to hear a community leader defend violence in video games as a necessary part of the instruction of our youth
This doesn't sound like he's defending the violence in video games to me. It sounds more like he's saying that seeing violent descriptions or images is inevitable in today's society. The world is a violent place. Hell, watch the news (or better yet, read it from a semi-reliable source instead of relying on the TV people to water it down to the fourth grade level </rant>).
Beyond that, where in the hell do you see the judge say that violence in video games is a necesssary part of the instruction of our youth?!? Trying to shield people from knowledge is bad. Say it with me. When I was a kid, I learned a lot of things that adults didn't think a kid should know. Fortunately, I was never told that I shouldn't talk about such things, or think about them. I was guided to more information about those things, and learned enough to form my own opinions.
Perhaps you're one of those people who think that your children should not have an opinion unless you give it to them. If that's the case, I'm sorry, because you're going to have a hell of a time with a teenager.
Trying to shield children from everything bad in the world will have the wrong effect. The best that could happen is that you are unsuccessful, and the child gains the information, without feeling that she can talk to you about it... since she's not supposed to know this anyway, right? She's a kid. The worst is that you succeed, and your child grows up not knowing right from wrong, since he's never had to decide between the two for himself -- he's had his opinions carefully fed to him, and only the facts that he needs to know, so he doesn't have the ability to make an informed decision.
My niece will ask me questions about life, and I give her honest answers. I talk to her about the questions, and I don't try to make the world seem better than it is. I also give her all the facts that she needs to make up her own mind instead of just telling her that something is bad. Usually, she comes to the "right" decision on her own. I know already that she's not going to agree with me on everything, but if she has the information to deal with life, she's far better off.
Hmm. This article (and most of the posts replying to it) seem to have hit a nerve. Remember, don't drink and post -- you end up with rants like this.
I can't do it. I can't let go of freedom because of that.01%. I draw the line fairly far away from protecting people from violence. What you advocate draws perilously close to a police state.
Regulations of this type are very much NOT "insignificant" in the scheme of things. Oh, some person might just snap and run through a Catholic church with a broadsword if he see that! We can't allow anyone to see it. Oh, someone might go rape that young woman if she dresses like that, so we should outlaw miniskirts (a crime if I've ever thought of one. Miniskirts... GOOD! Uh, what was I saying? Oh yeah.) You might say that these are contrived examples, but some psycho did run through a church with a broadsword a year or two ago in England. OK, the second example is pretty bad.
What do you think the next step is? Tracking your location through your cell phone? Haven't read about that idea from the FBI. How about collecting all traffic through an ISP, just in case somebody is talking about their plans to shoot up another school... But it's for the children! (you don't want me to start on that rant. really.)
I don't know exactly how to say this -- I'm running on little sleep and much beer. I feel very strongly about this. Would I give up my freedom to save someone I love? Yes. Would I give up a nation's freedom? NO.
It sounds callous, even to me, but if I had to choose between my niece's life, and the first amendment, I would choose freedom. You can't allow the freedom of all to be destroyed to protect the few. If I had to choose between my freedom, and her, I have no doubt that I would sacrifice myself. But that is my choice, to give up my freedom to save another.
Maybe I'm unusual, but I'd be willing to give up my own life or freedom to protect those general freedoms, or to protect those I love. But I won't give up those general freedoms to protect them, since I don't consider that protection.
You can have peace, or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
-- Robert Heinlein
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Mac Classics, I think it was Command-Option-N-O... or something like that. Apple's original idea was for this to be used in labs and such, never needing hard drives... it loaded the appletalk stack and a System 6 derivative from ROM.
Kinda cool to do, though. It did only take about 5 seconds to boot to that... then again, loading System 6.0.7 from the hd would only take a few seconds with almost no extensions anyway.
Yes, I used to be a Macintosh user. Now I'm a UNIX user who's posting this from a Winblows box. I miss my Mac.
are being packaged by Christoper Blizzard and can be found here. As of right now, the binary RPMs are not around, but the 0.8 SRPM for Redhat 7 is there now. Build it yourself if you're in a hurry -- the source is a smaller download than the binaries anyway.:)
It was intended as a joke, primarily. I do understand Godwin's Law. I will admit that I was very tired when I made the joke, since it obviously wasn't funny...
All right. This discussion is over, due to invocation of Godwin's Law.
Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
From the Jargon File
I know this won't work, since I'm invoking it directly, but I'm using this to make the case for generalizing Godwin's Law to cover weblogs such as/. and k5.
I am a Linux and Solaris user. I run two Linux boxen, a Sun, and one Windows machine at home. Why? Because you use the right tool for the job.
I won't run StarOffice, because it sucks. Granted, it works, but if I want to use an application with pretensions of being a window manager, I'll just use Windows, thanks. If I want to run a game, I don't care that it's ported to Linux at the moment. It runs fine on the winblows box that's sitting next to my Linux machine, and I don't have to wait three months. And yes, I have used StarOffice, I'm writing this in Mozilla, and I do use Linux as my primary desktop.
It doesn't make Linux any less useful or l33t (heh) to admit that Windows is better at some things. You can use a screwdriver to pound in nails, but doesn't a hammer work better?
I would rather see a criminal go free than allow personal rights to be eroded in this way. Morally, it's difficult, but that's the way I feel.
It's more complicated than just catching criminals. How would you feel if a health insurance provider (like your government, in some countries) was able to test you for genetic "abnormalities" such as a predisposition to certain cancers, and used this information to decide your level of coverage. You're defective -- no insurance for you.
I've been not-quite-involved in a large project to define a DTD. It took years. XML Schema hasn't been around that long, and I don't think that it's a standard yet. DTDs still work.
There's also the idea of putting nuclear reactors on active fault lines. Not something I really want to see. Basically, yeah, under normal failure modes, the reactor can be shut down. I don't consider nuclear power unsafe.
However, the failure modes in California might not be the normal ones -- shaking the shit out of the reactor, enough to possibly damage coolant pipes (releasing radioactive material) or damage the building around the core itself.
It seems like too good of a way to Darwinate California to me...
How about trying to get the DOJ involved? Sure, a lot of people who read this don't like government intervention, but they're voted in by the people, for the people, and they did a pretty good job of distracting Microsoft and allowing Linux / Open Source to become a feasible alternative.
D'ya really think that Dubya is gonna let the DOJ run with stuff like this anymore? Read up a little on Ashcroft. OK. Now, get yourself out of the fetal position. He's expected to be confirmed as Attorney General, and though he does look more feminine than Janet Reno (heh), he's still an asshole. One of my cow-workers has spoken to him (he's from St. Louis) and left quite unhappy. This was a few years ago, when he was involved in state politics.
Dubya's shown in many ways that he was elected by the corporations, for the corporations. I don't know about vote counting, and I don't want to start that thread again, believe me, but I don't trust him. The US citizens have been screwed by the sheeple who elected George W. Bush.
I expect ext2 will be around for quite some time, and will remain the default on installs for some time.
I don't. I'm expecting that ext3 will be the default filesystem for any install. It's backwards-compatible (old kernels can mount ext3 filesystems as ext2), and eliminates fsck.
Anyone choosing to implement such an esoteric blackholing system for all ip traffic from RBL-listed hosts is likely FULLY AWARE that they will be dropping some hosts, and must consider that an acceptable risk. If you are a client of such an organization, and don't buy into that, then leave. My guess would be that most that have successful implementations of BGP RBL subscription had buy-in from their clients before they set it up.
I do agree with what you're saying... for a end-user ISP. But, if you are a backbone provider (as above.net is) and you are dropping packets that are passing across your backbone -- not from your direct customers, not to your direct customers you are WRONG.
Dammit, it's not just mail! BGP route drops. Look at the MAPS page. Above.net was dropping all packets, whether originating from their customers or not (!), that had a source or destination on the netblocks in question.
You need years of planning to change that -- my guess is that the 5ESS switches (Lucent/Avaya, only in the newest COs) would still require some serious software work, possibly even hardware replacement (it's some crufty architecture).
Not only the CO, but all of these companies that have private phone systems (Definity G3, Nortel, Executone [ghod forbid -- had to deal with one of these for a while]) would have to do some upgrade work as well.
Even with just the 10-digit dialing requirement, a lot of shit that dials a phone (alarm systems, elevator "oh shit" boxes, the list goes on) will need updates or replacement. If you go to 12-digit, you've screwed up almost any software in this country that stores a phone number. Think of how much work converting old systems to a 4 digit year was. In terms of programming time on a very old system, this change would be similar.
Granted there's a few companies that would welcome the change, but just the ones that sell phone equipment! The phone companies would rebel, and that would have "political consequences" for the head of the FCC.
Again, as I said, it's a compromise. The main reason that I'm saying this is realism (or cynicism, call it what you prefer). The idea is that we won't be able to get rid of the electoral college, so let's make the current system more fair. Are you saying that the way that senate seats are awarded is biased towards landowners? (It is, but that's not the point -- the landowners have money and won't give it up easily). This is just a system that I think might be easier to convince the politicians to accept.
Disclaimer: IANALOPS (lawyer or political scientist)
There are good reasons to go either way -- remove the electoral college completely, or keep the electoral college. The best that I can come up with is a compromise.
Each state is given 2 votes (one for each senate seat) plus 1 vote for each representative to the House. We could lower the granularity of the areas, so that in cases like Florida, no candidate would get all the votes. Make the popular vote winner for the state get the 2 electors that are based on the senate seats, and make the votes for the other electors count by congressional district -- each geographic area that has a House member will have one elector, based on it's population within the state.
Probably not explained very well, and the District of Columbia throws a small wrench in the idea, but hey -- I just got out of bed. (I like taking days off from work).
Can anyone explain why this is news for nerds and stuf [sic] that matters, whilst at the same time everything else that sucks about the US way of life is not?
Because the people who run/. think it is. Don't like it, go to k5 or set up your own site.
Bush seeks to block porn in public viewing areas. Free speech is one thing, but infringing on another's right to not view porn is another.
So, what you're saying is that you have the right to never be offended? BZZZZT! Oh, that is such a wrong answer. You're going to tell me what should offend me? Well, this kind of bullshit offends me greatly.
I wouldn't call yourself a free speech advocate. Talking about abortion (in any context) will offend somebody. Talking about censorship will offend somebody. Talking about Macintosh computers in a derogatory manner will offend somebody (actually, a lot of somewhat psychotic somebodies who will flame you to death. Note: I do use Macs when they are the best tool for the job;)
Everybody, repeat after me: I Do/Not/ Have The Right To Never Be Offended.
My opinion is that violence itself is not free speech, I will grant your example that shooting someone is most emphatically not a valid way to disagree.
However, there is a difference between a game, or television show, or movie, or (ad infinitum) AND reality. Anybody who cannot handle the fact that taking a head shot in Team Fortress and splattering somebody's brains on the wall isn't real should not be part of society as a whole.
To put it as R. Heinlein did, "Censorship is like forcing grown men to live on skim milk because the baby can't handle steak." (The Man Who Sold the Moon).
Slashdot Mirror
to hear a community leader defend violence in video games as a necessary part of the instruction of our youth
This doesn't sound like he's defending the violence in video games to me. It sounds more like he's saying that seeing violent descriptions or images is inevitable in today's society. The world is a violent place. Hell, watch the news (or better yet, read it from a semi-reliable source instead of relying on the TV people to water it down to the fourth grade level </rant>).
Beyond that, where in the hell do you see the judge say that violence in video games is a necesssary part of the instruction of our youth?!? Trying to shield people from knowledge is bad. Say it with me. When I was a kid, I learned a lot of things that adults didn't think a kid should know. Fortunately, I was never told that I shouldn't talk about such things, or think about them. I was guided to more information about those things, and learned enough to form my own opinions.
Perhaps you're one of those people who think that your children should not have an opinion unless you give it to them. If that's the case, I'm sorry, because you're going to have a hell of a time with a teenager.
Trying to shield children from everything bad in the world will have the wrong effect. The best that could happen is that you are unsuccessful, and the child gains the information, without feeling that she can talk to you about it... since she's not supposed to know this anyway, right? She's a kid. The worst is that you succeed, and your child grows up not knowing right from wrong, since he's never had to decide between the two for himself -- he's had his opinions carefully fed to him, and only the facts that he needs to know, so he doesn't have the ability to make an informed decision.
My niece will ask me questions about life, and I give her honest answers. I talk to her about the questions, and I don't try to make the world seem better than it is. I also give her all the facts that she needs to make up her own mind instead of just telling her that something is bad. Usually, she comes to the "right" decision on her own. I know already that she's not going to agree with me on everything, but if she has the information to deal with life, she's far better off.
Hmm. This article (and most of the posts replying to it) seem to have hit a nerve. Remember, don't drink and post -- you end up with rants like this.
Regulations of this type are very much NOT "insignificant" in the scheme of things. Oh, some person might just snap and run through a Catholic church with a broadsword if he see that! We can't allow anyone to see it. Oh, someone might go rape that young woman if she dresses like that, so we should outlaw miniskirts (a crime if I've ever thought of one. Miniskirts... GOOD! Uh, what was I saying? Oh yeah.) You might say that these are contrived examples, but some psycho did run through a church with a broadsword a year or two ago in England. OK, the second example is pretty bad.
What do you think the next step is? Tracking your location through your cell phone? Haven't read about that idea from the FBI. How about collecting all traffic through an ISP, just in case somebody is talking about their plans to shoot up another school... But it's for the children! (you don't want me to start on that rant. really.)
I don't know exactly how to say this -- I'm running on little sleep and much beer. I feel very strongly about this. Would I give up my freedom to save someone I love? Yes. Would I give up a nation's freedom? NO.
It sounds callous, even to me, but if I had to choose between my niece's life, and the first amendment, I would choose freedom. You can't allow the freedom of all to be destroyed to protect the few. If I had to choose between my freedom, and her, I have no doubt that I would sacrifice myself. But that is my choice, to give up my freedom to save another.
Maybe I'm unusual, but I'd be willing to give up my own life or freedom to protect those general freedoms, or to protect those I love. But I won't give up those general freedoms to protect them, since I don't consider that protection.
Mac Classics, I think it was Command-Option-N-O... or something like that. Apple's original idea was for this to be used in labs and such, never needing hard drives... it loaded the appletalk stack and a System 6 derivative from ROM.
Kinda cool to do, though. It did only take about 5 seconds to boot to that... then again, loading System 6.0.7 from the hd would only take a few seconds with almost no extensions anyway.
Yes, I used to be a Macintosh user. Now I'm a UNIX user who's posting this from a Winblows box. I miss my Mac.
are being packaged by Christoper Blizzard and can be found here. As of right now, the binary RPMs are not around, but the 0.8 SRPM for Redhat 7 is there now. Build it yourself if you're in a hurry -- the source is a smaller download than the binaries anyway. :)
Well I say, "You reap what you sow." You can't have freedom AND security. Please choose responsibly.
I choose freedom.
7.0 - Guinness - Beer (Guinness is a stout, Pinstripe is an ale)
Actually, I think that the name was in honor of Sir Alec Guinness.
It was intended as a joke, primarily. I do understand Godwin's Law. I will admit that I was very tired when I made the joke, since it obviously wasn't funny...
All right. This discussion is over, due to invocation of Godwin's Law.
I know this won't work, since I'm invoking it directly, but I'm using this to make the case for generalizing Godwin's Law to cover weblogs such as /. and k5.
[Rapidly flowing off-topic...]
I am a Linux and Solaris user. I run two Linux boxen, a Sun, and one Windows machine at home. Why? Because you use the right tool for the job.
I won't run StarOffice, because it sucks. Granted, it works, but if I want to use an application with pretensions of being a window manager, I'll just use Windows, thanks. If I want to run a game, I don't care that it's ported to Linux at the moment. It runs fine on the winblows box that's sitting next to my Linux machine, and I don't have to wait three months. And yes, I have used StarOffice, I'm writing this in Mozilla, and I do use Linux as my primary desktop.
It doesn't make Linux any less useful or l33t (heh) to admit that Windows is better at some things. You can use a screwdriver to pound in nails, but doesn't a hammer work better?
Killing sacred cows since 1975
I would rather see a criminal go free than allow personal rights to be eroded in this way. Morally, it's difficult, but that's the way I feel.
It's more complicated than just catching criminals. How would you feel if a health insurance provider (like your government, in some countries) was able to test you for genetic "abnormalities" such as a predisposition to certain cancers, and used this information to decide your level of coverage. You're defective -- no insurance for you.
This is only one example of why this is bad.
I love my country, but fear my government.
I've been not-quite-involved in a large project to define a DTD. It took years. XML Schema hasn't been around that long, and I don't think that it's a standard yet. DTDs still work.
However, the failure modes in California might not be the normal ones -- shaking the shit out of the reactor, enough to possibly damage coolant pipes (releasing radioactive material) or damage the building around the core itself.
It seems like too good of a way to Darwinate California to me...
How about trying to get the DOJ involved? Sure, a lot of people who read this don't like government intervention, but they're voted in by the people, for the people, and they did a pretty good job of distracting Microsoft and allowing Linux / Open Source to become a feasible alternative.
D'ya really think that Dubya is gonna let the DOJ run with stuff like this anymore? Read up a little on Ashcroft. OK. Now, get yourself out of the fetal position. He's expected to be confirmed as Attorney General, and though he does look more feminine than Janet Reno (heh), he's still an asshole. One of my cow-workers has spoken to him (he's from St. Louis) and left quite unhappy. This was a few years ago, when he was involved in state politics.
Dubya's shown in many ways that he was elected by the corporations, for the corporations. I don't know about vote counting, and I don't want to start that thread again, believe me, but I don't trust him. The US citizens have been screwed by the sheeple who elected George W. Bush.
I expect ext2 will be around for quite some time, and will remain the default on installs for some time.
I don't. I'm expecting that ext3 will be the default filesystem for any install. It's backwards-compatible (old kernels can mount ext3 filesystems as ext2), and eliminates fsck.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
Anyone choosing to implement such an esoteric blackholing system for all ip traffic from RBL-listed hosts is likely FULLY AWARE that they will be dropping some hosts, and must consider that an acceptable risk. If you are a client of such an organization, and don't buy into that, then leave. My guess would be that most that have successful implementations of BGP RBL subscription had buy-in from their clients before they set it up.
I do agree with what you're saying... for a end-user ISP. But, if you are a backbone provider (as above.net is) and you are dropping packets that are passing across your backbone -- not from your direct customers, not to your direct customers you are WRONG.
Dammit, it's not just mail! BGP route drops. Look at the MAPS page. Above.net was dropping all packets, whether originating from their customers or not (!), that had a source or destination on the netblocks in question.
You need years of planning to change that -- my guess is that the 5ESS switches (Lucent/Avaya, only in the newest COs) would still require some serious software work, possibly even hardware replacement (it's some crufty architecture).
Not only the CO, but all of these companies that have private phone systems (Definity G3, Nortel, Executone [ghod forbid -- had to deal with one of these for a while]) would have to do some upgrade work as well.
Even with just the 10-digit dialing requirement, a lot of shit that dials a phone (alarm systems, elevator "oh shit" boxes, the list goes on) will need updates or replacement. If you go to 12-digit, you've screwed up almost any software in this country that stores a phone number. Think of how much work converting old systems to a 4 digit year was. In terms of programming time on a very old system, this change would be similar.
Granted there's a few companies that would welcome the change, but just the ones that sell phone equipment! The phone companies would rebel, and that would have "political consequences" for the head of the FCC.
Again, as I said, it's a compromise. The main reason that I'm saying this is realism (or cynicism, call it what you prefer). The idea is that we won't be able to get rid of the electoral college, so let's make the current system more fair. Are you saying that the way that senate seats are awarded is biased towards landowners? (It is, but that's not the point -- the landowners have money and won't give it up easily). This is just a system that I think might be easier to convince the politicians to accept.
Disclaimer: IANALOPS (lawyer or political scientist)
There are good reasons to go either way -- remove the electoral college completely, or keep the electoral college. The best that I can come up with is a compromise.
Each state is given 2 votes (one for each senate seat) plus 1 vote for each representative to the House. We could lower the granularity of the areas, so that in cases like Florida, no candidate would get all the votes. Make the popular vote winner for the state get the 2 electors that are based on the senate seats, and make the votes for the other electors count by congressional district -- each geographic area that has a House member will have one elector, based on it's population within the state.
Probably not explained very well, and the District of Columbia throws a small wrench in the idea, but hey -- I just got out of bed. (I like taking days off from work).
Can anyone explain why this is news for nerds and stuf [sic] that matters, whilst at the same time everything else that sucks about the US way of life is not?
Because the people who run /. think it is. Don't like it, go to k5 or set up your own site.
</rant>
I don't consider the Backstreet Boys a good sign for our civilization, personally.
Keep in mind that for these logs to actually be *useful*, it helps if you have the correct time in those logs. Something like NTP is your friend.
Bush seeks to block porn in public viewing areas. Free speech is one thing, but infringing on another's right to not view porn is another.
So, what you're saying is that you have the right to never be offended? BZZZZT! Oh, that is such a wrong answer. You're going to tell me what should offend me? Well, this kind of bullshit offends me greatly.
I wouldn't call yourself a free speech advocate. Talking about abortion (in any context) will offend somebody. Talking about censorship will offend somebody. Talking about Macintosh computers in a derogatory manner will offend somebody (actually, a lot of somewhat psychotic somebodies who will flame you to death. Note: I do use Macs when they are the best tool for the job ;)
Everybody, repeat after me: I Do /Not/ Have The Right To Never Be Offended.
However, there is a difference between a game, or television show, or movie, or (ad infinitum) AND reality. Anybody who cannot handle the fact that taking a head shot in Team Fortress and splattering somebody's brains on the wall isn't real should not be part of society as a whole.
To put it as R. Heinlein did, "Censorship is like forcing grown men to live on skim milk because the baby can't handle steak." (The Man Who Sold the Moon).