1% of the population can now dictate and control 99% of the population. That simply isn't right.
"Requiring the barest consideration for" is the same as "being controlled by". The mantra of the privileged majority.
I'm certainly not for making the life of Blind people harder, or anyone with a disability. However, the disabilities act just is abused. This is a perfect example.
Yeah, this is a perfect example of the disabled wanting to have the most basic of concessions -- the ability to tell what money they are carrying instead of depending on the honesty of a sighted person -- and a non-disabled person feeling put out by it.
Why?
Because now you won't be able to lord your money-counting ability over the blind? Because you won't be able to rip them off by handing them three ones instead of a ten and two ones for change? Because a simple feature of currency that basically every other country has and that should have been in the currency for decades is just asking so much. We'll redesign the currency every ten years to incorporate the newest in anti-forgery technology, sure, that's great! But raised bumps for the blind? Fuck no! Where do they come off trying to control me!
Yeah, this is a perfect example all right. A perfect example of a privileged member of the majority whose sense of privilege has morphed into a sense of entitlement, such that anything that threatens their advantage becomes an assault.
Then they want to raise prices forgetting why iTunes Store was successful in the first place. Or is it that they remember but they're just too greedy?
I don't know if they remember or not, but I'm certain that either way greed overrides the lesson in their minds. It's the same reason why CDs are still so expensive -- why the hell would they lower the price if they don't have to? Sure, you'll say because it drives people to piracy, but then they'll just go on a crazy moon-rant about evil pirates slaying innocent studio technicians, and still charge $18 for a CD. Same with iTunes. Why wouldn't they raise the price if they can? Because Steve Jobs tells them they can't? That's a reason they'll listen to.
I've heard it said that you should never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity. However greed, when taken to the level of maliciousness, causes people to do very stupid things. Dumb and evil, that's the recording industry!:)
And even though you're dismissing models that accurately predict past events.. they are very good tests for the simulations.
No, they're not. They're proof that you curve-fitted to the past 80 years. Whether that curve is *right*... well, that takes future data.
Data you don't have.
No, not necessarily. The model has no concept of 'past' and 'future' because it is just a model. It is very easy to do something like take all the data from 80 to 40 years ago, call that "the past", then take the data from 40 years ago to the present and call that "the future". You curve-fit your model's parameters to "the past", and then continue the simulation to see if it's predictions match "the future".
This has actually been done before. Not with 80 years of data, but with about 20, again split into "the past" training sets and "the future" testing sets. Several different climate models were compared, trained with "the past" and asked to predict "the future". In this case, only the model which used CO2 as a primary greenhouse gas was able to predict "the future" -- bearing in mind that this was a while ago, i have no link, and I'm just illustrating the principle not trying to suggest this proves anthropogenic CO2-based global warming or anything.
I'm just saying that it is possible to validate a model without having to wait until the future has occured to see that the data was correct. Now I understand that what we really want is a model that we trust for predicting our actual future, as opposed to "the future" as defined for model validation purposes. However, that's not a very useful constraint to put on the trustworthiness of the model. First, because we're trying to make predictions of the future so we can make decisions today, and if we wait until the future arrives then it's too late for predictions or decisions. Second, when that future comes there will be a new unknown future that we want to make predictions about, and that new-future data won't be available to validate the models. You could level the exact same criticism against the model at that time, even if it has perfectly predicted all the data up to that point and seemingly answered your criticism of today.
That criticism would be accurate, as well. Weather and climate are chaotic systems. Even if we could be sure we had a perfect knowledge of the workings of the climate, one would naturally expect the model and reality to diverge due to differences in the measured vs real conditions. So even if our model perfectly modelled current data to our limits of precision, and was in fact the "right" model, it could still produce predictions that don't match up with reality as it changes over time. So that criticism is accurate, but also useless, because it applies to the best possible models as well as the worst.
We're talking about predicting the future. You have to accept a couple things to do that. First is that the data from the past is the only data you can ever have to test your predictive models with. Second is that even if you understand the past perfectly and have the correct model it is still possible to mispredict the future.
You should move south to someplace warmer. Don't worry, you can still enjoy your favorite sport in the Rayman mini-game "Bunnies Don't Know How Not To Freeze To Death While Running Between Buildings".
Just over 50 Merkava were hit with anti-tank weapons. Out of that 14 were destroyed and those required multiple hits. Most crew casualties and injuries were top down hits on light upper spots and a large number were in the driver section (sucks for them)or results of the shockwave of the hit. The RPG-29 turned out to have more bark than bite against the MBT's but proved very effective against APC's and other vehicles.
I had read that over 50 Merkava were destroyed or disabled, but that didn't specify by type, so I'd believe that the rest were the result of mines.
I maintain that is a very good kill count for the RPGs, and an eye opener for IDF and others relying on similar armor. The light spots on top are exactly why tanks are vulnerable when their enemy gets the high ground. The RPG-29 and RPG-7 for that matter are devastating against APCs, which is why you don't hear about the Bradley in Iraq any more. The Merkava is designed to be an APC itself, giving full tank armor protection to the soldiers, which is why these results are significant.
Throw in the new Trophy anti-anti-tank missile system thats being developed and suddenly things dont look so bad for the future.
I've got to admit point defence systems like that have a lot of potential. I'm going to go with history on this one and say weaponry will adapt.
Only poor nations are still using reactive armor on their current MBT's
U.S. Army and IDF are poor, got it.
Its a matter of using them correctly as are anti-tank rockets (Iranian training paid off it looks like). The Vietnamese used armor against two American firebases and wiped them out.
Yes, the Vietnamese didn't have a lot of tanks, particularly the guerilla fighters, and thus they could catch the army off-guard and underarmed by suddenly attacking with them. That is one of many ways tanks can be used well.
There are plenty of examples of why armor isn't going away anytime soon and plenty of reasons for it to stay.
Of course. Like I've been saying, it isn't like this hasn't happened before, and armor is still around. I'm suggesting that counting on the defense your tank provides you in situations where that armor is tactically weak isn't a good strategy, and IDF may want to look at other avenues for similar conflicts in the future.
On the other hand tanks are a good investment for the day when, say, Israel got in a conventional war with Syria.
I'm just saying don't choose your tactics around your weapon, choose tactics and weapons together that work best in the situation.
The current Iraq conflict is an excellent example of how armor can be used effectively in conjunction with dismounted troops in an urban terrain.
Hmm, I was going to say the opposite. The Abrams has had a very high survivability rate in Iraq because the insurgents are primarily armed with RPG-7s. Even still a number have been disabled by RPG hits -- several hits, obviously -- which demonstrates how a narrow corridor lined with many high positions from which to fire downward at the tank's vulnerable spots isn't exactly an ideal scenario.
The Abrams is a huge tank to put in a city. It blocks a street, can't move quickly, can't respond quickly if it takes fire, and certainly can't respond with precision. Actually, since as I was saying earlier the BFV hasn't stood up well, I may be arguing for something between them, with MBT armor but much lighter weapons and capabilities for urban warfare.
As to the autonomous tanks I dont think we'll be seeing anything like that for a very very long time. Any unmanned vehicle is subject to being jammed or recieving interferance. Heck there's even a chance the encryption on the transmission can be cracked and the vehicle turned on its users. Alot of IED's in Iraq are jammed on a regular basis and easily I might add.
Yeah, it's funny how they went back to low-tech wires because they couldn't be jammed. Now the same vulnerabilities exist in the UAV and the remote control robots being used by the army, but the conditions are different. I agree autonomous tanks seems unlikely.
I thought that the nunchuck was ussed to shiled bash in Z:TP
I meant that I think it uses the 'farkin good chase cam' method.
It was one of the reviews here: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928519.asp Though last I looked there were only 4 reviews. There was one that made a single comment about how you couldn't change the camera but it didn't matter, and none of the others I read mentioned the camera at all. I think forgetting to mention the camera is the best praise for a camera that you could have.
Dono, I would like to hear about the controll set up. Well, actualy I would like to have a copy, but that probably will nto be happenign to soon
Frankly, I'm betting that the Wii's greater launch supply will let me get one at my leisure. If not, oh well.;_;
Right. They are selling the service of making the copy along with the goods (the source and target media.) It therefore is not noncommercial copying by the end-user for personal use, and insofar as there may be exceptions for noncommercial format-shifting for personal use (a disputed point!) that would cover DVD ripping, this is not covered by them.
It is non-commercial use by the end-user.
It is the merchant who performs the copying -- note that he is neither in possession of the original copy nor of the one generated, the end user is -- who is making money.
If performing the service of creating a copy for someone who has both a legal right to the original copy and a legal right to the copy that is created, then Kinko's performs billion of copyright violations a day.
And don't argue that they do, on the basis of people who don't have a legal right to either their original or to the copy they make, because that's not the same thing.
If what you say is true, Kinko's and all other copiers would be shut down.
No, because the MPAA is charging infringement as well as DMCA violation and seeking remedies for both; the DMCA expressly does not change the scope of any of the provisions or exceptions to infringement, so adding the DMCA claim does nothing to help their other claims.
The MPAA always charges copyright infringement, even if no actual copying took place at all, much less illegal copying. First, because more charges are scarier to their victims, even if they would necessarily be dropped in court. Second, because if they didn't they'd have to explain the difference between a DMCA violation and copyright infringement and how they are unrelated, and how the person they are charging didn't actuall steal anything at all from them.
The DMCA charge is the only one that has a chance of standing up.
The only problem with that legal theory is that it's false. The user has purchased a DVD player, not leased or licensed it, and he has not agreed to a license of any kind whatsoever, not even a shrink-wrapped one.
So? The DVD player manufacturer is who has purchased the license. If you did not buy a DVD player that was licensed, then you do not have permission to break the encryption on the DVD. If you get around that encryption, you are breaking the copy protection on that DVD.
The DMCA doesn't say anything about how you circumvent the protection scheme, whether that's by discovering the keys by reverse engineering a licensed player, brute-forcing the algorithm, or finding a weakness in the protocol. The fact is that your player was not authorized to break the encryption, and thus your using it is circumventing the protection.
In fact in DMCA terms a single bit that is supposed to mean "don't copy me unless you have permission" can qualify as a protection mechanism, and not honoring that bit is circumvention. There was an actual case involving this, where someone was sued for copying True Type Fonts, which have a "don't copy me" bit. It's don't recall the result, and it may have failed -- it's the digital equivalent of putting a sign on your front yard that says "My yard is protected by an invisible force shield!" and when someone walks on your yard, charging them with both Trespassing and Breaking and Entering (for busting down your force field). If so that would be a good precedent, but the law itself doesn't distinguish.
The purpose of a law and what the law is about are not the same thing, and in fact the purpose of a law may not appear in the text of the law at all. The purpose of copyright law is presented in the Constitution. The law itself deals strictly with copying, distribution, commercial usage, and so forth. This isn't unusual, since law general deals with prohibiting something, while "purpose" is generally about achieving some effect. In theory one leads to the other.
In practice, we get the Sony Bono Copyright Act and the DMCA.:(
The key is not 'legitimate' because you aren't licensed to use it. It doesn't matter that it's an actual decryption key. If you found the key by brute-force hacking it would be the same key, and still illegal to use.
The DMCA is such a fucking stupid law. I break it every time I watch a DVD on my computer, a DVD that in each and every case I paid in full for. Good thing I don't mistake legality for morality, or might feel bad!
It's hard to argue "fair use" when someone is making money by making a copy... that's the whole point of copyright.
No, copyright is about making money distributing copies. The one doing the copying is not making a copy of their own DVD, they are making a copy of the customer's DVD for the customer.
Making a backup copy of a copyrighted work is completely legal and is explicitly spelled out in copyright law. If you don't own or don't know how to run a CD burner, is paying someone to make the backup copy for you illegal?
There's a reason the MPAA is invoking the DMCA, and that's because the DMCA is what makes breaking encryption illegal even if the actions performed thereafter are legal under copyright law. Were it not for the DMCA, the MPAA would not have a case here at all.
It basically seems to come down to this. Using the nunchuck would work if it finds the right balance between not wobbling from random hand motions when you aren't intending to move the camera, to being responsive and precise when you do want to move it. The 'farkin good follow camera' has never been done before, so I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand, if I glean the info correctly from the reviews then Twilight Princess actually uses that scheme, and I didn't hear any complaints about the camera.
If you want to see where the gaming industry is going, take a look in the arcades. All of the games I can think of are somehow immersive with simple controls: you dance on light pads, you drive a car with a steering wheel, you shoot zombies with a shotgun, you paddle a raft down a gulley, etc. You won't find joystick controlled games in your local Dave and Buster's anymore.
I think that's more a case of the consoles pushing the arcades out. There's no reason to go to the arcade to play something that uses a simple joystick and buttons because you can duplicate the experience on your game console, only with couch, fridge, and friends. So the arcades only option is to provide an experience you can't get at home. This is also why pinball machines, skeeball, and basketball games sit side-by-side with House of the Dead and what have you.
This is probably where arcades will continue to go. The wii enables more immersive control options, sure, but you still aren't going to get the same sensation as you would, say, sitting on a hydraulic seat shaped like a motorcycle.
Arcades used to be the forefront of video game design, now they're a side show. It's okay, as far as i'm concerned.
I also got to play around with a Wii last week (nintendo world store), and the controller DOES seem to work from a functional standpoint.
As actual reviews of the final hardware and software are starting to come in, I'm quite releaved to find out that this is the general consensus. In fact, with the exception of some of the mini-game grappling-with-Nazis from Call of Duty, all the reviewers have been saying "I like many of you was skeptical about how the controls would turn out in practice, but rest assured it works great".
However, granting that I'm still in "imagine what it will be like" mode, I still have a concern, which is the camera.
In your basic Dual Shock setup, you have one analog stick for motion, one for your camera, and then a bunch of buttons to perform actions.
With the wiimote+nunchuck, you have an analog stick for motion, and a combination of buttons and three-dimensional motion of the wiimote to perform actions. Where does this leave the camera? A couple mention tilting the nunchuck as your camera control, and that sounds precarious to me. Cameras and camera control has always been the achiles heel of 3rd-person 3D gaming, and I have to admit I'm concerned how well it works.
and the current figures are only about 15% of TV owners.
And what portion of them have newer 720p TVs as opposed to older 1080i, for which the PS3 will helpfully downscale their games to 480p? A friend of mine brought this up as a reason why the ps3 continued to not interest him. I hadn't realized being part of the 85% without HDTV at all... but I wonder what portion of that 15% Sony has actually carved out for themselves?
This type of thing is something a number of people are saying; ' you should wait to get a 2nd gen PS3, because like the 360 it'll have problems'. Yet I've not heard anyone say anything like that about the Wii.
Because there's little history of problems with Nintendo consoles.
Frankly, there's little history of serious problems period. Prior to the last generation, game consoles were still expected to be like every other home electronic appliance: You bought it, you brought it home, and it worked. Games, too. They were expected to just work. The stability of the hardware/software in consoles was always a major argument in their favor over PCs.
So the fact that so many people had to replace their PS2s within a year, and Xbox 360 owners were experiencing problems, is a new thing. Now I partly blame it on companies like MS who are used to a "release-then-patch" philosophy. Certainly when the consoles got online capabilities that was the first thing I expected to happen, and it was. Sony, I don't know what their deal is, they've been troubled lately. Nintendo, they still seem to very much want to give people the old-school console experience of it "just working". I think they would be embarassed to have to release patches to fix major launch problems.
In my opinion, the israelis need to invest in far better armor and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. During their conflict with Hezbollah, the UAVs were a huge success. Also, wouldn't highly armored robotic vehicles be better than a hornet? For example, maybe an armored ball (kind of like those hamster balls) that would essentially be indestructable and roll around doing reconaiscence and shooting things. Just a thought.
Well you're right the UAVs worked great, and you're right that they need far better armor if they want to continue using armor. The RPG-29s and guided missles used by Hezbollah did a number on the IDF's Merkava MBTs, considered one of if not the most heavily armored tanks in service. Between those relatively cheap shoulder-fired infantry weapons, and the shaped-charge mines Hezbollah had sprinkled throughout their territory, it was demonstrated pretty conclusively that today's armor isn't standing up to even the guerilla weapons. More armor is needed, though I'm not sure that's the right tack to take.
First, tanks aren't that great in the kinds of environments we're talking about: hilly terrain with valleys and choke points that can be littered with mines and give attackers on the ridges an ideal firing line to hit the tank's weak point, and cities and villages that have basically the same properties. A slow moving tank with an enemy on high ground is vulnerable.
Second, there is no such thing as "essentially indestructable". In the ages-old battle between weapons and armor, weapons always win eventually. There have been times that armor would have a brief period of success, but then the weapons would advance one generation and the armor would fall behind. This is just the nature of the beast: it's easier to destroy than to resist destruction. It's easier to focus a large amount of energy on a small area, whether the tip of an arrow fired from a longbow or the shaped-charge explosive of an RPG, than it is to build a material that can resist that energy, whether steel armor or the advanced composites used in MBTs. Reactive armor was designed to defeat the shaped charge rockets, so the rocket designers responded by simply adding a smaller charge ahead of the main one to defeat the reactive armor so the big charge can hit the main armor with full force. Just as the cannon signalled the end of the castle, the RPG-29 and ilk are signalling the end of MBT armor.
Not that tanks aren't useful and further armor developments serve no purpose, it's just that you aren't going to get much of a lead even over non-state-militaries like Hezbollah. An autonomous tank would be nice because when it gets destroyed you haven't lost a tank crew as well. Plus you could design it to be more robust than a manned tank (where breaching into the crew compartment is basically all you need to do). But it isn't going to be an indestructable ball of death, that is for sure.
I even camped out with my friend to buy a PS2 so we could play Tekken. Another great game.
Tekken was sweet indeed, but I'd never camp out just to get it. It's a sweet game today, so it certainly would have been sweet 2 weeks or 2 months after the PS2 launch.
That's just me, though. Personally I have absolutely zero desire to go through that much hassle just to get a piece of consumer electronics. There's no way a game console can change my life, since I'm already a console gamer with games I like to play. I'm not going to battle a bunch of crazy neurotic people who define themselves by what devices they own.
In two days the Wii launches. While I don't expect that to be nearly as crazy as the PS3 launch (due to larger supply and less of the 'you have to stand in the rain to get the greatest device ever!' type of hype), I won't be going out on Sunday. I may try in the middle of the week, and before I get in my car I'm going to call the store. First, I'm going to ask them if they have any Wii in stock. After they stop snickering, and if they say yes, I'm going to ask them if they have enough in stock that I'm not going to get in a fight with some retard over them. If they sound at all hesitant, then I'll just ask when they're expecting their next shipment, and call again after that date.
Seriously. Awesome is awesome. None of these consoles will be any less awesome next month. Personally I consider getting one without having to wait in line, refrain from urinating for fear of losing my place in line, getting in a fistfight with some fool, getting stuck in the door trying to charge through with everyone else, and still having the exact same console those tards did (or didn't) get to be the sign of uber leetness.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one that saw that problem coming?
Everyone with a brain saw that one coming (congratulations on your brain, though).
That's why the "unremoveable tracking bracelet for kids" idea always terrified me so much.
1% of the population can now dictate and control 99% of the population. That simply isn't right.
"Requiring the barest consideration for" is the same as "being controlled by". The mantra of the privileged majority.
I'm certainly not for making the life of Blind people harder, or anyone with a disability. However, the disabilities act just is abused. This is a perfect example.
Yeah, this is a perfect example of the disabled wanting to have the most basic of concessions -- the ability to tell what money they are carrying instead of depending on the honesty of a sighted person -- and a non-disabled person feeling put out by it.
Why?
Because now you won't be able to lord your money-counting ability over the blind? Because you won't be able to rip them off by handing them three ones instead of a ten and two ones for change? Because a simple feature of currency that basically every other country has and that should have been in the currency for decades is just asking so much. We'll redesign the currency every ten years to incorporate the newest in anti-forgery technology, sure, that's great! But raised bumps for the blind? Fuck no! Where do they come off trying to control me!
Yeah, this is a perfect example all right. A perfect example of a privileged member of the majority whose sense of privilege has morphed into a sense of entitlement, such that anything that threatens their advantage becomes an assault.
Then they want to raise prices forgetting why iTunes Store was successful in the first place. Or is it that they remember but they're just too greedy?
:)
I don't know if they remember or not, but I'm certain that either way greed overrides the lesson in their minds. It's the same reason why CDs are still so expensive -- why the hell would they lower the price if they don't have to? Sure, you'll say because it drives people to piracy, but then they'll just go on a crazy moon-rant about evil pirates slaying innocent studio technicians, and still charge $18 for a CD. Same with iTunes. Why wouldn't they raise the price if they can? Because Steve Jobs tells them they can't? That's a reason they'll listen to.
I've heard it said that you should never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity. However greed, when taken to the level of maliciousness, causes people to do very stupid things. Dumb and evil, that's the recording industry!
Only if we can avoid our tendency towards acronyms (something the advanced society of Star Trek has moved beyond).
I can't imagine getting very excited over anything whose acronym is QVC.
No, not necessarily. The model has no concept of 'past' and 'future' because it is just a model. It is very easy to do something like take all the data from 80 to 40 years ago, call that "the past", then take the data from 40 years ago to the present and call that "the future". You curve-fit your model's parameters to "the past", and then continue the simulation to see if it's predictions match "the future".
This has actually been done before. Not with 80 years of data, but with about 20, again split into "the past" training sets and "the future" testing sets. Several different climate models were compared, trained with "the past" and asked to predict "the future". In this case, only the model which used CO2 as a primary greenhouse gas was able to predict "the future" -- bearing in mind that this was a while ago, i have no link, and I'm just illustrating the principle not trying to suggest this proves anthropogenic CO2-based global warming or anything.
I'm just saying that it is possible to validate a model without having to wait until the future has occured to see that the data was correct. Now I understand that what we really want is a model that we trust for predicting our actual future, as opposed to "the future" as defined for model validation purposes. However, that's not a very useful constraint to put on the trustworthiness of the model. First, because we're trying to make predictions of the future so we can make decisions today, and if we wait until the future arrives then it's too late for predictions or decisions. Second, when that future comes there will be a new unknown future that we want to make predictions about, and that new-future data won't be available to validate the models. You could level the exact same criticism against the model at that time, even if it has perfectly predicted all the data up to that point and seemingly answered your criticism of today.
That criticism would be accurate, as well. Weather and climate are chaotic systems. Even if we could be sure we had a perfect knowledge of the workings of the climate, one would naturally expect the model and reality to diverge due to differences in the measured vs real conditions. So even if our model perfectly modelled current data to our limits of precision, and was in fact the "right" model, it could still produce predictions that don't match up with reality as it changes over time. So that criticism is accurate, but also useless, because it applies to the best possible models as well as the worst.
We're talking about predicting the future. You have to accept a couple things to do that. First is that the data from the past is the only data you can ever have to test your predictive models with. Second is that even if you understand the past perfectly and have the correct model it is still possible to mispredict the future.
You should move south to someplace warmer. Don't worry, you can still enjoy your favorite sport in the Rayman mini-game "Bunnies Don't Know How Not To Freeze To Death While Running Between Buildings".
Is Zonk some 14 year old with Mario sheets on his bed?
No, he's a 30 year old with Mario sheets on his bed.
Just over 50 Merkava were hit with anti-tank weapons. Out of that 14 were destroyed and those required multiple hits. Most crew casualties and injuries were top down hits on light upper spots and a large number were in the driver section (sucks for them)or results of the shockwave of the hit. The RPG-29 turned out to have more bark than bite against the MBT's but proved very effective against APC's and other vehicles.
I had read that over 50 Merkava were destroyed or disabled, but that didn't specify by type, so I'd believe that the rest were the result of mines.
I maintain that is a very good kill count for the RPGs, and an eye opener for IDF and others relying on similar armor. The light spots on top are exactly why tanks are vulnerable when their enemy gets the high ground. The RPG-29 and RPG-7 for that matter are devastating against APCs, which is why you don't hear about the Bradley in Iraq any more. The Merkava is designed to be an APC itself, giving full tank armor protection to the soldiers, which is why these results are significant.
Throw in the new Trophy anti-anti-tank missile system thats being developed and suddenly things dont look so bad for the future.
I've got to admit point defence systems like that have a lot of potential. I'm going to go with history on this one and say weaponry will adapt.
Only poor nations are still using reactive armor on their current MBT's
U.S. Army and IDF are poor, got it.
Its a matter of using them correctly as are anti-tank rockets (Iranian training paid off it looks like). The Vietnamese used armor against two American firebases and wiped them out.
Yes, the Vietnamese didn't have a lot of tanks, particularly the guerilla fighters, and thus they could catch the army off-guard and underarmed by suddenly attacking with them. That is one of many ways tanks can be used well.
There are plenty of examples of why armor isn't going away anytime soon and plenty of reasons for it to stay.
Of course. Like I've been saying, it isn't like this hasn't happened before, and armor is still around. I'm suggesting that counting on the defense your tank provides you in situations where that armor is tactically weak isn't a good strategy, and IDF may want to look at other avenues for similar conflicts in the future.
On the other hand tanks are a good investment for the day when, say, Israel got in a conventional war with Syria.
I'm just saying don't choose your tactics around your weapon, choose tactics and weapons together that work best in the situation.
The current Iraq conflict is an excellent example of how armor can be used effectively in conjunction with dismounted troops in an urban terrain.
Hmm, I was going to say the opposite. The Abrams has had a very high survivability rate in Iraq because the insurgents are primarily armed with RPG-7s. Even still a number have been disabled by RPG hits -- several hits, obviously -- which demonstrates how a narrow corridor lined with many high positions from which to fire downward at the tank's vulnerable spots isn't exactly an ideal scenario.
The Abrams is a huge tank to put in a city. It blocks a street, can't move quickly, can't respond quickly if it takes fire, and certainly can't respond with precision. Actually, since as I was saying earlier the BFV hasn't stood up well, I may be arguing for something between them, with MBT armor but much lighter weapons and capabilities for urban warfare.
As to the autonomous tanks I dont think we'll be seeing anything like that for a very very long time. Any unmanned vehicle is subject to being jammed or recieving interferance. Heck there's even a chance the encryption on the transmission can be cracked and the vehicle turned on its users. Alot of IED's in Iraq are jammed on a regular basis and easily I might add.
Yeah, it's funny how they went back to low-tech wires because they couldn't be jammed. Now the same vulnerabilities exist in the UAV and the remote control robots being used by the army, but the conditions are different. I agree autonomous tanks seems unlikely.
Must be one of my clones. Or possibly a robot replica. Not me though, sorry.
I thought that the nunchuck was ussed to shiled bash in Z:TP
;_;
I meant that I think it uses the 'farkin good chase cam' method.
It was one of the reviews here: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928519.asp
Though last I looked there were only 4 reviews. There was one that made a single comment about how you couldn't change the camera but it didn't matter, and none of the others I read mentioned the camera at all. I think forgetting to mention the camera is the best praise for a camera that you could have.
Dono, I would like to hear about the controll set up. Well, actualy I would like to have a copy, but that probably will nto be happenign to soon
Frankly, I'm betting that the Wii's greater launch supply will let me get one at my leisure. If not, oh well.
Right. They are selling the service of making the copy along with the goods (the source and target media.) It therefore is not noncommercial copying by the end-user for personal use, and insofar as there may be exceptions for noncommercial format-shifting for personal use (a disputed point!) that would cover DVD ripping, this is not covered by them.
It is non-commercial use by the end-user.
It is the merchant who performs the copying -- note that he is neither in possession of the original copy nor of the one generated, the end user is -- who is making money.
If performing the service of creating a copy for someone who has both a legal right to the original copy and a legal right to the copy that is created, then Kinko's performs billion of copyright violations a day.
And don't argue that they do, on the basis of people who don't have a legal right to either their original or to the copy they make, because that's not the same thing.
If what you say is true, Kinko's and all other copiers would be shut down.
No, because the MPAA is charging infringement as well as DMCA violation and seeking remedies for both; the DMCA expressly does not change the scope of any of the provisions or exceptions to infringement, so adding the DMCA claim does nothing to help their other claims.
The MPAA always charges copyright infringement, even if no actual copying took place at all, much less illegal copying. First, because more charges are scarier to their victims, even if they would necessarily be dropped in court. Second, because if they didn't they'd have to explain the difference between a DMCA violation and copyright infringement and how they are unrelated, and how the person they are charging didn't actuall steal anything at all from them.
The DMCA charge is the only one that has a chance of standing up.
I only included the statement about money for parallel structure with the parent.
The only problem with that legal theory is that it's false. The user has purchased a DVD player, not leased or licensed it, and he has not agreed to a license of any kind whatsoever, not even a shrink-wrapped one.
So? The DVD player manufacturer is who has purchased the license. If you did not buy a DVD player that was licensed, then you do not have permission to break the encryption on the DVD. If you get around that encryption, you are breaking the copy protection on that DVD.
The DMCA doesn't say anything about how you circumvent the protection scheme, whether that's by discovering the keys by reverse engineering a licensed player, brute-forcing the algorithm, or finding a weakness in the protocol. The fact is that your player was not authorized to break the encryption, and thus your using it is circumventing the protection.
In fact in DMCA terms a single bit that is supposed to mean "don't copy me unless you have permission" can qualify as a protection mechanism, and not honoring that bit is circumvention. There was an actual case involving this, where someone was sued for copying True Type Fonts, which have a "don't copy me" bit. It's don't recall the result, and it may have failed -- it's the digital equivalent of putting a sign on your front yard that says "My yard is protected by an invisible force shield!" and when someone walks on your yard, charging them with both Trespassing and Breaking and Entering (for busting down your force field). If so that would be a good precedent, but the law itself doesn't distinguish.
The purpose of a law and what the law is about are not the same thing, and in fact the purpose of a law may not appear in the text of the law at all. The purpose of copyright law is presented in the Constitution. The law itself deals strictly with copying, distribution, commercial usage, and so forth. This isn't unusual, since law general deals with prohibiting something, while "purpose" is generally about achieving some effect. In theory one leads to the other.
:(
In practice, we get the Sony Bono Copyright Act and the DMCA.
The key is not 'legitimate' because you aren't licensed to use it. It doesn't matter that it's an actual decryption key. If you found the key by brute-force hacking it would be the same key, and still illegal to use.
The DMCA is such a fucking stupid law. I break it every time I watch a DVD on my computer, a DVD that in each and every case I paid in full for. Good thing I don't mistake legality for morality, or might feel bad!
It's hard to argue "fair use" when someone is making money by making a copy... that's the whole point of copyright.
No, copyright is about making money distributing copies. The one doing the copying is not making a copy of their own DVD, they are making a copy of the customer's DVD for the customer.
Making a backup copy of a copyrighted work is completely legal and is explicitly spelled out in copyright law. If you don't own or don't know how to run a CD burner, is paying someone to make the backup copy for you illegal?
There's a reason the MPAA is invoking the DMCA, and that's because the DMCA is what makes breaking encryption illegal even if the actions performed thereafter are legal under copyright law. Were it not for the DMCA, the MPAA would not have a case here at all.
the easiest way of handeling a 3ps would be:
3) nunchuk attachment for cammera
OR
1) Design a farken good follow cammera
It basically seems to come down to this. Using the nunchuck would work if it finds the right balance between not wobbling from random hand motions when you aren't intending to move the camera, to being responsive and precise when you do want to move it. The 'farkin good follow camera' has never been done before, so I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand, if I glean the info correctly from the reviews then Twilight Princess actually uses that scheme, and I didn't hear any complaints about the camera.
If you want to see where the gaming industry is going, take a look in the arcades. All of the games I can think of are somehow immersive with simple controls: you dance on light pads, you drive a car with a steering wheel, you shoot zombies with a shotgun, you paddle a raft down a gulley, etc. You won't find joystick controlled games in your local Dave and Buster's anymore.
I think that's more a case of the consoles pushing the arcades out. There's no reason to go to the arcade to play something that uses a simple joystick and buttons because you can duplicate the experience on your game console, only with couch, fridge, and friends. So the arcades only option is to provide an experience you can't get at home. This is also why pinball machines, skeeball, and basketball games sit side-by-side with House of the Dead and what have you.
This is probably where arcades will continue to go. The wii enables more immersive control options, sure, but you still aren't going to get the same sensation as you would, say, sitting on a hydraulic seat shaped like a motorcycle.
Arcades used to be the forefront of video game design, now they're a side show. It's okay, as far as i'm concerned.
I also got to play around with a Wii last week (nintendo world store), and the controller DOES seem to work from a functional standpoint.
As actual reviews of the final hardware and software are starting to come in, I'm quite releaved to find out that this is the general consensus. In fact, with the exception of some of the mini-game grappling-with-Nazis from Call of Duty, all the reviewers have been saying "I like many of you was skeptical about how the controls would turn out in practice, but rest assured it works great".
However, granting that I'm still in "imagine what it will be like" mode, I still have a concern, which is the camera.
In your basic Dual Shock setup, you have one analog stick for motion, one for your camera, and then a bunch of buttons to perform actions.
With the wiimote+nunchuck, you have an analog stick for motion, and a combination of buttons and three-dimensional motion of the wiimote to perform actions. Where does this leave the camera? A couple mention tilting the nunchuck as your camera control, and that sounds precarious to me. Cameras and camera control has always been the achiles heel of 3rd-person 3D gaming, and I have to admit I'm concerned how well it works.
and the current figures are only about 15% of TV owners.
And what portion of them have newer 720p TVs as opposed to older 1080i, for which the PS3 will helpfully downscale their games to 480p? A friend of mine brought this up as a reason why the ps3 continued to not interest him. I hadn't realized being part of the 85% without HDTV at all... but I wonder what portion of that 15% Sony has actually carved out for themselves?
This type of thing is something a number of people are saying; ' you should wait to get a 2nd gen PS3, because like the 360 it'll have problems'. Yet I've not heard anyone say anything like that about the Wii.
Because there's little history of problems with Nintendo consoles.
Frankly, there's little history of serious problems period. Prior to the last generation, game consoles were still expected to be like every other home electronic appliance: You bought it, you brought it home, and it worked. Games, too. They were expected to just work. The stability of the hardware/software in consoles was always a major argument in their favor over PCs.
So the fact that so many people had to replace their PS2s within a year, and Xbox 360 owners were experiencing problems, is a new thing. Now I partly blame it on companies like MS who are used to a "release-then-patch" philosophy. Certainly when the consoles got online capabilities that was the first thing I expected to happen, and it was. Sony, I don't know what their deal is, they've been troubled lately. Nintendo, they still seem to very much want to give people the old-school console experience of it "just working". I think they would be embarassed to have to release patches to fix major launch problems.
But we'll see what actually happens.
They used russian-made/sold Kornets. I dont think theres any armor out there that can withstand a hit from those. Armor's not the problem its tactics.
You got that right. Tanks just don't mesh well with effective anti-guerilla tactics.
In my opinion, the israelis need to invest in far better armor and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. During their conflict with Hezbollah, the UAVs were a huge success. Also, wouldn't highly armored robotic vehicles be better than a hornet? For example, maybe an armored ball (kind of like those hamster balls) that would essentially be indestructable and roll around doing reconaiscence and shooting things. Just a thought.
Well you're right the UAVs worked great, and you're right that they need far better armor if they want to continue using armor. The RPG-29s and guided missles used by Hezbollah did a number on the IDF's Merkava MBTs, considered one of if not the most heavily armored tanks in service. Between those relatively cheap shoulder-fired infantry weapons, and the shaped-charge mines Hezbollah had sprinkled throughout their territory, it was demonstrated pretty conclusively that today's armor isn't standing up to even the guerilla weapons. More armor is needed, though I'm not sure that's the right tack to take.
First, tanks aren't that great in the kinds of environments we're talking about: hilly terrain with valleys and choke points that can be littered with mines and give attackers on the ridges an ideal firing line to hit the tank's weak point, and cities and villages that have basically the same properties. A slow moving tank with an enemy on high ground is vulnerable.
Second, there is no such thing as "essentially indestructable". In the ages-old battle between weapons and armor, weapons always win eventually. There have been times that armor would have a brief period of success, but then the weapons would advance one generation and the armor would fall behind. This is just the nature of the beast: it's easier to destroy than to resist destruction. It's easier to focus a large amount of energy on a small area, whether the tip of an arrow fired from a longbow or the shaped-charge explosive of an RPG, than it is to build a material that can resist that energy, whether steel armor or the advanced composites used in MBTs. Reactive armor was designed to defeat the shaped charge rockets, so the rocket designers responded by simply adding a smaller charge ahead of the main one to defeat the reactive armor so the big charge can hit the main armor with full force. Just as the cannon signalled the end of the castle, the RPG-29 and ilk are signalling the end of MBT armor.
Not that tanks aren't useful and further armor developments serve no purpose, it's just that you aren't going to get much of a lead even over non-state-militaries like Hezbollah. An autonomous tank would be nice because when it gets destroyed you haven't lost a tank crew as well. Plus you could design it to be more robust than a manned tank (where breaching into the crew compartment is basically all you need to do). But it isn't going to be an indestructable ball of death, that is for sure.
I even camped out with my friend to buy a PS2 so we could play Tekken. Another great game.
Tekken was sweet indeed, but I'd never camp out just to get it. It's a sweet game today, so it certainly would have been sweet 2 weeks or 2 months after the PS2 launch.
That's just me, though. Personally I have absolutely zero desire to go through that much hassle just to get a piece of consumer electronics. There's no way a game console can change my life, since I'm already a console gamer with games I like to play. I'm not going to battle a bunch of crazy neurotic people who define themselves by what devices they own.
In two days the Wii launches. While I don't expect that to be nearly as crazy as the PS3 launch (due to larger supply and less of the 'you have to stand in the rain to get the greatest device ever!' type of hype), I won't be going out on Sunday. I may try in the middle of the week, and before I get in my car I'm going to call the store. First, I'm going to ask them if they have any Wii in stock. After they stop snickering, and if they say yes, I'm going to ask them if they have enough in stock that I'm not going to get in a fight with some retard over them. If they sound at all hesitant, then I'll just ask when they're expecting their next shipment, and call again after that date.
Seriously. Awesome is awesome. None of these consoles will be any less awesome next month. Personally I consider getting one without having to wait in line, refrain from urinating for fear of losing my place in line, getting in a fistfight with some fool, getting stuck in the door trying to charge through with everyone else, and still having the exact same console those tards did (or didn't) get to be the sign of uber leetness.
1) It's a video game console, not a cure for cancer. You don't need to get worked up over it.
What?! I turned down a bone marrow transplant so that I could stand in line at Walmart!
Sony's PR screws me again!