value systems carefully crafted for you in the modern era by Madison Avenue?
Thanks, I'll take the 1900's option, any day.
My kids -should not be watching television- at school. They should be learning. They should -not be being treated as consumers-. They should be being treated as human beings with a responsibility for life ahead of them.
Every parent I know is capable of operating a televisions power switch.
You live an incredibly sheltered life. There are literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who are enslaved to their television, and do not know it.
There is little difference between a crackhead sitting in the corner for 5 or 6 hours wasting idly away, and a 'soap-opera slave' who has to be there, every day at 6pm, to watch their favourite shows/the news, without fail, in order to feel a 'completeness' in their lives.
It takes little more than a trainride through your average monopolis to see this in action...
So no, I don't think you should be so sure about such a statement.
Television has you in its grip.
Oh, right I forgot, the seemingly obvious conclusion that parents should control their childrens exposure to harmful influences must be studiously ignored so you can continue your incoherent rant about the unavoidable evils of modern society.
Whether its television or Quake, there is little difference. I brought up Television to point out that Video Games are just More of the Same, Inc. (tm)
In the 70's, the bad guy -was- television. Now its the televsion telling us that -video games- are the bad guys.
Who are the video games telling us are the bad guys now?
{Hint about the Pepsi thing: you won't see my name on a t-shirt...}
Creating a game for a market does not make you a scumbag.
I think it does, if it exploits human instinct and fear, but then, that would be a morality call and we all know that morality has no place in a) the modern marketplace, and b) video games. It's just not cool to have morals any more.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy video games.
Hell, I know people enjoy crack, so why should it be wrong for them to buy it from people who are clearly providing the service of selling crack?
Yeah really. What the hell does that mean? A 'consolidator'?
So, lemme see... I set up 4 Wintel boxes to run as a 'web farm' with some sort of load-balancing between them (on my DNS?), or I use a single Linux box and put all my web sites on it... nope, that doesn't make sense.
This leaves a big fat "eh?" taste in my mouth.
Maybe they're talking about IBM's VM-based system, which puts 'virtual linux boxes' in their mainframes?
From this article, I can only conclude that Microsoft are about as good at PR as they are at writing software. Convoluted, confusing, irrelevant, and frequently non-sequitur...
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
I'm sure more than a few Iraqi's would feel that Counter Strike is a 'threatened use of force or violence', frankly.
Oh, wait, "CS is a game, thus a product". Thus, 'lawful'... never mind.
Maybe those Iraqi's don't think like you, but I'm sure Pepsi-Cola is gonna change that...
Oh god forbid we question your parenting skills, but it's perfectly fine for you to question everybody else's.
Please show me where I questioned -anyones- parenting skills? You're the one who turned this into a shitsmear.
What I am questioning is just how lousy the grip on reality which dufus' like you seem to not have, though, courtesy of the effects of the industrialization of the process of consumption of peoples attention, and thus life.
As for 'converting people to my way of thinking', well, lets just say that Pepsi had its day...
This conversation has nothing to do with my parenting skills (which are superlative, thank you very fucking much), and everything to do with an objective view on the ills of society and its inability to take responsibility for the ill effects of an industry designed to soak attention at the cost of all else.
If your point is that 'some' parents are unable to deal with this, where others are, then I can only say that we - as in, those of us who are sane enough to not fall into the TV Black Hole (oh, sorry, Video Game Black Hole) - need to make more noise about those that have been rendered incapable of being responsibile for TV/Video Game usage, just as we would care for the crackwhores and smackpimps living on our streets. Oh, wait, in America they don't give a damn about any of that, sorry, I forgot. No money to be made there, move along and try to ignore the degradation as it creeps in around the edges.
Anyway, you might want to cut down on your cynical evaluation skills and work a little on your diplomatic objectivity, Mr. Smartass. You have no idea what my family life is like... I assure you, there is no television and no video games, and we have a much healthier existence than many of our peers as a result of it.
There, maybe now you understand what I mean... assuming you have a literate braincell in your body.
Let me ask you... if you take out all the violence in all the video games, tv shows, movies, and books, what do you have left? Boring crap... The fact is that violence is fun.
Its people like you, with such cheap viewpoints as this, who make the world such a degrading place to live in. War is Peace, Love is Hate, Violence is Fun, etc.
Violence is not fun. Violence is violence.
Anything can be fun, if you do it often enough to notice an improvement in the way you do it.... why don't you explain just WHY a television is expected to do the parenting more than the parent is?
Television thrives on one thing, and one thing only: attention. So do video games.
Not having the attention for ones parents, one won't get the parenting one needs...
All the Zodia needs is a Bluetooth adapter. Because, soon enough, someone will release a portable 50gig HD enclosure with Bluetooth capabilities, and that's all she wrote...
Why would you assume it is a bot, not knowing anything about the situation except that the person is very good?
I'm not assuming anything - I'm just curious as to whether it could have been an AI, and as you can see other/.'ers have pitched in with the idea that it is not a very feasible idea, which is as interesting to me as the fact of tartrates success.
I have a lot of respect for good Go players, and tartrate is one of them. Just because I ask if it could be an AI doesn't mean that I think he is...
Your whole argument is predicated by the assumption that the media, the government, or the game makers FORCE, one way or another, a child to play a video game.
No it isn't. I never once said that.
There is a very big difference between 'forcing someone to do something', and 'making something available for someone to do something with'.
Having said that, I will note that there seems to be no really good reason for all the violence in video games other than it seems to really, really grab peoples attention. And, well, we know that Madison Avenue crack-whore just loves attention, don't we...
I've -never- said that children shouldn't be responsible for what they do. What I've said is that Madison Avenue, and certain Government-related groups, would like very much for people to take less responsibility (what do you think a law is for: people who take less and less responsibility) for the things that they do in life.
You're falling back into a dialectic mode of argument. Just because I offer two views, does not mean I'm a hypocrite.
You so gleefully point out your example of some people playing a game for 18 hours a day and the executives being happy. Pardon my speech, but no shit.
Yeah, well I happen to think that anyone who makes money from graphic portrayal of violence in any form - no matter how it is 'couched', as 'entertainment' or otherwise - is a scumbag who deserves neither my hard earned cash, nor my attention.
As you seem to have missed the point, let me restate it. The parents are the ones that give the child the knowledge they will use to build everything else on.
Ooooh... rreeeaa---aaallly? Well then, I guess The Television God only gets worship then, eh?
Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
Yes, especially if there is a Television in the household, and it is actively being used without any consideration for the consequences...
How feasible is it that its an AI being used to play tartrates games, anyone know?
I've seen some amazing Go games in my life (while I lived in Tokyo) and I know that the Go mojo is not something you're going to just up and code without being really, really good yourself... but it is interesting that since we know nothing much about tartrate himself, the first thing that came to my mind is 'someone is running a good Go bot'...
Not to detract from his skills, mind. I'm just interested if any of those who have played him could not have been defeated by some of the various Go-playing algorithms which are floating around out there. Some of them are too good.
You know those terrorist training kamps which the U.S. is so eager to blow up? Those are all 'gaming areas' to the people that run them.
A drill designed to show someone how to properly insert a bayonet into someones spleen isn't much different than a drill (cleverly disguised as a video game) which teaches someone how to select weaponry for different environment/terrain scenarios in order to effect the highest kill ratio.
Every time you play a 3ps, you get better and better at the mechanics of that 3ps. It is the same effect which training kamp drills are designed to exploit, in fact...
If graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people without any responsibility or consequences for the action isn't terrorism, then I'm afraid I don't know what it is...
America is a nation -full- of terrorists. So many thrive on it, all in the name of 'entertainment', which we all know of course, never hurt anyone...
Basically the whole argument that bad behaviour stems from playing video games is just insane as the people who believe it.
Yeah, really? Insane, eh?
geeze, its odd how easy and simple it is for an average Joe like yourself to freely use such clinical and precise terms as 'insane'.
Do you really know what that word means? Clinically? Or are you just using it metaphorically, in the bourgeouis sense?
If anything they should censor the news or clean it up, how many murders with gruesome details to they report on each day?
Its not either/or. This -also- needs to be addressed in modern society, just as with irresponsible video games which give kids an opportunity to take [lives,stuff] just for the fun of it, without consequence.
They don't want to take responsibilty for their actions and their lack of parenting.
On the one hand, you've got Media and Government colluding together to remove the rights of parents to educate and raise their children, in order that there may be future 'markets', 'consumers', 'citizens' well-trained to do as those in power say, that society may prolong itself in a way which keeps vested interests happy.
On the other hand, you've got idiots in the middle complaining that 'its all the parents fault', freely ignoring the radical social programs of the 60's, 70's and 80's which were carefully calculated to reduce the rights of parents to raise their children properly. By properly, I mean that the parents right to control and help the childs growth is removed, directly or indirectly, by social pressure, 'trend', or 'market plasticity'.
The fact of the matter is, there is no black and white issue here. Dialectic discourse has failed and always will fail, completely, on this subject.
You think Madison Avenue respects the rights of parents? Fuck no, especially if it means one less consumer to plug product into.
Video game violence is a reality. Kids growing up with the notion that there are 7 different ways to kill someone (all available at a hotkey) are not the same sort of kids who grow up knowing that death and mayhem are not something to value, and should not be 'respected'.
Yeah, sorry, but kids getting all goo-gah over "the cool graphics in GTA" are demonstrating a form of 'respect' for the subject matter.
Blaming parents for not raising their kids properly is one thing. But also, putting responsibility on those who produce content which -intentionally- makes it difficult for a parent to govern is another thing entirely. Video Games are -designed- to destract people from other lifestyles. If a gamer isn't paying full attention to a videogame, the game producer isn't happy. While that's happening, nothing else can impinge on a persons consciousness... including parental guidance.
"Tommy, stop playing video games and go outside and climb a tree" == anathema to the gaming industry, who hate the notion that there should be any other influence on a person than the products they are producing.
I once worked for a video game company whose sole product line consists of war and combat simulation software. When their first networked-player server went online, and it was discovered that some players had been playing for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the first 4 weeks of the launch, all of the executives were ecstatic. To them, there is no better way to dominate their market... at the cost of countless hours of life wasted by young minds, all over the world...
If you do something, take responsibility for having done it. If you -dont- do something, take responsibility for not having done it. Video games detract from this simple parental mantra, quite extensively... "I killed 15 people with all sorts of wonderful weaponry... no, not really... its just a video game" == training to take no responsibility for the morality behind the actions one takes in the universe we all live in.
Yes, quite a few are frequently discussed on osnews for example... at last 'count', there were about 100 or so different OS'es you could run on Intel hardware, and have a relative safe 'source code visibility' scenario as well.
Also, there is quite a thriving industry surrounding kernels and 'cocktail cpus', you know, the 32-bit low-power 'dsp-ish' stuff driving your cell phone and all that... lots of options, if you know what it is to look for.
My point is though, if Linux goes down (as if) there are plenty and plenty of options for new OS kernel development. And anyway, maybe it'd be -worth- the effort to have to kick back to lesser kernels in any sort of 'open source vs. the world' scenario, you know?
Far as I can tell, from my position anyway, the true fronteer for computing is somewhere betwen open source and custom silicon development going personal...
Slashdot Mirror
... that if you do enough navel-gazing, you will turn yourself inside out.
The parent walks in the room every 30 minutes for one reason or another, even if just passing through.
...
I know plenty of 20-something parents (even teen parents) who are quite happy using the television as a cheap babysitter.
MadAve knows this. They count on it.
Enough said on this subject. If you think your life is perfect, it probably is... but have a look around you some day and you may find plenty of people who don't think so
Frankly, the complaints on that website reflect value systems conservative enough to belong back in the early 1900's.
As opposed to value systems carefully crafted for you in the modern era by Madison Avenue?
Thanks, I'll take the 1900's option, any day.
My kids -should not be watching television- at school. They should be learning. They should -not be being treated as consumers-. They should be being treated as human beings with a responsibility for life ahead of them.
Start here, rinse, repeat.
Every parent I know is capable of operating a televisions power switch.
You live an incredibly sheltered life. There are literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who are enslaved to their television, and do not know it.
There is little difference between a crackhead sitting in the corner for 5 or 6 hours wasting idly away, and a 'soap-opera slave' who has to be there, every day at 6pm, to watch their favourite shows/the news, without fail, in order to feel a 'completeness' in their lives.
It takes little more than a trainride through your average monopolis to see this in action...
So no, I don't think you should be so sure about such a statement.
Television has you in its grip.
Oh, right I forgot, the seemingly obvious conclusion that parents should control their childrens exposure to harmful influences must be studiously ignored so you can continue your incoherent rant about the unavoidable evils of modern society.
Whether its television or Quake, there is little difference. I brought up Television to point out that Video Games are just More of the Same, Inc. (tm)
In the 70's, the bad guy -was- television. Now its the televsion telling us that -video games- are the bad guys.
Who are the video games telling us are the bad guys now?
{Hint about the Pepsi thing: you won't see my name on a t-shirt...}
Creating a game for a market does not make you a scumbag.
I think it does, if it exploits human instinct and fear, but then, that would be a morality call and we all know that morality has no place in a) the modern marketplace, and b) video games. It's just not cool to have morals any more.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy video games.
Hell, I know people enjoy crack, so why should it be wrong for them to buy it from people who are clearly providing the service of selling crack?
Yeah really. What the hell does that mean? A 'consolidator'?
... I set up 4 Wintel boxes to run as a 'web farm' with some sort of load-balancing between them (on my DNS?), or I use a single Linux box and put all my web sites on it... nope, that doesn't make sense.
So, lemme see
This leaves a big fat "eh?" taste in my mouth.
Maybe they're talking about IBM's VM-based system, which puts 'virtual linux boxes' in their mainframes?
From this article, I can only conclude that Microsoft are about as good at PR as they are at writing software. Convoluted, confusing, irrelevant, and frequently non-sequitur...
terrorism:
...
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
I'm sure more than a few Iraqi's would feel that Counter Strike is a 'threatened use of force or violence', frankly.
Oh, wait, "CS is a game, thus a product". Thus, 'lawful'... never mind.
Maybe those Iraqi's don't think like you, but I'm sure Pepsi-Cola is gonna change that
Oh god forbid we question your parenting skills, but it's perfectly fine for you to question everybody else's.
Please show me where I questioned -anyones- parenting skills? You're the one who turned this into a shitsmear.
What I am questioning is just how lousy the grip on reality which dufus' like you seem to not have, though, courtesy of the effects of the industrialization of the process of consumption of peoples attention, and thus life.
As for 'converting people to my way of thinking', well, lets just say that Pepsi had its day...
This conversation has nothing to do with my parenting skills (which are superlative, thank you very fucking much), and everything to do with an objective view on the ills of society and its inability to take responsibility for the ill effects of an industry designed to soak attention at the cost of all else.
If your point is that 'some' parents are unable to deal with this, where others are, then I can only say that we - as in, those of us who are sane enough to not fall into the TV Black Hole (oh, sorry, Video Game Black Hole) - need to make more noise about those that have been rendered incapable of being responsibile for TV/Video Game usage, just as we would care for the crackwhores and smackpimps living on our streets. Oh, wait, in America they don't give a damn about any of that, sorry, I forgot. No money to be made there, move along and try to ignore the degradation as it creeps in around the edges.
Anyway, you might want to cut down on your cynical evaluation skills and work a little on your diplomatic objectivity, Mr. Smartass. You have no idea what my family life is like... I assure you, there is no television and no video games, and we have a much healthier existence than many of our peers as a result of it.
Madison Avenue == Metaphor for all that is wrong with Modern American Consumerism.
Madison Avenue is where all your dreams come true, even the ones you didn't know you had.
Madison Avenue == MiniTrue.
There, maybe now you understand what I mean... assuming you have a literate braincell in your body.
Let me ask you... if you take out all the violence in all the video games, tv shows, movies, and books, what do you have left? Boring crap
Its people like you, with such cheap viewpoints as this, who make the world such a degrading place to live in. War is Peace, Love is Hate, Violence is Fun, etc.
Violence is not fun. Violence is violence.
Anything can be fun, if you do it often enough to notice an improvement in the way you do it.
Television thrives on one thing, and one thing only: attention. So do video games.
Not having the attention for ones parents, one won't get the parenting one needs
{MadAve loves its Attention Slaves. To death.}
... the similarity to the Tapwave Zodiac?
...
All the Zodia needs is a Bluetooth adapter. Because, soon enough, someone will release a portable 50gig HD enclosure with Bluetooth capabilities, and that's all she wrote
porn.
pocket.
{Goodbye productivity!}
Why would you assume it is a bot, not knowing anything about the situation except that the person is very good?
/.'ers have pitched in with the idea that it is not a very feasible idea, which is as interesting to me as the fact of tartrates success.
...
I'm not assuming anything - I'm just curious as to whether it could have been an AI, and as you can see other
I have a lot of respect for good Go players, and tartrate is one of them. Just because I ask if it could be an AI doesn't mean that I think he is
Your whole argument is predicated by the assumption that the media, the government, or the game makers FORCE, one way or another, a child to play a video game.
...
No it isn't. I never once said that.
There is a very big difference between 'forcing someone to do something', and 'making something available for someone to do something with'.
Having said that, I will note that there seems to be no really good reason for all the violence in video games other than it seems to really, really grab peoples attention. And, well, we know that Madison Avenue crack-whore just loves attention, don't we
I've -never- said that children shouldn't be responsible for what they do. What I've said is that Madison Avenue, and certain Government-related groups, would like very much for people to take less responsibility (what do you think a law is for: people who take less and less responsibility) for the things that they do in life.
You're falling back into a dialectic mode of argument. Just because I offer two views, does not mean I'm a hypocrite.
You so gleefully point out your example of some people playing a game for 18 hours a day and the executives being happy. Pardon my speech, but no shit.
Yeah, well I happen to think that anyone who makes money from graphic portrayal of violence in any form - no matter how it is 'couched', as 'entertainment' or otherwise - is a scumbag who deserves neither my hard earned cash, nor my attention.
As you seem to have missed the point, let me restate it. The parents are the ones that give the child the knowledge they will use to build everything else on.
Ooooh... rreeeaa---aaallly? Well then, I guess The Television God only gets worship then, eh?
Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
Yes, especially if there is a Television in the household, and it is actively being used without any consideration for the consequences...
How feasible is it that its an AI being used to play tartrates games, anyone know?
I've seen some amazing Go games in my life (while I lived in Tokyo) and I know that the Go mojo is not something you're going to just up and code without being really, really good yourself
Not to detract from his skills, mind. I'm just interested if any of those who have played him could not have been defeated by some of the various Go-playing algorithms which are floating around out there. Some of them are too good.
Games can be used to teach someone how to kill.
You know those terrorist training kamps which the U.S. is so eager to blow up? Those are all 'gaming areas' to the people that run them.
A drill designed to show someone how to properly insert a bayonet into someones spleen isn't much different than a drill (cleverly disguised as a video game) which teaches someone how to select weaponry for different environment/terrain scenarios in order to effect the highest kill ratio.
Every time you play a 3ps, you get better and better at the mechanics of that 3ps. It is the same effect which training kamp drills are designed to exploit, in fact
If graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people without any responsibility or consequences for the action isn't terrorism, then I'm afraid I don't know what it is
America is a nation -full- of terrorists. So many thrive on it, all in the name of 'entertainment', which we all know of course, never hurt anyone
Basically the whole argument that bad behaviour stems from playing video games is just insane as the people who believe it.
Yeah, really? Insane, eh?
geeze, its odd how easy and simple it is for an average Joe like yourself to freely use such clinical and precise terms as 'insane'.
Do you really know what that word means? Clinically? Or are you just using it metaphorically, in the bourgeouis sense?
If anything they should censor the news or clean it up, how many murders with gruesome details to they report on each day?
Its not either/or. This -also- needs to be addressed in modern society, just as with irresponsible video games which give kids an opportunity to take [lives,stuff] just for the fun of it, without consequence.
They don't want to take responsibilty for their actions and their lack of parenting.
... including parental guidance.
... at the cost of countless hours of life wasted by young minds, all over the world ...
... "I killed 15 people with all sorts of wonderful weaponry ... no, not really ... its just a video game" == training to take no responsibility for the morality behind the actions one takes in the universe we all live in.
On the one hand, you've got Media and Government colluding together to remove the rights of parents to educate and raise their children, in order that there may be future 'markets', 'consumers', 'citizens' well-trained to do as those in power say, that society may prolong itself in a way which keeps vested interests happy.
On the other hand, you've got idiots in the middle complaining that 'its all the parents fault', freely ignoring the radical social programs of the 60's, 70's and 80's which were carefully calculated to reduce the rights of parents to raise their children properly. By properly, I mean that the parents right to control and help the childs growth is removed, directly or indirectly, by social pressure, 'trend', or 'market plasticity'.
The fact of the matter is, there is no black and white issue here. Dialectic discourse has failed and always will fail, completely, on this subject.
You think Madison Avenue respects the rights of parents? Fuck no, especially if it means one less consumer to plug product into.
Video game violence is a reality. Kids growing up with the notion that there are 7 different ways to kill someone (all available at a hotkey) are not the same sort of kids who grow up knowing that death and mayhem are not something to value, and should not be 'respected'.
Yeah, sorry, but kids getting all goo-gah over "the cool graphics in GTA" are demonstrating a form of 'respect' for the subject matter.
Blaming parents for not raising their kids properly is one thing. But also, putting responsibility on those who produce content which -intentionally- makes it difficult for a parent to govern is another thing entirely. Video Games are -designed- to destract people from other lifestyles. If a gamer isn't paying full attention to a videogame, the game producer isn't happy. While that's happening, nothing else can impinge on a persons consciousness
"Tommy, stop playing video games and go outside and climb a tree" == anathema to the gaming industry, who hate the notion that there should be any other influence on a person than the products they are producing.
I once worked for a video game company whose sole product line consists of war and combat simulation software. When their first networked-player server went online, and it was discovered that some players had been playing for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the first 4 weeks of the launch, all of the executives were ecstatic. To them, there is no better way to dominate their market
If you do something, take responsibility for having done it. If you -dont- do something, take responsibility for not having done it. Video games detract from this simple parental mantra, quite extensively
Software synthesis...
I can think of a few others, but this one is the most fun.
Yes, quite a few are frequently discussed on osnews for example ... at last 'count', there were about 100 or so different OS'es you could run on Intel hardware, and have a relative safe 'source code visibility' scenario as well.
... lots of options, if you know what it is to look for.
Also, there is quite a thriving industry surrounding kernels and 'cocktail cpus', you know, the 32-bit low-power 'dsp-ish' stuff driving your cell phone and all that
My point is though, if Linux goes down (as if) there are plenty and plenty of options for new OS kernel development. And anyway, maybe it'd be -worth- the effort to have to kick back to lesser kernels in any sort of 'open source vs. the world' scenario, you know?
Far as I can tell, from my position anyway, the true fronteer for computing is somewhere betwen open source and custom silicon development going personal...
tah! damn, i can hardly wait.
... and I'm not bothered in the slightest by this SCO FUD-festival.
...
What's the worst case? We switch to FreeBSD or one of the other countless POSIX/C/C++/assembly-friendly kernels out there.
The cat is out of the bag. Operating Systems are no longer so difficult to write that companies should expect to profit from them
i haven't read the article yet, but i sure hope it refers to Sir Jeff Mint in all his glory and splendour ...
...
looking forward to his release of that game he's working on, whats it called, its too abstract for me to remember, heh heh
ah well. have a llama!