Is getting good at a game a transferrable skill then? I tend to find that the 'thinking elements' and the problem solving elements are the bits that are of most interest. They're also the bits that carry on past the game. All too often though, I find it's less about the game, and more about the interface - your 'getting killed and try again' is a substitute for a well designed game.
They aren't. They're trusting of people who apply the scientific method to a medical product. I mean, drug companies are biased and they lie for their own ends, but at least they have to pretend they've done proper trials, proof and testing of their product.
My 'herbal brain enhancer' that I'm selling you has no such constraints.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The thing that bothers me somewhat is the 'herbal = good' message that herbal medicine promotes. Yes, some herbs have medicinal effects. Quite a few of those will also mess you up if you're not careful, and then there's _way_ more 'herbal' substances that are just plain toxic.
I mean, drug companies don't tend to release actively harmful substances with no medicinal value. They also tend to document how to use them safely and control of side effects, and avoiding harmful interactions.
Stuff that comes from plants has no such restrictions.
But in neither case are you (generally) buying them based on the profit/loss. A house that you own, you don't have to rent. The mortgage repayments are a cost, but one that secure you an asset at the end of the day.
A car is a different matter - it's a lifestyle option. You can get by without a car, better than you can get by without somewhere to live. But ability to travel 'car distance' is also a factor in job selection and general mobility.
But a second hand car isn't always cheaper than a new car - you're trading off a new vehicle, under warranty for a few years which will maintain _some_ value in 3 years time, against a second hand one - which is _probably_ less reliable, and will certainly cost you for any work that needs doing.
I've done both - bought a cheaper car (10 years old, high milage) and ran it for a while, and bought a more expensive one. I would honestly say there's not much in it in terms of net cost - the cheaper car was less upfront, but used more fuel for a smaller chassis and had annual maintenance bills that were significant enough to make up the difference over a few years.
My 'newer' more expensive car (3 years old, not much milage) - well, has cost me substantially less over it's lifespan. It's not used anywhere near as much fuel, and I've yet to pay anything for 'maintenance' work, beyond the regular service schedule. Despite my borrowing to 'buy' it, and the associated interest payments and the depreciation, this car has cost me less over my 3 year sample period. Additionally it's much more comfortable to drive, bigger and thus can carry more stuff/people, safer and better on the road handling, and I'm not risking getting in trouble at work because 'the car broke down'.
So there's a very good reason to buy a car on credit - it costs you less in the long run, and you get a nicer driving experience.
Re:False positive and double blind negatives...
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 1
I'm not so sure that'll work - I mean it's only in the longer timeframe where that happens - torture a thousand people today, and you may have saved some problems for a few years time, but... you may not.
I'd like this to stop world wide, and am prepared to do what I can to stop it. First things first though, I want my own government to stop turning a blind eye to morally reprehensible behaviour.
I have this idea. You get a monitor, and you subsidise the cost of them. You also build into them a pair of shotgun shells.
You thus distribute these 'very cheap' monitors, supporting the cost of them by the fact that you have a way to shoot people in the face across the internet. Your portal will of course, be credit card activated and provide as a service 'shoot this person in the face'. Maybe there will also be bulk discounts.
It's a plan with no drawbacks really - if you're angry enough that you're prepared to spend real money applying shotgun to their face, then they must have done something to deserve it.
Re:False positive and double blind negatives...
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Indeed. Assertions that 'torture doesn't work' muddies the waters on the debate. It mostly does within it's own constraints - you don't get to punch someone a couple of times and get detailed intel out of them, but you can certainly extract a lot of leads given enough time. You can also definitely elict confessions which are relevant from a propganda point of view.
But that's not why we condemn it:
We reject torture because it's calculated harm to another human and we consider that against human rights
We reject torture because it is self defeating - the harm caused guarantees the war will continue.
We reject torture because of the diplomatic effect - if decent folk won't talk to you because of what you do, diplomacy is hurt.
The effectiveness or not is a moot point - however effective it is, the price is too high.
Re:In defense of 24 (but not torture)
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 1
Interrogating someone with physical abuse is relatively quick and about as effective as you might expect - you'll tell 'em whatever to get them to stop hitting you.
Torturing someone on the other hand, is nothing like that - it's a sustained progression of psychological and physical abuse that takes time, but isn't working to elicit an answer as much as it's trying to break the victim's mind. It seeks to remove existing trust and loyalties, and replace them. And _then_ information can be extracted, because the victim no longer has a reason to lie to the torturer and every reason to 'trust' them. The reason it gets unreliable is because you have driven the victim insane as part of the process and disconnected them from reality, so they're no longer sure what's 'true' or not either.
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I would be inclined to agree. Regardless of how 'effective' torture is, are we - as citizens responsible for electing the government - prepared to accept that done in our name?
Are we prepared to accept the atrocities at Guantanamo bay (and I have no doubt similar/worse things elsewhere that haven't been 'noticed') as a price for 'more security'? Are we prepared to accept the possiblity of global nuclear war as the price for maintaining our 'deterrence'?
Torture is ugly. War is ugly. And the most 'effective' is also the ugliest. Being the biggest and the nastiest and the scariest comes at the price of having to back it up occasionally. At what point do we say 'too much'?
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 1
The torture in the witch trials worked perfectly. It elicited public confessions from innocents, justifying the reign of terror that the witch finders represented. Oh sure, the intel was crap, but witch trials were nothing to do with finding witches, and everything to do with maintaining an iron grip of terror over the populace.
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 3, Interesting
You misunderstand torture. Hurting someone to get an answer to a question does this - the subject will do whatever is necessary to end the pain, and that includes telling you what they think you want to hear. However the point of torture isn't to do that - it's to 'break' them mentally, and force them to disconnect from reality and previous motivations and emotions. It's using torment (physical or psychological) to... essentially drive them insane, and distort their trust relationship towards their torturer.
A bit like stockholm syndrome, really. As you say reliability is suspect, as you've... more or less literally made someone insane... but it's far from 'utterly useless'. There's a shortage of 'proof' on the matter for the very simple reason that the people who do it are already confident that it works, and those that don't... well, can you really see an independant scientific study of torture? It doesn't even work, as constraining and consenting to it by definition removes it's effectiveness - the torturer has to push his victim past the point at which they can no longer cope with the abuse.
Ugly business, but it _does_ work.
Re:Asheron's Call already had this quest...
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 1
Well, in D&D you get almost the same thing, because not many people actually understand that 'Evil' (in D&D terms at least) is probably about where the average person starts - motivated by self interest, and prepared to work within the constraints of the law unless there's definite advantage to circumvention, but otherwise... well, go where the pay is.
Re:Asheron's Call already had this quest...
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 1
Would you like fries with that?
Re:Asheron's Call already had this quest...
on
Torture in Games
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I like how we get to perform some kind of moral calculus with torture vs. killing in a game, and we're able to debate which is 'more acceptable'. I mean, it's a bit like GTA3 - a game based on assault, murder and large scale theft - and the uproar about a sex scene in it.
Either morality is relevant in a game context or it isn't - if it is, then we should be disapproving of _anything_ in the game which is immoral (and in most cases that's anything that's actually illegal - killing 'bad guys' just because they're there isn't particularly moral). If it isn't, who cares about a spot of torture within the context of World of Warcraft, which lets not forget has a fundamental underlying premise of genocide - exterminating entire races based on their species.
Actually I rather disliked generals - I thought the 'income' mechanic didn't really work very well, in a game where tech and superweapons scale so rapidly.
Red Alert 3 was something of a disappointment, but for me primarily just because it didn't have enough depth to it. Game was finished in a weekend or so, which really is unsatisfying.
I still think that's a good start point. A procedural language, that's pretty strict about it's enforcement of basic rules.
We're talking about first starting learning to program, so it's my opinion that going foraying off into the realms of OO and functional paradigms just muddies the water and makes it inaccessible to the true beginner.
Pick up something that requires you to 'behave' whilst doing it - and for this reason, never ever C or it's ilk, because whilst it's powerful it's amazingly good at letting a 'newbie' do stuff that horribly breaks their code in insidious ways.
Object oriented and functional is something that do need to be covered, certainly, but they're a little more abstract than 'make computer do a list of things to produce a result'. Some languages also have a tendancy to be too powerful in my opinon - a lot of the OO stuff has this massive laundry list of stuff you can do with object method calls, but doesn't actually help you understand what's actually going on.
So whilst I'd never use Pascal again by choice, I'd still recommend it as a starting point for a true beginner.
OK, so if your contract says 'any software you develop on the job is ours' and you sign it, then that's that. You're paid, they get software.
There's no get outs, or wiggles there.
However, you may well find that to be negotiable - it's often a standard term in a contract, as a 'catch all' for 'anything you make as part of your job, is ours'. It's far easier to put that in the contract on day one, than to have to fight in court.
I had a similar term in mine at a previous employer - I was being hired to sysadmin, and there was a term covering intellectual property of stuff produced.
Turns out they didn't actually care that much, because my job _wasn't_ to produce code, and so we agreed to delete that from my contract, and replace it with... well, I can't remember the exact wording, but approximately anything I was specifically asked to write by my employer (and thus was paid for) was theirs, and anything derivative I could release provided I didn't profit from it. Or something like that, anyway. But as my interest was being able to post snippets on websites, and occasionally publish the odd test script, or maybe work on GPL software, that was fine.
Privacy is much like democracy. In an ideal world, they're irrelevant. In the imperfect world we live in, they're mandatory, simply because you cannot assume your fellow man will not abuse a position of authority or power.
Slashdot Mirror
Is getting good at a game a transferrable skill then? I tend to find that the 'thinking elements' and the problem solving elements are the bits that are of most interest. They're also the bits that carry on past the game. All too often though, I find it's less about the game, and more about the interface - your 'getting killed and try again' is a substitute for a well designed game.
My 'herbal brain enhancer' that I'm selling you has no such constraints.
I mean, drug companies don't tend to release actively harmful substances with no medicinal value. They also tend to document how to use them safely and control of side effects, and avoiding harmful interactions.
Stuff that comes from plants has no such restrictions.
Essentially taking money from people who want to believe.
I find it ironic that this book seeks to take money from people who _don't_ want to believe.
Making an assertion and being wrong is not the same as keeping quiet when you know nothing.
But in neither case are you (generally) buying them based on the profit/loss. A house that you own, you don't have to rent. The mortgage repayments are a cost, but one that secure you an asset at the end of the day.
A car is a different matter - it's a lifestyle option. You can get by without a car, better than you can get by without somewhere to live. But ability to travel 'car distance' is also a factor in job selection and general mobility.
But a second hand car isn't always cheaper than a new car - you're trading off a new vehicle, under warranty for a few years which will maintain _some_ value in 3 years time, against a second hand one - which is _probably_ less reliable, and will certainly cost you for any work that needs doing.
I've done both - bought a cheaper car (10 years old, high milage) and ran it for a while, and bought a more expensive one. I would honestly say there's not much in it in terms of net cost - the cheaper car was less upfront, but used more fuel for a smaller chassis and had annual maintenance bills that were significant enough to make up the difference over a few years.
My 'newer' more expensive car (3 years old, not much milage) - well, has cost me substantially less over it's lifespan. It's not used anywhere near as much fuel, and I've yet to pay anything for 'maintenance' work, beyond the regular service schedule. Despite my borrowing to 'buy' it, and the associated interest payments and the depreciation, this car has cost me less over my 3 year sample period. Additionally it's much more comfortable to drive, bigger and thus can carry more stuff/people, safer and better on the road handling, and I'm not risking getting in trouble at work because 'the car broke down'.
So there's a very good reason to buy a car on credit - it costs you less in the long run, and you get a nicer driving experience.
I'd like this to stop world wide, and am prepared to do what I can to stop it. First things first though, I want my own government to stop turning a blind eye to morally reprehensible behaviour.
You thus distribute these 'very cheap' monitors, supporting the cost of them by the fact that you have a way to shoot people in the face across the internet. Your portal will of course, be credit card activated and provide as a service 'shoot this person in the face'. Maybe there will also be bulk discounts.
It's a plan with no drawbacks really - if you're angry enough that you're prepared to spend real money applying shotgun to their face, then they must have done something to deserve it.
But that's not why we condemn it:
The effectiveness or not is a moot point - however effective it is, the price is too high.
Torturing someone on the other hand, is nothing like that - it's a sustained progression of psychological and physical abuse that takes time, but isn't working to elicit an answer as much as it's trying to break the victim's mind. It seeks to remove existing trust and loyalties, and replace them. And _then_ information can be extracted, because the victim no longer has a reason to lie to the torturer and every reason to 'trust' them. The reason it gets unreliable is because you have driven the victim insane as part of the process and disconnected them from reality, so they're no longer sure what's 'true' or not either.
Are we prepared to accept the atrocities at Guantanamo bay (and I have no doubt similar/worse things elsewhere that haven't been 'noticed') as a price for 'more security'? Are we prepared to accept the possiblity of global nuclear war as the price for maintaining our 'deterrence'?
Torture is ugly. War is ugly. And the most 'effective' is also the ugliest. Being the biggest and the nastiest and the scariest comes at the price of having to back it up occasionally. At what point do we say 'too much'?
The torture in the witch trials worked perfectly. It elicited public confessions from innocents, justifying the reign of terror that the witch finders represented. Oh sure, the intel was crap, but witch trials were nothing to do with finding witches, and everything to do with maintaining an iron grip of terror over the populace.
A bit like stockholm syndrome, really. As you say reliability is suspect, as you've ... more or less literally made someone insane ... but it's far from 'utterly useless'. There's a shortage of 'proof' on the matter for the very simple reason that the people who do it are already confident that it works, and those that don't... well, can you really see an independant scientific study of torture? It doesn't even work, as constraining and consenting to it by definition removes it's effectiveness - the torturer has to push his victim past the point at which they can no longer cope with the abuse.
Ugly business, but it _does_ work.
Well, in D&D you get almost the same thing, because not many people actually understand that 'Evil' (in D&D terms at least) is probably about where the average person starts - motivated by self interest, and prepared to work within the constraints of the law unless there's definite advantage to circumvention, but otherwise ... well, go where the pay is.
Would you like fries with that?
Either morality is relevant in a game context or it isn't - if it is, then we should be disapproving of _anything_ in the game which is immoral (and in most cases that's anything that's actually illegal - killing 'bad guys' just because they're there isn't particularly moral). If it isn't, who cares about a spot of torture within the context of World of Warcraft, which lets not forget has a fundamental underlying premise of genocide - exterminating entire races based on their species.
Not exactly the height of morality there.
Red Alert 3 was something of a disappointment, but for me primarily just because it didn't have enough depth to it. Game was finished in a weekend or so, which really is unsatisfying.
Which is, pretty fundamentally, what most 'free' software is about too.
I still think that's a good start point. A procedural language, that's pretty strict about it's enforcement of basic rules.
We're talking about first starting learning to program, so it's my opinion that going foraying off into the realms of OO and functional paradigms just muddies the water and makes it inaccessible to the true beginner.
Pick up something that requires you to 'behave' whilst doing it - and for this reason, never ever C or it's ilk, because whilst it's powerful it's amazingly good at letting a 'newbie' do stuff that horribly breaks their code in insidious ways.
Object oriented and functional is something that do need to be covered, certainly, but they're a little more abstract than 'make computer do a list of things to produce a result'. Some languages also have a tendancy to be too powerful in my opinon - a lot of the OO stuff has this massive laundry list of stuff you can do with object method calls, but doesn't actually help you understand what's actually going on.
So whilst I'd never use Pascal again by choice, I'd still recommend it as a starting point for a true beginner.
The truth is inescapable - if there is a God, he doesn't actaully like you very much.
Quite why the US still insists on making electronic funds transfer more laborious than writing out a piece of paper, I still don't know.
Can just about make out "Suzhou Logitech Electronics Co. Ltd. Made in China" in very tiny fontsize.
So with my exhaustive sampling, I can say definitively that Logitech products are more ubiquitous than I thought.
There's no get outs, or wiggles there.
However, you may well find that to be negotiable - it's often a standard term in a contract, as a 'catch all' for 'anything you make as part of your job, is ours'. It's far easier to put that in the contract on day one, than to have to fight in court.
I had a similar term in mine at a previous employer - I was being hired to sysadmin, and there was a term covering intellectual property of stuff produced.
Turns out they didn't actually care that much, because my job _wasn't_ to produce code, and so we agreed to delete that from my contract, and replace it with... well, I can't remember the exact wording, but approximately anything I was specifically asked to write by my employer (and thus was paid for) was theirs, and anything derivative I could release provided I didn't profit from it. Or something like that, anyway. But as my interest was being able to post snippets on websites, and occasionally publish the odd test script, or maybe work on GPL software, that was fine.
Privacy is much like democracy. In an ideal world, they're irrelevant. In the imperfect world we live in, they're mandatory, simply because you cannot assume your fellow man will not abuse a position of authority or power.
Maybe you'd end up with a nationalised health service like some of the more humane countries in the world.