Get off your high horse. Apple had Desk Accessories back in System 7 or even maybe System 6. Small programs that just had their code and were very small, like Calculator and Alarm Clock. They are just now getting them in OS X, and using Javascript instead of Pascal.
They aren't ripping off Konfabulator; they're ripping off themselves.
Umm... patients are customers. They come in, request a service, get it, and are billed for it. Think more along the lines of going to your family doctor or a specialist. I'm specifically thinking along the lines of you go in to have something looked at and the system kicks out others that had that looked at also had another test for condition x. That test is a service that will get charged for (this ain't Canada, someone's going to pay for it), so technically it counts.
Years ago I worked on hospital systems that would recommend possible needed treatments based on what you were having done. Would it apply there?
As much as Amazon might deserve patent karma, this isn't it. This is quite definitely as opposite as you can get from 'non-obvious', even more so then one-click. One click at least required the new technology (cookies); buying recommendations have been going on as long as there have been sales people. 'You know, other people that bought Oggs-brand Wheel(TM) also bought Oggs-brand Club(TM).'
Here's something the mass media conveniently was distracted from reporting.
U.S. oil companies' profits for the first nine months of this year have increased by more than 35 percent over last year, with the bulk of those profits coming from charges for domestic oil and gas refining, not from higher crude oil prices, consumer groups say.
...
For all but the wealthiest 20 percent of American families, rising petroleum prices have eaten up the entire Bush Administration tax cut.
So even if Iraq was for oil, why would the commoners benefit and not our feudal^H^H^H^H^H^Hcorporate lords?
Those in power in America are the most keen to keep the status quo or even push us backwards in some areas. If anyone is going to break from coal/oil it will be developing countries that don't have an overwhelming negative stigma towards nuclear power, and America won't change until it realizes it's behind.
Don't believe the tax cut part? Here's some fun math: Let's compare our budget between $1/gallon and $2/gallon. For the average mileage for a car a year we'll use the used car standard of 15,000. For mileage, let's use 25 mpg to get us 600 gallons. That's $600 a year 4 years ago, vs. $1200 this year. Have two cars? Double that. Have an SUV? Well, let's be generous at 15 mpg and get $1000 vs $2000 each. And this is just gas for your own cars, not heating oil, natural gas, or price inflation/profit loss in services that depend on any of the three.
If you want to calculate your specific amount, take the miles you think you drive in one year and divided by your estimate of your miles per gallon. That number will be the cost of your gas if it were $1/gallon. Double it to get this years amount.
Maybe I'm the freak, but when I read 'we' here I assumed it meant 'we iPod users', not 'we at a company I'm not going to state in this write-up but you'd see if you hover your cursor over the word we'. Sure, it's a link (now, anyway - not sure if it always was) but being a two letter green word among black lettering it's easy to miss.
I also don't see why you're defensive. It seems like every story involving a 'sister site' (or whatever) of Slashdot notes that in passing. Just start putting a disclaimer in that this is a press release and you work for them and not give the impression it's something you happened upon, and avoid the controversy altogether.
Doesn't all music on an iPod come from a computer? Why not get it from there? The only point I can see to this is the argument of hard drive crash, but there's no need to damn Apple for not providing tools they never said they would.
Just back the files you didn't get from your own CD's to data CD's and be done with it.
Well, he's a butthead, though most of the people voting for him who aren't actually benefiting from his tax cuts seem to be more bull-headed then stupid.
If I'm reading this correctly, I could actually respect some of what the Whig party wanted originally like railroads. Today's problem is that Bush and his cronies aren't very republican-conservative, they just use the party to stay in power and throw money at their cronies. (My reasoning for this is republicans supposedly want smaller government and fiscal responsibility, but with homeland security growing everywhere, energy company buyouts, the health care bill fiasco (keeping the vote open illegally long while extorting congress members to change their vote to pass it), and tax relief during a war... these guys sure don't seem too on the ball.)
Ignoring whether or not ancient Israel only allowed adults to drink, or whether or not that was added in a later translation, let's have some verses that aren't actually stoning but aren't too child-friendly:
Kings 2: Call a prophet bald, be eaten by bears
2:23: And he (Elijah) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24:
And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Psalms: Why hit them with stones, when you can hit them against stones?
137:9:
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Isaiah: But be sure to let the dads watch! Or at least blame them.
13:15:
Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
13:16:
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
---
14:21:
Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
You can split hairs about how it's done all you want. The fact remains that the old testament details a vengeful god, just like all of the farming tribes had around 1000-800 BCE. There are quite a few bits and pieces that go against a modern, civilized society. Well, a society not founded on religious fanaticism anyway; these kinds of things fit right in with radical Islamics.
So now suboptimal design is equivalent to intelligent design?
Or are you arguing that a creator that holds us in the highest esteem gave us inferior eyes to other things he created, under the theory that they were 'good enough'? Why not at least give humans eyes that can heal themselves, or is that part of the whole 'life-is-suffering' dogma?
21:18:
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20:
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21:21:
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
Or, in logo-illustrated form for the biblical-language-challenged.
Their were essentially four quest types:
- Slaughter - Kill x of Mob y
- Farming - You need x of object z which drop off of Mob y
- Travel - Go to area m and talk to NPC n.
- Named - Kill a specifically named mob, sometimes retrieving a drop
Any of these could be marked "Elite", though usually the Slaughter and Named only. What makes a quest Elite is the mob will hit as if level L, and will have armor as if level L, but will have a LOT more hit points to out-last soloers. Therefore, if it's something you want to see you can do it alone or at least in a small group at a higher level, you just won't get the experience for killing the mob itself. Note that Farming quests sometimes worked against Groups - you could kill faster in a group, but you'd have to kill more to collect enough for everyone.
Quests are by no means required; you're free to level on your own if you want. But they have two benefits: experience and usually a monetary or item reward.
(Level 43 Undead Rogue, and a handful of lower level characters, for reference.)
And your original point is still elitist. If I say my tooth hurts like hell, it's to convey that I am in a great deal of pain but in a concise manner. If you choose to get offended it's your hang-up.
To be more broad (and possibly more constructive), in a country as large as America anyone could be offended by anything. I find the phrase "God bless America" offensive on numerous levels. Conjugate the verb - bless in this phrase is an order. Is it right to order God? Which God? Why just America? What if you believe God doesn't get involved in the life of mortals? It's an amazingly elitist phrase that's impossible to avoid these days.
Is your offense at essentially random words more important than people that are offended by this? Or would you rather nothing that could possibly offend anyone should be uttered, so we should all live in dark caves by ourselves to avoid accidently offending someone?
Or do you think I'm being petty, because who could possibly be offended by such an uplifting message?
You're right! They should have had them speak French! I mean, it's not like they were going for a certain time (mid-90's) or place (Southern California)! And why are they mostly black males and not green, triple breasted alien women? They really cut out the sci-fi fans with that choice!
Back to my main topic. It's pretty pretentious to judge one solely by their word choice, whether it's if they cuss, if the use mostly monosyllabic vs. polysyllabic words, or if the speak native American English vs. the broken English of a visiting foreigner. It's all elitist and self centered. If you translate, say, Dante's Inferno from his era's Italian to current American English it's one thing to say you captured the story line, and another entirely to believe nothing could have been lost in the process. (Many examples could be made for this, even the Bible's many translations. This just came to mind because it involved his writing in a three sentence rhyming structure that is impossible to do in English in an exact translation, so some of the overall effect is invariably lost. Think, Poe's The Raven into German. It may be good, but I don't think German could possibly pull off the feel of the original.)
I'm not debating that some (or many) use whatever they think will get them attention and shock value; I'm debating that all words have meaning and they are sometimes part of the statement, not just an addition to it.
Normally I enjoy reading Slashdot, and your post seemed very insightful at first, but your constant use of "the" disturbed me to no end and I was completely unable to finish reading this thoroughly well thought-out post.
Sorry, but I just cannot understand how people can be offended by words without considering context at all. Would a rose smell any less sweet if it were called a dingleberry*? Is the value of a thought to be judged by the words that express it?
Further more, is deploring one's speech for its 'colorful idioms' any better than believing everyone should speak English, or French, or whatever? Both views hold the implication that one doesn't want to hear what one wouldn't say, so is there any distinction whatsoever?
I would be willing to grant you that it is easier to evoke an emotional response with strong language then with strong arguments, and that with fights over ratings and money it's almost self-propagating between popular culture reflecting and shaping reality. But I prefer to judge a statement for itself and not by the words used to make it. Maybe it's the logical part of my mind asserting itself, but I have hopes that I'm not unique in this respect.
In regards to GTA:SA, changing the language would be akin to air brushing out George Burns' cigars. The player is essentially role playing a character in an historical environment, and the language is part of it. Editing out specific words from a game with drive-by's, corrupt cops, drugs, etc. seems a little selective to me.
* - I had a much better word to make my point the 'dingleberrys', but in the interest of a civil discourse I have edited myself.
Huh; must not be too many options where you live. I only waited 15 minutes, and there maybe 100 people tops. But this is at one store in one mall in Pittsburgh; I have no idea how the other store in the mall did or any of the other hundreds of stores around here.
Play time before you played = 5 hours; and that's only because I have a job and couldn't stay up all night. Of course, I work from home and snuck some in at lunch, but don't tell anyone!
No, I'm sure all kinds of conservatives are way overworked about parents letting their kids have this game. But they're also overworked about them telling their kids the truth about drugs, sex, etc., and yet wouldn't have any problem with them allowing their children to see The Godfather or the like.
If parents do their job passing their values in context and without sugar coating, then they can trust their children to make them, if not 'proud' then at least not ashamed. If parents simply say don't do this or that without addressing why they might want to in the first place, they're just asking for trouble.
"Behind the Counter" is definitely not the solution - games get the MA rating merely for language in today's world. How is that worse then, say, American Pie's PG-13 completely irresponsible attitude towards teenage sex? At least Fast Times at Ridgemont High showed some negatives. Of course, it had to cut out a frontal shot of a penis to not get an XXX rating. Heaven forbid girls see one before their wedding night!
Well, yeah, that is the point. I (and many others) had learned they were unquestionably in the wrong, hence the term 'Massacre'. I also don't recall being told there was a trial, let alone that only two officers were found guilty.
So, in the context of a comment on how these cameras may prove the officers side I wanted to give an historic example of something that most Americans might learn about differently if truly objective witnessing had been possible. Granted, the redcoats probably made mistakes, but it doesn't appear quite as one sided to me anymore.
It's gotten a lot better recently, but every new Mac model has new chips and architecture that need addressed. Granted, Apple knows what they are and includes the necessary drivers with each new OS disc once a machine comes out, but a machine released with (for example) 10.3.2 would almost certainly not be able to accept anything before that.
There's also the point that the G3 != G4 != G5, at least not exactly, but OS X can be used on any of them. Allowing for memory and it's the USB G3 if you're talking about the old tower, but my point is there are plenty of hardware configurations OS X has to allow for. It's just easier for Apple since they made them all in the first place.
I suspect like most American children, I learned early on in grade school that one of the pivotal moments leading up to the Revolution was the Boston Massacre - the firing upon and murder of the innocent civilian by the evil redcoats. I even remember the illustration of soldiers firing into a crowd from a distance.
It's sad but not surprising how those text books never mention that most of the officers were acquitted of all charges by an American court; only two were found guilty of actually firing. Furthermore, they were defended by John Adams (George Washington's vice president, and the second President) who summarized his case thusly:
I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it to you.-Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter, in consideration of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated. To your candour and justice I submit the prisoners and their cause.
Bizarre tangent: the two officers found guilty of manslaughter were spared their lives by invoking "the benefit of clergy," a plea that shifted their punishment from imprisonment to the branding of their thumbs.
Seriously, though, I find CPS generally more entertaining than the World Poker Tour on ESPN, though it of course depends on the celebrities on for the week. Phil's commentary is a lot more interesting as he generally tries to explain what a player should bet and why, rather than just comment on bets after they are made. The fact that he and Dave Foley aren't whispering like it's golf also helps.
You're thinking of the butterfly effect. Basically, weather systems are hard to predict over a long time because small mistakes/misinformation in assumptions add up to large differences over time.
More importantly though, weather predictions fail because they are not closed systems. To be accurate over time, they would have to take into account all weather everywhere since it all bounces off itself. A simulated battle, on the otherhand, would be orders of magnitude easier to predict. Sure, if you're initial data is wrong the results will be wrong (e.g. you underestimate the range of weapon X, or its ability to go through armor Y), but there wouldn't necessarily be outside effects you aren't accounting for.
Slashdot Mirror
Get off your high horse. Apple had Desk Accessories back in System 7 or even maybe System 6. Small programs that just had their code and were very small, like Calculator and Alarm Clock. They are just now getting them in OS X, and using Javascript instead of Pascal.
They aren't ripping off Konfabulator; they're ripping off themselves.
Umm... patients are customers. They come in, request a service, get it, and are billed for it. Think more along the lines of going to your family doctor or a specialist. I'm specifically thinking along the lines of you go in to have something looked at and the system kicks out others that had that looked at also had another test for condition x. That test is a service that will get charged for (this ain't Canada, someone's going to pay for it), so technically it counts.
Years ago I worked on hospital systems that would recommend possible needed treatments based on what you were having done. Would it apply there?
As much as Amazon might deserve patent karma, this isn't it. This is quite definitely as opposite as you can get from 'non-obvious', even more so then one-click. One click at least required the new technology (cookies); buying recommendations have been going on as long as there have been sales people. 'You know, other people that bought Oggs-brand Wheel(TM) also bought Oggs-brand Club(TM).'
Alec Guinness does the narration/explanation for most of the trailer.
Great. First Lucas replaces him in the end of ROTJ, now he forces him back from the dead to lend credence to the new movie with a voice-over.
Dammit, Lucas! He did you a favor doing those movies in the first place, leave him alone!
Here's something the mass media conveniently was distracted from reporting.
U.S. oil companies' profits for the first nine months of this year have increased by more than 35 percent over last year, with the bulk of those profits coming from charges for domestic oil and gas refining, not from higher crude oil prices, consumer groups say.
...
For all but the wealthiest 20 percent of American families, rising petroleum prices have eaten up the entire Bush Administration tax cut.
So even if Iraq was for oil, why would the commoners benefit and not our feudal^H^H^H^H^H^Hcorporate lords?
Those in power in America are the most keen to keep the status quo or even push us backwards in some areas. If anyone is going to break from coal/oil it will be developing countries that don't have an overwhelming negative stigma towards nuclear power, and America won't change until it realizes it's behind.
Don't believe the tax cut part? Here's some fun math: Let's compare our budget between $1/gallon and $2/gallon. For the average mileage for a car a year we'll use the used car standard of 15,000. For mileage, let's use 25 mpg to get us 600 gallons. That's $600 a year 4 years ago, vs. $1200 this year. Have two cars? Double that. Have an SUV? Well, let's be generous at 15 mpg and get $1000 vs $2000 each. And this is just gas for your own cars, not heating oil, natural gas, or price inflation/profit loss in services that depend on any of the three.
If you want to calculate your specific amount, take the miles you think you drive in one year and divided by your estimate of your miles per gallon. That number will be the cost of your gas if it were $1/gallon. Double it to get this years amount.
Maybe I'm the freak, but when I read 'we' here I assumed it meant 'we iPod users', not 'we at a company I'm not going to state in this write-up but you'd see if you hover your cursor over the word we'. Sure, it's a link (now, anyway - not sure if it always was) but being a two letter green word among black lettering it's easy to miss.
I also don't see why you're defensive. It seems like every story involving a 'sister site' (or whatever) of Slashdot notes that in passing. Just start putting a disclaimer in that this is a press release and you work for them and not give the impression it's something you happened upon, and avoid the controversy altogether.
Doesn't all music on an iPod come from a computer? Why not get it from there? The only point I can see to this is the argument of hard drive crash, but there's no need to damn Apple for not providing tools they never said they would.
Just back the files you didn't get from your own CD's to data CD's and be done with it.
Hmm... Bu++ looks like Butt. :(
Well, he's a butthead, though most of the people voting for him who aren't actually benefiting from his tax cuts seem to be more bull-headed then stupid.
If I'm reading this correctly, I could actually respect some of what the Whig party wanted originally like railroads. Today's problem is that Bush and his cronies aren't very republican-conservative, they just use the party to stay in power and throw money at their cronies. (My reasoning for this is republicans supposedly want smaller government and fiscal responsibility, but with homeland security growing everywhere, energy company buyouts, the health care bill fiasco (keeping the vote open illegally long while extorting congress members to change their vote to pass it), and tax relief during a war... these guys sure don't seem too on the ball.)
Ignoring whether or not ancient Israel only allowed adults to drink, or whether or not that was added in a later translation, let's have some verses that aren't actually stoning but aren't too child-friendly:
Kings 2: Call a prophet bald, be eaten by bears
2:23: And he (Elijah) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24: And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Psalms: Why hit them with stones, when you can hit them against stones?
137:9: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Isaiah: But be sure to let the dads watch! Or at least blame them.
13:15: Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
13:16: Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
---
14:21: Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
You can split hairs about how it's done all you want. The fact remains that the old testament details a vengeful god, just like all of the farming tribes had around 1000-800 BCE. There are quite a few bits and pieces that go against a modern, civilized society. Well, a society not founded on religious fanaticism anyway; these kinds of things fit right in with radical Islamics.
So now suboptimal design is equivalent to intelligent design?
Or are you arguing that a creator that holds us in the highest esteem gave us inferior eyes to other things he created, under the theory that they were 'good enough'? Why not at least give humans eyes that can heal themselves, or is that part of the whole 'life-is-suffering' dogma?
Really? Did you skip Deuteronomy?
21:18: If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20: And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21:21: And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
Or, in logo-illustrated form for the biblical-language-challenged.
Their were essentially four quest types:
- Slaughter - Kill x of Mob y
- Farming - You need x of object z which drop off of Mob y
- Travel - Go to area m and talk to NPC n.
- Named - Kill a specifically named mob, sometimes retrieving a drop
Any of these could be marked "Elite", though usually the Slaughter and Named only. What makes a quest Elite is the mob will hit as if level L, and will have armor as if level L, but will have a LOT more hit points to out-last soloers. Therefore, if it's something you want to see you can do it alone or at least in a small group at a higher level, you just won't get the experience for killing the mob itself. Note that Farming quests sometimes worked against Groups - you could kill faster in a group, but you'd have to kill more to collect enough for everyone.
Quests are by no means required; you're free to level on your own if you want. But they have two benefits: experience and usually a monetary or item reward.
(Level 43 Undead Rogue, and a handful of lower level characters, for reference.)
And your original point is still elitist. If I say my tooth hurts like hell, it's to convey that I am in a great deal of pain but in a concise manner. If you choose to get offended it's your hang-up.
To be more broad (and possibly more constructive), in a country as large as America anyone could be offended by anything. I find the phrase "God bless America" offensive on numerous levels. Conjugate the verb - bless in this phrase is an order. Is it right to order God? Which God? Why just America? What if you believe God doesn't get involved in the life of mortals? It's an amazingly elitist phrase that's impossible to avoid these days.
Is your offense at essentially random words more important than people that are offended by this? Or would you rather nothing that could possibly offend anyone should be uttered, so we should all live in dark caves by ourselves to avoid accidently offending someone?
Or do you think I'm being petty, because who could possibly be offended by such an uplifting message?
You're right! They should have had them speak French! I mean, it's not like they were going for a certain time (mid-90's) or place (Southern California)! And why are they mostly black males and not green, triple breasted alien women? They really cut out the sci-fi fans with that choice!
Back to my main topic. It's pretty pretentious to judge one solely by their word choice, whether it's if they cuss, if the use mostly monosyllabic vs. polysyllabic words, or if the speak native American English vs. the broken English of a visiting foreigner. It's all elitist and self centered. If you translate, say, Dante's Inferno from his era's Italian to current American English it's one thing to say you captured the story line, and another entirely to believe nothing could have been lost in the process. (Many examples could be made for this, even the Bible's many translations. This just came to mind because it involved his writing in a three sentence rhyming structure that is impossible to do in English in an exact translation, so some of the overall effect is invariably lost. Think, Poe's The Raven into German. It may be good, but I don't think German could possibly pull off the feel of the original.)
I'm not debating that some (or many) use whatever they think will get them attention and shock value; I'm debating that all words have meaning and they are sometimes part of the statement, not just an addition to it.
Normally I enjoy reading Slashdot, and your post seemed very insightful at first, but your constant use of "the" disturbed me to no end and I was completely unable to finish reading this thoroughly well thought-out post.
Sorry, but I just cannot understand how people can be offended by words without considering context at all. Would a rose smell any less sweet if it were called a dingleberry*? Is the value of a thought to be judged by the words that express it?
Further more, is deploring one's speech for its 'colorful idioms' any better than believing everyone should speak English, or French, or whatever? Both views hold the implication that one doesn't want to hear what one wouldn't say, so is there any distinction whatsoever?
I would be willing to grant you that it is easier to evoke an emotional response with strong language then with strong arguments, and that with fights over ratings and money it's almost self-propagating between popular culture reflecting and shaping reality. But I prefer to judge a statement for itself and not by the words used to make it. Maybe it's the logical part of my mind asserting itself, but I have hopes that I'm not unique in this respect.
In regards to GTA:SA, changing the language would be akin to air brushing out George Burns' cigars. The player is essentially role playing a character in an historical environment, and the language is part of it. Editing out specific words from a game with drive-by's, corrupt cops, drugs, etc. seems a little selective to me.
* - I had a much better word to make my point the 'dingleberrys', but in the interest of a civil discourse I have edited myself.
Huh; must not be too many options where you live. I only waited 15 minutes, and there maybe 100 people tops. But this is at one store in one mall in Pittsburgh; I have no idea how the other store in the mall did or any of the other hundreds of stores around here.
Play time before you played = 5 hours; and that's only because I have a job and couldn't stay up all night. Of course, I work from home and snuck some in at lunch, but don't tell anyone!
No, I'm sure all kinds of conservatives are way overworked about parents letting their kids have this game. But they're also overworked about them telling their kids the truth about drugs, sex, etc., and yet wouldn't have any problem with them allowing their children to see The Godfather or the like.
If parents do their job passing their values in context and without sugar coating, then they can trust their children to make them, if not 'proud' then at least not ashamed. If parents simply say don't do this or that without addressing why they might want to in the first place, they're just asking for trouble.
"Behind the Counter" is definitely not the solution - games get the MA rating merely for language in today's world. How is that worse then, say, American Pie's PG-13 completely irresponsible attitude towards teenage sex? At least Fast Times at Ridgemont High showed some negatives. Of course, it had to cut out a frontal shot of a penis to not get an XXX rating. Heaven forbid girls see one before their wedding night!
Well, yeah, that is the point. I (and many others) had learned they were unquestionably in the wrong, hence the term 'Massacre'. I also don't recall being told there was a trial, let alone that only two officers were found guilty.
So, in the context of a comment on how these cameras may prove the officers side I wanted to give an historic example of something that most Americans might learn about differently if truly objective witnessing had been possible. Granted, the redcoats probably made mistakes, but it doesn't appear quite as one sided to me anymore.
Don't even go there with Mac OS X. They only have to support one architecture and one major hardware vendor.
Well, yes AND no. iMac != iBook != Powerbook != G5 Tower
It's gotten a lot better recently, but every new Mac model has new chips and architecture that need addressed. Granted, Apple knows what they are and includes the necessary drivers with each new OS disc once a machine comes out, but a machine released with (for example) 10.3.2 would almost certainly not be able to accept anything before that.
There's also the point that the G3 != G4 != G5, at least not exactly, but OS X can be used on any of them. Allowing for memory and it's the USB G3 if you're talking about the old tower, but my point is there are plenty of hardware configurations OS X has to allow for. It's just easier for Apple since they made them all in the first place.
Historical reference: An Account of the Boston Massacre
I suspect like most American children, I learned early on in grade school that one of the pivotal moments leading up to the Revolution was the Boston Massacre - the firing upon and murder of the innocent civilian by the evil redcoats. I even remember the illustration of soldiers firing into a crowd from a distance.
It's sad but not surprising how those text books never mention that most of the officers were acquitted of all charges by an American court; only two were found guilty of actually firing. Furthermore, they were defended by John Adams (George Washington's vice president, and the second President) who summarized his case thusly:
I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it to you.-Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter, in consideration of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated. To your candour and justice I submit the prisoners and their cause.
Bizarre tangent: the two officers found guilty of manslaughter were spared their lives by invoking "the benefit of clergy," a plea that shifted their punishment from imprisonment to the branding of their thumbs.
Phil Gordon - degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech
Must be why he can nail the Chip Count on Celebrity Poker Showdown.
Seriously, though, I find CPS generally more entertaining than the World Poker Tour on ESPN, though it of course depends on the celebrities on for the week. Phil's commentary is a lot more interesting as he generally tries to explain what a player should bet and why, rather than just comment on bets after they are made. The fact that he and Dave Foley aren't whispering like it's golf also helps.
But G4Tech's version has daily hockey coverage with guest Luc Robataille. Not great, but much better than weekly updates in a newspaper.
You're thinking of the butterfly effect. Basically, weather systems are hard to predict over a long time because small mistakes/misinformation in assumptions add up to large differences over time.
More importantly though, weather predictions fail because they are not closed systems. To be accurate over time, they would have to take into account all weather everywhere since it all bounces off itself. A simulated battle, on the otherhand, would be orders of magnitude easier to predict. Sure, if you're initial data is wrong the results will be wrong (e.g. you underestimate the range of weapon X, or its ability to go through armor Y), but there wouldn't necessarily be outside effects you aren't accounting for.
OK, give me a $100 computer, but I'll still refuse to pay for Micro$oft crap on my computer!
But that computer will have Trusted Computing. You won't really be able to do much else with it.
But it's still better than Blipverts.