"That's surviellence of an enemy, and given the Presidents power to wage war, it's not any stretch of the imagination that this sort of activity is within his authority."
Richard Nixon thought so, but somehow that didn't help him any.
"A significant majority of the US population approves of this activity, and they will be voting next election"
A significant percentage of the US population also believes that Saddam Hussein personally piloted both of the airplanes used in the attack on the World Trade Centre. And yes, many of them will somehow figure out how to vote in the next election.
"Sure, why not- but we're not talking about civil liberties here, we're talking about monitoring the communications of people who want to kill us, and their agents in our country. The fact that so many don't realize this- or plainly deny it because of a visceral hate for the current administration- sickens me, and you have just read the result of that disgust."
Actually, you're talking about the laws of your country and the principles upon which it was founded. You may want to try reading books instead of burning them, you may learn something.
I question your seriousness about preserving our country.
I question your patriotism.
and most of all....
I question your judgement
I question your motives. Wrapping your country in plastic and then never sitting on it will "preserve" it, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Don't mock the Society for the Conservation of Angular Momentum. It's a real problem and could lead to the heat death of the Universe if it isn't taken seriously, and soon.
"Of course you can't write heavily procedural logic that way, (say, a word processor), but for the most part that stuff runs fast enough on one core anyways."
Even if your main applications are single-threaded and can only use one CPU, that still leaves you with three cores to run nothing but Norton Anti-Virus.
Some people will notice a slight increase in performance as a result.
I am quite aware of the thriving underground interactive fiction scene, but none of those games have ever had the kind of commercial success that Infocom had when they were at their peak.
Let me expand on my original statement. The era of the text-only adventure _as a prime, commercially viable product_ has ended.
Oh, how foolish of me. I didn't realize that all 1.4 billion muslims around the world were all part of the same big conspiracy and thought with one mind.
Here I thought that they might actually be people. Thanks for correcting me.
There's even more news to be read. If you want another perspective on just what's going on, here's a more detailed timeline courtesy of a handful of conspiracy nuts with a website:
September, 2005: A series of cartoons is published in the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, depicting the Prophet in a number of unflattering ways. Nobody notices.
October, 2005: Nobody notices again.
November and December, 2005: Still no response. It's almost like nobody cares.
Nobody heard about it in North America because they were too concerned with more important things like Nick and Jessica's break-up and whether Angelina and Brad were likely to get back together.
Later That Same Week: The Saudi press, which is completely controlled by the government, discovers to its shock that a mere four months ago a foreign newspaper with a limited circularion had printed a few poorly drawn cartoons which nobody seemed to care about. Sensing a far more important story at hand the Saudi government drops all plans to criticize themselves for their fatal blunders at the Hajj and instead starts running up to four stories a day about the horrors of infidel cartoonists. The locals eat it up.
The European and American media sense a big boost to their circulation and ratings, eat it up with just as much fervor, and start reprinting the cartoons. This is a bit like throwing water on a grease fire, and it leads us to where we are today.
"One wonders where to find the Muslim mobs shouting "Down with Al-Qaeda! Down with terrorism! Stop killing innocent people in the name of Islam, because YOU are profaning the very name of Islam. Stop ridiculing the name of the Prophet in the eyes of the world by claiming that murder is part of Islam!""
Um... They're here. And here. And here and here and here and here and here and even here and, oh, there are a few hundred more here.
Muslim leaders around the world have issued fatwa after fatwa condemning terrorism and calling for an end to suicide bombings, car bombings, bus bombs, subway bombs, and every other bombing short of another Uwe Boll film. Just because Bill O'Reilly doesn't tell you about it doesn't mean that is never happened.
They did it because graphical games like King's Quest were outselling their text-only offerings. Even though the story and gameplay were simpler, the market showed that People Like Looking At Shiny Things.
Inforcom tried to keep up by putting graphics in some of their games, but found that they just didn't translate well to the mixed format. The era of the text-only adventure ended, and the industry moved on to new romances with more graphic-intensive games like Doom and Myst.
The Public may not always know what's best for them, but they do know what they like and they spend their money on it.
If you still want to have a problem with their membership policies then you will also have to have a problem with _every_ guild which doesn't have a completely open door to everyone who wants in.
"This doesn't come down to 'equal rights', it comes down to using the game as a means to push an agenda."
One could argue that by interpreting the EULA as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and threatening to ban GLBTLMNOP players for not staying in the closet employees of Blizzard were using the game to push their own agenda.
Richard Garriot once told a story about the early days of Ultima Online. I can't find the original source, but it went something like this.
He was wandering around the world as Lord British when he saw someone robbing another character. He promptly used his godlike powers to freeze the thief, demanded that he return what he had taken and gave him a lecture about not stealing. As soon as he let him go, the thief stole something again and ran off.
When he confronted the thief over why he had continued to steal after being told not to be the designer of the game itself, the thief explained that he was role playing a character who stole. He had role played being caught by the authorities, role played lying about not doing it again, and then role played getting away.
The lesson for Garriot was that his world had taken on a life of its own and that he didn't own it any more.
The other lesson is one that guides the actions of every online game today. To the players, anything not expressly forbidden by the game engine is allowed. Anything that the game engine detects but doesn't prevent you from doing is encouraged.
In my opinion having the game allow antisocial behaviour but try to punish it will only send the message that being a jerk is encouraged by the game. Just look at Lineage II for an example of that. The other problem is that once the "rules" of behaviour are known, people will try to find ways around them. For example if "Kill Stealing", the practice of letting another character "pull" a rare or valuable mob and then killing it to take the experience and loot for yourself, were outlawed, then you can be sure that someone is going to start pulling mobs, "tagging" them just enough to have the game declare them as "his", and then run trains of them over other players, trying to force them to "steal" his mobs.
Any human observer who watched that would know just who was causing the problem and whom to punish but an automatic system can easily be tricked into making the wrong call. Adding more rules to the system only means there are more opportunities for the players you are trying to control to twist it and use it against you.
"Hi, Welcome to the Asshattery server, a GGI-positive shart of the Generiquest game. Since you're new here, here are a few rules:
"First, don't be a dick. You'd think that you would know that, but sometimes we have to explain things.
"Second, look for anyone with the <Uberguild> tag over their heads. These people are your gods. Not doing exactly what they say, be it leaving your current campsite, loaning them all the gold in your pockets without asking for repayment, or dancing naked on top of the nearest mailbox because they are bored, will lead to every single member of Uberguild filing a report against you on the GGI service. You will be instantly banned from this and any other game you may ever wish to play at any time in the future, with no hope of recourse.
"Third, don't even bother trying to complain to GGI about rule number 2. The person who handles complaints there just so happens to be the guildmaster of one of the guilds here. I'll let you guess which one.
If activities like ninjalooting could be caught automatically by the game, then why not simply disallow them?
All that that kind of system would do is encourage players to rip off their teammates, knowing that it is allowed by the game and that it only costs them a handful of "dishonour" points which can be easily worked off by a couple hours of two-boxing and healing your other character.
Slashdot Mirror
I would act surprised by this statement, but really I'm not.
Richard Nixon thought so, but somehow that didn't help him any.
"A significant majority of the US population approves of this activity, and they will be voting next election"
A significant percentage of the US population also believes that Saddam Hussein personally piloted both of the airplanes used in the attack on the World Trade Centre. And yes, many of them will somehow figure out how to vote in the next election.
"Sure, why not- but we're not talking about civil liberties here, we're talking about monitoring the communications of people who want to kill us, and their agents in our country. The fact that so many don't realize this- or plainly deny it because of a visceral hate for the current administration- sickens me, and you have just read the result of that disgust."
Actually, you're talking about the laws of your country and the principles upon which it was founded. You may want to try reading books instead of burning them, you may learn something.
I question your seriousness about preserving our country.
I question your patriotism.
and most of all....
I question your judgement
I question your motives. Wrapping your country in plastic and then never sitting on it will "preserve" it, but I wouldn't want to live there.
More than that, there are rumours going around that he might secretly be black.
Don't mock the Society for the Conservation of Angular Momentum. It's a real problem and could lead to the heat death of the Universe if it isn't taken seriously, and soon.
And if that doesn't work it's still easier to break your fingers than to break your encryption.
Why else did you think it was still around?
That and the fact that several of the core developers actually live in Canada.
That's funny. My car has two motors under the hood, and it uses them quite well. And it's front wheel drive.
Even if your main applications are single-threaded and can only use one CPU, that still leaves you with three cores to run nothing but Norton Anti-Virus.
Some people will notice a slight increase in performance as a result.
So which company will be the first to introduce a giga-core chip?
That one always works for me.
And if you look around hard enough, you'll also find somebody who will combine the three for you for the right price.
Let me expand on my original statement. The era of the text-only adventure _as a prime, commercially viable product_ has ended.
Here I thought that they might actually be people. Thanks for correcting me.
September, 2005: A series of cartoons is published in the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, depicting the Prophet in a number of unflattering ways. Nobody notices.
October, 2005: Nobody notices again.
November and December, 2005: Still no response. It's almost like nobody cares.
Early January, 2006: During the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage in which millions of people travel to Mecca, negligence on behalf of the organizers . Earlier that month a hotel near Mecca had collapsed, killing at least seventy people. Both tragedies were seen as being caused by the carelessness of the Saudi government, and the metaphorical poo-poo started to fly.
Nobody heard about it in North America because they were too concerned with more important things like Nick and Jessica's break-up and whether Angelina and Brad were likely to get back together.
Later That Same Week: The Saudi press, which is completely controlled by the government, discovers to its shock that a mere four months ago a foreign newspaper with a limited circularion had printed a few poorly drawn cartoons which nobody seemed to care about. Sensing a far more important story at hand the Saudi government drops all plans to criticize themselves for their fatal blunders at the Hajj and instead starts running up to four stories a day about the horrors of infidel cartoonists. The locals eat it up.
The European and American media sense a big boost to their circulation and ratings, eat it up with just as much fervor, and start reprinting the cartoons. This is a bit like throwing water on a grease fire, and it leads us to where we are today.
The dog is being wagged, folks.
Um... They're here. And here. And here and here and here and here and here and even here and, oh, there are a few hundred more here.
Muslim leaders around the world have issued fatwa after fatwa condemning terrorism and calling for an end to suicide bombings, car bombings, bus bombs, subway bombs, and every other bombing short of another Uwe Boll film. Just because Bill O'Reilly doesn't tell you about it doesn't mean that is never happened.
Inforcom tried to keep up by putting graphics in some of their games, but found that they just didn't translate well to the mixed format. The era of the text-only adventure ended, and the industry moved on to new romances with more graphic-intensive games like Doom and Myst.
The Public may not always know what's best for them, but they do know what they like and they spend their money on it.
One could, but that would have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
The guild in question is GLBT friendly, not GLBT only.
If you still want to have a problem with their membership policies then you will also have to have a problem with _every_ guild which doesn't have a completely open door to everyone who wants in.
One could argue that by interpreting the EULA as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and threatening to ban GLBTLMNOP players for not staying in the closet employees of Blizzard were using the game to push their own agenda.
That he and his parents are white, and that they all eat dinner in their home every evening.
The hard part is getting their parents to keep paying $15 a month after they have been banned.
If that's your stance on grief play then there's really no point in having a feedback system at all.
He was wandering around the world as Lord British when he saw someone robbing another character. He promptly used his godlike powers to freeze the thief, demanded that he return what he had taken and gave him a lecture about not stealing. As soon as he let him go, the thief stole something again and ran off.
When he confronted the thief over why he had continued to steal after being told not to be the designer of the game itself, the thief explained that he was role playing a character who stole. He had role played being caught by the authorities, role played lying about not doing it again, and then role played getting away.
The lesson for Garriot was that his world had taken on a life of its own and that he didn't own it any more.
The other lesson is one that guides the actions of every online game today. To the players, anything not expressly forbidden by the game engine is allowed. Anything that the game engine detects but doesn't prevent you from doing is encouraged.
In my opinion having the game allow antisocial behaviour but try to punish it will only send the message that being a jerk is encouraged by the game. Just look at Lineage II for an example of that. The other problem is that once the "rules" of behaviour are known, people will try to find ways around them. For example if "Kill Stealing", the practice of letting another character "pull" a rare or valuable mob and then killing it to take the experience and loot for yourself, were outlawed, then you can be sure that someone is going to start pulling mobs, "tagging" them just enough to have the game declare them as "his", and then run trains of them over other players, trying to force them to "steal" his mobs.
Any human observer who watched that would know just who was causing the problem and whom to punish but an automatic system can easily be tricked into making the wrong call. Adding more rules to the system only means there are more opportunities for the players you are trying to control to twist it and use it against you.
"Hi, Welcome to the Asshattery server, a GGI-positive shart of the Generiquest game. Since you're new here, here are a few rules:
"First, don't be a dick. You'd think that you would know that, but sometimes we have to explain things.
"Second, look for anyone with the <Uberguild> tag over their heads. These people are your gods. Not doing exactly what they say, be it leaving your current campsite, loaning them all the gold in your pockets without asking for repayment, or dancing naked on top of the nearest mailbox because they are bored, will lead to every single member of Uberguild filing a report against you on the GGI service. You will be instantly banned from this and any other game you may ever wish to play at any time in the future, with no hope of recourse.
"Third, don't even bother trying to complain to GGI about rule number 2. The person who handles complaints there just so happens to be the guildmaster of one of the guilds here. I'll let you guess which one.
"Fourth, of course, is to enjoy your stay."
All that that kind of system would do is encourage players to rip off their teammates, knowing that it is allowed by the game and that it only costs them a handful of "dishonour" points which can be easily worked off by a couple hours of two-boxing and healing your other character.