This man realizes that he is just a man, and without an all-knowing, loving God, he is nothing. And even a touchdown doesn't matter if he doesn't thank God for giving it to him through his skill and abilities.
I'll believe it's more than just show the moment I see someone thanking God for allowing the ball to come out of their hands so the other team can pick it up and run for a touchdown, or kneeling and making the sign of the cross when he allows them to be tackled at the 1 yard line as time runs out keeping them from scoring the winning td.
I doubt I'll ever see that though. Just like people will thank God for letting them survive a disaster, but never once mention all the people he let die. ---
Mod it up? Not gonna happen, the story is too old for people with moderation points to look over it and bother.
It does make me wonder if an "Ask Slashdot" covering the actual implementation of CALEA in various cell systems might be interesting. See if engineers that worked on other systems might be willing to elaborate a little bit on how they implemented it, to see if any are more or less secure than others? ---
It turns out that the company I work for, the group of people who actually implemented it, and the company who actually runs the cellular system - all did not like the CALEA law. We didn't want to have to implement it, we didn't want them able to do the tapping, and the service provider didn't want to have to deal with it. But those aren't acceptable choices.
The "tapping" in the system I worked on is actually set up pretty well. I'll describe things the best I can from what I know...
To the system, the module that is used to do the tapping appears to be just another module that calls are routed to. So it's pretty transparent there.
To tap a person's phone, law enforcement must show up at the service provider site that the suspect is located in. They have to present a warrant, which states whether the just get call identifying information (who calls whom), or if they actually get to listen in also. Service provider personnel, not law enforcement, provision the appropriate subscriber for surveillance. And law enforcement have to provide the actual box that lets them decode call information/listen to the call.
The system always errs on the side of not providing information. It doesn't go out of it's way to hunt down information for failed calls, for example - if it's easily accessable, the information is provided, but it doesn't make any extra effort.
The system ONLY routes the information for that specific call to the law enforcement tapping module. They will never get call information for a call that would not be covered by the warrant.
We made effort to make sure their tapping was high quality, reliable, efficient, etc. But we always tried to give them the minimum information we had to. So for at least one specific cellular system, I can say you won't have to worry about them being able to arbitrarily snoop in on your calls. On the other hand, if the judges are granting warrants without good reason, then it's a whole new ball game... ---
you aren't sure that your test code isn't breaking something!
Umm... this is a quote from the original message. If your test code is seperate, then it can't break something.
And you don't have to write tests for everything all at once. We just wrote tests for the functions we actually touched ourselves. There were plenty more that needed them, but because we didn't modify the code for our release, we didn't worry about the tests either.
Yes, it did take a lot of time. Yes, I spent a few weeks writing test driver after test driver after test driver until the tedium was getting to be a big problem. But the code was better because of it. And those tests are now there, and they won't have to be written again, just edited with new features. (Assuming that people don't ignore them for a few releases until they reach the point of being obsolete. But then again, I'm getting out of here soon for completely unrelated reasons, so I really don't care that much if they do that) ---
But if there is no unit testing, then there needs to be an extreme effort to integrate it into the code. This isn't productive - you are adding no new features, and, until you have completed the test suite, you aren't sure that your test code isn't breaking something!
Umm... what kind of unit testing are YOU doing? All the unit testing we've done has been "self-contained" - as in we haven't needed to do anything to the code being tested to do so. All the work on testing is done in seperate test drivers, stubs, and makefiles.
For some reason, the idea of changing code that's being tested to do the testing sets off major warning bells to me.
If it's because you don't have any small pieces of code that are easy to access individually to test, then well, that's a sign that complexity is a serious problem. ---
In the case of your average software developer, both of these are happening. Good programming practice gets put on the back burner because they *need* to ship.
yep.
One of the great things about the last project I worked on was that our group manager told us that the schedule was HIS problem to work out. We were to tell him how long it would take to do something right, and he'd take care of making sure we had the time to do it.
You know what? Since we were never getting the schedule shoved into our faces, we did things well, and pretty much on time. ---
As the article said, those two are by far the biggest steps you can take toward making good, quality software.
I recently helped to add that CALEA surveillance garbage to a certain cellular system that was kinda news recently due to working with Sega on games for the subscriber unit, etc, etc. I didn't want to do it, most people I worked with didn't want to do it, but we still took the time to do it right.
We followed software processes, tailored to eliminate unnecessary steps, and adding ones useful to us. We did quality unit testing on everything we touched, including functions that had been around for years. We re-wrote any DOL and function comments that were hard to read or out of date. And that was most of the old ones we touched.
We took the time to break old functions that had grown complex (20+ cyclomatic complexity) into smaller pieces.
Guess what? Not only were we just about on schedule (even with the extra time fixing problems left by other people), we found defects that had been sitting around that nobody knew about, and within maybe a month from the time we hit the system test lab, the area of the box we worked on was more or less defect free.
We put more effort into process and testing than people had before, and had one of the best quality releases the department has seen. In fact, we've been spending months trying to find things to do because time that was set aside for us to fix defects found in testing and the field has been idle, because they haven't been coming in.
We're not talking about minor changes either. 13 people, months of work each. The other feature that was in the release at the same time as us was smaller, and had fewer people, yet more defects, and took longer.
A process for the sake of process, well, isn't a good idea. One that is based on doing things that work, and changes with feedback, becomes a great thing to have. ---
If you want to fix these problems (which are the effect) you must deal with the underlying CAUSES, rather than trying to constantly invent new ways of battling the SYMPTOMS.
Well, if you haven't figured it out, the majority in America prefer to be reactionary. They prefer quick fixes to the visible symptoms, without really caring about going after the root cause.
Solve crime by throwing people in jail quicker and longer. (But don't bother trying to figure out what makes them turn to crime) Solve drugs by locking people up all the time. Ban abortion. (But don't try and figure out how to make it so people don't get as many unwanted pregnancies) And if violence in schools seems to come from the outcasts, go after the outcasts (and never figure out what makes them so angry in the first place).
Solving problems is not the way of this country. ---
Gilmore points out that really what the content distributors are doing is enforcing a scarcity-based, inefficient market, even when the potential exists to have a much larger, more accessible, more efficient market. This is perhaps the first time that I can think of where a vastly better technology was not adopted.
His best point in the article, IMHO, was about how this seems like preparation for industry after industry to get nanotech-based technologies banned in the future when it becomes possible to manilpulate matter like we can manipulate information today. That they'll prevent people from making diamond en-masse because it'll ruin DeBeers' near monopoly and put miners/jewelrs out of work. That the concept of "intellectual property" is so important that we must do anything to protect it, even if it means giving up all these potential technologies.
But why would the politicians go for it? Because they know their campaign contributions come from the big companies that have the most to lose, and that anyone losing their job will throw a fit and do anything they can to get revenge, even if they didn't need to work anymore (since in America, your job defines who you are, and not working means you're useless and not deserving of life)
Agreed. iDEN has really taken off in the business market - and Nextel is really pushing it mainly at those areas, because that's where the two-way calling is most beneficial. There is already enough growth just through those markets to keep us working on adding system capacity to the boxes as fast as we can, in hopes that we can get the software out to Nextel before they have to start turning people away.
It doesn't have quite the use for private individuals, especially since Nextel doesn't seem all that interested in aiming any pricing plans in that direction. But then again, they've made no effort to even give us people at Motorola who make the damn things any special plans either.:(
I must admit, this is the first I've heard of the games on the iDEN phone. Of course, I don't work on the subscriber unit, so that's probably the reason I'm out of the loop - I was at Office Depot the other day and saw like three models of the phone that I never even knew existed.:)
If anything, I feel that editorial control is exercised too laxly: most writeups which are deleted are short, inane ones.
Ok, MOST of them are... but there are way too many that are being deleted that contain noteworthy content, and are being deleted without warning, and without reason. It is making it difficult for people to know anymore what is being looked for, and what is unwanted.
This issue has also been brought up multiple times with the people in charge, and they've more or less ignored what's been said. In fact, they even used their little toy "EDB" to silence those of us wanting something done about this.
Of course, I've also been on the receiving end of being silenced by "borging" quite a few times because of one specific E2 god with a personal dislike of me.
Everything2 is not the only site using the Everything code: check out The Everything Development Company for a list of examples. None of these are at the same stage of maturity as E2, most are pretty experimental.
That hardly counts. I meant a REAL site, one with a topic in mind. Not just the web site of the people developing the software. PerlMonks is the only other site I know of using it. ---
Everything used to be a heck of a lot better. Less intimidation by the "editors" and "gods" to newbies, more latitude given to what people can post, more help.
Somewhere, either egos got bigger, or they were pushed to do more "pruning", and now it's a bunch of volunteers being allowed to run rampant over the place, and in fact, encouraged by one of the people running the place (not Nate, he's cool, but one Fuhrer Bones).
It's not as bad at all as you make it out to be... but it's not nearly as good of a place as it used to be.
I would love to see someone else do something with the Everything software, it seems like it has a lot of potential uses. ---
If only our beloved Williams would start making pinball machines again.:(
Agreed... out of all the pinball I've played, the Williams machines were by FAR the best designed and most enjoyable. (Sorry to anyone who worked on machines anywhere else) I still, someday, am going to have at least a few machines when I have the money and the room, and hopefully I'll still be able to find Williams machines for sale, and they won't have been all snatched up.
...but how soon until the US Supreme Court rules that it was wrong to allow users time to opt back out again and makes new law stating that all ebay users must get all the spam? ---
Re:Who benefits from this war?
on
"Traffic"
·
· Score: 2
However, something I haven't figured out: Is there a tax break if your company is over a certain size, and you do pre-employment drug testing?
I don't think there's a tax break, but I do know that a company has to do drug testing to get government contracts. I work for such a company. Even though I don't touch anything government-related, the entire company has to pee in a cup at least once every 3 years.
I'm going to pay a lot more attention to the next job I get. Because I'm annoyed that any employer thinks they have the right to my bodily fluids. I don't do recreational drugs, never have, and likely never will. But I still don't want to pee in a damn cup. Any employee with a drug problem will be obvious to coworkers, and if you can't tell, then it's not a issue related to work performance. ---
I don't know why the heck I wrote "autocratic" anyways, I'm not even sure what an antocracy is... I think I meant aristocracy... but you're even more correct about what I wanted. ---
Yep. There's no reason you can't have a socialist democracy, or a capitalist dictatorship, or like America seems to be becoming, an autocratic capitalist society.
And in the same vein, people all to often assume socialism and an authoritarian government are completely linked. ---
Second, I wouldn't say it's a fundamental flaw with capitalism... but that our current setup in the US of capitalism and democracy - because the two are seriously linked here. (As in you can buy an election with enough money, proven time after time by the person with more money winning. If you have enough money, polticial experience doesn't matter anymore) ---
i think it's becoming more and more obvious that corporations will tample individuals' rights and desires as much as they can legally get away with. they say the tendency over time of any power structure is to become more constrictive, and that's basically why revolution ocurs, to start over. well... i ain't suggesting we overthrow the government or anything... but not all revolutions are violent bloody things...
And don't forget that as corporations get wealthier and wealthier they can use that money to increase what kind of things they can legally do (especially when the public isn't smart enough to realize it and continue to vote for people who are more concerned with corporations than the people *cough*Bush*cough*Gore*cough*)
I think it's clearly obvious that when money and power are correlated (as in increasing one increases the other), then any imbalance will always continue to grow, as when you get more money, you can use it to gain the power to change things so you can get more money, etc, etc. ---
If there was ever a way to destroy an industry, this seems like it. It appears that if the MPAA and television networks get what they want, they will seriously damage the entire VCR, and the newly growing TiVo-style device market. Along with the digital TV market, and probably television in general.
I can't say I'd be totally upset at them committing what looks like it could very well be suicide, maybe someone else would come along who doesn't worship only the almightly dollar. (in America? hahahaha not a chance)
There are just way too many restrictions they're trying to get here. I know they like the copy-never idea so they can prevent the erosion of the idea of prime-time and the like which devices like TiVo are killing, and by preventing you from taping a show for a friend, or for later, they can look toward services where they can make you PAY to watch it if you didn't catch it at the "free" time (doesn't anyone else think this would be a great marketing idea? like a 'pay archive' of shows).
There has never been any sort of problem with people "copying" shows off of TV in ways harmful to the industry. I don't see how most of those controls are justified in any manner whatsoever except looking toward future profits. Profits they might very well never get if they get their way. ---
The doubled firepower allows you to kill a lot more as they're entering the screen, thus making each wave easier. Yes, it's harder to dodge shots, and costs you a life, but the advantages more than make up for it.
Once you get into a rhythm with the double fighter setup, you can go for long periods of time without dying and collecting big points from the challenge stages (which almost require double fighers on). Losing one throws off my rhythm, and usually it's a scramble to redouble quickly or be defeated by the onslaught.
It's not about killing everything carefully, only when worst the most - it's about destroying as much as you can as fast as you can, before they start their diving runs at you which are where they are the deadliest. ---
For a while, Galaga was the only game in my dorm freshman year. I had never played it before then, but always found a few quarters to pump into the game.
I ended up giving up on it after flipping the score (yes, I didn't use the 2-player trick because I didn't know about it), and running it back around to about 500,000 again. The games just started taking too long.
However, I never did get tired of the Rollergames pinball machine they brought in later. ---
26. Female. A computer bought with gaming in mind (800 mhz athalon). Quake, Quake 2, Quake III (but NOT team arena, yuck, what a joke, CCTF all the way). Diablo II. Rollercoaster Tycoon. Civ, Civ2, MOO2. Simcity 2000/3000, The Sims w/addon.
You have to look in the right places. CRPG's get a lot more women playing then say, action games, and so do the sim games. Heck, I've never had problems finding other girls on Diablo II to party with (because they're actually more fun and friendlier). Don't see a lot playing Quake, however. ---
Maybe it's because they're starting to follow the software model, get something that appears to work ok and release it, without realizing that on hardware you can't issue countless patches to get things the way they should have been when the thing was released to begin with?
It's rather amusing that such a big industry as software would make a habit of releasing malfunctioning products... ---
Between synaesthesia and this, I really get the feeling that I'm just not experiencing the world as well as I could. Seeing letters as being different colors may not be the most exciting thing, but there seem to be so many others, "seeing" sounds, "hearing" textures, and the like, that seem like they'd enrich the world.
I honestly really feel left out - and get awfully jealous when reading about things like this. ---
Slashdot Mirror
This man realizes that he is just a man, and without an all-knowing, loving God, he is nothing. And even a touchdown doesn't matter if he doesn't thank God for giving it to him through his skill and abilities.
I'll believe it's more than just show the moment I see someone thanking God for allowing the ball to come out of their hands so the other team can pick it up and run for a touchdown, or kneeling and making the sign of the cross when he allows them to be tackled at the 1 yard line as time runs out keeping them from scoring the winning td.
I doubt I'll ever see that though. Just like people will thank God for letting them survive a disaster, but never once mention all the people he let die.
---
Mod it up? Not gonna happen, the story is too old for people with moderation points to look over it and bother.
It does make me wonder if an "Ask Slashdot" covering the actual implementation of CALEA in various cell systems might be interesting. See if engineers that worked on other systems might be willing to elaborate a little bit on how they implemented it, to see if any are more or less secure than others?
---
It turns out that the company I work for, the group of people who actually implemented it, and the company who actually runs the cellular system - all did not like the CALEA law. We didn't want to have to implement it, we didn't want them able to do the tapping, and the service provider didn't want to have to deal with it. But those aren't acceptable choices.
The "tapping" in the system I worked on is actually set up pretty well. I'll describe things the best I can from what I know...
To the system, the module that is used to do the tapping appears to be just another module that calls are routed to. So it's pretty transparent there.
To tap a person's phone, law enforcement must show up at the service provider site that the suspect is located in. They have to present a warrant, which states whether the just get call identifying information (who calls whom), or if they actually get to listen in also. Service provider personnel, not law enforcement, provision the appropriate subscriber for surveillance. And law enforcement have to provide the actual box that lets them decode call information/listen to the call.
The system always errs on the side of not providing information. It doesn't go out of it's way to hunt down information for failed calls, for example - if it's easily accessable, the information is provided, but it doesn't make any extra effort.
The system ONLY routes the information for that specific call to the law enforcement tapping module. They will never get call information for a call that would not be covered by the warrant.
We made effort to make sure their tapping was high quality, reliable, efficient, etc. But we always tried to give them the minimum information we had to. So for at least one specific cellular system, I can say you won't have to worry about them being able to arbitrarily snoop in on your calls. On the other hand, if the judges are granting warrants without good reason, then it's a whole new ball game...
---
you aren't sure that your test code isn't breaking something!
Umm... this is a quote from the original message. If your test code is seperate, then it can't break something.
And you don't have to write tests for everything all at once. We just wrote tests for the functions we actually touched ourselves. There were plenty more that needed them, but because we didn't modify the code for our release, we didn't worry about the tests either.
Yes, it did take a lot of time. Yes, I spent a few weeks writing test driver after test driver after test driver until the tedium was getting to be a big problem. But the code was better because of it. And those tests are now there, and they won't have to be written again, just edited with new features. (Assuming that people don't ignore them for a few releases until they reach the point of being obsolete. But then again, I'm getting out of here soon for completely unrelated reasons, so I really don't care that much if they do that)
---
But if there is no unit testing, then there needs to be an extreme effort to integrate it into the code. This isn't productive - you are adding no new features, and, until you have completed the test suite, you aren't sure that your test code isn't breaking something!
Umm... what kind of unit testing are YOU doing? All the unit testing we've done has been "self-contained" - as in we haven't needed to do anything to the code being tested to do so. All the work on testing is done in seperate test drivers, stubs, and makefiles.
For some reason, the idea of changing code that's being tested to do the testing sets off major warning bells to me.
If it's because you don't have any small pieces of code that are easy to access individually to test, then well, that's a sign that complexity is a serious problem.
---
In the case of your average software developer, both of these are happening. Good programming practice gets put on the back burner because they *need* to ship.
yep.
One of the great things about the last project I worked on was that our group manager told us that the schedule was HIS problem to work out. We were to tell him how long it would take to do something right, and he'd take care of making sure we had the time to do it.
You know what? Since we were never getting the schedule shoved into our faces, we did things well, and pretty much on time.
---
As the article said, those two are by far the biggest steps you can take toward making good, quality software.
I recently helped to add that CALEA surveillance garbage to a certain cellular system that was kinda news recently due to working with Sega on games for the subscriber unit, etc, etc. I didn't want to do it, most people I worked with didn't want to do it, but we still took the time to do it right.
We followed software processes, tailored to eliminate unnecessary steps, and adding ones useful to us. We did quality unit testing on everything we touched, including functions that had been around for years. We re-wrote any DOL and function comments that were hard to read or out of date. And that was most of the old ones we touched.
We took the time to break old functions that had grown complex (20+ cyclomatic complexity) into smaller pieces.
Guess what? Not only were we just about on schedule (even with the extra time fixing problems left by other people), we found defects that had been sitting around that nobody knew about, and within maybe a month from the time we hit the system test lab, the area of the box we worked on was more or less defect free.
We put more effort into process and testing than people had before, and had one of the best quality releases the department has seen. In fact, we've been spending months trying to find things to do because time that was set aside for us to fix defects found in testing and the field has been idle, because they haven't been coming in.
We're not talking about minor changes either. 13 people, months of work each. The other feature that was in the release at the same time as us was smaller, and had fewer people, yet more defects, and took longer.
A process for the sake of process, well, isn't a good idea. One that is based on doing things that work, and changes with feedback, becomes a great thing to have.
---
If you want to fix these problems (which are the effect) you must deal with the underlying CAUSES, rather than trying to constantly invent new ways of battling the SYMPTOMS.
Well, if you haven't figured it out, the majority in America prefer to be reactionary. They prefer quick fixes to the visible symptoms, without really caring about going after the root cause.
Solve crime by throwing people in jail quicker and longer. (But don't bother trying to figure out what makes them turn to crime) Solve drugs by locking people up all the time. Ban abortion. (But don't try and figure out how to make it so people don't get as many unwanted pregnancies) And if violence in schools seems to come from the outcasts, go after the outcasts (and never figure out what makes them so angry in the first place).
Solving problems is not the way of this country.
---
Gilmore points out that really what the content distributors are doing is enforcing a scarcity-based, inefficient market, even when the potential exists to have a much larger, more accessible, more efficient market. This is perhaps the first time that I can think of where a vastly better technology was not adopted.
His best point in the article, IMHO, was about how this seems like preparation for industry after industry to get nanotech-based technologies banned in the future when it becomes possible to manilpulate matter like we can manipulate information today. That they'll prevent people from making diamond en-masse because it'll ruin DeBeers' near monopoly and put miners/jewelrs out of work. That the concept of "intellectual property" is so important that we must do anything to protect it, even if it means giving up all these potential technologies.
But why would the politicians go for it? Because they know their campaign contributions come from the big companies that have the most to lose, and that anyone losing their job will throw a fit and do anything they can to get revenge, even if they didn't need to work anymore (since in America, your job defines who you are, and not working means you're useless and not deserving of life)
---
Agreed. iDEN has really taken off in the business market - and Nextel is really pushing it mainly at those areas, because that's where the two-way calling is most beneficial. There is already enough growth just through those markets to keep us working on adding system capacity to the boxes as fast as we can, in hopes that we can get the software out to Nextel before they have to start turning people away.
:(
:)
It doesn't have quite the use for private individuals, especially since Nextel doesn't seem all that interested in aiming any pricing plans in that direction. But then again, they've made no effort to even give us people at Motorola who make the damn things any special plans either.
I must admit, this is the first I've heard of the games on the iDEN phone. Of course, I don't work on the subscriber unit, so that's probably the reason I'm out of the loop - I was at Office Depot the other day and saw like three models of the phone that I never even knew existed.
---
If anything, I feel that editorial control is exercised too laxly: most writeups which are deleted are short, inane ones.
Ok, MOST of them are... but there are way too many that are being deleted that contain noteworthy content, and are being deleted without warning, and without reason. It is making it difficult for people to know anymore what is being looked for, and what is unwanted.
This issue has also been brought up multiple times with the people in charge, and they've more or less ignored what's been said. In fact, they even used their little toy "EDB" to silence those of us wanting something done about this.
Of course, I've also been on the receiving end of being silenced by "borging" quite a few times because of one specific E2 god with a personal dislike of me.
Everything2 is not the only site using the Everything code: check out The Everything Development Company for a list of examples. None of these are at the same stage of maturity as E2, most are pretty experimental.
That hardly counts. I meant a REAL site, one with a topic in mind. Not just the web site of the people developing the software. PerlMonks is the only other site I know of using it.
---
Everything used to be a heck of a lot better. Less intimidation by the "editors" and "gods" to newbies, more latitude given to what people can post, more help.
Somewhere, either egos got bigger, or they were pushed to do more "pruning", and now it's a bunch of volunteers being allowed to run rampant over the place, and in fact, encouraged by one of the people running the place (not Nate, he's cool, but one Fuhrer Bones).
It's not as bad at all as you make it out to be... but it's not nearly as good of a place as it used to be.
I would love to see someone else do something with the Everything software, it seems like it has a lot of potential uses.
---
If only our beloved Williams would start making pinball machines again. :(
Agreed... out of all the pinball I've played, the Williams machines were by FAR the best designed and most enjoyable. (Sorry to anyone who worked on machines anywhere else) I still, someday, am going to have at least a few machines when I have the money and the room, and hopefully I'll still be able to find Williams machines for sale, and they won't have been all snatched up.
*sniff*
---
...but how soon until the US Supreme Court rules that it was wrong to allow users time to opt back out again and makes new law stating that all ebay users must get all the spam?
---
However, something I haven't figured out: Is there a tax break if your company is over a certain size, and you do pre-employment drug testing?
I don't think there's a tax break, but I do know that a company has to do drug testing to get government contracts. I work for such a company. Even though I don't touch anything government-related, the entire company has to pee in a cup at least once every 3 years.
I'm going to pay a lot more attention to the next job I get. Because I'm annoyed that any employer thinks they have the right to my bodily fluids. I don't do recreational drugs, never have, and likely never will. But I still don't want to pee in a damn cup. Any employee with a drug problem will be obvious to coworkers, and if you can't tell, then it's not a issue related to work performance.
---
Thank you thank you... you're right on that...
I don't know why the heck I wrote "autocratic" anyways, I'm not even sure what an antocracy is... I think I meant aristocracy... but you're even more correct about what I wanted.
---
Yep. There's no reason you can't have a socialist democracy, or a capitalist dictatorship, or like America seems to be becoming, an autocratic capitalist society.
And in the same vein, people all to often assume socialism and an authoritarian government are completely linked.
---
First, ahem, that's MISS or MA'AM to you. :)
Second, I wouldn't say it's a fundamental flaw with capitalism... but that our current setup in the US of capitalism and democracy - because the two are seriously linked here. (As in you can buy an election with enough money, proven time after time by the person with more money winning. If you have enough money, polticial experience doesn't matter anymore)
---
i think it's becoming more and more obvious that corporations will tample individuals' rights and desires as much as they can legally get away with. they say the tendency over time of any power structure is to become more constrictive, and that's basically why revolution ocurs, to start over. well ... i ain't suggesting we overthrow the government or anything ... but not all revolutions are violent bloody things ...
And don't forget that as corporations get wealthier and wealthier they can use that money to increase what kind of things they can legally do (especially when the public isn't smart enough to realize it and continue to vote for people who are more concerned with corporations than the people *cough*Bush*cough*Gore*cough*)
I think it's clearly obvious that when money and power are correlated (as in increasing one increases the other), then any imbalance will always continue to grow, as when you get more money, you can use it to gain the power to change things so you can get more money, etc, etc.
---
If there was ever a way to destroy an industry, this seems like it. It appears that if the MPAA and television networks get what they want, they will seriously damage the entire VCR, and the newly growing TiVo-style device market. Along with the digital TV market, and probably television in general.
I can't say I'd be totally upset at them committing what looks like it could very well be suicide, maybe someone else would come along who doesn't worship only the almightly dollar. (in America? hahahaha not a chance)
There are just way too many restrictions they're trying to get here. I know they like the copy-never idea so they can prevent the erosion of the idea of prime-time and the like which devices like TiVo are killing, and by preventing you from taping a show for a friend, or for later, they can look toward services where they can make you PAY to watch it if you didn't catch it at the "free" time (doesn't anyone else think this would be a great marketing idea? like a 'pay archive' of shows).
There has never been any sort of problem with people "copying" shows off of TV in ways harmful to the industry. I don't see how most of those controls are justified in any manner whatsoever except looking toward future profits. Profits they might very well never get if they get their way.
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Ummm... YES.
The doubled firepower allows you to kill a lot more as they're entering the screen, thus making each wave easier. Yes, it's harder to dodge shots, and costs you a life, but the advantages more than make up for it.
Once you get into a rhythm with the double fighter setup, you can go for long periods of time without dying and collecting big points from the challenge stages (which almost require double fighers on). Losing one throws off my rhythm, and usually it's a scramble to redouble quickly or be defeated by the onslaught.
It's not about killing everything carefully, only when worst the most - it's about destroying as much as you can as fast as you can, before they start their diving runs at you which are where they are the deadliest.
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For a while, Galaga was the only game in my dorm freshman year. I had never played it before then, but always found a few quarters to pump into the game.
I ended up giving up on it after flipping the score (yes, I didn't use the 2-player trick because I didn't know about it), and running it back around to about 500,000 again. The games just started taking too long.
However, I never did get tired of the Rollergames pinball machine they brought in later.
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26. Female. A computer bought with gaming in mind (800 mhz athalon). Quake, Quake 2, Quake III (but NOT team arena, yuck, what a joke, CCTF all the way). Diablo II. Rollercoaster Tycoon. Civ, Civ2, MOO2. Simcity 2000/3000, The Sims w/addon.
You have to look in the right places. CRPG's get a lot more women playing then say, action games, and so do the sim games. Heck, I've never had problems finding other girls on Diablo II to party with (because they're actually more fun and friendlier). Don't see a lot playing Quake, however.
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Maybe it's because they're starting to follow the software model, get something that appears to work ok and release it, without realizing that on hardware you can't issue countless patches to get things the way they should have been when the thing was released to begin with?
It's rather amusing that such a big industry as software would make a habit of releasing malfunctioning products...
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Between synaesthesia and this, I really get the feeling that I'm just not experiencing the world as well as I could. Seeing letters as being different colors may not be the most exciting thing, but there seem to be so many others, "seeing" sounds, "hearing" textures, and the like, that seem like they'd enrich the world.
I honestly really feel left out - and get awfully jealous when reading about things like this.
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