Well, at least the SW aliens are better than the ones in the Trek universe, where Roddenberry decreed that every sentient race in the galaxy is humanoid.
He probably did this to save money on makeup artists and f/x guys, but still, it's ignorant and short-sighted.
Google is a business. Businesses care only about profit. Sometimes in business, you can't be both profitable and politically correct. Google is insulting my intelligence by suggesting that they always do the right thing.
Only a dickhead writes the way you do. You come off as simultaneously smug, arrogant, and obsequious. To wit: Get a grip. Not everything is a conspiracy theory. Maybe they are getting good press because *gasp* they are doing good things? Too complicated a concept eh?
But now I'm going to be labeled a fan-boy or something. Oh well. I'll believe the bad stuff if it gets published. Until then I bore of the conspiracy theory nuts. Just me tho.
I never said there was a conspiracy. You decided that I did and put words in my mouth. Thanks, dickhead.
GTA is over the top and has always been presented as pure escapism, so I don't consider it to be in the same class.
Miltary-themed games like the stuff that Ubi puts out under the Tom Clancy banner, various combat flight sims, serious war games, etc. put you in a role where you're trying to use realistically-simulated tactics and gear to accomplish a goal that would be a goal of the real-world military. In some senses this constitutes an endorsement of the military's real-world goals. If you're trying to imitate them, then you must want to be like them, and why would you want to be like them if you didn't agree with what they were doing?
I think this ties in with the recent boom in WWII games. The goal of WWII, horrible as it was, was good. Gamers can blow up Nazis or Imperial Japanese with a clear conscience. Modern-themed games where you're shooting "terrorists" or some generic arab-like enemy are morally ambiguous.
I'm still playing UT2004 every night, and I've got Chaos Theory waiting on me to finally finish the first SC game (Pandora Tomorrow was easy.. SC1 is not), so I don't have any 'bigger problems' - this is just something I think about from time to time.
Tom Clancy's jingoistic pro-military, pro-police-state propaganda and lackluster dialogue aside, the game is beautiful and it really hits its stride when you plug into the internet and start testing out their multiplayer modes.
So ma Tom Clancy's jingoistic pro-military, pro-police-state propaganda and lackluster dialogue aside
This is a good point. I feel guilty for enjoying military-themed PC games because of their inherent propaganda qualities. Lately I've been wondering if even just playing the games makes me a bad person considering the current state of the world.
No, it's not the Queen's English or any kind of standard international english. It's plain old I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-saying half-assed English.
Having someone that can speak and write English do it will go a long way. My current project is working from a design generated by an Indian guy that has no clue what half the words in the language mean. I resent having to rely on half-assed work when I'm not in a position to advise on the design. It's not hard to run the grammar checker.
I'm saying stop bullshitting us. The law of averages is not a conspiracy theory. Nobody does 100% good. I don't, you don't, a business sure as hell doesn't.
Yup, when is the other shoe going to drop? I'm getting really wary of there being nothing but positive press about Google. It reeks of spin and embedded control of the media.
It's not just the lack of apps that keep people from using Linux on the desktop, it's the fragmentation of the community and the fact that Linux itself isn't even a clearly defined concept.
Is Linux just the kernel? A kernel is of no use without an environment that uses it. So then we have distros. Dozens of them. All with different software packages and GUIs. RedHat became a de facto standard for a while, then they shot themselves in the foot.
So then, is Linux a distro? Not according to the people that are responsible for it. They say it's just the kernel. This confuses IT managers, who then say "fuck it, buy Windows until they make up their mind." They might know that Linux is better internally, but they have bosses that don't want to hear stuff like "I'm rolling out something to 5,000 users that I can't even describe properly."
The OSS lack-of-business model breaks down here. This is why Linux on the desktop will never be successful unless someone completely commercializes it.
Maybe, but one truth about civilization is we can't do things just because we want to. I would consider this a limitation of civilization more than something to aspire to.
I play games a lot, but I've never lost sleep over not getting to play one. I've stayed up all night and not realized it on multiple occasions, though.
Sounds more like video games, as they can be very addictive, but I don't ever recall lying awake at night, with the shakes, because it's been 36 hours since my last hit of Excel.
I don't recall ever being that addicted to a game. Hopefully this is just a metaphor...
I think when Lars went apeshit over the Napster thing, he was just acting on orders or was paid to do so by the record company. He probably didn't even think about the effect it would have on their fanbase. It seems obvious to us, but rock bands generally are not made up of smart people. (I'm a rock musician, or at least, I used to be, so I can say this.)
In other words, transfer blame to the consumer, not the company that deliberately obfuscates and cripples a more capable product just to get some cheap brand enforcement.
You can always tell who grew up in the nice neighborhoods around here...
Considering that it is the SOLE purpose of business to make a profit, this makes total sense. If you're running a "business" that puts the "right" thing ahead of profits, you're no longer running a business, you're running a charity. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just don't expect businesses to operate by the same motives. If something can't be operated at a profit and it is in the overwhelming good interest of the public, then let the government operate it, but make no mistake, government will not do so as efficiently as the private sector could.
You're drawing too harsh of a division between a charity and a ruthless profit-at-all-costs corporation. There is a middle ground.
There used to be a concept in the American business world called "social responsibility". It was the notion that a large corporation, as an integral player in the economy, had a responsibility to do the right thing by the community in which it was located, because without the community, it wouldn't exist.
After Jack Welch and the 80's, the numbers became king, and minor details like keeping your customer base by not laying off entire factories and creating ghost towns, and maintaining your market by not stripping the earth of the resources that you use for it, went by the wayside.
It is possible to be both profitable and moral. Look at Google, even though I'm personally suspicious of the complete lack of negative news surrounding them.
I'm a libertarian because I believe in getting the government out of private life. Rampant corporations need to be controlled, because they're destroying our country.
If that offends you, get the fuck over it. The LP needs moderating influences if it's ever going to be more than a bunch of freaks on the fringe of the political world.
Unless you actually enjoy having advertising on every available flat surface, and being treated as a 'consumer' rather than a citizen, in which case, there's no hope for you at all.
Yeah, you get a lot of them online. Most real-world libertarians are more concerned with government intrusion into private life than with deregulating everything.
I consider myself to be a liberal libertarian. IMO the corporate world has proven for hundreds of years that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless the right thing also happens to be the profitable thing, and as such needs to be regulated tightly. However, I'm also a non-Christian and I resent the enforcement of hardline Christian morality, such as the ban on gay marriage, that the Republican Party advocates.
I dunno, I don't watch it, my wife does, but I noticed the resemblance right away.
I've seen enough of it to tell that it's recorded on a digital videocamera, though. You can tell by the low frame rate and the slight slow motion effect that causes.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at least the SW aliens are better than the ones in the Trek universe, where Roddenberry decreed that every sentient race in the galaxy is humanoid.
He probably did this to save money on makeup artists and f/x guys, but still, it's ignorant and short-sighted.
Google is a business. Businesses care only about profit. Sometimes in business, you can't be both profitable and politically correct. Google is insulting my intelligence by suggesting that they always do the right thing.
Only a dickhead writes the way you do. You come off as simultaneously smug, arrogant, and obsequious. To wit:
Get a grip. Not everything is a conspiracy theory. Maybe they are getting good press because *gasp* they are doing good things? Too complicated a concept eh?
But now I'm going to be labeled a fan-boy or something. Oh well. I'll believe the bad stuff if it gets published. Until then I bore of the conspiracy theory nuts. Just me tho.
I never said there was a conspiracy. You decided that I did and put words in my mouth. Thanks, dickhead.
GTA is over the top and has always been presented as pure escapism, so I don't consider it to be in the same class.
Miltary-themed games like the stuff that Ubi puts out under the Tom Clancy banner, various combat flight sims, serious war games, etc. put you in a role where you're trying to use realistically-simulated tactics and gear to accomplish a goal that would be a goal of the real-world military. In some senses this constitutes an endorsement of the military's real-world goals. If you're trying to imitate them, then you must want to be like them, and why would you want to be like them if you didn't agree with what they were doing?
I think this ties in with the recent boom in WWII games. The goal of WWII, horrible as it was, was good. Gamers can blow up Nazis or Imperial Japanese with a clear conscience. Modern-themed games where you're shooting "terrorists" or some generic arab-like enemy are morally ambiguous.
I'm still playing UT2004 every night, and I've got Chaos Theory waiting on me to finally finish the first SC game (Pandora Tomorrow was easy.. SC1 is not), so I don't have any 'bigger problems' - this is just something I think about from time to time.
Tom Clancy's jingoistic pro-military, pro-police-state propaganda and lackluster dialogue aside, the game is beautiful and it really hits its stride when you plug into the internet and start testing out their multiplayer modes.
So ma Tom Clancy's jingoistic pro-military, pro-police-state propaganda and lackluster dialogue aside
This is a good point. I feel guilty for enjoying military-themed PC games because of their inherent propaganda qualities. Lately I've been wondering if even just playing the games makes me a bad person considering the current state of the world.
Not Wolfenstein 3d, but the original 2d 8-bit Castle Wolfenstein that was released for Apple II and Commodore (and probably more platforms, I'm sure).
No, it's not the Queen's English or any kind of standard international english. It's plain old I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-saying half-assed English.
Having someone that can speak and write English do it will go a long way. My current project is working from a design generated by an Indian guy that has no clue what half the words in the language mean. I resent having to rely on half-assed work when I'm not in a position to advise on the design. It's not hard to run the grammar checker.
I'm saying stop bullshitting us. The law of averages is not a conspiracy theory. Nobody does 100% good. I don't, you don't, a business sure as hell doesn't.
BTW - You're not a fanboy, just a dickhead.
Yup, when is the other shoe going to drop? I'm getting really wary of there being nothing but positive press about Google. It reeks of spin and embedded control of the media.
you're too far north, that's Randy Moss.
Yeah, you're cute with your literalist game, dipshit.
There are necessary limitations, and unnecessary ones. Laws are necessary.
It's not just the lack of apps that keep people from using Linux on the desktop, it's the fragmentation of the community and the fact that Linux itself isn't even a clearly defined concept.
Is Linux just the kernel? A kernel is of no use without an environment that uses it. So then we have distros. Dozens of them. All with different software packages and GUIs. RedHat became a de facto standard for a while, then they shot themselves in the foot.
So then, is Linux a distro? Not according to the people that are responsible for it. They say it's just the kernel. This confuses IT managers, who then say "fuck it, buy Windows until they make up their mind." They might know that Linux is better internally, but they have bosses that don't want to hear stuff like "I'm rolling out something to 5,000 users that I can't even describe properly."
The OSS lack-of-business model breaks down here. This is why Linux on the desktop will never be successful unless someone completely commercializes it.
Maybe, but one truth about civilization is we can't do things just because we want to.
I would consider this a limitation of civilization more than something to aspire to.
Take a hit for me, dude.
I play games a lot, but I've never lost sleep over not getting to play one. I've stayed up all night and not realized it on multiple occasions, though.
Sounds more like video games, as they can be very addictive, but I don't ever recall lying awake at night, with the shakes, because it's been 36 hours since my last hit of Excel.
I don't recall ever being that addicted to a game. Hopefully this is just a metaphor...
I think when Lars went apeshit over the Napster thing, he was just acting on orders or was paid to do so by the record company. He probably didn't even think about the effect it would have on their fanbase. It seems obvious to us, but rock bands generally are not made up of smart people. (I'm a rock musician, or at least, I used to be, so I can say this.)
In other words, transfer blame to the consumer, not the company that deliberately obfuscates and cripples a more capable product just to get some cheap brand enforcement.
You can always tell who grew up in the nice neighborhoods around here...
Considering that it is the SOLE purpose of business to make a profit, this makes total sense. If you're running a "business" that puts the "right" thing ahead of profits, you're no longer running a business, you're running a charity. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just don't expect businesses to operate by the same motives. If something can't be operated at a profit and it is in the overwhelming good interest of the public, then let the government operate it, but make no mistake, government will not do so as efficiently as the private sector could.
You're drawing too harsh of a division between a charity and a ruthless profit-at-all-costs corporation. There is a middle ground.
There used to be a concept in the American business world called "social responsibility". It was the notion that a large corporation, as an integral player in the economy, had a responsibility to do the right thing by the community in which it was located, because without the community, it wouldn't exist.
After Jack Welch and the 80's, the numbers became king, and minor details like keeping your customer base by not laying off entire factories and creating ghost towns, and maintaining your market by not stripping the earth of the resources that you use for it, went by the wayside.
It is possible to be both profitable and moral. Look at Google, even though I'm personally suspicious of the complete lack of negative news surrounding them.
I'm a libertarian because I believe in getting the government out of private life. Rampant corporations need to be controlled, because they're destroying our country.
If that offends you, get the fuck over it. The LP needs moderating influences if it's ever going to be more than a bunch of freaks on the fringe of the political world.
Unless you actually enjoy having advertising on every available flat surface, and being treated as a 'consumer' rather than a citizen, in which case, there's no hope for you at all.
You're just like every other coward that doesn't have the balls to post this shit under his own name :D
Yeah, you get a lot of them online. Most real-world libertarians are more concerned with government intrusion into private life than with deregulating everything.
I consider myself to be a liberal libertarian. IMO the corporate world has proven for hundreds of years that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless the right thing also happens to be the profitable thing, and as such needs to be regulated tightly. However, I'm also a non-Christian and I resent the enforcement of hardline Christian morality, such as the ban on gay marriage, that the Republican Party advocates.
not to a hardline libertarian. To those people, if the free market can't do it, it's not worth doing. See also: Dale Gribble, King of the Hill.
I dunno, I don't watch it, my wife does, but I noticed the resemblance right away.
I've seen enough of it to tell that it's recorded on a digital videocamera, though. You can tell by the low frame rate and the slight slow motion effect that causes.
When I was a lab assistant in college I had a (admittedly non-traditional) student ask me to confirm that the shift key makes capital letters.
When people don't even understand the typewriter paradigm, there's no hope for them understanding computers.