Also, something in the society probably caused such people to turn to games (many examples are given in comments above). So if it's society's fault that these people are ruining their lives, it should probably society's responsibility to help correct this.
I have no problem with this theory at all. My only point is, assuming this is the case, when did the government become synanamis with society? Society isn't made up of only the government, and the government can't (although it's tried) dictate what society is. If society has caused a problem that needs fixed, society, as a whole (not as a mandate from the all-knowing, all-powerful government) try to fix it. There are countless examples of things that society, as a whole, has changed without the government having to pass a law for it.
I agree completely. If you look at any given MMORPG logically, you'll see a never-ending cycle of making money, getting to a new level, and spending your money on new armor that you can now use to kill animals and get to the next level, etc. Logically, it doesn't seem like there's much of a point.
However, I've been playing FFXI for about 3 weeks now, and I can comment (in a rational way) about the appeal. It isn't so much about playing the game, although that is the "hook" that brings you in. Once you're in, it's more about socializing. People you meet in the game can quickly become friends who you enjoy to "hang out" with. Since the only place you know them is in the virtual world, that's where you have to meet them. The virtual world of MMORPG's have become the mall of our generation.
The gaming aspect, once you're plugged in, is more secondary. For instance, next time you jump into FFXI, try to join a party of a few people who group together pretty often. At least 1/3 of the time, they'll spend chatting about one thing or another (much to the dismay of anyone who actually has a goal in mind to accomplish with that group).
Our generation has grown up with computers, and feel that using one as a medium for communication is a very viable alternative to the telephone, or even face-face. As such, the interaction between multiple people in a virtual world can seem just as enjoyable to this generation as talking to a friend on the telephone was in the 80's and 90's.
Of course, just like then, some people just never understood the point of spending hours on the phone with someone. They'd rather just meet them somewhere and do something. Neither type of person is wrong about the better way to socialize, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.
However, it would be interesting to see what the South Korean government cooks up to help curtail video game addiction.
Why is it always the government's job to step in and do something about stupid people who do stupid things? Why not just let them ruin their lives, and their credit? They're not hurting anyone but themselves, and it's their choice anyway.
Although it's not documented anywhere, I feel another reason may be because not many people in the US etc are prepared to talk about online addiction.
Technically, since you posted it, it's now documented. However, I agree. Most addicts don't want to admit they're addicts. Now that I've cleared the air, I'm here to admit that I'm addicted to Final Fantasy XI. It's a fabulous game with many possibilities that I want to sell my house, quit my job, and desert my friends and family for. I certainly feel that spending 20 hours a day trying to make gil and get to lvl 75 is far more important than working at a job, spending time with loved ones, or just generally having a good wholesome life. I fully admit my addiction, and I'm here looking for help.
In terms of site licenses for higher-end specialized software. This is covered on a need basis by individual departments. It does not make sense to have a 2,000 unit license for Oracle if only a few hundred will ever use it. Things like that typically come out of faculty research money (most of which comes from outside the Univ).
Thank you. A little more detail in how a university is set up (at least, PSU)... The university is divided up into Colleges, and each College is divided up into Departments. (For instance, the Department of Chemical Engineering is under the College of Engineering.) Under each Department, there are several (possibly hundreds) of faculty members. Many of these faculty members have budgets, mostly from individuals in their field, for the faculty member's research. A lot of faculty members have labs that are funded from those budgets. Usually, any faculty member that has a lab, has at least one graduate student. The graduate students are hired by the faculty member to research whatever the faculty member is studying.
While I generally agree that the students won't notice any major price increase for the Napster service, I will personally attest to a lot of wasted money, University-wide. Student tuition has been rising, and is getting out-of-control quickly. A little common sense, and good financial investments would go a long way to actually decreasing tuition (yes, believe it or not, it's possible to DECREASE tuition). I can personally pick out a lot of people around the area that I work that don't seem to do anything worthwhile, and in a privately-held company, would be laid off to save money. Of course, it's also possible that I just don't understand how it all works...
On the topic of site licenses, Penn State is looking into getting a site license of one kind or another for either Suse Professional 9, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. So far, I think Red Hat is closer to winning, as most of the linux users on campus already use a Red Hat product, and are familiar enough with it to trust it.
I ain't saying that they won't use Napster AND Kazaa, but for music, they'll probably use Napster unless they don't have something they want, then they will use Kazaa.
Disclaimer: I work at Penn State, as a staff member. We don't get Napster for free... we might get a discount, but I really don't care one way or the other. If I want a song, I'll download it from Kazaa at home.
I tried to fire up Kazaa yesterday to download some song I heard on the way to work... turned out it wouldn't connect. I suspect the University, or at least the College, has added filters to the firewall to block any Kazaa connections. While I'm at it, anybody know where I can download the "Magic Carpet Ride" mp3 for free while at work?
I've tried them both... didn't help. It seems more like a general linux issue than one specific to either Samba or Red Hat. Maybe X Windows? Maybe some general tip forum / mailing list?
Because it helps Americans AND it helps the workers overseas. AND it enables them to start buying products WE make. What we're doing now is a race to the bottom.
Why support only Americans? I'm an American, and I can easily justify my saying that a lot of Americans are lazy do-nothings who sit around, watch TV, and try to think up some way to sue someone else for making them fat. On the other hand, most of the Indians I know are extremely hard working, and would gladly work 10 hours a day for the price you'd pay one American to work for 3 hours.
Obviously, you don't run a business. In capitalism, running a business means making a profit. You don't make a profit by paying people more than they're worth just because of their nationality (side-note... is that a form of racism, or affirmative action?). That is, of course, if you prefer capitalism... Maybe you don't, I don't know. Maybe you simply don't understand the consequences of what you're suggesting.
This is an interesting concept... it'd drive the cost of goods sky high, but it is something that society might find acceptible.
I was hoping I wasn't the only one that "saw the light" about this. Your post indicates that you also understand the long-term effects of it.
For anyone that doesn't understand, let me elaborate. If the companies in the US were forced to pay people the minimum wage, despite where the employees lived, the cost of doing business would naturally rise. If a company has 10,000 employees, paying $1 more per employee is $10,000 per hour, or about $87,360,000 per year. That's a LOT of money. Given that most call centers are open 24 hours a day, and since most of them probably earn somewhere around $2-3 less than the minimum wage, turn that figure into around $150,000,000, at least. I highly doubt there are many, if ANY CEO's with that kind of salary. That's step 1.
Step 2 would be translating a higher cost of doing business into revenue, of any kind. In other words, so the company doesn't go bankrupt, they'd have to raise the price of their products. That means charging for tech support, or higher costs for computers, etc.
Step 3 means that since those things suddenly cost a lot more, people would have to get paid more to be able to afford them... so all the other companies would feel pressue to increase their payrolls. (For those other companies, repeat steps 1 & 2.)
Step 4 is obscenely simple. If all the companies raise the cost of their products / services, then by definition, the cost of living increased.
Logically, if you force the employers to pay the employees a set wage, no matter what that wage is, the cost of their products, and eventually, the cost of living, will increase. (Note: This only happens if the change is at a large scale. Increasing the base salary at a franchise gas station isn't going to do anything substantial to the cost of living.)
I can't get the DOS version of Duke Nukem to run in Windows XP. Is this at all somehow related? Is there a fix??
Actually, not a bad point... in a roundabout kind of way. Where does everyone go for help if they can't find a webpage discussing the problem they're having? Is there a very popular site, similar to Slashdot for helping people, particularly in a forum-like setting where people can post problems? Obviously, I know there are newsgroups and websites all over the place for this kind of thing, but is there one that's extremely popular? If not, I think Slashdot should start one...
For instance, I'm having a problem with Samba 3... I have pam_mount mounting user's home directories to a drive on a Windows server, but that doesn't let X Windows start because apparently certain files create hard-links, with SMB can't handle. So, what's a good way to work around it? I'm not sure what to search for, but nothing I've tried brings up anything really helpful.
Unfortunately, unless you buy a cert from one of the officially blessed cert authorities, your users get this ugly-looking "security warning" popup from their browser.
Damnit, I thought this new-fangled Mozilla stopped all popups?
How did that extra statement have any effect on his argument? Would it have made any difference if it were tacked onto the end of Einsteins Special Theory, or the blueprints to your house? No, it wouldn't.
It would to me. It tells me a great deal about his psychological state. It is evidence that he is seriously motivated by politics, to the point of trying to use it in an argument where it's completely uncalled for. That type of person generally doesn't respond well to criticism, and doesn't hesitate to start arguments based on what normally would be constructive criticism. As far as blueprints to my house, if I'm hiring him to do something, I don't give a rat's ass what his political associations are, but if he puts the fireplace where I wanted the bathroom to go, he better fix it rather than claiming it's because I created a conspiracy all to keep him from turning a profit because he's a card-carrying member of the opposite political organization as me.
Little statements like that can tell you a great deal about someone, even if you haven't taken a psychology course. Even the best argument in the world can be invalidated by a statement that's at best, arrogant, presumptuous, and inaccurate... and at worst, lying, deceitful, and manipulative.
Sorry, I posted before letting my brain retreive the definition of median from my 8th-grade math class. I apparently was thinking of the "mode". My bad.
And, in your example, which would be the five customers above the median?
A median is the number which occurs the most times in a list. In this case, the list would be: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, and 10. Obviously, 1 appears most frequently, so it would be the median. The only user above the median is the 10gb user.
Personally, I'd be all for some companies offering charge-per-Gigabyte plans, because I think there's a lot of time that I don't use that many gigabytes.
I know this has been implemented in a number of cities around the world, but I don't think it's happened in the US yet. Either way, let me paint a hypothetical situation for you, and see how you'd feel if it happened to you:
You wake up in the morning, get ready for work, and before you leave, you turn on your computer to check your e-mail. You get one very important message regarding your bank account being overdrawn, and you need to take care of it immediately. So, you start up your browser, but then notice you're about 10 minutes late for work, so you leave. During the day, your computer sits, with the browser window open, chugging away... When you get home, you realize that your start page was set to something strange from the porn you were looking at the previous night, and now you have about a thousand popup ads, all playing movies and sounds. At the end of the month, you get a message from your ISP saying that you downloaded about 10 gig more than you usually do, and they want an additional $200. (Try to imagine this happening to someone who uses IE so the popups still work... not yourself, when you obviously have Mozilla installed.) What do you do?
Seriously, I can see this becoming an issue sometime down the road... I'm almost surprised it hasn't become an issue yet. Even if this hypothetical situation is a little hard to imagine, think about the people who always get spam and without thinking about it, click on the links. Imagine how many gigabytes it could add up to. I'm surprised no ISP, or no popup-vendor has been sued for it yet... but I'd be willing to say it'll happen within a year of a major ISP putting a limit on the amount of traffic you're allowed to download.
If graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people without any responsibility or consequences for the action isn't terrorism, then I'm afraid I don't know what it is...
Then I'm afraid you don't know what is. Terrorism isn't the graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people. It IS the killing of masses of people, or the threat to kill masses of people. The definition for terrorism is technically something that "causes terror". If you want to get really anal about it, some movies are "terrorism" because they cause terror. However, violent games generally aren't terrifying, therefore they are not "terrorism".
By your definition, showing pictures of the earthquake in Iran could be considered "terrorism"... but it's not.
Anyway, you might want to cut down on your cynical evaluation skills and work a little on your diplomatic objectivity, Mr. Smartass.
For someone preaching about the joys of no television or video games, you certainly seem to spend enough time on a computer. Also, for someone criticizing someone else about their diplomatic objectivity, you certainly haven't demonstrated much diplomatic skill yourself, Mr. Smartass.
This conversation has nothing to do with my parenting skills...
Oh god forbid we question your parenting skills, but it's perfectly fine for you to question everybody else's. How many people in the past 10 years have died and had their deaths blamed on video games? Let's go with 1000. Now, how many deaths have been the result of perfectly natural causes? Probably easily into the tens of millions. Now, how many people have played violent video games in the past 10 years? Also probably in the tens of millions. It seems to me that IF (big if) video games have a direct link to violent behavior, the link is miniscule at best, and can only influence the dumbest of children with the very worst parents on the face of the earth. Also, IF (again, big IF) the said 1000 deaths were proven to be directly caused by one person playing too many video games, why would you want to punish and limit the freedom of speech of the other fifty million people that play games without any negative consequences whatsoever?
If you want to get harsh, try this on. If even 20,000 people died from video games in the past 10 years, that's STILL only 0.1% of ALL the people that OWN a Playstation 2, not counting those that own a computer, Nintendo product, or Xbox. Even better, if it takes 1 person to kill 2 people, you're only talking about 10,000 nutcases out there in the past 10 years. I might remind you that in the year 2003, almost 600 people were murdered in CHICAGO ALONE.
Your continual inane babble about the terrors of consumerism, and the imagined lack of responsibility that most Americans take for their actions, that you keep forgetting to argue the issue. You'd win a lot more people to your point of view if you could keep your arguments void of baseless insults and personal attacks against those you're debating. Therefore, I must conclude that you are nothing but a troll looking more to piss people off than to convert them to your way of thinking. Good luck with that.
I don't know what your love affair with "Madison Avenue" is, but I really don't understand it. I would surmise that you had a love interest who, at one time, lived or worked on Madison Avenue who broke it off with you because you didn't give her enough attention. I really don't understand what a "Madison Avenue crack-whore" has to do with whether playing GTA causes a 10-yr-old to think it's OK to shoot someone, but can we just get past your inner demons for a minute?
To address the statement you made immediately preceding the "crack-whore" statement...
Having said that, I will note that there seems to be no really good reason for all the violence in video games other than it seems to really, really grab peoples attention.
Let me ask you... if you take out all the violence in all the video games, tv shows, movies, and books, what do you have left? Boring crap. Here's an example: Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. After you take out all the violence in it, what's left besides some boring 20-page book (or 10 minute movie) that makes no sense? The fact is that violence is fun. You don't have to like that fact, but it's true.
Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
Yes, especially if there is a Television in the household, and it is actively being used without any consideration for the consequences...
That's really the meat of your argument, isn't it? You believe that children pay more attention to the television than to their parents. That may be correct, but the television is no substitute for parenting. It never has been, and probably never will be. So, to expand further on your argument, why don't you explain just WHY a television is expected to do the parenting more than the parent is? It certainly wasn't that way in my youth...
What if a company comes out this year with a new blockbuster game where you serially rape women and then must dump the bodies? We had a rape video game already, Custer's Revenge and it generated more media hype back in the 80's than anyything RockStar games ever made. What about a Racist video game? Where your band of KKK members in a diablo style game run throughout the south killing blacks? is that acceptable? and it's "counterstrike type" of expansion pack where an angry black mob goes through killing all the whites?
Yes, that's acceptable. Why wouldn't it be? Because it's offensive to YOU? If you don't like it, don't buy it.
granted it's not only the rich kids problem, It happens in most income groups... but usually low income families pay much more attention to their children and are far less likely to buy a $50.00 game for their child instead of that week's worth of groceries.
I'm personally offended by this remark. My father and mother were divorced when I was about 1. My father is very well-off, and always took plenty of time to teach me how to be successful in life. My mother also did, but none of her friends did to their children. I've lived on both sides of the fence, both rich and poor, at different times in my life, and I have to say that the "rich" people seem to understand that they will be judged both on what they do, and what their children do. The poor people are too busy living paycheck to paycheck, smoking, drinking, buying drugs, and going to bars to really take the time to educate their children on being successful (not that they could even if they wanted to). There are exceptions, certainly, but that's just been my experience. Also, I really don't appreciate you bringing obvious class warfare into a debate that has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you make.
It's not my kids' parents that I'm worried about. It's the crappy parents down the street who worry me.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was something my father told me when I was about 12. He said, "Son, you'll never be able to control other people's actions. You'll only ever be able to control your own." You'll never be able to control the crappy parents down the street. There will always be some form of media showing children that it's cool to do something wrong. You can only hope that the upbringing you give your children has a positive impact on their friends, which raise their children the right way, etc. Which leads me to another great piece of advice my father gave me. "The best revenge is success." Raise your children to be successful, in every aspect of their life, and others will envy them, and hopefully, try to imitate them.
For a more immediate solution, why don't you invite the other parent's son over to play with your daughter so you can have as much time to influence him as possible?
Your whole argument is predicated by the assumption that the media, the government, or the game makers FORCE, one way or another, a child to play a video game. That's not true. The child, just like any other person, has free will and can choose whether they're going to play it or not. For example, I rented Arc the Lad for the PS2 a couple weeks ago from Gamefly.com and I haven't even booted it up yet. You know why? I have other things to do. I know the graphics are cool, and I know the game is probably very good, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
It seems like you posted 2 differing opinions within the same post. The whole post up until the last paragraph is saying that the children aren't responsible for what they do because they're the unwitting victims of the media, the government, and the video game producers. The last paragraph completely contradicts that by saying that each person SHOULD take responsibility for what they've done.
The media is motivated by money. They run stories that make people watch so their ratings go up. They're also motivated by their personal political beliefs, which seems pretty evident, given that news anchors are people with opinions too. (Tony Snow substituted for Rush Limbaugh when Rush was off the air, for instance. On the other hand, just about all the anchors on CNN are biased the opposite way.)
The government, particularly individual politicians, want your votes. They'll tell you whatever they think you want to hear as long as you vote for them. If Little Johnny fights a lot at school, it isn't your fault for not teaching him that fighting is bad... it's Grand Theft Auto's fault for letting him play as a bad guy.
The video game producers are also motivated by money. They want to sell as many games as possible. Don't forget, it's a business. You so gleefully point out your example of some people playing a game for 18 hours a day and the executives being happy. Pardon my speech, but no shit. If someone spends 18 hours a day playing a game, ANY GAME, they're going to talk to other people and tell them why they like it so much. It's called "word of mouth" and it's raised movies from being no-name independent college films, to multi-million dollar money making machines (Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc.). It's one of the simplest laws of economics. When someone talks about your product, more people become aware of your product. When more people hear positive reviews of your product (particularly by people / magzines / website they trust), there's a higher chance they will buy your product.
As you seem to have missed the point, let me restate it. The parents are the ones that give the child the knowledge they will use to build everything else on. The parents teach the child to speak, walk, ride a bicycle, and hopefully, how to tell real-life from what appears on a TV (except the news). The parents are the ones that plop down the money for the child to spend... or the ones that drive the child to the mall to buy a game... or the ones that let the youngster rent a game with their card. Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
That's where the start the soul searching part comes in.
Right... I know I run into children under the age of 10 that are sitting alone in rooms reading the writings and philosophies of Aristotle and Socrates (who, incidentally, was accused of corruption of the youth in Greece), trying to decide what the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, just so they have a good moral, and logical argument to give their parents when they confront them about wanting to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Happens all the time. Maybe, instead of the gamers doing the soul searching (remember, we're talking about gamers with a problem telling real-life from a video game here, not the 30-yr-old playing Final Fantasy Tactics), we should be asking why the parents (or other legal guardians) aren't trying to teach their children why the man has the gun, and why he gets shot by the police when he does something very, very bad.
Should games which, if a movie, would get an R rating be available for purchase by children under 17?
No, and they're not. Watch the little monitor at Walmart the next time you buy a Mature-rated game. It clearly says "Is cust over 17?" That is, of course, if you can see it before the 16-year-old proud graduate of the 8th grade, before dropping out to work full-time at Walmart, hits the OK button and clears it. The problem isn't that children want to play the games. The problem isn't that children want to buy the games. The problem is that adults, whether they're parents, or clerks, let them.
Yes, all those actresses you mention are quite an eyeful, but they all became involved in projects that stink to high heaven.
OK, let me point out one obvious choice that's still making some good, entertaining movies / TV shows: Kirsten Dunst. She was fantastic in Interview with the Vampire in 1994, when she was only 12... that's pre-pubescent, yet now, she's making movies like Spiderman. Or, how about Christina Ricci? She's got a rack that I'd kill for, just to suckle on for an hour (or week).
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's 5 syllables, and thankfully, they haven't made a game of it... unless you count Nightfire.
Also, something in the society probably caused such people to turn to games (many examples are given in comments above). So if it's society's fault that these people are ruining their lives, it should probably society's responsibility to help correct this.
I have no problem with this theory at all. My only point is, assuming this is the case, when did the government become synanamis with society? Society isn't made up of only the government, and the government can't (although it's tried) dictate what society is. If society has caused a problem that needs fixed, society, as a whole (not as a mandate from the all-knowing, all-powerful government) try to fix it. There are countless examples of things that society, as a whole, has changed without the government having to pass a law for it.
I agree completely. If you look at any given MMORPG logically, you'll see a never-ending cycle of making money, getting to a new level, and spending your money on new armor that you can now use to kill animals and get to the next level, etc. Logically, it doesn't seem like there's much of a point.
However, I've been playing FFXI for about 3 weeks now, and I can comment (in a rational way) about the appeal. It isn't so much about playing the game, although that is the "hook" that brings you in. Once you're in, it's more about socializing. People you meet in the game can quickly become friends who you enjoy to "hang out" with. Since the only place you know them is in the virtual world, that's where you have to meet them. The virtual world of MMORPG's have become the mall of our generation.
The gaming aspect, once you're plugged in, is more secondary. For instance, next time you jump into FFXI, try to join a party of a few people who group together pretty often. At least 1/3 of the time, they'll spend chatting about one thing or another (much to the dismay of anyone who actually has a goal in mind to accomplish with that group).
Our generation has grown up with computers, and feel that using one as a medium for communication is a very viable alternative to the telephone, or even face-face. As such, the interaction between multiple people in a virtual world can seem just as enjoyable to this generation as talking to a friend on the telephone was in the 80's and 90's.
Of course, just like then, some people just never understood the point of spending hours on the phone with someone. They'd rather just meet them somewhere and do something. Neither type of person is wrong about the better way to socialize, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.
However, it would be interesting to see what the South Korean government cooks up to help curtail video game addiction.
Why is it always the government's job to step in and do something about stupid people who do stupid things? Why not just let them ruin their lives, and their credit? They're not hurting anyone but themselves, and it's their choice anyway.
Although it's not documented anywhere, I feel another reason may be because not many people in the US etc are prepared to talk about online addiction.
Technically, since you posted it, it's now documented. However, I agree. Most addicts don't want to admit they're addicts. Now that I've cleared the air, I'm here to admit that I'm addicted to Final Fantasy XI. It's a fabulous game with many possibilities that I want to sell my house, quit my job, and desert my friends and family for. I certainly feel that spending 20 hours a day trying to make gil and get to lvl 75 is far more important than working at a job, spending time with loved ones, or just generally having a good wholesome life. I fully admit my addiction, and I'm here looking for help.
In terms of site licenses for higher-end specialized software. This is covered on a need basis by individual departments. It does not make sense to have a 2,000 unit license for Oracle if only a few hundred will ever use it. Things like that typically come out of faculty research money (most of which comes from outside the Univ).
Thank you. A little more detail in how a university is set up (at least, PSU)... The university is divided up into Colleges, and each College is divided up into Departments. (For instance, the Department of Chemical Engineering is under the College of Engineering.) Under each Department, there are several (possibly hundreds) of faculty members. Many of these faculty members have budgets, mostly from individuals in their field, for the faculty member's research. A lot of faculty members have labs that are funded from those budgets. Usually, any faculty member that has a lab, has at least one graduate student. The graduate students are hired by the faculty member to research whatever the faculty member is studying.
While I generally agree that the students won't notice any major price increase for the Napster service, I will personally attest to a lot of wasted money, University-wide. Student tuition has been rising, and is getting out-of-control quickly. A little common sense, and good financial investments would go a long way to actually decreasing tuition (yes, believe it or not, it's possible to DECREASE tuition). I can personally pick out a lot of people around the area that I work that don't seem to do anything worthwhile, and in a privately-held company, would be laid off to save money. Of course, it's also possible that I just don't understand how it all works...
On the topic of site licenses, Penn State is looking into getting a site license of one kind or another for either Suse Professional 9, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. So far, I think Red Hat is closer to winning, as most of the linux users on campus already use a Red Hat product, and are familiar enough with it to trust it.
I ain't saying that they won't use Napster AND Kazaa, but for music, they'll probably use Napster unless they don't have something they want, then they will use Kazaa.
Disclaimer: I work at Penn State, as a staff member. We don't get Napster for free... we might get a discount, but I really don't care one way or the other. If I want a song, I'll download it from Kazaa at home.
I tried to fire up Kazaa yesterday to download some song I heard on the way to work... turned out it wouldn't connect. I suspect the University, or at least the College, has added filters to the firewall to block any Kazaa connections. While I'm at it, anybody know where I can download the "Magic Carpet Ride" mp3 for free while at work?
I work at PSU, and apparently, this service is free only to students. Faculty and staff members, like myself, get a discount, but it's not much.
The PSU-hosted site for the Napster service can be found here.
I've tried them both... didn't help. It seems more like a general linux issue than one specific to either Samba or Red Hat. Maybe X Windows? Maybe some general tip forum / mailing list?
Because it helps Americans AND it helps the workers overseas. AND it enables them to start buying products WE make. What we're doing now is a race to the bottom.
Why support only Americans? I'm an American, and I can easily justify my saying that a lot of Americans are lazy do-nothings who sit around, watch TV, and try to think up some way to sue someone else for making them fat. On the other hand, most of the Indians I know are extremely hard working, and would gladly work 10 hours a day for the price you'd pay one American to work for 3 hours.
Obviously, you don't run a business. In capitalism, running a business means making a profit. You don't make a profit by paying people more than they're worth just because of their nationality (side-note... is that a form of racism, or affirmative action?). That is, of course, if you prefer capitalism... Maybe you don't, I don't know. Maybe you simply don't understand the consequences of what you're suggesting.
This is an interesting concept... it'd drive the cost of goods sky high, but it is something that society might find acceptible.
I was hoping I wasn't the only one that "saw the light" about this. Your post indicates that you also understand the long-term effects of it.
For anyone that doesn't understand, let me elaborate. If the companies in the US were forced to pay people the minimum wage, despite where the employees lived, the cost of doing business would naturally rise. If a company has 10,000 employees, paying $1 more per employee is $10,000 per hour, or about $87,360,000 per year. That's a LOT of money. Given that most call centers are open 24 hours a day, and since most of them probably earn somewhere around $2-3 less than the minimum wage, turn that figure into around $150,000,000, at least. I highly doubt there are many, if ANY CEO's with that kind of salary. That's step 1.
Step 2 would be translating a higher cost of doing business into revenue, of any kind. In other words, so the company doesn't go bankrupt, they'd have to raise the price of their products. That means charging for tech support, or higher costs for computers, etc.
Step 3 means that since those things suddenly cost a lot more, people would have to get paid more to be able to afford them... so all the other companies would feel pressue to increase their payrolls. (For those other companies, repeat steps 1 & 2.)
Step 4 is obscenely simple. If all the companies raise the cost of their products / services, then by definition, the cost of living increased.
Logically, if you force the employers to pay the employees a set wage, no matter what that wage is, the cost of their products, and eventually, the cost of living, will increase. (Note: This only happens if the change is at a large scale. Increasing the base salary at a franchise gas station isn't going to do anything substantial to the cost of living.)
I can't get the DOS version of Duke Nukem to run in Windows XP. Is this at all somehow related? Is there a fix??
Actually, not a bad point... in a roundabout kind of way. Where does everyone go for help if they can't find a webpage discussing the problem they're having? Is there a very popular site, similar to Slashdot for helping people, particularly in a forum-like setting where people can post problems? Obviously, I know there are newsgroups and websites all over the place for this kind of thing, but is there one that's extremely popular? If not, I think Slashdot should start one...
For instance, I'm having a problem with Samba 3... I have pam_mount mounting user's home directories to a drive on a Windows server, but that doesn't let X Windows start because apparently certain files create hard-links, with SMB can't handle. So, what's a good way to work around it? I'm not sure what to search for, but nothing I've tried brings up anything really helpful.
Unfortunately, unless you buy a cert from one of the officially blessed cert authorities, your users get this ugly-looking "security warning" popup from their browser.
Damnit, I thought this new-fangled Mozilla stopped all popups?
P.S. That was a joke....
How did that extra statement have any effect on his argument? Would it have made any difference if it were tacked onto the end of Einsteins Special Theory, or the blueprints to your house? No, it wouldn't.
It would to me. It tells me a great deal about his psychological state. It is evidence that he is seriously motivated by politics, to the point of trying to use it in an argument where it's completely uncalled for. That type of person generally doesn't respond well to criticism, and doesn't hesitate to start arguments based on what normally would be constructive criticism. As far as blueprints to my house, if I'm hiring him to do something, I don't give a rat's ass what his political associations are, but if he puts the fireplace where I wanted the bathroom to go, he better fix it rather than claiming it's because I created a conspiracy all to keep him from turning a profit because he's a card-carrying member of the opposite political organization as me.
Little statements like that can tell you a great deal about someone, even if you haven't taken a psychology course. Even the best argument in the world can be invalidated by a statement that's at best, arrogant, presumptuous, and inaccurate... and at worst, lying, deceitful, and manipulative.
Sorry, I posted before letting my brain retreive the definition of median from my 8th-grade math class. I apparently was thinking of the "mode". My bad.
And, in your example, which would be the five customers above the median?
A median is the number which occurs the most times in a list. In this case, the list would be: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, and 10. Obviously, 1 appears most frequently, so it would be the median. The only user above the median is the 10gb user.
Personally, I'd be all for some companies offering charge-per-Gigabyte plans, because I think there's a lot of time that I don't use that many gigabytes.
I know this has been implemented in a number of cities around the world, but I don't think it's happened in the US yet. Either way, let me paint a hypothetical situation for you, and see how you'd feel if it happened to you:
You wake up in the morning, get ready for work, and before you leave, you turn on your computer to check your e-mail. You get one very important message regarding your bank account being overdrawn, and you need to take care of it immediately. So, you start up your browser, but then notice you're about 10 minutes late for work, so you leave. During the day, your computer sits, with the browser window open, chugging away... When you get home, you realize that your start page was set to something strange from the porn you were looking at the previous night, and now you have about a thousand popup ads, all playing movies and sounds. At the end of the month, you get a message from your ISP saying that you downloaded about 10 gig more than you usually do, and they want an additional $200. (Try to imagine this happening to someone who uses IE so the popups still work... not yourself, when you obviously have Mozilla installed.) What do you do?
Seriously, I can see this becoming an issue sometime down the road... I'm almost surprised it hasn't become an issue yet. Even if this hypothetical situation is a little hard to imagine, think about the people who always get spam and without thinking about it, click on the links. Imagine how many gigabytes it could add up to. I'm surprised no ISP, or no popup-vendor has been sued for it yet... but I'd be willing to say it'll happen within a year of a major ISP putting a limit on the amount of traffic you're allowed to download.
If graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people without any responsibility or consequences for the action isn't terrorism, then I'm afraid I don't know what it is ...
Then I'm afraid you don't know what is. Terrorism isn't the graphical portrayal of the killing of masses of people. It IS the killing of masses of people, or the threat to kill masses of people. The definition for terrorism is technically something that "causes terror". If you want to get really anal about it, some movies are "terrorism" because they cause terror. However, violent games generally aren't terrifying, therefore they are not "terrorism".
By your definition, showing pictures of the earthquake in Iran could be considered "terrorism"... but it's not.
Anyway, you might want to cut down on your cynical evaluation skills and work a little on your diplomatic objectivity, Mr. Smartass.
For someone preaching about the joys of no television or video games, you certainly seem to spend enough time on a computer. Also, for someone criticizing someone else about their diplomatic objectivity, you certainly haven't demonstrated much diplomatic skill yourself, Mr. Smartass.
This conversation has nothing to do with my parenting skills...
Oh god forbid we question your parenting skills, but it's perfectly fine for you to question everybody else's. How many people in the past 10 years have died and had their deaths blamed on video games? Let's go with 1000. Now, how many deaths have been the result of perfectly natural causes? Probably easily into the tens of millions. Now, how many people have played violent video games in the past 10 years? Also probably in the tens of millions. It seems to me that IF (big if) video games have a direct link to violent behavior, the link is miniscule at best, and can only influence the dumbest of children with the very worst parents on the face of the earth. Also, IF (again, big IF) the said 1000 deaths were proven to be directly caused by one person playing too many video games, why would you want to punish and limit the freedom of speech of the other fifty million people that play games without any negative consequences whatsoever?
If you want to get harsh, try this on. If even 20,000 people died from video games in the past 10 years, that's STILL only 0.1% of ALL the people that OWN a Playstation 2, not counting those that own a computer, Nintendo product, or Xbox. Even better, if it takes 1 person to kill 2 people, you're only talking about 10,000 nutcases out there in the past 10 years. I might remind you that in the year 2003, almost 600 people were murdered in CHICAGO ALONE.
Your continual inane babble about the terrors of consumerism, and the imagined lack of responsibility that most Americans take for their actions, that you keep forgetting to argue the issue. You'd win a lot more people to your point of view if you could keep your arguments void of baseless insults and personal attacks against those you're debating. Therefore, I must conclude that you are nothing but a troll looking more to piss people off than to convert them to your way of thinking. Good luck with that.
I don't know what your love affair with "Madison Avenue" is, but I really don't understand it. I would surmise that you had a love interest who, at one time, lived or worked on Madison Avenue who broke it off with you because you didn't give her enough attention. I really don't understand what a "Madison Avenue crack-whore" has to do with whether playing GTA causes a 10-yr-old to think it's OK to shoot someone, but can we just get past your inner demons for a minute?
To address the statement you made immediately preceding the "crack-whore" statement...
Having said that, I will note that there seems to be no really good reason for all the violence in video games other than it seems to really, really grab peoples attention.
Let me ask you... if you take out all the violence in all the video games, tv shows, movies, and books, what do you have left? Boring crap. Here's an example: Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. After you take out all the violence in it, what's left besides some boring 20-page book (or 10 minute movie) that makes no sense? The fact is that violence is fun. You don't have to like that fact, but it's true.
Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
Yes, especially if there is a Television in the household, and it is actively being used without any consideration for the consequences...
That's really the meat of your argument, isn't it? You believe that children pay more attention to the television than to their parents. That may be correct, but the television is no substitute for parenting. It never has been, and probably never will be. So, to expand further on your argument, why don't you explain just WHY a television is expected to do the parenting more than the parent is? It certainly wasn't that way in my youth...
What if a company comes out this year with a new blockbuster game where you serially rape women and then must dump the bodies? We had a rape video game already, Custer's Revenge and it generated more media hype back in the 80's than anyything RockStar games ever made. What about a Racist video game? Where your band of KKK members in a diablo style game run throughout the south killing blacks? is that acceptable? and it's "counterstrike type" of expansion pack where an angry black mob goes through killing all the whites?
Yes, that's acceptable. Why wouldn't it be? Because it's offensive to YOU? If you don't like it, don't buy it.
granted it's not only the rich kids problem, It happens in most income groups... but usually low income families pay much more attention to their children and are far less likely to buy a $50.00 game for their child instead of that week's worth of groceries.
I'm personally offended by this remark. My father and mother were divorced when I was about 1. My father is very well-off, and always took plenty of time to teach me how to be successful in life. My mother also did, but none of her friends did to their children. I've lived on both sides of the fence, both rich and poor, at different times in my life, and I have to say that the "rich" people seem to understand that they will be judged both on what they do, and what their children do. The poor people are too busy living paycheck to paycheck, smoking, drinking, buying drugs, and going to bars to really take the time to educate their children on being successful (not that they could even if they wanted to). There are exceptions, certainly, but that's just been my experience. Also, I really don't appreciate you bringing obvious class warfare into a debate that has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you make.
It's not my kids' parents that I'm worried about. It's the crappy parents down the street who worry me.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was something my father told me when I was about 12. He said, "Son, you'll never be able to control other people's actions. You'll only ever be able to control your own." You'll never be able to control the crappy parents down the street. There will always be some form of media showing children that it's cool to do something wrong. You can only hope that the upbringing you give your children has a positive impact on their friends, which raise their children the right way, etc. Which leads me to another great piece of advice my father gave me. "The best revenge is success." Raise your children to be successful, in every aspect of their life, and others will envy them, and hopefully, try to imitate them.
For a more immediate solution, why don't you invite the other parent's son over to play with your daughter so you can have as much time to influence him as possible?
Your whole argument is predicated by the assumption that the media, the government, or the game makers FORCE, one way or another, a child to play a video game. That's not true. The child, just like any other person, has free will and can choose whether they're going to play it or not. For example, I rented Arc the Lad for the PS2 a couple weeks ago from Gamefly.com and I haven't even booted it up yet. You know why? I have other things to do. I know the graphics are cool, and I know the game is probably very good, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
It seems like you posted 2 differing opinions within the same post. The whole post up until the last paragraph is saying that the children aren't responsible for what they do because they're the unwitting victims of the media, the government, and the video game producers. The last paragraph completely contradicts that by saying that each person SHOULD take responsibility for what they've done.
The media is motivated by money. They run stories that make people watch so their ratings go up. They're also motivated by their personal political beliefs, which seems pretty evident, given that news anchors are people with opinions too. (Tony Snow substituted for Rush Limbaugh when Rush was off the air, for instance. On the other hand, just about all the anchors on CNN are biased the opposite way.)
The government, particularly individual politicians, want your votes. They'll tell you whatever they think you want to hear as long as you vote for them. If Little Johnny fights a lot at school, it isn't your fault for not teaching him that fighting is bad... it's Grand Theft Auto's fault for letting him play as a bad guy.
The video game producers are also motivated by money. They want to sell as many games as possible. Don't forget, it's a business. You so gleefully point out your example of some people playing a game for 18 hours a day and the executives being happy. Pardon my speech, but no shit. If someone spends 18 hours a day playing a game, ANY GAME, they're going to talk to other people and tell them why they like it so much. It's called "word of mouth" and it's raised movies from being no-name independent college films, to multi-million dollar money making machines (Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc.). It's one of the simplest laws of economics. When someone talks about your product, more people become aware of your product. When more people hear positive reviews of your product (particularly by people / magzines / website they trust), there's a higher chance they will buy your product.
As you seem to have missed the point, let me restate it. The parents are the ones that give the child the knowledge they will use to build everything else on. The parents teach the child to speak, walk, ride a bicycle, and hopefully, how to tell real-life from what appears on a TV (except the news). The parents are the ones that plop down the money for the child to spend... or the ones that drive the child to the mall to buy a game... or the ones that let the youngster rent a game with their card. Is it really too much to expect that they'll also be the ones to instruct the child what is morally acceptable and what is not?
That's where the start the soul searching part comes in.
Right... I know I run into children under the age of 10 that are sitting alone in rooms reading the writings and philosophies of Aristotle and Socrates (who, incidentally, was accused of corruption of the youth in Greece), trying to decide what the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, just so they have a good moral, and logical argument to give their parents when they confront them about wanting to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Happens all the time. Maybe, instead of the gamers doing the soul searching (remember, we're talking about gamers with a problem telling real-life from a video game here, not the 30-yr-old playing Final Fantasy Tactics), we should be asking why the parents (or other legal guardians) aren't trying to teach their children why the man has the gun, and why he gets shot by the police when he does something very, very bad.
Should games which, if a movie, would get an R rating be available for purchase by children under 17?
No, and they're not. Watch the little monitor at Walmart the next time you buy a Mature-rated game. It clearly says "Is cust over 17?" That is, of course, if you can see it before the 16-year-old proud graduate of the 8th grade, before dropping out to work full-time at Walmart, hits the OK button and clears it. The problem isn't that children want to play the games. The problem isn't that children want to buy the games. The problem is that adults, whether they're parents, or clerks, let them.
Yes, all those actresses you mention are quite an eyeful, but they all became involved in projects that stink to high heaven.
OK, let me point out one obvious choice that's still making some good, entertaining movies / TV shows: Kirsten Dunst. She was fantastic in Interview with the Vampire in 1994, when she was only 12... that's pre-pubescent, yet now, she's making movies like Spiderman. Or, how about Christina Ricci? She's got a rack that I'd kill for, just to suckle on for an hour (or week).