Not that I think that this would be a lovely idea, but you do understand that they're not talking about taking pot-shots at stuff to make a pretty light show, right? They're talking about the ability of the US to protect itself, its allies, and relatively defensely non-hostile countries from a highly-armed, technologically-advanced aggressor. There are some crazy people out there with access to launch platforms and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
The range of ground-based missiles (to use but one example) continues to increase, and there really is no densely populated area which will be safe from rogue nations. Increasingly, WMDs rely on space-based assets for command-and-control and guidance. When a launch is detected, and one of these missiles is being directed towards DC (or Tokyo or Tel Aviv or whatever population center you care about), you want the USAF should wring their hands and say, "We'd love to try to throw that there missile off track, but it would make a gosh awful mess in space."?
As other posters have pointed out, nations must have contingency plans, must think about the unthinkable, because there are well-armed crazies out there. Like the US nuclear arsenal, no sane person ever wants to see it used, but it sure makes sense to have well-thought out plans on how you will respond if that is how someone chooses to attack you.
There are some large companies around here that do this sort of Halloween thing; however, it's not just the kids of the employees who are invited in. They bring in special ed classes to trick-or-treat, and throw them a big party, give them 1-on-1 attention, and even send them off with a few company-store items that they can use in their classroom--all for free. The kids (and teachers and parents) love it, of course.
The employees really enjoy it because they not only get to goof around and (optionally) dress silly on a workday afternoon, but they know that they are doing something special and meaningful for somebody else; it's not just one more odious team-building exercise. The companies are behind it because it's a very healthy way for teams to come together, it's on-site so there is little cash or lost-hours cost involved, and it's pretty good publicity.
This sort of public-service, everybody-wins activity is just really great, and I can't recommend it enough. (Or commend those companies enough.) One company had a Habitat for Humanity party and helped build a home for someone in need. A company I used to work for had a competition at Thanksgiving to see which floor could bring in the most food for the community food pantry (with surprisingly little unauthorized movement of cans from one floor to another).
There are lots and lots of opportunities for these sorts of things in each city, and there is always something for every size of organization. (If you don't know where to start looking, try asking your local principal or your local office of the United Way.) I'd encourage you to find one that fits your community and corporate culture and make it one of your annual events.
Yup. My wife has always told me that her favorite book as a child was "James and the Giant Peach". I'm going in to confront her now, and try to determine just what sort of revolutionary or terrorist she is. If you find out that I've been blown up during the night, you all know what happened...
Yes, I'm afraid there really are times when IE is required. I do most of my browsing on Solaris and Linux without IE, but... when it's time to do my timesheet at the end of the day, or need to use some other beloved corporate app, I have to fire up IE. I've tried a half-dozen other browsers, but the corporate jackboots make it so that these pages will only work properly on IE.
And since I want to get paid for all my/. reading....
Yup. In fact, if you feed your dog the right balance of dry food, he or she will produce a very nicely phosphorous urine that will make your grass greener than you can imagine. You could always tell how far from the tree my dogs chain could reach by looking at the lawn!
Not that you're wrong--and not that I'm interested in the bowel movements of characters, either--but I don't think the situation is all that bad. Some people write long, some write short.
However, maybe hard numbers would be more helpful than subjective opinions. Anybody have a little time on their hands? You could get the list of the 10 or 20 best-selling SF novels for, say, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, and 2003, and tally up how many pages they each have. Do averages and deviation, and let's examine the data.
It would also be useful to compare the numbers with the best-sellers for other fiction genres, and see if there are similar trends. I mean, Stephenson is hardly the only author to push the far end of the bell curve on length: consider James A. Michener, who regularly cranked out fiction of over a thousand pages. (Or how about Bill Clinton's autobiography!)
Homes can be fitted with "reverse meters" that allow you to sell power back to the power company (sample/. mention). So, collect all the solar energy you can--collect the entire set!
Re:Personally, I would go one step further.
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The previous poster didn't say that all of our laws came from the Bible, just that the roots are there. And if you studied the history of law, you would see an easily discernible tradition of the practice and principles of law coming down from relgious codes, including the 10 Commandments and the Code of Hammurabi.
Further, in your apparent anti-Christian prejudice, you miss a fairly obvious historical point: that seperating out "civil law" from religion in early societies is seldom possible or useful. In most societies of early history, the religious leadership and the civil leadership were either integrated or effectively the same.
Judaism, for example, from whence we receive the 10 Commandments, can generally be considered a theocracy. God's laws were the civil laws; there was not a seperate code of civil laws, even though there was the beginning of what I suppose we would call today "case law" (just as there were theological commentaries which interpreted scripture).
Why is this such a problem for you? It's no different than pointing out that the American use of fireworks, so closely associated with the most significant holiday in the American civil religion, has its roots in China. Would you try to disprove that by saying that Americans are lousy at being Chinese? Or that American fireworks don't have their roots in China because Americans horribly mistreated Chinese immigrants?
Whether or not the legal tradition was applied well, and whether or not you feel that the legal tradition has been applied by good people, American legal principles do have roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Far be it from me to trust a democratic kind of voting process... But have you considered the possibility that if a couple billion people think you're wrong, maybe you are? I know that truth and factuality are not established by popularity, and just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you, but perhaps you could be less troll-like and intentionally offensive, and express your opinions with a tad more humility.
Others have managed to contribute positively to these conversations while holding opinions pretty similar to yours. What happened to your psyche that has hurt so badly that you are unable to do the same?
I don't want to turn this into a dead horse which we take turns beating--even if that is a Slashdot tradition.;-) But...
After having played a good game of Chess with someone, I always feel relaxed and I also have the impression of having shared something with this person.
That is admirable and salutary. However, you wrote (appropriately) in the first-person. Chess has that effect on you. There are many others for whom the opposite is true. I could introduce you to friends I grew up with (yes, I was a member of the Chess Club) for whom playing was an act of war, and for whom losing was decidedly not an opportunity to "admire the beauty of the game". And even your statement that chess and Go are "the best games ever" could be contentious and divisive for some.
Your revised statement in this post, that
games can unite people
(my emphasis) is different than your original post, where you said, "Games unite people." Without reservation, I agree with the revised statement. Certainly, that is the premise behind the Olympic Games.
However, my point is that they do not necessarily have that effect, nor are games an effectual means of uniting all peoples; and that, in a quite similar fashion, religion can be something that unites people--a statement which is not negated by the many historical examples of religion(s) having the opposite, divisionary effect.
If we are ever to come together as humans, we must put aside or reinterpret those things which divide us--including our propensity for labeling things as divisive. Yes, that is somewhat oxymoronic. But there is great truth in the ironical statement by Tom Lehrer from many years ago: "I know there are people out there who do not love their fellow man... and I hate people like that!"
Rather than determining that there are things which we do not like, which are not for us, or with which we do not agree, and labeling those things as "bad" or in some way pernicious, we have to find ways to accept those things which work for others to the good of society, and to honor the positive aspects of those things while simultaneously respectfully critiquing those things which are a detriment to society. That will not be easy, but I believe it is the only thing which will sustainably work.
Oh please. These must be really weird times, when people even _think_ about putting spirituality in games.
Just because it isn't a spirituality (or, more generally, religiosity) that you recognize or endorse doesn't mean that it isn't there, and hasn't been for a long time. Many posters have cited loads of examples going back many years. Maybe you just aren't much of a gamer? Or aren't observant? Or are your own religious prejudices just surfacing?
Games unite people.
That's a pretty interesting statement. I won't say at the outset that I disagree, but I'd sure like to see the evidence on which you base that. Can you back that up at all?
Aren't you both making the same mistake of generalizing, while accusing the other of doing the same? "All gamers are this way", and, "All Christians do this". This doesn't seem to be helpful, nor is it accurate. I consider myself to fit both labels, and these comments do not reflect my feelings or opinions at all.
The OP made an interesting point about how it sometimes seems like it's okay to pick on one group (perhaps because they are perceived to be in a position of power or privilege), but not okay to pick on a different group that is defined by a similar but opposing characteristic. That seems like a point which could be validly explored.
Can anyone offer any evidence or logic to support or refute that point? Or has this thread just irrecoverably devolved into a flamewar?
Re:Keep Religion in the Church
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Now why would you say that? Do you really mean to say that someone who is possibly being prepared to go into a science profession should not learn about the existing of opposing (as well as supporting) religious views on issues like the origin of the universe, and go out unprepared to respond to the criticism they will, no doubt, encounter? That students preparing to enter the biomedical or genetics industry should be hamstrung in learning biomedical ethics, one of the cornerstones for which is traditional religious doctrine?
(And I'm only addressing religion in the science classroom: the role religion and religious beliefs has played in history and international conflict is huge!)
Religion, IMHO, has an absolutely firm place in the classroom. I simply believe that religious views should not be promoted, nor should they be used as substitutes for secular knowledge and approaches.
As far as the place of religion in video games, well, I believe that game designers ought to be allowed to pursue whatever theme they want, however they want (superficially, metaphorically, or in depth). It's their game, their reflection on society or what they find entertaining--whether that's religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin!
Re:Why should we care?
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Wow. For a reaction that strong to a topic which is fairly innocuous, you must be carrying around a lot of pain at some very deep levels. I hope that there is someone with expertise in such things that you are talking to.
I don't think there was a suggestion that religion should or would be forced on others. Rather it was a reflection on the absence of real religious practice. Regardless of what you think of religion and religious people, there are more people on this planet who adhere to some form of religion than people who do not.
While (as other posters have noted) games are largely about entertainment, some sim games attempt to reflect the real world. I find it at least worth noting with interest that the majority of these games do not have characters doing religious things. I also note that some of them have sim characters that sleep, but they don't take a dump or try to get laid, which are also things many of us try to do every day.
(The characters on TV shows like Friends and The Brady Bunch hardly ever go to work, either. Maybe the boss doesn't let them read Slashdot...)
If the very thought of religion in a game is threatening, perhaps there is something deeper that needs to be addressed...
Re:Assumptions are irritating
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Just looking at the miriad of splinter groups within the judeo-christian pantheon of religions and the innumerable hotly contested details that caused them to split in the first place should make it clear why a strongly religious game with mass appeal [no pun intended, I suppose:-)] would be difficult to create.
Actually, I would think the opposite would be true, because of the very point which you make. Look at the incredible violence involved in some of these nominally religious disputes, and consider the mass appeal of incredible violence in games.
It would be easy to just superimpose one's favorite first-person shoot-em onto Belfast, the Middle East, or any other hotbed. It would only require a little more imagination to convert a richer simulation game into one of those settings and incorporate the powerful role that religion and religious leaders can play. (For good or for ill: consider the effect on the game dynamic when you convince a cleric to espouse or eschew a peace initiative.) A realistic game feature could also consideration of the impact of attacking religious non-combatant hard and soft targets.
I think what would be difficult is to make a game like that which does not severely offend one or the other of those religious groups. It's safe to make a game where you kill monster or Nazis because there is not a strong pro-Nazi lobby in the gaming industry, and undead hit squads won't come to your home and kill your family in real life; but offending a group with economic power or suicide bombers at its disposal could get a little dicey.
Re:Church, the most boring game ever.
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The last time I went to Church, I fell asleep.
Then you went to a stupid church, and need to look for a different distributor.
"Church, the product" can meet the needs of many consumers (to continue the commercial theme). There is music, social interaction, and free coffee. Worship services and sermons are opportunities to deal with crucial social issues of the day, explore deeply spiritual and philosophical topics, and receive instruction on intimate psychological matters. Churches are also places where people can organize into collectives to further the social good--either directly, through projects of their own, or by rallying behind other organizations like Habitat for Humanity or Heifer Project. If the church you went to has lousy music, people, and coffee, doesn't challenge you intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and morally, and doesn't do worthwhile things for others, then you picked a crappy church.
I readily admit that there are indeed many crappy churches on the market, but I would ask for the concession that there may be non-crappy churches also. I've gone to several that contributed significantly to the lives of the people who showed up and the community around them.
Please don't paint everything and everyone with a single, broad brush. Your attitude is akin to having a bad experience at Sears and saying that all stores are bad, or shopping in general is bad. If you don't like the store, by all means, be a smart shopper and take your business elsewhere; don't decide to forswear shopping or malign all the stores that carry a similar product line.
You know, I agree with your thesis. The point of shows like this is entertainment and the opportunity to take a more intellectual approach to exploring important topics of the day, not the maintenance and reinforcement of doctrinal purity and orthodoxy of a series of fictional works.
And unlike SW, ST is not a big serialized story. The phrase "framework" is appropriate and helpful.
That said, a reasonable effort should be made to respect continuity. All I ask is that, while I watch the movie, there are not a bunch of times when my head jerks up and I want to say, "What? That's not right!" For example, if they insert Kirk as a young middie on a ship not previously mentioned in the ST "canon", it doesn't seem like it should be a big deal. But if they make that character into something that everybody knows he was not (like half-Ferengi or shy around women), that would be distracting to many of us.
Adam here is being a bit harsh. But essentially, he's right.
I'm one of those annoying, gifted jackasses. I have 4 kids who are also gifted. So I have a good viewpoint on this topic, and have had to consider how to guide my kids (two of whom are in college).
The one lesson that I haven't seemed to get across to them, and which you probably need, is: the universe doesn't give a randy fart if you're bored, if an assigment is beneath you, etc. There are things that you do because they're expected, and you have to get over your own sense of specialness and suffer just like everybody else.
When we were in school, we would punish teachers who were dolts or who failed to make class interesting by getting bad grades, and reward teachers we liked by plowing tons of extra effort into assignments that were exciting. The former was just stupid, but I didn't figure that out until graduate school. What we should've done was said to ourselves, "Dang, this manure is pathetically easy; so I'm going to finish it in fast motion, and then I can go back to writing my own Space Invaders emulator without (a) getting grief from authority figures or (b) getting kicked out of school." I'm bright, but apparently I wasn't bright enough to figure out that I was punishing myself and not the Pointy-Haired Instructors until I'd been on academic probation.
(My favorite evidence of this pattern of punishing the boring and unchallenging was that my GPA went up every single semester as I was able to stop taken moronic general ed classes and got permission to take upper division classes.)
Not only that, but you're not really unique (any more than anyone else). If you really are gifted, then there are at least, what, 2 million people just like you in the US alone; and maybe 40 or 50 million in the world. You just infrequently occur.
What those numbers mean is that you are not deserving of special privileges--some sort of Get Out of Jail Free card from ridiculous assignments and PHBs. It means, rather, that you have special responsibilities, and perhaps that you may get some special opportunities if you use your gifts wisely. If you blow off hoop-jumping, you won't do well enough to open the really interesting doors that can open to you 4 years from now. And no matter how challenging or interesting a direction you find for yourself then, if you don't fulfil the responsibilities which come with being gifted, you will struggle for years over whether your life is meaningful.
So: don't be hung up on yourself; challenge yourself to do well in the tedious, required classes; take advantage of college to indulge your laudably varied interests; set yourself up to do whatever you want after your undergrad time is done; and then do something meaningful. Do this, and you will be glad that you are gifted, and so will those whose life you touch.
I don't disagree with your main point about the burden of proof. However, it should be pointed out that it's not so easy to "prove" that evidence has not been tampered with. Using your example, if you try to
...prove that the logs had been falsified. I could do this a number of ways. I could compare the server log to my machine's logs to find that the logs disagree...
you could easily falsify your own logs, in this example, and then demonstrate that the (actually valid) log in evidence disagrees. It's a tangled web indeed.
In the future, juries will be required to render increasingly sophisticated judgements about the believability of technology-based evidence. Courts will have to accept all plausible evidence, and it will be up to a a group of people who were selected from a randomly drawn pool--not one comprised of qualified and knowledgable IT workers--to determine what weight to give the conflicting evidence. And just like in the OJ case, they will be making those decisions based on subjective intangibles, because technology will not be able to provide them with undoubtable answers.
The parent poster (no pun intended!) is absolutely right, and I hope the original questioner has read this far down. Everybody in the working world has this problem to face, not just coders. When I was a wage slave back in the day, almost every day my boss would come to me and say, "So-and-so didn't come in again. Can you do a double?" Factory works to doctors, as posted above, it's all the same. And, it's not just parents, either: many of us have older parents we take care of, are part of the Red Cross disaster response team, etc.
It is indeed all about boundaries. Of course, one does need to compromise occasionally--not only for the sake of your career, but because your child(ren) have to learn sooner or later that they are not the center of the universe. But once you have established what your boundaries are, "unavailable" means "unavailable". That really works, and only jackasses (for whom you don't want to work anyway) will fire you for refusing to work 23 hours in a day. My experiences have been very positive in this regard. Employees who are considered reliable (the most desirable trait in an employee) are not those who try to always be available, but those who always perform when they say they will perform.
From watching my colleagues, I have observed that (other than those occasional jackasses) the problem is always the employee, and not the manager. Too many line workers really want to be told how needed and irreplaceable they are, and the game is, "Beg and give me an excuse for giving in." Those people have wishy-washy boundaries, and when they really are serious about needing to be somewhere else they have no credibility with the boss.
As far as software goes, I do software dev, and we used to have a saying on our team (you know, back before they were all laid off!): There is no such thing as a software emergency, only PHBs in a panic. Oh sure, any generalization is an overstatement, and somebody who sends code up to the space shuttle may need to fix something in a big hurry; but for the most of the coding jobs in the world, it takes days/weeks/months to get a patch or a new release through CM, QA, and out the door, and the difference between working on the fix at 7 tonight versus 9 tomorrow morning is trivial and will not cause your company to go under.
And death marches are just bad planning. The other saying to live by is: Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Don't change careers. Learn to manage the one that you have. You'll enjoy parenthood more, and you'll be a better parent, too!
I appreciate the humor in clicking on all of Microsoft's ads to deplete their cash. Heck, I used to leave my phone off the hook when telemarketers called, hoping to run up their phone bills a little bit extra while they tried to decide when to hang up. Realistically, though, it probably doesn't do much good--just a drop in the ocean.
There are better places to invest those clicks, like chartible cash-for-click sites. For example, there is The Hunger Site, where a click on a button causes ad sponsors to donate a cup or more of staple food to the hungry. That ends up making a real difference, IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
How about one pronounced "sue-e", like the pig call? That stands for "sue everyone", and it's spelled S-C-O.
Not that I think that this would be a lovely idea, but you do understand that they're not talking about taking pot-shots at stuff to make a pretty light show, right? They're talking about the ability of the US to protect itself, its allies, and relatively defensely non-hostile countries from a highly-armed, technologically-advanced aggressor. There are some crazy people out there with access to launch platforms and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
The range of ground-based missiles (to use but one example) continues to increase, and there really is no densely populated area which will be safe from rogue nations. Increasingly, WMDs rely on space-based assets for command-and-control and guidance. When a launch is detected, and one of these missiles is being directed towards DC (or Tokyo or Tel Aviv or whatever population center you care about), you want the USAF should wring their hands and say, "We'd love to try to throw that there missile off track, but it would make a gosh awful mess in space."?
As other posters have pointed out, nations must have contingency plans, must think about the unthinkable, because there are well-armed crazies out there. Like the US nuclear arsenal, no sane person ever wants to see it used, but it sure makes sense to have well-thought out plans on how you will respond if that is how someone chooses to attack you.
There are some large companies around here that do this sort of Halloween thing; however, it's not just the kids of the employees who are invited in. They bring in special ed classes to trick-or-treat, and throw them a big party, give them 1-on-1 attention, and even send them off with a few company-store items that they can use in their classroom--all for free. The kids (and teachers and parents) love it, of course.
The employees really enjoy it because they not only get to goof around and (optionally) dress silly on a workday afternoon, but they know that they are doing something special and meaningful for somebody else; it's not just one more odious team-building exercise. The companies are behind it because it's a very healthy way for teams to come together, it's on-site so there is little cash or lost-hours cost involved, and it's pretty good publicity.
This sort of public-service, everybody-wins activity is just really great, and I can't recommend it enough. (Or commend those companies enough.) One company had a Habitat for Humanity party and helped build a home for someone in need. A company I used to work for had a competition at Thanksgiving to see which floor could bring in the most food for the community food pantry (with surprisingly little unauthorized movement of cans from one floor to another).
There are lots and lots of opportunities for these sorts of things in each city, and there is always something for every size of organization. (If you don't know where to start looking, try asking your local principal or your local office of the United Way.) I'd encourage you to find one that fits your community and corporate culture and make it one of your annual events.
Yup. My wife has always told me that her favorite book as a child was "James and the Giant Peach". I'm going in to confront her now, and try to determine just what sort of revolutionary or terrorist she is. If you find out that I've been blown up during the night, you all know what happened...
Yes, I'm afraid there really are times when IE is required. I do most of my browsing on Solaris and Linux without IE, but... when it's time to do my timesheet at the end of the day, or need to use some other beloved corporate app, I have to fire up IE. I've tried a half-dozen other browsers, but the corporate jackboots make it so that these pages will only work properly on IE.
/. reading....
And since I want to get paid for all my
can one really extract phosphorus from urine?
Yup. In fact, if you feed your dog the right balance of dry food, he or she will produce a very nicely phosphorous urine that will make your grass greener than you can imagine. You could always tell how far from the tree my dogs chain could reach by looking at the lawn!
No, I think that's Frodo's nephew.
Not that you're wrong--and not that I'm interested in the bowel movements of characters, either--but I don't think the situation is all that bad. Some people write long, some write short.
However, maybe hard numbers would be more helpful than subjective opinions. Anybody have a little time on their hands? You could get the list of the 10 or 20 best-selling SF novels for, say, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, and 2003, and tally up how many pages they each have. Do averages and deviation, and let's examine the data.
It would also be useful to compare the numbers with the best-sellers for other fiction genres, and see if there are similar trends. I mean, Stephenson is hardly the only author to push the far end of the bell curve on length: consider James A. Michener, who regularly cranked out fiction of over a thousand pages. (Or how about Bill Clinton's autobiography!)
Pretty close to that...
A solar home can only use so much.
/. mention). So, collect all the solar energy you can--collect the entire set!
Homes can be fitted with "reverse meters" that allow you to sell power back to the power company (sample
The previous poster didn't say that all of our laws came from the Bible, just that the roots are there. And if you studied the history of law, you would see an easily discernible tradition of the practice and principles of law coming down from relgious codes, including the 10 Commandments and the Code of Hammurabi.
Further, in your apparent anti-Christian prejudice, you miss a fairly obvious historical point: that seperating out "civil law" from religion in early societies is seldom possible or useful. In most societies of early history, the religious leadership and the civil leadership were either integrated or effectively the same.
Judaism, for example, from whence we receive the 10 Commandments, can generally be considered a theocracy. God's laws were the civil laws; there was not a seperate code of civil laws, even though there was the beginning of what I suppose we would call today "case law" (just as there were theological commentaries which interpreted scripture).
Why is this such a problem for you? It's no different than pointing out that the American use of fireworks, so closely associated with the most significant holiday in the American civil religion, has its roots in China. Would you try to disprove that by saying that Americans are lousy at being Chinese? Or that American fireworks don't have their roots in China because Americans horribly mistreated Chinese immigrants?
Whether or not the legal tradition was applied well, and whether or not you feel that the legal tradition has been applied by good people, American legal principles do have roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Far be it from me to trust a democratic kind of voting process... But have you considered the possibility that if a couple billion people think you're wrong, maybe you are? I know that truth and factuality are not established by popularity, and just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you, but perhaps you could be less troll-like and intentionally offensive, and express your opinions with a tad more humility.
Others have managed to contribute positively to these conversations while holding opinions pretty similar to yours. What happened to your psyche that has hurt so badly that you are unable to do the same?
I don't want to turn this into a dead horse which we take turns beating--even if that is a Slashdot tradition. ;-) But...
After having played a good game of Chess with someone, I always feel relaxed and I also have the impression of having shared something with this person.
That is admirable and salutary. However, you wrote (appropriately) in the first-person. Chess has that effect on you. There are many others for whom the opposite is true. I could introduce you to friends I grew up with (yes, I was a member of the Chess Club) for whom playing was an act of war, and for whom losing was decidedly not an opportunity to "admire the beauty of the game". And even your statement that chess and Go are "the best games ever" could be contentious and divisive for some.
Your revised statement in this post, that
games can unite people
(my emphasis) is different than your original post, where you said, "Games unite people." Without reservation, I agree with the revised statement. Certainly, that is the premise behind the Olympic Games.
However, my point is that they do not necessarily have that effect, nor are games an effectual means of uniting all peoples; and that, in a quite similar fashion, religion can be something that unites people--a statement which is not negated by the many historical examples of religion(s) having the opposite, divisionary effect.
If we are ever to come together as humans, we must put aside or reinterpret those things which divide us--including our propensity for labeling things as divisive. Yes, that is somewhat oxymoronic. But there is great truth in the ironical statement by Tom Lehrer from many years ago: "I know there are people out there who do not love their fellow man... and I hate people like that!"
Rather than determining that there are things which we do not like, which are not for us, or with which we do not agree, and labeling those things as "bad" or in some way pernicious, we have to find ways to accept those things which work for others to the good of society, and to honor the positive aspects of those things while simultaneously respectfully critiquing those things which are a detriment to society. That will not be easy, but I believe it is the only thing which will sustainably work.
Oh please. These must be really weird times, when people even _think_ about putting spirituality in games.
Just because it isn't a spirituality (or, more generally, religiosity) that you recognize or endorse doesn't mean that it isn't there, and hasn't been for a long time. Many posters have cited loads of examples going back many years. Maybe you just aren't much of a gamer? Or aren't observant? Or are your own religious prejudices just surfacing?
Games unite people.
That's a pretty interesting statement. I won't say at the outset that I disagree, but I'd sure like to see the evidence on which you base that. Can you back that up at all?
Aren't you both making the same mistake of generalizing, while accusing the other of doing the same? "All gamers are this way", and, "All Christians do this". This doesn't seem to be helpful, nor is it accurate. I consider myself to fit both labels, and these comments do not reflect my feelings or opinions at all.
The OP made an interesting point about how it sometimes seems like it's okay to pick on one group (perhaps because they are perceived to be in a position of power or privilege), but not okay to pick on a different group that is defined by a similar but opposing characteristic. That seems like a point which could be validly explored.
Can anyone offer any evidence or logic to support or refute that point? Or has this thread just irrecoverably devolved into a flamewar?
Now why would you say that? Do you really mean to say that someone who is possibly being prepared to go into a science profession should not learn about the existing of opposing (as well as supporting) religious views on issues like the origin of the universe, and go out unprepared to respond to the criticism they will, no doubt, encounter? That students preparing to enter the biomedical or genetics industry should be hamstrung in learning biomedical ethics, one of the cornerstones for which is traditional religious doctrine?
(And I'm only addressing religion in the science classroom: the role religion and religious beliefs has played in history and international conflict is huge!)
Religion, IMHO, has an absolutely firm place in the classroom. I simply believe that religious views should not be promoted, nor should they be used as substitutes for secular knowledge and approaches.
As far as the place of religion in video games, well, I believe that game designers ought to be allowed to pursue whatever theme they want, however they want (superficially, metaphorically, or in depth). It's their game, their reflection on society or what they find entertaining--whether that's religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin!
Wow. For a reaction that strong to a topic which is fairly innocuous, you must be carrying around a lot of pain at some very deep levels. I hope that there is someone with expertise in such things that you are talking to.
I don't think there was a suggestion that religion should or would be forced on others. Rather it was a reflection on the absence of real religious practice. Regardless of what you think of religion and religious people, there are more people on this planet who adhere to some form of religion than people who do not.
While (as other posters have noted) games are largely about entertainment, some sim games attempt to reflect the real world. I find it at least worth noting with interest that the majority of these games do not have characters doing religious things. I also note that some of them have sim characters that sleep, but they don't take a dump or try to get laid, which are also things many of us try to do every day.
(The characters on TV shows like Friends and The Brady Bunch hardly ever go to work, either. Maybe the boss doesn't let them read Slashdot...)
If the very thought of religion in a game is threatening, perhaps there is something deeper that needs to be addressed...
Just looking at the miriad of splinter groups within the judeo-christian pantheon of religions and the innumerable hotly contested details that caused them to split in the first place should make it clear why a strongly religious game with mass appeal [no pun intended, I suppose :-)] would be difficult to create.
Actually, I would think the opposite would be true, because of the very point which you make. Look at the incredible violence involved in some of these nominally religious disputes, and consider the mass appeal of incredible violence in games.
It would be easy to just superimpose one's favorite first-person shoot-em onto Belfast, the Middle East, or any other hotbed. It would only require a little more imagination to convert a richer simulation game into one of those settings and incorporate the powerful role that religion and religious leaders can play. (For good or for ill: consider the effect on the game dynamic when you convince a cleric to espouse or eschew a peace initiative.) A realistic game feature could also consideration of the impact of attacking religious non-combatant hard and soft targets.
I think what would be difficult is to make a game like that which does not severely offend one or the other of those religious groups. It's safe to make a game where you kill monster or Nazis because there is not a strong pro-Nazi lobby in the gaming industry, and undead hit squads won't come to your home and kill your family in real life; but offending a group with economic power or suicide bombers at its disposal could get a little dicey.
The last time I went to Church, I fell asleep.
Then you went to a stupid church, and need to look for a different distributor.
"Church, the product" can meet the needs of many consumers (to continue the commercial theme). There is music, social interaction, and free coffee. Worship services and sermons are opportunities to deal with crucial social issues of the day, explore deeply spiritual and philosophical topics, and receive instruction on intimate psychological matters. Churches are also places where people can organize into collectives to further the social good--either directly, through projects of their own, or by rallying behind other organizations like Habitat for Humanity or Heifer Project. If the church you went to has lousy music, people, and coffee, doesn't challenge you intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and morally, and doesn't do worthwhile things for others, then you picked a crappy church.
I readily admit that there are indeed many crappy churches on the market, but I would ask for the concession that there may be non-crappy churches also. I've gone to several that contributed significantly to the lives of the people who showed up and the community around them.
Please don't paint everything and everyone with a single, broad brush. Your attitude is akin to having a bad experience at Sears and saying that all stores are bad, or shopping in general is bad. If you don't like the store, by all means, be a smart shopper and take your business elsewhere; don't decide to forswear shopping or malign all the stores that carry a similar product line.
Hello. It's just after 8:00, and time for the politician on top of your television set to explode.
You know, I agree with your thesis. The point of shows like this is entertainment and the opportunity to take a more intellectual approach to exploring important topics of the day, not the maintenance and reinforcement of doctrinal purity and orthodoxy of a series of fictional works.
And unlike SW, ST is not a big serialized story. The phrase "framework" is appropriate and helpful.
That said, a reasonable effort should be made to respect continuity. All I ask is that, while I watch the movie, there are not a bunch of times when my head jerks up and I want to say, "What? That's not right!" For example, if they insert Kirk as a young middie on a ship not previously mentioned in the ST "canon", it doesn't seem like it should be a big deal. But if they make that character into something that everybody knows he was not (like half-Ferengi or shy around women), that would be distracting to many of us.
Dear Anonymous:
Adam here is being a bit harsh. But essentially, he's right.
I'm one of those annoying, gifted jackasses. I have 4 kids who are also gifted. So I have a good viewpoint on this topic, and have had to consider how to guide my kids (two of whom are in college).
The one lesson that I haven't seemed to get across to them, and which you probably need, is: the universe doesn't give a randy fart if you're bored, if an assigment is beneath you, etc. There are things that you do because they're expected, and you have to get over your own sense of specialness and suffer just like everybody else.
When we were in school, we would punish teachers who were dolts or who failed to make class interesting by getting bad grades, and reward teachers we liked by plowing tons of extra effort into assignments that were exciting. The former was just stupid, but I didn't figure that out until graduate school. What we should've done was said to ourselves, "Dang, this manure is pathetically easy; so I'm going to finish it in fast motion, and then I can go back to writing my own Space Invaders emulator without (a) getting grief from authority figures or (b) getting kicked out of school." I'm bright, but apparently I wasn't bright enough to figure out that I was punishing myself and not the Pointy-Haired Instructors until I'd been on academic probation.
(My favorite evidence of this pattern of punishing the boring and unchallenging was that my GPA went up every single semester as I was able to stop taken moronic general ed classes and got permission to take upper division classes.)
Not only that, but you're not really unique (any more than anyone else). If you really are gifted, then there are at least, what, 2 million people just like you in the US alone; and maybe 40 or 50 million in the world. You just infrequently occur.
What those numbers mean is that you are not deserving of special privileges--some sort of Get Out of Jail Free card from ridiculous assignments and PHBs. It means, rather, that you have special responsibilities, and perhaps that you may get some special opportunities if you use your gifts wisely. If you blow off hoop-jumping, you won't do well enough to open the really interesting doors that can open to you 4 years from now. And no matter how challenging or interesting a direction you find for yourself then, if you don't fulfil the responsibilities which come with being gifted, you will struggle for years over whether your life is meaningful.
So: don't be hung up on yourself; challenge yourself to do well in the tedious, required classes; take advantage of college to indulge your laudably varied interests; set yourself up to do whatever you want after your undergrad time is done; and then do something meaningful. Do this, and you will be glad that you are gifted, and so will those whose life you touch.
you could easily falsify your own logs, in this example, and then demonstrate that the (actually valid) log in evidence disagrees. It's a tangled web indeed.
In the future, juries will be required to render increasingly sophisticated judgements about the believability of technology-based evidence. Courts will have to accept all plausible evidence, and it will be up to a a group of people who were selected from a randomly drawn pool--not one comprised of qualified and knowledgable IT workers--to determine what weight to give the conflicting evidence. And just like in the OJ case, they will be making those decisions based on subjective intangibles, because technology will not be able to provide them with undoubtable answers.
The parent poster (no pun intended!) is absolutely right, and I hope the original questioner has read this far down. Everybody in the working world has this problem to face, not just coders. When I was a wage slave back in the day, almost every day my boss would come to me and say, "So-and-so didn't come in again. Can you do a double?" Factory works to doctors, as posted above, it's all the same. And, it's not just parents, either: many of us have older parents we take care of, are part of the Red Cross disaster response team, etc.
It is indeed all about boundaries. Of course, one does need to compromise occasionally--not only for the sake of your career, but because your child(ren) have to learn sooner or later that they are not the center of the universe. But once you have established what your boundaries are, "unavailable" means "unavailable". That really works, and only jackasses (for whom you don't want to work anyway) will fire you for refusing to work 23 hours in a day. My experiences have been very positive in this regard. Employees who are considered reliable (the most desirable trait in an employee) are not those who try to always be available, but those who always perform when they say they will perform.
From watching my colleagues, I have observed that (other than those occasional jackasses) the problem is always the employee, and not the manager. Too many line workers really want to be told how needed and irreplaceable they are, and the game is, "Beg and give me an excuse for giving in." Those people have wishy-washy boundaries, and when they really are serious about needing to be somewhere else they have no credibility with the boss.
As far as software goes, I do software dev, and we used to have a saying on our team (you know, back before they were all laid off!): There is no such thing as a software emergency, only PHBs in a panic. Oh sure, any generalization is an overstatement, and somebody who sends code up to the space shuttle may need to fix something in a big hurry; but for the most of the coding jobs in the world, it takes days/weeks/months to get a patch or a new release through CM, QA, and out the door, and the difference between working on the fix at 7 tonight versus 9 tomorrow morning is trivial and will not cause your company to go under.
And death marches are just bad planning. The other saying to live by is: Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Don't change careers. Learn to manage the one that you have. You'll enjoy parenthood more, and you'll be a better parent, too!
I appreciate the humor in clicking on all of Microsoft's ads to deplete their cash. Heck, I used to leave my phone off the hook when telemarketers called, hoping to run up their phone bills a little bit extra while they tried to decide when to hang up. Realistically, though, it probably doesn't do much good--just a drop in the ocean.
There are better places to invest those clicks, like chartible cash-for-click sites. For example, there is The Hunger Site, where a click on a button causes ad sponsors to donate a cup or more of staple food to the hungry. That ends up making a real difference, IMHO.