I remember hearing that same argument about ten years ago, except for the following alterations:
The future of gaming on the PC is in Adventure games and Simulation games, and Bard's Tale style RPGs... these are the only games that haven't translated well to the console market. Finally the useless joystick will die on the PC. Sure it's being used for those occasional flightsims, and the odd battle racing game, but any joystick I bought never really ever did me any good for the PC! Good riddance... I'd rather concentrate my programming and BBS efforts on my PC and use my Genesis for games... games that were designed to use a joystick. I found the joysticks on the PC a waste of money...
As every Goldeneye player knows, Jaws is very tall and gleamingly white. Also know as a sitting duck. Who we want back is the short and black clad Oddjob.
Besides, Jaws was the stereotypical Big Dumb Guy, who ultimately betrays his master. Oddjob, one the other hand, had style, finesse, a cool hat, and died in the service of Goldfinger. What more could you want from a Henchman?
The reason we are skeptical is because games based on liscensed properties always suck.
In all seriousness, Bible games have a history of being extrordinarily poor. Half of the time they a saccharine morality plays with very little game content (ie. simplistic options along the lines of "There is a baby with some candy. Do you steal his candy? (y/n)"). The other half only gives lip-service to the biblical theme (FPS where you shoot the word of god at sinner while searching for a vulgate bible).
If it's the first type, this could get pretty annoying in an RPG context, especially with the standard RPG 'choice'. Playing as Judas:
Guard: I'll give you thirty GP to sell out the son of God. (Y/N): N Guard: Come one, it's thirty coins! (Y/N): N Guard: Come one, it's thirty coins! (Y/N): N Guard: Come one, it's thirty coins! (Y/N): N Guard: Come one, it's thirty coins! (Y/N): Y
The second type of game, on the other hand, could have some wonderful camp value to it, since this would basically be a standard RPG with biblical characters and themes tacked onto it.
Roman guard critically hits Lazarus for 47 points damage. Lazarus is Dead. Jesus casts Summon: Dad God casts thunderbolt on Roman guard. God misses. Roman guard hits Jesus for 10 hit points. Jesus is dead. Party Annihilated Continue? (y/n)
As to your thought that each game should be evaluated on its own merits, you are fundamentally right. As should every film and every book. However, I've historically found that finding well-made, thought provoking films is much easier if I rule out everything in the "Over 21" section of the local video store. I might miss out on some great artistic mastery by never seeing "Debbie does Somalia", but history suggests otherwise. Simultaneously, this game could be a masterpiece, but the odds are highly against it.
Yet another INTP here. I, of course, am the same way, except I never expect mastery of what I start. I've always wanted to be a Jack of all Trades, so I'd be a master of none. Besides, mastery seems boring; if I'm truly the master, then everything left is trivial. No fun in that
I contest his notion that console gaming is more social. Handhelds have the ability to be taken anywhere, while the console remains at your home, where it can only be enjoyed by a small group of friends. For more evidence, look at Nintendo's Pokemon, which allowed to kids to battle against each other. Now look at Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords. There is immense social potential in the handheld market; it just seems that Nintendo is the only developer currently trying to exploit it.
Could you see if you could get them to support Java on the Palm as well. For a while we had KVM, but then Sun abandonned it to replace it with Personal Java, which they have since abandonned. What we are left with is waba, which, while nice, is not really Java.
A good friend of mine did some consulting work on a computer system for a certain multi-national pharmaceutical manufacturer. His tales of what went on there are some of the most depressingly humorous stories I have ever heard (with all the sides (patients, politicians, managers, the FDA, animal rights activists, doctors, researchers) commiting their fair share of the stupidity). What brought this to mind is when he told me about the FDA's requirement that they track all the adverse events caused by the medication, such as headache or dizzyness. The funny part is that Death is not considered an adverse reaction. Death is a natural occurance, and patients who die while testing your medication aren't worth keeping track of.
TiVo has crappy broadband connectivity. Ver 2 is supposed to support USB. What additional hardware are you going to have to buy to connect that to something? I've got CAT5 running already out my DSL, I just plugged in my replay, it got an IP from DHCP and that was it.
Just to clear a few things up. First, Ver. 2 isn't supposed to support USB, it does support USB (I own one). As to the additional hardware you have to buy, all it takes is a ethernet NIC, which I picked up at Best Buy for $30 to connect it to the network. It then immediately got its IP via DHCP and was done. I freely admit that ReplayTV having the ethernet port on the back would have saved me the $30 and about five minutes effort, but to say that TiVo is left off of ethernet would be a incorrect.
but it's dying. At least mine is, anyway. Something has weakened the motor so that it cannot provide the necessary torque to bring the disc up to speed.
Solution: After I turn the machine on, I open the lid and rapidly spin the disc with my finger, then slam the lid shut (like the propellers on old WWI planes). While the motor can't accelerate , it is apparently powerful enough to keep it going at a constant angular velocity. Besides, my friends get a kick out of watching me do it.
While I wish this firm the best of luck, I believe there is a flaw in their system. I remember somewhere about one of the reasons why the touch screen failed (is still not in common use) is that it, like the Quill, relied on the muscles of the upper arm to move the hand around the screen to click (technically touch) the controls. Well, the muscles of the upper armed are designed to provide great force, as opposed to accuracy. The end result was that peoples upper arm got tired far more quickly than the wrist would, and people felt like they had "gorilla arm".
Now, I have not used this product, nor will I ever; a childhood injury prevents my wrists from rotating in the way necessary to use their mice. Therefore, they may have a perfectly reasonible way of handling the moevments. I'm just worried about their blanket assumption that the shoulder is superior tot he wrist.
After reading some of the posts I just had a few ideas I had to get off my chest.
First, it's been brought up that Duke Nukem, with it's tight-shirted muscle man didn't offend guys the way Tomb Raider offended some women. However, Tomb Raider didn't present the option of paying male strippers. For that matter, you spend all of Tomb Raider starring at Lara read end, while you spend Duke Nukem starring at Duke's boot.
Next, on the whole issue of out-of-place sexuality in games, just think how many gamers were pissed by the Hot tub scene at the Honey Bee in Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. If it had been hot chicks in skimpy swim wear we probably wouldn't have heard as many complaints, but the instant male gamers are forced to deal with a hyper-sexed male game character, they freak.
On the whole issue that people go to games for fantasy, and expect fantasy style characters, I find mostly plausible. However, it breaks my suspension of disbelief when my knight's armor offers as much protection as my female assasin's bikini. Also, when you read classic (aka. good) fantasy and mythology, you don't find hot chicks, you get beautiful women. Helen of Troy didn't have the 'Ass that Launched a Thousand Ships'. Odysseus' Penelope kept well clothed. Tolkein's Arwen could sleep on her stomach. You can still have attractive female character, just try and follow the rules of human anatomy.
Finally, the comments that 'Teenage Males are the video game market' is absolute heresy, considering how many anime fans Slashdot has. You know how the cycle works:
American Business declares that American's don't like Anime, so they put out a lousy translations with bad voice actors.
People get pissed by the bad translation and voice acting and don't buy the video.
Sales come in slow and American Business declares that American's don't like Anime.
Teenage males buy the games because the games are oriented towards teenage males.
Despite today's date, this is a true story. If I was going to make something up, I wouldn't have chosen a story this lame.
My grandmother suffered from senile dementia, so she would forget that she was talking to an answering machine. Well, every time it hung up on her, she would call back to yell at my mother (whose voice was on the answering machine message) for hanging up. The end result was that we would leave to go to dinner (yes, I was living with my parents, but I was seven, so it's not forgivable), we would come back and there would be twenty-some messages from her. Well, for about a month after she passed away, any time we would go anywhere, we would come home to find twenty odd messages on the machine. They would all be blank, but it was still kind of creepy.
Re:Still has shoulder buttons, though.
on
New Gameboy Announced
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You reminded me of an old project that Nintendo had back in the 8-bit days, the nintendo hands-free controller. You moved a little ball with your chin to handle the direction keys, and sucked and blew on a straw for the A and B buttons. I never actually used one myself, so I can't say how you did start of select, or how long you could play the game without hyperventilating, but I was always impressed that they had made it at all. I wonder if they've tried similar projects for later systems?
Depending on the range with which the control pad works, it could be immensely useful. You could drive up to the front of a restaurant and then find a park space from the comfort of your table(what would be more suave than permanent valet?) How about using it to drive the car into places unfit for humans, like Chernobyl or New Jersey? With the structural changes that were made to the vehicle, you could use it as a battering ram without worrying about whiplash. There's plenty of uses for a remote controlled car, the movie just failed to show them.
However, I will admit that there is one flub that has always bothered me. After all of the situations where these gadgets have saved Bond's life, how come he isn't carrying it again in the next film? I recognize that the inflatable ski jacket was a one trick pony, but there's been plenty of times he could have used the wristwatch garrote, x-ray camera with built in laser, or plastique toothpaste, but Q just decided to deprive him of these useful tools.
When the article mentioned being able to absorb near infrared light, I was reminded of my ridiculous idea to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Basically, you would need a solar cell that would generate power from infrared light. Use this solar cell to power a battery recharging unit. Place an uncharged battery into the unit, and put it in a dark closet for a year. At room temperature, objects should be giving off black body radiation in the infrared spectrum, so the wall of the closet should be emitting trace amounts of infrared light. So, with enough time, the trickle of current should recharge the battery. Therefore, I have taken heat energy, which is very entropic, and confined it to a battery, thereby decreasing the entropy of the system without expending energy to do it. I know this can't work, but I'm having trouble seeing why. Any ideas?
If machines that attempt the Turing Test count as NLP, then NLP is a solved problem. You just need a random number generator to choose from a list of prechosen responses (face it, there's nothing less believable than talking to someone who actually listens to you.) Therefore, I submit Virtual Boglin:
#include
void main() {
int i = 1;
printf("Hello\n");
while(i) {
scanf();
switch(i){
case 1: printf("Microsoft Sucks! Use Linux!\n");break;
case 2: printf("I need to boot back over to the Windows side to play System Shock 2.\n");break;
case 3: printf("Sony is an evil monster who won't be content until we have lost all our rights.\n");break;
case 4: printf("Have I shown you my Clie? Look, it can play the Spiderman Trailer!\n");
}
i=rand()%5;
}
printf("Leave me alone; I'm about to get a new high score.\n"); }
No posts, yet the site is already slashdotted. Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe our goal is now clear: finding the means by which we can slashdot sites before the story hits Slashdot. This is the final frontier.
You're probably right about the standardized testing. My main objective there is to weed out the people who think that using the "advanced" install options on the shareware they download makes them a tech. But most of computer science is not, but an art, so the standardized test wouldn't be the best avenue. My main objective was to rank members by their skill, rather than by how long they have been union members. I'll have to keep thinking on that.
As to your claiming that you don't need the union to negotiate for you, you probably don't. However, not everyone is a great negotiator. Furthermore, not all great negotiators are good techs. We've all seen the great techs passed over for a raise by the loud guy the brown noses. I see the union as more of an interpreter for those who can't negotiate.
Finally, as to the issue of how the union will never use it's members to the best of their abilities, nor will it gain its members the benefit set that they desire, you are once again entirely correct. However, these results are not guaranteed in individual negotiation, either. For example, at my last job one of our perks was free sodas in the office. I don't really drink soda, but I wasn't allowed to leverage it into something I did want. It's a matter of degree as to which system bests suits the worker's interests, and I honestly don't have the facts to show which way is better.
In the end, I agree with you that there could (and I believe should) be an organization to help support workers; I just called it a union for lack of a better word.
IANAE (I am not an Economist), but I think that there is a way to implement unions for nerds that would be beneficial to the geek community. The main need for restructuring is having the union test it's members for their own competence. Similar to certification, except run by the nerds, as opposed to the marketing department. This should fix the following problems:
Good nerds pulling the weight of the lazy nerds. Incompetent nerds are never allowed into the union. Less competent nerds are paid less than the better nerds. Nerds who slack will be kicked out of the union.
The jobs being shipped to cheaper workers off shore. First off, if the off shore workers are willing to do the same work for less pay, then the jobs will be shipped there even if we don't unionize. However, the union can represent a body of workers with a skill level that they aren't guarnteed from random off shore workers.
No ability to work overtime. This could be a major disadvantage. However, too many coorporation have been making it where only the lowest levels of employees are paid hourly, everyone else is salaried. So, which do you prefer, no option of overtime, or 80 hours of unpaid overtime.
Ridiculuous union rules. True, there will be rules imposed by the union, which could very well be annoying. But wasn't there a recent Slashdot Article explaining that businesses will soon begin inforcing its rules upon the nerd community. The choices are the silly rules of the nerd union, or the silly rules of management.
The computer industry is different from the auto industry, so we can't just use the same rules. I know my system is far from perfect, but at least I tried to work on it, rather than saying that it can't be done.
When I read through the article, I saw it could be interepreted two different ways. The first is that college CS students are learning implementation, but not computers. There was a perfect example of this effect in my CS course last week. The introductory programming class, which teaches Java, uses a wrapper around the System class to make IO easier. Specifically, we had two classes FoobarIn and FoobarOut (names have been changed to protect the guilty.) That was two years ago. Last week, one of my classmates complained that his project couldn't find FoobarIn. I found this lauughably pathetic, till I looked through the textbook that we had used, and realized that not only did it never mentioned that FoobarIn was not a standard class, there was no mention of the System class anywhere! If I hadn't had outside Java programming experience, I might have been up the same creek he was. This also goes along with the fact that all of our higher math courses require us to use the same CAS program for plotting and matrix computation. While most of the assignments have still had some educational value, some have been dedicated purely to learning one CAS system that no one else uses. If you are fighting to get CS back to teaching pure computer science, as opposed to application wrangling, I applaud you.
However, a couple of your statements had lead me to a second interpretation. Specifically, when you complainted that students were only familiar with Visual C++ and wouldn't be able to use G++. The point is that they are both C++ compilers, so if you know one, you should be able to figure out the other in reasonable time. If you are expecting graduates to learn all of the #pragma's, quirks, and language extentions of every compiler by graduation, you are expecting them to waste their education. To put it differently, with your copier example, a CS major should be able come to a copy machine, find the glass, put the paper on it, and find and press the copy button. However, if you want him to tell you the exact location of the copy button on a Kodak 2085AF without being given a chance to look for it, get used to disappointment.
A couple of days ago, when this was posted on linuxgames, the site dropped to an absolute crawl. If the previously unheard of linuxgames effect nearly killed it, what's the slashdot effect going to do to it?
Slashdot Mirror
As every Goldeneye player knows, Jaws is very tall and gleamingly white. Also know as a sitting duck. Who we want back is the short and black clad Oddjob. Besides, Jaws was the stereotypical Big Dumb Guy, who ultimately betrays his master. Oddjob, one the other hand, had style, finesse, a cool hat, and died in the service of Goldfinger. What more could you want from a Henchman?
In all seriousness, Bible games have a history of being extrordinarily poor. Half of the time they a saccharine morality plays with very little game content (ie. simplistic options along the lines of "There is a baby with some candy. Do you steal his candy? (y/n)"). The other half only gives lip-service to the biblical theme (FPS where you shoot the word of god at sinner while searching for a vulgate bible).
If it's the first type, this could get pretty annoying in an RPG context, especially with the standard RPG 'choice'. Playing as Judas:
The second type of game, on the other hand, could have some wonderful camp value to it, since this would basically be a standard RPG with biblical characters and themes tacked onto it.
As to your thought that each game should be evaluated on its own merits, you are fundamentally right. As should every film and every book. However, I've historically found that finding well-made, thought provoking films is much easier if I rule out everything in the "Over 21" section of the local video store. I might miss out on some great artistic mastery by never seeing "Debbie does Somalia", but history suggests otherwise. Simultaneously, this game could be a masterpiece, but the odds are highly against it.
My favorite comeback has always been "If we only use 10% of our brain, then 90% of brain trauma should have no effect.
Yet another INTP here. I, of course, am the same way, except I never expect mastery of what I start. I've always wanted to be a Jack of all Trades, so I'd be a master of none. Besides, mastery seems boring; if I'm truly the master, then everything left is trivial. No fun in that
I contest his notion that console gaming is more social. Handhelds have the ability to be taken anywhere, while the console remains at your home, where it can only be enjoyed by a small group of friends. For more evidence, look at Nintendo's Pokemon, which allowed to kids to battle against each other. Now look at Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords. There is immense social potential in the handheld market; it just seems that Nintendo is the only developer currently trying to exploit it.
Could you see if you could get them to support Java on the Palm as well. For a while we had KVM, but then Sun abandonned it to replace it with Personal Java, which they have since abandonned. What we are left with is waba, which, while nice, is not really Java.
These scientist want to study structure which anything can enter, but nothing can leave? /dev/null
Solution: After I turn the machine on, I open the lid and rapidly spin the disc with my finger, then slam the lid shut (like the propellers on old WWI planes). While the motor can't accelerate , it is apparently powerful enough to keep it going at a constant angular velocity. Besides, my friends get a kick out of watching me do it.
While I wish this firm the best of luck, I believe there is a flaw in their system. I remember somewhere about one of the reasons why the touch screen failed (is still not in common use) is that it, like the Quill, relied on the muscles of the upper arm to move the hand around the screen to click (technically touch) the controls. Well, the muscles of the upper armed are designed to provide great force, as opposed to accuracy. The end result was that peoples upper arm got tired far more quickly than the wrist would, and people felt like they had "gorilla arm".
Now, I have not used this product, nor will I ever; a childhood injury prevents my wrists from rotating in the way necessary to use their mice. Therefore, they may have a perfectly reasonible way of handling the moevments. I'm just worried about their blanket assumption that the shoulder is superior tot he wrist.
First, it's been brought up that Duke Nukem, with it's tight-shirted muscle man didn't offend guys the way Tomb Raider offended some women. However, Tomb Raider didn't present the option of paying male strippers. For that matter, you spend all of Tomb Raider starring at Lara read end, while you spend Duke Nukem starring at Duke's boot.
Next, on the whole issue of out-of-place sexuality in games, just think how many gamers were pissed by the Hot tub scene at the Honey Bee in Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. If it had been hot chicks in skimpy swim wear we probably wouldn't have heard as many complaints, but the instant male gamers are forced to deal with a hyper-sexed male game character, they freak.
On the whole issue that people go to games for fantasy, and expect fantasy style characters, I find mostly plausible. However, it breaks my suspension of disbelief when my knight's armor offers as much protection as my female assasin's bikini. Also, when you read classic (aka. good) fantasy and mythology, you don't find hot chicks, you get beautiful women. Helen of Troy didn't have the 'Ass that Launched a Thousand Ships'. Odysseus' Penelope kept well clothed. Tolkein's Arwen could sleep on her stomach. You can still have attractive female character, just try and follow the rules of human anatomy.
Finally, the comments that 'Teenage Males are the video game market' is absolute heresy, considering how many anime fans Slashdot has. You know how the cycle works:
- American Business declares that American's don't like Anime, so they put out a lousy translations with bad voice actors.
- People get pissed by the bad translation and voice acting and don't buy the video.
- Sales come in slow and American Business declares that American's don't like Anime.
Teenage males buy the games because the games are oriented towards teenage males.Despite today's date, this is a true story. If I was going to make something up, I wouldn't have chosen a story this lame.
My grandmother suffered from senile dementia, so she would forget that she was talking to an answering machine. Well, every time it hung up on her, she would call back to yell at my mother (whose voice was on the answering machine message) for hanging up. The end result was that we would leave to go to dinner (yes, I was living with my parents, but I was seven, so it's not forgivable), we would come back and there would be twenty-some messages from her. Well, for about a month after she passed away, any time we would go anywhere, we would come home to find twenty odd messages on the machine. They would all be blank, but it was still kind of creepy.You reminded me of an old project that Nintendo had back in the 8-bit days, the nintendo hands-free controller. You moved a little ball with your chin to handle the direction keys, and sucked and blew on a straw for the A and B buttons. I never actually used one myself, so I can't say how you did start of select, or how long you could play the game without hyperventilating, but I was always impressed that they had made it at all. I wonder if they've tried similar projects for later systems?
Depending on the range with which the control pad works, it could be immensely useful. You could drive up to the front of a restaurant and then find a park space from the comfort of your table(what would be more suave than permanent valet?) How about using it to drive the car into places unfit for humans, like Chernobyl or New Jersey? With the structural changes that were made to the vehicle, you could use it as a battering ram without worrying about whiplash. There's plenty of uses for a remote controlled car, the movie just failed to show them. However, I will admit that there is one flub that has always bothered me. After all of the situations where these gadgets have saved Bond's life, how come he isn't carrying it again in the next film? I recognize that the inflatable ski jacket was a one trick pony, but there's been plenty of times he could have used the wristwatch garrote, x-ray camera with built in laser, or plastique toothpaste, but Q just decided to deprive him of these useful tools.
When the article mentioned being able to absorb near infrared light, I was reminded of my ridiculous idea to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Basically, you would need a solar cell that would generate power from infrared light. Use this solar cell to power a battery recharging unit. Place an uncharged battery into the unit, and put it in a dark closet for a year. At room temperature, objects should be giving off black body radiation in the infrared spectrum, so the wall of the closet should be emitting trace amounts of infrared light. So, with enough time, the trickle of current should recharge the battery. Therefore, I have taken heat energy, which is very entropic, and confined it to a battery, thereby decreasing the entropy of the system without expending energy to do it. I know this can't work, but I'm having trouble seeing why. Any ideas?
If machines that attempt the Turing Test count as NLP, then NLP is a solved problem. You just need a random number generator to choose from a list of prechosen responses (face it, there's nothing less believable than talking to someone who actually listens to you.) Therefore, I submit Virtual Boglin:
#include
void main() {
int i = 1;
printf("Hello\n");
while(i) {
scanf();
switch(i){
case 1: printf("Microsoft Sucks! Use Linux!\n");break;
case 2: printf("I need to boot back over to the Windows side to play System Shock 2.\n");break;
case 3: printf("Sony is an evil monster who won't be content until we have lost all our rights.\n");break;
case 4: printf("Have I shown you my Clie? Look, it can play the Spiderman Trailer!\n");
}
i=rand()%5;
}
printf("Leave me alone; I'm about to get a new high score.\n");
}
Funny, with all the time I spend in the command prompt, I've never had a ':wq' problem. I wonder what I've been doing wrong? ^X^C
No posts, yet the site is already slashdotted. Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe our goal is now clear: finding the means by which we can slashdot sites before the story hits Slashdot. This is the final frontier.
As to your claiming that you don't need the union to negotiate for you, you probably don't. However, not everyone is a great negotiator. Furthermore, not all great negotiators are good techs. We've all seen the great techs passed over for a raise by the loud guy the brown noses. I see the union as more of an interpreter for those who can't negotiate.
Finally, as to the issue of how the union will never use it's members to the best of their abilities, nor will it gain its members the benefit set that they desire, you are once again entirely correct. However, these results are not guaranteed in individual negotiation, either. For example, at my last job one of our perks was free sodas in the office. I don't really drink soda, but I wasn't allowed to leverage it into something I did want. It's a matter of degree as to which system bests suits the worker's interests, and I honestly don't have the facts to show which way is better.
In the end, I agree with you that there could (and I believe should) be an organization to help support workers; I just called it a union for lack of a better word.
Oh, and thank you for taking the time to reply.
- Good nerds pulling the weight of the lazy nerds. Incompetent nerds are never allowed into the union. Less competent nerds are paid less than the better nerds. Nerds who slack will be kicked out of the union.
- The jobs being shipped to cheaper workers off shore. First off, if the off shore workers are willing to do the same work for less pay, then the jobs will be shipped there even if we don't unionize. However, the union can represent a body of workers with a skill level that they aren't guarnteed from random off shore workers.
- No ability to work overtime. This could be a major disadvantage. However, too many coorporation have been making it where only the lowest levels of employees are paid hourly, everyone else is salaried. So, which do you prefer, no option of overtime, or 80 hours of unpaid overtime.
- Ridiculuous union rules. True, there will be rules imposed by the union, which could very well be annoying. But wasn't there a recent Slashdot Article explaining that businesses will soon begin inforcing its rules upon the nerd community. The choices are the silly rules of the nerd union, or the silly rules of management.
The computer industry is different from the auto industry, so we can't just use the same rules. I know my system is far from perfect, but at least I tried to work on it, rather than saying that it can't be done.However, a couple of your statements had lead me to a second interpretation. Specifically, when you complainted that students were only familiar with Visual C++ and wouldn't be able to use G++. The point is that they are both C++ compilers, so if you know one, you should be able to figure out the other in reasonable time. If you are expecting graduates to learn all of the #pragma's, quirks, and language extentions of every compiler by graduation, you are expecting them to waste their education. To put it differently, with your copier example, a CS major should be able come to a copy machine, find the glass, put the paper on it, and find and press the copy button. However, if you want him to tell you the exact location of the copy button on a Kodak 2085AF without being given a chance to look for it, get used to disappointment.
Adam Smith supports legislation that increases barriers to entry? My Econ teacher is probably having convulsions right now.
A couple of days ago, when this was posted on linuxgames, the site dropped to an absolute crawl. If the previously unheard of linuxgames effect nearly killed it, what's the slashdot effect going to do to it?