Sure, but what I was after was that all these security features will just give a lot of people an excuse to simply drive worse, and as they become isolated from the vehicle's natural dynamics, they aren't even becoming better drivers. That said, I do like my own ABS-automatic Renault and would suck in a Model T...
One more technology that allows people to drive even more carelessly and dangerously, blindly relying on automation to keep the car under control. Physics will always remain the same, and I suspect that when the driver DOES lose control of the vehicle, the outcome is going to be all the worse for this.
Not to mention what happens when inexperienced drivers learn to drive with this stuff and then move to a vehicle without it. For example I have never driven a car without ABS and I suspect I need to kept well away from them, as I don't have the correct reflexes to prevent wheels from locking in an emergency.
There was once this British driving instructor who said that all cars should have a long, sharp spike protruding from the center of the steering wheel... it would be the best imaginable safety equipment.
In other words, the freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. If all presses are owned by a monopoly, there is no true freedom of speech.
It is interesting to note how you would probably very strongly criticise a Communist government that suppresses speech in spaces it "owns" (that is, everywhere), but welcome such acts if they occur in private spaces. There is no essential difference if we assume, for example, that space is owned either by a monopoly or a similar group that seeks to, for example, cater to a possibly biased population or just simply seeks to suppress speech in general in order by "sanitize" the "customer" existence.
A few years back there was a nice experiment conducted by a magazine... they sent a few guys dressed up as (clean) hippies to distribute leftist leaflets in a shopping mall. Within the space of a few minutes, they were escorted out by security. They came back dressed up in suits and gave out cellphone adverts and nothing happened.
This is a worrying trend because over here in Finland malls can be very much a public space especially during the winter months, when conditions outside can be rather nasty. Fortunately according to my understanding, (otherwise legal) expression is protected in mall walkways as they are recognized as a kind of public space. The same does not go for the actual shops. Thus there were no grounds for the removal.
This serves as a good example of how absolute private property rights can destroy all other rights, and how those who are ideologically invested in them at any price are capable of tolerating any consequence that may follow. Fascism is ok, as long as it's voluntary Fascism...
Does anyone know what this patch is going to fix/alter? Is there going to be at least an option to get rid of the weirdness caused by the level scaling monsters and in particular the scaled stuff that causes roadside mobs to be equipped with überloot while they're still blackmailing you for 50gp?
If the patch fixes this (or makes it optional) I might actually consider buying Oblivion...
I don't "believe" anything about drawing myself, I don't really have an opinion as I draw like crap myself and hated having to learn "classic drawing skills" at school because I suck at it. I am merely trying to understand the point these people are making in TFA.
Not everyone is Picasso and can get away with drawing like he did... second, it is a good starting point, as "classic" drawing indeed has been mostly reproducing what the eye can see. It helps your observational skills and hand-eye coordination. Even if you end up drawing something abstract, you might want to be able to get the basic building blocks right first so you can draw a reasonably good-looking pig flying in the sky.
A similar ability to evaluate your results against the real world can only be beneficial to your art, regardless of medium, IMHO.
I thought like this for a while too, but then I sort of got the point, I think... let's say you want to be a good artist who will produce 2D outcomes using any medium. Then it often is very beneficial to be able to see with your "mind's eye", that is, able to reproduce what you're seeing instead of what you think you are seeing. Drawing is all about suppressing the abstract model of the world around you, and if you're able to do that, I'd assume you can transfer those skills to any medium you're using.
As we all know that the Bible is an unerring account of Creation, it is obvious to all believers that this fossil is yet another ploy by Satan to delude the so-called "scientists" who are blinded by logic and the scientific method. It's unbelievable to what lengths these "scientists" will go to accommodate these unholy scams into their imaginary, contrived model of "evolution" while it's all given in the Bible, plainly told for all who are just willing to open their eyes and believe...
We just need to figure out a way to dress up countering climate change in terms that will make Americans all hot and bothered and pumped up on militaristic patriotism. Then we might actually get to see some action.
The reason why the current approach hasn't caught on is because it has the definite whiff of Socialist co-operation through bureaucracy to it. Just boring difficult statistics that don't make good CNN two-minute action news footage and serious-looking scientific types and suits making up these restrictive agreements that you actually might have to abide by. Even worse, too much of those agreements are written by foreigners, which is anathema in principle. The fragile American ego can't possibly take not always getting to be the self-declared "leader" that everyone else follows.
The idea of peaceful equitable co-operation for the common good is also teh evil. There needs to be a market-based solution where the weak perish and the triumphant individual ascends, hopefully through being most capable of making short-term profits. This is the toughest part, as sometimes, unfortunately, one HAS to just simply not throw rocks in a glass house, no matter how profitable it may be in the short term.
My idea of this is that the rest of the world somehow needs to make themselves look like "the bad guys" that the USA can then declare a pre-emptive war on... the WAR ON WARMING. It mustn't be called a "protocol" or "treaty" or "agreement" or conference.. it has to be something solvable through the application of direct overwhelming force. It has to be a WAR.
Think of it as some kind of a reverse psychology strategy. It would stroke the American ego while preferably getting them on board without them realizing it. Having a B-2 flatten an obsolete coal plant somewhere in China would be a cheap dismantling strategy too!
I am not sure of the economics of this, but I am sure that somehow we would be able to come up with a "trading mechanism" that would make it worthwhile to engage the US through what they do best.. warfare!:-)
I've got to give it to them, this infamous hacker group sure is productive in updating their website hacking and defacement tools. I am bothered that despite a respected public servant with years and years of computer experience already alerting the Internet community to the threat of this "CentOS", nothing is being done about it. Who knows, maybe they will soon manage to infiltrate systems more crucial to National Security... tomorrow, a municipal government website. Tomorrow, the Pentagon!
Now that you mention hard drugs... don't forget that the pornography addiction is due to the release of erototoxins in the brain... Evil substances that are supposed to keep us doing pleasurable things we shouldn't do according to the Bible, like looking at naked people we find sexually attractive... thus, porn is quite indistinguishable from hard drugs;-)
I don't own the game yet, but I've been reading the elderscrolls.com forum threads on the level scaling issue and I think I've got a pretty good grasp of why people find it nasty... I am getting worried myself too, as this is exactly the kind of stuff that will break my immersion in a game.
Also, if you're looking for a challenge - turn the difficulty meter up.
This is the standard suggestion from the pro-scaling crowd that seem to believe that the issue is only a matter of powergamers wanting to become überstrong in the game à la Morrowind. However, the issue of level scaling has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty of fights in general.
The issue is more about the consistency, logic and existence of the gameworld on its own, irrespective of the player. I find it extremely disturbing if the world magically alters itself depending on who I am, and more importantly, seems to be always distributed along a gaussian around me, no matter how much I've "advanced" in the game. There is no consistent measuring stick, and working on your character is penalized.
This enforced, narrowed-down distribution also removes variability from the game. I am definitely not a powergamer and actually like spending time in the low levels when mages that I tend to play are supposed to be fodder and very challenging to play. I enjoy the thought that there are humongous monsters that will bash my skull in if I should be stupid enough to wander into their vicinity. It also makes it all the more satisfying to eventually be able to take them on.
This leads to an issue with the risks and rewards of exploring: much has been made about how Oblivion makes all content immediately available despite a player's level. Well... yeah, you can, from what I have heard, go all the way into Oblivion at level 1. You won't get totally annihilated if you stick your nose into the wrong place too early. You also won't get something REALLY cool if you do dare to, and by some stroke of luck or by your own cunning and capability manage to obtain the loot "before your time". You'll just get an "appropriate" reward whatever you do, where-ever you go! This global averageness gives you a very strong impression that the world doesn't exist regardless of the player!
Apologists state that this helps make the game more friendly to free-form roleplaying. Well... there are limits to how much freedom is good in a game. Sometimes, in a game just like in the real world, there are places and things you quite simply won't get to do if you're a lame n00b. It does not neccessarily enforce a linear content progression either, if stuff is placed variably enough.
Then there are the obvious ridiculous outcomes which sound quite outrageous... at high levels, bandits everywhere wearing full sets of ebony and daedric and blackmailing you for 50gp. The explanation that they also went off and leveled and got stuff won't cut it... it is not credible that everyone gets rich and better just as the player does, in particular because the player is supposed to be the hero and actually see himself advancing beyond the usual trash roadside bandit!
I have a really bad feeling about this aspect of Oblivion, which makes it all the more sad because I really have been waiting for it since playing Morrowind obsessively and actually loving to just get to explore after becoming an über-god-character as the fights no longer were an issue -- I am not really into this for the fights. It was a nice reward to be able to dispatch anything quickly and to get the fighting over with, after having done it enough. Despite the loud proclamations of the pro-scalers on the elderscrolls.com forums that they are the torch-bearers of "true roleplaying" and that anti-scalers just want to feel powerful and need to turn down the difficulty to get that fix, I feel that they are the ones in it for the fighting, as it they are willing to accept glaring inconsistencies in the gameworld in order to get a "balanced and challenging" fight every time they enter one...
Hear hear, this is so true. Although I have been writing small Ruby scripts for a few years now, when I first took a look at RoR, I often had to pause to understand what exactly was happening in those very terse lines of code. You really need to understand Ruby's syntax and a lot of the philosophy quite deeply before you can grasp what is going on in RoR code. Without that understanding, you will never advance further in RoR than copying the tutorials.
This is an example of a more general syntax-vs-semantics tradeoff in programming languages. Sure it's impressive how little code you have to write, but the other side of this is that the required understanding per line of code density is higher.
Nobody expects a Grand Theft Auto crack dealer to drop in for a barbecue with the Sims! His chief weapon is surprise.. surprise and fear.. fear and surprise.. and ruthless efficiency..
Am I the only one who thinks it would actually be cool?
Actually it's not... the favourite tactic of right-wingers worldwide these days in their quest to dismantle the public sphere is to complain that it doesn't work, and play along just far enough to be allowed in to making decisions, which allows them to essentially sabotage whatever they are involved in. Then they get a nice good reason to complain even more that this doesn't work and therefore it needs to be taken down.
Most modern left-wing policies of the western world work just fine, but they require broad commitment. You can't trust right-wingers in government because they are not in it bona fide.
And don't forget that "all people are not born equal" and therefore this must actually show somehow in a healthy world and society -- certainly this applies to software too! Nobody says that a person has the inalienable right to use software if they are not up to the task. It's not the FOSS programmer's fault someone is blind/deaf/crippled.
The illusion of egalitarianism is, after all, the greatest evil man has invented... you should never "level the playing field" artificially, as this hinders competition and gives undeserved slack to an already mostly unproductive lot of people. We will evolve more and more capable users if we firmly refuse to water down our software by yielding to the envious whining of those who can't get themselves what they can't earn for themselves.
This sort of a system is widely in use at least here in Finland in e-commerce... I use it all the time, both as a buyer and a seller. The banks give out "payment buttons" to websites that send the billing details in a HTML form to the bank, where you do your stuff over SSL _with the bank_ and once you're done, the bank redirects you back to the store, pulling a predefined URL on the store's server that informs the business logic that the payment has been completed. It's a really simple system, and having buttons for the three biggest banks covers most of your customer base. The implementation is a no-brainer (no J2EE or anything like that required), and the three banks differ only in minor details.
They don't get any of my details they don't need to ship me the goods, and there no need to mess around with credit cards... good for the business as well as payment has always been made with certainty.
While I can understand the basic point you're making, I am not willing to draw the line where you do. I find it a rather strong position to take that mice lack all self-awareness -- they are, after all, rather high-level organisms compared to flies. They certainly are able to react to their surroundings and even show some rudimentary intelligence in negotiating mazes and the like.
Your argument can be extended upwards and not downwards too. How about chimpanzees and dolphins? I would hate to torture either one of those, as I am almost completely certain that they do have a fairly advanced consciousness -- a "soul" if you will. What about low-functioning homo sapiens? People with Down's syndrome?
I would be extremely careful in making summary judgements over what is aware and capable of suffering and what not, as we can't, in the end, get into another being's head to check out how things look in there.
That is a rather incomplete criterion still, btw... Peter Singer, in his ethics, is big on the concept of whether something is capable of suffering, and this reasoning produces his infamous ideas about infanticide. Essentially he believes that it's ok to kill a baby as it is, according to him, "non-aware" and unable to understand or object to its killing.
IMO, it follows that killing a sleeping or unconscious person is perfectly ok, as long as they aren't at any point aware of what is happening...
The big brother of the Salora Fellow. It is a rather obscure Finnish licensed copy of an equally obscure Hong Kong -built VideoTech Laser 2001 which was a copy of some Apple, IIRC. It was pretty much obsolete by the time it was brought to market during the heyday of the C64.
I still have it in full working order. If only I had the floppy drive and could write the floppies somehow and knew how to write code for it, I would most certainly see how far I could push it now that I am a far more capable programmer than I was when I was six years old and typing in the BASIC examples from the manual:)
Why is it that it is always the US government that seems to have been up to all this stuff since WW2 and increasingly even after the Cold War? I thought you were supposed to be the people from the land of the free and whatnot, really suspicious of government intrusion into people's lives, et cetera. Considering that a lot of you are always willing to disparage the Europeans for their love-affair with government, I certainly wish a lot of you would just take the log out of your own eye first... it's your government, despite all the rhetoric, that is horribly control-mongering at home and eager to support whatever right-wing dictator abroad, while ours concentrate more on making sure that kids with cancer don't die in the name of economic efficiency should they be unfortunate enough to be born to parents of financially limited means.
Go ahead, mod me troll/flamebait... at least I won't post this AC.
...jumping up and telling us all that this behaviour can be seen in human beings too, in social democrats and other parasitic creatures who paralyze the brains of the worthy through the toxic sting of public education and/or quaint concepts of "morality" so that they can be led like a dog in a leash away from their fundamental right of participation in a free market!
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but what I was after was that all these security features will just give a lot of people an excuse to simply drive worse, and as they become isolated from the vehicle's natural dynamics, they aren't even becoming better drivers. That said, I do like my own ABS-automatic Renault and would suck in a Model T...
One more technology that allows people to drive even more carelessly and dangerously, blindly relying on automation to keep the car under control. Physics will always remain the same, and I suspect that when the driver DOES lose control of the vehicle, the outcome is going to be all the worse for this.
Not to mention what happens when inexperienced drivers learn to drive with this stuff and then move to a vehicle without it. For example I have never driven a car without ABS and I suspect I need to kept well away from them, as I don't have the correct reflexes to prevent wheels from locking in an emergency.
There was once this British driving instructor who said that all cars should have a long, sharp spike protruding from the center of the steering wheel... it would be the best imaginable safety equipment.
In other words, the freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. If all presses are owned by a monopoly, there is no true freedom of speech.
It is interesting to note how you would probably very strongly criticise a Communist government that suppresses speech in spaces it "owns" (that is, everywhere), but welcome such acts if they occur in private spaces. There is no essential difference if we assume, for example, that space is owned either by a monopoly or a similar group that seeks to, for example, cater to a possibly biased population or just simply seeks to suppress speech in general in order by "sanitize" the "customer" existence.
A few years back there was a nice experiment conducted by a magazine... they sent a few guys dressed up as (clean) hippies to distribute leftist leaflets in a shopping mall. Within the space of a few minutes, they were escorted out by security. They came back dressed up in suits and gave out cellphone adverts and nothing happened.
This is a worrying trend because over here in Finland malls can be very much a public space especially during the winter months, when conditions outside can be rather nasty. Fortunately according to my understanding, (otherwise legal) expression is protected in mall walkways as they are recognized as a kind of public space. The same does not go for the actual shops. Thus there were no grounds for the removal.
This serves as a good example of how absolute private property rights can destroy all other rights, and how those who are ideologically invested in them at any price are capable of tolerating any consequence that may follow. Fascism is ok, as long as it's voluntary Fascism...
Does anyone know what this patch is going to fix/alter? Is there going to be at least an option to get rid of the weirdness caused by the level scaling monsters and in particular the scaled stuff that causes roadside mobs to be equipped with überloot while they're still blackmailing you for 50gp?
If the patch fixes this (or makes it optional) I might actually consider buying Oblivion...
I don't "believe" anything about drawing myself, I don't really have an opinion as I draw like crap myself and hated having to learn "classic drawing skills" at school because I suck at it. I am merely trying to understand the point these people are making in TFA.
Not everyone is Picasso and can get away with drawing like he did... second, it is a good starting point, as "classic" drawing indeed has been mostly reproducing what the eye can see. It helps your observational skills and hand-eye coordination. Even if you end up drawing something abstract, you might want to be able to get the basic building blocks right first so you can draw a reasonably good-looking pig flying in the sky.
A similar ability to evaluate your results against the real world can only be beneficial to your art, regardless of medium, IMHO.
I thought like this for a while too, but then I sort of got the point, I think... let's say you want to be a good artist who will produce 2D outcomes using any medium. Then it often is very beneficial to be able to see with your "mind's eye", that is, able to reproduce what you're seeing instead of what you think you are seeing. Drawing is all about suppressing the abstract model of the world around you, and if you're able to do that, I'd assume you can transfer those skills to any medium you're using.
As we all know that the Bible is an unerring account of Creation, it is obvious to all believers that this fossil is yet another ploy by Satan to delude the so-called "scientists" who are blinded by logic and the scientific method. It's unbelievable to what lengths these "scientists" will go to accommodate these unholy scams into their imaginary, contrived model of "evolution" while it's all given in the Bible, plainly told for all who are just willing to open their eyes and believe...
Alas, a completely hypothetical moment too... your typical slashdotter passing on his pr0n collection to future generations? Come on...
We just need to figure out a way to dress up countering climate change in terms that will make Americans all hot and bothered and pumped up on militaristic patriotism. Then we might actually get to see some action.
:-)
The reason why the current approach hasn't caught on is because it has the definite whiff of Socialist co-operation through bureaucracy to it. Just boring difficult statistics that don't make good CNN two-minute action news footage and serious-looking scientific types and suits making up these restrictive agreements that you actually might have to abide by. Even worse, too much of those agreements are written by foreigners, which is anathema in principle. The fragile American ego can't possibly take not always getting to be the self-declared "leader" that everyone else follows.
The idea of peaceful equitable co-operation for the common good is also teh evil. There needs to be a market-based solution where the weak perish and the triumphant individual ascends, hopefully through being most capable of making short-term profits. This is the toughest part, as sometimes, unfortunately, one HAS to just simply not throw rocks in a glass house, no matter how profitable it may be in the short term.
My idea of this is that the rest of the world somehow needs to make themselves look like "the bad guys" that the USA can then declare a pre-emptive war on... the WAR ON WARMING. It mustn't be called a "protocol" or "treaty" or "agreement" or conference.. it has to be something solvable through the application of direct overwhelming force. It has to be a WAR.
Think of it as some kind of a reverse psychology strategy. It would stroke the American ego while preferably getting them on board without them realizing it. Having a B-2 flatten an obsolete coal plant somewhere in China would be a cheap dismantling strategy too!
I am not sure of the economics of this, but I am sure that somehow we would be able to come up with a "trading mechanism" that would make it worthwhile to engage the US through what they do best.. warfare!
I've got to give it to them, this infamous hacker group sure is productive in updating their website hacking and defacement tools. I am bothered that despite a respected public servant with years and years of computer experience already alerting the Internet community to the threat of this "CentOS", nothing is being done about it. Who knows, maybe they will soon manage to infiltrate systems more crucial to National Security... tomorrow, a municipal government website. Tomorrow, the Pentagon!
Now that you mention hard drugs... don't forget that the pornography addiction is due to the release of erototoxins in the brain... Evil substances that are supposed to keep us doing pleasurable things we shouldn't do according to the Bible, like looking at naked people we find sexually attractive... thus, porn is quite indistinguishable from hard drugs ;-)
To be pedantic... it would be "All Your Pony Are Belong To Us"
As long as you protect the critical sections appropriately, no harm should come from race conditions...
I don't own the game yet, but I've been reading the elderscrolls.com forum threads on the level scaling issue and I think I've got a pretty good grasp of why people find it nasty... I am getting worried myself too, as this is exactly the kind of stuff that will break my immersion in a game.
Also, if you're looking for a challenge - turn the difficulty meter up.
This is the standard suggestion from the pro-scaling crowd that seem to believe that the issue is only a matter of powergamers wanting to become überstrong in the game à la Morrowind. However, the issue of level scaling has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty of fights in general.
The issue is more about the consistency, logic and existence of the gameworld on its own, irrespective of the player. I find it extremely disturbing if the world magically alters itself depending on who I am, and more importantly, seems to be always distributed along a gaussian around me, no matter how much I've "advanced" in the game. There is no consistent measuring stick, and working on your character is penalized.
This enforced, narrowed-down distribution also removes variability from the game. I am definitely not a powergamer and actually like spending time in the low levels when mages that I tend to play are supposed to be fodder and very challenging to play. I enjoy the thought that there are humongous monsters that will bash my skull in if I should be stupid enough to wander into their vicinity. It also makes it all the more satisfying to eventually be able to take them on.
This leads to an issue with the risks and rewards of exploring: much has been made about how Oblivion makes all content immediately available despite a player's level. Well... yeah, you can, from what I have heard, go all the way into Oblivion at level 1. You won't get totally annihilated if you stick your nose into the wrong place too early. You also won't get something REALLY cool if you do dare to, and by some stroke of luck or by your own cunning and capability manage to obtain the loot "before your time". You'll just get an "appropriate" reward whatever you do, where-ever you go! This global averageness gives you a very strong impression that the world doesn't exist regardless of the player!
Apologists state that this helps make the game more friendly to free-form roleplaying. Well... there are limits to how much freedom is good in a game. Sometimes, in a game just like in the real world, there are places and things you quite simply won't get to do if you're a lame n00b. It does not neccessarily enforce a linear content progression either, if stuff is placed variably enough.
Then there are the obvious ridiculous outcomes which sound quite outrageous... at high levels, bandits everywhere wearing full sets of ebony and daedric and blackmailing you for 50gp. The explanation that they also went off and leveled and got stuff won't cut it... it is not credible that everyone gets rich and better just as the player does, in particular because the player is supposed to be the hero and actually see himself advancing beyond the usual trash roadside bandit!
I have a really bad feeling about this aspect of Oblivion, which makes it all the more sad because I really have been waiting for it since playing Morrowind obsessively and actually loving to just get to explore after becoming an über-god-character as the fights no longer were an issue -- I am not really into this for the fights. It was a nice reward to be able to dispatch anything quickly and to get the fighting over with, after having done it enough. Despite the loud proclamations of the pro-scalers on the elderscrolls.com forums that they are the torch-bearers of "true roleplaying" and that anti-scalers just want to feel powerful and need to turn down the difficulty to get that fix, I feel that they are the ones in it for the fighting, as it they are willing to accept glaring inconsistencies in the gameworld in order to get a "balanced and challenging" fight every time they enter one...
Hear hear, this is so true. Although I have been writing small Ruby scripts for a few years now, when I first took a look at RoR, I often had to pause to understand what exactly was happening in those very terse lines of code. You really need to understand Ruby's syntax and a lot of the philosophy quite deeply before you can grasp what is going on in RoR code. Without that understanding, you will never advance further in RoR than copying the tutorials.
This is an example of a more general syntax-vs-semantics tradeoff in programming languages. Sure it's impressive how little code you have to write, but the other side of this is that the required understanding per line of code density is higher.
Nobody expects a Grand Theft Auto crack dealer to drop in for a barbecue with the Sims! His chief weapon is surprise.. surprise and fear.. fear and surprise.. and ruthless efficiency..
Am I the only one who thinks it would actually be cool?
Actually it's not... the favourite tactic of right-wingers worldwide these days in their quest to dismantle the public sphere is to complain that it doesn't work, and play along just far enough to be allowed in to making decisions, which allows them to essentially sabotage whatever they are involved in. Then they get a nice good reason to complain even more that this doesn't work and therefore it needs to be taken down.
Most modern left-wing policies of the western world work just fine, but they require broad commitment. You can't trust right-wingers in government because they are not in it bona fide.
And don't forget that "all people are not born equal" and therefore this must actually show somehow in a healthy world and society -- certainly this applies to software too! Nobody says that a person has the inalienable right to use software if they are not up to the task. It's not the FOSS programmer's fault someone is blind/deaf/crippled.
The illusion of egalitarianism is, after all, the greatest evil man has invented... you should never "level the playing field" artificially, as this hinders competition and gives undeserved slack to an already mostly unproductive lot of people. We will evolve more and more capable users if we firmly refuse to water down our software by yielding to the envious whining of those who can't get themselves what they can't earn for themselves.
This sort of a system is widely in use at least here in Finland in e-commerce... I use it all the time, both as a buyer and a seller. The banks give out "payment buttons" to websites that send the billing details in a HTML form to the bank, where you do your stuff over SSL _with the bank_ and once you're done, the bank redirects you back to the store, pulling a predefined URL on the store's server that informs the business logic that the payment has been completed. It's a really simple system, and having buttons for the three biggest banks covers most of your customer base. The implementation is a no-brainer (no J2EE or anything like that required), and the three banks differ only in minor details.
They don't get any of my details they don't need to ship me the goods, and there no need to mess around with credit cards... good for the business as well as payment has always been made with certainty.
While I can understand the basic point you're making, I am not willing to draw the line where you do. I find it a rather strong position to take that mice lack all self-awareness -- they are, after all, rather high-level organisms compared to flies. They certainly are able to react to their surroundings and even show some rudimentary intelligence in negotiating mazes and the like.
Your argument can be extended upwards and not downwards too. How about chimpanzees and dolphins? I would hate to torture either one of those, as I am almost completely certain that they do have a fairly advanced consciousness -- a "soul" if you will. What about low-functioning homo sapiens? People with Down's syndrome?
I would be extremely careful in making summary judgements over what is aware and capable of suffering and what not, as we can't, in the end, get into another being's head to check out how things look in there.
That is a rather incomplete criterion still, btw... Peter Singer, in his ethics, is big on the concept of whether something is capable of suffering, and this reasoning produces his infamous ideas about infanticide. Essentially he believes that it's ok to kill a baby as it is, according to him, "non-aware" and unable to understand or object to its killing.
IMO, it follows that killing a sleeping or unconscious person is perfectly ok, as long as they aren't at any point aware of what is happening...
Church blocking progress again, in a very concrete way this time.
/ \ Carbon nanotube cable
| Earth |-----------o----------------O <- Counterweight
| | ^Lifter
\ /
\-----/
Counterweight goes around Earth at the same speed as the Earth rotates, keeping the cable taut. Stuff moves up and down cable by Lifter.
HTH
The big brother of the Salora Fellow. It is a rather obscure Finnish licensed copy of an equally obscure Hong Kong -built VideoTech Laser 2001 which was a copy of some Apple, IIRC. It was pretty much obsolete by the time it was brought to market during the heyday of the C64.
:)
I still have it in full working order. If only I had the floppy drive and could write the floppies somehow and knew how to write code for it, I would most certainly see how far I could push it now that I am a far more capable programmer than I was when I was six years old and typing in the BASIC examples from the manual
Why is it that it is always the US government that seems to have been up to all this stuff since WW2 and increasingly even after the Cold War? I thought you were supposed to be the people from the land of the free and whatnot, really suspicious of government intrusion into people's lives, et cetera. Considering that a lot of you are always willing to disparage the Europeans for their love-affair with government, I certainly wish a lot of you would just take the log out of your own eye first... it's your government, despite all the rhetoric, that is horribly control-mongering at home and eager to support whatever right-wing dictator abroad, while ours concentrate more on making sure that kids with cancer don't die in the name of economic efficiency should they be unfortunate enough to be born to parents of financially limited means.
Go ahead, mod me troll/flamebait... at least I won't post this AC.
...jumping up and telling us all that this behaviour can be seen in human beings too, in social democrats and other parasitic creatures who paralyze the brains of the worthy through the toxic sting of public education and/or quaint concepts of "morality" so that they can be led like a dog in a leash away from their fundamental right of participation in a free market!