Violent video games have become the scapegoat for societies problems with violence because they are an easy target. Violent games can desensitize children to violence, but this is the fault of the child's parent / guardian. Children have a limited natural sense of what is right and wrong, it is the responsibility of parents to help their children develop a value system that works in society.
The problem is that too many parents fall into one of two categories:
a) The parents who shelter there children from all negative stimulus, and then turn them lose on society at 18 without the ability to determine right from wrong themselves. These new adults now go into society without having someone to tell them what to do and act out on the impulses.
b) The parents who do nothing to develop the child's sense of right from wrong. These parents belive that by never having a consequence for any action their child will magically develop a set moral values. Children who are raised like this can develop tendancies to lash out because they have been taught that their actions have no consequences.
Instead of banning violent video games, we should ban bad parents.
We expect the temperatures to go up due to solar cycles, but they don't come close to explaining the aberrant rate of increase unless there have been developments I haven't heard about.
Actually as far as I know none of the data on historic global warming is able give details accurate 50 or 100 year periods. We know that the earth's temperature cycles between Warm and Cold, but we don't know for sure what causes it. This leaves the scientific community unsure as to the role of natural processes and the activities of man in global warming. It is because the scientists of the world cannot completely agree (they do however agree that the planet is heating up) on the cause of global warming that politicians can sell various "solutions".
Of course in terms of additional land becoming available in the arctic this is all eventually irrelevant, because the end result of global warming is the next ice age.
You don't need lots of cash to defend a patent in court, especially if the company you are suing has already sold large numbers of the infringing product. There is always a lawyer willing to take the case for a percentage of the judgement. The only catch is that if you don't have a lot of money, you may not get very much from the judgement (although you lawyer will be very happy with his new found wealth).
One possible solution to prevent classic games from being lost is to get the copyright holders to donate the games to a charitable organization in exchange for a tax reciept. The charitable organization could then sell the game, or release it into the public domain.
Here in Canada guns are basically outlawed already...
First: You must obtain a useless gun licence (A guy here in Manitoba registered his hot glue 'gun' and his heat 'gun').
Second: You are required to individualy register each gun you own buy its serial number. Under the legislation this also gives the police the right to spot check your gun storage with any sort of search warrent (and anything else they see in your home while doing this would be admissable in court).
The goverment assumes that all criminals will register there guns, this is logical isn't it?
I agree with you statement that DVD burner's will be olbsolete in a couple of years but disagree that DVD burner's will never catch on. This is because most people (especially computer geeks) only expect their hardware to last a few years.
DVD burner's will be used extensivly for the next few years when the will be replaced by something better. Just like CD's are now being replaced by DVD's
Another issue to look at before you start spending time and money on technology for your students you will need find out what limitations the school division's computer policy places on you.
In many divisions only division approved equipment/software may be used in schools. You may need to justify every little detail of your plan to the divisions IT department (even if you are using your own money)
IF microsoft is spending 3 million in 2002 on contributions, how much are they spending on unreported little perks (a notebook to "try out" for a couple of years, fully functional "demo" copy of software, etc)?
This smells to me like a marketing ploy. Remember Showgirls?, one of the worst movies ever but by stirring up controversy the movie generated sufficent sales to be profitable.
Since profitablity is the bottem line for Acclaim here, by getting the media to report on major chains refusing to carry the game they will probally generate more sales and hence greater profits.
Except that Ford does not have a virtual monopoly.
Micorsoft's controls the desktop OS market and hence, if they decided to charge for security features the majority of people would have no choice but to spend the money.
Of course people could always switch to Linux (like I did) but the associated frustrations with initial configuration would prevent most users from sucessfully making the switch.
Slashdot Birthday -- Drop in productivity
on
Slashdot Turns 5
·
· Score: 5, Funny
That's Interesting, that corresponds with a slow drop in productivity of the Tech sector...
What I find ironic about this case is since MIT itself commited the copying it can be justified as a mistake.
But, if a student at MIT had commited the exact same type of copying for an assignment and been caught, they would have been accused of academic dishonisty and punished for their actions
To me this looks like a good reason to get a DVD burner (well as soon as I know that it will work under linux) but I worry about sony putting some sort of hardware based DRM (Digital Rights Managment) into the drive.
i.e. preventing the drive from recording in raw mode
Actually I hated it. I hated the stressed feeling when nothing seemed to work, I hated not being able to use my computer for what I wanted when I wanted (This is the reason I switched from M$).
I do enjoy the results but the journey was not easy and diffinatly NOT enjoyable.
I am a new Linux user and have tried both the new Mandrake and Red Hat.
Mandrake, internet connection worked (i.e. could browse web and read e-mail) but soundcard didn't work.
Red Hat, sound card worked, but no LAN connection. After a couple of hours of research I finally found information on the config files and got my LAN working.
Don't even ask how long getting all my software up and running has taken (Lets just say it was most of my vacation time)
Back in '96 I got my first computer with Windows 95 installed. Every single computer I have had since then I have built myself and I always installed windows in less than 2 hours.
Well last night I finally made the switch to Linux. 12 hours later and I still don't have sound, can't play movies or even use half my drives. Every single Linux HOWTO I have found assumes a basic working knowledge of linux (which I don't have and I really don't think that the majority of Windows users would have).
Installing linux was an adventure in itself. Red Hat installed but I couldn't get any sort of GUI to start, so I cleared that off and tried Debian (impossible for a begginer), then I finally tried Mandrake. Two install attempts with mandrake and I had linux running and could use KDE as a GUI. That was last night, I have spent all day today (I had the day off) trying to get Linux running the basic functions I need, without much sucess. I did manage to get Samba partially working but it won't allow me to share all the directory's I want. As I previosly said I can't get sound, can't install any software, basicaly all I can do is surf the web and get e-mail.
To to sum up my little rant, Linux may be easier to install for expert users but for the majority (IMHO) of windows users who install their own OS's linux is a major expidition.
I personally will be using Windows XP the rest of the week and will continue trying to get Linux up and running this weekend.
Slashdot Mirror
Violent video games have become the scapegoat for societies problems with violence because they are an easy target. Violent games can desensitize children to violence, but this is the fault of the child's parent / guardian. Children have a limited natural sense of what is right and wrong, it is the responsibility of parents to help their children develop a value system that works in society.
The problem is that too many parents fall into one of two categories:
a) The parents who shelter there children from all negative stimulus, and then turn them lose on society at 18 without the ability to determine right from wrong themselves. These new adults now go into society without having someone to tell them what to do and act out on the impulses.
b) The parents who do nothing to develop the child's sense of right from wrong. These parents belive that by never having a consequence for any action their child will magically develop a set moral values. Children who are raised like this can develop tendancies to lash out because they have been taught that their actions have no consequences.
Instead of banning violent video games, we should ban bad parents.
I'll take that action. I don't think it will take more than 4.8 HOURS never mind two whole days.
We expect the temperatures to go up due to solar cycles, but they don't come close to explaining the aberrant rate of increase unless there have been developments I haven't heard about.
Actually as far as I know none of the data on historic global warming is able give details accurate 50 or 100 year periods. We know that the earth's temperature cycles between Warm and Cold, but we don't know for sure what causes it. This leaves the scientific community unsure as to the role of natural processes and the activities of man in global warming. It is because the scientists of the world cannot completely agree (they do however agree that the planet is heating up) on the cause of global warming that politicians can sell various "solutions".
Of course in terms of additional land becoming available in the arctic this is all eventually irrelevant, because the end result of global warming is the next ice age.
You don't need lots of cash to defend a patent in court, especially if the company you are suing has already sold large numbers of the infringing product. There is always a lawyer willing to take the case for a percentage of the judgement. The only catch is that if you don't have a lot of money, you may not get very much from the judgement (although you lawyer will be very happy with his new found wealth).
Anything is possible,
although I would rather bet my money on Microsoft licensing vista under the GPL.
the flag of england
http://www.maplin.co.uk/images/Full/32731i0.jpg
One possible solution to prevent classic games from being lost is to get the copyright holders to donate the games to a charitable organization in exchange for a tax reciept. The charitable organization could then sell the game, or release it into the public domain.
Can they run linux?
Here in Canada guns are basically outlawed already...
First: You must obtain a useless gun licence (A guy here in Manitoba registered his hot glue 'gun' and his heat 'gun').
Second: You are required to individualy register each gun you own buy its serial number. Under the legislation this also gives the police the right to spot check your gun storage with any sort of search warrent (and anything else they see in your home while doing this would be admissable in court).
The goverment assumes that all criminals will register there guns, this is logical isn't it?
This reminds me of a quote from my high school science teacher:
"Science CAN NOT prove any theory, it can only disprove"
The issue with things like ghosts is that we CAN'T disprove them.
I agree with you statement that DVD burner's will be olbsolete in a couple of years but disagree that DVD burner's will never catch on. This is because most people (especially computer geeks) only expect their hardware to last a few years.
DVD burner's will be used extensivly for the next few years when the will be replaced by something better. Just like CD's are now being replaced by DVD's
Another issue to look at before you start spending time and money on technology for your students you will need find out what limitations the school division's computer policy places on you.
In many divisions only division approved equipment/software may be used in schools. You may need to justify every little detail of your plan to the divisions IT department (even if you are using your own money)
IF microsoft is spending 3 million in 2002 on contributions, how much are they spending on unreported little perks (a notebook to "try out" for a couple of years, fully functional "demo" copy of software, etc)?
You may want to do what I did in my house. Run the cat5 through the cold air returns.
No hot air travels in these ducts but you can run cable through them without major difficulty.
Everybody win's: You get your broadband, owners don't get holes, girlfriend don't have to look at cat5 all the time
This smells to me like a marketing ploy. Remember Showgirls?, one of the worst movies ever but by stirring up controversy the movie generated sufficent sales to be profitable.
Since profitablity is the bottem line for Acclaim here, by getting the media to report on major chains refusing to carry the game they will probally generate more sales and hence greater profits.
Except that Ford does not have a virtual monopoly.
Micorsoft's controls the desktop OS market and hence, if they decided to charge for security features the majority of people would have no choice but to spend the money.
Of course people could always switch to Linux (like I did) but the associated frustrations with initial configuration would prevent most users from sucessfully making the switch.
That's Interesting, that corresponds with a slow drop in productivity of the Tech sector...
Hmmm
IMHO this is great news. More articles such as this might actually convince software company's to port their products to linux as well as Mac's
What I find ironic about this case is since MIT itself commited the copying it can be justified as a mistake.
But, if a student at MIT had commited the exact same type of copying for an assignment and been caught, they would have been accused of academic dishonisty and punished for their actions
To me this looks like a good reason to get a DVD burner (well as soon as I know that it will work under linux) but I worry about sony putting some sort of hardware based DRM (Digital Rights Managment) into the drive.
i.e. preventing the drive from recording in raw mode
That's simple...
Three piece suits, $500 shoes, etc.
Actually I hated it. I hated the stressed feeling when nothing seemed to work, I hated not being able to use my computer for what I wanted when I wanted (This is the reason I switched from M$).
I do enjoy the results but the journey was not easy and diffinatly NOT enjoyable.
I am a new Linux user and have tried both the new Mandrake and Red Hat. Mandrake, internet connection worked (i.e. could browse web and read e-mail) but soundcard didn't work. Red Hat, sound card worked, but no LAN connection. After a couple of hours of research I finally found information on the config files and got my LAN working. Don't even ask how long getting all my software up and running has taken (Lets just say it was most of my vacation time)
Back in '96 I got my first computer with Windows 95 installed. Every single computer I have had since then I have built myself and I always installed windows in less than 2 hours.
Well last night I finally made the switch to Linux. 12 hours later and I still don't have sound, can't play movies or even use half my drives. Every single Linux HOWTO I have found assumes a basic working knowledge of linux (which I don't have and I really don't think that the majority of Windows users would have).
Installing linux was an adventure in itself. Red Hat installed but I couldn't get any sort of GUI to start, so I cleared that off and tried Debian (impossible for a begginer), then I finally tried Mandrake. Two install attempts with mandrake and I had linux running and could use KDE as a GUI. That was last night, I have spent all day today (I had the day off) trying to get Linux running the basic functions I need, without much sucess. I did manage to get Samba partially working but it won't allow me to share all the directory's I want. As I previosly said I can't get sound, can't install any software, basicaly all I can do is surf the web and get e-mail.
To to sum up my little rant, Linux may be easier to install for expert users but for the majority (IMHO) of windows users who install their own OS's linux is a major expidition.
I personally will be using Windows XP the rest of the week and will continue trying to get Linux up and running this weekend.
Hmm... I guess it is time to load a couple gigs of open source software into my shared folders and rename everything
Pirated Warez - (Insert Program Name)