...it seemed entirely clear to me that what was being banned wasn't "texting with your cell phone" but rather just "being seen holding a cell phone while driving". These sorts of laws get passed by and supported by people who don't ever think it will affect them, just "other people" who are "reckless".
Frankly, before the GPS, when I was in unfamiliar territory, I had a paper map on my lap. The GPS is safer since it's self-lit and follows my location automatically, but with texting bans like this, it's being treated as if it's less safe than an already-legal activity.
...its legacy lives on in the strength of game sales to casual gamers who aren't looking for real-time stress, true open-world experiences, or multiplayer competition.
I don't intend this as a general argument, but in my own experience, Myst was incredibly popular among people who didn't play a lot of computer games, but none of the people I knew who were regular computer gamers played it at all. Again, just an anecdote, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a wider truth in it.
...but Breaking Bad's "season break" was 11 months. I don't see how it was at all unreasonable for Apple to be given the benefit of the doubt for treating this like a new season. Because, effectively, it was. It's not like Apple reset the toll between two episodes a couple of weeks apart or anything.
This was a lack of attention on Apple's part, but let's be honest here and call this a stupid marketing stunt on behalf of AMC, too.
We need media literacy as a core skill taught in all levels of education. "Who is bringing this message to you?" "What do they want you to believe or do after receiving this message?" "How do the parties responsible for bringing you this message benefit if you accept its message?" "Who disagrees with this message, and what do they have to say about it?"
"Intellectual property" as a moral right that never expires wasn't put into the Constitution. It was created by lobbyists, robber-barons, and corporations. Copyright that lasts forever is illegal, so the goal is "forever minus one day" which is effectively the same thing but looks better in the courts. It's time to tell the RIAA and MPAA companies that enough is enough, and to curb their power to turn participatory culture into mere consumerism by putting an end to never-ending copyright terms. Cut it off at five years - no extensions - and be done with it.
Copyright law was originally written to enrich the public domain, not impoverish it. Now, all it does is the latter.
For all that parents get up in arms about digital services abusing the privacy rights of their children (resulting in support of laws such as the US's COPPA), they continue to volunteer for services which violate their own privacy rights.
Adults have more to lose in this battle than children.
Agreed. The intellectual property cartel is supporting laws like SOPA, PROTECT-IP and the OPEN Act not because they are innovators, but because they have failed to innovate, and are looking for legal means to protect them from the failure of their increasingly irrelevant business models.
I don't really understand the ES fanboy position. I played and enjoyed Morrowind, until I got bored of it because of poor plot pacing.
Oblivion lost me in the first six hours due to poor quest mechanics - I got to a point where I was supposed to be somewhere (poorly specified) at a certain time (poorly specified) and kill a certain guy (poorly specified). When it didn't work, I waited for the same time of night, and broke into the house, after about 30 tries, and of course there was nobody inside it. Instead, I just wandered around freestyle, kept bumping into stuff that wasn't relevant to any quest or side-quests I had, got bored, and never played the game again.
Frankly, the best thing that ever happened to the Oblivion engine was Fallout 3; I knew there was potential for a good game in there.
Skyrim is going to be more of the same: fantastic engine, huge world, and poor plot pacing and quest mechanics. Having just finished Dead Island, I'm not much in the mood for another profoundly broken game with regards to quest mechanics.
> Their position on why used record stores aren't stealing is that "games are budgeted on the assumption of no used game sales, and books and albums aren't.
Their position on why used record stores aren't stealing is that "we aren't making records".
If games are budgeted on the premise that there are no used sales, it sounds like a piss-poor business model to me, akin to budgeting socks on the assumption that people have three feet. Used video game sales are nothing new; it shouldn't be anything new to Penny Arcade or its fanboys, either.
...and the first to be replaced. So, whatever Microsoft decides to do with the file manager is pretty irrelevant to me. I say this as someone generally pretty happy with Windows 7 otherwise.
I'm going to assume that the OED isn't going to lose any of your business, because you're not in the market for one.
For all of that, I'm a descriptivist, and don't consider "fucking" to be improper grammar or any of that stuffy prescritivist nonsense, but you don't strike me as someone who sees the value in having an exhaustive historical research tool such as the OED handy.
I do, but I can't afford it. So in the end, we're more equal than I'd like.
When I had a Blackberry, I was astounded at how there were almost no apps, how terrible the browser was, the low build quality (three clit transplants in two years? really?), and how horribly obtuse configuring just about anything with it was.
The only thing it had over the iPhone and Android? The bill went to my employer. When policy changed and that was no longer the case, there was no possibility I'd ever touch RIM again.
As bad as the name idea was in the US, Canada and Europe, it's an absolute disaster for some other countries.
Some people can create engaging content that many people want to interact with, but would in this country put their job or reputation at stake.
Some people can create engaging content that many people want to interact with, but in some countries will get them killed.
Please explain to me why a women's rights advocate in Saudi Arabia should have to give up her privacy to a state which considers her activity to be treasonous.
Please explain to me why a political dissident in a dictatorship should have to give up their privacy to a state which is known to imprison people for publicly advocating incorrect political ideologies.
Please explain to me why someone who disagrees with the anti-public-domain intellectual property dogma of the US and other countries should have to risk his freedom in order to discuss ways to subvert that system.
Please explain to me why I cannot decide who I, as a person, am, and what my "real" identity is. I'm much better qualified to do this than you are, Google.
> However, sometimes you'll have a player that's so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.' Ever work with a person who's so good that he/she gets his/her own set of rules?
...the people who THINK they are these people but aren't are the annoying ones, and are often un-fire-able not because they are so good that they're pivotal to the company, but because firing them would cause more problems than it would solve: relative of an important employee, friend of an important employee, someone with damaging info on someone who can't be fired, or a potential whistleblower or someone with an EEO complaint (justified or not) who will be a bigger problem outside the company than within it.
I knew a woman in the late 90s whose future plans ended on December 31, 2000, because of Y2K (a little) and "Nostradamus" (mostly). This was a responsible woman with a small business as well as a government job with a very high security clearance (which was how I knew her), two children, a husband, and a good amount of money saved up, which she was spending quickly since there was no need to worry about financial security after 2000 anyway. You can't take it with you, after all.
Unfortunately, my term of service there ended before the end of 2000 and I lost touch with her. I'd like to think that someone eventually talked some sense into her and she stopped using pop mysticism about Nostradamus to guide her investment strategy, or perhaps more accurately, her divestment strategy.
After the end of 2012, don't kid yourself if you think conspiracy nuts and apocalyptic thinking is going to go away. Every age of credible fools finds some new way to re-interpret Nostradamus and the Book of Revelation to service whatever crank end-of-the-world scenario they favour. I'm sure some of them are even going to re-interpret the so-called "end" of the Mayan calendar. They'd better take heed of the Mayans, after all, their prophecies have managed to save their civilization on any number of occasions. Oh wait.
And this doesn't seem like an un-constitutional end-run around constitutional rights to you? The property is nearly impossible to defend, which is why jurisdictions like these laws so much; no messy complications like actually having to prove a case to a judge or jury.
I really didn't think my dig at this offensive procedure was all that subtle. What is this, 4chan, where subtlety goes to die and every joke has to be explained?
Your constitutional rights do change depend on what you're accused of, though. In civil forfeiture cases, a technicality of law is applied that doesn't technically accuse "you" of a crime, but rather accuses your property of a crime, and it's used to violate constitutional rights of defendants. Some would argue that that's all it's ever used for, and I think they're right.
Slashdot Mirror
...it seemed entirely clear to me that what was being banned wasn't "texting with your cell phone" but rather just "being seen holding a cell phone while driving". These sorts of laws get passed by and supported by people who don't ever think it will affect them, just "other people" who are "reckless".
Frankly, before the GPS, when I was in unfamiliar territory, I had a paper map on my lap. The GPS is safer since it's self-lit and follows my location automatically, but with texting bans like this, it's being treated as if it's less safe than an already-legal activity.
...its legacy lives on in the strength of game sales to casual gamers who aren't looking for real-time stress, true open-world experiences, or multiplayer competition.
I don't intend this as a general argument, but in my own experience, Myst was incredibly popular among people who didn't play a lot of computer games, but none of the people I knew who were regular computer gamers played it at all. Again, just an anecdote, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a wider truth in it.
...but Breaking Bad's "season break" was 11 months. I don't see how it was at all unreasonable for Apple to be given the benefit of the doubt for treating this like a new season. Because, effectively, it was. It's not like Apple reset the toll between two episodes a couple of weeks apart or anything.
This was a lack of attention on Apple's part, but let's be honest here and call this a stupid marketing stunt on behalf of AMC, too.
Countless hours? I think you grossly over-estimate the difficulty.
We need media literacy as a core skill taught in all levels of education. "Who is bringing this message to you?" "What do they want you to believe or do after receiving this message?" "How do the parties responsible for bringing you this message benefit if you accept its message?" "Who disagrees with this message, and what do they have to say about it?"
"Intellectual property" as a moral right that never expires wasn't put into the Constitution. It was created by lobbyists, robber-barons, and corporations. Copyright that lasts forever is illegal, so the goal is "forever minus one day" which is effectively the same thing but looks better in the courts. It's time to tell the RIAA and MPAA companies that enough is enough, and to curb their power to turn participatory culture into mere consumerism by putting an end to never-ending copyright terms. Cut it off at five years - no extensions - and be done with it.
Copyright law was originally written to enrich the public domain, not impoverish it. Now, all it does is the latter.
It's not the lack of artificial intelligence which makes it insufficiently compelling to me.
Up next, a new Best Albums of 2010 article?
For all that parents get up in arms about digital services abusing the privacy rights of their children (resulting in support of laws such as the US's COPPA), they continue to volunteer for services which violate their own privacy rights.
Adults have more to lose in this battle than children.
Maybe they just needed to give away a few million copies to make their after-launch marketing sound more impressive.
I was particularly enamoured of the Windows 8 launch event which featured all the Times Square advertisements about how "THE WAIT IS OVER".
Who was waiting? One turkey is enough this holiday season, and I'm going to eat it.
Agreed. The intellectual property cartel is supporting laws like SOPA, PROTECT-IP and the OPEN Act not because they are innovators, but because they have failed to innovate, and are looking for legal means to protect them from the failure of their increasingly irrelevant business models.
I don't know about the T series, but the SC series of PE machines have 8x slots that have dividers which prevent use of 16x cards in them.
Interestingly, this can be solved by a heated blade and a heated screwdriver.
I don't really understand the ES fanboy position. I played and enjoyed Morrowind, until I got bored of it because of poor plot pacing.
Oblivion lost me in the first six hours due to poor quest mechanics - I got to a point where I was supposed to be somewhere (poorly specified) at a certain time (poorly specified) and kill a certain guy (poorly specified). When it didn't work, I waited for the same time of night, and broke into the house, after about 30 tries, and of course there was nobody inside it. Instead, I just wandered around freestyle, kept bumping into stuff that wasn't relevant to any quest or side-quests I had, got bored, and never played the game again.
Frankly, the best thing that ever happened to the Oblivion engine was Fallout 3; I knew there was potential for a good game in there.
Skyrim is going to be more of the same: fantastic engine, huge world, and poor plot pacing and quest mechanics. Having just finished Dead Island, I'm not much in the mood for another profoundly broken game with regards to quest mechanics.
> Their position on why used record stores aren't stealing is that "games are budgeted on the assumption of no used game sales, and books and albums aren't.
Their position on why used record stores aren't stealing is that "we aren't making records".
If games are budgeted on the premise that there are no used sales, it sounds like a piss-poor business model to me, akin to budgeting socks on the assumption that people have three feet. Used video game sales are nothing new; it shouldn't be anything new to Penny Arcade or its fanboys, either.
...and the first to be replaced. So, whatever Microsoft decides to do with the file manager is pretty irrelevant to me. I say this as someone generally pretty happy with Windows 7 otherwise.
I'd be happier if Apple had patented a way to make the cable-end-to-wire connection less prone to damage. That's been a perennial problem for decades.
I'm going to assume that the OED isn't going to lose any of your business, because you're not in the market for one.
For all of that, I'm a descriptivist, and don't consider "fucking" to be improper grammar or any of that stuffy prescritivist nonsense, but you don't strike me as someone who sees the value in having an exhaustive historical research tool such as the OED handy.
I do, but I can't afford it. So in the end, we're more equal than I'd like.
...for anything related to Blackberry?
When I had a Blackberry, I was astounded at how there were almost no apps, how terrible the browser was, the low build quality (three clit transplants in two years? really?), and how horribly obtuse configuring just about anything with it was.
The only thing it had over the iPhone and Android? The bill went to my employer. When policy changed and that was no longer the case, there was no possibility I'd ever touch RIM again.
This needs to be said over and over:
As bad as the name idea was in the US, Canada and Europe, it's an absolute disaster for some other countries.
Some people can create engaging content that many people want to interact with, but would in this country put their job or reputation at stake.
Some people can create engaging content that many people want to interact with, but in some countries will get them killed.
Please explain to me why a women's rights advocate in Saudi Arabia should have to give up her privacy to a state which considers her activity to be treasonous.
Please explain to me why a political dissident in a dictatorship should have to give up their privacy to a state which is known to imprison people for publicly advocating incorrect political ideologies.
Please explain to me why someone who disagrees with the anti-public-domain intellectual property dogma of the US and other countries should have to risk his freedom in order to discuss ways to subvert that system.
Please explain to me why I cannot decide who I, as a person, am, and what my "real" identity is. I'm much better qualified to do this than you are, Google.
> However, sometimes you'll have a player that's so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.' Ever work with a person who's so good that he/she gets his/her own set of rules?
I knew a woman in the late 90s whose future plans ended on December 31, 2000, because of Y2K (a little) and "Nostradamus" (mostly). This was a responsible woman with a small business as well as a government job with a very high security clearance (which was how I knew her), two children, a husband, and a good amount of money saved up, which she was spending quickly since there was no need to worry about financial security after 2000 anyway. You can't take it with you, after all.
Unfortunately, my term of service there ended before the end of 2000 and I lost touch with her. I'd like to think that someone eventually talked some sense into her and she stopped using pop mysticism about Nostradamus to guide her investment strategy, or perhaps more accurately, her divestment strategy.
After the end of 2012, don't kid yourself if you think conspiracy nuts and apocalyptic thinking is going to go away. Every age of credible fools finds some new way to re-interpret Nostradamus and the Book of Revelation to service whatever crank end-of-the-world scenario they favour. I'm sure some of them are even going to re-interpret the so-called "end" of the Mayan calendar. They'd better take heed of the Mayans, after all, their prophecies have managed to save their civilization on any number of occasions. Oh wait.
And this doesn't seem like an un-constitutional end-run around constitutional rights to you? The property is nearly impossible to defend, which is why jurisdictions like these laws so much; no messy complications like actually having to prove a case to a judge or jury.
Yes, and so does irony.
I really didn't think my dig at this offensive procedure was all that subtle. What is this, 4chan, where subtlety goes to die and every joke has to be explained?
Your constitutional rights do change depend on what you're accused of, though. In civil forfeiture cases, a technicality of law is applied that doesn't technically accuse "you" of a crime, but rather accuses your property of a crime, and it's used to violate constitutional rights of defendants. Some would argue that that's all it's ever used for, and I think they're right.
Clearly, you're not familiar with police procedure.
And parent comment: woosh.