Britain invaded China (a sovereign nation) and basically enforced their will upon it during the first opium war. Does that make Britian (the invader) by default the 'bad guy'? Then Portugal took advantage of the situation and upgraded their claims on Macau, are they vultures?
Yes they were and yes they were.
Britain and France then invaded China again during the second opium war. Does that make them double 'bad guys'? Then Russia and the US took advantage of this second opium war and also took advantage (although they didn't actually invade), are they vultures?
Yes they were and yes they were.
Maybe we can wind this back all the way to Ghengis Khan and say that it's all payback? Yeah, I didn't think that would fly either...
You could say that it's payback, but "I'm getting payback" is not an affirmative defense against being the "bad guy".
I don't think so, the winners write the history books, right? Thus they decide who the bad guy is... (of course different history books are written/read by different peoples in different countries).
Well, I think the colonial powers "won" the colonial conflicts, and it was certainly history books written by them and their ancestors that I read. Yet still, we tend to view those colonial exploits as "bad".
But speaking of history -- notice above where you used the present tense, and I used the past tense? Britain, without a doubt, was the "bad guy" in their subjugation of China (and many other places). However, with the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, Britain had officially abandoned all of their holdings. Their subjugation of China is now the past, it is now history. They were the bad guys, but aren't any longer.
When China relinquishes their claim to Tibet and allows that country self-determination, then and only then can we talk about the Chinese occupation of Tibet as though it was history. Until then, they are the bad guys.
Surprisingly, simulations do actually lower the bar to people using violence. There's plenty of evidence to show this.
Yes, when said simulations are used to train soldiers with the express and explicitly stated intent that they are practicing to repeat the simulated behaviors on live humans. You are already a soldier in boot camp, having signed up for a job in the business of waging actual war against actual people, before you sit in front of a simulator. You are explicitly told that the purpose of the simulation is to lower the bar to using violence on your enemy. The whole point is for you to be making the connection between the simulation and reality, and you know this as you participate in the simulation. You know this is what your instructor, your army, and your country wants you to do.
There is no evidence that shows that simulations lower the bar to using violence when there is no explicit connection being made between the simulation and reality. There is no evidence that shows that simulations unintentionally lower the bar to violence.
So until GTA comes with a father-figure type who comes home with you and says "Now son, you're doing this to learn how to be a violent thug in real life! Good job, son! Way to show those pigs; that's how you'll do it next Thursday when we rob the liquor store!", there is no relevant comparison between military trainers and video game entertainment.
This actually led to a measurable effect on the amount of soldiers shooting. So, obviously, even if the simulation change of a paper target type can make a difference, one might think a more immersive simulation would too.
And yet there was still a significant number of soldiers who didn't fire, and still are. It went from less than 50% to more than 50% but still isn't above 70%.
So when you're explicitly telling the soldier that when they are practicing in the simulator, they should be imagining repeating those actions in real life, because that's what you want them to do and they are willing accomplices in accepting that conditioning, the conditioning still doesn't take in many cases. Yet I'm supposed to believe that it is thus obvious that said conditioning takes place in civilians, with no intent to do anything but enjoy a game, on accident? Yeah, right.
I, for one, would like to hear a little more coverage of how the Chinese got all of their 16 year old female gymnasts to all look between the ages of 8 and 12.
From what I saw, the only female gymnast from any country who looked like she might be 16 years old was in fact 24.
Maybe you're not aware of what years of non-stop training starting before and continuing through puberty does to a girl's body, but suffice to say that teenage gymnasts looking pre-pubescent is not at all worrying (from the standpoint of cheating, not the larger issues). Yes it is possible China has broken the rules. No a gymnast looking like a 10 year old isn't proof.
The KT266A board that I had (Epox 8KHA+) was one of the fastest boards I ever owned, for its time. And it never had any problems, even overclocked.
To be fair, the KT266A was a massive improvement over the KT266, both in terms of performance and stability. To the point where AMD went from using one of their own chipsets for their performance rating benchmarketing to using a VIA-based board.
I think the sentiment about Via expressed in the GP was, for a time, largely deserved. However it was right around the KT266 that they seemed to start taking their image seriously, probably as more competition heated up and ATI/NVidia started making Athlon chipsets. Before that I think you are partially correct in that they had decent chipsets that were often better than the CPU vendors', but not the best of the 3rd party chipset market. Quality concerns were valid, for a time, until they got their act together.
Now, though, with the market for chipsets that don't include a GPU shrinking due to the K8 architecture on the AMD side, and Intel's continued attempts to stave off 3rd parties with bus protocol licenses, I can't say I really blame them for getting out of the market.
Where did they get the cybernetic technology from?!? Japan?
Anyway, wouldn't spotting these cyborg spies be easy? Do they have any cool gadgets; like a hand that turns into a gun or something?
Well, they got the technology from Japan, but they modified it themselves. So they'll be a lot harder to spot, because the Chinese models aren't all hundred meter tall robots.
Maybe some, but the majority are going to be there to help the normal people deal with the emotional stress caused by deliberately killing people.
Centuries of warfare have shown amply that killing people is a hard thing to do, no matter how much you believe in the cause, and actually doing it has consequences. These shrinks are going to be there to hold off the PTSD and other problems that will arise in people who sat in a chair, pushed a button, and then watched on a night vision camera feed while some people half way around the world that they don't even know are blown to smithereens by the missile they launched.
that's impossible! the world's only about 6000 years old.
Of course, but time is cyclical. There have been many Creations and Armageddons in the past. So what this means is that 110 universes ago, Neanderthals and Humans were related.
Hey, that's pretty awesome. Finally, a system that aims to give the voter a way to verify their vote online, yet is aware of the importance of secret ballots.
Have you smelled an old person? It's not pretty; like a combination of mothballs, fried bacon, a Catholic church, talcum powder, and the dust underneath the couch
Those are actually the ingredients in the cologne that old people wear in order to drive you whipper-snappers off their lawn!
The exact formula is a carefully guarded secret, mostly by virtue of none of them being able to remember.
I can see it now: thousands of people panic through the streets, while Stephen Hawking slowly wheels himself into a phone booth, only to fly out a second later and fly to the black hole, destroying it instantly with his Hawking radiation eye-beams! That's going to be sooo cool!
The image is funnier to me if he never gets out of his wheelchair. He slowly wheels up, has his machine say "Take this, you bastard", and then the Hawking Radiation spews forth!
General Patton would have disagreed. He understood the problems faced by his "team" and inspired them to overcome incredible odds. Sometimes a little profanity can be inspiring,
Would being an everything nazi make you a Nazi? Or would that be a Nazi nazi?
Naw, Nazis weren't nazis about everything. If I were to call them a something-nazi, it'd probably have to be genetics nazis. Eugenics nazis? Or maybe globo-political order nazis.
A nazi nazi would be someone who is a nazi about what kind of nazi you classify people as. So I guess I'm being a nazi nazi. But I'm no nazi!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Britain invaded China (a sovereign nation) and basically enforced their will upon it during the first opium war. Does that make Britian (the invader) by default the 'bad guy'? Then Portugal took advantage of the situation and upgraded their claims on Macau, are they vultures?
Yes they were and yes they were.
Britain and France then invaded China again during the second opium war. Does that make them double 'bad guys'? Then Russia and the US took advantage of this second opium war and also took advantage (although they didn't actually invade), are they vultures?
Yes they were and yes they were.
Maybe we can wind this back all the way to Ghengis Khan and say that it's all payback? Yeah, I didn't think that would fly either...
You could say that it's payback, but "I'm getting payback" is not an affirmative defense against being the "bad guy".
I don't think so, the winners write the history books, right? Thus they decide who the bad guy is... (of course different history books are written/read by different peoples in different countries).
Well, I think the colonial powers "won" the colonial conflicts, and it was certainly history books written by them and their ancestors that I read. Yet still, we tend to view those colonial exploits as "bad".
But speaking of history -- notice above where you used the present tense, and I used the past tense? Britain, without a doubt, was the "bad guy" in their subjugation of China (and many other places). However, with the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, Britain had officially abandoned all of their holdings. Their subjugation of China is now the past, it is now history. They were the bad guys, but aren't any longer.
When China relinquishes their claim to Tibet and allows that country self-determination, then and only then can we talk about the Chinese occupation of Tibet as though it was history. Until then, they are the bad guys.
Surprisingly, simulations do actually lower the bar to people using violence. There's plenty of evidence to show this.
Yes, when said simulations are used to train soldiers with the express and explicitly stated intent that they are practicing to repeat the simulated behaviors on live humans. You are already a soldier in boot camp, having signed up for a job in the business of waging actual war against actual people, before you sit in front of a simulator. You are explicitly told that the purpose of the simulation is to lower the bar to using violence on your enemy. The whole point is for you to be making the connection between the simulation and reality, and you know this as you participate in the simulation. You know this is what your instructor, your army, and your country wants you to do.
There is no evidence that shows that simulations lower the bar to using violence when there is no explicit connection being made between the simulation and reality. There is no evidence that shows that simulations unintentionally lower the bar to violence.
So until GTA comes with a father-figure type who comes home with you and says "Now son, you're doing this to learn how to be a violent thug in real life! Good job, son! Way to show those pigs; that's how you'll do it next Thursday when we rob the liquor store!", there is no relevant comparison between military trainers and video game entertainment.
This actually led to a measurable effect on the amount of soldiers shooting. So, obviously, even if the simulation change of a paper target type can make a difference, one might think a more immersive simulation would too.
And yet there was still a significant number of soldiers who didn't fire, and still are. It went from less than 50% to more than 50% but still isn't above 70%.
So when you're explicitly telling the soldier that when they are practicing in the simulator, they should be imagining repeating those actions in real life, because that's what you want them to do and they are willing accomplices in accepting that conditioning, the conditioning still doesn't take in many cases. Yet I'm supposed to believe that it is thus obvious that said conditioning takes place in civilians, with no intent to do anything but enjoy a game, on accident? Yeah, right.
Probably not a good idea, but still.
Well hell, I have tons of terrible ideas for combating global warming. ;)
I, for one, would like to hear a little more coverage of how the Chinese got all of their 16 year old female gymnasts to all look between the ages of 8 and 12.
From what I saw, the only female gymnast from any country who looked like she might be 16 years old was in fact 24.
Maybe you're not aware of what years of non-stop training starting before and continuing through puberty does to a girl's body, but suffice to say that teenage gymnasts looking pre-pubescent is not at all worrying (from the standpoint of cheating, not the larger issues). Yes it is possible China has broken the rules. No a gymnast looking like a 10 year old isn't proof.
Since I've been using hydrazine scalp cream, I've regained a full head of hair and my private assets have significantly increased in size.
Just for the sake of anyone reading, "private assets" does not mean "genitals" in this context. It means "tumors".
The KT266A board that I had (Epox 8KHA+) was one of the fastest boards I ever owned, for its time. And it never had any problems, even overclocked.
To be fair, the KT266A was a massive improvement over the KT266, both in terms of performance and stability. To the point where AMD went from using one of their own chipsets for their performance rating benchmarketing to using a VIA-based board.
I think the sentiment about Via expressed in the GP was, for a time, largely deserved. However it was right around the KT266 that they seemed to start taking their image seriously, probably as more competition heated up and ATI/NVidia started making Athlon chipsets. Before that I think you are partially correct in that they had decent chipsets that were often better than the CPU vendors', but not the best of the 3rd party chipset market. Quality concerns were valid, for a time, until they got their act together.
Now, though, with the market for chipsets that don't include a GPU shrinking due to the K8 architecture on the AMD side, and Intel's continued attempts to stave off 3rd parties with bus protocol licenses, I can't say I really blame them for getting out of the market.
Huh?
It's just a box.
1984? Oooo, Scary. That's like, so twenty-four years ago.
And, like only China does this stuff. Egad...the U.S. would never stoop to doing such things!
Of course Oceania wouldn't do that. And we've always been at war with Eastasia.
This from the television network whose logo is a giant eye looking back at you.
And judging. Always watching, always judging.
Where did they get the cybernetic technology from?!? Japan?
Anyway, wouldn't spotting these cyborg spies be easy? Do they have any cool gadgets; like a hand that turns into a gun or something?
Well, they got the technology from Japan, but they modified it themselves. So they'll be a lot harder to spot, because the Chinese models aren't all hundred meter tall robots.
Compared to a normal jet pilot.
Not infantry.
Maybe the shrinks are for people who find it fun?
Maybe some, but the majority are going to be there to help the normal people deal with the emotional stress caused by deliberately killing people.
Centuries of warfare have shown amply that killing people is a hard thing to do, no matter how much you believe in the cause, and actually doing it has consequences. These shrinks are going to be there to hold off the PTSD and other problems that will arise in people who sat in a chair, pushed a button, and then watched on a night vision camera feed while some people half way around the world that they don't even know are blown to smithereens by the missile they launched.
that's impossible! the world's only about 6000 years old.
Of course, but time is cyclical. There have been many Creations and Armageddons in the past. So what this means is that 110 universes ago, Neanderthals and Humans were related.
The next time I create an awkward social moment where I hesitate to shake the hand of a Libertarian, I'm blaming you.
Hey, that's pretty awesome. Finally, a system that aims to give the voter a way to verify their vote online, yet is aware of the importance of secret ballots.
Have you smelled an old person? It's not pretty; like a combination of mothballs, fried bacon, a Catholic church, talcum powder, and the dust underneath the couch
Those are actually the ingredients in the cologne that old people wear in order to drive you whipper-snappers off their lawn!
The exact formula is a carefully guarded secret, mostly by virtue of none of them being able to remember.
GIVE ME MONEY PLEASE!!!! *Sticks out hand*
Dude, it doesn't work if you include that in your pre-made rhetoric.
Sorry I don't have an appropriate Family Guy quote for this one.
I love it. You keep working on the script, I'll call Jerry Bruckheimer.
Are you saying that 9-11 didn't change everything?
Because 9-11 changed everything.
I can see it now: thousands of people panic through the streets, while Stephen Hawking slowly wheels himself into a phone booth, only to fly out a second later and fly to the black hole, destroying it instantly with his Hawking radiation eye-beams! That's going to be sooo cool!
The image is funnier to me if he never gets out of his wheelchair. He slowly wheels up, has his machine say "Take this, you bastard", and then the Hawking Radiation spews forth!
General Patton would have disagreed. He understood the problems faced by his "team" and inspired them to overcome incredible odds. Sometimes a little profanity can be inspiring,
Well I'm a fucking inspiring guy, then!
if not used gratuitously.
Aw, shit. :(
I say 'decades old' as if its supposed to mean 'with less money and technology available'
Are you on crack, or just neglecting inflation?
Also, new technology is the only reason they have a prayer of doing it cheaper.
Would being an everything nazi make you a Nazi? Or would that be a Nazi nazi?
Naw, Nazis weren't nazis about everything. If I were to call them a something-nazi, it'd probably have to be genetics nazis. Eugenics nazis? Or maybe globo-political order nazis.
A nazi nazi would be someone who is a nazi about what kind of nazi you classify people as. So I guess I'm being a nazi nazi. But I'm no nazi! :)
Yes. Having an actual craft that works enough to get high enough into the air to fail in its second stage is far along.
This. Is. Rocket. Science.
I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand this.