The true offense in the OP was calling it "Case Western". It's not a "reserve university", whatever that means.
I've always just called it "Case" since I started there as an undergraduate in 1994, while my e-mail address still contains cwru.edu. Both of those are used now - "Case" just validates the fact that most people really get tired of saying the whole name over and over again.
Perhaps now is the time to consider joining the EFF if you attend a private university and have a blog.
Perhaps. But the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education specializes in free-speech issues at educational institutions, rather than dealing with every conceivable online issue like the EFF does.
Narrator: Bigfoot: Endangered Mystery! In the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest dwells the strange and beautiful creature known as Bigfoot, perhaps.
Fry: That proves it!
Narrator: Sadly, logging and human settlement today threaten what might possibly be his habitat, although if it's not, they don't. Bigfoot populations require vast amounts of land to remain elusive in. They typically dwell just behind rocks, but are also sometimes playful, bounding into thick fogs and out-of-focus areas. Remember, it's up to us. Bigfoot is a crucial part of the ecosystem, if he exists. So let's all help keep Bigfoot possibly alive for future generations to enjoy unless he doesn't exist. The end!
The situation with the Seigenthaler article was somewhat unusual. The article (according to the OP link) had no links from within Wikipedia, allowing it to escape the scrutiny of Wikipedians. The article might as well have been posted to someone's Myspace page, except that being on Wikipedia grants somewhat more credibility than just appearing on some random blog. In other words, Wikipedia is as much a victim here as Seigenthaler, as its credibility was usurped (presumably with contravention of Wikipedia's rules like NPOV and no original research) to post an unsubstantiated political point. If the article went unnoticed for so long, it's likely that the only people that ever saw it were people who got the link e-mailed to them by the article's OP, or people who actually searched for Seigenthaler's name. Given such minimal exposure, the damage caused to Seigenthaler's reputation is probably greater now than if he hadn't said anything publicly after he eventually edited the article himself.
But unlike Seigenthaler, Wikipedia gets it from both ends in this case. An anonymous user posts (allegedly) false information about Seigenthaler, and then, seeing that he has no recourse against the offender, Seigenthaler lambasts Wikipedia. Are there problems with Wikipedia's policies? Sure. Adding restrictions upon anonymous users is a good thing, especially given how prone Wikipedia is to vandalism, and I'm still surprised it doesn't require every contributor to post under an account (which would let them then focus their attention on weeding out sock puppets). But that doesn't make Wikimedia, as an organization, responsible for the incorrect content. In fact, the whole point of Wikipedia is that if you, the user, see something that you know is incorrect, you behave as any good member of the community would, and you contribute to making Wikipedia more factually correct. This is peer-to-peer information: the community as a whole suffers if you only take without giving back.
and compares the one way hashes to a central database of one-way hashes of known cheating software?
The database is also downloaded to your machine to do the comparison, so even the hashes aren't transmitted back to Blizzard unless one of them matches.
They hear nuclear and they think 3 mile island or world war 2. They don't think of safety.
That's the amazing thing. "Radioactive" goes in one ear, and "OMGF" comes out the mouth without stopping to think whether it's actually dangerous or what the benefits are.
In many smoke detectors on the market, there's a very small amount of Americium, a radioactive isotope that releases alpha particles when it decays. Most people are blissfully unaware of the presence of such a horrible grave threat in their homes, but if they did know about it, they'd throw that smoke detector out the window, saying, "The city building inspector can go screw himself. I'm not gonna let my children die from brain cancer just because 'they' claim it will keep them from dying from smoke inhalation when my cigarette catches my mattress on fire in the middle of the night."
I don't know if you were intending to be purely facetious or actually make a commentary on the way things are, but Hasbro is definitely workingon that,thoughnot justwith Risk.
I suspect that most game development houses today would be more than happy to hire women for jobs in programming and level design, and not just art, music, and business-related departments. The problem is that there are so few women pursuing such a career. I've TA'd computer science courses before that had a grand total of zero women in them (while one of my lab coworkers TA's classes in the biology department where there were more women than men enrolled).
Most of the interesting plot elements were actually resolved at the end of Season 4 (TNT nearly killed the series, and all the good stuff ended up going into Season 4 instead of both 4 and 5), but you're right that the series finale was really good. Gave me the same sort of emotional response that I got when I reached the end of LotR (the books, I mean) and realized I'd reached the end of a truly epic story. I think that was what JMS intended, too.
Ever play with the toys and the toy-related videotapes? The toy responded to flashing of certain frequencies on the TV screen (slow enough that it was easily visible, probably in the 4-10 Hz range), and counted hits against you if it detected certain frequencies used to animate incoming fire, and counted points for you if you pulled the trigger while aiming at other frequencies that animated targets. If your score ever reached zero (you started at 5), the cockpit would eject, making a horrible buzzing noise and gracelessly flinging your Captain Power action figure out onto the floor.
You have to wonder how many kids had epileptic fits watching those tapes, though!
Of course, this madness would end quite suddenly, the moment that Earthstink starts running TV promos stating, "We offer you the full power of our Internet service no matter what site you visit."
What's that? I can switch providers and tell BellSouth where to shove their Intarweb? Sign me up!
You keep wanting to put the responsibility for offense being caused when using swear words on the listener rather than the speaker. But would you swear while on a job interview? If no, then why not? And if the answer to that is, because it might offend the interviewer and make it less likely that you'd get the job, consider that perhaps avoiding rudeness and offensiveness doesn't have to be contingent upon you potentially gaining anything. If the responsibility for maintaining proper decorum amid strangers exists while on a job interview, then why can't it exist in public, in general?
You're still stuck getting your CC company to do a chargeback against the fraudsters if they refuse to ship the item, but a virtual account number will at least limit the amount of money that can potentially get bound up in the conflict. It prevents them from charging more than the amount you initially specified in the order. Usually a virtual account number will expire within one or two months of creation, so the fraudsters will be forced either to charge your card eventually (allowing you to trigger the chargeback if they don't ship) or abandon your order altogether.
It also makes any of the more fantastic threats like "Im gonna post ur CC# on teh Intarweb" laughable.
The real argument about creationism (or, more frequently, ID) not being science is that it doesn't conform to the scientific method. That is, scientific research generally has these steps:
1. Observe something about the world around you 2. Hypothesize why those observations might be so 3. Predict what other observations the hypothesis supports 4. Test those predictions to determine whether the hypothesis is false
The test of creationism as science versus dogma isn't whether Rhonda Jones's personal criteria are satisfied. It's whether the scientific method is followed. As soon as ID/Creation advocates present hypotheses that can be tested scientifically (and not just tests of evolution masquerading as tests of ID/creation), they can join the scientific community. That hasn't happened yet, however, and that's why ID/creationism can't be considered science.
So many words to change nothing - if anything your post MAKES MY POINT that swear words are something you merely CHOSE to be offended by.
Especially that part that you must not have read, where I said that the reason not to swear in front of children is because it teaches them that rudeness is acceptable behavior. It doesn't matter whether anyone is offended by what you say at that point, because your words have had a negative influence on someone else's behavior and manner of thought.
Re:Slashdot needs to stop posting Gamasutra articl
on
The End of Copyright
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It seems that in the rush to react to articles, Slashdotters miss the point that they're not the target audience.
Slashdotters may not be the target audience for Gamasutra articles, but they are the target audience of Gamasutra readers. Without the game consumer on board, there are no games. Ten or twenty years ago, this was different - the resources that went into programming a game were limited enough that one or a few people could handle it easily. There was room to try new things and figure out through trial and error what gamers wanted. Nowadays, mom & pop dev houses have only a niche audience, because a big publisher can put so much into the art, level design, sound, and music that nobody can compete without sufficient financing (and, therefore, a large number of customers willing to buy the product).
Ernest Adams and Richad Bartle can say whatever they want to about the future of the games industry - if the people aren't buying, it ain't happening.
First and foremost you have to prove swearing is harmful
The one thing about swearing that nobody talks about is rudeness, depending on the company you're in. The fundies complain about swearing because it's immoral, and the lefties complain about limitations on their free speech. But nobody takes a moment to realize that while swearing when you're out with your friends may be completely normal, swearing in front of strangers is rude. And swearing in front of kids teaches them that it's okay to be rude to strangers. That's what's objectionable about swearing, and movies/games/{insert entertainment medium here} rarely make a distinction that kids can understand concerning when language is appropriate and when that same language is rude.
The thing about rudeness is that, while it doesn't really harm another person (except when your rudeness becomes instructional to young minds), it makes you look bad. People say that it's their right to be rude, and that's true - but that doesn't make it a requirement, and if people would catch themselves before randomly spouting profanity amid strangers, we'd all live in a much happier, friendlier society.
It has been shown that the divorce rate among the most fundamentalist christians is TWICE that of the divorce rate among atheists and agnostics - and that the divorce rate between the two is pretty much linearaly related to the level of fundamentalism the couple is involved in.
What's the marriage rate compared between the two groups? Are fundies getting divorced more often because they are more likely to get married in the first place?
Slashdot Mirror
More on the logo.
The true offense in the OP was calling it "Case Western". It's not a "reserve university", whatever that means.
I've always just called it "Case" since I started there as an undergraduate in 1994, while my e-mail address still contains cwru.edu. Both of those are used now - "Case" just validates the fact that most people really get tired of saying the whole name over and over again.
Perhaps now is the time to consider joining the EFF if you attend a private university and have a blog.
Perhaps. But the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education specializes in free-speech issues at educational institutions, rather than dealing with every conceivable online issue like the EFF does.
Narrator: Bigfoot: Endangered Mystery! In the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest dwells the strange and beautiful creature known as Bigfoot, perhaps.
Fry: That proves it!
Narrator: Sadly, logging and human settlement today threaten what might possibly be his habitat, although if it's not, they don't. Bigfoot populations require vast amounts of land to remain elusive in. They typically dwell just behind rocks, but are also sometimes playful, bounding into thick fogs and out-of-focus areas. Remember, it's up to us. Bigfoot is a crucial part of the ecosystem, if he exists. So let's all help keep Bigfoot possibly alive for future generations to enjoy unless he doesn't exist. The end!
The situation with the Seigenthaler article was somewhat unusual. The article (according to the OP link) had no links from within Wikipedia, allowing it to escape the scrutiny of Wikipedians. The article might as well have been posted to someone's Myspace page, except that being on Wikipedia grants somewhat more credibility than just appearing on some random blog. In other words, Wikipedia is as much a victim here as Seigenthaler, as its credibility was usurped (presumably with contravention of Wikipedia's rules like NPOV and no original research) to post an unsubstantiated political point. If the article went unnoticed for so long, it's likely that the only people that ever saw it were people who got the link e-mailed to them by the article's OP, or people who actually searched for Seigenthaler's name. Given such minimal exposure, the damage caused to Seigenthaler's reputation is probably greater now than if he hadn't said anything publicly after he eventually edited the article himself.
But unlike Seigenthaler, Wikipedia gets it from both ends in this case. An anonymous user posts (allegedly) false information about Seigenthaler, and then, seeing that he has no recourse against the offender, Seigenthaler lambasts Wikipedia. Are there problems with Wikipedia's policies? Sure. Adding restrictions upon anonymous users is a good thing, especially given how prone Wikipedia is to vandalism, and I'm still surprised it doesn't require every contributor to post under an account (which would let them then focus their attention on weeding out sock puppets). But that doesn't make Wikimedia, as an organization, responsible for the incorrect content. In fact, the whole point of Wikipedia is that if you, the user, see something that you know is incorrect, you behave as any good member of the community would, and you contribute to making Wikipedia more factually correct. This is peer-to-peer information: the community as a whole suffers if you only take without giving back.
and compares the one way hashes to a central database of one-way hashes of known cheating software?
The database is also downloaded to your machine to do the comparison, so even the hashes aren't transmitted back to Blizzard unless one of them matches.
They hear nuclear and they think 3 mile island or world war 2. They don't think of safety.
That's the amazing thing. "Radioactive" goes in one ear, and "OMGF" comes out the mouth without stopping to think whether it's actually dangerous or what the benefits are.
In many smoke detectors on the market, there's a very small amount of Americium, a radioactive isotope that releases alpha particles when it decays. Most people are blissfully unaware of the presence of such a horrible grave threat in their homes, but if they did know about it, they'd throw that smoke detector out the window, saying, "The city building inspector can go screw himself. I'm not gonna let my children die from brain cancer just because 'they' claim it will keep them from dying from smoke inhalation when my cigarette catches my mattress on fire in the middle of the night."
This seriously riced out link goes out to all the people who don't know what the parent post was talking about.
When "u" (meaning "you") gets in the dictionary, I'll accept "orangutang" in the solution.
Of course, that will also be the day I shoot myself in the head.
Perhaps the intention was to have them bronzed.
I don't know if you were intending to be purely facetious or actually make a commentary on the way things are, but Hasbro is definitely working on that, though not just with Risk.
I suspect that most game development houses today would be more than happy to hire women for jobs in programming and level design, and not just art, music, and business-related departments. The problem is that there are so few women pursuing such a career. I've TA'd computer science courses before that had a grand total of zero women in them (while one of my lab coworkers TA's classes in the biology department where there were more women than men enrolled).
Most of the interesting plot elements were actually resolved at the end of Season 4 (TNT nearly killed the series, and all the good stuff ended up going into Season 4 instead of both 4 and 5), but you're right that the series finale was really good. Gave me the same sort of emotional response that I got when I reached the end of LotR (the books, I mean) and realized I'd reached the end of a truly epic story. I think that was what JMS intended, too.
It endears the characters to you because it's the kind of thing you'd do yourself.
Yes! Bring on the sci-fi characters that surf for pron all day long!
William Shatner and Heather Locklear co-star in a cop drama with a dirty-sounding name? Classic!
The names on the sides of the EA cruisers were particularly hilarious :)
Ever play with the toys and the toy-related videotapes? The toy responded to flashing of certain frequencies on the TV screen (slow enough that it was easily visible, probably in the 4-10 Hz range), and counted hits against you if it detected certain frequencies used to animate incoming fire, and counted points for you if you pulled the trigger while aiming at other frequencies that animated targets. If your score ever reached zero (you started at 5), the cockpit would eject, making a horrible buzzing noise and gracelessly flinging your Captain Power action figure out onto the floor.
You have to wonder how many kids had epileptic fits watching those tapes, though!
When you have Will Robinson in your show you know it's going to be a hit!
Especially when Will Robinson is adept at kicking ass.
Of course, this madness would end quite suddenly, the moment that Earthstink starts running TV promos stating, "We offer you the full power of our Internet service no matter what site you visit."
What's that? I can switch providers and tell BellSouth where to shove their Intarweb? Sign me up!
You keep wanting to put the responsibility for offense being caused when using swear words on the listener rather than the speaker. But would you swear while on a job interview? If no, then why not? And if the answer to that is, because it might offend the interviewer and make it less likely that you'd get the job, consider that perhaps avoiding rudeness and offensiveness doesn't have to be contingent upon you potentially gaining anything. If the responsibility for maintaining proper decorum amid strangers exists while on a job interview, then why can't it exist in public, in general?
You're still stuck getting your CC company to do a chargeback against the fraudsters if they refuse to ship the item, but a virtual account number will at least limit the amount of money that can potentially get bound up in the conflict. It prevents them from charging more than the amount you initially specified in the order. Usually a virtual account number will expire within one or two months of creation, so the fraudsters will be forced either to charge your card eventually (allowing you to trigger the chargeback if they don't ship) or abandon your order altogether.
It also makes any of the more fantastic threats like "Im gonna post ur CC# on teh Intarweb" laughable.
Sophistry.
The real argument about creationism (or, more frequently, ID) not being science is that it doesn't conform to the scientific method. That is, scientific research generally has these steps:
1. Observe something about the world around you
2. Hypothesize why those observations might be so
3. Predict what other observations the hypothesis supports
4. Test those predictions to determine whether the hypothesis is false
The test of creationism as science versus dogma isn't whether Rhonda Jones's personal criteria are satisfied. It's whether the scientific method is followed. As soon as ID/Creation advocates present hypotheses that can be tested scientifically (and not just tests of evolution masquerading as tests of ID/creation), they can join the scientific community. That hasn't happened yet, however, and that's why ID/creationism can't be considered science.
So many words to change nothing - if anything your post MAKES MY POINT that swear words are something you merely CHOSE to be offended by.
Especially that part that you must not have read, where I said that the reason not to swear in front of children is because it teaches them that rudeness is acceptable behavior. It doesn't matter whether anyone is offended by what you say at that point, because your words have had a negative influence on someone else's behavior and manner of thought.
It seems that in the rush to react to articles, Slashdotters miss the point that they're not the target audience.
Slashdotters may not be the target audience for Gamasutra articles, but they are the target audience of Gamasutra readers. Without the game consumer on board, there are no games. Ten or twenty years ago, this was different - the resources that went into programming a game were limited enough that one or a few people could handle it easily. There was room to try new things and figure out through trial and error what gamers wanted. Nowadays, mom & pop dev houses have only a niche audience, because a big publisher can put so much into the art, level design, sound, and music that nobody can compete without sufficient financing (and, therefore, a large number of customers willing to buy the product).
Ernest Adams and Richad Bartle can say whatever they want to about the future of the games industry - if the people aren't buying, it ain't happening.
First and foremost you have to prove swearing is harmful
The one thing about swearing that nobody talks about is rudeness, depending on the company you're in. The fundies complain about swearing because it's immoral, and the lefties complain about limitations on their free speech. But nobody takes a moment to realize that while swearing when you're out with your friends may be completely normal, swearing in front of strangers is rude. And swearing in front of kids teaches them that it's okay to be rude to strangers. That's what's objectionable about swearing, and movies/games/{insert entertainment medium here} rarely make a distinction that kids can understand concerning when language is appropriate and when that same language is rude.
The thing about rudeness is that, while it doesn't really harm another person (except when your rudeness becomes instructional to young minds), it makes you look bad. People say that it's their right to be rude, and that's true - but that doesn't make it a requirement, and if people would catch themselves before randomly spouting profanity amid strangers, we'd all live in a much happier, friendlier society.
It has been shown that the divorce rate among the most fundamentalist christians is TWICE that of the divorce rate among atheists and agnostics - and that the divorce rate between the two is pretty much linearaly related to the level of fundamentalism the couple is involved in.
What's the marriage rate compared between the two groups? Are fundies getting divorced more often because they are more likely to get married in the first place?
Six syllables in
The first line of your haiku
Also, winter sucks.