It's mostly decentralized (I believe there are some moderately large servers hosted by the program's creators that handle a lot of traffic), but they're identifiable. As long as there's someone for the RIAA to tell, "Stop making new versions of this program, and try to get rid of what's already there or you'll go to jail/be fined into poverty!", these services can be stopped. What we really need is for someone to make a P2P program anonymously and then get it to download.com or something without EVER letting their name be known. When that happens (coupled with a decentralized network, of course), we'll have a truly immortal form of P2P.
"Biggest launch recently" and "most popular console ever" are very, very different things. Biggest launch recently? Yeah, that goes to Nintendo. But most popular console ever? I'd say that'd go to the best selling console EVER, not just the biggest console launch recently (yet certainly not ever).
The PlayStation 2, with over 20 million consoles sold, is more popular than the GameCube. Their launch records have nothing to do with that.
Check some gaming sites and magazines. The sales for the GC's launch in Japan were smaller than those of the PlayStation 2, the Dreamcast, the Nintendo 64, and even the Super Nintendo. In fact, they came in about sixth in the all-time launch records, and that's with a gaming community that's growing by the day all over the world. The Cubes also haven't been selling that well in the US.
Most popular? Maybe if this thing had come out in 1992. This thing is the LEAST popular system, as far as sales go, and it's pretty obvious that Nintendo's trying to cover it up.
IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH: Lock makers around the world have decided to start putting special second keyholes in the locks in their doorknobs, dead bolts, and window locks so the FBI will not be hindered by their dangerous, possibly terrorism-friendly lock technology. John Ashcroft was quoted as saying, "Locks, by their very nature, harbor terrorism, and threaten America's basic freedoms of surveillance, oppression, and freedom from the hindrance of privacy,". Experts around the world are also in a frenzy, fearing a "Locking D-Day" when terrorists will use dangerous, immoral locking technology to lock themselves in "houses" (a supposed terrorist codeword for their other new FBI-thwarting technology) and use these "houses" to hide from capture by the FBI.
"These 'houses' and their 'locks' are a dangerous threat to America, and I completely support the Shining Gold Christian Crucifix Crusaders of Goodness and Light in the FBI in their fight against the Minions of Satan that are using this dangerous, immoral technology," President Bush declared today from the same secure, fully locked secret bunker he disappeared to on September 11th.
Sometimes the UScentricities of/. just make me ROFL!
All that is happening here is that
All non-US parties will purchase non-US anti-virus software losing the US anti-virus software produces $xxxxxxxxxx/annum and meaning the US software will have a smaller user base and be more likely to be less secure
I think one of the main points of this arguement that you are missing is that all of these companies have said that they won't block Magic Lantern, but they haven't said that they're going to make a second English language version of their software that WILL detect it for countries like Canada, the UK, and Australia. They also haven't made any comments about whether or not versions of their software in other languages will have separate patches and virus detection lists that will detect Magic Lantern.
Currently, I believe that all English-speaking countries are using the same versions of both Norton Antivirus and McAfee, and non-English-speaking countries are using the same virus block lists in those programs, but with a different language in the program's interface. With that in mind and both Norton Antivirus and McAfee not blocking Magic Lantern, there's a good chance that your non-US antivirus software won't detect Magic Lantern, either intentionally, unintentionally, or just for the sake of simplicity.
If I were you, I wouldn't just laugh. Because there's a good chance that you're in the same boat as us, and thus going over the same privacy waterfall.
Jurassic Park totally ignored this whole point, which, to me, made the whole premise rather lame
Actually, Jurassic Park didn't ignore that at all. They mentioned that the dinosaurs' DNA had to be genetically spliced with the DNA of a specific frog that offered the chance to fill in the needed pieces of DNA that were missing in the dinosaurs, but also posed little threat of creating a pygmy dinosaur-frog hybrid, as if the two animals had been cross bred. One of the major plot points of the book and the movie was the presence of certain frog traits in the resulting dinosaurs, specifically the frog's ability to change its gender for breeding on the fly, allowing some of the dinosaurs to become male, mate with the dinosaurs that remained female (they were all intended to be female), and create fertile eggs.
And for similar people that will say, "But it's impossible to do that!", please note that Jurassic Park is a piece of science FICTION, not science FACT, and thus has the benefit of future technology and scientific discoveries that do not exist in real life. Personally, I think saying that Jurassic Park "ignored that point" (that "point" being the impossibility of the entire thing using current technology and scientific discoveries) is a nitpick to begin with, because it basically labels all science fiction stories "lame" because they don't use currently existing technology.
I suggest you look up both Science Fiction and more specifically the FICTION part of the term that you are having problems with.
Of course, people who are susceptible to motion sickness will feel nauseous when playing first person shooters. I believe that's a given. What I was talking about is that motion sickness in virtual reality or 3D interfaces isn't something INHERENT to those things, i.e. "normal" people that are not already susceptible to motion sickness in planes, trains, automobiles, or boats will not feel any special disorientation in virtual reality beyond the first couple times that they use it.
I was talking about the fact that virtual reality won't make EVERYONE sick, as if it's something inherent to VR, but instead will only affect those that are already susceptible to motion sickness in other forms. That is what I meant by "It is not indicative of anything inherent in the interface itself". VR doesn't have any special magic motion sickness powers that will suddenly make people that aren't normally susceptible motion sick. "Normal" people will not be especially disoriented by it. Those who are already susceptible to motion sickness, however, will be.
A lot of people are in here arguing that "Infrogrames has a right to make money", as if this were a piracy issue. Had you read the blurb on Slashdot more closely, you would realize that this translation is only for people that legitimately bought the US version of the software, usually online.
Infrogrames may not be making money specifically the way it wants (small licensing fees going through Infrogrames Germany and into the US Infrogrames)... but they're actually making more money this way than they would be on the official German translation of Civ3.
Some people have a problem with abandoning their country. Besides... if you wanted a video game from Japan, or a beer from Canada, would you go and live there so you could have it? No, you wouldn't. You'd import it, and that's exactly what they want to do.
It's people like this that make us Americans look arrogant and stupid.
Many people reported feeling ill while playing games like Wolfenstein 3D when they were first coming out, but nowadays, you never hear of anyone claiming that FPS games make them dizzy.
It's natural for people to feel disoriented when introduced to a new viewing environment, such as staring at a computer all day, FPS games, 3D interfaces, or 3D goggles. However, at least as far as computer monitors and FPS games have shown, this disorientation does not last, and as these things become ubiquitous enough to be shown on television in things like TV shows about video games or computers, people that are freshly introduced to these things don't even feel disorientation the first time they use them.
The disorientation people feel when using things like 3D interfaces is nothing more than the shock of literally seeing things in a different way. It is not indicative of anything inherent in the interface itself.
These interfaces are neither revolutionary nor intuitive. They're counterintuitive and they're nothing but pretty graphics; fun experiments that will never and should never catch on. My desktop interface keeps everything organized the way I want it, instead of organizing it the way the computer wants it, and leaving me to search for files that the computer has moved around on its own.
These people should really learn that the desktop is the best way to handle a two dimensional computing environment. The only possible ways to make the current computer interface better is to either add new hardware to interact with the computer (3D goggles, hand sensors, microphone, what have you) or to tweak the current desktop interface to make it just a tiny bit better.
These people are trying to reinvent the wheel by making it a square or a triangle. My wheels are fine the way they are, thank you very much.
The United States: Woefully behind in virtually every aspect of technology, until you get to "Military".
I wish the IRS would just lighten up and let us mail our tax dollars to our OWN crapper instead of theirs. It'd make things much simpler.
Re:Provide a ref please! I smell FUD
on
MAME On Xbox
·
· Score: 2
Microsoft makes money by providing the dev kits, selling their own software, and licensing third party software for use on the X-Box from vendors that submit their software to Microsoft for approval. Because of this, unlicensed software has only rarely appeared on consoles. There was only one unlicensed game for the SNES, I don't believe there were any for Genesis, and I can't think of any for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, or N64. If someone were to try to release an unlicensed program for direct use on the X-Box, Microsoft would not be happy. It would be a threat to their business model and their profit margin.
I had heard that Microsoft had direct intentions to use the DMCA to stop the dissemination of unlicensed software on the X-Box. I actually remembered reading an article about it, as well. But so far, Google has turned up nothing. If anyone has more information on that side of the story, I'd actually like to hear it, because I remember it rather clearly, but the proof seems to be gone.
Either way, however... doesn't it seem logical? I don't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action when someone releases a program for the X-Box that's basically dedicated to the use of illegal ROMs. I wouldn't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action toward ANY sort of unlicensed software, for that matter.
Re:Legality
on
MAME On Xbox
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I understand if only the XBox dev kit would run this software, but where does the law come in? Is it the licensing of the dev kit? Does this mean that you're required to pay MS to write software for this platform?
The law comes in, and I absolutely shit you not when I say this, in this capacity:
If you release software for the X-Box without Microsoft's approval, they will come after you with the DMCA, whether or not it will legitimately hold up in court, and they will appeal any rulings against them endlessly until they either win or deplete your assets with court fees until you are bankrupt.
That's exactly what it comes down to. Some states in the DOJ case actually settled just to recoup their legal assets from the multi-year battle against Microsoft. If Joe Average tries to release unapproved software for the X-Box, Microsoft will use the DMCA to either intimidate them into shutting down their software distribution or, barring that, go into a court case with them that could last almost infinitely (because Microsoft has an almost infinite amount of money), and definitely bankrupt the person that released the software. Most likely, though, intimidation would work pretty well, because after all, these guys outlasted the US government. Joe Average doesn't stand a chance.
(I am not anti-Microsoft, but their intention to use the DMCA against people that relese unapproved software for the X-Box and their unbelievably large cash flow are FACTS, not the usual Slashdot visitor anti-MS bias.)
Actually, I live in a world where a couple of anecdotes that subscribe to neither science nor logic do not consistute such a broad statement as "Video games are just as addictive as nicotine".
You present a few anecdotes about the "danger of video games" to me. This does not stand up to the millions of deaths in America alone due to lung cancer in people that are too addicted to nicotine to quit smoking. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an umbrella term used to describe chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is the fourth leading cause of human death in the world. 90% of COPD deaths are caused by cigarette smoking, and sixteen million people are diagnosed with COPD each year in the United States alone. This is in addition to the studies I mentioned in my original reply about nicotine being more addictive than crack and heroin.
Millions of people of varying ages play video games on a regular basis, but yet, deaths directly related to video games or found to be psychologically caused by video games are few and far between. This puts the addiction rate among users of video games firmly in the less than one percent margin, and pales in comparison to the 80% addiction rate among nicotine users (yes, that is a repeat link for the purpose of proving my point). In fact, the vast majority of non-biological addictions are firmly in the 1% or less percentage of addicts among users. This includes gambling, gaming, surfing, volleyball, and yes, even ping-pong, as well as all other human activities.
So, to sum it up, not only did you compare a non-biological addiction to a biological one in terms of the ratio between users and addicts, which is a massive piece of bull shit in any discussion in and of itself, but you described a non-biological addiction to what appears to be one of the most addictive drugs out there right now. If that's not ignorant, I wonder what is.
A few anecdotes do not equal a massive addict-to-user ratio. If these stories were examples of how addictive video games are, then there would be MILLIONS of such examples of video game addiction. To be as addictive as nicotene, these examples would have to be repeated among over 80% of players. They are not. These are rare, sensationalized instances. I honestly don't mean to be offensive when I say this, but I think you need to do some reading on the subjects of addiction, statistics, and ESPECIALLY media literacy. The kind of media illiteracy you have shown in your posts is exactly the sort of thing that has given rise to anti-video-game legislation, parents going absolutely ape shit over video games, and a general call for censorship in all sorts of media. Very large numbers of people have been duped into thinking that incidents such as those at the Columbine High School are commonplace among teenagers and video game players, under the assumption that because it is getting so much media attention, it must be a common phenomenon. The truth, however, is that there was such a media frenzy over Columbine because of how RARE the incident was. If more people understood the way the news media worked, they would not have been so easily duped by all of the "experts" that tried to rush in and make a quick buck by selling books and producing TV specials that tell people how evil video games are.
If your child is directly affected by such things, then I applaud your actions. However, this rating system did not leave it up to the parents the way the current ESRB rating system, which is present in both American AND CANADA, currently does. This system made violent or sexual video games so difficult for store owners to carry that it effectively banned them from 90% of stores in British Columbia. It took away parents' ability to choose that their child WAS mature enough to play such games, or for those parents with liberal views about sexual content to allow their children to see such things with their parental permission.
The ESRB ratings that are in place now give parents a choice. This government rating system would have taken it away from them, and enforced a style of parenting on the people of British Columbia. It also would've kept such games out of the hands of adults by making the games too difficult for retailers to carry.
There's nothing wrong with ratings like the ESRB, but there IS something wrong with ratings that have so much power behind them that they take away people's rights to choose what they and their children see. This rating system made the government the parent of not only every child, but every adult in British Columbia, and that's just wrong.
Wow. That's just... dumb. Really dumb. How can you possibly equate the addictive effects of nicotine, which has strong biological addictive qualities, with playing a video game? By the results of many studies, nicotine has actually been found to more addictive than both crack and heroin. That's really, really far from the addictive qualities of playing a game that has no direct effect on your bodily functions, bodily organs, or brain chemistry.
As for the rest of mind numbing post, you should learn that video games are not solely a children's medium. This is something that they've learn to grasp in Japan, but not in America. Much like the stereotypes Americans have of animation. According to recent statistics, the age of the average gamer is actually closer to the late teens and early twenties than to the average six year old. Should all of those gamers be forced to play only what is fit for a six year old? That's been the main question in censorship for many years. Should everyone only be able to watch, play, and read what is fit for a six year old? I say no. I happen to err on the side of freedom. You, however, seem to err mostly in the realm of FACTS.
"Video games are just as addictive as nicotine". I swear, some of my brain cells are committing suicide right now just so they won't have to process that piece of ignorant crap again.
Yeah, you can laugh at that "silly X-Box" as you gaze upon your $700+ PC that barely outruns the X-Box in computing power, and yet... does not play X-Box games.
A lot of people here keep comparing that X-Box to home-built PCs, and saying how you can "make your own X-Box". One wonders, though... why would you? Oh, and you also forgot that in order to play X-Box games (if you wanted to) on that little computer, you'd need an emulator, which would mean that you'd need a lot more power than there is in that PC. To emulate the X-Box's architecture with accurate emulation, I'd say you'd need at least a 1-1.2GHz machine with about 256MB of RAM.
Actually, DeCSS simply reverse engineer's the CSS encryption on DVDs. And that researcher's paper (sorry, his name escapes me) on SDMI just talks about vulnerabilities in SDMI. Neither of these copy copyrighted works. Especially the research paper, because research papers are incapable of copying things on their own. Both DeCSS and the research paper, however, were stopped by the DMCA, and I believe both are still in litigation.
DeCSS prohibits reverse engineering and the breaking of encryption. The laws against copying copyrighted works are completely seperate from the DMCA and existed long before it. If all the DMCA did was prohibit the copying of copyrighted works, then there wouldn't be such a fuss about it, because those books have been on the books for many, many years.
I don't understand how Microsoft can think that it is a good idea to have "normal" PC hardware in the Xbox. I think there must be millions of people out there who have in-depth knowledge about the PC hardware.
Yeah, and some of those millions of people are game developers, and that's why it's a good idea. Games can be ported from the X-Box to the PC or from the PC to the X-Box with incredible ease, which means that the X-Box can have a lot of cheap games thrown onto it to quickly develop a library and developers will be attracted to it because they'll be able to port their X-Box game to a completely different platform with different players very easily, thus bumping their profits up 25-50% off a single game.
As far as piracy goes, I believe Microsoft is counting on the fact that DVD drives are ridiculously expensive. If they're really planning on chucking the X-Box in favor of a second console within only a couple years, which is a pervasive rumor that supposedly has some legitimacy to it, then that's a really good bet. If not, then the X-Box will be relatively free of piracy for about as logn as the PlayStation was, i.e. one to three years.
A lot of people criticize this technology, but it's actually very revolutionary, as long as you combine it with something. This sort of thing will be invaluable when paired with HMDs or those sunglasses with a monitor display reflected into them. If you're an anime fan, just think of Washu's setup from Tenchi Muyo. This is the first step toward getting that sort of thing. A full keyboard and monitor that you can bring up WHEREVER YOU ARE, instead of having to deal with a little Palm screen or a small, bizarre hand device mimicking a keyboard for your wearable computer.
This is a big first step toward getting that. Just as big a step as those stories about nanotechnological breakthroughs that will make processors faster in the future are for processors.
With that amount of power consumption, I could very easily see the use of a small pack of AAA batteries on someone's belt being used to power their reading material. It's a small price to pay for glowing books and possibly fold-up monitors.
They install adware to help offset the costs of bandwidth so what do you do but drive 10,000 lemmings to their site to jack the prices of bandwidth up even higher. Wonderful.
Not that including spyware (if it is) in their product is much more salubrious, but still.
I think you're missing the point. The person put links to two of their sites, instead of just one, with explicit intention. This person is using Slashdot as a tool of revenge against LimeWire, and I just wish I'd thought of it first.
Slashdot Mirror
It's mostly decentralized (I believe there are some moderately large servers hosted by the program's creators that handle a lot of traffic), but they're identifiable. As long as there's someone for the RIAA to tell, "Stop making new versions of this program, and try to get rid of what's already there or you'll go to jail/be fined into poverty!", these services can be stopped. What we really need is for someone to make a P2P program anonymously and then get it to download.com or something without EVER letting their name be known. When that happens (coupled with a decentralized network, of course), we'll have a truly immortal form of P2P.
The PlayStation 2, with over 20 million consoles sold, is more popular than the GameCube. Their launch records have nothing to do with that.
The PlayStation 2 has sold over 20 million consoles. The Game Cube hasn't even produced 1 million. This is not the most popular console ever, by far.
Most popular? Maybe if this thing had come out in 1992. This thing is the LEAST popular system, as far as sales go, and it's pretty obvious that Nintendo's trying to cover it up.
"These 'houses' and their 'locks' are a dangerous threat to America, and I completely support the Shining Gold Christian Crucifix Crusaders of Goodness and Light in the FBI in their fight against the Minions of Satan that are using this dangerous, immoral technology," President Bush declared today from the same secure, fully locked secret bunker he disappeared to on September 11th.
All that is happening here is that
All non-US parties will purchase non-US anti-virus software losing the US anti-virus software produces $xxxxxxxxxx/annum and meaning the US software will have a smaller user base and be more likely to be less secure
I think one of the main points of this arguement that you are missing is that all of these companies have said that they won't block Magic Lantern, but they haven't said that they're going to make a second English language version of their software that WILL detect it for countries like Canada, the UK, and Australia. They also haven't made any comments about whether or not versions of their software in other languages will have separate patches and virus detection lists that will detect Magic Lantern.
Currently, I believe that all English-speaking countries are using the same versions of both Norton Antivirus and McAfee, and non-English-speaking countries are using the same virus block lists in those programs, but with a different language in the program's interface. With that in mind and both Norton Antivirus and McAfee not blocking Magic Lantern, there's a good chance that your non-US antivirus software won't detect Magic Lantern, either intentionally, unintentionally, or just for the sake of simplicity.
If I were you, I wouldn't just laugh. Because there's a good chance that you're in the same boat as us, and thus going over the same privacy waterfall.
Jurassic Park totally ignored this whole point, which, to me, made the whole premise rather lame
Actually, Jurassic Park didn't ignore that at all. They mentioned that the dinosaurs' DNA had to be genetically spliced with the DNA of a specific frog that offered the chance to fill in the needed pieces of DNA that were missing in the dinosaurs, but also posed little threat of creating a pygmy dinosaur-frog hybrid, as if the two animals had been cross bred. One of the major plot points of the book and the movie was the presence of certain frog traits in the resulting dinosaurs, specifically the frog's ability to change its gender for breeding on the fly, allowing some of the dinosaurs to become male, mate with the dinosaurs that remained female (they were all intended to be female), and create fertile eggs.
And for similar people that will say, "But it's impossible to do that!", please note that Jurassic Park is a piece of science FICTION, not science FACT, and thus has the benefit of future technology and scientific discoveries that do not exist in real life. Personally, I think saying that Jurassic Park "ignored that point" (that "point" being the impossibility of the entire thing using current technology and scientific discoveries) is a nitpick to begin with, because it basically labels all science fiction stories "lame" because they don't use currently existing technology.
I suggest you look up both Science Fiction and more specifically the FICTION part of the term that you are having problems with.
Of course, people who are susceptible to motion sickness will feel nauseous when playing first person shooters. I believe that's a given. What I was talking about is that motion sickness in virtual reality or 3D interfaces isn't something INHERENT to those things, i.e. "normal" people that are not already susceptible to motion sickness in planes, trains, automobiles, or boats will not feel any special disorientation in virtual reality beyond the first couple times that they use it.
I was talking about the fact that virtual reality won't make EVERYONE sick, as if it's something inherent to VR, but instead will only affect those that are already susceptible to motion sickness in other forms. That is what I meant by "It is not indicative of anything inherent in the interface itself". VR doesn't have any special magic motion sickness powers that will suddenly make people that aren't normally susceptible motion sick. "Normal" people will not be especially disoriented by it. Those who are already susceptible to motion sickness, however, will be.
A lot of people are in here arguing that "Infrogrames has a right to make money", as if this were a piracy issue. Had you read the blurb on Slashdot more closely, you would realize that this translation is only for people that legitimately bought the US version of the software, usually online.
Infrogrames may not be making money specifically the way it wants (small licensing fees going through Infrogrames Germany and into the US Infrogrames)... but they're actually making more money this way than they would be on the official German translation of Civ3.
Some people have a problem with abandoning their country. Besides... if you wanted a video game from Japan, or a beer from Canada, would you go and live there so you could have it? No, you wouldn't. You'd import it, and that's exactly what they want to do.
It's people like this that make us Americans look arrogant and stupid.
It's natural for people to feel disoriented when introduced to a new viewing environment, such as staring at a computer all day, FPS games, 3D interfaces, or 3D goggles. However, at least as far as computer monitors and FPS games have shown, this disorientation does not last, and as these things become ubiquitous enough to be shown on television in things like TV shows about video games or computers, people that are freshly introduced to these things don't even feel disorientation the first time they use them.
The disorientation people feel when using things like 3D interfaces is nothing more than the shock of literally seeing things in a different way. It is not indicative of anything inherent in the interface itself.
These people should really learn that the desktop is the best way to handle a two dimensional computing environment. The only possible ways to make the current computer interface better is to either add new hardware to interact with the computer (3D goggles, hand sensors, microphone, what have you) or to tweak the current desktop interface to make it just a tiny bit better.
These people are trying to reinvent the wheel by making it a square or a triangle. My wheels are fine the way they are, thank you very much.
I wish the IRS would just lighten up and let us mail our tax dollars to our OWN crapper instead of theirs. It'd make things much simpler.
I had heard that Microsoft had direct intentions to use the DMCA to stop the dissemination of unlicensed software on the X-Box. I actually remembered reading an article about it, as well. But so far, Google has turned up nothing. If anyone has more information on that side of the story, I'd actually like to hear it, because I remember it rather clearly, but the proof seems to be gone.
Either way, however... doesn't it seem logical? I don't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action when someone releases a program for the X-Box that's basically dedicated to the use of illegal ROMs. I wouldn't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action toward ANY sort of unlicensed software, for that matter.
Rest in peace, free anonymous services. We'll bury you in a shallow grave right next to the free long distance calling services and the free mailing list services.
The law comes in, and I absolutely shit you not when I say this, in this capacity:
If you release software for the X-Box without Microsoft's approval, they will come after you with the DMCA, whether or not it will legitimately hold up in court, and they will appeal any rulings against them endlessly until they either win or deplete your assets with court fees until you are bankrupt.
That's exactly what it comes down to. Some states in the DOJ case actually settled just to recoup their legal assets from the multi-year battle against Microsoft. If Joe Average tries to release unapproved software for the X-Box, Microsoft will use the DMCA to either intimidate them into shutting down their software distribution or, barring that, go into a court case with them that could last almost infinitely (because Microsoft has an almost infinite amount of money), and definitely bankrupt the person that released the software. Most likely, though, intimidation would work pretty well, because after all, these guys outlasted the US government. Joe Average doesn't stand a chance.
(I am not anti-Microsoft, but their intention to use the DMCA against people that relese unapproved software for the X-Box and their unbelievably large cash flow are FACTS, not the usual Slashdot visitor anti-MS bias.)You present a few anecdotes about the "danger of video games" to me. This does not stand up to the millions of deaths in America alone due to lung cancer in people that are too addicted to nicotine to quit smoking. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an umbrella term used to describe chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is the fourth leading cause of human death in the world. 90% of COPD deaths are caused by cigarette smoking, and sixteen million people are diagnosed with COPD each year in the United States alone. This is in addition to the studies I mentioned in my original reply about nicotine being more addictive than crack and heroin.
Millions of people of varying ages play video games on a regular basis, but yet, deaths directly related to video games or found to be psychologically caused by video games are few and far between. This puts the addiction rate among users of video games firmly in the less than one percent margin, and pales in comparison to the 80% addiction rate among nicotine users (yes, that is a repeat link for the purpose of proving my point). In fact, the vast majority of non-biological addictions are firmly in the 1% or less percentage of addicts among users. This includes gambling, gaming, surfing, volleyball, and yes, even ping-pong, as well as all other human activities.
So, to sum it up, not only did you compare a non-biological addiction to a biological one in terms of the ratio between users and addicts, which is a massive piece of bull shit in any discussion in and of itself, but you described a non-biological addiction to what appears to be one of the most addictive drugs out there right now. If that's not ignorant, I wonder what is.
A few anecdotes do not equal a massive addict-to-user ratio. If these stories were examples of how addictive video games are, then there would be MILLIONS of such examples of video game addiction. To be as addictive as nicotene, these examples would have to be repeated among over 80% of players. They are not. These are rare, sensationalized instances. I honestly don't mean to be offensive when I say this, but I think you need to do some reading on the subjects of addiction, statistics, and ESPECIALLY media literacy. The kind of media illiteracy you have shown in your posts is exactly the sort of thing that has given rise to anti-video-game legislation, parents going absolutely ape shit over video games, and a general call for censorship in all sorts of media. Very large numbers of people have been duped into thinking that incidents such as those at the Columbine High School are commonplace among teenagers and video game players, under the assumption that because it is getting so much media attention, it must be a common phenomenon. The truth, however, is that there was such a media frenzy over Columbine because of how RARE the incident was. If more people understood the way the news media worked, they would not have been so easily duped by all of the "experts" that tried to rush in and make a quick buck by selling books and producing TV specials that tell people how evil video games are.
The ESRB ratings that are in place now give parents a choice. This government rating system would have taken it away from them, and enforced a style of parenting on the people of British Columbia. It also would've kept such games out of the hands of adults by making the games too difficult for retailers to carry.
There's nothing wrong with ratings like the ESRB, but there IS something wrong with ratings that have so much power behind them that they take away people's rights to choose what they and their children see. This rating system made the government the parent of not only every child, but every adult in British Columbia, and that's just wrong.
Wow. That's just... dumb. Really dumb. How can you possibly equate the addictive effects of nicotine, which has strong biological addictive qualities, with playing a video game? By the results of many studies, nicotine has actually been found to more addictive than both crack and heroin. That's really, really far from the addictive qualities of playing a game that has no direct effect on your bodily functions, bodily organs, or brain chemistry.
As for the rest of mind numbing post, you should learn that video games are not solely a children's medium. This is something that they've learn to grasp in Japan, but not in America. Much like the stereotypes Americans have of animation. According to recent statistics, the age of the average gamer is actually closer to the late teens and early twenties than to the average six year old. Should all of those gamers be forced to play only what is fit for a six year old? That's been the main question in censorship for many years. Should everyone only be able to watch, play, and read what is fit for a six year old? I say no. I happen to err on the side of freedom. You, however, seem to err mostly in the realm of FACTS.
"Video games are just as addictive as nicotine". I swear, some of my brain cells are committing suicide right now just so they won't have to process that piece of ignorant crap again.
A lot of people here keep comparing that X-Box to home-built PCs, and saying how you can "make your own X-Box". One wonders, though... why would you? Oh, and you also forgot that in order to play X-Box games (if you wanted to) on that little computer, you'd need an emulator, which would mean that you'd need a lot more power than there is in that PC. To emulate the X-Box's architecture with accurate emulation, I'd say you'd need at least a 1-1.2GHz machine with about 256MB of RAM.
DeCSS prohibits reverse engineering and the breaking of encryption. The laws against copying copyrighted works are completely seperate from the DMCA and existed long before it. If all the DMCA did was prohibit the copying of copyrighted works, then there wouldn't be such a fuss about it, because those books have been on the books for many, many years.
Do YOU know what the DMCA is? Apparently not.
I don't understand how Microsoft can think that it is a good idea to have "normal" PC hardware in the Xbox. I think there must be millions of people out there who have in-depth knowledge about the PC hardware.
Yeah, and some of those millions of people are game developers, and that's why it's a good idea. Games can be ported from the X-Box to the PC or from the PC to the X-Box with incredible ease, which means that the X-Box can have a lot of cheap games thrown onto it to quickly develop a library and developers will be attracted to it because they'll be able to port their X-Box game to a completely different platform with different players very easily, thus bumping their profits up 25-50% off a single game.
As far as piracy goes, I believe Microsoft is counting on the fact that DVD drives are ridiculously expensive. If they're really planning on chucking the X-Box in favor of a second console within only a couple years, which is a pervasive rumor that supposedly has some legitimacy to it, then that's a really good bet. If not, then the X-Box will be relatively free of piracy for about as logn as the PlayStation was, i.e. one to three years.
This is a big first step toward getting that. Just as big a step as those stories about nanotechnological breakthroughs that will make processors faster in the future are for processors.
With that amount of power consumption, I could very easily see the use of a small pack of AAA batteries on someone's belt being used to power their reading material. It's a small price to pay for glowing books and possibly fold-up monitors.
I think you're missing the point. The person put links to two of their sites, instead of just one, with explicit intention. This person is using Slashdot as a tool of revenge against LimeWire, and I just wish I'd thought of it first.