My point, which I might have made more clearly, is that using law in this fashion as either social control/protection (depending on how you view it) is often prone to short-sightedness or not seeing the full picture and not addressing ALL parties involved.
It seems to me that the idea behind the Amendment is this - children under a certain age should not be playing certain computer games. But see how it has been implemented to make only the sale of such games an offence. If the state wishes to protect children outright, they have failed. The sort of people who demand laws like this wish to prevent even parents permitting their children from having access to such materials.
Irregardless of whether children should or should not be able to access such materials, this law does not prevent the SUPPLY of games to underage children. Compare it to the situation with alcohol in the UK - if you are under 18, it is an offence to buy alcohol, to be sold alcohol or to have alcohol procured for you.
As a parent who allows a child to play games in moderation, how would it affect you if a game you had forbidden your daughter to play and which she was not legally able to buy had been given it as a gift by a relative? Or had another adult go into the store and buy it for her?
(Of course, I am sure your daughter would know better. Assuming years of permitted virtual violence and getting her own way in WoW due to being a Real Live Girl then being suddenly denied access to Gorefuck5000 do not cause her to flip out and murder you in your sleep.)
Making it a crime to sell such games is pointless if one can simply supply a child with them. Say, for example, on the 25th of December after weeks of begging.
The problem isn't some immoral shopkeep hawking his wares to unsuspecting kiddies whilst twirling his moustache, but the permissive parents at home who mostly don't give a damn if their child is virtually running around with a virtual gun shooting virtual people with virtually aroused sexual organs.
I'll ignore the three year old list of complaints about iTunes, dealing with such hot issues as Titanium PowerBook drive speeds. But for someone like me:
* who does not have five trillion CDs I need to convert at once;
* who does not care what format they are in as long as I can listen to and search the files;
* who doesn't worry about album art (I already have the CDs to see that! Who can honestly say they listened to CDs on their stereo whilst holding the CD case a few inches from their face, other than when on drugs?);
* who doesn't particularly care about how much money "the poor artist" gets (if they can come up, either individually or as the kind of collective people whining about royalties infer they are, with a system which is as easy and as affordable as iTunes, I WILL BE ALL OVER IT)
and who in general just needs something to play music on his computer, everything I read about "this sucks" and "this is better" and "use that" is quite irrelevant.
So I cannot order my music files by Album in the iTunes main display. Boo bloody hoo. As long as it sits in the background, plays the music and allows me to effortlessly import new files and CDs, I really am not concerned with what else is out there.
Poor old Woz, though. How long now has he been trundling out the same old anecdotes and "When I was at Apple..." stories? He really needs to get himself involved in something REALLY serious and demanding.
Of course, he has an autobiography to promote but the sad fact is that the story of his life has been circulating for years now via oral tradition. Here is a sneak preview!
Chapter One - Me and my friend Steve Chapter Two - My friend Steve sucks Chapter Three - My friend Steve is cool Chapter Four - Did you hear about the really cool disk drive controller I invented? Chapter Five - More on that drive controller... Chapter Six - Chapter Five in diagram form Chapter Seven - THE WOZ and THE FUTURE - my plans for disk drive controllers and free computers for children Chapter Eight - Resume and references. Available for work on anything! Please! Just give me a chance!
From the actual university researchers - http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/2.117/2.128/2.139/2.141/1 .1076
It rather seems to me that recent attempts to "breed in" what are considered to be favourable medical components might end up being tonic, tincture and snake oil tomorrow. Still, always nice to be in the newspapers!
Vista will require this much bandwidth as a minimum, to download security patches and have them rendered in erotic 3D by the compulsory 4Tb graphics card, when it is released in THE YEAR 3000.
A remake of Colonization would be very welcome, though I recall reading something about sensitivity to issues of slavery making it unlikely. Which seems rather ridiculous...
So ideally what will happen next is..oooh...I dunno...a rehash of Civ with even fancier 3D graphics and loads more rendered cut scenes. The box it ships in could be made of snow and Sid himself could piss his signature onto each one.
the government demand to disclose Web search data was impractical
But luckily their upcoming product, GoogleGoogle, will be soon entering a two year beta program and the DoJ is welcome to send an SMS to register their interest in testing it out.
Ironically, running News Corp. But won't someone think of the children and the poetry they MUST publish? Insert trillions of anime-ish emoticons here showing the sadness.
Slashdot Mirror
My point, which I might have made more clearly, is that using law in this fashion as either social control/protection (depending on how you view it) is often prone to short-sightedness or not seeing the full picture and not addressing ALL parties involved.
It seems to me that the idea behind the Amendment is this - children under a certain age should not be playing certain computer games. But see how it has been implemented to make only the sale of such games an offence. If the state wishes to protect children outright, they have failed. The sort of people who demand laws like this wish to prevent even parents permitting their children from having access to such materials.
Irregardless of whether children should or should not be able to access such materials, this law does not prevent the SUPPLY of games to underage children. Compare it to the situation with alcohol in the UK - if you are under 18, it is an offence to buy alcohol, to be sold alcohol or to have alcohol procured for you.
As a parent who allows a child to play games in moderation, how would it affect you if a game you had forbidden your daughter to play and which she was not legally able to buy had been given it as a gift by a relative? Or had another adult go into the store and buy it for her?
(Of course, I am sure your daughter would know better. Assuming years of permitted virtual violence and getting her own way in WoW due to being a Real Live Girl then being suddenly denied access to Gorefuck5000 do not cause her to flip out and murder you in your sleep.)
Making it a crime to sell such games is pointless if one can simply supply a child with them. Say, for example, on the 25th of December after weeks of begging.
The problem isn't some immoral shopkeep hawking his wares to unsuspecting kiddies whilst twirling his moustache, but the permissive parents at home who mostly don't give a damn if their child is virtually running around with a virtual gun shooting virtual people with virtually aroused sexual organs.
So what you are saying is...words can have more than one meaning? Wow! There should be a word for that!
Yeah mate. You definitely don't do drugs, do you...
I'll ignore the three year old list of complaints about iTunes, dealing with such hot issues as Titanium PowerBook drive speeds. But for someone like me:
* who does not have five trillion CDs I need to convert at once;
* who does not care what format they are in as long as I can listen to and search the files;
* who doesn't worry about album art (I already have the CDs to see that! Who can honestly say they listened to CDs on their stereo whilst holding the CD case a few inches from their face, other than when on drugs?);
* who doesn't particularly care about how much money "the poor artist" gets (if they can come up, either individually or as the kind of collective people whining about royalties infer they are, with a system which is as easy and as affordable as iTunes, I WILL BE ALL OVER IT)
and who in general just needs something to play music on his computer, everything I read about "this sucks" and "this is better" and "use that" is quite irrelevant.
So I cannot order my music files by Album in the iTunes main display. Boo bloody hoo. As long as it sits in the background, plays the music and allows me to effortlessly import new files and CDs, I really am not concerned with what else is out there.
Yeah right. And Steve Ballmer's children have never touched an iPod or used Google.
They'll have an idea something is not quite right. Moving house because the neighbours won't let you play with their kids? Not at all suspicious.
Keep up the good work though, Superdad! Shame you can't get that bumper sticker "Your AP kid gets DP'd by my kids".
Which is perfectly fine in English law, to a certain degree.
Poor old Woz, though. How long now has he been trundling out the same old anecdotes and "When I was at Apple..." stories? He really needs to get himself involved in something REALLY serious and demanding.
Of course, he has an autobiography to promote but the sad fact is that the story of his life has been circulating for years now via oral tradition. Here is a sneak preview!
Chapter One - Me and my friend Steve
Chapter Two - My friend Steve sucks
Chapter Three - My friend Steve is cool
Chapter Four - Did you hear about the really cool disk drive controller I invented?
Chapter Five - More on that drive controller...
Chapter Six - Chapter Five in diagram form
Chapter Seven - THE WOZ and THE FUTURE - my plans for disk drive controllers and free computers for children
Chapter Eight - Resume and references. Available for work on anything! Please! Just give me a chance!
From the actual university researchers - http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/2.117/2.128/2.139/2.141/1 .1076
It rather seems to me that recent attempts to "breed in" what are considered to be favourable medical components might end up being tonic, tincture and snake oil tomorrow. Still, always nice to be in the newspapers!
Vista will require this much bandwidth as a minimum, to download security patches and have them rendered in erotic 3D by the compulsory 4Tb graphics card, when it is released in THE YEAR 3000.
So ideally what will happen next is..oooh...I dunno...a rehash of Civ with even fancier 3D graphics and loads more rendered cut scenes. The box it ships in could be made of snow and Sid himself could piss his signature onto each one.
Hardly lucky. He paid for a Coldplay song and is probably comatose now. No number of iPods will wake him up.
RIAA to sue Apple for use of copyrighted lyrical style, lack of DON'T STEAL MUSIC hidden message.
But luckily their upcoming product, GoogleGoogle, will be soon entering a two year beta program and the DoJ is welcome to send an SMS to register their interest in testing it out.
Ironically, running News Corp. But won't someone think of the children and the poetry they MUST publish? Insert trillions of anime-ish emoticons here showing the sadness.