Even that is stupid. We already have laws for "Contributing to the delinqency of a minor", which is really the absolute most that should ever be applied to a statute for the enforcement of ESRB age ratings.
Not if it goes both ways. Consistent portryals of one group being manhandled by another are racist, but when the manhandling is balanced with neither side in ascendance, it's not racism, it's just racy.
Prentending there was never any conflict is silly.
The problem in this country is that people are too damn afraid to even talk about the fact that there are differences between races. I had a stupid watercooler discussion with a coworker of mine the other day about his tan, and how I just burned and freckled. We sat and chatted meaninglessly about the difference between irish and black skin when exposed to sunlight, then we went back to work. Is this somehow racist? Should I have to feel edgy and awkward when (gasp) talking to someone of a different race?
Looking at one ad you can make a case for racism. Looking at all of them suggests a progression. White girl grabs black girl, struggle, and white girl ends up on her ass. Having gone to public school in the south, this seems perfectly normal...White people and black guys fight, but only an idiot would mess with a black girl. It's never going to end well.
The only thing I find interesting about the SWG numbers is how well they bear out what everyone said at the time...SoE's huge revamp of the game system was nothing but a knife in the back of their subscriber base, and there has been no corresponding jump in new subscribers to offset it.
In the end, this is only common sense. Even if the idea of a dumbed down SWG appealed to me more than the complicated one which didn't appeal to me enough to actually make me buy the game (played the free trial, and uninstalled it before it ran out. unimpressed.), I really don't want to put a lot of time into a game where the developers have already conclusively proven that they're willing to backstab their loyal customers in an attempt to get new customers.
I play a decent number of mmo's. I put a good bit of time into them, as I am able, and I take satisfaction in my characters. There is no way I'd be willing to put a ton of time into a character on an mmo owned by a company that doesn't give a damn about it's customers. People complain about all companies that run mmo's, but Sony (and maybe EA...E&B ran for what, a year? Pssh.) is the worst for looking at it's customers and seeing nothing but dollar signs.
If you went to a private school, then your parents had enough money to pony up so that people who couldn't afford private school could have you know, textbooks and stuff.
If you were home schooled, or went to religious school, think of it as a tax assessed against your right to brainwash your own kid (apologies to secular homeschoolers).
I know it's popular to think, "I don't use it so I don't care" here, but some of us, my own private schooled ass included, think that there is a little more to the world than screwing poor kids out of an education, and screwing poor old people out of a little pocket change a month. A lot of countries do a hell of a lot more, but if there is one constant about human nature it's that no matter how small the burden, you can find a ton of people to whine about how heavy it is.
Speaking as someone who's married to a reporter, and who works at a "local" news outlet, the publicity can only be worse from trying to localize their lawsuits. The media outlets will pick it up, and talk to the person, who'll act bewildered and put upon, and then talk to their neighbors who'll be indignant and offended, and then wrap up with a public official saying "Well, it's a law, but we don't really hold with big national corporations poking their noses into our business, and really they're pencil dicks anyway."
That's the thing with national news...They talk to national people. Some Senator or Representative who really needs RIAA money for his next election. But local news, you're talking to elected officials who probably won their office by a few thousand votes at best, about people who live right down the street. Make it local, you make it personal, and people will take it personally.
Atheism isn't the absence of belief. That's agnosticism. Athiesm is the belief that there is no God, which is a concrete belief about God that is not backed up by empirical data. In my mind, and there are plenty who disagree, that is the definition of religion.
What it comes down to is people thinking that there is a right answer about this kind of thing. Intuition tells us there is more to us than you can physically quantify. Physically we're just meat...chunks of hydrocarbons with no special importance. And yet the belief that life is special, and that it actually matters is widely held.
Some people choose to ascribe this to some supernatural component, and other people think that is foolish. It doesn't bother me personally, until some jackass stands up and starts talking about how he knows the answer.
Yea, but since that warm fuzzy feeling has a quantifiable value of zero, while doing something that will make you not want to meet your own eyes in the mirror may have a quantifiable value that is greater than zero. Capitalism has a tendency to select actions with negative intangibles.
That's pretty much the best argument against pure capitalism. Sure its efficient, but the most efficient response isn't always the best response. Marx would have gone on and on about worker exploitation, but that doesn't move me as much as having to shop carefully so my pregnant wife doesn't give our unborn daughter a nice does of bioaccumulated mercury, just because some power plant can't be bothered to add a more efficient filter.
I've no doubt that a lot of die hard capitalists whose inferior products are losing out to OSS would like to paint us all as a bunch of commies. It must stick in his ass that his super expensive OS is losing market share to a damn free operating system, put together by a bunch of people in their free time with no expectation of reward.
But the short of it is: Who gives a damn what he thinks? So people think we're commies because Bill Gates sez so, well la-de-da. He's so far on the right edge of capitalism that the whole world is more commie than he is, so, from that perspective, he's right! But if businesses want to believe that, let 'em! They can avoid OSS until their more intelligent competition uses it to eat their lunch.
If it's better quality, that speaks for itself. If it's not better quality, then whatever is better quality should be used instead. That's survival of the fittest. Doesn't get much more capitalist than that.
Capitalists only give things away because they expect to make more in return. OSS does work that way, but only in terms of the intangibles that capitalism is quick to scorn.
True capitalism is greed based. You make something, and then you guard it jealously, never letting anyone see it, so you and only you can make money off it.
OSS doesn't work that way. You make something then put it out into the system, where a lot of people can use it, some to make money, and others just for fun, and in return some of those people put code back into the system, which you can use for whatever. Money can be a part of it, but it's not the driving force behind it all.
Yea, because we all know that religious states are models of tolerance, liberty, and peace.
The truth of it is, that the problems arise whenever someone tries to mandate a religion, be it christianity, islam, or atheism. The excesses you attribute to communisim are no worse than those found in many theocracies.
I know it's tired old hat, and probably flameworthy in this environment, but a real manager doesn't need to know what the hell you're talking about to make a good descision. All he has to do is know his people, and be willing to listen to their experience. By the same token, the most knowledgable manager in the world can still screw everything up by trying to make everyone do it the exact way he would do it if he was doing it all himself.
You need to find someone who can keep the final goal in sight, and who is flexible enough to reorganize whenever the requirements change. Agile, Waterfall, Iterative, whatever, it doesn't matter...These are ideas put together so that mediocre managers will have some kind of method that may bring decent results. They can all work great, and they can all work poorly, and it all depends on who is doing the oversight.
Management actually is a pretty solid skill if you can do it. Too much of the flaming comes from people who've never had the good fortune to work with a good manager. I myself have never worked with one who was the total package...Either they understood the work and the clients and they couldn't deal with the higher ups, or they dealt well with the higher ups but didn't understand the work or the clients.
Big printers have a copy of every commonly used font, and a great number of uncommonly used fonts so that when their client sends in a rush order with "Bob's slightly altered version of Arial" they don't have to try and dig it up while on deadline. You need a copy of the font accessable to your RIP to make sure the text renders correctly.
Hah. Woops. I just copy pasted the AC's version without double checking it. It should, of course, be TANSTAAFL: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
Well, that definitely opens SWG up for continuation for when SoE decides to flush the project, and it makes it possible to implement some of the changes that people have been clamoring for forever, unhindered by Sony's jackassed design philosophy
And it's going to make it possible for Sony's legal team to achieve their "absuive lawsuit quotient" months ahead of schedule.
Seriously. It's like they're begging to be crushed. I can't think of a company with less sense of humor than Sony, and I really can't think of anyone who protects his IP better than Lucas. They're going to combine to form some sort of mega-legal-robo-proctologist, and they're not going to stop until they get to the back of the SWGEMU team's teeth.
I guess I'm happy and sad for them. They're like happy little lemmings.
Doesn't seem that wierd to me. Most states only have one or two interstates within their borders, and most states are less than 400 miles from border to border. Interstates are pretty dense on the east coast. There are a lot of states that only really have one, or part of one.
Obviously I'm a fan of/. I was on digg long enough to camp my username and that was about it. There are times when I wish more interesting things would show up here quicker, on the other hand I sure as hell don't want/. to be digg. Yech. The point of being here is the discussion. The point of being on digg is to see the article "dugg" by 1000 people, 4 times a day.
User driven news aggrigators have their place, but a quality community needs editorial oversight (or groupthink on a profound level).
Anyway, I don't know how much you can trust a list that has Ballmer, Kutaragi, Shwartz, Malda, AND Linus. It's like they're throwing darts...
There is this thing called "The Rule of Law" which basically means that the law always trumps irrational emotional appeals. If the police could make a good case for those records being absolutely critical, then they'd have no problem getting a warrant for those records. If they can't get a warrant, then they can't convince a judge that they need them, and therefore they don't.
This isn't some piddly local statute either.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
People tend to ignore it these days, but the Constitution is still the law of this country. Screw with the little laws as much as you like, but not that one.
In newspapers, the rule is, if there is an error, the error is posted on the same page the story was on. Getting a correction on the front page is pretty much the nightmare of the journalist...They view it the same way as having an article titled "This journalist is a dipshit" printed on that page.
When was the last time you saw a tv news program run a correction? Those doctored national guard documents for Bush? If they're wrong they usually just ignore it. No accountablity, and a complete faith that the majority of the public is too dumb to notice.
Slashdot Mirror
Even that is stupid. We already have laws for "Contributing to the delinqency of a minor", which is really the absolute most that should ever be applied to a statute for the enforcement of ESRB age ratings.
It's just political grandstanding.
Not if it goes both ways. Consistent portryals of one group being manhandled by another are racist, but when the manhandling is balanced with neither side in ascendance, it's not racism, it's just racy.
Prentending there was never any conflict is silly.
Racial does not equal Racist.
The problem in this country is that people are too damn afraid to even talk about the fact that there are differences between races. I had a stupid watercooler discussion with a coworker of mine the other day about his tan, and how I just burned and freckled. We sat and chatted meaninglessly about the difference between irish and black skin when exposed to sunlight, then we went back to work. Is this somehow racist? Should I have to feel edgy and awkward when (gasp) talking to someone of a different race?
Looking at one ad you can make a case for racism. Looking at all of them suggests a progression. White girl grabs black girl, struggle, and white girl ends up on her ass. Having gone to public school in the south, this seems perfectly normal...White people and black guys fight, but only an idiot would mess with a black girl. It's never going to end well.
Not in my mouth, please.
It means "miracle cure" which, in the modern age of sarcasm, is probably used more often as an insult.
The only thing I find interesting about the SWG numbers is how well they bear out what everyone said at the time...SoE's huge revamp of the game system was nothing but a knife in the back of their subscriber base, and there has been no corresponding jump in new subscribers to offset it.
In the end, this is only common sense. Even if the idea of a dumbed down SWG appealed to me more than the complicated one which didn't appeal to me enough to actually make me buy the game (played the free trial, and uninstalled it before it ran out. unimpressed.), I really don't want to put a lot of time into a game where the developers have already conclusively proven that they're willing to backstab their loyal customers in an attempt to get new customers.
I play a decent number of mmo's. I put a good bit of time into them, as I am able, and I take satisfaction in my characters. There is no way I'd be willing to put a ton of time into a character on an mmo owned by a company that doesn't give a damn about it's customers. People complain about all companies that run mmo's, but Sony (and maybe EA...E&B ran for what, a year? Pssh.) is the worst for looking at it's customers and seeing nothing but dollar signs.
Meh.
If you went to a private school, then your parents had enough money to pony up so that people who couldn't afford private school could have you know, textbooks and stuff.
If you were home schooled, or went to religious school, think of it as a tax assessed against your right to brainwash your own kid (apologies to secular homeschoolers).
I know it's popular to think, "I don't use it so I don't care" here, but some of us, my own private schooled ass included, think that there is a little more to the world than screwing poor kids out of an education, and screwing poor old people out of a little pocket change a month. A lot of countries do a hell of a lot more, but if there is one constant about human nature it's that no matter how small the burden, you can find a ton of people to whine about how heavy it is.
Speaking as someone who's married to a reporter, and who works at a "local" news outlet, the publicity can only be worse from trying to localize their lawsuits. The media outlets will pick it up, and talk to the person, who'll act bewildered and put upon, and then talk to their neighbors who'll be indignant and offended, and then wrap up with a public official saying "Well, it's a law, but we don't really hold with big national corporations poking their noses into our business, and really they're pencil dicks anyway."
That's the thing with national news...They talk to national people. Some Senator or Representative who really needs RIAA money for his next election. But local news, you're talking to elected officials who probably won their office by a few thousand votes at best, about people who live right down the street. Make it local, you make it personal, and people will take it personally.
Atheism isn't the absence of belief. That's agnosticism. Athiesm is the belief that there is no God, which is a concrete belief about God that is not backed up by empirical data. In my mind, and there are plenty who disagree, that is the definition of religion.
What it comes down to is people thinking that there is a right answer about this kind of thing. Intuition tells us there is more to us than you can physically quantify. Physically we're just meat...chunks of hydrocarbons with no special importance. And yet the belief that life is special, and that it actually matters is widely held.
Some people choose to ascribe this to some supernatural component, and other people think that is foolish. It doesn't bother me personally, until some jackass stands up and starts talking about how he knows the answer.
Shrug. I'm not a fan of any of them. People who "know" the answer get under my skin.
Come on, that's Apple. If any company is willing to embrace ideology, that's the one. But they're the exception to the rule.
Yea, but since that warm fuzzy feeling has a quantifiable value of zero, while doing something that will make you not want to meet your own eyes in the mirror may have a quantifiable value that is greater than zero. Capitalism has a tendency to select actions with negative intangibles.
That's pretty much the best argument against pure capitalism. Sure its efficient, but the most efficient response isn't always the best response. Marx would have gone on and on about worker exploitation, but that doesn't move me as much as having to shop carefully so my pregnant wife doesn't give our unborn daughter a nice does of bioaccumulated mercury, just because some power plant can't be bothered to add a more efficient filter.
I've no doubt that a lot of die hard capitalists whose inferior products are losing out to OSS would like to paint us all as a bunch of commies. It must stick in his ass that his super expensive OS is losing market share to a damn free operating system, put together by a bunch of people in their free time with no expectation of reward.
But the short of it is: Who gives a damn what he thinks? So people think we're commies because Bill Gates sez so, well la-de-da. He's so far on the right edge of capitalism that the whole world is more commie than he is, so, from that perspective, he's right! But if businesses want to believe that, let 'em! They can avoid OSS until their more intelligent competition uses it to eat their lunch.
If it's better quality, that speaks for itself. If it's not better quality, then whatever is better quality should be used instead. That's survival of the fittest. Doesn't get much more capitalist than that.
Capitalists only give things away because they expect to make more in return. OSS does work that way, but only in terms of the intangibles that capitalism is quick to scorn.
True capitalism is greed based. You make something, and then you guard it jealously, never letting anyone see it, so you and only you can make money off it.
OSS doesn't work that way. You make something then put it out into the system, where a lot of people can use it, some to make money, and others just for fun, and in return some of those people put code back into the system, which you can use for whatever. Money can be a part of it, but it's not the driving force behind it all.
Yea, because we all know that religious states are models of tolerance, liberty, and peace.
The truth of it is, that the problems arise whenever someone tries to mandate a religion, be it christianity, islam, or atheism. The excesses you attribute to communisim are no worse than those found in many theocracies.
I know it's tired old hat, and probably flameworthy in this environment, but a real manager doesn't need to know what the hell you're talking about to make a good descision. All he has to do is know his people, and be willing to listen to their experience. By the same token, the most knowledgable manager in the world can still screw everything up by trying to make everyone do it the exact way he would do it if he was doing it all himself.
You need to find someone who can keep the final goal in sight, and who is flexible enough to reorganize whenever the requirements change. Agile, Waterfall, Iterative, whatever, it doesn't matter...These are ideas put together so that mediocre managers will have some kind of method that may bring decent results. They can all work great, and they can all work poorly, and it all depends on who is doing the oversight.
Management actually is a pretty solid skill if you can do it. Too much of the flaming comes from people who've never had the good fortune to work with a good manager. I myself have never worked with one who was the total package...Either they understood the work and the clients and they couldn't deal with the higher ups, or they dealt well with the higher ups but didn't understand the work or the clients.
Big printers have a copy of every commonly used font, and a great number of uncommonly used fonts so that when their client sends in a rush order with "Bob's slightly altered version of Arial" they don't have to try and dig it up while on deadline. You need a copy of the font accessable to your RIP to make sure the text renders correctly.
Hah. Woops. I just copy pasted the AC's version without double checking it. It should, of course, be TANSTAAFL: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
Well, that definitely opens SWG up for continuation for when SoE decides to flush the project, and it makes it possible to implement some of the changes that people have been clamoring for forever, unhindered by Sony's jackassed design philosophy
And it's going to make it possible for Sony's legal team to achieve their "absuive lawsuit quotient" months ahead of schedule.
Seriously. It's like they're begging to be crushed. I can't think of a company with less sense of humor than Sony, and I really can't think of anyone who protects his IP better than Lucas. They're going to combine to form some sort of mega-legal-robo-proctologist, and they're not going to stop until they get to the back of the SWGEMU team's teeth.
I guess I'm happy and sad for them. They're like happy little lemmings.
Doesn't seem that wierd to me. Most states only have one or two interstates within their borders, and most states are less than 400 miles from border to border. Interstates are pretty dense on the east coast. There are a lot of states that only really have one, or part of one.
Oooo, the AC is quite right. For Heinlein, it was TANSTAFFL...It was later grammar snobs that culled the double negative out of it.
Obviously I'm a fan of /. I was on digg long enough to camp my username and that was about it. There are times when I wish more interesting things would show up here quicker, on the other hand I sure as hell don't want /. to be digg. Yech. The point of being here is the discussion. The point of being on digg is to see the article "dugg" by 1000 people, 4 times a day.
User driven news aggrigators have their place, but a quality community needs editorial oversight (or groupthink on a profound level).
Anyway, I don't know how much you can trust a list that has Ballmer, Kutaragi, Shwartz, Malda, AND Linus. It's like they're throwing darts...
Sounds like fun...
"If you do something creative enough that 10,000 people download it, and you want to be worked to DEATH, have we got a job for you!"
OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
There is this thing called "The Rule of Law" which basically means that the law always trumps irrational emotional appeals. If the police could make a good case for those records being absolutely critical, then they'd have no problem getting a warrant for those records. If they can't get a warrant, then they can't convince a judge that they need them, and therefore they don't.
This isn't some piddly local statute either.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
People tend to ignore it these days, but the Constitution is still the law of this country. Screw with the little laws as much as you like, but not that one.
Yea, TV is the exception to the rule.
In newspapers, the rule is, if there is an error, the error is posted on the same page the story was on. Getting a correction on the front page is pretty much the nightmare of the journalist...They view it the same way as having an article titled "This journalist is a dipshit" printed on that page.
When was the last time you saw a tv news program run a correction? Those doctored national guard documents for Bush? If they're wrong they usually just ignore it. No accountablity, and a complete faith that the majority of the public is too dumb to notice.