Yes, it is possible. But once your code base grown past the very simplest of functions it becomes very, very difficult.
How difficult? I'm not really sure, to be honest, but I picture a mathmatical equation with as many variables as the code itself.
I know there is a branch of programming that says programs can be checked mathmatically to "prove" that they will have no bugs, but my understanding is that they've only been able to produce very simple programs relative to your average OS.
The implication is that, if you go to a lot of time and effort, you strip naked at midnight and dance in the moonlight while chanting the secret name of the creator, that you'll somehow manage to make an OS that's "secure" and you'll never need to patch it again.
Many people seam to believe in this "secure" OS that never fails under any cirumstances, even if you hit the spinning hard drives with a hammer and unplug the power cord. They know it's out there so they proclaim anything that needs patching as "unsecure" and move on, with disgust, to the next candidate.
I never know quite what to believe, myself. But sometimes, on warm, summer nights when the moon is full, you might catch a glimpse of me... dancing naked in the moonlight. (You may scream and wake up now)
companies love consistancy and YALD is the complete opposite
Maybe you missed something in the article. WBEL is trying to be as much of a clone as is legaly possible to RHEL. They are aiming for consitancy. Your point is well taken, but I think you picked the wrong story to post it to.
Not that I'm against variety or anything, but doesn't it make sense for these two projects to merge? Is there some need each fills that the other doesn't?
I'm not trying to bash either one, I just don't understand why if they live next door, leave at the same time and work in the same office they might not want to ride-share?
According to this site the cost per mile of electricity can be much cheaper than gas. The total cost to "fill up" with enough electricity for a 30 mile trip can be as low as $0.72 according to their figures. Not sure how accurate this is, but it's probably a reasonable place to start.
That's a heck of a lot cheaper than providing health insurance and the electric car might even be cheaper than providing free coffee. Maybe the boss will care about the price and maybe he won't. But since the cost is so low the more probable outcome is he wont even notice unless everyone all of a sudden started showing up with EVs.
BTW, the gasoline cost for many gasoline vehicles to travel 30 miles is about $2.00 (30mpg, one gallon of gas @ 2.00 per gallon). SUVs can usually double that, but the Prius can almost cut it in half. The Prius, based on energy cost per mile, is probably very close to as efficient as EVs.
And one last point: Almost off this subject, but kind of important. The cost per mile traveled, including cost for infrastructure, energy and the vehicle itself, is the only real way of determining if gasoline, hybrid, or plug-in electric is more efficient. If efficiency is important to you, find out this number. However, polution costs also need to be factored in. These are very difficult to calculate. My advice would be for government to try to calculate this cost and simply charge for it. The result would be that the greener energy would have a price advantage and consumers will go for the cheaper energy. We'd all be happier and healthier in the long run.
Now what sucks about Netware? Lack of developers. Every time I sit in a meeting, some asshole wants me to add yet another W2K3/SQL box for their product. Given Netware's market share I can't blame them. No-one is ever going to write another NLM.
You just described our exact situation (except the asshole part... all our guys are cool:-). We have about a million MS boxes running MS SQL, Oracle, etc. and another million running IIS and our applications (we're an n-tier enterprise software developer).
Our developers aren't touching NLMs, but they're actively looking at Linux ports. No one at our shop would even consider running a public web server on NetWare, Apache or not, but they have no conceptual problem whatsoever running the same thing on Suse. The thought that we might actually be able to run (gasp!)software on our Novell servers is just mind-boggling. It's the difference between it being considered a legacy platform or the platform of the future. People shouldn't underestimate what that perception can do for purchasing dollars.
Obviously, migrating existing customers from Netware to Linux doesn't prevent leakage to either Windows or other Linux flavors, but now, they at least have a clear path for customers, and it will probably be the easiest path for their installed base.
This path thing you talk about is very important. We're a mostly MS shop (lots of databases on MS) but 60-80% of our files services are on NetWare. We've been kicking around getting rid of NW over the last couple of years to simplify things for both our IT department and end users.
Our most recent decision to wait was directly Linux related. Our customers are asking more and more about running our products on Linux and we have a couple of test setups, but nothing major. Our CTO pointed out that IT would have to support this if we went whole hog in that direction and the absolute easiest path for IT to gain experience with Linux would be to migrate our NW servers into OES servers.
We're still on NW and we're moving very slowly on Linux, but NW will stay, for the moment, simply because we can see that migration path and want to have the option of traveling on it. In our case, the Linux-future at Novell is probably the most important difference between us staying a customer and not.
I doubt movies formatted for the little PSP with it's 480x272 screen would be popular targets for piracy.
You very nearly got it right.
Correct: they won't be big targets for piracy if the pirate wants to view it on a TV or computer monitors.
Incorrect: They'll be very popular targets for piracy for anyone who actually has a PSP or anyone who has any other small screen device (iPaq, cell phone, etc) that can show movies. For these purposes, the PSP movies could even be more popular piracy targets because the file size will be much smaller. Why download a huge DVD rip if all you want to do is watch it on your PDA?
"You can't run IE because it is insecure. Would you like to make it runnable anyway? (Y/N)" (rolls eyes)
And what, exactly, is wrong with this? Do you want it running in insecure mode by default or do you want it set up so that you can't turn on the less secure features if you happen to require them and have other ways to make your environment secure?
MS is keeping things turned off by default, which is exactly what security experts have been recommending for years. They're also making it so you can turn those things back on if you happen to need them. This is good design
On the other hand, it's also possible that there was a lower standard for a bunch of high school kids, whether intentionally or not.
It's hard to advance when people feel this way. If you do shitty, it's because you're an idiot. If you do somewhere in the middle, it's because you're just average. If you do great, the judges were overcompensating.
I don't know and can't prove that the judges weren't overcompensating. I do know, however, that virtually everyone who succeeds as something really tough does so with at least a little bit of luck. Unless there's an unfair, consistant advantage that we can point at, most people I know ignore that luck part and just flat out give credit to people who achieve great things.
Super Bowl champs are always champs, even if the other team's star quarterback was hit by a drunk driver the night before the big game. The spelling bee champ is still champ, even if he misspoke and got a word right that he should have gotten wrong. The gold medal figure skater is still the best, even if her position last in the schedule gave her an edge in the judging.
These guys won. Unless you know first hand that there was some bias, put all that overcompensating judge crap right out of your mind. They're winners, champs, best of bread, etc. and deserve every accolade that goes with it.
Of course this is a perfect argument for open source as you don't need to rely on a company to add or improve the functionality of the software if it is lacking (if you know how to do it of course).
Very important. They'll have all the tools at hand to make the improvments too. Will the reduced cost version of Windows ship with Visual Studio?
The article insinuates leftist leanings of the president, but I see his choice as a very practical one. It's the choice of a man who will either get a free fish or free fishing lessons. Is it communist to want your people to be able to be independant and self sustaining? (sarcasm)If it is, them maybe those pinko bastards are smarter than we thought.(/sarcasm)
TW
Re:First line of the article
on
Inside the PSP
·
· Score: 1
Not bashing. At all. I was just pointing out that there was nothing revolutionary about the technology involved, but rather the iPod won out because of it's finnese. They had very ordinary technology, done extraordinarily well.
If you think using firewire, which had been around for a while, and shrinking the size of the unit with off-the shelf hard drives is somehow miracle tech, then think again. It was evolutionary, not revolutionary. But that is totally ok, and, in fact, desirable. Something new wasn't needed; something better was.
I will bash you though. My post was a compliment to the ability of Apple to piece regular tech together to make it more than the sum of its parts. For you to take it as in insult is just stupid. Hint: people who knock compliments are less likely to hear them repeated.
Yes, these batteries will be useful, as you point out, but the article was implying something that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. It was implying that if you discharge your battery you'll get back 80% of the energy in about a minute of recharging. It aint gonna happen in any car in the near future. Because of the restrictions of regenerative breaking and engine driven generators it will take the car you actually buy much more than a minute to fill the battery 80% of the way.
The article wanted you to believe something, based on extrapolation, that wont be practical to deliver. I was just calling them on it. You pointed out that this will still be hella useful regardless of that minor deception and I wholeheartedly agree.
TW
Re:First line of the article
on
Inside the PSP
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Uh...it has?
Yep, it has, just like the iPod. The iPod was little more than a copycat product as far as technology was concerned, but it delivered just about exactly what people wanted, which was something that had somehow eluded previous products.
The PSP does almost exactly the same thing. High quality 3D gaming, a bigger screan, better controls, more expandability and more media do not, in and of themselves, make this product genre redefining. Delivering almost exactly what people are looking for does.
The real proof will be in the demographic numbers. If Sony hits a big market beyond kids then it will be a redefining product by definition. If it cuts into the handheld DVD market then it will be a genre redefiner. If Nintendo files chapter-11 then it will be a redefiner. If none of these things come to pass then it was just a really cool product.
I doubt it will ever be illegal. We're a nation of tinkerers. Your dad and mine took apart their cars. Our grandfathers took apart their houses. We take apart our computers.
People will be able to convince the old timers that reverse engineering code ("you mean like spies?") is criminal and they'll be able to convince our dads that copying and selling a patended machine is criminal, but our dads and grandpas wont stand still for a law the won't let them take the cover off of something they own. They may not understand electronics, but they understand ownership. They may not want to take the cover off of their TV but they'll be damned if someone trys to tell them they can't.
... and how much power will they require to charge? People are forgetting something. If you expect steady, large power over a large discharge period then you'll need huge power if your charg period is a small fraction of the discharge period.
It makes me question the scaling the article implied for hybrid cars. The "one minute" charge timeframe is very much depending on having a power source capable of delivering that much energy to the battery. Hybrid batteries are many times the size of standard car batteries. That's a lot of power to deliver in a minute.
If you think this example is in line with your other ones you have some serious problems.
They're definately not meant to be the same except in the fact that many modern parents would have a strong emotional reaction and would not want their kids playing such games. I fully understand that people lose life in two of the examples and this one is purely political.
Of course, this begs the question: Is there any difference between the KKK's "hang 'em high" and GTA where you screw a hooker and then kill her (according to Hillary... I've never actually played the game)? I would hesitate to call one more offensive than the other, yet GTA is on the shelf of every Best Buy. Is it any wonder our elected leaders would be concerned about children having unrestricted access to this type of material?
If you think I would have serious problems for thinking my examples were equivilant (I didn't, they were meant as variety) what would it say about our populous which made GTA a best seller?
BTW, I want to reiterate a point I made twice in my preivious post: There is a difference between finding something offensive and banning it. The real act of censorship, in my opinion, is far more offensive than any act of fictionalized violence ever could be.
It's not up to politicians to determine the morality of music, video games, or any other communication. Politicians are always trying to get an angle on something to better their own political gain.
Politicians shouldn't determine morality, but it makes it pretty difficult for the parents to do the instructing unless there's some sort of framework in place to help them.
Why should you care if politicians want enforcements on rating systems? Rating something for sale to adults only is not even close to the same thing as banning it.
I love the rating systems. It's not that I never let my 15-year-old daughter watch an R-rated movie or play an M-rated game, but I sure as heck preview them before I give my consent. If there were no ratings then my job as a parent would be quite a bit more difficult.
Look, I understand if you don't want GTA banned. Neither do I. It would be no better than burning books. But if these politicians want to point out that GTA is moraly berreft (it is) or they want to point out that is shouldn't be sold to minors (it shouldn't) or they want to give it a rating to help people in their dicision making process, then you should cut them some slack.
Put another way: You want Hillary to keep silent about the new KKK game "Hang 'em High"? How about "Burn that Sucker" the game where you get points for causeing maximal damage to the flag and other US symbols? How about that great educational game "Terrorist Training Camp" which consists of little more than a hyper-realisting 767 flight simulator? I think it's Hillary's job to alert us to the danger of these things. I think it would be criminal for her to try to ban any of them, but she better be using her public position to warn us about them and her voting power to try to keep them out of the hands of our kids without their parents consent.
Wow. I see post after post as a litany of stuff people feel Microsoft ripped off from others. But does it matter?
Microsoft, like every other OS manufacturer on the planet, has had search capabilities of some sort or another forever. They're making their's better, Apple is improving their's, etc. Who gives a shit whether Apple or Google or Microsoft starting improving search funtionality first? I happen to be glad that they're making the effort. It will probably be a useful addition.
Guys, grow up. Unless they're breaking some sort of IP law, you should be applauding them for implimenting the good features of other OSs instead of knocking them down. Linux, OS X and Windows all share a shitload of similar look and feel features as well as mountains of similar features under the hood. Who used the first hard drive? Who used the first start menu-style button? Who put "disk drives" or "My computers" on the top, left of the desktop? Who put a trashcan on the desktop? The fact is, IT DOESN'T MATTER anymore because they all have 'em now.
Spend yout time dinging the company that doesn't impliment a good feature. Leave MS alone if they're actually trying to things that look or work better.
The Shuffle is perfect and because it plays in random mode it is great that no song will be repeated too quickly.
This is the part I don't get about the iPod Shuffle. Didn't just about every MP3 player do shuffle mode both before and since?
I'm not saying it's bad, but I just don't get it as a selling point. It's like marketing the new BMW - Stearing Wheel. "It has a steering wheel so you can make turns!" um... ok. good. Anything else worth mentioning?
I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about whether people should be buying the shuffle. I just think that if they're buying it _because_ of shuffle mode, maybe they should be made aware that there are a few other players out there that may meet their needs.
You misunderstand my argument. My argument _is not_ that humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time. My argument is that there is a great deal that can be learned by trying to prove that they did.
In order to prove that they existed together you are likely to cover a great deal of ground and amass a great deal of knowledge about both the period in Earth's history when humans civilization started and the periods in Earth's history when dinosaurs existed. Taking the journey and amassing the knowledge would be far more useful to him than me, his pastor, or anyone else telling him "the truth." If more people looked and learned for themselves instead of simply regurgitating what they've heard from "experts" who are just regurgitating themselves, we'd almost certainly be a smarter and saner society.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is possible. But once your code base grown past the very simplest of functions it becomes very, very difficult.
How difficult? I'm not really sure, to be honest, but I picture a mathmatical equation with as many variables as the code itself.
I know there is a branch of programming that says programs can be checked mathmatically to "prove" that they will have no bugs, but my understanding is that they've only been able to produce very simple programs relative to your average OS.
TW
The implication is that, if you go to a lot of time and effort, you strip naked at midnight and dance in the moonlight while chanting the secret name of the creator, that you'll somehow manage to make an OS that's "secure" and you'll never need to patch it again.
Many people seam to believe in this "secure" OS that never fails under any cirumstances, even if you hit the spinning hard drives with a hammer and unplug the power cord. They know it's out there so they proclaim anything that needs patching as "unsecure" and move on, with disgust, to the next candidate.
I never know quite what to believe, myself. But sometimes, on warm, summer nights when the moon is full, you might catch a glimpse of me... dancing naked in the moonlight. (You may scream and wake up now)
TW
I read down the page and
"Scientists design 'bionic eye' that could someday help the visually disabled"
And
"Pope's death to boost sales of Brown's book"
All of a sudden became:
"Scietists design bionic Pope..."
Damn, it's gone now. Oh well. If It was only my personal vision of the great sci-fi future, so be it.
TW
Nah, it wont even get to that. They can control the dust just by hosing it down. Duh!
TW
Perhaps I was missing something in the clarity department. I meant White Box and CentOS should merge.
After reading farther, I discovered that even though it's not obvious on the home pages, White Box and CentOS already have effectively merged already.
TW
companies love consistancy and YALD is the complete opposite
Maybe you missed something in the article. WBEL is trying to be as much of a clone as is legaly possible to RHEL. They are aiming for consitancy. Your point is well taken, but I think you picked the wrong story to post it to.
TW
Not that I'm against variety or anything, but doesn't it make sense for these two projects to merge? Is there some need each fills that the other doesn't?
I'm not trying to bash either one, I just don't understand why if they live next door, leave at the same time and work in the same office they might not want to ride-share?
TW
According to this site the cost per mile of electricity can be much cheaper than gas. The total cost to "fill up" with enough electricity for a 30 mile trip can be as low as $0.72 according to their figures. Not sure how accurate this is, but it's probably a reasonable place to start.
That's a heck of a lot cheaper than providing health insurance and the electric car might even be cheaper than providing free coffee. Maybe the boss will care about the price and maybe he won't. But since the cost is so low the more probable outcome is he wont even notice unless everyone all of a sudden started showing up with EVs.
BTW, the gasoline cost for many gasoline vehicles to travel 30 miles is about $2.00 (30mpg, one gallon of gas @ 2.00 per gallon). SUVs can usually double that, but the Prius can almost cut it in half. The Prius, based on energy cost per mile, is probably very close to as efficient as EVs.
And one last point: Almost off this subject, but kind of important. The cost per mile traveled, including cost for infrastructure, energy and the vehicle itself, is the only real way of determining if gasoline, hybrid, or plug-in electric is more efficient. If efficiency is important to you, find out this number. However, polution costs also need to be factored in. These are very difficult to calculate. My advice would be for government to try to calculate this cost and simply charge for it. The result would be that the greener energy would have a price advantage and consumers will go for the cheaper energy. We'd all be happier and healthier in the long run.
TW
Now what sucks about Netware? Lack of developers. Every time I sit in a meeting, some asshole wants me to add yet another W2K3/SQL box for their product. Given Netware's market share I can't blame them. No-one is ever going to write another NLM.
:-). We have about a million MS boxes running MS SQL, Oracle, etc. and another million running IIS and our applications (we're an n-tier enterprise software developer).
You just described our exact situation (except the asshole part... all our guys are cool
Our developers aren't touching NLMs, but they're actively looking at Linux ports. No one at our shop would even consider running a public web server on NetWare, Apache or not, but they have no conceptual problem whatsoever running the same thing on Suse. The thought that we might actually be able to run (gasp!)software on our Novell servers is just mind-boggling. It's the difference between it being considered a legacy platform or the platform of the future. People shouldn't underestimate what that perception can do for purchasing dollars.
TW
Obviously, migrating existing customers from Netware to Linux doesn't prevent leakage to either Windows or other Linux flavors, but now, they at least have a clear path for customers, and it will probably be the easiest path for their installed base.
This path thing you talk about is very important. We're a mostly MS shop (lots of databases on MS) but 60-80% of our files services are on NetWare. We've been kicking around getting rid of NW over the last couple of years to simplify things for both our IT department and end users.
Our most recent decision to wait was directly Linux related. Our customers are asking more and more about running our products on Linux and we have a couple of test setups, but nothing major. Our CTO pointed out that IT would have to support this if we went whole hog in that direction and the absolute easiest path for IT to gain experience with Linux would be to migrate our NW servers into OES servers.
We're still on NW and we're moving very slowly on Linux, but NW will stay, for the moment, simply because we can see that migration path and want to have the option of traveling on it. In our case, the Linux-future at Novell is probably the most important difference between us staying a customer and not.
TW
I doubt movies formatted for the little PSP with it's 480x272 screen would be popular targets for piracy.
You very nearly got it right.
Correct: they won't be big targets for piracy if the pirate wants to view it on a TV or computer monitors.
Incorrect: They'll be very popular targets for piracy for anyone who actually has a PSP or anyone who has any other small screen device (iPaq, cell phone, etc) that can show movies. For these purposes, the PSP movies could even be more popular piracy targets because the file size will be much smaller. Why download a huge DVD rip if all you want to do is watch it on your PDA?
TW
"You can't run IE because it is insecure. Would you like to make it runnable anyway? (Y/N)" (rolls eyes)
And what, exactly, is wrong with this? Do you want it running in insecure mode by default or do you want it set up so that you can't turn on the less secure features if you happen to require them and have other ways to make your environment secure?
MS is keeping things turned off by default, which is exactly what security experts have been recommending for years. They're also making it so you can turn those things back on if you happen to need them. This is good design
TW
On the other hand, it's also possible that there was a lower standard for a bunch of high school kids, whether intentionally or not.
It's hard to advance when people feel this way. If you do shitty, it's because you're an idiot. If you do somewhere in the middle, it's because you're just average. If you do great, the judges were overcompensating.
I don't know and can't prove that the judges weren't overcompensating. I do know, however, that virtually everyone who succeeds as something really tough does so with at least a little bit of luck. Unless there's an unfair, consistant advantage that we can point at, most people I know ignore that luck part and just flat out give credit to people who achieve great things.
Super Bowl champs are always champs, even if the other team's star quarterback was hit by a drunk driver the night before the big game. The spelling bee champ is still champ, even if he misspoke and got a word right that he should have gotten wrong. The gold medal figure skater is still the best, even if her position last in the schedule gave her an edge in the judging.
These guys won. Unless you know first hand that there was some bias, put all that overcompensating judge crap right out of your mind. They're winners, champs, best of bread, etc. and deserve every accolade that goes with it.
TW
Or maybe a false fingernail or something that is semipermament.
Can I pick the finger? When the tag becomes mandatory, I know just which finger I want to use.
TW
Of course this is a perfect argument for open source as you don't need to rely on a company to add or improve the functionality of the software if it is lacking (if you know how to do it of course).
Very important. They'll have all the tools at hand to make the improvments too. Will the reduced cost version of Windows ship with Visual Studio?
The article insinuates leftist leanings of the president, but I see his choice as a very practical one. It's the choice of a man who will either get a free fish or free fishing lessons. Is it communist to want your people to be able to be independant and self sustaining? (sarcasm)If it is, them maybe those pinko bastards are smarter than we thought.(/sarcasm)
TW
Not bashing. At all. I was just pointing out that there was nothing revolutionary about the technology involved, but rather the iPod won out because of it's finnese. They had very ordinary technology, done extraordinarily well.
If you think using firewire, which had been around for a while, and shrinking the size of the unit with off-the shelf hard drives is somehow miracle tech, then think again. It was evolutionary, not revolutionary. But that is totally ok, and, in fact, desirable. Something new wasn't needed; something better was.
I will bash you though. My post was a compliment to the ability of Apple to piece regular tech together to make it more than the sum of its parts. For you to take it as in insult is just stupid. Hint: people who knock compliments are less likely to hear them repeated.
TW
Of course you're right, but I am too.
Yes, these batteries will be useful, as you point out, but the article was implying something that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. It was implying that if you discharge your battery you'll get back 80% of the energy in about a minute of recharging. It aint gonna happen in any car in the near future. Because of the restrictions of regenerative breaking and engine driven generators it will take the car you actually buy much more than a minute to fill the battery 80% of the way.
The article wanted you to believe something, based on extrapolation, that wont be practical to deliver. I was just calling them on it. You pointed out that this will still be hella useful regardless of that minor deception and I wholeheartedly agree.
TW
Uh...it has?
Yep, it has, just like the iPod. The iPod was little more than a copycat product as far as technology was concerned, but it delivered just about exactly what people wanted, which was something that had somehow eluded previous products.
The PSP does almost exactly the same thing. High quality 3D gaming, a bigger screan, better controls, more expandability and more media do not, in and of themselves, make this product genre redefining. Delivering almost exactly what people are looking for does.
The real proof will be in the demographic numbers. If Sony hits a big market beyond kids then it will be a redefining product by definition. If it cuts into the handheld DVD market then it will be a genre redefiner. If Nintendo files chapter-11 then it will be a redefiner. If none of these things come to pass then it was just a really cool product.
TW
I doubt it will ever be illegal. We're a nation of tinkerers. Your dad and mine took apart their cars. Our grandfathers took apart their houses. We take apart our computers.
People will be able to convince the old timers that reverse engineering code ("you mean like spies?") is criminal and they'll be able to convince our dads that copying and selling a patended machine is criminal, but our dads and grandpas wont stand still for a law the won't let them take the cover off of something they own. They may not understand electronics, but they understand ownership. They may not want to take the cover off of their TV but they'll be damned if someone trys to tell them they can't.
TW
... and how much power will they require to charge? People are forgetting something. If you expect steady, large power over a large discharge period then you'll need huge power if your charg period is a small fraction of the discharge period.
It makes me question the scaling the article implied for hybrid cars. The "one minute" charge timeframe is very much depending on having a power source capable of delivering that much energy to the battery. Hybrid batteries are many times the size of standard car batteries. That's a lot of power to deliver in a minute.
TW
If you think this example is in line with your other ones you have some serious problems.
They're definately not meant to be the same except in the fact that many modern parents would have a strong emotional reaction and would not want their kids playing such games. I fully understand that people lose life in two of the examples and this one is purely political.
Of course, this begs the question: Is there any difference between the KKK's "hang 'em high" and GTA where you screw a hooker and then kill her (according to Hillary... I've never actually played the game)? I would hesitate to call one more offensive than the other, yet GTA is on the shelf of every Best Buy. Is it any wonder our elected leaders would be concerned about children having unrestricted access to this type of material?
If you think I would have serious problems for thinking my examples were equivilant (I didn't, they were meant as variety) what would it say about our populous which made GTA a best seller?
BTW, I want to reiterate a point I made twice in my preivious post: There is a difference between finding something offensive and banning it. The real act of censorship, in my opinion, is far more offensive than any act of fictionalized violence ever could be.
TW
It's not up to politicians to determine the morality of music, video games, or any other communication. Politicians are always trying to get an angle on something to better their own political gain.
Politicians shouldn't determine morality, but it makes it pretty difficult for the parents to do the instructing unless there's some sort of framework in place to help them.
Why should you care if politicians want enforcements on rating systems? Rating something for sale to adults only is not even close to the same thing as banning it.
I love the rating systems. It's not that I never let my 15-year-old daughter watch an R-rated movie or play an M-rated game, but I sure as heck preview them before I give my consent. If there were no ratings then my job as a parent would be quite a bit more difficult.
Look, I understand if you don't want GTA banned. Neither do I. It would be no better than burning books. But if these politicians want to point out that GTA is moraly berreft (it is) or they want to point out that is shouldn't be sold to minors (it shouldn't) or they want to give it a rating to help people in their dicision making process, then you should cut them some slack.
Put another way: You want Hillary to keep silent about the new KKK game "Hang 'em High"? How about "Burn that Sucker" the game where you get points for causeing maximal damage to the flag and other US symbols? How about that great educational game "Terrorist Training Camp" which consists of little more than a hyper-realisting 767 flight simulator? I think it's Hillary's job to alert us to the danger of these things. I think it would be criminal for her to try to ban any of them, but she better be using her public position to warn us about them and her voting power to try to keep them out of the hands of our kids without their parents consent.
TW
Wow. I see post after post as a litany of stuff people feel Microsoft ripped off from others. But does it matter?
Microsoft, like every other OS manufacturer on the planet, has had search capabilities of some sort or another forever. They're making their's better, Apple is improving their's, etc. Who gives a shit whether Apple or Google or Microsoft starting improving search funtionality first? I happen to be glad that they're making the effort. It will probably be a useful addition.
Guys, grow up. Unless they're breaking some sort of IP law, you should be applauding them for implimenting the good features of other OSs instead of knocking them down. Linux, OS X and Windows all share a shitload of similar look and feel features as well as mountains of similar features under the hood. Who used the first hard drive? Who used the first start menu-style button? Who put "disk drives" or "My computers" on the top, left of the desktop? Who put a trashcan on the desktop? The fact is, IT DOESN'T MATTER anymore because they all have 'em now.
Spend yout time dinging the company that doesn't impliment a good feature. Leave MS alone if they're actually trying to things that look or work better.
TW
TW
The Shuffle is perfect and because it plays in random mode it is great that no song will be repeated too quickly.
This is the part I don't get about the iPod Shuffle. Didn't just about every MP3 player do shuffle mode both before and since?
I'm not saying it's bad, but I just don't get it as a selling point. It's like marketing the new BMW - Stearing Wheel. "It has a steering wheel so you can make turns!" um... ok. good. Anything else worth mentioning?
I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about whether people should be buying the shuffle. I just think that if they're buying it _because_ of shuffle mode, maybe they should be made aware that there are a few other players out there that may meet their needs.
TW
You misunderstand my argument. My argument _is not_ that humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time. My argument is that there is a great deal that can be learned by trying to prove that they did.
In order to prove that they existed together you are likely to cover a great deal of ground and amass a great deal of knowledge about both the period in Earth's history when humans civilization started and the periods in Earth's history when dinosaurs existed. Taking the journey and amassing the knowledge would be far more useful to him than me, his pastor, or anyone else telling him "the truth." If more people looked and learned for themselves instead of simply regurgitating what they've heard from "experts" who are just regurgitating themselves, we'd almost certainly be a smarter and saner society.
TW