I welcome the R rating; adults should be able to play any game they want.
I'm also an Australian parent of game-enthusiast children, and I share the problem with the rating system which assumes that all kids and all families are the same. The coarse measure of a "rating" is often unhelpful, especially if your kids are at those "in-between" ages where some material would be okay and others would not.
My kids have been going to art galleries since before they could walk. They fully know what a human without clothes on looks like. The ratings system, however, thinks it's a big deal. Nudity (we're not even talking about sex here) almost always pushes the ratings of something that would otherwise be rated PG into M.
In the Australian ratings system, Portal was rated M and Portal 2 was rated PG. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that in the first one, there is some blood splatter on the wall when you're shot by a turret. For the regulations, that's apparently an important difference. My then-ten-year-old daughter had already seen worse violence in various film versions of Shakespeare plays which she watched for a school project (if you've never seen the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth, I thoroughly recommend it), so this wasn't a huge deal.
Things that I do care about are essentially not covered by the classification system, or dealt with in such a way that a parent (at least, one who knows exactly what their kids can and can't handle) is none the wiser.
It wasn't so long ago that my kids couldn't understand a subtle depiction of racism or certain other kinds of bigotry. (If there was a big neon finger saying "this is a bad thing", as most kids' TV shows do, then it wasn't so bad.) The same goes for (even quite mild) depictions of mental illness, or suicidal feelings, or divorce. If any of that is in a film, all you get is the unhelpful phrase "adult themes".
On one hand, the movie Drop Dead Fred has strong themes about emotional abuse in the context of a dysfunctional family, some quite specific references to sex, and a lot of other material that any self-respecting parent would definitely want to check out before they let their child see it. It's rated PG, and sits in the "family" section of my local DVD store.
On the other hand, there are some very impressive documentaries like Anatomy for Beginners and Mummifying Alan which are rated MA15+, but many children can handle just fine. There is no sex or violence in either of these shows; the Anatomy episode on reproduction does acknowledge the existence of sex at a level similar to most primary school sex education programmes. Both shows feature real unclothed dead bodies being dissected in the context of an anatomy lesson and mummified in the context of historical research, respectively. Of course, we did everything you're supposed to do: watch it first to make sure there's nothing they can't handle, then watch it with them and talk about what's happening. They were totally cool with it, and completely fascinated.
In all of the above examples, I would argue that the rating is highly misleading and unhelpful for most parents. I think that the ratings system only works as well as it does because the vast majority of TV shows, movies and games fit easily identifiable stereotypes and formulas. The best ones are often precisely those which challenge the boundaries of the ratings system. If I care about my kids watching good movies or playing good games, the ratings system isn't much use to me.
If we're talking about child safety, I want to know things like whether or not my kids will be interacting with other people online in an uncontrolled way. The ratings system only covers this with the nebulous statement "gaming experience may change online", and it typically doesn't affect the rating.
Oh, that's easy: If GMO products were labelled, people might realise that Monsanto is trying to take over the world's food supply.
I don't care GMO foods being labelled, but I do want patented foods labelled, much like any other product. GMO food are very likely to be as safe as any other food, but I want to know which evil corporation may get my money.
I can totally buy the claim that it provides protection against temptation. Not protection from being tempted, of course, but protection from giving in.
Under normal circumstances, nobody can successfully tempt you to do what you believe is morally wrong unless you choose to participate. Some recovering alcoholics use a talisman (e.g. a piece of jewelery or a tattoo in a place they regularly see) to be constantly reminded to stay sober. I can see how that would work.
I'm not sure what "protection from evil" means in this context, though. Whether or not it would work would probably depend on the kind of evil we're talking about. However, "protection from evil" might also be a jargon term with a lot of cultural understanding behind it.
Maybe this is just me, but making fun of Mormon underwear seems to me just as dumb as making fun of the hijab, yarmulke, Sikh turban, or pocket protector.
OK, I've never worn a pocket protector, but you get my point I hope.
By the way, to answer your question: If there are N hash values and you hash N items, you should expect N(1-2/e) collisions. The proof of this is also left as an exercise.
The 2nd is irrelevant. Gun nuts show no interest whatsoever in defending the Constitution. They will happily let it be shredded as long as the can keep their guns.
I agree with you about this, but there's one very crucial fact that you've left out: the vast majority of gun owners in the US are not "gun nuts" in the sense that you probably mean it.
According to their web site, the NRA has 4.3 million members. The best estimate that we have is that 30% of individuals own a gun; 90 million or so. So the NRA directly represents less than 5% of gun owners. Moreover, if you poll people, most Americans disagree with various NRA positions and proposals. For example, the majority of gun owners were in favor of extending the assault weapons ban when it lapsed.
The NRA represents gun manufacturers and a small number of gun nuts. It does not represent responsible gun owners, who make up the majority of gun owners (which is not the same as owners of the majority of guns). The NRA gun lobby can and will happily lobby against the interests of gun owners if it would further gun sales.
By the way, you remember how the MAFIAA was all over the anti-SOPA protests, claiming that it was engineered by big tech companies like Google? The reason why that argument worked on a few politicians is because this sort of thing happens regularly, engineered by groups like the NRA fronting for gun manufacturers.
The birthday paradox only lets you find a collision faster, not crack a specific password faster.
If you have a good b-bit hash function, then the expected cost of "undoing" a specific hash is X*2^(b-1), but the expected cost of finding half a collision (the birthday paradox scenario) is X*2^(b/2).
Hash collisions should *always* be considered inevitable since the number of possible pdfs (or whatever) will exceed the number of possible hash values by many, many orders of magnitude unless the hash size is as large as the original file.
The number of possible PDFs is larger, but the number of actual PDFs is lower. Much lower.
A very reliable rule of thumb is that if there are N possible hash values, then you should expect 0.5 hash collisions after hashing N items. (Exercise: Prove this. You want to consider the limit as N goes to infinity.) So if you're hashing PDF files and looking for a collision, then for a 512-bit hash, you need around 2^256 PDF files to have a realistic chance of a collision. I'd wager that there aren't anywhere near 2^256 PDF files.
Of course hash collisions should always be considered inevitable. As you say, that's just good programming practice. However, if your hash function is good and has a large range, it can safely be considered rare.
Drones are not a new evil. However, they are a new way to convince yourself psychologically that you're not committing evil, however necessary that evil may be.
The guy in the balloon was deployed to a war zone. The drone pilot commutes to work.
The guy in the balloon was debriefed and demobbed. The drone pilot probably wasn't.
The guy in the balloon physically climbed into the aircraft and traveled the long distance to the targets. The drone pilot sat back in a chair waiting for the AI to move the drone to the target locations.
The guy in the balloon handled the weapon, heard the weapon, probably even smelled the weapon. He was probably full of adrenaline. The drone pilot sat in a comfy chair and pushed a button.
If it helps, think of it this way. Credit default swaps were not a "new evil" compared to the gambling that financial traders used to do with people's homes. But by abstracting it away from physical buildings, by giving it a name which doesn't mention "house" or "mortgage", it's that much less obvious that you're actually gambling with people's homes and, consequently, far more risks were taken.
Alternatively, go read Ender's Game.
Drone pilots probably "know" that they're fighting a war, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. As Slashdot pointed out recently, the USAF is actually trying to take steps to make sure drone pilots don't get bored! That isn't a problem that ever happened to F16 pilots.
So how can TI get away with charging almost that much today for a single-purpose device that doesn't even compare favorably with a low-end smartphone from two years ago?
Because designed to be brought into closed-book examinations can't be Internet-enabled general-purpose computers. And they cost so much because they're single-use devices.
The pores and freckles don't bother me. I can see those on the big screen, after all. The thing that bugs me about blu-ray is that I can see all the MPEG compression noise, especially in animated films.
Until the compressors get better, I'm not getting a blu-ray player.
apple, google, facebook, and others are the ones buying up the patents. IV and RPX are just the holding companies to avoid nasty lawsuits about licensing terms
Reading between the lines, IV and RPX are being used as holding companies to avoid nasty lawsuits against Apple, Google and Facebook about other IV- and RPX-held patents.
Slashdot Mirror
I welcome the R rating; adults should be able to play any game they want.
I'm also an Australian parent of game-enthusiast children, and I share the problem with the rating system which assumes that all kids and all families are the same. The coarse measure of a "rating" is often unhelpful, especially if your kids are at those "in-between" ages where some material would be okay and others would not.
My kids have been going to art galleries since before they could walk. They fully know what a human without clothes on looks like. The ratings system, however, thinks it's a big deal. Nudity (we're not even talking about sex here) almost always pushes the ratings of something that would otherwise be rated PG into M.
In the Australian ratings system, Portal was rated M and Portal 2 was rated PG. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that in the first one, there is some blood splatter on the wall when you're shot by a turret. For the regulations, that's apparently an important difference. My then-ten-year-old daughter had already seen worse violence in various film versions of Shakespeare plays which she watched for a school project (if you've never seen the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth, I thoroughly recommend it), so this wasn't a huge deal.
Things that I do care about are essentially not covered by the classification system, or dealt with in such a way that a parent (at least, one who knows exactly what their kids can and can't handle) is none the wiser.
It wasn't so long ago that my kids couldn't understand a subtle depiction of racism or certain other kinds of bigotry. (If there was a big neon finger saying "this is a bad thing", as most kids' TV shows do, then it wasn't so bad.) The same goes for (even quite mild) depictions of mental illness, or suicidal feelings, or divorce. If any of that is in a film, all you get is the unhelpful phrase "adult themes".
On one hand, the movie Drop Dead Fred has strong themes about emotional abuse in the context of a dysfunctional family, some quite specific references to sex, and a lot of other material that any self-respecting parent would definitely want to check out before they let their child see it. It's rated PG, and sits in the "family" section of my local DVD store.
On the other hand, there are some very impressive documentaries like Anatomy for Beginners and Mummifying Alan which are rated MA15+, but many children can handle just fine. There is no sex or violence in either of these shows; the Anatomy episode on reproduction does acknowledge the existence of sex at a level similar to most primary school sex education programmes. Both shows feature real unclothed dead bodies being dissected in the context of an anatomy lesson and mummified in the context of historical research, respectively. Of course, we did everything you're supposed to do: watch it first to make sure there's nothing they can't handle, then watch it with them and talk about what's happening. They were totally cool with it, and completely fascinated.
In all of the above examples, I would argue that the rating is highly misleading and unhelpful for most parents. I think that the ratings system only works as well as it does because the vast majority of TV shows, movies and games fit easily identifiable stereotypes and formulas. The best ones are often precisely those which challenge the boundaries of the ratings system. If I care about my kids watching good movies or playing good games, the ratings system isn't much use to me.
If we're talking about child safety, I want to know things like whether or not my kids will be interacting with other people online in an uncontrolled way. The ratings system only covers this with the nebulous statement "gaming experience may change online", and it typically doesn't affect the rating.
Rural areas. Dialup and satellite internet suck in this application.
You already need decent broadband on current consoles for some DRM-laden games.
Oh, that's easy: If GMO products were labelled, people might realise that Monsanto is trying to take over the world's food supply.
I don't care GMO foods being labelled, but I do want patented foods labelled, much like any other product. GMO food are very likely to be as safe as any other food, but I want to know which evil corporation may get my money.
I can totally buy the claim that it provides protection against temptation. Not protection from being tempted, of course, but protection from giving in.
Under normal circumstances, nobody can successfully tempt you to do what you believe is morally wrong unless you choose to participate. Some recovering alcoholics use a talisman (e.g. a piece of jewelery or a tattoo in a place they regularly see) to be constantly reminded to stay sober. I can see how that would work.
I'm not sure what "protection from evil" means in this context, though. Whether or not it would work would probably depend on the kind of evil we're talking about. However, "protection from evil" might also be a jargon term with a lot of cultural understanding behind it.
The other responder to your post is clearly more knowledgable about Mormon underwear than I am. However, I did want to correct one misconception.
I didn't say it was wrong to make fun of cultural or religious dress. I said it was dumb.
It was an inevitable failure. You can't see a yarmulke under a turban.
That doesn't sound any different from a Democratic voter living in a predominantly "red state" area, these days.
Maybe this is just me, but making fun of Mormon underwear seems to me just as dumb as making fun of the hijab, yarmulke, Sikh turban, or pocket protector.
OK, I've never worn a pocket protector, but you get my point I hope.
Same thing, right?
Yes, but it kills the innuendo value in the figure.
At least, that's what I pulled out of the comment.
Imagine if the Star Wars universe was "updated"* to reflect the latest recording technology.
"A long time ago"
Just sayin'.
By the way, to answer your question: If there are N hash values and you hash N items, you should expect N(1-2/e) collisions. The proof of this is also left as an exercise.
Slashdot screwed up my comment. Please see this correction. 2^256 is the square root of 2^512.
Slashdot screwed up my comment. Please see this correction.
Okay, I can only assume that that's a typo
What I wrote was √N, but Slashdot in its wisdom cut off the square root sign.
If there are N possible hash values, you should expect 0.5 collisions after hashing sqrt(N) items.
Insert joke about Apple products and glass scratches here.
The 2nd is irrelevant. Gun nuts show no interest whatsoever in defending the Constitution. They will happily let it be shredded as long as the can keep their guns.
I agree with you about this, but there's one very crucial fact that you've left out: the vast majority of gun owners in the US are not "gun nuts" in the sense that you probably mean it.
According to their web site, the NRA has 4.3 million members. The best estimate that we have is that 30% of individuals own a gun; 90 million or so. So the NRA directly represents less than 5% of gun owners. Moreover, if you poll people, most Americans disagree with various NRA positions and proposals. For example, the majority of gun owners were in favor of extending the assault weapons ban when it lapsed.
The NRA represents gun manufacturers and a small number of gun nuts. It does not represent responsible gun owners, who make up the majority of gun owners (which is not the same as owners of the majority of guns). The NRA gun lobby can and will happily lobby against the interests of gun owners if it would further gun sales.
By the way, you remember how the MAFIAA was all over the anti-SOPA protests, claiming that it was engineered by big tech companies like Google? The reason why that argument worked on a few politicians is because this sort of thing happens regularly, engineered by groups like the NRA fronting for gun manufacturers.
The birthday paradox only lets you find a collision faster, not crack a specific password faster.
If you have a good b-bit hash function, then the expected cost of "undoing" a specific hash is X*2^(b-1), but the expected cost of finding half a collision (the birthday paradox scenario) is X*2^(b/2).
The number of possible PDFs is larger, but the number of actual PDFs is lower. Much lower.
A very reliable rule of thumb is that if there are N possible hash values, then you should expect 0.5 hash collisions after hashing N items. (Exercise: Prove this. You want to consider the limit as N goes to infinity.) So if you're hashing PDF files and looking for a collision, then for a 512-bit hash, you need around 2^256 PDF files to have a realistic chance of a collision. I'd wager that there aren't anywhere near 2^256 PDF files.
Of course hash collisions should always be considered inevitable. As you say, that's just good programming practice. However, if your hash function is good and has a large range, it can safely be considered rare.
Drones are not a new evil. However, they are a new way to convince yourself psychologically that you're not committing evil, however necessary that evil may be.
The guy in the balloon was deployed to a war zone. The drone pilot commutes to work.
The guy in the balloon was debriefed and demobbed. The drone pilot probably wasn't.
The guy in the balloon physically climbed into the aircraft and traveled the long distance to the targets. The drone pilot sat back in a chair waiting for the AI to move the drone to the target locations.
The guy in the balloon handled the weapon, heard the weapon, probably even smelled the weapon. He was probably full of adrenaline. The drone pilot sat in a comfy chair and pushed a button.
If it helps, think of it this way. Credit default swaps were not a "new evil" compared to the gambling that financial traders used to do with people's homes. But by abstracting it away from physical buildings, by giving it a name which doesn't mention "house" or "mortgage", it's that much less obvious that you're actually gambling with people's homes and, consequently, far more risks were taken.
Alternatively, go read Ender's Game.
Drone pilots probably "know" that they're fighting a war, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. As Slashdot pointed out recently, the USAF is actually trying to take steps to make sure drone pilots don't get bored! That isn't a problem that ever happened to F16 pilots.
Yes, TI is still around. And yes, they still make some of the best op-amps around.
Because designed to be brought into closed-book examinations can't be Internet-enabled general-purpose computers. And they cost so much because they're single-use devices.
The pores and freckles don't bother me. I can see those on the big screen, after all. The thing that bugs me about blu-ray is that I can see all the MPEG compression noise, especially in animated films.
Until the compressors get better, I'm not getting a blu-ray player.
I just came back from seeing The Hobbit in 48 FPS and I gotta say that sucked really badly.
The suck to which you refer had nothing to do with the framerate, dude.
apple, google, facebook, and others are the ones buying up the patents. IV and RPX are just the holding companies to avoid nasty lawsuits about licensing terms
Reading between the lines, IV and RPX are being used as holding companies to avoid nasty lawsuits against Apple, Google and Facebook about other IV- and RPX-held patents.
If you can't beat 'em...
Not if the cinematographer was doing their job. Strobing usually only happens if the shutter angle was too low.
Admittedly it's more of a problem with digital than with film.