F-Zero GX's controls were much less responsive than F-Zero X; in addition, it lost the multiplayer value that had made X so much of a blast.
"Build-a-car" mode got stupid fast, especially when trying to figure out where you could find parts that wouldn't make it like you were trying to build a jet-assisted hippo.
But at least the newer Mega Man games aren't bogged down by ridiculously convoluted plot lines, horrible gameplay and the constant addition of useless characters that distance the series from its roots (i.e. PLAYING AS SONIC).
Uhm... which Megaman games are you playing?
The Megaman X series - Zero, Axl, and now the three girl-versions from Megaman X8? The Megaman Battle Network/Star Force - Pokemon-Alike Series? The Megaman Zero/ZX series - where you constantly switch between staff/gun/sword/shield/yoyo/etc weapon styles or which character you're mimicking?
Of all the modern ones existing today, NONE feel even close to being Megaman,or have anything other than ridiculously convoluted plot lines.
What's left to antagonize? Sega lost - and not just lost, but lost spectacularly, and then cheerfully admitted they lost.
If you aren't in competition, antagonism tends to die. See the M$/$ony flamewars for today's animosity.
As for the wussifying of Sonic... actually, if Sega would ever make a good, playable Sonic game again, they might generate a little bit of "competition". The last enjoyable Sonic game I played was Sonic & Knuckles on the old Genesis. The newer 3D-style "Sonic" games are anything but fun.
You might also be interested in the trend away from mascots in general. I mean, check out this list; how many do you still REALLY identify with a particular platform? For that matter, has $ony ever managed to make a real mascot? Crash Bandicoot never caught on, and their biggest "properties" have forever and always been third-party games. Even old iconics like Megaman can't get much more than a slow death as they get to be the focus of mindless, boring "pokemon-alike" portable platform titles these days. In fact, I'd say that Nintendo is the only company that even invests much in the brand identity of its chosen mascots these days, and even they subject us to a shovelware title like F-Zero GX or Starfox Adventures for every Metroid Prime or Zelda:Twilight Princess they still deliver.
Of course, the death of mascots has also accelerated with the lack of a pack-in game for most consoles and the lengthening of the development cycle. Part of what made Mario and Sonic so iconic was that their adventures were packed in with the consoles during the height of their formative years, and gamers could rely on at least one new, solid game a year. Now, we wait years between games, and some of the best titles are actually the "off-cycle" ones (look at the Paper Mario/Super Paper Mario series, which delivered a lot more fun with a lot less nuisance/annoyance time than the last two Mario64-alikes).
Finally, the changing "strageties" kill it too - Master Chief *might* qualify as a mascot for the original Xbox, but not quite as much for the 360 (which has really sold best due to Xbox Live Arcade and the ease of getting downloadable content for games like Rock Band).
I for one am not half as worried about a robot or animal-brained simulacrum running rampant as I am about a normal, deranged human with access to some form of weaponry or construction equipment.
Of course, then I consider that the difference between the brain of a vicious dog, and a guy like this, probably isn't as large as we would have hoped.
Screw it. Put the brain of a woman with skills in many varieties of sex, into a hardy yet soft and pliant simulacrum body. I'd at least die happy.
a rogue program gets on an iPhone because an Apple approved developer writes and pays Apple to distribute and Apple delivers it to the phone.
And how does Apple's new "killswitch" setup manage to stop that? Answer: It doesn't. In fact, such a program is entirely likely to kill or reprogram Apple's own killswitch routine to evade detection, just like real viruses attack common antivirus software in order to prevent their removal when the updated virus definitions pass later.
If Apple is as vulnerable as you say, then there's little point to this killswitch setup - except for Apple block out out third-party competitors to the stuff they're selling in their app store.
Not everything I would find useful, were I to buy an iPhone, is available through Apple's app store. I just gave you an example above.
That makes your excuse BS. You have yet to give me a good reason why I should accept Apple, or any other group, having control over what I decide to put on a phone I legally own. If I invite them in and ASK them to do it, by installing antivirus software or something similar, that's an entirely different matter.
Second, as the App Store stands now, Apple makes 30% of each sale just for hosting the app. They're basically getting 1/3 of the revenue while doing 0% of the work. That's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Why would they want to keep developers out?
What they are likely planning is to try to once again block out free programs, a large number of which have been developed for the iPhone.
Wearing a helmet when you ride a motorcycle is, in many places, not "optional" by law because the people who don't wear them drive up the insurance costs for everyone.
And that is what we call a "bad law."
Likewise, if Apple's app protection was optional, the people who opted out of it would more likely than not end up with iPhones full of botnet malware sending spam to everyone else, including those with iPhones that didn't opt out of the protection scheme.
#1 - Apple isn't the government #2 - I purchase an iPhone. They can scream "license" all they want, I paid a one-time fee and am under no obligation to return it: I own the phone once I buy it, and that confers on me certain rights. #3 - If the iPhone is really that vulnerable, then Apple probably is due for a class-action lawsuit over a defective product.
Bottom line: "for your own good" is a line people should NEVER accept as a good justification for anything. We call people like you who accept that line, "Sheeple" for a reason.
There are lots of people who are perfectly happy having someone take responsibility for helping them avoid malware. This kill-switch isn't an affront to them, it's a valuable feature.
If it were optional, I'd have NO problem with it. Those who are perfectly happy to let Apple "help them avoid malware" (if you are credulous enough to trust that's Apple's only reasoning and all it will ever be used for, Apple history notwithstanding) I'd at that point be happy to see use it.
It's not optional. That right there tells me Apple's got some other motive for it.
But come on, seriously. I think your tin-foil hat is cutting off the circulation to the rest of your brain.
Look at the potential that was cut off when the iPhone first came out and only "officially approved" Apple programs were allowed on it. I see this as Apple trying to get back to that. Thank god for the people who managed to find a way to remove Apple's silly software lock the first time.
They did it once. I don't think it's "tinfoil hat" material to think they'd try it again.
Working in I.T. as long as I have, I, too, like to feel "in control" of the devices I use.
I work in the same field.
But the problem comes in because none of us have time (or even the ability) to audit the source code for each program we install. We have to go on faith that apps do what they say, most of the time.
Mostly correct. Which is why I am highly careful on what I do install, and even LESS likely to let someone else have the decision on removing something.
All fine and good, but I'd counter-argue that if YOU can't comprehend why it's potentially very BENEFICIAL for a carrier to be able to globally "kill off" some new app that turns out to be a trojan horse, leaking out your private information everywhere... then I don't know what to tell you, really?
And if I could trust that that is the ONLY way that Apple would ever use this... they I *might* consider it a feature.
But come on, seriously. You know precisely what comes up with this. Any freeware program that competes with something Apple might want to make pay software for, will instantly be on the blacklist. This isn't a tool for "protecting people from malicious software". If it was, it would be 100% optional anyways. No, this particular setup is a compulsory setup designed for Apple to be able to kill off the competition.
I've got a message for Apple, quite simple - I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I want on my iPhone, or any other computing device I own.
If you can't understand that, and continue down this road, then the chances of my buying an iPhone (of any generation) are most definitely going to diminish to nothingness.
I already kicked Verizon to the curb for locking down the phone and trying to force me into their own ridiculous $/month ringtone service when I have perfectly good midi, wav, and mp3 files to make ringtones of myself. Don't think I won't go to a provider that has the sense to let me work with things MY way.
I actually have a setup to do that already - I've seen a couple trackers "go down" due to core router / dns problems, and it was quite handy to use Tor to see if an alternate exit point had the same problems.
I'd suggest people get the Tor package installer on general principles, it's quite useful to be able to torbutton for a bit if you're having trouble getting somewhere.
It's a Ford - and they tried a couple times (went through 3 blanks) before giving up. I can believe one mis-cut key, but not three, especially when I see how simplified the tooth complexity is compared even to my house key.
On my car, an identical-toothed key with the wrong code (I was having a dealership make a spare, and they screwed up on it) won't even open the door.
My wonder was, if the door lock was going to stay locked with battery disabled - because once you're inside the car, re-enabling the battery and then hot-wiring to get the car started may be possible.
Of course if someone really, really wants to steal my car all they'll do is smash a window, get in, hot-wire it, and be gone. The keys are more of a mental exercise than any real security.
My car keys aren't vulnerable to this attack - you not only have to duplicate the shape of the key, you have to have a programmed ID chip to match its internal code number as well. If one OR the other is off, the lock doesn't work.
(Possible hack I've not tried: disconnect/kill the battery. Of course, in normal events you have to get into the car to pop the hood lock as well).
In reality - hey, people used to take clay or wax impressions of keys, and use that to make a replica. I don't see how this is necessarily so different.
about HIV is that it (currently) cannot be transmitted except by very personal means - which is to say, extremely intimate contact with an infected human being and/or injection of their bodily fluids directly into your body.
Until a mutated "airborne" variation of HIV occurs, the reality is that the vast majority of cases were entirely preventable. While research into how to "treat" the disease is good, actual research into better methods of preventing infection to start with is just as important - both in a medical and sociological sense.
For one example: the US's frighteningly high incidence of AIDS in female blacks is due almost entirely to promiscuous, non-monogamous bisexual black males who've been infecting a large portion of the female black population over the past few decades. Efforts to combat this and get the men to use condoms and regularly get tested - and to stop having sex after they know they are infected - have run into walls in black culture. The problems in Africa in this regard are even worse, with some men actually believing that the "cure" for aids is to have sex with a virgin - and then going and raping young girls, emotionally scarring them for life as well as infecting them.
If AIDS is going to be combatted, medicinal "cures" and "treatments" are half the battle - they do nothing against the spread of the disease if you can't also convince at least a majority of the infected to stop engaging in activities that will spread it.
A few megacorporations (like Disney) realized their ace-in-the-hole (like Mickey) was about to hit public domain.
So they sent bags of money, hookers, and bags of money with hookers hidden inside, and made sure the "right" collection of congresscritters got them along with the message "extend copyright, and there's more."
Repeat every time Mickey Mouse was about to be public domain... meanwhile Disney RAPED the public domain (little mermaid, snow white, jack and the beanstalk, etc...) of everything they could and started flinging lawsuits when other people produced competing works based on the same PUBLIC DOMAIN works.
Copyright should be for the same length as a patent, period. The purpose of each is the same: to promote progress by letting people have a limited time monopoly on the product of their unique expression/inventiveness.
If I write a semi-popular novel at age 25 and live to the average age of 86, that means that my novel won't hit the public domain until the 22nd century (if ever). I personally find that repulsive, and anyone who gets the purpose of copyright ought to be disgusted by the notion as well.
If I want to keep making money, I should have to (at some point) start working again. The best authors - Stackpole, Niven, Asimov, McCaffrey, Doyle - always have, even if their properties could have let them retire in opulence and never have to lift pen again. Intermediates like Rowling (and sorry, but no she's not as good as people gushing over her like to think) do the opposite: they just cut off and sit back on the eternal "it's copyrighted forever" bandwagon.
In what way? Nothing mentioned in the article is beyond modern technology to do.
Consequently, I suspect the US deserves considerably less respect than China does with regard to these activities.
Wait a second... we should give china respect for invading people's privacy and for all the other things they do in violation of human rights, simply because we "expect" it from them?
Talk about your bigotry of low expectations, yeesh.
I don't care where you are from in the world. If you are incapable of competently doing the job, you shouldn't have it.
And I have zero respect for companies that hire someone incompetent to do the work so that they can cheap out on the wages. It screws the customer, it screws the employees who are being fired so some incompetent elsewhere can be hired for peanuts, and it screws US when the unemployment rate rises and more and more people wind up in dire financial straits.
Look at the housing market today - yes, there are a lot of bad loans, but as more and more jobs are lost and it gets harder to find one at your former pay grade, what do you expect will happen to people who had a mortgage? That's right, they file bankruptcy or worse.
The "Economic recovery" under Bush after the dot-bomb crash should have been named the "worth-less jobs recovery"; everyone I knew who lost their jobs between 1999 and 2002 wound up having to "settle" for something 10-15k/year less than they'd previously been making after an average job search time of 6 months, and that includes the people who finished up a grad degree in the middle of it.
Now the economy is going back down the tubes - and neither political party is willing to admit that contributing causes are illegal immigrants deflating wages, unfair "free trade" agreements we never should have agreed to siphoning off jobs and poisoning industries (as well as the global environment), and government deregulation that's let far too many companies get acquired by big multinationals that did things like ship everything overseas.
Of course, if you need MORE arguments against illegal immigration: - rapists and murderers like Jose Medellin - The amazing rise in gang crime that can be directly traced to growing illegal populations - Rises in fraud crime and home invasions, likewise directly traceable. - The number of illegals who die attempting crossings - The number of illegals held in a virtual slave trade by the smugglers - The fact that Mexico's number one source of income is remittances from the US (it outpaced their oil revenue, the former #1, in 2007) - and all of that is directly removed from the US economy. - The impact it has on American schools to be trying to absorb way too many illegal kids, further damaging a shaky-at-best public education system. - The impact on American hospitals, many of which in the southwest are deep in the red and close to closing due to the financial impact of having to provide for overflowing emergency rooms stocked with illegals who use them as free health care (not to mention the Americans who've died because the emergency room was too overcrowded for them to get seen in a life-threatening situation). - The number of Americans killed by illegal-alien drivers, who wouldn't have been there to cause the accidents if we were properly enforcing the border. Put it this way: More Americans have been killed by illegal-alien drivers, since Sept. 11 2001, than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
I don't care where an illegal comes from - honduras, el salvador, brazil, canada, ireland, nepal, china, WHEREVER. They broke the law in coming, they've probably stolen someone's SSN to get bank accounts and other things set up, their employer is breaking the law, they're likely contributing to the violent crime problem, and the open-borders crowd is wrong: we can't simply keep looking the other way.
No, I wouldn't. I don't care what color someone's skin is.
I'm angry at ANY criminals we have - and we have plenty of white gang members, black gang members, asian gang members, and yes latino gang members infesting the local schools. I don't really care what color they are, I DO care that they are causing problems for the kids who are actually there to learn.
Another unfortunate FACT is that many of the gang members in the local school "happen" to be the kids of illegals (both latino and black, we have a large Honduran gang in the area). Another unfortunate FACT is that gang behavior doesn't grow linearly but exponentially, and if we didn't have the gang-member kids of illegals, the rest of the gang problem would be much easier to contain.
I have several co-workers who came here LEGALLY out of, yes, Mexshithole's poverty. The stories they could tell will make your head spin.
They're doing quite well in America. And they, unlike the illegals, DO have a great work ethic and we were proud to throw a party when one of them got his citizenship recently.
And amazingly, THEY are as fed up as everyone else in my workplace about the crimes perpetrated upon us by the illegals. He is particularly angry that his tax money, that's supposed to be paying for his kid's education, is instead being wasted on the gang-member kids of a bunch of illegals who are bringing the quality of the whole school's education down.
I suggest you try not viewing the whole world through a lens of racism. It's not about race, it's about good and bad people. And I'm sorry to say, yes, most illegals ARE involved in crime (above and beyond simply jumping the border) and are bad.
None of this is the fault of the Indian tech support guy, or the illegal Mexican. They're just trying to do the best they can with very little. I've known plenty of Indians and Mexicans; their intelligence and work ethic vary across the same spectrum as any American's.
The Indians who left India are a completely different group from those in their "call centers." Likewise, I doubt very much you've met any of the illegal Mexicans - I work and am friends with a number of LEGAL immigrant Mexicans, and they are entirely outraged at the behavior and complete lack of work ethic (not to mention the sheer number of criminals) of the illegal population.
completely neutralized by your obvious racism and xenophobia
Crying "racism" and "xenophobia" are ways to say that you can't refute my argument any other way. Throw in a good nazi analogy while you're at it, then you can really godwin yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
You're just asking for a hangover, playing a game like that!
Sorry, no.
F-Zero GX's controls were much less responsive than F-Zero X; in addition, it lost the multiplayer value that had made X so much of a blast.
"Build-a-car" mode got stupid fast, especially when trying to figure out where you could find parts that wouldn't make it like you were trying to build a jet-assisted hippo.
But at least the newer Mega Man games aren't bogged down by ridiculously convoluted plot lines, horrible gameplay and the constant addition of useless characters that distance the series from its roots (i.e. PLAYING AS SONIC).
Uhm... which Megaman games are you playing?
The Megaman X series - Zero, Axl, and now the three girl-versions from Megaman X8?
The Megaman Battle Network/Star Force - Pokemon-Alike Series?
The Megaman Zero/ZX series - where you constantly switch between staff/gun/sword/shield/yoyo/etc weapon styles or which character you're mimicking?
Of all the modern ones existing today, NONE feel even close to being Megaman,or have anything other than ridiculously convoluted plot lines.
What's left to antagonize? Sega lost - and not just lost, but lost spectacularly, and then cheerfully admitted they lost.
If you aren't in competition, antagonism tends to die. See the M$/$ony flamewars for today's animosity.
As for the wussifying of Sonic... actually, if Sega would ever make a good, playable Sonic game again, they might generate a little bit of "competition". The last enjoyable Sonic game I played was Sonic & Knuckles on the old Genesis. The newer 3D-style "Sonic" games are anything but fun.
You might also be interested in the trend away from mascots in general. I mean, check out this list; how many do you still REALLY identify with a particular platform? For that matter, has $ony ever managed to make a real mascot? Crash Bandicoot never caught on, and their biggest "properties" have forever and always been third-party games. Even old iconics like Megaman can't get much more than a slow death as they get to be the focus of mindless, boring "pokemon-alike" portable platform titles these days. In fact, I'd say that Nintendo is the only company that even invests much in the brand identity of its chosen mascots these days, and even they subject us to a shovelware title like F-Zero GX or Starfox Adventures for every Metroid Prime or Zelda:Twilight Princess they still deliver.
Of course, the death of mascots has also accelerated with the lack of a pack-in game for most consoles and the lengthening of the development cycle. Part of what made Mario and Sonic so iconic was that their adventures were packed in with the consoles during the height of their formative years, and gamers could rely on at least one new, solid game a year. Now, we wait years between games, and some of the best titles are actually the "off-cycle" ones (look at the Paper Mario/Super Paper Mario series, which delivered a lot more fun with a lot less nuisance/annoyance time than the last two Mario64-alikes).
Finally, the changing "strageties" kill it too - Master Chief *might* qualify as a mascot for the original Xbox, but not quite as much for the 360 (which has really sold best due to Xbox Live Arcade and the ease of getting downloadable content for games like Rock Band).
I for one am not half as worried about a robot or animal-brained simulacrum running rampant as I am about a normal, deranged human with access to some form of weaponry or construction equipment.
Of course, then I consider that the difference between the brain of a vicious dog, and a guy like this, probably isn't as large as we would have hoped.
Screw it. Put the brain of a woman with skills in many varieties of sex, into a hardy yet soft and pliant simulacrum body. I'd at least die happy.
a rogue program gets on an iPhone because an Apple approved developer writes and pays Apple to distribute and Apple delivers it to the phone.
And how does Apple's new "killswitch" setup manage to stop that? Answer: It doesn't. In fact, such a program is entirely likely to kill or reprogram Apple's own killswitch routine to evade detection, just like real viruses attack common antivirus software in order to prevent their removal when the updated virus definitions pass later.
If Apple is as vulnerable as you say, then there's little point to this killswitch setup - except for Apple block out out third-party competitors to the stuff they're selling in their app store.
Not everything I would find useful, were I to buy an iPhone, is available through Apple's app store. I just gave you an example above.
That makes your excuse BS. You have yet to give me a good reason why I should accept Apple, or any other group, having control over what I decide to put on a phone I legally own. If I invite them in and ASK them to do it, by installing antivirus software or something similar, that's an entirely different matter.
Second, as the App Store stands now, Apple makes 30% of each sale just for hosting the app. They're basically getting 1/3 of the revenue while doing 0% of the work. That's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Why would they want to keep developers out?
What they are likely planning is to try to once again block out free programs, a large number of which have been developed for the iPhone.
Stuff like this.
Wearing a helmet when you ride a motorcycle is, in many places, not "optional" by law because the people who don't wear them drive up the insurance costs for everyone.
And that is what we call a "bad law."
Likewise, if Apple's app protection was optional, the people who opted out of it would more likely than not end up with iPhones full of botnet malware sending spam to everyone else, including those with iPhones that didn't opt out of the protection scheme.
#1 - Apple isn't the government
#2 - I purchase an iPhone. They can scream "license" all they want, I paid a one-time fee and am under no obligation to return it: I own the phone once I buy it, and that confers on me certain rights.
#3 - If the iPhone is really that vulnerable, then Apple probably is due for a class-action lawsuit over a defective product.
Bottom line: "for your own good" is a line people should NEVER accept as a good justification for anything. We call people like you who accept that line, "Sheeple" for a reason.
There are lots of people who are perfectly happy having someone take responsibility for helping them avoid malware. This kill-switch isn't an affront to them, it's a valuable feature.
If it were optional, I'd have NO problem with it. Those who are perfectly happy to let Apple "help them avoid malware" (if you are credulous enough to trust that's Apple's only reasoning and all it will ever be used for, Apple history notwithstanding) I'd at that point be happy to see use it.
It's not optional. That right there tells me Apple's got some other motive for it.
But come on, seriously. I think your tin-foil hat is cutting off the circulation to the rest of your brain.
Look at the potential that was cut off when the iPhone first came out and only "officially approved" Apple programs were allowed on it. I see this as Apple trying to get back to that. Thank god for the people who managed to find a way to remove Apple's silly software lock the first time.
They did it once. I don't think it's "tinfoil hat" material to think they'd try it again.
Working in I.T. as long as I have, I, too, like to feel "in control" of the devices I use.
I work in the same field.
But the problem comes in because none of us have time (or even the ability) to audit the source code for each program we install. We have to go on faith that apps do what they say, most of the time.
Mostly correct. Which is why I am highly careful on what I do install, and even LESS likely to let someone else have the decision on removing something.
All fine and good, but I'd counter-argue that if YOU can't comprehend why it's potentially very BENEFICIAL for a carrier to be able to globally "kill off" some new app that turns out to be a trojan horse, leaking out your private information everywhere ... then I don't know what to tell you, really?
And if I could trust that that is the ONLY way that Apple would ever use this... they I *might* consider it a feature.
But come on, seriously. You know precisely what comes up with this. Any freeware program that competes with something Apple might want to make pay software for, will instantly be on the blacklist. This isn't a tool for "protecting people from malicious software". If it was, it would be 100% optional anyways. No, this particular setup is a compulsory setup designed for Apple to be able to kill off the competition.
malicious app kill switch
"For your security."
"For your own good."
"For the children."
I've got a message for Apple, quite simple - I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I want on my iPhone, or any other computing device I own.
If you can't understand that, and continue down this road, then the chances of my buying an iPhone (of any generation) are most definitely going to diminish to nothingness.
I already kicked Verizon to the curb for locking down the phone and trying to force me into their own ridiculous $/month ringtone service when I have perfectly good midi, wav, and mp3 files to make ringtones of myself. Don't think I won't go to a provider that has the sense to let me work with things MY way.
I actually have a setup to do that already - I've seen a couple trackers "go down" due to core router / dns problems, and it was quite handy to use Tor to see if an alternate exit point had the same problems.
I'd suggest people get the Tor package installer on general principles, it's quite useful to be able to torbutton for a bit if you're having trouble getting somewhere.
It's a Ford - and they tried a couple times (went through 3 blanks) before giving up. I can believe one mis-cut key, but not three, especially when I see how simplified the tooth complexity is compared even to my house key.
On my car, an identical-toothed key with the wrong code (I was having a dealership make a spare, and they screwed up on it) won't even open the door.
My wonder was, if the door lock was going to stay locked with battery disabled - because once you're inside the car, re-enabling the battery and then hot-wiring to get the car started may be possible.
Of course if someone really, really wants to steal my car all they'll do is smash a window, get in, hot-wire it, and be gone. The keys are more of a mental exercise than any real security.
My car keys aren't vulnerable to this attack - you not only have to duplicate the shape of the key, you have to have a programmed ID chip to match its internal code number as well. If one OR the other is off, the lock doesn't work.
(Possible hack I've not tried: disconnect/kill the battery. Of course, in normal events you have to get into the car to pop the hood lock as well).
In reality - hey, people used to take clay or wax impressions of keys, and use that to make a replica. I don't see how this is necessarily so different.
That's the code on my luggage!
about HIV is that it (currently) cannot be transmitted except by very personal means - which is to say, extremely intimate contact with an infected human being and/or injection of their bodily fluids directly into your body.
Until a mutated "airborne" variation of HIV occurs, the reality is that the vast majority of cases were entirely preventable. While research into how to "treat" the disease is good, actual research into better methods of preventing infection to start with is just as important - both in a medical and sociological sense.
For one example: the US's frighteningly high incidence of AIDS in female blacks is due almost entirely to promiscuous, non-monogamous bisexual black males who've been infecting a large portion of the female black population over the past few decades. Efforts to combat this and get the men to use condoms and regularly get tested - and to stop having sex after they know they are infected - have run into walls in black culture. The problems in Africa in this regard are even worse, with some men actually believing that the "cure" for aids is to have sex with a virgin - and then going and raping young girls, emotionally scarring them for life as well as infecting them.
If AIDS is going to be combatted, medicinal "cures" and "treatments" are half the battle - they do nothing against the spread of the disease if you can't also convince at least a majority of the infected to stop engaging in activities that will spread it.
A few megacorporations (like Disney) realized their ace-in-the-hole (like Mickey) was about to hit public domain.
So they sent bags of money, hookers, and bags of money with hookers hidden inside, and made sure the "right" collection of congresscritters got them along with the message "extend copyright, and there's more."
Repeat every time Mickey Mouse was about to be public domain... meanwhile Disney RAPED the public domain (little mermaid, snow white, jack and the beanstalk, etc...) of everything they could and started flinging lawsuits when other people produced competing works based on the same PUBLIC DOMAIN works.
Copyright should be for the same length as a patent, period. The purpose of each is the same: to promote progress by letting people have a limited time monopoly on the product of their unique expression/inventiveness.
If I write a semi-popular novel at age 25 and live to the average age of 86, that means that my novel won't hit the public domain until the 22nd century (if ever). I personally find that repulsive, and anyone who gets the purpose of copyright ought to be disgusted by the notion as well.
If I want to keep making money, I should have to (at some point) start working again. The best authors - Stackpole, Niven, Asimov, McCaffrey, Doyle - always have, even if their properties could have let them retire in opulence and never have to lift pen again. Intermediates like Rowling (and sorry, but no she's not as good as people gushing over her like to think) do the opposite: they just cut off and sit back on the eternal "it's copyrighted forever" bandwagon.
reads like 1984
In what way? Nothing mentioned in the article is beyond modern technology to do.
Consequently, I suspect the US deserves considerably less respect than China does with regard to these activities.
Wait a second... we should give china respect for invading people's privacy and for all the other things they do in violation of human rights, simply because we "expect" it from them?
Talk about your bigotry of low expectations, yeesh.
I mean, seriously now.
I don't care where you are from in the world. If you are incapable of competently doing the job, you shouldn't have it.
And I have zero respect for companies that hire someone incompetent to do the work so that they can cheap out on the wages. It screws the customer, it screws the employees who are being fired so some incompetent elsewhere can be hired for peanuts, and it screws US when the unemployment rate rises and more and more people wind up in dire financial straits.
Look at the housing market today - yes, there are a lot of bad loans, but as more and more jobs are lost and it gets harder to find one at your former pay grade, what do you expect will happen to people who had a mortgage? That's right, they file bankruptcy or worse.
The "Economic recovery" under Bush after the dot-bomb crash should have been named the "worth-less jobs recovery"; everyone I knew who lost their jobs between 1999 and 2002 wound up having to "settle" for something 10-15k/year less than they'd previously been making after an average job search time of 6 months, and that includes the people who finished up a grad degree in the middle of it.
Now the economy is going back down the tubes - and neither political party is willing to admit that contributing causes are illegal immigrants deflating wages, unfair "free trade" agreements we never should have agreed to siphoning off jobs and poisoning industries (as well as the global environment), and government deregulation that's let far too many companies get acquired by big multinationals that did things like ship everything overseas.
Of course, if you need MORE arguments against illegal immigration:
- rapists and murderers like Jose Medellin
- The amazing rise in gang crime that can be directly traced to growing illegal populations
- Rises in fraud crime and home invasions, likewise directly traceable.
- The number of illegals who die attempting crossings
- The number of illegals held in a virtual slave trade by the smugglers
- The fact that Mexico's number one source of income is remittances from the US (it outpaced their oil revenue, the former #1, in 2007) - and all of that is directly removed from the US economy.
- The impact it has on American schools to be trying to absorb way too many illegal kids, further damaging a shaky-at-best public education system.
- The impact on American hospitals, many of which in the southwest are deep in the red and close to closing due to the financial impact of having to provide for overflowing emergency rooms stocked with illegals who use them as free health care (not to mention the Americans who've died because the emergency room was too overcrowded for them to get seen in a life-threatening situation).
- The number of Americans killed by illegal-alien drivers, who wouldn't have been there to cause the accidents if we were properly enforcing the border. Put it this way: More Americans have been killed by illegal-alien drivers, since Sept. 11 2001, than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
I don't care where an illegal comes from - honduras, el salvador, brazil, canada, ireland, nepal, china, WHEREVER. They broke the law in coming, they've probably stolen someone's SSN to get bank accounts and other things set up, their employer is breaking the law, they're likely contributing to the violent crime problem, and the open-borders crowd is wrong: we can't simply keep looking the other way.
No, I wouldn't. I don't care what color someone's skin is.
I'm angry at ANY criminals we have - and we have plenty of white gang members, black gang members, asian gang members, and yes latino gang members infesting the local schools. I don't really care what color they are, I DO care that they are causing problems for the kids who are actually there to learn.
Another unfortunate FACT is that many of the gang members in the local school "happen" to be the kids of illegals (both latino and black, we have a large Honduran gang in the area). Another unfortunate FACT is that gang behavior doesn't grow linearly but exponentially, and if we didn't have the gang-member kids of illegals, the rest of the gang problem would be much easier to contain.
I have several co-workers who came here LEGALLY out of, yes, Mexshithole's poverty. The stories they could tell will make your head spin.
They're doing quite well in America. And they, unlike the illegals, DO have a great work ethic and we were proud to throw a party when one of them got his citizenship recently.
And amazingly, THEY are as fed up as everyone else in my workplace about the crimes perpetrated upon us by the illegals. He is particularly angry that his tax money, that's supposed to be paying for his kid's education, is instead being wasted on the gang-member kids of a bunch of illegals who are bringing the quality of the whole school's education down.
I suggest you try not viewing the whole world through a lens of racism. It's not about race, it's about good and bad people. And I'm sorry to say, yes, most illegals ARE involved in crime (above and beyond simply jumping the border) and are bad.
None of this is the fault of the Indian tech support guy, or the illegal Mexican. They're just trying to do the best they can with very little. I've known plenty of Indians and Mexicans; their intelligence and work ethic vary across the same spectrum as any American's.
The Indians who left India are a completely different group from those in their "call centers." Likewise, I doubt very much you've met any of the illegal Mexicans - I work and am friends with a number of LEGAL immigrant Mexicans, and they are entirely outraged at the behavior and complete lack of work ethic (not to mention the sheer number of criminals) of the illegal population.
completely neutralized by your obvious racism and xenophobia
Crying "racism" and "xenophobia" are ways to say that you can't refute my argument any other way. Throw in a good nazi analogy while you're at it, then you can really godwin yourself.