I wasn't denigrating Nintendo there; I have a Wii, because of the three systems, it seemed to offer the most of what I wanted. I liked a lot of Nintendo's older games, so the virtual console is nice (yes, there's emulation -- but the VC games look better, to me, than my emulated games. I'm not sure why, though). The Gamecube backwards compatibility is also nice, as I liked a few games there -- Metroid, Mario Kart: DD.
But it's nowhere near graphically capable of taking on, say, the 360, and Nintendo has never pretended otherwise.
I think one of Sony's problems is what you said: Cutting edge just for the sake of it. They're so cutting edge the price is out of many people's range (and I think the sales compared to the much-lesser-powered Wii show this). $600 is a lot of money for a toy, especially if the majority of your target audience are teenagers or college students. They lost something between the PS2 and PS3, and I'm not sure what it was -- but now they're losing exclusives because of it.
Given that the other alternative is Sony (as Nintendo isn't fighting to be cutting edge), it's a case of rock/hard place. Right now, Sony irks me more than Microsoft, so there's a bit of schadenfreude on my part when Sony gets handed bad news. (Plus, all the Sony fanboys that pissed me off leading up to the PS3 launch.)
However, I own neither an X-Box 360 nor a PS3, so I really don't have a dog in this fight. If Microsoft and Sony want to wail on each other then that's fine by me.
He's not that bright of a person. He's a shifty asshole, but he's not really a smart shifty asshole. If you see the e-mails he sends out, it's very apparent that he's just... sort of a stupid guy.
I haven't believed that Jack Thompson cares much about the things he argues for in a while. I think he's just got very, very serious problems and gets off on the attention. He's like a real life, professional troll. He enjoys stirring up shit, and being in front of the camera. He likes that gamers are pissed at him. But if it wasn't gamers, it would be someone else.
By revealing this publicly, he not only gets attention, but a new round of shit storm with gamers on the web. People will post this and make fun of him and he'll jot off angry e-mails.
Actually, you can drive without a license on private property. It's when you're on public roads, paid for by taxpayers, that the license becomes required. We've decided, as a people, that on those roads provided by us, you have to be licensed. For a variety of reasons.
I have absolutely no doubts some people would go to these places. However, shaming bad behavior is very effective.
As for this:
you also had people in charge at the state level who were desperately fighting against these laws. Do you think that attitudes there would have changed by now without the civil rights laws?
I don't know. I'd like to think things would have come along. Maybe slower, but as the world gets "smaller" due to media and internet access, I think more people realize their old ideas about race are stupid. With the obvious exception of those so set in their ways nothing will change them.
As for politicians: I think everyone will agree there are always politicians who absolutely suck and cater to people who will vote for them even if their attitudes are bad for the country.
Perhaps you're not familiar with certain regions of the country. In a many regions of the country (I grew up near some), if it were legal to put a "Whites Only" sign up, it would still improve business.
I live in an area some would assume that about, and believe me, there's enough of a stigma here about racism that people would think twice about frequenting such a place.
Why do you think the law changed? Because enough people felt that this attitude was wrong. It didn't change without support (and a lot of work and sacrifice on the part of blacks).
However, I'd like to know who the racists are, if they're so stupid as to advertise it. It would make choosing to avoid them much easier.
Yeah? Try it now. Try doing anything just for one race. Other than BET, it won't fly.
I was not arguing about how things would work in the 1950s or 1960s. I do not have a time machine, and thus, cannot open a bar and try to label it "whites only." The here and now, however?
Ask Don Imus how the free market handles racist remarks.
I'm betting that whichever e-ink book reader manufacturer that provides a seamless interface to Project Gutenberg files will probably take the kitty.
If you can skip the 20 pages of shit at the beginning, yes.
I really love Project Gutenberg, but the amount of crap some of the books have at the start is just a pain in the ass sometimes.
I also wish we could revert copyright law so that books made since the 30s would be in public domain. I'd like to see someone argue the point that a book published in 1950 has some sort of need to remain protected by copyright law for another seventy years.
As to the warning labels: If, tomorrow, GWB came out suggesting we put a sticker on books that were "inappropriate"? Watch the/. reaction. That's why I mentioned it -- to point out it isn't just one political side. Al and Tipper Gore wanted MANDATORY labeling, which implies law, which implies government involvement, which is a slippery slope. As we've seen, the labels have had the effect of banning certain things -- some stores won't carry them (Wal Mart), as with AO games. So there are downsides.
It's more that the rate itself is growing, and speeding up, not that we're reaching a capacity. I'm not really worried, I'm just not all that fond of people.;)
All of the following assumes my late-night-math hasn't been affected by alcohol:
700 million net gain in eight years with 6 billion is 11.67% gain in population. That's 1.46% growth a year. That's not so bad, really. If it keeps up, and the rate of increase doesn't change per year, that means once we reach 10 billion, in two years we will have a net gain nearly equal to the population of the United States at present. That's a little bit scary to think about. I'm not about to do the math to figure out when we'll hit 10 billion, but it will most likely be in my life time.
Or if 700 million net new people in eight years just frightens you.
I don't like the rate at which our population is growing. There's no political reasoning behind it. No global warming fear or anything. I just wish people would fuck less.
It's not just the Islamic world. China isn't Islamic (well, portions are). There are all sorts of things you can't say in Europe.
My post wasn't meant to be political, just pointing out that it isn't just the US.
And, for the record, we've made a lot of progress from a time when no movies contained nudity or cursing, and no music did, either. There are people clinging to censorship, but they're just a loud minority. Very few of them are all that young. You can bash on Bush, and that's fine, he's an idiot. But people like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore have supported censorship -- Hillary was for some video game censorship a while ago, and it's thanks to Al Gore and his wife that we have warning labels on music (which hasn't hurt anything because it just makes people want that album all the moreso, it's just the way they threatened legal action). Plus, Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate in 2000, and I will *never* forgive Lieberman for his stance on video game censorship. Both parties cater to the idiot mommy-us-to-death groups that want to censor everything. At least, the elected members and leadership.
I'd be happy if we started electing techy people who understand how ridiculous these attempts to censor are.
I'm not going to account for cultural differences, either. Cultures can kiss my sweaty geek buttcheeks. Squashing freedom of expression is bad, I don't care what your "culture" is.
That would get people in certain regions protesting for sure.
yes, protesting. Which is an exercise of free speech. But until they cross the line to assaulting someone, this is not a problem, and they can protest all they like. I can still piss on a flag. Or, churches can burn Harry Potter books. As long as they paid for them -- hey, no problem there. But if they storm in and set fire to a bookstore? THEN we have a problem and some people better end up in jail.
As to the rest: If you honestly think Exxon is going to overturn our government, you need to take a few deep breaths. It's not going to happen. This was just a squeamish ISP giving in. I had never even HEARD of the ISP before this -- and doubt I will after this.
Then the asshole with said sign will be on display for what he is, the media will come around, and no one will ever go in there for fear of being associated with racism.
Right, but Piss Christ was paid for with tax payer money. the Danish cartoons were not. Say what you want, but don't expect the government to pay you for it.
Also, my original point wasn't that Exxon kills more or less people, or even to do with terrorism. Just that it's ridiculous to claim the US is the only nation where this sort of thing goes on. Seriously -- try saying anything remotely anti-Islam in Iran. You are very free to criticize Bush, and Exxon, here (other than the pussy ISP in this case), but try badmouthing the Chinese government in China.
I'm not even saying the US is without blame -- just that saying "Only in America" is really very ignorant. I'm sure if I tried I could find examples of worse happening in Europe.
yeah, welcome to/. moderators: They think "Troll" is the same as "person who I disagree with."
Trolling is generally defined as saying something assholish to get replies ("why the fuck would anyone use vi?" or "why the fuck would anyone use emacs" for examples). While flamebait is trying to instigate a flamewar, like: "vi is clearly better than emacs because it has a simpler interface" or "emacs is better because it has more features." Off-topic -- well, if you can't figure that one out, you ought not be moderating, or even on slashdot. The closest to "-1 I disagree" is Overrated.
This works both ways; there are also moderations in the UPWARD direction that make no sense. This article has a few already. Generally, saying bad things about corporations (unless you're twitter) or Bush can get you moderated up unless you have zero tact. (Seriously, we all know Bush is a fucking moron. Just a year and a half left, and he's gone.)
Sometimes saying *good* things about people we *really hate*, like the RIAA, gets you moderated up. I think this is because mods just get so shocked their brains cease to function correctly.
Also, there are six billion people on this planet. 150,000 people die about every twenty-four hours. It's not going to affect us. Human beings like to reproduce. We're in no danger of dying off with such a small number of deaths. You want to impress me? Add three zeroes to that number. Then I'll concede we're in trouble. Maybe I'm just jaded, but people die every day for stupid reasons. People have been dying since there were people. All this hand wringing and fretting isn't doing any good -- either work to solve problems, or shut up. But don't be an asshole about it. Besides, if you want to be really cynical, eventually, the universe will reach maximum entropy (if you believe the Heat Death theory).
Yeah, but if they didn't use such an inflammatory title, we wouldn't get 200+ posts (pageviews, baby!) of people bitching about the loss of free speech, "only in America!", and due to the "climate change" part, we get to have YET ANOTHER global warming thread on/.!
Really, it's gold all around for people who want to bitch about America/Bush/global warming.
I'm more interested in naming and shaming the shit ISP who simply collapsed after one threat. Their name isn't even in the summary (as of the time of this posting). That should be the headline:
"Broadview Networks a bunch of pussies, shut down website after complaint made."
Or we could go with something less inflammatory (although with "Brute Squad" and "Hacks" in the title of this one...):
"Yes Men bash Exxon; Broadbiew Networks shut them down and refuse to reveal source of complaint."
Too long?
"Broadview Networks shut down YesMen after single mystery complaint."
Seriously -- headlines like this article's are not good for Slashdot. It's inflammatory, and it's stupid.
This shouldn't be moderated flamebait -- it's true enough. The US is *NOT* the only country where something someone else finds offensive will get shut down.
Ask the people who dared publish cartoons depicting Mohammad. (Meanwhile, in the US, I don't recall violent protests of "Piss Christ" that ended with any buildings being set on fire...)
Yes, there are many examples of freedom of expression being squashed in the US. But to imply "Only in America..." Wait, *seriously*? You *HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT*? C'mon!
People, being as mobile as they are today, don't want libraries at home anymore that takes shelves upon shelves away.
Um. False. There may be fewer people, but there remains sizable number who do, in fact, want libraries at home. Something about books, and having lots of them, is very appealing to some people. I don't know of any other form of entertainment where people develop the type of feeling they do when it comes to a book they've read a time or three -- the actual, physical book.
And yet, Yahoo and other online corporations are (imho) exploiting these people by establishing "Answer" areas that reward people for answering questions with useless points. Do they get compensation or a cut of the advertising profits that yahoo is making on them? No. They get honor points.
then don't go to Yahoo! Answers and offer your services. It's not like you can't tell they're making money. I personally don't think Yahoo deserves my time, and they don't deserve to make money off my knowledge, so I don't go there and answer questions. But some people apparently don't care -- hey, their choice.
Please accept my apologies, I thought you were trolling, and had a fairly aggravating morning.
When I said public forum, I meant public as in the contents are public. My phone calls are not -- at least, until the NSA decides my boring ass life is interesting -- and that's what I meant by "public." Not as in, government owned/operated. (Thankfully, in the case of/. and most internet forums.)
If you want to not send any caller ID information, that's fine with me, and I'm free to not answer your call. But sending out a different name to fool me into answering? I don't like that.
I wouldn't like it if you could post on/. as someone else's user name, either. I don't mean having more than one account, I mean just spoofing your name to be something else in order to fool someone into replying, knowing they'd reply to that name.
Slashdot Mirror
I wasn't denigrating Nintendo there; I have a Wii, because of the three systems, it seemed to offer the most of what I wanted. I liked a lot of Nintendo's older games, so the virtual console is nice (yes, there's emulation -- but the VC games look better, to me, than my emulated games. I'm not sure why, though). The Gamecube backwards compatibility is also nice, as I liked a few games there -- Metroid, Mario Kart: DD.
But it's nowhere near graphically capable of taking on, say, the 360, and Nintendo has never pretended otherwise.
I think one of Sony's problems is what you said: Cutting edge just for the sake of it. They're so cutting edge the price is out of many people's range (and I think the sales compared to the much-lesser-powered Wii show this). $600 is a lot of money for a toy, especially if the majority of your target audience are teenagers or college students. They lost something between the PS2 and PS3, and I'm not sure what it was -- but now they're losing exclusives because of it.
Given that the other alternative is Sony (as Nintendo isn't fighting to be cutting edge), it's a case of rock/hard place. Right now, Sony irks me more than Microsoft, so there's a bit of schadenfreude on my part when Sony gets handed bad news. (Plus, all the Sony fanboys that pissed me off leading up to the PS3 launch.)
However, I own neither an X-Box 360 nor a PS3, so I really don't have a dog in this fight. If Microsoft and Sony want to wail on each other then that's fine by me.
He's not that bright of a person. He's a shifty asshole, but he's not really a smart shifty asshole. If you see the e-mails he sends out, it's very apparent that he's just... sort of a stupid guy.
I haven't believed that Jack Thompson cares much about the things he argues for in a while. I think he's just got very, very serious problems and gets off on the attention. He's like a real life, professional troll. He enjoys stirring up shit, and being in front of the camera. He likes that gamers are pissed at him. But if it wasn't gamers, it would be someone else.
By revealing this publicly, he not only gets attention, but a new round of shit storm with gamers on the web. People will post this and make fun of him and he'll jot off angry e-mails.
What a shitty deal -- "We get money from every Zune sold!"
That's like what -- a buck fifty total now?
For Apple, it is the worst case scenario.
However, since Universal want to change the price, I imagine they want to charge more, not less.
Maybe in some places.
But I'll guarantee you peeing on a Koran will get you killed in 99% of the Middle East.
Piss off the Chinese government, and I guarantee you, you will die. And it will be government sanctioned.
Actually, you can drive without a license on private property. It's when you're on public roads, paid for by taxpayers, that the license becomes required. We've decided, as a people, that on those roads provided by us, you have to be licensed. For a variety of reasons.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
I have absolutely no doubts some people would go to these places. However, shaming bad behavior is very effective.
As for this:
you also had people in charge at the state level who were desperately fighting against these laws. Do you think that attitudes there would have changed by now without the civil rights laws?
I don't know. I'd like to think things would have come along. Maybe slower, but as the world gets "smaller" due to media and internet access, I think more people realize their old ideas about race are stupid. With the obvious exception of those so set in their ways nothing will change them.
As for politicians: I think everyone will agree there are always politicians who absolutely suck and cater to people who will vote for them even if their attitudes are bad for the country.
Perhaps you're not familiar with certain regions of the country. In a many regions of the country (I grew up near some), if it were legal to put a "Whites Only" sign up, it would still improve business.
I live in an area some would assume that about, and believe me, there's enough of a stigma here about racism that people would think twice about frequenting such a place.
Why do you think the law changed? Because enough people felt that this attitude was wrong. It didn't change without support (and a lot of work and sacrifice on the part of blacks).
However, I'd like to know who the racists are, if they're so stupid as to advertise it. It would make choosing to avoid them much easier.
Yeah? Try it now. Try doing anything just for one race. Other than BET, it won't fly.
I was not arguing about how things would work in the 1950s or 1960s. I do not have a time machine, and thus, cannot open a bar and try to label it "whites only." The here and now, however?
Ask Don Imus how the free market handles racist remarks.
I'm betting that whichever e-ink book reader manufacturer that provides a seamless interface to Project Gutenberg files will probably take the kitty.
If you can skip the 20 pages of shit at the beginning, yes.
I really love Project Gutenberg, but the amount of crap some of the books have at the start is just a pain in the ass sometimes.
I also wish we could revert copyright law so that books made since the 30s would be in public domain. I'd like to see someone argue the point that a book published in 1950 has some sort of need to remain protected by copyright law for another seventy years.
I don't support McCain, either.
/. reaction. That's why I mentioned it -- to point out it isn't just one political side. Al and Tipper Gore wanted MANDATORY labeling, which implies law, which implies government involvement, which is a slippery slope. As we've seen, the labels have had the effect of banning certain things -- some stores won't carry them (Wal Mart), as with AO games. So there are downsides.
As to the warning labels: If, tomorrow, GWB came out suggesting we put a sticker on books that were "inappropriate"? Watch the
It's more that the rate itself is growing, and speeding up, not that we're reaching a capacity. I'm not really worried, I'm just not all that fond of people. ;)
All of the following assumes my late-night-math hasn't been affected by alcohol:
700 million net gain in eight years with 6 billion is 11.67% gain in population. That's 1.46% growth a year. That's not so bad, really. If it keeps up, and the rate of increase doesn't change per year, that means once we reach 10 billion, in two years we will have a net gain nearly equal to the population of the United States at present. That's a little bit scary to think about. I'm not about to do the math to figure out when we'll hit 10 billion, but it will most likely be in my life time.
Yeah? There's no excuse for the RIAA's bullshit or their tactics, either, but I don't see them looking to stop any time soon.
Or if 700 million net new people in eight years just frightens you.
I don't like the rate at which our population is growing. There's no political reasoning behind it. No global warming fear or anything. I just wish people would fuck less.
Or video tape it more. Either way...
It's not just the Islamic world. China isn't Islamic (well, portions are). There are all sorts of things you can't say in Europe.
My post wasn't meant to be political, just pointing out that it isn't just the US.
And, for the record, we've made a lot of progress from a time when no movies contained nudity or cursing, and no music did, either. There are people clinging to censorship, but they're just a loud minority. Very few of them are all that young. You can bash on Bush, and that's fine, he's an idiot. But people like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore have supported censorship -- Hillary was for some video game censorship a while ago, and it's thanks to Al Gore and his wife that we have warning labels on music (which hasn't hurt anything because it just makes people want that album all the moreso, it's just the way they threatened legal action). Plus, Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate in 2000, and I will *never* forgive Lieberman for his stance on video game censorship. Both parties cater to the idiot mommy-us-to-death groups that want to censor everything. At least, the elected members and leadership.
I'd be happy if we started electing techy people who understand how ridiculous these attempts to censor are.
I'm not going to account for cultural differences, either. Cultures can kiss my sweaty geek buttcheeks. Squashing freedom of expression is bad, I don't care what your "culture" is.
That would get people in certain regions protesting for sure.
yes, protesting. Which is an exercise of free speech. But until they cross the line to assaulting someone, this is not a problem, and they can protest all they like. I can still piss on a flag. Or, churches can burn Harry Potter books. As long as they paid for them -- hey, no problem there. But if they storm in and set fire to a bookstore? THEN we have a problem and some people better end up in jail.
As to the rest: If you honestly think Exxon is going to overturn our government, you need to take a few deep breaths. It's not going to happen. This was just a squeamish ISP giving in. I had never even HEARD of the ISP before this -- and doubt I will after this.
Absolutely.
Then the asshole with said sign will be on display for what he is, the media will come around, and no one will ever go in there for fear of being associated with racism.
Right, but Piss Christ was paid for with tax payer money. the Danish cartoons were not. Say what you want, but don't expect the government to pay you for it.
Also, my original point wasn't that Exxon kills more or less people, or even to do with terrorism. Just that it's ridiculous to claim the US is the only nation where this sort of thing goes on. Seriously -- try saying anything remotely anti-Islam in Iran. You are very free to criticize Bush, and Exxon, here (other than the pussy ISP in this case), but try badmouthing the Chinese government in China.
I'm not even saying the US is without blame -- just that saying "Only in America" is really very ignorant. I'm sure if I tried I could find examples of worse happening in Europe.
yeah, welcome to /. moderators: They think "Troll" is the same as "person who I disagree with."
Trolling is generally defined as saying something assholish to get replies ("why the fuck would anyone use vi?" or "why the fuck would anyone use emacs" for examples). While flamebait is trying to instigate a flamewar, like: "vi is clearly better than emacs because it has a simpler interface" or "emacs is better because it has more features." Off-topic -- well, if you can't figure that one out, you ought not be moderating, or even on slashdot. The closest to "-1 I disagree" is Overrated.
This works both ways; there are also moderations in the UPWARD direction that make no sense. This article has a few already. Generally, saying bad things about corporations (unless you're twitter) or Bush can get you moderated up unless you have zero tact. (Seriously, we all know Bush is a fucking moron. Just a year and a half left, and he's gone.)
Sometimes saying *good* things about people we *really hate*, like the RIAA, gets you moderated up. I think this is because mods just get so shocked their brains cease to function correctly.
Also, there are six billion people on this planet. 150,000 people die about every twenty-four hours. It's not going to affect us. Human beings like to reproduce. We're in no danger of dying off with such a small number of deaths. You want to impress me? Add three zeroes to that number. Then I'll concede we're in trouble. Maybe I'm just jaded, but people die every day for stupid reasons. People have been dying since there were people. All this hand wringing and fretting isn't doing any good -- either work to solve problems, or shut up. But don't be an asshole about it. Besides, if you want to be really cynical, eventually, the universe will reach maximum entropy (if you believe the Heat Death theory).
Yeah, but if they didn't use such an inflammatory title, we wouldn't get 200+ posts (pageviews, baby!) of people bitching about the loss of free speech, "only in America!", and due to the "climate change" part, we get to have YET ANOTHER global warming thread on /.!
Really, it's gold all around for people who want to bitch about America/Bush/global warming.
I'm more interested in naming and shaming the shit ISP who simply collapsed after one threat. Their name isn't even in the summary (as of the time of this posting). That should be the headline:
"Broadview Networks a bunch of pussies, shut down website after complaint made."
Or we could go with something less inflammatory (although with "Brute Squad" and "Hacks" in the title of this one...):
"Yes Men bash Exxon; Broadbiew Networks shut them down and refuse to reveal source of complaint."
Too long?
"Broadview Networks shut down YesMen after single mystery complaint."
Seriously -- headlines like this article's are not good for Slashdot. It's inflammatory, and it's stupid.
This shouldn't be moderated flamebait -- it's true enough. The US is *NOT* the only country where something someone else finds offensive will get shut down.
Ask the people who dared publish cartoons depicting Mohammad. (Meanwhile, in the US, I don't recall violent protests of "Piss Christ" that ended with any buildings being set on fire...)
Yes, there are many examples of freedom of expression being squashed in the US. But to imply "Only in America..." Wait, *seriously*? You *HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT*? C'mon!
People, being as mobile as they are today, don't want libraries at home anymore that takes shelves upon shelves away.
Um. False. There may be fewer people, but there remains sizable number who do, in fact, want libraries at home. Something about books, and having lots of them, is very appealing to some people. I don't know of any other form of entertainment where people develop the type of feeling they do when it comes to a book they've read a time or three -- the actual, physical book.
And yet, Yahoo and other online corporations are (imho) exploiting these people by establishing "Answer" areas that reward people for answering questions with useless points. Do they get compensation or a cut of the advertising profits that yahoo is making on them? No. They get honor points.
then don't go to Yahoo! Answers and offer your services. It's not like you can't tell they're making money. I personally don't think Yahoo deserves my time, and they don't deserve to make money off my knowledge, so I don't go there and answer questions. But some people apparently don't care -- hey, their choice.
Please accept my apologies, I thought you were trolling, and had a fairly aggravating morning.
/. and most internet forums.)
/. as someone else's user name, either. I don't mean having more than one account, I mean just spoofing your name to be something else in order to fool someone into replying, knowing they'd reply to that name.
When I said public forum, I meant public as in the contents are public. My phone calls are not -- at least, until the NSA decides my boring ass life is interesting -- and that's what I meant by "public." Not as in, government owned/operated. (Thankfully, in the case of
If you want to not send any caller ID information, that's fine with me, and I'm free to not answer your call. But sending out a different name to fool me into answering? I don't like that.
I wouldn't like it if you could post on