Actually I took 2 years off playing (it was WoW vs. College, college won), and started playing again about 2 months ago when a bunch of old friends started playing. I still find it fun. It has the most polish of any MMO I've played, I like the story, it ties in well with the amount of time I killed when I was younger with the Warcraft games. Also it has been saving me money, I generally buy a game a month for various consoles, and now I don't bother (Until the new Smash Bros comes out, or I get the Guitar Hero for Wii). Its a pretty good time killer, and gives me an excuse to chit-chat with friends I wouldn't talk to near as much without WoW.
I do find it funny how serious some kids take it though, to some kids it is a life-style unto itself. Which I guess is understandable, since I managed to waste most of the 90's staring at various MUDs.
On the other hand, I find it equally amusing how much some slashbots hate it.
Its a damn game, not worth forming strong opinions over.
Completely OT, but thats a latte not a coffee. Damn Starbucks corrupting the word, when I order coffee I mean a cup of hot black bitter stuff, not that odd tan stuff that tastes like milky sugar.
Most of the CDs I've seen recently are along the line of 15-18 dollars.
And 3 cups of coffee at Starbucks is around $6, I think its around $2 for a venti coffee.
And yes, what she did is technically illegal, but we must question A) the ethics of the law, and B) the unbalance of act and punishment. The law is ethically dubious, artists deserve compensation, but this must be balanced with fair us, and the rights of the customer, current law fails to hold this balance, and the debate ignores the fact that this has nothing to do with the artist (the RIAA's signatories are in the business of screwing over both parties to maximize their profits, benefiting no one but themselves). As for B, $222k is rather steep for offering 25 songs (as the charges seem to be).
I'm not gonna say sharing should be legal, since we must balance the right of compensation for work against it. But I will say the law is FUBAR, and needs to be changed.
You do realise that what you're basically saying here is that people who don't vote aren't actually people?
Never claimed that, I just don't think its possible for the rest of us (voters) to possibly give them a voice if they don't want one. How can we presume to act on the behalf of someone who has no opinions (or don't find them valid enough to act up), they are by nature unknowable. I do think, on a real level, they get what they ask for, and don't really see this as a bad thing. Perhaps when things get bad enough, they WILL do something, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
The real problem is the cause of disenfranchisement, and not representing them, imo. We can't represent them, so we must find a way to coax them into the political arena. Make them want to vote, participate.
As to how to do this, I have no clue. I'm sure whatever it is wouldn't be healthy for the powers-that-be, or would cost public money, and thus will never be approached.
Along this line, sadly, I am of the thought "it must get much worse, before it gets better". Our country and government has been on a nice decline for some time. We're getting dumber than most developed countries, religious tyranny is becoming a valid fear, our government represents money and money alone, 66% of voters don't, political debate has become sound bites (Bush = dumb, Taxes = evil, ect...), and we, the plebes, are suspicious of any form of reason higher than this, and unable to comprehend, or sit through, debates longer than 3 seconds. If all these people started voting, would we actually be better off? Democracy depends on an informed public, something we left behind long ago.
A government that isn't representative of the population quite simply isn't a democratic one.
I'd say that the current American democracy IS representative of the population. The people who don't vote made a choice not to count in decisions (for whatever tragic reason). They don't want to have a say, and thus don't really count, by choice. Your not going to get me to say this is a good thing, or disagree that the whole system is falling apart, though.
But this is largely irrelevant. Throwing blame around isn't solving the problem. By mentally "punishing" the no-shows in this manner you really are punishing yourself by throwing democracy out the window.
They are punishing themselves by willfully not voting. Being ignored is the consequence of not talking, but choosing the latter you accept the former as a consequence. Its not up to me to speak (and guess intentions) for those who refuse to speak. Nor is it anyone else's job.
One single vote might be argued to be unimportant in the big picture, but in aggregate that single vote is of vital importance.
We're not talking of the minority here (voters), we're talking about those people who, for whatever reason, refuse to vote. I agree each vote counts, though. But those who don't, don't, nor want to.
Again, I'm NOT going to say this is a good state of affairs. I think its tragic, and shows that the American democracy is failing, seriously, and more so that America is failing its constituents. I'm just saying that these people who don't want a voice, shouldn't expect to be heard. Even if they were to start an armed rebellion (something that would surprise me, since we're dealing with apathy, not the best precondition for revolution), all the hardship would be ultimately their fault for their choice of not having a choice. There is no way to guess, either, what they want since they refuse to tell us.
Reality is all about the physical state of being so science fits. I see this as a validation of the parents claim. You make a groundless claim based fully on the (extremely) modern conception of what "reality" is. Science claims that all is physical, while science is the study of the physical, you see the loop we're entering here? Of course you scientifically proclaim the fundamental tenet of science. You just entered a slightly more mature variation of "the bible is true, because God (via the bible) said it was."
Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the truthiness of the claim, just the logical problem contained in the reasoning.
What I am trying to get at is that whenever I see assertions of the kind "80% of Americans voted for . .." it just screams out at me because the/truth/ is "80% of the Americans/that voted/ voted for . .." and the difference is really very important. How is it important? If you don't vote, you kind of voluntarily opting out of the game. Do we consider the testing scores of drop outs when evaluating a school? No. If you don't vote, it means your opinion isn't even worth enough to motivate you to some very small action. If you don't put enough stock in your opinion to do something about it, it can't be too important.
As brought up lower down, there are valid, and temporary, reasons some people CAN'T vote, which are completely separate from people who DON'T vote (nor have any desire too).
SOME Muslim people have committed heinous acts of terror in the name of Islam against Western targets, and some Muslims have come right out and said there will be no peace until all the infidels are gone. It's not that Some Westerners feel threatened by Muslims, it's that we are threatened by some Muslims. Some Muslims are threatening our lives, our society, our way of life. Is it a surprise that you don't feel welcome? Fixed it for you, seems you confused a group for a whole there for a bit.
This is the rational that got us into this whole damn mess in the first place, confusing whole swaths of people for small groups.
Some westerners do want to destroy the Muslim way of life, thus all westerners are a threat. See the fallacy?
Every group has a lunatic fringe who is hell bend on destroying all out groups. Does this make the superculture bad? No, it means the lunatic fringe is bad. Though I agree that the superculture should be trying to quash the violent, ignorant, morons within it too. So all muslims do own their extremists to a limited extent. But then again us Americans own our warmongering, bigoted, fundamentalists too, and we're doing nothing to stop them either.
There is no such thing as an "objective, external reality". All things viewed and/or reported by a human being are subjective. Viewed? So what is being viewed if everything is a subjective internal state? The term "view" implies something separate and external from the viewer. This external basis to which our (granted flawed) perceptions draw from would then fall into the category of the objective, or True. i think you overstate your own views, since you are implying that there is an external, even in your denial.
Whether, or whether not, this external is knowable, then, is the question. We enter into some odd Kantian realm of essences and things-in-themselves, which is still rather distasteful, but at least as not inherently fallacious and self-contradictory as the post-modern fad.
By saying there is no truth, you are stating a truth, which would be impossible if true, therefore it must be false. Also by claiming all views are valid, that also means that contradictory views are true. Thus "1+1=2", and "1+1=3" both must be true, which again enters into the realm of absurdity, or to put it more amusingly, my view that there is truth is true, as if your view that there is none...
I still have that uber-calm chicks voice in my head. Seriously, though, I loved that game back in the day, it was HARD, and somewhat arbitrary. I loved the fact that no matter what your doing some random lava flow is going to open up someplace, and the rest of the level is you sitting there watching it slowly inch towards your base, trying to get to tier 1000 technology while some woman keeps telling you that moral is terrible, and wishing that your damn colonists would just BREED! If I was being attacked by a competing army, and being threatened with a lava flow, the last thing I would want would be another damn rec center.
I did enjoy it though, it was like SimCity and Starcraft, after smoking some good PCP at a sadist convention.
Wow. Someone on/. complaining about "expert" interfaces. This is the land of the "STFU CLI" cult, correct?
Though, seriously, Photoshop isn't that hard to actually use, though it is hard to master any given feature. Like all things the main thing needed is actual experience. I tought myself photoshop to some degree of competency by just using it for my needs (which happened to be colorization) in a matter of months. The the usual learning curve of using Google for quick tutorials, and experimentation to actually figure out what your doing.
Photoshop has a massive learning curve. Just like most things geeks like, or actually need. The gimp has less of such, mostly because it is not really a serious tool for graphic design. Its very good for novice users, and people with light needs (buttons, web graphics, and such), but really falls short for professional design. I'm not even basing this on just CMYK features, but also on its base UI, and other advanced features. The only cheap alternative, in my eyes, is Paint Shop Pro, and only then for less sophisticated designs. The sad part is that it isn't just PS that is needed, but the full integration.
I really hope the best, though, for projects like the Gimp. I see no reson to pay a grand for a piece of code.
Yes, I do mostly use the Gimp, but at time PS is still needed.
Ah... the sad debate between idealism and realpolitik. Sadly I must subscribe to your view, but I prefer the GPs idea. I'm not a fan of the strictly pragmatic, and wish there was a way to escape it. Looking at the various (republican and democrat) candidates we can see this, the handful of idealists have no chance, while the front runners are pretty ethically mercenary, going strictly for the popular when needed, and going for the money and industry the rest of the time, as per their personal interests. But then again idealism isn't all its cracked up to be either, our current fearless leader is a staunch idealist, bucking popularity for his own dubious standards, and more atrocities have been waged due to idealistic ideas, than not.
Idealism is often completely divorced from reality. While realpolitik is often draconian, and inhumane. We need a nice middle ground, the ability to work with the Real, to make the idea real, while never being divorced from the most important factors, integrity, and humanity. Not going to happen in my life time, nor ever.
Oh god, if they release Shining Force... I was one of the few games that made me happy I owned a Genesis when I was young. Later when I discovered emulators I played through both of them back to back, at the expense of WoW and life. So enjoyable. We need more turn based strategy games. The only game that stands up to them is Final Fantasy Tactics, but that was rather drawn out, and dragged quite a bit (its Square, so its to be expected).
On the Genesis front they need Shining Force, Alysa Dragoon (stupid, but nostalgic), and the second Toejam & Earl (perhaps more Sonic). For SNES/NES they need to bitchslap Sqenix, and get Final Fantasy 1-6, plus Secret of Mana, perhaps even the original Panzer Dragoon. As for the T-16. I don't care.
I wish they would make an indie game channel. Let small developers try their hand. It worked for the 360, which seems to help innovation (with games like Flow), so I don't know how it would hurt Nintendo.
Given the respect for the setting it's another minor quibble, but the lack of any sort of tie-in to the Peter Jackson helmed movies is, in my mind, a lapse.
Why? LoTR predates the movie by quite a bit, and I'm guessing that the market for this game is more the geeky market, than people who first think of Elija Woods when they think of Frodo. I'm rather glad that it isn't a movie tie in, to be honest, since I still don't feel that the movies were the best representation of Tolkein's works, since they were completely (and grudgingly unnecessarily) lacking in nuance. People coming to the game, with mostly experience from the movie, would be disappointed, and wonder what all that wretched "back story" is.
It is an interesting commentary on something or another, though, that its setting mentioned primarily as parity with with movie, and not with the books, or the rest of the canon. I would care more about little glimpses of events from the Similarian, and little snippets from Lost Tales, etc... It would add more context for me, than having Vigo Mortenson voice Strider.
There is always GC RPGs, remember. Not the best solution (which would be a Wii RPG), but it still works. They are rather rare, and hard to come by, but there are some decent ones floating about out there.
Oh, so we should let them have sex with adults since they are 10 and let them drink since they are 5 because, hey who is Uncle Sam to say when they are mature enough.
Overstate much? I don't think the parent implied this in anyway. I think the parent (if I may put words into their mouth) was going against the idea of a concrete age of maturity. This is not black and white, I knew 16 year old kids living on their own, with decent jobs (emancipated) etc, AND in college I had a chance to meet many "adults" who acted like they were badly raised 16 year olds. Basically this is saying that each individual should be treated individually. As a parent you should know your kid, and thus know what protections they actually NEED, these protections are not generalizable to the all kids though, since your kid is unique in their personal level of maturity.
This whole idea precludes any concept of the government blanket legislating what kids should be able to do, or not, since they don't know what each kid needs, or can handle.
And for the record lots of kids DO drink from 5 on. I can from a large germanic family in the Midwest, thus I got small cups of beer as long as I can remember. At 8 I started getting a quarter glass of wine during dinner. At 13 my dad would give me a beer after helping with yard work, so we could sit on the patio together. The American "alcohol = bad" thing is just cultural clap-trap, many other cultures raise their kids in a way that alcohol is not taboo, and those kids are generally less likely to be raging binge drinkers in college, since there is no rebellion, or taboo involved. Booze is nothing special. Sex is a little more touchy, I agree, but this "18 or else" mentality is rather silly. How is an 18 year old having sex with a 17 (and 11 months) year old worse than an 18 year old having sex with an 18 year old?
The PARENT should step in and protect children. If I as a parent don't want to raise my children like the government tells me to, why shouldn't that be allowed? Its my job, and my responsibility to raise my children as I see fit. If I lack this ability, then I should be allowed to breed. Pure and simple.
For fun:
(and I am not that old). (from your original post)
and now: erceptually as you grow older the time will seem to fly by faster because you are comparing the rate of passage of time to how much time you already lived.
I find this amusing. I'm not too old, nor too young, and don't find this true. I think you have a problem in mapping your subjective experiences into universals, you do this with how to raise children, AND subjective temporal experience.
When I was a kid half of my friends were meet on local BBSs, which I guess would be the non-lame equivalent of what MySpace and Facebook are today. We had much the same drama, with pedophiles and such, back then, but being a smaller community we had a modicum of self-regulation. We also had other alternatives to one or two BBSs, we could jump the large MBBS (in the hundreds of users) systems for smaller Renegade or Wildcat systems, with smaller user based (in the mid-double-digits), so if the problems got to bad, there were cleaner alternatives.
The thing is that some kids don't want to make friends in the same way they did in the 50s. When I was young I didn't want to play basket ball (it being 113 degrees out), or play "stick-ball", or somesuch. I was a nerd. My networking ability in the school system was practically nill, since reading books, or trying to see what I could make old AT&T workstations do are not rather social activities. There is nothing wrong with letting your children connect via networking sites, as long as your vigilant, and arm your children with foreknowledge. A well brought up kid has much less threats to face than some kid with ignorant, and negligent, parents.
If you don't trust your kids, you didn't raise them right.
On that; My vote would be for the automatic DST feature of almost every clock made these days. I live in Arizona, so I don't need to deal with this silly clock setting crap, but now I do. I have to set my clock to compensate for the lack of DST. Its a nice feature, I'm sure, for those of you who do have to live with it, but it should be disable-able. Actually I think that most 'features' should have an off switch, since it seems that that is the main objection to most dumb features in this thread.
What is 'fact' depends a lot on your perspective. To some, Iraq is being liberated. To others, the infidels have moved in, and are performing atrocities. The truth lies somewhere between.
You misuse the term 'fact' here, what you mean instead is 'interpretation of fact', the fact is that the American military is involved in Iraq, the interpretation can be "atrocity" or "liberation". The fact that we are in Iraq is not open to interpretation, you cannot say that we are not, but you can say what this means. Facts are data points backed by evidence, thats it, or more so "true statements about the world".
My grandfather was at Auschwitz (as an American soldier), and I trust him. Many survivors are still alive today, who saw attrocities. There is documentary proof (videos from the liberation, contemporary statements by witnesses and survivors, etc...), taken all together you can make a damn strong inductive claim that the holocaust was indeed a fact.
I'm not going to get into this argument, but you are blatantly wrong on one point: Sartre was not a Jew. And Sartre was NOT living a normal public life, in fact he was part of the Resistance (in the form of a writer and journalist), meaning he very much was in hiding from the Nazis.
I'll see your anecdotal evidence, and raise you my own: my grandfather was among the first American troops to liberate Auschwitz, and saw what happened there first hand. Granted he was reluctant to speak of it, but so would most people.
By avoiding teaching about one of the worst examples of intolerance and hatred in human history, they contribute to the problem.
There are two ways of seeing this. I agree, we need to teach it, it shows the dark side of human nature, and is a major psychic blot on the consciousness of western society. The holocaust (or to be exact, the reactions against it) are a major driving force behind what we call modernity. So to understand ourselves, we must understand it.
On the other hand, it is often taught wrong. I was genuinely shocked, after high school, to learn that the Holocaust was not just about Jews. Hitler also killed millions of Gypsies, Poles, Catholics, and POWs, but these people are generally ignored, making the Holocaust a "Jewish thing", which is not true. It shouldn't be about Jews, it should be about Genocide. It should be a narrative about a country of people rising up and slaughter millions of people. It annoys me, and is rather insulting to the other non-Jewish survivors (and victims) of the Holocaust. We should teach it as a bad, to understate, action made by normal people under the control of an unspeakable evil man, and not as a bad act towards just one group of people (since that would be a lie). We should focus on the actors, as well as the totality of the victims.
In America I still run into people saying that World War II was over the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis, these are generally the same people who claim that the civil war was the war to free the slaves. Neither of which is true. Education has become a liberalizing, and sensitizing institution, over one that teaches facts. It seems, from TFA, that this is true over the pond as well. People's beliefs have nothing to do with facts. And school is about teaching facts.
There is a point where sensitivity becomes dangerous stupidity.
As I've read somewhere... Don't be humble, you're not that great.
Never claimed to be.
I'm coming to rethink the cops with cameras (I was about to type 'cops with hammers', a testament to my lack of caffeine) idea, I don't think that that, in itself, is bad. As long as it isn't handled like many of the in-car camera's used by American police departments, where cameras can be shut off at opportune times. What gets me is the spread of government cameras. period.
Knowing, or suspecting, your being watched has more of an effect than actually being watched. Mind, in public you are, perhaps, being watched, but not by any form of large authority. It also ignores the fact that sometimes littering is not some act perpetrated by bad people in need of punishment (nor even most of the time), but by people in a hurry, or even people with kids who enjoy throwing things from a window. Sometimes graffiti isn't a bad thing, sometimes it is a valid artistic expression, or a way of making an anonymous political statement (most modern political and media systems don't want us to do this, the public is their domain). It also scares me since it hampers the ability of gatherings, or other things, or could. You KNOW the government is ALWAYS there, checking up on you.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PRIVACY IN PUBLIC, PERIOD
You are, of course right. I suppose I picked the easiest, and least exact, terminology out of laziness. Your criticism of my language is deserved, and I will sit shamefully though it. The real question, though, is the right of the government to watch my every move, either publically or privately. If I am not doing anything to warrant being watched, then it is unnecessary to be watched, by watching me you imply I might be guilty. They are treating every law abiding citizen as a criminal, by default. They are basically just laying a net, and trying to catch EVERYTHING in case something might, possibly, be a fish.
The second complaint falls into the "slippery slope" category. The "antisocial behavior" laws in England already are vague enough to limit political protest, and also don't actually stipulate what is "antisocial" outside of the fact that someone can be offended by it. Couple this with the panopticon model, and their is something worrisome.
Didn't anyone read Foucault's Discipline and Punish over there on the other side of the pond?
There is something inherently creepy about this whole CCTV idea, coupled with England's vague and ominous "antisocial behaviors" law It does make me somewhat happy (in a sick way) that America isn't the worst place in the developed world as far as privacy laws go, which somewhat surprises me, coupled with the sneaking suspicion that Americans are even somewhat below the British in the sheepish support of the abuse of authority. This isn't so much a flame against the Brits, as a lament.
If things like this happened in America it would finally give me incentive to enact my long planned expatriation. I still have no idea as to where to go, but I think the anglophone countries are getting to be out of the question, even (slowly, and to a lesser extent) Canada.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I took 2 years off playing (it was WoW vs. College, college won), and started playing again about 2 months ago when a bunch of old friends started playing. I still find it fun. It has the most polish of any MMO I've played, I like the story, it ties in well with the amount of time I killed when I was younger with the Warcraft games. Also it has been saving me money, I generally buy a game a month for various consoles, and now I don't bother (Until the new Smash Bros comes out, or I get the Guitar Hero for Wii). Its a pretty good time killer, and gives me an excuse to chit-chat with friends I wouldn't talk to near as much without WoW.
I do find it funny how serious some kids take it though, to some kids it is a life-style unto itself. Which I guess is understandable, since I managed to waste most of the 90's staring at various MUDs.
On the other hand, I find it equally amusing how much some slashbots hate it.
Its a damn game, not worth forming strong opinions over.
Completely OT, but thats a latte not a coffee. Damn Starbucks corrupting the word, when I order coffee I mean a cup of hot black bitter stuff, not that odd tan stuff that tastes like milky sugar.
Most of the CDs I've seen recently are along the line of 15-18 dollars.
And 3 cups of coffee at Starbucks is around $6, I think its around $2 for a venti coffee.
And yes, what she did is technically illegal, but we must question A) the ethics of the law, and B) the unbalance of act and punishment. The law is ethically dubious, artists deserve compensation, but this must be balanced with fair us, and the rights of the customer, current law fails to hold this balance, and the debate ignores the fact that this has nothing to do with the artist (the RIAA's signatories are in the business of screwing over both parties to maximize their profits, benefiting no one but themselves). As for B, $222k is rather steep for offering 25 songs (as the charges seem to be).
I'm not gonna say sharing should be legal, since we must balance the right of compensation for work against it. But I will say the law is FUBAR, and needs to be changed.
You do realise that what you're basically saying here is that people who don't vote aren't actually people?
Never claimed that, I just don't think its possible for the rest of us (voters) to possibly give them a voice if they don't want one. How can we presume to act on the behalf of someone who has no opinions (or don't find them valid enough to act up), they are by nature unknowable. I do think, on a real level, they get what they ask for, and don't really see this as a bad thing. Perhaps when things get bad enough, they WILL do something, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
The real problem is the cause of disenfranchisement, and not representing them, imo. We can't represent them, so we must find a way to coax them into the political arena. Make them want to vote, participate.
As to how to do this, I have no clue. I'm sure whatever it is wouldn't be healthy for the powers-that-be, or would cost public money, and thus will never be approached.
Along this line, sadly, I am of the thought "it must get much worse, before it gets better". Our country and government has been on a nice decline for some time. We're getting dumber than most developed countries, religious tyranny is becoming a valid fear, our government represents money and money alone, 66% of voters don't, political debate has become sound bites (Bush = dumb, Taxes = evil, ect...), and we, the plebes, are suspicious of any form of reason higher than this, and unable to comprehend, or sit through, debates longer than 3 seconds. If all these people started voting, would we actually be better off? Democracy depends on an informed public, something we left behind long ago.
A government that isn't representative of the population quite simply isn't a democratic one.
I'd say that the current American democracy IS representative of the population. The people who don't vote made a choice not to count in decisions (for whatever tragic reason). They don't want to have a say, and thus don't really count, by choice. Your not going to get me to say this is a good thing, or disagree that the whole system is falling apart, though.
But this is largely irrelevant. Throwing blame around isn't solving the problem. By mentally "punishing" the no-shows in this manner you really are punishing yourself by throwing democracy out the window.
They are punishing themselves by willfully not voting. Being ignored is the consequence of not talking, but choosing the latter you accept the former as a consequence. Its not up to me to speak (and guess intentions) for those who refuse to speak. Nor is it anyone else's job.
One single vote might be argued to be unimportant in the big picture, but in aggregate that single vote is of vital importance.
We're not talking of the minority here (voters), we're talking about those people who, for whatever reason, refuse to vote. I agree each vote counts, though. But those who don't, don't, nor want to.
Again, I'm NOT going to say this is a good state of affairs. I think its tragic, and shows that the American democracy is failing, seriously, and more so that America is failing its constituents. I'm just saying that these people who don't want a voice, shouldn't expect to be heard. Even if they were to start an armed rebellion (something that would surprise me, since we're dealing with apathy, not the best precondition for revolution), all the hardship would be ultimately their fault for their choice of not having a choice. There is no way to guess, either, what they want since they refuse to tell us.
Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the truthiness of the claim, just the logical problem contained in the reasoning.
As brought up lower down, there are valid, and temporary, reasons some people CAN'T vote, which are completely separate from people who DON'T vote (nor have any desire too).
This is the rational that got us into this whole damn mess in the first place, confusing whole swaths of people for small groups.
Some westerners do want to destroy the Muslim way of life, thus all westerners are a threat. See the fallacy?
Every group has a lunatic fringe who is hell bend on destroying all out groups. Does this make the superculture bad? No, it means the lunatic fringe is bad. Though I agree that the superculture should be trying to quash the violent, ignorant, morons within it too. So all muslims do own their extremists to a limited extent. But then again us Americans own our warmongering, bigoted, fundamentalists too, and we're doing nothing to stop them either.
Whether, or whether not, this external is knowable, then, is the question. We enter into some odd Kantian realm of essences and things-in-themselves, which is still rather distasteful, but at least as not inherently fallacious and self-contradictory as the post-modern fad.
By saying there is no truth, you are stating a truth, which would be impossible if true, therefore it must be false. Also by claiming all views are valid, that also means that contradictory views are true. Thus "1+1=2", and "1+1=3" both must be true, which again enters into the realm of absurdity, or to put it more amusingly, my view that there is truth is true, as if your view that there is none...
"Moral is terrible"
I still have that uber-calm chicks voice in my head. Seriously, though, I loved that game back in the day, it was HARD, and somewhat arbitrary. I loved the fact that no matter what your doing some random lava flow is going to open up someplace, and the rest of the level is you sitting there watching it slowly inch towards your base, trying to get to tier 1000 technology while some woman keeps telling you that moral is terrible, and wishing that your damn colonists would just BREED! If I was being attacked by a competing army, and being threatened with a lava flow, the last thing I would want would be another damn rec center.
I did enjoy it though, it was like SimCity and Starcraft, after smoking some good PCP at a sadist convention.
Wow. Someone on /. complaining about "expert" interfaces. This is the land of the "STFU CLI" cult, correct?
Though, seriously, Photoshop isn't that hard to actually use, though it is hard to master any given feature. Like all things the main thing needed is actual experience. I tought myself photoshop to some degree of competency by just using it for my needs (which happened to be colorization) in a matter of months. The the usual learning curve of using Google for quick tutorials, and experimentation to actually figure out what your doing.
Photoshop has a massive learning curve. Just like most things geeks like, or actually need. The gimp has less of such, mostly because it is not really a serious tool for graphic design. Its very good for novice users, and people with light needs (buttons, web graphics, and such), but really falls short for professional design. I'm not even basing this on just CMYK features, but also on its base UI, and other advanced features. The only cheap alternative, in my eyes, is Paint Shop Pro, and only then for less sophisticated designs. The sad part is that it isn't just PS that is needed, but the full integration.
I really hope the best, though, for projects like the Gimp. I see no reson to pay a grand for a piece of code.
Yes, I do mostly use the Gimp, but at time PS is still needed.
Ah... the sad debate between idealism and realpolitik. Sadly I must subscribe to your view, but I prefer the GPs idea. I'm not a fan of the strictly pragmatic, and wish there was a way to escape it. Looking at the various (republican and democrat) candidates we can see this, the handful of idealists have no chance, while the front runners are pretty ethically mercenary, going strictly for the popular when needed, and going for the money and industry the rest of the time, as per their personal interests. But then again idealism isn't all its cracked up to be either, our current fearless leader is a staunch idealist, bucking popularity for his own dubious standards, and more atrocities have been waged due to idealistic ideas, than not.
Idealism is often completely divorced from reality. While realpolitik is often draconian, and inhumane. We need a nice middle ground, the ability to work with the Real, to make the idea real, while never being divorced from the most important factors, integrity, and humanity. Not going to happen in my life time, nor ever.
Season = future DVD set, natch.
Oh god, if they release Shining Force... I was one of the few games that made me happy I owned a Genesis when I was young. Later when I discovered emulators I played through both of them back to back, at the expense of WoW and life. So enjoyable. We need more turn based strategy games. The only game that stands up to them is Final Fantasy Tactics, but that was rather drawn out, and dragged quite a bit (its Square, so its to be expected).
On the Genesis front they need Shining Force, Alysa Dragoon (stupid, but nostalgic), and the second Toejam & Earl (perhaps more Sonic). For SNES/NES they need to bitchslap Sqenix, and get Final Fantasy 1-6, plus Secret of Mana, perhaps even the original Panzer Dragoon. As for the T-16. I don't care.
I wish they would make an indie game channel. Let small developers try their hand. It worked for the 360, which seems to help innovation (with games like Flow), so I don't know how it would hurt Nintendo.
Why? LoTR predates the movie by quite a bit, and I'm guessing that the market for this game is more the geeky market, than people who first think of Elija Woods when they think of Frodo. I'm rather glad that it isn't a movie tie in, to be honest, since I still don't feel that the movies were the best representation of Tolkein's works, since they were completely (and grudgingly unnecessarily) lacking in nuance. People coming to the game, with mostly experience from the movie, would be disappointed, and wonder what all that wretched "back story" is.
It is an interesting commentary on something or another, though, that its setting mentioned primarily as parity with with movie, and not with the books, or the rest of the canon. I would care more about little glimpses of events from the Similarian, and little snippets from Lost Tales, etc... It would add more context for me, than having Vigo Mortenson voice Strider.
There is always GC RPGs, remember. Not the best solution (which would be a Wii RPG), but it still works. They are rather rare, and hard to come by, but there are some decent ones floating about out there.
Oh, so we should let them have sex with adults since they are 10 and let them drink since they are 5 because, hey who is Uncle Sam to say when they are mature enough.
Overstate much? I don't think the parent implied this in anyway. I think the parent (if I may put words into their mouth) was going against the idea of a concrete age of maturity. This is not black and white, I knew 16 year old kids living on their own, with decent jobs (emancipated) etc, AND in college I had a chance to meet many "adults" who acted like they were badly raised 16 year olds. Basically this is saying that each individual should be treated individually. As a parent you should know your kid, and thus know what protections they actually NEED, these protections are not generalizable to the all kids though, since your kid is unique in their personal level of maturity.
This whole idea precludes any concept of the government blanket legislating what kids should be able to do, or not, since they don't know what each kid needs, or can handle.
And for the record lots of kids DO drink from 5 on. I can from a large germanic family in the Midwest, thus I got small cups of beer as long as I can remember. At 8 I started getting a quarter glass of wine during dinner. At 13 my dad would give me a beer after helping with yard work, so we could sit on the patio together. The American "alcohol = bad" thing is just cultural clap-trap, many other cultures raise their kids in a way that alcohol is not taboo, and those kids are generally less likely to be raging binge drinkers in college, since there is no rebellion, or taboo involved. Booze is nothing special. Sex is a little more touchy, I agree, but this "18 or else" mentality is rather silly. How is an 18 year old having sex with a 17 (and 11 months) year old worse than an 18 year old having sex with an 18 year old?
The PARENT should step in and protect children. If I as a parent don't want to raise my children like the government tells me to, why shouldn't that be allowed? Its my job, and my responsibility to raise my children as I see fit. If I lack this ability, then I should be allowed to breed. Pure and simple.
For fun:
(and I am not that old). (from your original post)
and now:
erceptually as you grow older the time will seem to fly by faster because you are comparing the rate of passage of time to how much time you already lived.
I find this amusing. I'm not too old, nor too young, and don't find this true. I think you have a problem in mapping your subjective experiences into universals, you do this with how to raise children, AND subjective temporal experience.
When I was a kid half of my friends were meet on local BBSs, which I guess would be the non-lame equivalent of what MySpace and Facebook are today. We had much the same drama, with pedophiles and such, back then, but being a smaller community we had a modicum of self-regulation. We also had other alternatives to one or two BBSs, we could jump the large MBBS (in the hundreds of users) systems for smaller Renegade or Wildcat systems, with smaller user based (in the mid-double-digits), so if the problems got to bad, there were cleaner alternatives.
The thing is that some kids don't want to make friends in the same way they did in the 50s. When I was young I didn't want to play basket ball (it being 113 degrees out), or play "stick-ball", or somesuch. I was a nerd. My networking ability in the school system was practically nill, since reading books, or trying to see what I could make old AT&T workstations do are not rather social activities. There is nothing wrong with letting your children connect via networking sites, as long as your vigilant, and arm your children with foreknowledge. A well brought up kid has much less threats to face than some kid with ignorant, and negligent, parents.
If you don't trust your kids, you didn't raise them right.
On that; My vote would be for the automatic DST feature of almost every clock made these days. I live in Arizona, so I don't need to deal with this silly clock setting crap, but now I do. I have to set my clock to compensate for the lack of DST. Its a nice feature, I'm sure, for those of you who do have to live with it, but it should be disable-able. Actually I think that most 'features' should have an off switch, since it seems that that is the main objection to most dumb features in this thread.
What is 'fact' depends a lot on your perspective. To some, Iraq is being liberated. To others, the infidels have moved in, and are performing atrocities. The truth lies somewhere between.
You misuse the term 'fact' here, what you mean instead is 'interpretation of fact', the fact is that the American military is involved in Iraq, the interpretation can be "atrocity" or "liberation". The fact that we are in Iraq is not open to interpretation, you cannot say that we are not, but you can say what this means. Facts are data points backed by evidence, thats it, or more so "true statements about the world".
My grandfather was at Auschwitz (as an American soldier), and I trust him. Many survivors are still alive today, who saw attrocities. There is documentary proof (videos from the liberation, contemporary statements by witnesses and survivors, etc...), taken all together you can make a damn strong inductive claim that the holocaust was indeed a fact.
I'm not going to get into this argument, but you are blatantly wrong on one point: Sartre was not a Jew. And Sartre was NOT living a normal public life, in fact he was part of the Resistance (in the form of a writer and journalist), meaning he very much was in hiding from the Nazis.
I'll see your anecdotal evidence, and raise you my own: my grandfather was among the first American troops to liberate Auschwitz, and saw what happened there first hand. Granted he was reluctant to speak of it, but so would most people.
By avoiding teaching about one of the worst examples of intolerance and hatred in human history, they contribute to the problem.
There are two ways of seeing this. I agree, we need to teach it, it shows the dark side of human nature, and is a major psychic blot on the consciousness of western society. The holocaust (or to be exact, the reactions against it) are a major driving force behind what we call modernity. So to understand ourselves, we must understand it.
On the other hand, it is often taught wrong. I was genuinely shocked, after high school, to learn that the Holocaust was not just about Jews. Hitler also killed millions of Gypsies, Poles, Catholics, and POWs, but these people are generally ignored, making the Holocaust a "Jewish thing", which is not true. It shouldn't be about Jews, it should be about Genocide. It should be a narrative about a country of people rising up and slaughter millions of people. It annoys me, and is rather insulting to the other non-Jewish survivors (and victims) of the Holocaust. We should teach it as a bad, to understate, action made by normal people under the control of an unspeakable evil man, and not as a bad act towards just one group of people (since that would be a lie). We should focus on the actors, as well as the totality of the victims.
In America I still run into people saying that World War II was over the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis, these are generally the same people who claim that the civil war was the war to free the slaves. Neither of which is true. Education has become a liberalizing, and sensitizing institution, over one that teaches facts. It seems, from TFA, that this is true over the pond as well. People's beliefs have nothing to do with facts. And school is about teaching facts.
There is a point where sensitivity becomes dangerous stupidity.
As I've read somewhere... Don't be humble, you're not that great.
Never claimed to be.
I'm coming to rethink the cops with cameras (I was about to type 'cops with hammers', a testament to my lack of caffeine) idea, I don't think that that, in itself, is bad. As long as it isn't handled like many of the in-car camera's used by American police departments, where cameras can be shut off at opportune times. What gets me is the spread of government cameras. period.
Knowing, or suspecting, your being watched has more of an effect than actually being watched. Mind, in public you are, perhaps, being watched, but not by any form of large authority. It also ignores the fact that sometimes littering is not some act perpetrated by bad people in need of punishment (nor even most of the time), but by people in a hurry, or even people with kids who enjoy throwing things from a window. Sometimes graffiti isn't a bad thing, sometimes it is a valid artistic expression, or a way of making an anonymous political statement (most modern political and media systems don't want us to do this, the public is their domain). It also scares me since it hampers the ability of gatherings, or other things, or could. You KNOW the government is ALWAYS there, checking up on you.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PRIVACY IN PUBLIC, PERIOD
You are, of course right. I suppose I picked the easiest, and least exact, terminology out of laziness. Your criticism of my language is deserved, and I will sit shamefully though it. The real question, though, is the right of the government to watch my every move, either publically or privately. If I am not doing anything to warrant being watched, then it is unnecessary to be watched, by watching me you imply I might be guilty. They are treating every law abiding citizen as a criminal, by default. They are basically just laying a net, and trying to catch EVERYTHING in case something might, possibly, be a fish.
The second complaint falls into the "slippery slope" category. The "antisocial behavior" laws in England already are vague enough to limit political protest, and also don't actually stipulate what is "antisocial" outside of the fact that someone can be offended by it. Couple this with the panopticon model, and their is something worrisome.
Didn't anyone read Foucault's Discipline and Punish over there on the other side of the pond?
Thank god.
There is something inherently creepy about this whole CCTV idea, coupled with England's vague and ominous "antisocial behaviors" law It does make me somewhat happy (in a sick way) that America isn't the worst place in the developed world as far as privacy laws go, which somewhat surprises me, coupled with the sneaking suspicion that Americans are even somewhat below the British in the sheepish support of the abuse of authority. This isn't so much a flame against the Brits, as a lament.
If things like this happened in America it would finally give me incentive to enact my long planned expatriation. I still have no idea as to where to go, but I think the anglophone countries are getting to be out of the question, even (slowly, and to a lesser extent) Canada.