OK, fine. People can be shitty parents if they want to. But don't sell the game directly to the kid, and make sure these parents know what they're buying, so they can't say "I had no idea!" later.
Besides, this is, what? A handful of games? The GTA series and a few other crappy ones?
Most controversial games suck, because they're expecting to be a success based on their controversy. (Manhunt, BMX XXX, I'm looking at you) GTA is an exception.
So make the stores enforce the damn ratings, and everyone's happy. Now we just have to get parents to give a damn about their kids, but that's a different problem.
It's our problem: that is, our society's problem. WE need to inform parents about what's out there, so that they can make informed decisions. It's called giving them the tools to make the right decision for them, whatever that decision is.
Pretending the problem isn't there doesn't make it go away.
That's odd. I don't remember any hooker-killing scenes in that book, which I reread just a couple years ago.
As I remember, the book is more an inditement of our increasingly violent society, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of attempting to fix the problem through a totalitarian government.
I think it's disingenuous to say that GTA is also a veiled criticism of our society. It's more like Miami Vice: all glorification and glamorization. At least on Miami Vice, the main character was a good guy (if a flawed one).
GTA isn't a great work of art. Don't pretend that it is.
It was named Moose Juice, because it was comprised of equal parts Moosehead beer and ethyl alcohol. I also remember him discussing at length the drawbacks of such a beverage, so perhaps it wasn't quite as glowing a recommendation as you remember. But then, kid's minds are funny things, which is why we're having this discussion.
Personally, I wouldn't suggest you try this stuff. It tastes terrible, and there's a non-zero chance of dying from alcohol poisoning. (probably the only way this is possible with Moosehead)
...and which books would those be? Exactly which great works of literature talk about what a great idea it is to have sex with a prostitute and then kill her?
It's a straw-man argument.
Besides, no one's (no one sane, anyway) is suggesting these games be banned. However, their sale should be restricted to those who society has decided are old enough to perceive the difference between fantasy and reality. If a parent or guardian believes their kid is mature enough to handle it, fine. They can buy it for them. We don't allow kids to buy alcohol, cigarettes or porn until we think they're old enough to decide for themselves. Why should games with adult themes be any different?
Frankly, too many parents are totally IGNORANT of what their kids are watching, playing and listening to. So parents should be more informed, who disagrees with this?
MOST kids have a problem discerning the difference between fantasy and reality, at one age or another. I know I did (at least, until about 8 or so). And who among us didn't have a teenage friend who honestly believed professional wrestling was real?
Why doesn't the UN go and create it's own internet? Remember the Internet (capatial I) isn't the only internet out there. ... All my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
-----------
Well, there's a shock.
m-
Re:An interesting set of designs
on
Re-Imagining Apple
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
hawk, dating himself
...which is probably a good thing, as it's not likely anyone else would.
Yeah, I thought about that, but I couldn't figure out how that would work. Both the drinks were delivered to the table by the bartender, and one woman in her 20s surrounded by a bunch of middle-aged ladies is hardly a tempting target. This was at 1pm in the afternoon on a Saturday, btw.
1. Maybe he had more actual booze than you were aware of. I remember at that age having a few *before* the party, to loosen up. Remember too, that alcohol takes a while to metabolize under some circumstances.
2. Perhaps he was just a lightweight, all it took was a couple to push him over the edge. Case in point, my wife (this was last year, btw) went out for drinks and a movie with her mom, her aunt, and some ladies from her bookgroup. She's not a tiny thing, and she's not incapable of holding her drink. However, on this particular day, she hadn't had anything to eat, and was slightly dehydrated. She had 2 martinis, and literally passed out 30 minutes later at the theatre. Either because of her lack of eating that day, blood sugar weirdness, or whatever. (I picked her up, and drove her home. She didn't wake up for 2 hours. I would have taken her to the emergency room, but her mom's a nurse, and suggested that she just needed to sleep it off. She was right.) If you're wondering, she hasn't had a drink since.
3. He could have been on some medication/recreational drug that amplified the effects of the alcohol he DID have.
I'm not saying any of those things had to be the case, but the effects of alcohol vary so widely, from person-to-person, and even from day to day depending on diet etc, that it's hard to quantify an anecdotal account, and use it as proof of an actual physiological effect. Just a thought.
What would be more convincing to me would be a double-blind study with a rigorous testing method. It would probably even be fun to do! Any volunteers?
From the article: The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
When they say "byte" here, they seem to mean "bit". (for the script kiddies, there are 8 bits to the byte) Also, they're referring to "10 million divisions" not "10 billion divisions".
So it wouldn't be 10 gigabytes, it would be more like 1.2 megabytes, or roughly 122k/cm. To store 10 gigabytes, it would have to be over 838m long, or over 2750 feet.
Frankly, I'm not horribly impressed.
Not to mention, this is just in theory. It hasn't actually been done yet.
I guess the problem is, there are quite a few of us Americans prefer the way the Brits do it. I personally prefer British humor, and so does my wife.
Perhaps it's because we grew up watching the Young Ones, Monty Python, Faulty Towers, Are You Being Served, The Good Life, Blake's 7, To The Manor Born, Yes Minister, and yes, Dr. Who. Not to mention more recent favorites like Coupling, Father Ted, The Office, Ali G, Red Dwarf, etc etc etc.
When hollywood producers attempt to convert British shows to appeal to American humor, the results are often ghastly. Witness the short-lived US version of Coupling.
Listen, we know the effects will be silly and involve lousy CGI and cheap fireworks. It's all part of the charm. Who watched Dr. Who for the special effects anyway?
On the bright side, all of these shows will eventually become available on DVD. There's too much profit in it not to. Thanks, Suncoast.
Or are they going for a tabula rosa to avoid the kinds of problems that plague series like Star Trek?
A pink slate? How would that help?
Maybe you mean tabula rasa.
Kind of reminds me of a friend's girlfriend... she had a million of them... once complained about her university's "gazpacho tactics." I was all like, "what, are they forcing you to eat a chilled, refreshing vegetable soup?"
The only part of this statement that could be construed as being true is that those who don't read classical literature are less educated *in classic literature*. Can you really claim to be as well educated in all aspects of knowledge, simply because you have read some old fiction?
I personally tend to disagree. Many of our present-day conceits and assumptions about the world were formed and guided by the content of classical literature. Ignorance of Dostoevsky, for e.g., would retard ones ability to understand the slums of czarist, prerevolutionary St. Petersburg--and why things had to change. Ignorance of Shakespeare would leave one unable to completely grok contemporary works of film and theatre. (whereas ignorance of Heinlein would leave one unable to completely appreciate my previous sentence.)
Once you start advocating ignorance, it's a slippery slope. Literature--by its very nature--is more than just fiction: it's the shared dreams of a people, a culture.
You may consider yourself a "well cultured person", but the very nature of ignorance ensures that you--to put it simply--just don't know what it is that you're missing.
It's wonderfully ironic that you choose Dali as your example. Dali himself was a big fan of reinterpreting his own work into other media, even so far as recreating elements from "The Persistence of Memory"--among many others--in video, sculpture, what have you.
In fact, in general he treated his own work with an insouciance that many of his admirers would be horrified by.
Many of his best works were interpretations of poetry, songs and literature. Even "The Persistence of Memory" itself was an adaptation: it was based on a recurring dream he had.
All art is interpretation. The best works in ANY media will include a high percentage of adapted works (In film, Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz spring to mind, although there are certainly better contemporary examples.). It's unwise to get an ivory-tower attitude towards art: if the original artist had felt that way, the very works you admire would probably never have been created.
2. Of course, but your criticisms were aimed at the technology as a whole, not this specific incarnation. Real HDTV plasma sets are readily available, for less than this.
3. I bet it looks like crap, too. Tell me this: do you have any expectation of being able to use ANY current piece of technology in 30 years? Nothing lasts forever.
5. I wasn't referring to this device specifically: I've seen similar TV's for as low as $1100. And when you consider that equiv LCDs of the same size run $8-$12k... well. $1200 every few years isn't that much.
6. So there's some secret source of small CRT HDTVs out there hiding somewhere? for "practically nothing"? Please provide a link. I'll take 3.
It's not an issue of total space, sometimes. My living room is wide, but shallow. Traditional CRTs of anything more than 30" or so end up pushing far out into the room. Not that CRTs of that size are even readily available anymore....and again, you're referring to the pricing on this specific product, rather than the technology on the whole. This isn't the best deal out there. And of course, nobody HAS to spend this money. It's by and large disposable entertainment income. So? What's your point?
A friend of mine said a coworker dropped well over $4,000 on a top of the line plasma screen from Sony several years ago. One day, he pushed the power button, there was a fizz noise, and...that was that. He said sometimes they go dim, or parts stick on or off like a defective LCD, etc...sometimes it just doesn't turn on one day.
A co-worker of a friend, eh? Wow! With first-hand scientific data like that, how could you ever doubt?
1. It's plasma, not LCD. Big, big difference. LCD is FAR more expensive in the same sizes. Like 10x.
2. Some plasma screens ARE true HDTV, just not these.
3. It's hard to tell the lifespan, because they haven't been around long enough.
4. They have GREAT angular viewing ability, and have the most intense, bright colors of any technology out there. Compare them at an angle with any type of rear projection.
5. Burn-in is a problem, BUT... for the same money as one of the other flat-screen technologies, you could buy a new plasma every couple of years.
6. Some of us don't have houses the size of Rhode Island. Plasma TVs hardly take up any room at all.
maybe you were thinking of something else? have you been inside a Circuit City since the '90s?
I leave near there. It's situated on a hill where you don't really have any reference points for what's uphill/downhill. The shack itself was carefully designed in the '20s to fool your sense of perspective. It's just like a hundred other roadside attractions in out-of-the-way places. Just some optical illusions.
BTW, I remember a few years ago when some girls I knew were visiting from out of town, and asked me if I knew where the Mystery Spot was... (of course, I told them that I most certainly did--at least, according to my ex-girlfriend anyways...)
Slashdot Mirror
OK, fine. People can be shitty parents if they want to. But don't sell the game directly to the kid, and make sure these parents know what they're buying, so they can't say "I had no idea!" later.
Besides, this is, what? A handful of games? The GTA series and a few other crappy ones?
Most controversial games suck, because they're expecting to be a success based on their controversy. (Manhunt, BMX XXX, I'm looking at you) GTA is an exception.
So make the stores enforce the damn ratings, and everyone's happy. Now we just have to get parents to give a damn about their kids, but that's a different problem.
m-
You're right. It's not "government's" problem.
It's our problem: that is, our society's problem. WE need to inform parents about what's out there, so that they can make informed decisions. It's called giving them the tools to make the right decision for them, whatever that decision is.
Pretending the problem isn't there doesn't make it go away.
m-
That's odd. I don't remember any hooker-killing scenes in that book, which I reread just a couple years ago.
As I remember, the book is more an inditement of our increasingly violent society, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of attempting to fix the problem through a totalitarian government.
I think it's disingenuous to say that GTA is also a veiled criticism of our society. It's more like Miami Vice: all glorification and glamorization. At least on Miami Vice, the main character was a good guy (if a flawed one).
GTA isn't a great work of art. Don't pretend that it is.
m-
-sigh-
It was named Moose Juice, because it was comprised of equal parts Moosehead beer and ethyl alcohol. I also remember him discussing at length the drawbacks of such a beverage, so perhaps it wasn't quite as glowing a recommendation as you remember. But then, kid's minds are funny things, which is why we're having this discussion.
Personally, I wouldn't suggest you try this stuff. It tastes terrible, and there's a non-zero chance of dying from alcohol poisoning. (probably the only way this is possible with Moosehead)
m-
...and which books would those be? Exactly which great works of literature talk about what a great idea it is to have sex with a prostitute and then kill her?
It's a straw-man argument.
Besides, no one's (no one sane, anyway) is suggesting these games be banned. However, their sale should be restricted to those who society has decided are old enough to perceive the difference between fantasy and reality. If a parent or guardian believes their kid is mature enough to handle it, fine. They can buy it for them. We don't allow kids to buy alcohol, cigarettes or porn until we think they're old enough to decide for themselves. Why should games with adult themes be any different?
Frankly, too many parents are totally IGNORANT of what their kids are watching, playing and listening to. So parents should be more informed, who disagrees with this?
MOST kids have a problem discerning the difference between fantasy and reality, at one age or another. I know I did (at least, until about 8 or so). And who among us didn't have a teenage friend who honestly believed professional wrestling was real?
Give me a break.
m-
Why doesn't the UN go and create it's own internet? Remember the Internet (capatial I) isn't the only internet out there.
...
All my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
-----------
Well, there's a shock.
m-
hawk, dating himself
...which is probably a good thing, as it's not likely anyone else would.
:-)
I keed, I keed.
-m
Yeah, I thought about that, but I couldn't figure out how that would work. Both the drinks were delivered to the table by the bartender, and one woman in her 20s surrounded by a bunch of middle-aged ladies is hardly a tempting target. This was at 1pm in the afternoon on a Saturday, btw.
m-
Yeah... that was my thought too.
If the guy has had so much that he can't tell the difference between water and vodka, he'll probably pass out soon anyway.
m-
A couple of thoughts... (possible complications)
1. Maybe he had more actual booze than you were aware of. I remember at that age having a few *before* the party, to loosen up. Remember too, that alcohol takes a while to metabolize under some circumstances.
2. Perhaps he was just a lightweight, all it took was a couple to push him over the edge. Case in point, my wife (this was last year, btw) went out for drinks and a movie with her mom, her aunt, and some ladies from her bookgroup. She's not a tiny thing, and she's not incapable of holding her drink. However, on this particular day, she hadn't had anything to eat, and was slightly dehydrated. She had 2 martinis, and literally passed out 30 minutes later at the theatre. Either because of her lack of eating that day, blood sugar weirdness, or whatever. (I picked her up, and drove her home. She didn't wake up for 2 hours. I would have taken her to the emergency room, but her mom's a nurse, and suggested that she just needed to sleep it off. She was right.) If you're wondering, she hasn't had a drink since.
3. He could have been on some medication/recreational drug that amplified the effects of the alcohol he DID have.
I'm not saying any of those things had to be the case, but the effects of alcohol vary so widely, from person-to-person, and even from day to day depending on diet etc, that it's hard to quantify an anecdotal account, and use it as proof of an actual physiological effect. Just a thought.
What would be more convincing to me would be a double-blind study with a rigorous testing method. It would probably even be fun to do! Any volunteers?
Interesting story, though.
m-
Such a situation is believed to have existed shortly after the big bang, when the universe was extremely hot and dense.
Hmmm, kind of like my first girlfriend...
m-
...but only if it's Starbucks branded.
m-
What are you talking about? What forest?
Wow, R. Crumb flashback.
m-
From the article: The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
When they say "byte" here, they seem to mean "bit". (for the script kiddies, there are 8 bits to the byte) Also, they're referring to "10 million divisions" not "10 billion divisions".
So it wouldn't be 10 gigabytes, it would be more like 1.2 megabytes, or roughly 122k/cm. To store 10 gigabytes, it would have to be over 838m long, or over 2750 feet.
Frankly, I'm not horribly impressed.
Not to mention, this is just in theory. It hasn't actually been done yet.
m-
Indeed... I'm pretty sure she meant Gestapo tactics...
The other one that springs to mind is when she referred to someone freaking out as "running around like a guy with his chicken cut off."
At least it's a vivid image...
m-
I guess the problem is, there are quite a few of us Americans prefer the way the Brits do it. I personally prefer British humor, and so does my wife.
Perhaps it's because we grew up watching the Young Ones, Monty Python, Faulty Towers, Are You Being Served, The Good Life, Blake's 7, To The Manor Born, Yes Minister, and yes, Dr. Who. Not to mention more recent favorites like Coupling, Father Ted, The Office, Ali G, Red Dwarf, etc etc etc.
When hollywood producers attempt to convert British shows to appeal to American humor, the results are often ghastly. Witness the short-lived US version of Coupling.
Listen, we know the effects will be silly and involve lousy CGI and cheap fireworks. It's all part of the charm. Who watched Dr. Who for the special effects anyway?
On the bright side, all of these shows will eventually become available on DVD. There's too much profit in it not to. Thanks, Suncoast.
m-
Or are they going for a tabula rosa to avoid the kinds of problems that plague series like Star Trek?
A pink slate? How would that help?
Maybe you mean tabula rasa.
Kind of reminds me of a friend's girlfriend... she had a million of them... once complained about her university's "gazpacho tactics." I was all like, "what, are they forcing you to eat a chilled, refreshing vegetable soup?"
m-
The only part of this statement that could be construed as being true is that those who don't read classical literature are less educated *in classic literature*. Can you really claim to be as well educated in all aspects of knowledge, simply because you have read some old fiction?
I personally tend to disagree. Many of our present-day conceits and assumptions about the world were formed and guided by the content of classical literature. Ignorance of Dostoevsky, for e.g., would retard ones ability to understand the slums of czarist, prerevolutionary St. Petersburg--and why things had to change. Ignorance of Shakespeare would leave one unable to completely grok contemporary works of film and theatre. (whereas ignorance of Heinlein would leave one unable to completely appreciate my previous sentence.)
Once you start advocating ignorance, it's a slippery slope. Literature--by its very nature--is more than just fiction: it's the shared dreams of a people, a culture.
You may consider yourself a "well cultured person", but the very nature of ignorance ensures that you--to put it simply--just don't know what it is that you're missing.
m-
It's wonderfully ironic that you choose Dali as your example. Dali himself was a big fan of reinterpreting his own work into other media, even so far as recreating elements from "The Persistence of Memory"--among many others--in video, sculpture, what have you.
In fact, in general he treated his own work with an insouciance that many of his admirers would be horrified by.
Many of his best works were interpretations of poetry, songs and literature. Even "The Persistence of Memory" itself was an adaptation: it was based on a recurring dream he had.
All art is interpretation. The best works in ANY media will include a high percentage of adapted works (In film, Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz spring to mind, although there are certainly better contemporary examples.). It's unwise to get an ivory-tower attitude towards art: if the original artist had felt that way, the very works you admire would probably never have been created.
m-
1. Well, that's your opinion.
...and again, you're referring to the pricing on this specific product, rather than the technology on the whole. This isn't the best deal out there. And of course, nobody HAS to spend this money. It's by and large disposable entertainment income. So? What's your point?
2. Of course, but your criticisms were aimed at the technology as a whole, not this specific incarnation. Real HDTV plasma sets are readily available, for less than this.
3. I bet it looks like crap, too. Tell me this: do you have any expectation of being able to use ANY current piece of technology in 30 years? Nothing lasts forever.
5. I wasn't referring to this device specifically: I've seen similar TV's for as low as $1100. And when you consider that equiv LCDs of the same size run $8-$12k... well. $1200 every few years isn't that much.
6. So there's some secret source of small CRT HDTVs out there hiding somewhere? for "practically nothing"? Please provide a link. I'll take 3.
It's not an issue of total space, sometimes. My living room is wide, but shallow. Traditional CRTs of anything more than 30" or so end up pushing far out into the room. Not that CRTs of that size are even readily available anymore.
m-
If you're a gamer, go with DLP and leave plasmas for your grandparents' theater rooms.
Do your grandparents live in Korea, by any chance?
m-
A friend of mine said a coworker dropped well over $4,000 on a top of the line plasma screen from Sony several years ago. One day, he pushed the power button, there was a fizz noise, and...that was that. He said sometimes they go dim, or parts stick on or off like a defective LCD, etc...sometimes it just doesn't turn on one day.
A co-worker of a friend, eh? Wow! With first-hand scientific data like that, how could you ever doubt?
m-
Six comments.
1. It's plasma, not LCD. Big, big difference. LCD is FAR more expensive in the same sizes. Like 10x.
2. Some plasma screens ARE true HDTV, just not these.
3. It's hard to tell the lifespan, because they haven't been around long enough.
4. They have GREAT angular viewing ability, and have the most intense, bright colors of any technology out there. Compare them at an angle with any type of rear projection.
5. Burn-in is a problem, BUT... for the same money as one of the other flat-screen technologies, you could buy a new plasma every couple of years.
6. Some of us don't have houses the size of Rhode Island. Plasma TVs hardly take up any room at all.
maybe you were thinking of something else? have you been inside a Circuit City since the '90s?
m-
Uh, yeah...
I leave near there. It's situated on a hill where you don't really have any reference points for what's uphill/downhill. The shack itself was carefully designed in the '20s to fool your sense of perspective. It's just like a hundred other roadside attractions in out-of-the-way places. Just some optical illusions.
BTW, I remember a few years ago when some girls I knew were visiting from out of town, and asked me if I knew where the Mystery Spot was... (of course, I told them that I most certainly did--at least, according to my ex-girlfriend anyways...)