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User: neoshmeng

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  1. Re: It's not IMPOSSIBLE on Japanese Researcher Finds Gaming Stunts Brain · · Score: 1

    There's no way watching/experiencing something non-chemical can actually halt the development of your mind.

    But some things will develop your mind more than others. An hour of studying every day will develop my brain a lot. An hour of watching TV evrey day will not develop it very much.

    Plus the mind is like the body in that you have to use it or lose it. High school kids are often better at math than adults because they are doing math all the time. If you don't use your mind it will get 'flabby' just like muscles. So something non chemical CAN halt or at least reduce development of the mind.

    I play videogames often and I'm reasonably sure my straight-A's back up my intelligence.


    Intelligence is not the be all and end all of the world. Those psycho kids who shot up their school were also quite intelligent. I think it would be wise to have a little more facts to back up your criticisms. The study was saying that gaming doesn't stimulate the same areas of the brain as studying math (and then extrapolated that into saying gaming won't develop your brain as mcuh as doing other things will.) The study did not say that gaming makes you unintelligent.

    For the record, I game constantly. And I don't think much of that study either... (of course we are only reading the journalist's report of the study....) but I don't like random rants that say nothing substantive either.

  2. flawed logic here on Japanese Researcher Finds Gaming Stunts Brain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been playing video games since age 11 and I have no urge to be violent against other people because of that

    Much of the development that occurs in children occurs BEFORE age 11. Some child psychologists believe that things like the personality are basically set whenyou are 8 years old or so. Most of us who say, "Playing games didn't hurt ME any!" can't really say that, because we didn't play games when we were really young.

    I don't know whether or not violent games make children more aggressive, but it cannot be said that the games have NO effect, because everything we do affects us in some way right?

    Anyhoo, the take home message is probly that too much gaming is not as productive as doing something else. Duh!

  3. Re:Thoughts on Cloning on Is Human Cloning Easier Than Thought? · · Score: 1

    "The problem I have with this is that it runs up into the old pro/anti-abortion argument over when a fetus becomes a person. Since the prevailing legal belief over the status of an unborn fetus in the USA is that it is not a full human being and does not have the rights of a human being, I believe this argument must be rejected."

    Or in other words, since this arguement is in conflict with what you believe, it must be rejected. It was illegal for women to vote. It was illegal for blacks to vote. That doens't mean it was right or that you shouldn't push to change those laws. You can't reject an arguement because it goes against the 'prevailing' (ie your own) belief.

    2. It is not right to decide for the fetus when it will be born. (or some other permutation of the "We shouldn't be playing God" argument). See, here we go again trying to define this little cloned fetus as a person.

    Or in other words, you don't think that a fetus can be considered a person, therefore anyone who does think so is wrong and therefore we can reject this arguement as well.

    3. This research takes us into realms we've never been before and should be stopped. I've actually heard this one. To which I respond, where is the sense of adventure? Of discovery? Sure there will be casulties, but for what good? Imagine if people didn't explore medicine because it was "playing God with who lives and dies" or if they never bothered to see what lay beyond deserts or oceans because it was a place they'd never been before, or if we halted all space exploration because we were afraid of meeting an alien which would make us question our place in the Universe! I say bring it on! These are part of the neverending quest of humanity to discover and explore, and should not, and must not, be denied by the small-minded politicians in Congress.

    By "small minded" politician I assume that once again you are saying "those who don't believe what I believe."

    There is a cost/benefit ratio to everything. Even if the only cost to people is the fact that many don't like it you cannot that throw that away as an arguement against something.

    You really don't seem to be talking about pros or cons of cloning. You are simply saying that those people who disagree with you are wrong, or 'small minded' or using 'that old arguement'. Step away from your rhetoric and say something useful.

  4. Very True on Inability to Type Not a Disability · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have a step brother who is quadraplegic. He can move his arms, but not his hands. He types using gloves with a 'stick' on each glove. He IS disabled but he can still type, just not very fast. In fact, he is the webmaster at a major university.

    It's hard to say whether or not she should qualify for being disabled since she will live almost a completely normal life, but she should definately get worker's compensation.

    And getting a termination letter from her employer like that...That's just a cruel thing to do. What jerks!

  5. Re:I don't get it. on A Motley Crew Beams No-Cost Broadband In New York · · Score: 1

    but where are the servers and backbones ? In people's homes? Who provides the hardware for it? All I've read about shows people framing out one single IP? I still don't get it....

  6. I don't get it. on A Motley Crew Beams No-Cost Broadband In New York · · Score: 1

    This is being touted as the NEW internet, but doesn't it require at some point a connection to the 'real' internet? How can this provide the anonimity that people are claiming? Sure you can't pinpoint an individual in the network, but what about the ISP to which this 'radio network' is attached? Am I missing something here?

    It reminds of the NEBUCHADREZZER from the movie, THE MATRIX, flying around and tapping into the Matrix through a pirate connection and then getting out before you are caught...

  7. There's a flavor of Linux for everyone on What's A Good Starter Linux distro? · · Score: 1

    Many agree that Mandrake is the distro of choice for ease of use and for those who wish to use it as a home OS.

    Redhat is quite good for use as a server. They have excellent support for this.

    Debian and Slackware are touted as being the purest forms of linux, so you have to do all the configurations yourself. Slower learning curve, but more to learn because youhave to know what you are doing.

    Freesco is a nifty little no frills version of linux that will turn an old 486 into a firewall/router for you.

    You should really check out demolinux. It runs totally off a CD. You don't even need a hard drive, so you don't have to install it. But you can check out what linux does in a consequence free environment. (It's the Debian edition)

  8. it doesn't matter much if it's illegal anyway.... on Protecting Clients: Legal Impact of Filesharing Network Design · · Score: 1

    One of the reasons software piracy is so rampant is that in order to prosecute someone, you have to take them to court where a representative of the software company in question will testify that yes, it is indeed their software.

    It is a major expense for software companies to fly in an 'expert' and for law enforcement agencies to prosecute someone so they avoid prosecuting the small fry users who pirate software. It is simply not worth their time even they it would be ridiculously easy to find some with pirated software.

    No matter what the legislation on P2P, I think it will be comaprable to jaywalking. Although it is illegal, nobody ever gets busted unless they are dumb enough to jaywalk in front of a police car.

    Interesting side note on file sharing:

    When cassette tapes came out, the recording industry tried to block it fearing that once people could record songs for free off the radio, record sales would drop.

    When video cassettes first came out, the movie industry tried to block that for the same reasons as above....

    Maybe the whole thing is much ado about nothing.

  9. The issue isn't about stem cells as much as .... on Stem Cell Research Moves Forward In The US · · Score: 1

    The issue isn't about stem cells as much as where they come from. You say that 4 or 5 cells do not constitute life or whatever. That is not the issue. The issue is that there is only one place to get fetal stem cells....a fetus. Because of the controversy surrounding that, they want to curtail the research of fetal stem cells.

  10. Re:Love the Eyecandy!! on A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake · · Score: 1

    but its's always been a single color. I am refering to the title bar where you can now have one color fade into another. Not just a single color...

  11. Love the Eyecandy!! on A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One of the things that drew me to linux in the first place was how dang cool it could look. I loved having little widgets here and there that would tell me the amount of CPU or Ram usage, or even the temperature of my CPU. When I first ran across enlightenment i could't believe how freaking cool it was. (and this was in the days when only winamp had skins).

    It takes windows so long to adopt these kinds of things. Look how long it took them to be able to change single color on a window title bar.

    If only they had native desktopX support in WXP. That would be the shiz.

  12. Since when has networking W95 been EASY? on A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ya, it's all been there since win95 he smugly says.

    Have you ever tried to freaking network W95 computers with each other? (or heaven forbid with other versions of windows?)I have done it with home LAN's and LAN parties and never once has it been easy. Even when you do everything 'right' Win9X refuses to recognize other comps on the network etc. What planet are you from anyway?

  13. No surprise there.... on Multitasking Harmful To Productivity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, duh.

    As if computers have made people any more efficient in the first place. How often do I work on a paper for school only to check my email, run my TV Card in a window or listen to MP3's at the same time. Computers are more for entertainment these days than actual productivity. Although they can do that too....

  14. I've always wondered how they do that. on When A Cable Dies · · Score: 2

    Do they just lay the cable along the seabed floor?

  15. You can get something for nothing! on Renewed Crackdown On File Sharing · · Score: 1

    The beauty of MP3's and Divx and so on is that you are getting something for nothing. If a book is printed and someone steals it, then the store loses money... not so with MP3's.

    If you look at the sales of record companies you can see that MP3 trafficking, although higher than ever has not stopped them from making staggering profits.

    I have bought maybe 10 CD's in my life. The reason is that they are just too expensive. If I hear one song I like from a band, I don't want to risk buying the CD because experience has taught me that I rarely like all or even most of the songs on the CD.

    MP3's have changed all that. Now I can actually check out the songs and if I like them I will buy the CD. So in MY case, MP3's have actually made me by more CD's than before. It also gives obscure bands a better chance to be heard. I don't know why they pursue this anti piracy stuff with such vigour. I think that most of the 'problems' are grossly overstated or even imagined.

    PLus just imagine if you could buy MP3's on CD's. I would for sure buy a CD with all the songs by a band (and I mean multi albums). I think that it would be far more cost effective to forget about all this prosecution stuff and do some smart business. Drop CD prices to 5 dollars a CD. I would actually start buying even regular old CD's for that price. Same with DVD's.

    The advent of digital media brings with it it's own new problems to the industry but it also brings tons of new opportunities. The Movie industry and the Music industry isn't helping anyone with these sorts of crackdowns.

    Why prevent the spread of digital media without copyright? Just change the approach. Instead of crushing people who trade MP3's, just sell better quality ones. I wouldn't bother looking for MP3's and finding ones that are poorly recorded or are missing the last 20 seconds or something if I could buy them on CD's from the record label. And as if the Crappily encoded Divx I download off the Net is going to keep my dollars from flowing into the coffers of the movie makers, quite the contrary! If I download a cool movie off the net, then I will want to go see it on the big screen. I might not make that risk other wise cuz movies are freaking expensive too.

    I think the bottom line is that the advent of digital media means more money for everyone in the industry. Stopped worrying about trying to stem the tide and go with the flow.