Indeed - and I don't see why it's such an issue these days, playing a different gender character wasn't uncommon in traditional role-playing. Playing someone who isn't yourself is surely the whole point of role-playing.
I hear that some of the people playing Elves aren't really Elves, either...
That's a rather pedantic answer. He didn't ask "Why did I get kicked out", he asked why the rule exists in the first place, so your baseball analogy is not relevant.
If I'm looking at a range of universities, and I ask why one of them has a particular rule, giving me the circular answer of "Because it's one of the rules" hardly answers my question.
If I ask "Why should we have rules about steroids in sports", of course that's inviting a debate on the pros or cons, including moral issues. If you don't want to hear it, then don't take part in the debate.
Re:Internet on TV? Really?
on
I Want My GTV
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The article is talking about "Internet on TV" in the sense of accessing webpages or applications on a TV, which for the most part doesn't seem to be taking off anytime soon.
Things like Hulu are "TV on Internet" - so putting that on a TV is "TV (on Internet) on TV", so it's hardly surprising that that might have more of a market. It's pretty obvious that TV via the Internet ought to win long term, and there's a market for a TV/box that makes this easy for the living room TV, rather than just watching it on a web browser on a computer. (Similar to how hard disk recording first appeared on computers, but now it's commonplace on cable/satellite set-top boxes as standard, which makes it much easier for most people.) Perhaps this is Google's end intention, and things like browsing the web or running applications are an added bonus.
Re:Internet on TV? Really?
on
I Want My GTV
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· Score: 1
Think of it as having an Apple TV... and I think you'll see there's something of a market there.
AppleTV? Yes I think that was his point about the lack of market:)
It's the same in the UK - I find it ridiculous, but most people don't care if it doesn't affect them.
Recently, the law which allowed this censorship - the Video Recordings Act 1984 - was found to have never been enacted. Did we get a chance to redebate this issue, now that the "video nasties" scaremongering of the 80s (which led to this law) was no longer around? Hell no. Instead we got a load of media scaremongering again, about how this law not being valid would mean porn would be sold to small children (not just tabloids, even the BBC were at it). The Government then brought in "emergency legislation" to enact the law as quickly as possible - it was rushed through the entire process in just over a month!
(And things look to get worse with the Digital Economy Bill, which will allow the Government to revoke a rating even after it's been granted!)
Indeed - and I find it depressing that, given how much time and money the media corporations seem to have when lobbying for draconian copyright laws, they can never seem to do anything to stop the increasing number of censorship laws in various countries. I suspect the problem is that big companies can afford lawyers to tell them what's legal, and they can happily make money doing that.
It's particularly frustrating that pro-censorship people try to spin it this way, claiming "It's just us poor little old ladies who want to ban these evil things, and we're having to fight against the nasty big film/music/game/porn companies". The reality is that it's the lobbyist organisations and Government on the side of pro-censorship, with only individuals trying to defend against it.
If you need email to keep up with your friends, they aren't really your friends?
If you need a phone to keep up with your friends, they aren't really your friends?
terse things to actually just arrange meet up times in which real socialization actually takes place
Er yes, just like what many people use Facebook for. They have a whole system dedicated to events - as much as I dislike Facebook, that's one of the things they do well.
i'd rather have two or three friends like that than 200 to 300 acquaintances on facebook
False dichotomy. I might have two or three friends who will personally come to my front door everytime they want to tell me something, but I'll still gladly also have a wider group of friends, some of whom may only these days send out invites through some media, be it a phone, email, or (annoyingly) Facebook.
You prefer so-called "optimised" code when it makes no difference to performance? And even when that may lead to code that's harder to read, maintain, port and so on?
It's not for everyone, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
There are plenty of reasonable points that people can make about it - why is their point "extreme", but your viewpoint not extreme?
I'm just as tired of either side of the pundits on this one.
You're taking part in this thread, you don't get to fence-sit. Or if you do, I'll play that card too: yes the Apple fans, and the people like you who criticise Apple critics, are as bad as each other.
The only people that matter in this are the people who will buy the device. If there aren't enough of them, it'll fail. If there are, it'll succeed. All this back-and-forth garbage is a waste of electrons.
But that's just it, it doesn't matter. E.g., the Iphones have been out for years, and we can look up cold hard statistics for them. But that doesn't stop people falsely claiming that Apple are number one in the market. If they say that, I'm going to point out they're wrong - that doesn't make me "extreme". It's an argument to moderation fallacy to claim that both "extremes" are wrong. If you have an example of someone misrepresenting the truth when criticising Apple, then criticise their post. That doesn't mean it applies to everyone who criticises Apple products.
That supports his point - when it was MS, was it half supporting them and half defending them? No, the point is that the overwhelming majority would criticise their dubious practices, and rightly so.
The very fact that there is an argument; that so many people here defend everything Apple do, no matter how dubious, or how closed the platform would be, proves his point.
Not to mention the mod point issue. It used to be, criticise MS to get modded up. But criticise Apple, and mostly you'll be modded down. Apple stories are the only ones I have to read at -1, because moderation is so broken because of all the Apple fans who get mod points.
And furthermore, who cares about the comments? Let's look at the stories. For Microsoft, for years the stories themselves posted on Slashdot (as well as elsewhere) were critical of MS's practices. But for Apple, it's nothing but hype and praise.
Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch certainly didn't kill ICQ.
Yes, that was exactly his point, I think. ICQ was a killer app, and although it's not around now, it did give us instant messaging. His point was that, imagine if ICQ was never allowed to be released on the majority of the world's platforms, because controlling companies could simply refuse it. ICQ, or the IM programs we use today, would never have happened.
Learn to read - the bit before you quoted say "Let's say at some point a majority of devices will be closed media devices."
And his point was about app developers. Yes, 1% of the market might still be able to use my app, but what good is that?
As for the rest of your comment, I presume "control the Net" was short for "control what can be released on and installed from the Internet". If you'd read the post, the context should have made that clear.
Indeed. How come when there's a story about Microsoft, we don't have people saying "Oh who cares, you don't have to use it"? Indeed, you'd think Mac fans would be keen to not worry given it doesn't affect them, but they're first in line with the criticisms!
Thankfully the Iphones are a non-issue now, with Apple being a niche player (before anyone replies to claim otherwise, yes they are - make sure you check out actual market share figures, not "what me and my friends have", or "mindshare" or whatever else). But I do worry that all the free advertising they get from the media will lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy where it does become the mainstream platform - just look at the hype over the Ipad too.And then in ten years' time, all of mobile computing is one where it's completely locked down and controlled by the same company.
And I find it sad that Slashdot, of all places, would have been guilty in promoting that future. Long gone are the days when this was a place to champion open platforms.
I think there's also the worry that Apple fans are so obsessed with promoting the Iphones that anything to do with the phones are promoted as good, whether or not they really are. So rather than people criticising the company for this practice, we have an army of geeks saying how it's a good thing, we have the media saying how wonderful Apple's app store is - which increases the risk that other companies will follow this practice.
If only Iphone users and the media would take that attitude too, and stop hyping and astroturfing the phone and claiming it's the best ever. Shouldn't they also consider that perhaps we don't care and it, and we're happy using the many more popular phones out there?
All religions have rules made up by people, whether they're mainstream or alternative. No one has to do anything - Sikhs don't have to have beards and wear turbans and bangles; Muslims don't have to where burkas. It's still a choice to do so.
My view is that the rules should be the same for everyone. But if the laws or organisations are going to pander to people's beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are, or how irrational they are, then they should damn well be consistent and apply it to everyone, rather than only doing it for mainstream religions. And if someone shows up something stupid by being a Jedi, or follower of the FSM, and they have a problem with it, they should re-evaluate whether making exemptions for religions makes sense in the first place.
Nonsense. The higher end phones had fully usable browsers years before the first Iphone model (e.g., Opera Mobile was first released in 2000; Symbian has been around for years too). It's the cheaper lower end phones that had simpler browsers - but then these were way cheaper than the cheapest Iphone anyway, so it's an irrelevant and unfair comparison.
Sure, I suspect that the Iphone browser in 2007 might have been slightly better than a smartphone browser in 2005 or before, but there were also better non-Iphone browsers in 2007. If the best you can say is that the Iphone was slightly better than old phones - well duh, I should hope so. All companies have been making better phones, it's called progress.
Fair enough - but I find it much more convenient to just write a cheque than have to go to the bank myself, so it seems odd that cheques are written off as being the inconvenient method.
Also there is the issue of trust - whilst cheques can still bounce, I guess people would still rather receive a cheque from you when you're paying them, than "I'll go into my bank sometime soon, honest" (e.g., you're paying a small business that doesn't accept cards, as opposed to a friend).
As for a "fancy way" to give money, well there's also the risk. It means you can send money through the post, but if the post goes missing, the money isn't lost.
Indeed, this was what I used cheques mainly for too. I think it's worth distinguishing between "largely dead" and "no use at all". Something used once a month is still in use - if cheques were scrapped, you'd have the pain of how to pay you rent.
So I have to go to the cash machine, get out a load of money - which he then has to keep safe, and then take and deposit into his bank, just like with a cheque anyway? How is that an improvement?
tell him you transfer it from your bank account.
This one I wasn't aware of - is it possible to get money out of someone else's account? What details are needed?
We use two level one-time pin lists.
I'm unclear how you mean - if I want to log in using a random Internet connection, what information do I put in?
They rarely are.
Sorry, "rarely" isn't good enough if I need to transfer money there and then. I'll still keep cheques for those rare occasions. The claim isn't that cheques are "rarely" used (which I'd agree with), it's that they're apparently completely obsolete.
My bank has "maintenance" scheduled more than just rarely, in my experience.
As for checksums, the issue was with people having the names stored on their online bank system. So that's another advantage of cheques, as there's no risk of that happening.
Not true, I'm in Europe - I still use cheques when I'm not at my home computer, or to pay people whose bank account details I don't know, and I still receive cheques, e.g., from family who don't have my bank account details or have Internet access.
What non-cheque systems are there to address these issues? I mean, they do exist right, if you really have no need of cheques?
Do you have a source for "most people here do their banking mainly online anyhow"?
I've always been a bit of a liberal, but the Lib Dem's lack of cohesive leadership recently has totally shattered any chance I'll be voting for them.
This nonsense amendment was by a Lord. Firstly, the Lords can do what they like, even going against their party policy (in fact, even MPs can, but this is even more so in the Lords).
Secondly, you don't vote for Lords.
If you're not going to vote for a Lib Dem MP, based on what a Lord does, when it's neither the policy of your MP candidate nor Lib Dem party policy, that doesn't really make sense.
Admittedly, I do wish there'd be something more public from the main party itself to distance themselves from this amendment. But my own Lib Dem candidate has already confirmed that he doesn't support it - at least write to your candidate to see his or her views, before throwing your vote away.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you're posting from before 1974, they're the same.
Well, be fair - it makes up for all the Iphone dupes we get about things that other phones have been doing for years and years...
Indeed - and I don't see why it's such an issue these days, playing a different gender character wasn't uncommon in traditional role-playing. Playing someone who isn't yourself is surely the whole point of role-playing.
I hear that some of the people playing Elves aren't really Elves, either...
That's a rather pedantic answer. He didn't ask "Why did I get kicked out", he asked why the rule exists in the first place, so your baseball analogy is not relevant.
If I'm looking at a range of universities, and I ask why one of them has a particular rule, giving me the circular answer of "Because it's one of the rules" hardly answers my question.
If I ask "Why should we have rules about steroids in sports", of course that's inviting a debate on the pros or cons, including moral issues. If you don't want to hear it, then don't take part in the debate.
The article is talking about "Internet on TV" in the sense of accessing webpages or applications on a TV, which for the most part doesn't seem to be taking off anytime soon.
Things like Hulu are "TV on Internet" - so putting that on a TV is "TV (on Internet) on TV", so it's hardly surprising that that might have more of a market. It's pretty obvious that TV via the Internet ought to win long term, and there's a market for a TV/box that makes this easy for the living room TV, rather than just watching it on a web browser on a computer. (Similar to how hard disk recording first appeared on computers, but now it's commonplace on cable/satellite set-top boxes as standard, which makes it much easier for most people.) Perhaps this is Google's end intention, and things like browsing the web or running applications are an added bonus.
Think of it as having an Apple TV... and I think you'll see there's something of a market there.
AppleTV? Yes I think that was his point about the lack of market :)
It's the same in the UK - I find it ridiculous, but most people don't care if it doesn't affect them.
Recently, the law which allowed this censorship - the Video Recordings Act 1984 - was found to have never been enacted. Did we get a chance to redebate this issue, now that the "video nasties" scaremongering of the 80s (which led to this law) was no longer around? Hell no. Instead we got a load of media scaremongering again, about how this law not being valid would mean porn would be sold to small children (not just tabloids, even the BBC were at it). The Government then brought in "emergency legislation" to enact the law as quickly as possible - it was rushed through the entire process in just over a month!
(And things look to get worse with the Digital Economy Bill, which will allow the Government to revoke a rating even after it's been granted!)
Indeed - and I find it depressing that, given how much time and money the media corporations seem to have when lobbying for draconian copyright laws, they can never seem to do anything to stop the increasing number of censorship laws in various countries. I suspect the problem is that big companies can afford lawyers to tell them what's legal, and they can happily make money doing that.
It's particularly frustrating that pro-censorship people try to spin it this way, claiming "It's just us poor little old ladies who want to ban these evil things, and we're having to fight against the nasty big film/music/game/porn companies". The reality is that it's the lobbyist organisations and Government on the side of pro-censorship, with only individuals trying to defend against it.
make your emails and phone calls
If you need email to keep up with your friends, they aren't really your friends?
If you need a phone to keep up with your friends, they aren't really your friends?
terse things to actually just arrange meet up times in which real socialization actually takes place
Er yes, just like what many people use Facebook for. They have a whole system dedicated to events - as much as I dislike Facebook, that's one of the things they do well.
i'd rather have two or three friends like that than 200 to 300 acquaintances on facebook
False dichotomy. I might have two or three friends who will personally come to my front door everytime they want to tell me something, but I'll still gladly also have a wider group of friends, some of whom may only these days send out invites through some media, be it a phone, email, or (annoyingly) Facebook.
You prefer so-called "optimised" code when it makes no difference to performance? And even when that may lead to code that's harder to read, maintain, port and so on?
By that pedantry, you might as well say "You can't run exes on an Iphone, you can only run exes on the OS that runs on the Iphone".
You can run any executable you want on an iphone.
If you go to the bother of having to jailbreak it. It "Just Works".
The iPad seems a nice device.
Duke Nukem Forever seems a nice game too.
It's not for everyone, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
There are plenty of reasonable points that people can make about it - why is their point "extreme", but your viewpoint not extreme?
I'm just as tired of either side of the pundits on this one.
You're taking part in this thread, you don't get to fence-sit. Or if you do, I'll play that card too: yes the Apple fans, and the people like you who criticise Apple critics, are as bad as each other.
The only people that matter in this are the people who will buy the device. If there aren't enough of them, it'll fail. If there are, it'll succeed. All this back-and-forth garbage is a waste of electrons.
But that's just it, it doesn't matter. E.g., the Iphones have been out for years, and we can look up cold hard statistics for them. But that doesn't stop people falsely claiming that Apple are number one in the market. If they say that, I'm going to point out they're wrong - that doesn't make me "extreme". It's an argument to moderation fallacy to claim that both "extremes" are wrong. If you have an example of someone misrepresenting the truth when criticising Apple, then criticise their post. That doesn't mean it applies to everyone who criticises Apple products.
That supports his point - when it was MS, was it half supporting them and half defending them? No, the point is that the overwhelming majority would criticise their dubious practices, and rightly so.
The very fact that there is an argument; that so many people here defend everything Apple do, no matter how dubious, or how closed the platform would be, proves his point.
Not to mention the mod point issue. It used to be, criticise MS to get modded up. But criticise Apple, and mostly you'll be modded down. Apple stories are the only ones I have to read at -1, because moderation is so broken because of all the Apple fans who get mod points.
And furthermore, who cares about the comments? Let's look at the stories. For Microsoft, for years the stories themselves posted on Slashdot (as well as elsewhere) were critical of MS's practices. But for Apple, it's nothing but hype and praise.
Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch certainly didn't kill ICQ.
Yes, that was exactly his point, I think. ICQ was a killer app, and although it's not around now, it did give us instant messaging. His point was that, imagine if ICQ was never allowed to be released on the majority of the world's platforms, because controlling companies could simply refuse it. ICQ, or the IM programs we use today, would never have happened.
Learn to read - the bit before you quoted say "Let's say at some point a majority of devices will be closed media devices."
And his point was about app developers. Yes, 1% of the market might still be able to use my app, but what good is that?
As for the rest of your comment, I presume "control the Net" was short for "control what can be released on and installed from the Internet". If you'd read the post, the context should have made that clear.
Indeed. How come when there's a story about Microsoft, we don't have people saying "Oh who cares, you don't have to use it"? Indeed, you'd think Mac fans would be keen to not worry given it doesn't affect them, but they're first in line with the criticisms!
Thankfully the Iphones are a non-issue now, with Apple being a niche player (before anyone replies to claim otherwise, yes they are - make sure you check out actual market share figures, not "what me and my friends have", or "mindshare" or whatever else). But I do worry that all the free advertising they get from the media will lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy where it does become the mainstream platform - just look at the hype over the Ipad too.And then in ten years' time, all of mobile computing is one where it's completely locked down and controlled by the same company.
And I find it sad that Slashdot, of all places, would have been guilty in promoting that future. Long gone are the days when this was a place to champion open platforms.
I think there's also the worry that Apple fans are so obsessed with promoting the Iphones that anything to do with the phones are promoted as good, whether or not they really are. So rather than people criticising the company for this practice, we have an army of geeks saying how it's a good thing, we have the media saying how wonderful Apple's app store is - which increases the risk that other companies will follow this practice.
If only Iphone users and the media would take that attitude too, and stop hyping and astroturfing the phone and claiming it's the best ever. Shouldn't they also consider that perhaps we don't care and it, and we're happy using the many more popular phones out there?
Well that's the very point being made, isn't it?
All religions have rules made up by people, whether they're mainstream or alternative. No one has to do anything - Sikhs don't have to have beards and wear turbans and bangles; Muslims don't have to where burkas. It's still a choice to do so.
My view is that the rules should be the same for everyone. But if the laws or organisations are going to pander to people's beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are, or how irrational they are, then they should damn well be consistent and apply it to everyone, rather than only doing it for mainstream religions. And if someone shows up something stupid by being a Jedi, or follower of the FSM, and they have a problem with it, they should re-evaluate whether making exemptions for religions makes sense in the first place.
Nonsense. The higher end phones had fully usable browsers years before the first Iphone model (e.g., Opera Mobile was first released in 2000; Symbian has been around for years too). It's the cheaper lower end phones that had simpler browsers - but then these were way cheaper than the cheapest Iphone anyway, so it's an irrelevant and unfair comparison.
Sure, I suspect that the Iphone browser in 2007 might have been slightly better than a smartphone browser in 2005 or before, but there were also better non-Iphone browsers in 2007. If the best you can say is that the Iphone was slightly better than old phones - well duh, I should hope so. All companies have been making better phones, it's called progress.
Fair enough - but I find it much more convenient to just write a cheque than have to go to the bank myself, so it seems odd that cheques are written off as being the inconvenient method.
Also there is the issue of trust - whilst cheques can still bounce, I guess people would still rather receive a cheque from you when you're paying them, than "I'll go into my bank sometime soon, honest" (e.g., you're paying a small business that doesn't accept cards, as opposed to a friend).
As for a "fancy way" to give money, well there's also the risk. It means you can send money through the post, but if the post goes missing, the money isn't lost.
Indeed, this was what I used cheques mainly for too. I think it's worth distinguishing between "largely dead" and "no use at all". Something used once a month is still in use - if cheques were scrapped, you'd have the pain of how to pay you rent.
Then you give him cash
So I have to go to the cash machine, get out a load of money - which he then has to keep safe, and then take and deposit into his bank, just like with a cheque anyway? How is that an improvement?
tell him you transfer it from your bank account.
This one I wasn't aware of - is it possible to get money out of someone else's account? What details are needed?
We use two level one-time pin lists.
I'm unclear how you mean - if I want to log in using a random Internet connection, what information do I put in?
They rarely are.
Sorry, "rarely" isn't good enough if I need to transfer money there and then. I'll still keep cheques for those rare occasions. The claim isn't that cheques are "rarely" used (which I'd agree with), it's that they're apparently completely obsolete.
My bank has "maintenance" scheduled more than just rarely, in my experience.
It's illegal to keep money not send to you.
That's what I thought, but apparently it's not so straightforward:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8251679.stm
As for checksums, the issue was with people having the names stored on their online bank system. So that's another advantage of cheques, as there's no risk of that happening.
I'm in the UK, and cheques are still occasionally needed here.
As for why, give me answers to my questions at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1583934&cid=31494914 .
Not true, I'm in Europe - I still use cheques when I'm not at my home computer, or to pay people whose bank account details I don't know, and I still receive cheques, e.g., from family who don't have my bank account details or have Internet access.
What non-cheque systems are there to address these issues? I mean, they do exist right, if you really have no need of cheques?
Do you have a source for "most people here do their banking mainly online anyhow"?
I've always been a bit of a liberal, but the Lib Dem's lack of cohesive leadership recently has totally shattered any chance I'll be voting for them.
This nonsense amendment was by a Lord. Firstly, the Lords can do what they like, even going against their party policy (in fact, even MPs can, but this is even more so in the Lords).
Secondly, you don't vote for Lords.
If you're not going to vote for a Lib Dem MP, based on what a Lord does, when it's neither the policy of your MP candidate nor Lib Dem party policy, that doesn't really make sense.
Admittedly, I do wish there'd be something more public from the main party itself to distance themselves from this amendment. But my own Lib Dem candidate has already confirmed that he doesn't support it - at least write to your candidate to see his or her views, before throwing your vote away.