See the problem here is that America has more lawyers than engineers. If Jack Thompson and crew were engineers then they would write non-violent video games like civ and carmen sandiego, and more recently things like Katamari, or Mario.
Instead, all he can think to do is sue people for doing something he does not like. His is the violent and destructive action against a creative endeavor. The fact that the court is willing to indulge his infantile rampaging is indicitive of the corruption and facist tendencies of the legal profession and courts of Florida. Hillary Clinton is no damn better on this issue.
The fact that car jacking and personal violence predates videogaming altogether wont stop these pricks from scapegoating the new pastime any more than it stopped them from blaming TV, movies, liberal hollywood, Rock and Roll, guns, fluoride in the water, alchohol, and communism.
To a certain type of scared closed minded mentality the new thing is always to blame. To them it's not a matter of "how does this work" but rather "how can this hurt me." And when you look at the numbers of lawyers to engineers you start to see the trend of people more willing be fearful than knowledgeable.
I agree with you 100%, there are people who gain access to material they would otherwise not see without the internet. And in some cases like yourself that download will convert into actual sales. So the net gain for the producers is in the black. In this case.
I think what Lucas is trying to figure out is the same thing Cartoon Network is trying to do right now, how to use the web to premiere their top shelf stuff and make money initially. It's quite a challenge.
In the old old days it used to be totally dependent on Nielsen families, which families had a box on their TV. So right off the bat programming used to be dictated by the type of family that would allow someone to put a box on thier TV set. An interesting skew to the data. Advertisers religiously used Nielsen ratings to determine what advertising time was worth.
It is interesting to note that given x viewers of a show and y production price of a show that no one has ever been willing to say (y/x)+profit=price per viewer. Why not? Why not just...provide TV shows like weekly magazines delivered electronically or on DVD? If a show has a million viewers and costs 250,000 to make an episode then $10 dollars a month should cover it right? That would be $10mil a month for production costs of a million dollars. I heard somewhere that an ep of Firefly was a million dollars. If there are so many Firefly fans out there, millions I heard, why cant they just subscribe for a weekly or monthly delivery? The show would end when people stop ordering it. Unless the ratings are wayyyy off and advertisers have been getting cheated. maybe the thing that kept things like Different Strokes and Cosby on the air was not great TV but inflated ratings prompting vast advertising profits. maybe the producers are genuinely afraid of what happens if they have to ask the people directly for patronage. (BTW: I think I know the real reason for no more Firefly, Fox wont sell the rights)
It comes down to this, either advertisers are holding the distributors off of direct distribution because they dont want to lose a stage for their adverts, OR distributors and producers think they cant make as much money in a subscription or micropayment enviornment, OR consumers just wont reach into their pockets for the entertainment buck. Good luck divining the truth on this one.
I'm perusing the comments here on slashdot about this article. And I am not really impressed by the quality of discourse on this subject.
It seems like a lot of people are busy trying to yell at Lucas for going too heavy on the effects and not writing a good enough story. Let's say this is true, that the story writing was actually bad in the prequels (cant prove it to me though), and that the problem with it was NOT that the actors were shooting most scenes in front of a green screen and having a difficult time reacting (imagine if Dagobah had been all CG instead of an elaborate set in a London soundstage, how silly would Mark Hamill have looked then?)
What Lucas said about ratholes is linked to his not knowing how to get paid for online distribution. It's a simple enough question if you're a filmmaker, or a musician. "How does the money get from the consumer to me?" He uses a big word...monetization. He's asking how does a producer get paid. Gotta get paid, yo. Until somone can answer that question he feels it's a rathole.
And yeah, he's looking at the industry's current state and considering how much money and quality the Sopranos, Galactica, Lost, Firefly, Desperate Housewives, and looking back he's looking at Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. He's realizing that low budget good stories with high quality actors are the way to go. He's realizing that people will be patient with a good story.
Just because he called your bitorrent addcition a rathole doesnt mean he's wrong. I'm sure he's so sorry he hurt your feelings.
Oh yeah, also, FOSS is a free speech threat to commercial interests which often puts us in the political arena.
Yes, we need more Bush bashing because we need to impeach him and put him on trial to re-establish our international credibility. This is mid-term election time and we need to make that point.
And, you, as a Green, should re-read your party's platform. International human rights standards and non-violence. We need to shout it from every hilltop we can because innocent people are being tortured and killed by our government, which represents us, and therefore by our hands.
Impeach Bush. Put him on trial for war crimes.
Say it proud, say it loud.
Well I've got a hammer And I've got a bell And I've got a song to sing All over this land It's the hammer of justice It's the bell of freedom It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land ---Lee Hays/Pete Seeger
First, watch the testimony where Candi-ass Rice says "I believe the title was Bin Laden determined to attack within the US." Watch her demeanor. It's the demeanor of a petulant child. It's as if she's saying, "duh, of course we knew this was coming, how dare you ask me such a thing." It's like a student late to class in junior high and when asked for a reason just answers "Cause I was sucking dick for money. Schmuck."
The 9/11 Commission possibilites are pretty much these 1)They were covering up 2)They were denied information 3)They lost heart when they realized they would be ignored.
As the consumers of the data it's difficult to know what happened during that investigation and the only reason it matters is that there might be MORE evidence to bring against Bush in an impeachment or war crimes trial.
Fact is, when Bush stole into office he took over from Clinton who, in the last days of his administration, did LOTS of work trying to establish peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He ran out of time and Bush, instead of picking up the thread, instituted a "hands off the middle east" policy (insert ironic laughter here).
And the final fact of the matter is that once we were embroiled in war in Iraq the people of this country STILL relected Bush by a narrow margin. That election SHOULD have been so clearly against Bush that no amount of vote stealing should have put him in office, and the corrupt results should have triggered a revolution against the corrupt decision. Instead we end up with elections so close that they are easy to steal with small amounts of fraud.
Why was the election so close? This is what we must ask. WTF is wrong with half the electorate that they think it's ok to kill for oil? Or get distracted by gay marriage? Why are the priorities of the American public so fucked up?
If you really believe that Al Gore would have led the US into a protracted series of wars in the Middle East, If you think Gore would have pulled out of the Kyoto accords, tried to change social security, would have given tax breaks where none were needed OR wanted, would have spent the budget surplus propping up failing airlines, then yes, you're right.
If you think Gore would have pushed the Patriot Act then you are right.
But if you believe all that then you are sadly misinformed and need to educate yourself. Democracy does not bear ignorance well.
Well, if the elections are rigged enough then we will see things happen like in Mexico and Thailand. Fact is that a corrupt minority cannot rule over and angry majority.
Not much else to say really. If gamers go out and vote, and have a measurable effect, then yes, Stewart, Colbert, et al could be their spokespeople. Pot smokers too. Until they start voting no one will care what their spokespeople say.
A while back, in the early 90's there was a statistic being bandied about, how there were gonna be far more lawyers in this country than engineers. And I recall someone (my Dad, prolly) saying "Yeah, we wont be able to invent anything new but we sure will be able to sue each other over it." That's whats happening here.
No one will make the claim that MS has the best product out there for anything except maybe Office and Visual Studio. Certainly NOT the best OS available when rated by security or stability (especially when compared to price). The major reason a lot of people buy MS is because it's pushed at them by the preponderance of available software.
See, if Adobe and Symantec wanted to put an end to Microsoft's monopoly they could have a long time ago. They could have joined the LSB project, they could have contributed to OpenGL and OpenAL, they could have released commercially supported apps for Linux or BSD. They could have helped to bring free, open OS'es into the mainstream. Then they could not have been locked out at any level.
Instead they have more lawyers than engineers. Instead of producing a varied line of products and diversifying their business they depended on one line of income from th MS user base. Instead of helping the industry avoid this pitfall they sat back and did very little.
There are a lot of proverbs to quote here... Live by the sword, die by the sword. You get what you deserve. Dont put all your eggs in one basket.
Here's the thing. It's not too late. Fire some lawyers, hire more engineers, and mostly STOP MAKING MS SOFTWARE. Support Novell or work out some sort of corporate alliance to co-brand a commercial distro of something open source. get off the MS playing field and take your ball with you.
Shouldn't the question be whether or not things like TV, pornographic literature, and videogames actually cause an increase in the occurences of related behavior? Percent-wise I mean, not in gross numbers. It's moronic to ask which came first, violence CLEARLY existed before humans gave it the word (see: carnivorous dinosaurs for example).
There are no studies I am aware of which demonstrate a marked increase in violence due to any particular stimuli. I'm sure the Army has them though to refine their training techniques. Interestingly, AFAIK Basic Training does not include much Counter Strike. In fact, one could easily argue that the violent potential is already there in the human experience and playing violent games is just an expression of that in-built tendency.
What else can we ban because it is associated with violence? Will we ban religion? It clearly motivates more violence than all the copies of Donkey Kong, Defender, and Pac-Man ever written? Will we ban Tolkien because after reading it kids will want to play with swords? Will we ban Fox News because it makes me want to shoot the TV?
We cannot simply pose this as a chicken and egg question. We need to pin the censoring bastards down on facts. If the best facts they have are Ted Bundy crying about how porno made hium violent then maybe we can move on to relevant and important questions.
Hmmmm, Well, first dig the universal translator out of your arm and pry that little piece of dilithium out of it. Careful not to damage the transtators, you're gonna need those later.
Next you need to crack open your PDA. Drill a hole in the leading edge of the PDA. This is where your emitter element will go. Dont worry too much about getting the size right. The first test firing will finish the hole quite nicely.
Next place the dilithium chip about.5mm behind the hole you made, inside the case. Fasten it there with some crazy glue or epoxy. NO WOOD GLUE FOR GODS SAKE. Someone once tried it with wood glue, now they have a crater named after him. Elmer's Crater they call it.
Ok, now, reroute the plasma flow from the PDA's reservoir through one of the transtators from the translator. Direct the output at one side of the dilithium chip so it acts as a lens for the output of the transtator....
What do you mean, you dont have a plasma reservoir in your PDA? Then, how do you power it? What? Chemical BATTERIES?
"Who's the injured party here?" Pot smokers ask that question all the time. The answer that comes from the Judge is "Well, thats the law."
"The SEC is supposed to increase investor confidence" since when? And if they do they do it by ensuring compliance with the rules, by assuring that accounting practices are legal and fair.
To answer that idiot, the injured parties are the stockholders, the people who paid a bonus based on bogus dating of stock options. The injured people are the consumers who paid inflated prices based on imaginary performance. And the injured parties are the people who didnt get to keep the money that these scamming fatasses are now in posession of.
It is moronic to act like these "slightly funny deals" dont hurt anyone and that by ignoring them we save others more pain and torment. Ever hear a squeaky bearing? It's a sign of a problem. It does not go away. Eventually the wheels fall off the wagon. In this case if we dont put a stop to people taking unwarranted value out of these companies then the companies have to fold. This is because the economy is a limited pool. There is a finite total value of everything. If they keep finding ways to steal it at the top and hoard it eventuaslly there will be nothing left at the bottom. So who does stock option backdating hurt? Well, it hurts you. And it hurts me.
When someone hurts me I want to see them hurt in return. I nhope these stock option manipulating bastards go straight to the deepest darkest pits of federal pound 'em in the ass prison.
Measuring pulse, bp, and sweat by galvanic response no dount. Lie detectors dont work. They're like the war on drugs. We want to believe it works, but in the end it's a big waste of money and it hurts innocent people for no real result.
Hey, I just saw your response and you are right, real blacksmithing is fun.
When I was a kid my Dad and I built a forge out of a brake drum, some 3" cast iron pipe, and an electric blower. I never got it to run cool enough to be really useful (I usually just burned away most of the mild iron I had).
I was a Boy Scout back in the day, never made it to Philmont, but I spent many summers at Ten Mile River in Upstate NY. Always heard Philmont was beautiful though.
The Doom of Wired Peripherals? Thats like saying "Now that we have SUVs Vans and Pickup Trucks are obsolete!"
Two things that have been mentioned here over and over again ALREADY are the lack of reliability and the security holes wireless peripherals open.
I wont use wireless devices because I play FPS games. I already cannot stand lag, imagine not being able to aim or take a shot at a critical moment because you have a)weak batteries or b)almost ANYTHING between the transmitter and receiver. It already frustrates me that some cellphones can induce a current in my USB cable that shuts down the port. Imagine how that problem can be magnified by owning a cellphone or cordless phone that shares frequencies with the Bluetooth spectrum.
AND if thats not enough what about security? If you have any concern about wireless security then you MUST consider the fact that the EXACT SAME Pringles can yagi antennas can be used to aim at your wireless keyboard, or printer and enable someone to tap your data stream. Who needs to compromise a machine using a trojan, rootkit, or virus when there are people who are broadcasting their information out to the world. Of course someone is going to say "But I have ENCRYPTION!" Well folks, encryption just makes it harder to read the message. It's only EVER a stumbling block and it gets easier to crack any given encryption scheme every day.
On the other hand it is an amusing idea to go into rich neighborhoods and steal credit card numbers off of bluetooth keyboard data streams. hmmm...Gotta put that in the revolution notebook under "Redistribution of Wealth."
When Thompson wrote Hell's Angels he went out and learned what the life of the Angels was like and he spent months doing it. Then he spent a long time writing a book that challenged people to open their minds in order to accept what he had to tell them. Why didint Thompson address videogames? I imagine he found the experience of playing Counter Strike to be too sterile and too far removed from the hum,anity of armed conflict.
Imagine...
So finally I've learned all the little tricks to surviving in this hellish desert village and I've just started to rack up some meaningful kills. The avatars of children and adults lay strewn everywhere with the walls painted red from the splatter of bullet impacts. I crouch down in a corner and plant the bomb when I hear a boom and the inevitable HEADSHOT. And it's over...until someone reveals to me that he'd been watching though the eyes of he who slayed me and that I had been cheated. My assailant had been using wallhacks and aimbots, prfire scripts and quick reloading tricks, speed hacks and he'd painted a dot on his monitor. What kind of rat bastard cheats at a kids game I thought? What kind of slimy son-of-a-bitch would stoop so low? I had MONEY riding on this for God's sake!
ok, stop imagining...
hunter Thompson saw nothing there because of the sanitized nature of the game. When you walk away NOTHING is changed. It's why I stopped playing RPG's. If I spent all the time I wasted pretending to blacksmith online ACTUALLY BLACKSMITING I would know HOW TO BE A BLACKSMITH BY NOW.
As for music criticism? Who needs it when I can LISTEN to the album and decide if I like it.
There is no gonzo journalism about games because games do not deserve it. Games are what you do between doing significant things. Where's the gonzo journalism about Monopoly?
And there's ons more thing. You cannot marginalize the far left and still expect to see crazy, status-quo shaking arguments.
Some people may question the working conditions in China. Well, there's a lot to question about human rights in China, but I won't get into that rant here. I can say from what I've seen, that the employees at ECS are efficient and hard working, but I don't think they are put through abuse.
Followed by...
Employees can work an 8 hour shift if they want, but most opt to work a full 12 hour overtime shift.
Ever try working 5,6, or 7 12-hour shifts in one week? That's 60-82 hours in one week. Sevceral weeks in a row? And thats not considered abuse? What am I supposed to call it? Opportunity?
And then there's this tidbit...
There are several benefits and bonuses available for those who perform well, and housing is provided as part of their salary.
I'll take for granted that the reward system is voluntary by the employer so as to keep the workers "motivated" and "guessing" about what their work is actually "worth". I am also sure that the quality of housing is not in line with that of an American Union worker who puts in a 60-82 hour workweek. And, I'll bet that the housing cost is figured in as part of their pay. We used to do this to coal miners in the USA, where they would go live in a house they rented from the company they worked for and bought their groceries at the company store. It's one of the reasons that Appalachia is so isolated from the rest of the USA culturally. Because the coal mines were in such remote places they had no other opportunities and as a result got locked into a cycle of employed poverty for generation after generation.
And finally, I live in Poughkeepsie NY. Right near the heart of traditional IBM hq. We have chip fabrication ALL OVER this region with NO UNIONS involved. Where are the bloated union electronics factories he speaks of?
Somewhere in Germany in the late 1800's it came to pass that a large pile of Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer was left out in the rain to dry and harden. A very large pile. Tons.
The townspeople, not knowing what do do with it tried pouring diesel fuel on the pile to soften it, and added dynamite to blast the pile apart.
In the ensuing explosion the town and all witnesses were vaporized. Seriously, no shit.
No one could answer the question of what happend. until about 15 years later when it happened again in Texas.
Slashdot Mirror
How about someone actually produces a Columbine Simulator? And trademarks the name, and then sues Thompson for trademark infringement?
It could prolly be a build on fy_office....
See the problem here is that America has more lawyers than engineers. If Jack Thompson and crew were engineers then they would write non-violent video games like civ and carmen sandiego, and more recently things like Katamari, or Mario.
Instead, all he can think to do is sue people for doing something he does not like. His is the violent and destructive action against a creative endeavor. The fact that the court is willing to indulge his infantile rampaging is indicitive of the corruption and facist tendencies of the legal profession and courts of Florida. Hillary Clinton is no damn better on this issue.
The fact that car jacking and personal violence predates videogaming altogether wont stop these pricks from scapegoating the new pastime any more than it stopped them from blaming TV, movies, liberal hollywood, Rock and Roll, guns, fluoride in the water, alchohol, and communism.
To a certain type of scared closed minded mentality the new thing is always to blame. To them it's not a matter of "how does this work" but rather "how can this hurt me." And when you look at the numbers of lawyers to engineers you start to see the trend of people more willing be fearful than knowledgeable.
I agree with you 100%, there are people who gain access to material they would otherwise not see without the internet. And in some cases like yourself that download will convert into actual sales. So the net gain for the producers is in the black. In this case.
I think what Lucas is trying to figure out is the same thing Cartoon Network is trying to do right now, how to use the web to premiere their top shelf stuff and make money initially. It's quite a challenge.
In the old old days it used to be totally dependent on Nielsen families, which families had a box on their TV. So right off the bat programming used to be dictated by the type of family that would allow someone to put a box on thier TV set. An interesting skew to the data. Advertisers religiously used Nielsen ratings to determine what advertising time was worth.
It is interesting to note that given x viewers of a show and y production price of a show that no one has ever been willing to say (y/x)+profit=price per viewer. Why not? Why not just...provide TV shows like weekly magazines delivered electronically or on DVD? If a show has a million viewers and costs 250,000 to make an episode then $10 dollars a month should cover it right? That would be $10mil a month for production costs of a million dollars. I heard somewhere that an ep of Firefly was a million dollars. If there are so many Firefly fans out there, millions I heard, why cant they just subscribe for a weekly or monthly delivery? The show would end when people stop ordering it. Unless the ratings are wayyyy off and advertisers have been getting cheated. maybe the thing that kept things like Different Strokes and Cosby on the air was not great TV but inflated ratings prompting vast advertising profits. maybe the producers are genuinely afraid of what happens if they have to ask the people directly for patronage. (BTW: I think I know the real reason for no more Firefly, Fox wont sell the rights)
It comes down to this, either advertisers are holding the distributors off of direct distribution because they dont want to lose a stage for their adverts, OR distributors and producers think they cant make as much money in a subscription or micropayment enviornment, OR consumers just wont reach into their pockets for the entertainment buck. Good luck divining the truth on this one.
I'm perusing the comments here on slashdot about this article. And I am not really impressed by the quality of discourse on this subject.
It seems like a lot of people are busy trying to yell at Lucas for going too heavy on the effects and not writing a good enough story. Let's say this is true, that the story writing was actually bad in the prequels (cant prove it to me though), and that the problem with it was NOT that the actors were shooting most scenes in front of a green screen and having a difficult time reacting (imagine if Dagobah had been all CG instead of an elaborate set in a London soundstage, how silly would Mark Hamill have looked then?)
What Lucas said about ratholes is linked to his not knowing how to get paid for online distribution. It's a simple enough question if you're a filmmaker, or a musician. "How does the money get from the consumer to me?" He uses a big word...monetization. He's asking how does a producer get paid. Gotta get paid, yo. Until somone can answer that question he feels it's a rathole.
And yeah, he's looking at the industry's current state and considering how much money and quality the Sopranos, Galactica, Lost, Firefly, Desperate Housewives, and looking back he's looking at Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. He's realizing that low budget good stories with high quality actors are the way to go. He's realizing that people will be patient with a good story.
Just because he called your bitorrent addcition a rathole doesnt mean he's wrong. I'm sure he's so sorry he hurt your feelings.
He has lied to congress, which is against the law, he has tortured suspects, and waged an illegal war.
And, you CAN impeach any president. Impeachment is the process of bringing a trial where his guilt or innocence is decided.
Stop watching fox news and you might learn something.
Hmmm, cant nerds be interested in politics?
Oh yeah, also, FOSS is a free speech threat to commercial interests which often puts us in the political arena.
Yes, we need more Bush bashing because we need to impeach him and put him on trial to re-establish our international credibility. This is mid-term election time and we need to make that point.
And, you, as a Green, should re-read your party's platform. International human rights standards and non-violence. We need to shout it from every hilltop we can because innocent people are being tortured and killed by our government, which represents us, and therefore by our hands.
Impeach Bush. Put him on trial for war crimes.
Say it proud, say it loud.
Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
---Lee Hays/Pete Seeger
First, watch the testimony where Candi-ass Rice says "I believe the title was Bin Laden determined to attack within the US." Watch her demeanor. It's the demeanor of a petulant child. It's as if she's saying, "duh, of course we knew this was coming, how dare you ask me such a thing." It's like a student late to class in junior high and when asked for a reason just answers "Cause I was sucking dick for money. Schmuck."
The 9/11 Commission possibilites are pretty much these
1)They were covering up
2)They were denied information
3)They lost heart when they realized they would be ignored.
As the consumers of the data it's difficult to know what happened during that investigation and the only reason it matters is that there might be MORE evidence to bring against Bush in an impeachment or war crimes trial.
Fact is, when Bush stole into office he took over from Clinton who, in the last days of his administration, did LOTS of work trying to establish peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He ran out of time and Bush, instead of picking up the thread, instituted a "hands off the middle east" policy (insert ironic laughter here).
And the final fact of the matter is that once we were embroiled in war in Iraq the people of this country STILL relected Bush by a narrow margin. That election SHOULD have been so clearly against Bush that no amount of vote stealing should have put him in office, and the corrupt results should have triggered a revolution against the corrupt decision. Instead we end up with elections so close that they are easy to steal with small amounts of fraud.
Why was the election so close? This is what we must ask. WTF is wrong with half the electorate that they think it's ok to kill for oil? Or get distracted by gay marriage? Why are the priorities of the American public so fucked up?
Agree! Vote for a third party!
Although, if not for Nader maybe Gore coulda won...
If you really believe that Al Gore would have led the US into a protracted series of wars in the Middle East, If you think Gore would have pulled out of the Kyoto accords, tried to change social security, would have given tax breaks where none were needed OR wanted, would have spent the budget surplus propping up failing airlines, then yes, you're right.
If you think Gore would have pushed the Patriot Act then you are right.
But if you believe all that then you are sadly misinformed and need to educate yourself. Democracy does not bear ignorance well.
Well, if the elections are rigged enough then we will see things happen like in Mexico and Thailand. Fact is that a corrupt minority cannot rule over and angry majority.
Not much else to say really. If gamers go out and vote, and have a measurable effect, then yes, Stewart, Colbert, et al could be their spokespeople. Pot smokers too. Until they start voting no one will care what their spokespeople say.
And I will continue to make claims for the ENTIRE community of Anonymous Cowards. You like MS so much? Then own up to it. Wuss.
A while back, in the early 90's there was a statistic being bandied about, how there were gonna be far more lawyers in this country than engineers. And I recall someone (my Dad, prolly) saying "Yeah, we wont be able to invent anything new but we sure will be able to sue each other over it." That's whats happening here.
No one will make the claim that MS has the best product out there for anything except maybe Office and Visual Studio. Certainly NOT the best OS available when rated by security or stability (especially when compared to price). The major reason a lot of people buy MS is because it's pushed at them by the preponderance of available software.
See, if Adobe and Symantec wanted to put an end to Microsoft's monopoly they could have a long time ago. They could have joined the LSB project, they could have contributed to OpenGL and OpenAL, they could have released commercially supported apps for Linux or BSD. They could have helped to bring free, open OS'es into the mainstream. Then they could not have been locked out at any level.
Instead they have more lawyers than engineers. Instead of producing a varied line of products and diversifying their business they depended on one line of income from th MS user base. Instead of helping the industry avoid this pitfall they sat back and did very little.
There are a lot of proverbs to quote here...
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
You get what you deserve.
Dont put all your eggs in one basket.
Here's the thing. It's not too late. Fire some lawyers, hire more engineers, and mostly STOP MAKING MS SOFTWARE. Support Novell or work out some sort of corporate alliance to co-brand a commercial distro of something open source. get off the MS playing field and take your ball with you.
Shouldn't the question be whether or not things like TV, pornographic literature, and videogames actually cause an increase in the occurences of related behavior? Percent-wise I mean, not in gross numbers. It's moronic to ask which came first, violence CLEARLY existed before humans gave it the word (see: carnivorous dinosaurs for example).
There are no studies I am aware of which demonstrate a marked increase in violence due to any particular stimuli. I'm sure the Army has them though to refine their training techniques. Interestingly, AFAIK Basic Training does not include much Counter Strike. In fact, one could easily argue that the violent potential is already there in the human experience and playing violent games is just an expression of that in-built tendency.
What else can we ban because it is associated with violence? Will we ban religion? It clearly motivates more violence than all the copies of Donkey Kong, Defender, and Pac-Man ever written? Will we ban Tolkien because after reading it kids will want to play with swords? Will we ban Fox News because it makes me want to shoot the TV?
We cannot simply pose this as a chicken and egg question. We need to pin the censoring bastards down on facts. If the best facts they have are Ted Bundy crying about how porno made hium violent then maybe we can move on to relevant and important questions.
Hmmmm,
.5mm behind the hole you made, inside the case. Fasten it there with some crazy glue or epoxy. NO WOOD GLUE FOR GODS SAKE. Someone once tried it with wood glue, now they have a crater named after him. Elmer's Crater they call it.
Well, first dig the universal translator out of your arm and pry that little piece of dilithium out of it. Careful not to damage the transtators, you're gonna need those later.
Next you need to crack open your PDA. Drill a hole in the leading edge of the PDA. This is where your emitter element will go. Dont worry too much about getting the size right. The first test firing will finish the hole quite nicely.
Next place the dilithium chip about
Ok, now, reroute the plasma flow from the PDA's reservoir through one of the transtators from the translator. Direct the output at one side of the dilithium chip so it acts as a lens for the output of the transtator....
What do you mean, you dont have a plasma reservoir in your PDA? Then, how do you power it? What? Chemical BATTERIES?
Ugh. Stone knives and bearskins....
"Who's the injured party here?" Pot smokers ask that question all the time. The answer that comes from the Judge is "Well, thats the law."
"The SEC is supposed to increase investor confidence" since when? And if they do they do it by ensuring compliance with the rules, by assuring that accounting practices are legal and fair.
To answer that idiot, the injured parties are the stockholders, the people who paid a bonus based on bogus dating of stock options. The injured people are the consumers who paid inflated prices based on imaginary performance. And the injured parties are the people who didnt get to keep the money that these scamming fatasses are now in posession of.
It is moronic to act like these "slightly funny deals" dont hurt anyone and that by ignoring them we save others more pain and torment. Ever hear a squeaky bearing? It's a sign of a problem. It does not go away. Eventually the wheels fall off the wagon. In this case if we dont put a stop to people taking unwarranted value out of these companies then the companies have to fold. This is because the economy is a limited pool. There is a finite total value of everything. If they keep finding ways to steal it at the top and hoard it eventuaslly there will be nothing left at the bottom. So who does stock option backdating hurt? Well, it hurts you. And it hurts me.
When someone hurts me I want to see them hurt in return. I nhope these stock option manipulating bastards go straight to the deepest darkest pits of federal pound 'em in the ass prison.
Measuring pulse, bp, and sweat by galvanic response no dount. Lie detectors dont work. They're like the war on drugs. We want to believe it works, but in the end it's a big waste of money and it hurts innocent people for no real result.
Hey, I just saw your response and you are right, real blacksmithing is fun.
When I was a kid my Dad and I built a forge out of a brake drum, some 3" cast iron pipe, and an electric blower. I never got it to run cool enough to be really useful (I usually just burned away most of the mild iron I had).
I was a Boy Scout back in the day, never made it to Philmont, but I spent many summers at Ten Mile River in Upstate NY. Always heard Philmont was beautiful though.
The Doom of Wired Peripherals? Thats like saying "Now that we have SUVs Vans and Pickup Trucks are obsolete!"
Two things that have been mentioned here over and over again ALREADY are the lack of reliability and the security holes wireless peripherals open.
I wont use wireless devices because I play FPS games. I already cannot stand lag, imagine not being able to aim or take a shot at a critical moment because you have a)weak batteries or b)almost ANYTHING between the transmitter and receiver. It already frustrates me that some cellphones can induce a current in my USB cable that shuts down the port. Imagine how that problem can be magnified by owning a cellphone or cordless phone that shares frequencies with the Bluetooth spectrum.
AND if thats not enough what about security? If you have any concern about wireless security then you MUST consider the fact that the EXACT SAME Pringles can yagi antennas can be used to aim at your wireless keyboard, or printer and enable someone to tap your data stream. Who needs to compromise a machine using a trojan, rootkit, or virus when there are people who are broadcasting their information out to the world. Of course someone is going to say "But I have ENCRYPTION!" Well folks, encryption just makes it harder to read the message. It's only EVER a stumbling block and it gets easier to crack any given encryption scheme every day.
On the other hand it is an amusing idea to go into rich neighborhoods and steal credit card numbers off of bluetooth keyboard data streams. hmmm...Gotta put that in the revolution notebook under "Redistribution of Wealth."
---Gorehog
When Thompson wrote Hell's Angels he went out and learned what the life of the Angels was like and he spent months doing it. Then he spent a long time writing a book that challenged people to open their minds in order to accept what he had to tell them. Why didint Thompson address videogames? I imagine he found the experience of playing Counter Strike to be too sterile and too far removed from the hum,anity of armed conflict.
Imagine...
So finally I've learned all the little tricks to surviving in this hellish desert village and I've just started to rack up some meaningful kills. The avatars of children and adults lay strewn everywhere with the walls painted red from the splatter of bullet impacts. I crouch down in a corner and plant the bomb when I hear a boom and the inevitable HEADSHOT. And it's over...until someone reveals to me that he'd been watching though the eyes of he who slayed me and that I had been cheated. My assailant had been using wallhacks and aimbots, prfire scripts and quick reloading tricks, speed hacks and he'd painted a dot on his monitor. What kind of rat bastard cheats at a kids game I thought? What kind of slimy son-of-a-bitch would stoop so low? I had MONEY riding on this for God's sake!
ok, stop imagining...
hunter Thompson saw nothing there because of the sanitized nature of the game. When you walk away NOTHING is changed. It's why I stopped playing RPG's. If I spent all the time I wasted pretending to blacksmith online ACTUALLY BLACKSMITING I would know HOW TO BE A BLACKSMITH BY NOW.
As for music criticism? Who needs it when I can LISTEN to the album and decide if I like it.
There is no gonzo journalism about games because games do not deserve it. Games are what you do between doing significant things. Where's the gonzo journalism about Monopoly?
And there's ons more thing. You cannot marginalize the far left and still expect to see crazy, status-quo shaking arguments.
Everyone should own a gun.
Ever try working 5,6, or 7 12-hour shifts in one week? That's 60-82 hours in one week. Sevceral weeks in a row? And thats not considered abuse? What am I supposed to call it? Opportunity?
And then there's this tidbit...
I'll take for granted that the reward system is voluntary by the employer so as to keep the workers "motivated" and "guessing" about what their work is actually "worth". I am also sure that the quality of housing is not in line with that of an American Union worker who puts in a 60-82 hour workweek. And, I'll bet that the housing cost is figured in as part of their pay. We used to do this to coal miners in the USA, where they would go live in a house they rented from the company they worked for and bought their groceries at the company store. It's one of the reasons that Appalachia is so isolated from the rest of the USA culturally. Because the coal mines were in such remote places they had no other opportunities and as a result got locked into a cycle of employed poverty for generation after generation.
And finally, I live in Poughkeepsie NY. Right near the heart of traditional IBM hq. We have chip fabrication ALL OVER this region with NO UNIONS involved. Where are the bloated union electronics factories he speaks of?
Hm...maybe you should join a Teachers Union? Professors are the labor of the college system after all.
Somewhere in Germany in the late 1800's it came to pass that a large pile of Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer was left out in the rain to dry and harden. A very large pile. Tons.
The townspeople, not knowing what do do with it tried pouring diesel fuel on the pile to soften it, and added dynamite to blast the pile apart.
In the ensuing explosion the town and all witnesses were vaporized. Seriously, no shit.
No one could answer the question of what happend. until about 15 years later when it happened again in Texas.
Give me slack or give me food.
With big red straps of course...