Why is it that people continually try to push the argument that the UN is responsible for something when in fact it is the members of the UN that are responsible for whatever goes on.
For the same reason people tend to blame the government when they don't realise (or want to realise) that the power to change things is in their own hands, I suppose.
Great post, anyway. The UN has no power other than the aggregate of its member states.
I'm not naive, I know all about these things. I know all about the horrors of the civil war, about what happened to the native American peoples, about the way Mexico was done over, about US interference in South America and the Middle East over the last 50 years, about the CIA importing drugs and the whole shebang.
But I still firmly believe that if Bobby or Jack Kennedy had lived America would be a far, far better, more generous, more internationalist place. I believe they died because they gave people that dangerous thing called hope, and they threatened a country where powerful interests didn't control the government (Bobby especially).
MLK was honest, he would oppose affirmative action - like Bush
Bullshit. MLK would want justice for the wrongs that had been committed. I always wonder how anti-affirmative action people can support prison sentences - after all, the crime was committed in the past, this is the present. Let's just call it even and move on with our lives.
Kennedy understood that international diplomacy involves more than mindless aggression and 'you're either with us or against us' machismo crap. He understood the subtlety, he understood the need to understand the aims and needs of other nations in formulating foreign policy. He wasn't afraid of force and exercises of power, but only as a genuine last resort (compare with Iraq: threat to United States: 0.0%).
Your Nazis comments don't even bear replying to, the world begged you, BEGGED you to come and help in Europe for several years before Pearl Harbour finally got you involved.
Yeah, you're right, you're totally different because you have a little piece of paper that says 'US Citizen' on it. If aliens landed tomorrow you could show them that and they would instantly understand that you are totally and utterly different from a human being from, say, Australia.
I must say, your comments are the best explanation for why September 11 happened and the best explanation for why you guys have not been successful in Iraq or in preventing terrorism since that time.
I believe al Qaeda is inviting you to "plant your lips right *here*"...
The only thing you need to know about GW
on
Election Day Discussion
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Is that when he visited Australia, the Secret Service insisted on wearing weapons inside our Parliament... and for the first time in Australian history weapons were allowed in.
Re:thank goodness, looks like kerry is winning.
on
Election Day Discussion
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
All around the world, we're watching you today. We love America, we want you to lead and inspire and show us what democracy and freedom and technology can do. But right now we're feeling scared, confused, and angry about what your President has lead you to do over the past three years.
Please, give us back the America we admire and believe in. Don't turn yourselves into a religious state. Don't turn your back on the UN and the other peoples of the world - in the end we are people first, American or French or Iraqi or Chinese second. Give us back the America that went to the moon and carried out the Berlin airlift and brought us the IT revolution. Give us back the America of Kennedy's vision and MLK's dream.
And please, don't let the world's most successful democracy be reduced to a joke with a repeat of last election's Floridan antics.
"no one who calls themself a Christian can honestly support John Kerry"
Buddy, if that's in the first sentence of your site, you can't really expect to be taken seriously.
Problems:
- you apparently assume all Christians are evangelical nutbags from the bible belt or devout Catholics - you assume that Christians must obey the officers of the church, rather than interpreting the bible themselves and living by that interpretation - you assume that you actually know what Jesus would say about John Kerry - you presume to classify any Christian voting for Kerry as 'dishonest'
Other personal highlights:
"The only reason the AWB is dead today is because of the efforts of liberty-minded members of Congress."
Agreed, apart from the 'liberty-minded' part.
"He has supported the Law of the Sea Treaty which is an open assault on our national sovereignty."
If you actually knew how the Law of the Sea Treaty worked you could not sanely make this claim.
"Get that straight people: he [Bush] wanted to bolter (sic) the UN, not undermine it."
Right... sure...
"He gave us the USA PATRIOT Act which, under a future Clinton Administration, and one of those is bound to happen again, could be disasterous for freedom-loving Americans everywhere."
Sorry, can't write any more whilst laughing this hard...
As a person who is right in the 'likely to get drafted if there's a draft' demographic, I say bring on the military robots ASAP! I look forward to the day when pilotless aircraft and driverless vehicles battle it out instead of humans. Who knows, one day we might have a world war with no human casualties. The winner would be the side who manages to get their robots past the opposition's defensive lines to trash up the enemy's electricity, computer systems, telecommunications etc, thereby essentially crippling any semi-modernised economy.
Plus suddenly the draft won't seem quite so scary - "Son, how you like to sit on your butt playing with hi-tech gadgets that can really fly and blow each other up?" sounds a lot more fun than "Son, how would you like to stand around on a street corner in Baghdad waiting to get blown up?"
Of course, as an alternative I could just ask all of you to be smart enough not to re-elect Bush. But if I have to pick between the average voter being 'smart' and giant cyborgs fighting our wars on a high tech battlefield of the future, I guess I'll have to forget about crazy pipe dreams and bank on the robots...*
*NB - even if you do re-elect Bush I'm going to dodge the draft anyway, so it's really you who will be drafted, not me, but the point's the same I guess.
if you were an Orge or a Drow or a Giant, some of the NPC vendors wouldn't sell you anything... Yet whenever anyone tries to aplly this to gender especially people become very angry
I cannot believe you are serious. You are apparently unaware of the connection you are making.
Question: what is the difference between the following two sets: "Ogre, Elf, Giant", "woman". THAT'S RIGHT! The first set DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST. No ogres will be offended when a game character refuses to deal with an Ogre character. There is no history of oppression of ogres in the real world.
On the other hand, women ARE real, and for most people (although possibly not./ readers) they are not considered mere creatures of fantasy. And it's only 50-100 years since they moved from being viewed as the property of their husband and the subject of widespread discrimination and disenfranchisement to being viewed as full citizens. So maybe it's just a tad inappropriate to invoke discrimination from the real world in a fantasy world setting.
Yeah, and black people should just not try to go to segregated schools if being racially discriminated against offends them so much... and the Nazi party should be legalised, don't vote for them if it offends you so much. And why build ramps for the disabled? Let them go elsewhere if dragging themselves up stairs on their hands and knees offends them so much.
I take it you don't understand why we have anti-discrimination laws, then?
The free market isn't the solution to all life's problems, you know. Hitler was democratically elected; therefore, the will of the people can be wrong.
Ok - thought experiment. Let's say that 90% of characters are played by people of the same gender, i.e. most females in the game are females in real life. Now let's say that most people play their own *race* in the game - black people tend to play black characters, etc.
Now let's say that a shop opens up in Memphis or whatever one of the big cities in the game is called, and the shopkeeper refuses to sell anything to blacks because they are inferior. So black people playing the game go to that shop, and are told: no, you can't shop here because you're black. Come back when you're white.
Is this still acceptable?
Now let's say that people also choose their own religion for their character's religion. Then let's say a moslem person in the game, played by a moderator, enacts a new law for the detention of all jewish people in the game.
Is this still acceptable?
Maybe you are only saying 'it's not a big deal' because it's women who are being oppressed, as opposed to black people or Jews or any other habitually oppressed demographic.
Oh good, the most overpriced and incompatible memory that there is (with the possible exception of xD, but at least xD is tiny). Now storing save games can be part of the Sony LifeStyle Experience (tm)!
I don't really understand Sony's plan with this device. Playstation has always been aimed at the late-teen and beyond market, and people over the age of 18 who don't actually read Slashdot would generally not want to be seen playing a portable game anyway. When you add in the complications of having an optical drive and using MemoryStick, this thing is starting to look like a real turkey.
Of course, Sony, unlike Sega or Nintendo, can afford to make a few mistakes. A lot of people have been questioning the DS, but when you actually see what it does I think that it's pretty clear that it is basically a super-kewl version of the Gameboy line with wireless networking. PSP on the other hand, is apparently trying to replicate the experience of playing a full sized console on a portable device, but without the big screen TV, or the beer, or the sofa, or the surround sound.
How much free advertising does./ want to give these companies?
HINT HINT HINT
A *TRAILER* being released is NOT NEWS. A *game* ACTUALLY being released (not 'possibly being released soon according to some guy on a bulletin board' or 'being pre-loaded on Steam') is BARELY news.
I mean, how dumb are we? The news may as well say:
ARockStarEmployee writes: The Internet is abuzz with news of the forthcoming release of Rockstar Entertainment's latest blockbuster game, GTA: San Andreas (tm)! Although it's unclear at present whether the game will break the all time sales record set by The Sims (tm), what is clear is that players will have a blast in the totally new, 3D ultra realistic simulated mayhem of GTA: San Andreas (tm)! Early reviews have already given an unprecedented 101 out of 100 to GTA: San Andreas (tm)! So don't delay, read the article and become a witless pawn of the game marketing machine today!!!
You put out one of the first decent puzzle games in ages on a Nintendo platform, and it turns out that not only is it fun, it's also ideally suited to the style of the Gamecube, both graphically and control-wise. Additionally, Nintendo and Sega gamers alike rejoice to see the Big N and Sega Together at Last TM (a la 'Nuts and Gum'). Meanwhile on X-Box and PS2 every single game appears to be published by EA, includes the word 'Xtreme' somewhere in its title, and is developed in a crappy cross-platform environment then ported around like the village bicycle, everyone gets a ride. So we love you, we buy your monkeys, we tolerate your Dole Bananas advertising... and what do you do?
Why, you sell us out to Micro$oft and $ony! Damn you. Not only to the backwards-cap-wearing 3733t g@m3rz on PS2 and (shudder) X-Box now get access to the Monkey franchise, they also get BOTH the games we paid for PLUS MORE while you leave us blowing in the wind.
Time was, game companies used to build franchises on a particular platform. It was one of the cool things about the whole Nintendo v Sega thing. Now MS and Sony have come along with their bottomless pits of cash and ruined the whole thing... and you're helping them.
If these jerks want Monkey Ball, make them buy a Cube! They're only like $20 now with all Nintendo's discounting, after all.
Not much into railgunning in QIII or sniping in UT then? Some of those space maps in QIII require a degree of precision which I do not believe can be reproduced with any other input medium. I know you said specifically that you were not talking about FPS, but if you move around enough I fail to see how the level of precision required is substantially different in a FPS to, say, Monkey Ball (which incidentally is still essentially first-person, or third-person if we are going to be picky).
I have always found the analogue sticks on modern consoles to be ridiculously hard to use - the N64 was the only half-decent one, and then only because it was much longer and therefore gave substantially more precise control (thus making Goldeneye the greatest console FPS ever). I would say the PS2 controller is the worst, with the X-Box a close second - both have laughably short sticks which makes real precision difficult. Gamecube is better, but only marginally - the left stick is ok, but the c-stick is too short.
And who finds it hard to go 'exactly to the right'? I reckon I can go across the entire width of my desktop and end up 1-2 pixels off, horizontally speaking. That's a lot more precision that you would get from a PS2 controller.
Yeah, but these people are special cases, and special cases can be dealt with individually. As you already noted, pagers are a very good solution, and firemen and other action heroes can wear them all the time on the silent-vibrate function as a matter of course. These people could also get CDMA phones so that they are not on the GSM network like ordinary phone-abusers.
I would still be overjoyed if that non-fireman fucktard three rows in front of me couldn't discuss the weather with his buddy while I'm watching the movie I just paid $15 for.
The comment about someone dead or dying is absolutely stupid. If someone's been hit by a car and they're not dead yet, but will be soon, I'd rather like to go and say goodbye.
Thank you, your comments are extremely stupid too.
How did people manage as recently as 1990? When people were dead or dying, however did relatives get by not knowing the *instant* their loved ones were crushed by that tractor/mauled by that pit bull/swarmed by those killer bees? What about earlier, say 1900... without phones at all, you would have had to wait a shocking couple of hours for a telegram delivery guy to find you... or in the Old West, you might have had to wait weeks and weeks to hear news of a loved one's passing.
But you can't wait 2 hours? 2 lousy hours. 120 minutes... 180 if it's an Oliver Stone film. Well, maybe you should sit at home crouched over your landline muttering "can't go out... loved ones might die... might miss the call... could all die at any second... can't miss their deaths...". Or maybe you could get out there and live your life without the need for the constant psychological umbilical cord of your mobile phone, taking the outrageous chance that if your entire family is slaughtered by cannibals while you are at the cinema the police will probably fill you in on the parts you missed when you get home.
Better yet, why not kill your family now? That way you wont miss a precious second of it, and I can enjoy The Bourne Supremacy in peace.
it's not the phone that's the problem, it's those assholes
Well obviously.
How do we manage the 'assholes'? Let them piss us off by taking calls during the movie/conference/lecture? Or block their asshomophone so that their asshole friends can't call them repeatedly to chat about the latest in asshole fashions? I know which I think is better for the non-assholes of the world.
Likewise regarding the silent vibrate feature on most phones - OF COURSE it would not be annoying if people all turned their phones to silent in cinemas/lecture theatres/conferences, provided of course that they didn't answer any calls and start talking. The problem, as you astutely point out, is assholes. They won't remember to turn their phone to silent. How often do you see everyone lunge to turn their own phones to silent when the first asshole's phone goes off? The reason - none of those lunging people (aka 'potential future assholes') remembered to turn their phone to silent either.
Yes, it's considered EXTREMELY RUDE (sic) to take calls in a theatre. This does not stop your average asshole. If I can encourage cinemas and universities to install the Asshol-Blok 5000, with asshole-silencing technology, I will.
I really think it's annoying that some people seem to have a problem blocking out things when they don't care to hear it.
So basically you think we should all be like George W Bush?:P
Explain to me how it's not ok for me to be annoyed by some dickwit talking on his phone in the middle of a quiet bit in a thriller that I have paid to see, but it IS ok for you to be annoyed at me for being annoyed?
As for you and your child... well, that's what DVD players are for. Having children involves certain sacrifices, one of which is your ability to go out alone for a while. Either trust your baby sitter or rent a DVD, but don't let your stupid phone ring in my movie!
Contrary to other replies, you can actually do this. I imagine it's some sort of flag built into the GSM system that forces handsets not to function.
The reason I know you can do it is that there is an area in the building I used to work where signals are intentionally blocked somehow, and my phone comes up with "Emergency Calls Only" when I am in that area.
Eat it connectivity junkies! The rebellion has begun!
Seriously though... who REALLY needs to be contacted IMMEDIATELY 24-7? I would suggest that if you are really that important, you might want to skip the movie and stay in the Oval Office doing your job.
And if a friend or relative is dead or dying, well, if it takes until the end of the movie for you to find out, they'll be just as dead after as they were during. Plus you will have had an extra 2 hours of Matt Damon (or Gerard Depardieu?) induced happiness before the terrible news reaches you.
Basically anything that reduces our addiction to instant satisfaction of our every wish is ok with me. We don't NEED to be hooked up to a communication network all the time. They should also install these things in:
- university lecture theatres - conferences - crowded public transport - you could have one in your house to turn on during mealtimes and other gatherings to encourage actual social interaction with people who are physically present
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that people continually try to push the argument that the UN is responsible for something when in fact it is the members of the UN that are responsible for whatever goes on.
For the same reason people tend to blame the government when they don't realise (or want to realise) that the power to change things is in their own hands, I suppose.
Great post, anyway. The UN has no power other than the aggregate of its member states.
I'm not naive, I know all about these things. I know all about the horrors of the civil war, about what happened to the native American peoples, about the way Mexico was done over, about US interference in South America and the Middle East over the last 50 years, about the CIA importing drugs and the whole shebang.
But I still firmly believe that if Bobby or Jack Kennedy had lived America would be a far, far better, more generous, more internationalist place. I believe they died because they gave people that dangerous thing called hope, and they threatened a country where powerful interests didn't control the government (Bobby especially).
MLK was honest, he would oppose affirmative action - like Bush
Bullshit. MLK would want justice for the wrongs that had been committed. I always wonder how anti-affirmative action people can support prison sentences - after all, the crime was committed in the past, this is the present. Let's just call it even and move on with our lives.
Kennedy understood that international diplomacy involves more than mindless aggression and 'you're either with us or against us' machismo crap. He understood the subtlety, he understood the need to understand the aims and needs of other nations in formulating foreign policy. He wasn't afraid of force and exercises of power, but only as a genuine last resort (compare with Iraq: threat to United States: 0.0%).
Your Nazis comments don't even bear replying to, the world begged you, BEGGED you to come and help in Europe for several years before Pearl Harbour finally got you involved.
Yeah, you're right, you're totally different because you have a little piece of paper that says 'US Citizen' on it. If aliens landed tomorrow you could show them that and they would instantly understand that you are totally and utterly different from a human being from, say, Australia.
I must say, your comments are the best explanation for why September 11 happened and the best explanation for why you guys have not been successful in Iraq or in preventing terrorism since that time.
I believe al Qaeda is inviting you to "plant your lips right *here*"...
Is that when he visited Australia, the Secret Service insisted on wearing weapons inside our Parliament... and for the first time in Australian history weapons were allowed in.
What's your source?
All around the world, we're watching you today. We love America, we want you to lead and inspire and show us what democracy and freedom and technology can do. But right now we're feeling scared, confused, and angry about what your President has lead you to do over the past three years.
Please, give us back the America we admire and believe in. Don't turn yourselves into a religious state. Don't turn your back on the UN and the other peoples of the world - in the end we are people first, American or French or Iraqi or Chinese second. Give us back the America that went to the moon and carried out the Berlin airlift and brought us the IT revolution. Give us back the America of Kennedy's vision and MLK's dream.
And please, don't let the world's most successful democracy be reduced to a joke with a repeat of last election's Floridan antics.
"no one who calls themself a Christian can honestly support John Kerry"
Buddy, if that's in the first sentence of your site, you can't really expect to be taken seriously.
Problems:
- you apparently assume all Christians are evangelical nutbags from the bible belt or devout Catholics
- you assume that Christians must obey the officers of the church, rather than interpreting the bible themselves and living by that interpretation
- you assume that you actually know what Jesus would say about John Kerry
- you presume to classify any Christian voting for Kerry as 'dishonest'
Other personal highlights:
"The only reason the AWB is dead today is because of the efforts of liberty-minded members of Congress."
Agreed, apart from the 'liberty-minded' part.
"He has supported the Law of the Sea Treaty which is an open assault on our national sovereignty."
If you actually knew how the Law of the Sea Treaty worked you could not sanely make this claim.
"Get that straight people: he [Bush] wanted to bolter (sic) the UN, not undermine it."
Right... sure...
"He gave us the USA PATRIOT Act which, under a future Clinton Administration, and one of those is bound to happen again, could be disasterous for freedom-loving Americans everywhere."
Sorry, can't write any more whilst laughing this hard...
As a person who is right in the 'likely to get drafted if there's a draft' demographic, I say bring on the military robots ASAP! I look forward to the day when pilotless aircraft and driverless vehicles battle it out instead of humans. Who knows, one day we might have a world war with no human casualties. The winner would be the side who manages to get their robots past the opposition's defensive lines to trash up the enemy's electricity, computer systems, telecommunications etc, thereby essentially crippling any semi-modernised economy.
Plus suddenly the draft won't seem quite so scary - "Son, how you like to sit on your butt playing with hi-tech gadgets that can really fly and blow each other up?" sounds a lot more fun than "Son, how would you like to stand around on a street corner in Baghdad waiting to get blown up?"
Of course, as an alternative I could just ask all of you to be smart enough not to re-elect Bush. But if I have to pick between the average voter being 'smart' and giant cyborgs fighting our wars on a high tech battlefield of the future, I guess I'll have to forget about crazy pipe dreams and bank on the robots...*
*NB - even if you do re-elect Bush I'm going to dodge the draft anyway, so it's really you who will be drafted, not me, but the point's the same I guess.
Or as an American in Europe.
Or as a non-American on Earth.
if you were an Orge or a Drow or a Giant, some of the NPC vendors wouldn't sell you anything... Yet whenever anyone tries to aplly this to gender especially people become very angry
./ readers) they are not considered mere creatures of fantasy. And it's only 50-100 years since they moved from being viewed as the property of their husband and the subject of widespread discrimination and disenfranchisement to being viewed as full citizens. So maybe it's just a tad inappropriate to invoke discrimination from the real world in a fantasy world setting.
I cannot believe you are serious. You are apparently unaware of the connection you are making.
Question: what is the difference between the following two sets: "Ogre, Elf, Giant", "woman". THAT'S RIGHT! The first set DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST. No ogres will be offended when a game character refuses to deal with an Ogre character. There is no history of oppression of ogres in the real world.
On the other hand, women ARE real, and for most people (although possibly not
Yeah, and black people should just not try to go to segregated schools if being racially discriminated against offends them so much... and the Nazi party should be legalised, don't vote for them if it offends you so much. And why build ramps for the disabled? Let them go elsewhere if dragging themselves up stairs on their hands and knees offends them so much.
I take it you don't understand why we have anti-discrimination laws, then?
The free market isn't the solution to all life's problems, you know. Hitler was democratically elected; therefore, the will of the people can be wrong.
Ok - thought experiment. Let's say that 90% of characters are played by people of the same gender, i.e. most females in the game are females in real life. Now let's say that most people play their own *race* in the game - black people tend to play black characters, etc.
Now let's say that a shop opens up in Memphis or whatever one of the big cities in the game is called, and the shopkeeper refuses to sell anything to blacks because they are inferior. So black people playing the game go to that shop, and are told: no, you can't shop here because you're black. Come back when you're white.
Is this still acceptable?
Now let's say that people also choose their own religion for their character's religion. Then let's say a moslem person in the game, played by a moderator, enacts a new law for the detention of all jewish people in the game.
Is this still acceptable?
Maybe you are only saying 'it's not a big deal' because it's women who are being oppressed, as opposed to black people or Jews or any other habitually oppressed demographic.
You're a frigging idiot. Try reading the Times instead of the Post before you come on-line to vent your ill conceived drivel.
I will assume that you have never actually studied feminism, nor had a discussion about world affairs with someone who is a genuine feminist.
Well, others have already said everything of substance about your post, so I'll just conclude by reiterating that you are a frigging idiot.
Oh good, the most overpriced and incompatible memory that there is (with the possible exception of xD, but at least xD is tiny). Now storing save games can be part of the Sony LifeStyle Experience (tm)!
I don't really understand Sony's plan with this device. Playstation has always been aimed at the late-teen and beyond market, and people over the age of 18 who don't actually read Slashdot would generally not want to be seen playing a portable game anyway. When you add in the complications of having an optical drive and using MemoryStick, this thing is starting to look like a real turkey.
Of course, Sony, unlike Sega or Nintendo, can afford to make a few mistakes. A lot of people have been questioning the DS, but when you actually see what it does I think that it's pretty clear that it is basically a super-kewl version of the Gameboy line with wireless networking. PSP on the other hand, is apparently trying to replicate the experience of playing a full sized console on a portable device, but without the big screen TV, or the beer, or the sofa, or the surround sound.
How much free advertising does ./ want to give these companies?
HINT HINT HINT
A *TRAILER* being released is NOT NEWS. A *game* ACTUALLY being released (not 'possibly being released soon according to some guy on a bulletin board' or 'being pre-loaded on Steam') is BARELY news.
I mean, how dumb are we? The news may as well say:
ARockStarEmployee writes: The Internet is abuzz with news of the forthcoming release of Rockstar Entertainment's latest blockbuster game, GTA: San Andreas (tm)! Although it's unclear at present whether the game will break the all time sales record set by The Sims (tm), what is clear is that players will have a blast in the totally new, 3D ultra realistic simulated mayhem of GTA: San Andreas (tm)! Early reviews have already given an unprecedented 101 out of 100 to GTA: San Andreas (tm)! So don't delay, read the article and become a witless pawn of the game marketing machine today!!!
What about a bit of loyalty to the Cube?
You put out one of the first decent puzzle games in ages on a Nintendo platform, and it turns out that not only is it fun, it's also ideally suited to the style of the Gamecube, both graphically and control-wise. Additionally, Nintendo and Sega gamers alike rejoice to see the Big N and Sega Together at Last TM (a la 'Nuts and Gum'). Meanwhile on X-Box and PS2 every single game appears to be published by EA, includes the word 'Xtreme' somewhere in its title, and is developed in a crappy cross-platform environment then ported around like the village bicycle, everyone gets a ride. So we love you, we buy your monkeys, we tolerate your Dole Bananas advertising... and what do you do?
Why, you sell us out to Micro$oft and $ony! Damn you. Not only to the backwards-cap-wearing 3733t g@m3rz on PS2 and (shudder) X-Box now get access to the Monkey franchise, they also get BOTH the games we paid for PLUS MORE while you leave us blowing in the wind.
Time was, game companies used to build franchises on a particular platform. It was one of the cool things about the whole Nintendo v Sega thing. Now MS and Sony have come along with their bottomless pits of cash and ruined the whole thing... and you're helping them.
If these jerks want Monkey Ball, make them buy a Cube! They're only like $20 now with all Nintendo's discounting, after all.
Oh god I'm becoming a jaded gen Xer...
The mouse would not be precise enough
Not much into railgunning in QIII or sniping in UT then? Some of those space maps in QIII require a degree of precision which I do not believe can be reproduced with any other input medium. I know you said specifically that you were not talking about FPS, but if you move around enough I fail to see how the level of precision required is substantially different in a FPS to, say, Monkey Ball (which incidentally is still essentially first-person, or third-person if we are going to be picky).
I have always found the analogue sticks on modern consoles to be ridiculously hard to use - the N64 was the only half-decent one, and then only because it was much longer and therefore gave substantially more precise control (thus making Goldeneye the greatest console FPS ever). I would say the PS2 controller is the worst, with the X-Box a close second - both have laughably short sticks which makes real precision difficult. Gamecube is better, but only marginally - the left stick is ok, but the c-stick is too short.
And who finds it hard to go 'exactly to the right'? I reckon I can go across the entire width of my desktop and end up 1-2 pixels off, horizontally speaking. That's a lot more precision that you would get from a PS2 controller.
Yeah, but these people are special cases, and special cases can be dealt with individually. As you already noted, pagers are a very good solution, and firemen and other action heroes can wear them all the time on the silent-vibrate function as a matter of course. These people could also get CDMA phones so that they are not on the GSM network like ordinary phone-abusers.
I would still be overjoyed if that non-fireman fucktard three rows in front of me couldn't discuss the weather with his buddy while I'm watching the movie I just paid $15 for.
The comment about someone dead or dying is absolutely stupid. If someone's been hit by a car and they're not dead yet, but will be soon, I'd rather like to go and say goodbye.
Thank you, your comments are extremely stupid too.
How did people manage as recently as 1990? When people were dead or dying, however did relatives get by not knowing the *instant* their loved ones were crushed by that tractor/mauled by that pit bull/swarmed by those killer bees? What about earlier, say 1900... without phones at all, you would have had to wait a shocking couple of hours for a telegram delivery guy to find you... or in the Old West, you might have had to wait weeks and weeks to hear news of a loved one's passing.
But you can't wait 2 hours? 2 lousy hours. 120 minutes... 180 if it's an Oliver Stone film. Well, maybe you should sit at home crouched over your landline muttering "can't go out... loved ones might die... might miss the call... could all die at any second... can't miss their deaths...". Or maybe you could get out there and live your life without the need for the constant psychological umbilical cord of your mobile phone, taking the outrageous chance that if your entire family is slaughtered by cannibals while you are at the cinema the police will probably fill you in on the parts you missed when you get home.
Better yet, why not kill your family now? That way you wont miss a precious second of it, and I can enjoy The Bourne Supremacy in peace.
it's not the phone that's the problem, it's those assholes
Well obviously.
How do we manage the 'assholes'? Let them piss us off by taking calls during the movie/conference/lecture? Or block their asshomophone so that their asshole friends can't call them repeatedly to chat about the latest in asshole fashions? I know which I think is better for the non-assholes of the world.
Likewise regarding the silent vibrate feature on most phones - OF COURSE it would not be annoying if people all turned their phones to silent in cinemas/lecture theatres/conferences, provided of course that they didn't answer any calls and start talking. The problem, as you astutely point out, is assholes. They won't remember to turn their phone to silent. How often do you see everyone lunge to turn their own phones to silent when the first asshole's phone goes off? The reason - none of those lunging people (aka 'potential future assholes') remembered to turn their phone to silent either.
Yes, it's considered EXTREMELY RUDE (sic) to take calls in a theatre. This does not stop your average asshole. If I can encourage cinemas and universities to install the Asshol-Blok 5000, with asshole-silencing technology, I will.
I really think it's annoying that some people seem to have a problem blocking out things when they don't care to hear it.
:P
So basically you think we should all be like George W Bush?
Explain to me how it's not ok for me to be annoyed by some dickwit talking on his phone in the middle of a quiet bit in a thriller that I have paid to see, but it IS ok for you to be annoyed at me for being annoyed?
As for you and your child... well, that's what DVD players are for. Having children involves certain sacrifices, one of which is your ability to go out alone for a while. Either trust your baby sitter or rent a DVD, but don't let your stupid phone ring in my movie!
When do you want it?
Later!
Contrary to other replies, you can actually do this. I imagine it's some sort of flag built into the GSM system that forces handsets not to function.
The reason I know you can do it is that there is an area in the building I used to work where signals are intentionally blocked somehow, and my phone comes up with "Emergency Calls Only" when I am in that area.
Eat it connectivity junkies! The rebellion has begun!
Seriously though... who REALLY needs to be contacted IMMEDIATELY 24-7? I would suggest that if you are really that important, you might want to skip the movie and stay in the Oval Office doing your job.
And if a friend or relative is dead or dying, well, if it takes until the end of the movie for you to find out, they'll be just as dead after as they were during. Plus you will have had an extra 2 hours of Matt Damon (or Gerard Depardieu?) induced happiness before the terrible news reaches you.
Basically anything that reduces our addiction to instant satisfaction of our every wish is ok with me. We don't NEED to be hooked up to a communication network all the time. They should also install these things in:
- university lecture theatres
- conferences
- crowded public transport
- you could have one in your house to turn on during mealtimes and other gatherings to encourage actual social interaction with people who are physically present