That is moronic, and yet oddly it is used by school districts all the time to put a Windows monoculture in place. Think about it: what system could possibly be used that isn't totally outdated by the time kids graduate in 5 years? Even if you gave them expert-level training on Windows XP, Microsoft's defacto standard that enjoys a monopoly position, that "education" is down the drain when Longhorn ships.
Not really. If you gave a student "expert" level training on Windows 2000, they were fine with XP. Heck, if you gave a student expert level training with 98 or 95, they just have to learn the new changes. How to do things within the gui is the same. It really depends what you are talking about. If you are talking about systems administrators, that is a different story.
What school administration needs to go with is a computer that will build a technology base for the students without causing the teachers a lot of headaches. That neither describes Windows nor Linux.
Nor Mac. I work at a university that uses almost all apple products with a few unix/windows servers thrown in to communicate with other systems that wont work with macs.
We still have our share of problems, it's not like mac is the utopia many zealots make it out to be. Nor is it a "coders paradise". I can tell you this since I spend 95% of my time coding for the Mac platform (The other 5% reading slashdot). The one big advantage of the mac platform is we don't run into the virus scares every month that windows admins run into. They do of course effect those few windows machines we have.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.
Porn thrives on the internet because adults can view porn anonymously. It really is one of the 'killer' apps of the internet. What I don't get about this thing is how come no one ever blames the parents? I don't have children yet, but when I do I know I won't let them surf the net unsupervised at home until they are at least teenagers. Of course they will probably go to their friends house and check out hotlatinasluts.com or whatever else.
Do any slashdotters here have children (haha Slashdot users reproduce?) and if so do you let them online?
And Doom was developed on a NExT workstation. Yes, NExT was from the same guy as the Apple II. But there is a HUGE difference between a NExT workstation and an Apple II....
You mean that steve jobs guy? Yeah it's easy to forget about him.
I'm really enjoying this thread, to be honest. I'm befuddled what all the hype is about because I simply don't have to worry about it on any of my computers. I just get to sit here and chuckle that these dark-clothed Russian hakerz can't crack me Mac!
Do you really think it's that they can't crack your mac, or that there is no sense in targeting an OS that makes up about 2% of the internet users?
Gates' bank accounts are gutted or we experience some sot of 'net attack we haven't imagined yet brings part of the country to its knees because everyone uses M$ software but can't buy a clue about security.
It's not a matter of 'buying a clue' about security, it's a matter of monoculture on top of poor security measures. While IE/Outlook is poorly implimented on the PC, if the PC was only 2-5% of the OS market on the internet, ppl wouldn't care about it either.
I'm sorry, but this problem is going to get exponentially worse over the next few years. I see NO solution to what's going on unless there is some sort of bizarre migration to Macs or Linux boxes which seem to be immune to everything I read about.
Mac has had plenty of security vunrabilities, it's just that you get that nifty "software update" thing on the mac automagically. For some reason Windows update doesn't just run by default. Everything else ships "on" with a windows box but the one thing that should be on, isn't.
Do you really think the mac userbase is immune to viruses and general malware? Do you remember the "virus" that was going around limewire a few weeks ago that was just a simple shell script renamed as "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac" that would delete a users home directory?
It will certainly increase its adoption, especially in the open source world, thus fulfilling its original purpose: write once, run anywhere.
No, it will break write once, run anywhere just like microsoft's JVM and custom Java did. In order to have write once, run anywhere there needs to be some sort of strict central control over the JVM and the lanugage. This is a bad idea for Sun, and a bad idea for Java. That may not be a popular opinion around here, but that is the opinion of plenty of other developers as well.
As a professional Java developer, I despise the thought of Java going open source.
Heat.net which I believe was owned by Sega used to host high speed servers which catered to @home users. They had custom games that you had to pay to play, but they also had Quake 2 and Sin servers. They also ran deathmatch games with cash prizes, and had their own software to connect to the servers and hang out in lobbies. It was a nice little community. The best part was the deathmatch for cash, like twice a week for each game they would get players together to play a normal DM game, and whoever won would get $50. Not a huge prize, but it's a fun way for a casual gamer to compete.
I think that comcast can succeed if they can build a community. Some exclusive content would be nice too.
If people can potentially live for thousands of years will they become more scared of dying? All those things that you mentioned, instead of cutting a potential 70 year life short, it's now cutting a 5000 year life short. How will people react to that? Or after the first hundred years have most people already accepted that their life will end sometime due to an unforseen event.
It seems almost tragic does it? Of course the article only mentioned old age, so I'm sure Cancer, AIDS, Heart Disease, etc will get some people. Eventually there might be cures (2000 years in the future?). Then everyone will die a violent death or not die at all. Kind of twisted to think about.
I would guess that at the beginning, it wouldn't be quite as big a deal. Say a person died at 150. "Oh well, they lived a good long life, a helluva lot longer than they would have without the treatment."
But as time goes on and people becomed accustomed to the idea that they will live 5000 years,
Could you image the job requirements? Java Programmer needed. Must know JDK 400.4.2. Must have 1000 years experence with Java and Oracle. Will people go to college for 50 years?
I think people will be very scared of dying "young". 150 years will now be a life cut "tragically short". I think people will then be a lot more cautious about things we might even consider rediculous.
I would suspect that the other side of the spectrum would come about also. Where people would "live for the day".
Long term planning for countries will be the norm, after all it (pollution, the national debt, etc) will no longer be your grandkids problem.
Even to the point where people might lock themselves in a safe environment for hundreds of years at a time.
Kind of like the shut in teens in Japan? I could see it happening.
Another question is will it slow down progress... will it take a thousand years to change laws or regulations while people debate and study it?
Probably. Another interesting idea is that if you have the lifespan of 5000 years, manned space travel becomes much more feasable. Although finding volunteers might be a problem. "I'm not going up there, I'm too young to die! I'm only 950 years old!"
Bullshit. Check out the facts. I had heard for years that the U.S. is below replacement level, yadda yadda. Then I went to the U.S. Census Beuro, and low and behold we have greater than 2.1 births per married couple and our birth rate exceeds our death rate.
European-American birth rates are below replacement level. Immigrants have higher birthrates, as do the poor (that will change, when the numbers catch up with the welfare reform passed in the late 1990s).
We may have a slowing of population growth and an aging population but there is no population implosion about to occour here.
True, as long as the US continues to allow liberal immigration the US population will be "okay". The fact is the population will be highly balkanized in 50 years if this continues.
Add to that immigration and the U.S. is fine through the end of this century at least.
Wrong, without immigration to support the US population it will implode. If the desire to immigrate to the US changes, or the US attitude twards immigration changes the US will have a problem. About 2050 is the forcasted breaking point where the US will no longer be a Euro-American Country. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing but historically nations don't do well with being balkanized.
If any country has a history of accepting new cultures into the mix, it is the US. Maybe it will all work out well and we will live in harmony.
To play devils advocate, will all of the Mexican-American Immigrants eventually want statehood for Mexico or want California and Texas back for their homeland? That could be nasty.
Certain xenophobic cultures that have also promoted low birth rates might have a problem (Japan and Germany) but the overall population curve won't peak for at least 50 more years. China has finally brought their population growth under controll after 50 years of effort but India isn't even trying yet.
China, India and the Islamic countries will continue to grow if the current numbers hold up.
You forgot to observe that "dying out" is caused by people actually *DYING*. Take away the dying part, and you have population growth again, even if only one child is born to a couple. And of course, elimination of aging will extend the fertility period, thus increasing the chance that people will have more than one offspring.
If you take away aging, people will still die. Accidents, Disease, War, Murder, Suicide, etc. None of that goes away if you cure aging.
This is as naive as the people who predicted a constant exponential growth - you're trying to predict a trend based on the last few data points. There's no reason to believe that industrialized nations cause themselves to die out. For one thing, the nations having the most problems (the Scandinavian countries) are beginning to push towards trying to encourage people to have more children (one of the countries suggested putting state sponsored porn on TV, if memory serves).
Porn is going to encourage people to have children? Now there is a backwards through if I ever saw one. The problem isn't a lack of sexual desire.
And you also forgot another one - late interest in children.
I didn't want to make a 5 page post out of it. There are several reasons for a population implosion. Late interest in children due to working mothers is one, another is lack of religon, lack of agriculture (no need for 10 kids to work the farm), de-valuation of the family unit, female liberation, increased acceptance of homosexuality, etc. That isn't even getting into increases in impotence, or people just choosing not to have children. I'm not saying these are all bad things, what I am saying is that western culture could bring about it's own death which would be sad.:_(
Here's a thought experiment for you - what if it's not that people don't want children, but that people want children later in life?
that is only one small piece of the problem.
Fertility drops off significantly in the 40s,
Only for women.
so convolving the dropping fertility with a shift in the age at which people want children will naturally lead to a lower birth rate. The total number of average *desired* children might not be changing at all.
Ok, so say women can have babies until they are 50. I still don't think that will make a large difference in the grand scheme of things. It wont change 1.5 million abortions a year in the US alone, or how many children aren't born because of birth control. Again, I'm not saying these are bad things socially, but the are leading the US to a shrinking population.
But then what happens when science is able to significantly improve the fertility of those in their 40s? A boom happens all over again.
Unlikely. How many children are they going to have at 40? 1? Not only do you have to improve a women's chance to become pregnant, you have to do something about the greater miscarrage rate women have over 35.
Like I said, it's a little naive to say that the birth rate trend won't change. They thought this back in the 80s, as well. I'm sure they had just as impressive reasons
No, they didn't. Their reasoning was "People are fucking, people are going to continue to fuck". Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that was about the extent of it. I don't think in the 70's when "the population bomb" (or whatever the book was named) came out that they put much thought into what role abortion or womens rights might play with the population.
as we have for believing that the birth rate will continue along its (relatively recent) trend. But despite our arrogance, we really haven't figured out human societal trends yet.
Agreed it might not continue along it's trend, but I don't see any factors to stop it. Do you? Improved fertility will help, but that alone wont do it. Men and Women have to have the desire to have large families. They may have the desire to "do the deed" but they certainly don't want to deal with trying to raise a large family, at least here in the US. The best solution might be incentives from the government. As much as I like the idea of Free Porn (god bless the Scandinavian countries) I don't think that alone will do it. Perhaps the affected countries could make some kind of large finacial incentive for the middle class to have children. In the end, I think the US will solve it's problem VIA mass immigration.
The worry isn't about OVERPOPULATION, the worry is about a Population Implosion due to development (just about every country in the developed world is already well below replacement birth rates). Demographically, we're less than 5 years away from the Population Implosion- at which point I guess India takes over as the new superpower?
India, China and a Muslim super-state if they ever create one. Mostly it's European and Euro-American birthrates that are declining. China's population would explode again if they stopped the governments regulation of the birthrate. India is huge, and birth control/abortion isn't big in islamic countries. Those populations are going to explode while the western world is heading twards population implosion due to birth control, women in the workforce, etc etc. Russia is going to be particularly fucked if their population keeps dropping. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember it pans out that by 2050 if birthrates stay the same, China will have doubled their population, and the islamic states will have doubled theirs while Russia's population is halved. At some point, China is going to want her old land (Siberia) back. Nuclear weapons may be the only deterant.
Russia also has it's own terrorism problems with radical islam.
Overall, the western world could use some population growth.
I'm not on one side or the other in particular, but for the sake of devil's advocacy:
You seem to be pretty hardcore antiwar from your posts...
1. Terrorists are more inclined to attack US troops in Iraq than civilians on American soil. It's cheaper, quicker and easier for the terrorists than trying to strike on American soil.
How is that a fact? More people died in 9/11 than all the soldiers killed in the Iraq war to date. And what about non-Americans such as the people on the train in Madrid? There is no real evidence the "terrorists"/"insurgents" in Iraq are al Queda. Most of them are al Sadr's militia. In fact, it was announced today that our own government believes the terrorists are going to strike big again this summer. The attacks in Iraq are more frequent, mind you, but those are "insurgents" who may believe they're liberating their country instead of terrorists hell-bent on removing the United States and its people from existence.
I would bet there is a mix of people in Iraq now attacking the troops. It's been reported that the American troops have be attacked by Al Quadia and that the Syrian boarder is still pretty wide open
2. The war in Iraq may bring stability to the country and a regime that is more US friendly.
The fact, as you stated is that it "may" bring stability. Logically, then, it is also a fact that it may NOT bring stability to Iraq. In fact, the sense I get is that Iraq is less stable now than it was under its former dictator. And, apparently, you still have about the same chance of getting tortured in prison!
This statement is just false. A few terrorists (not just iraqis, terrorists) that were held were tortured. Mass graves have been found from the Saddam era. It's just not the same. The democrats might try to paint it that way because it's an election year, but if you sit back and think about it you know it isn't even close to the same thing.
3. The war in Iraq will show the middle eastern countries that the US will follow through on military actions despite casualties.
That remains to be seen. Will we follow through? We have so far. It may also show that we will attack a country that doesn't have WMDs and they they did, while leaving alone those thonry countries we KNOW have WMD, such as North Korea. In that case, all the more reason to obtain WMDs to defend yourself.
North Korea doesn't support international terrorism, Iraq did. In addition to paying suicide bombers, Saddam also tried to have George H Bush Assassinated while he was in office. That is an act of war that should not have been forgiven.
5. With a friendly Iraq, perhaps gas prices will come down in the US (not likely though).
This is not really a "fact", is it? You even admit its not likely. So what was the point of this? In fact, the instability in Iraq has likely contributed to higher oil prices.
Yep, but there really isn't a supply and demand problem. The insabitlity has driven the price of gas up, but it seems more like it's the American gas comanies raping the consumers.
And the number 6 point, which I'll add, is thatthis is only giving more evidence to for the terrorists to twist as propoganda.
Agreed
American's sexually uhmiliating and toruturing innocent Iraqis.
Again, this is only a few soldiers who weren't following orders. It's being played up in the media because it's a election year. Worse things go on in US prisons everyday but no one talks about that, because it's not a sexy issue, and it's not going to get anyone elected.
Americans firing on wedding parties.
Again, there are conflicting reports about if it was or wasn't a wedding party. Even if it was a wedding party, the planes were fired upon because the Iraqis didn't have the common sense not to fire their guns in the air during a time
I've even heard hints that those pictures were PURPOSEFULY leaked to set an example of the kind of torture/humiliation you'd face if you don't cooperate with American interrogations.
I'm not trying to get into an idological arguement here, but I think you might be a wee bit blinded by your idology and your distaste for the American government. It would be idiotic for the military to release those pictures if they really had a policy of torture.
Plus there is no need to do that. If the military sponsored torture you don't have to release photos to show what people would face from the interrogators. You just torture them to get your information.
I'm open minded twards your arguments/opinions, but this statement made no sense since the Army would have no motivation to leak the pictures if they really sponsored sexual torture.
I would say the most likely scenario was that some soldiers felt guilty over what they saw, and leaked the pictures to CBS for 60 minutes.
What do you think about CBS's decision to run the story even though the military was already conducting an investigation and planning a trial? If the photos had never aired, perhaps Nick Berg wouldn't have been beheaded (since the terroists claimed it was in direct response to the photos).
Yep...that's what we have.. and will continue to have until people exercise their responsibility and vote all the scoundrels out!
I'm not big on kookiness, or conspiracy theories, but the two major parties are conspiring even if it's informally to keep third parties out of majority elections. In 1992 Ross Perot captured 19 percent of the vote and participated in the highest rated presidential debate of all time. After Perot's preformance in 1992, the Republicans and Democrats conspired to not include Perot in 1996. Clinton's aid, George Stephanopolous said:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: "[The Dole campaign] didn't have leverage going into negotiations. They were behind. They needed to make sure Perot wasn't in it. As long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted going in. We got our time frame, we got our length, we got our moderator."
In 2000 it was announced that candidates wouldn't be allowed in the elections unless they were polling at 15% of the vote ahead of time. Such a threshold would have barred Perot from the 1992 debates (he finished with 19 percent of the vote), and would have excluded Reform candidate Jesse Ventura from the 1998 gubernatorial debates in Minnesota (at 10 percent in polls before the debates, he won the election with 37 percent).
While this has strayed off topic a bit, how can you expect not to have laws against the will of the people when the people are no longer in control of who they can vote for? Politicians do their best to make the Republicans and Democrats look different, and they are on social issues, but surely not on economic issues despite what some democrats and republicans might think. They both spend carelessly, and support big business. As long as these people are in power, you will have crap like the RIAA getting free lawsuits going on.
Uh, some of those pictures were leaked by government employees. When you speak of the government keeping secrets, remember that The Government is just made out of ordinary, individual people.
Sorry my brush was a bit broad when I made that statement. The pictures were leaked by soldiers from everything I've read who do fall under "government employees" I suppose. But by government employees what I really ment were scientists and maybe MP's that would be at a place like Area 51. Not to mention, the pictures had to do with rape and abuse. The Soldier who leaked the pictures probably wanted to make sure the abuse stopped. A government employee doesn't have that kind of motivation to leak things about Area 51 unless people are dying/being abused there or there is a threat to the public. Like I mentioned in the parent post, if ET was there I'm sure people would leak it. If it's an air force research lab, I'm sure people would for the most part be quiet. Despite what we might think from reading and posing on Slashdot, people don't talk without reason.:D
More plainly, there's such an abundance of things we don't know that a mere strongly-worded assertion about any one of them can set off the kooks, and the increasingly kook-friendly media. (Mumble mumble Fox mumble.)
I don't think fox is any worse than any of the other channels when it comes to this. They are kook friendly because kook friendly = ratings. It's like the history channel, you wouldn't say that the history channel is Hitler friendly because they run so many WW2 shows. It's just that WW2 is what history channel viewers like to watch.
I don't believe government employees are not any more fanatical about keeping secrets than ordinary employees, though on some levels they are much more indoctrinated.
I would bet they are. Just for the simple fact that they want to keep their clearance never mind other motavating factors. Loyalty to their country comes to mind.
But still, the thing about Area 51 rumors that have always bugged me is the number of people who would have to be "in" on it, and not talk. And in these days of near-instant communication, it gets a lot harder to prevent leaks.
I doubt there are little green men running around in there. It would be hard to keep something like that quiet. It's probably an advanced air force research facility like other people have suggested. Keeping that quiet isn't too hard, you just tell your employees it's for national security. I think people could shut up about the Aurora and it's no big deal. If (Darth Vader, ET, Alf, whichever Alien) were in there, someone would leak it.
But the thing that bugs me about Area 51 the most is that the culture of secrecy that some sectors of the government enjoy makes possible a rich environment for spurious stories to flourish.
I think the government officials have come to the point where the enjoy doing this to the kooks. Look at the whole planet X thing. There was some kind of internet cult that spammed the newsgroup sci.astronomy for a long time that "Planet X/Nibiru" was returning on May 15 2003 to (bring peace, kill everyone, balance my checkbook, whatever else). They contended that there was one world government that was conspiring not to tell the people they were all going to die. Someone in the military obviously caught wind of the kooks, and to drive them batty named one of their operations in Iraq "Operation Planet X" and launched it on may 15 2003. I think the government likes playing with these people, it's got to be fun to mess with their heads.
Much worse, to me, than the stories is the secrecy itself, especially since it's alegedly *our* government that's so tightlipped about so much, and Bush and company have made it a lot worse.
That is just kookery in my opinion. I doubt there is that many secrets going around, except in the military where there is a need for them. I really don't think George Bush is holding satanic rituals underground with his nazi armys and the illuminati planning to take over the world and enslave humanity when ET lands. I guess I could be wrong.
So I almost want to wish the conspiracy mongers well on their propaganda efforts -- anything that causes the public to distrust that air of secrecy, and the actions of spooky secret people supposedly in their interest, for there is no force on Earth so horrifying as that of people willing to do wrong things for what they think are right reasons,
Do you really think the US government is doing "the wrong things". What exactly do you think they are doing in secret that is so bad for the general population of the US?
things like that that work towards increasing that distrust are somewhat positive in my book.
Do you think there are some things you should trust a government to keep secret (ie, new weapons of mass destruction) so they don't fall into the wrong hands?
Arrest a million people all at once? Pack up and move before a million people get on thier doorstep? Tear gas? Land Mines?
If they are really serious? Just start firing into the crowd. Sure, they wouldn't. But if they did you would see 1 million people turn tail, start running and trampling each other to death. Realistically, people will assemble and fight to the death for certain things (food, safety, freedom). The little green men, or whatever in area 51 isn't enough.
Seriously. We're talking about people who can't even keep their happy snaps from Iraq secret.
Those are apples and oranges my friend. Keeping pictures secret that were sent out to private citizens over the internet is different than keeping a secret among government employees
The American government hasn't been able to keep a single secret longer than about 15 minutes.
How do you know? If they did have a well kept secret, it's well kept so you might not have found out. I'm not trying to be rude, just trying to point out that just because you know some things, doesn't mean you know everything
They's no aliens at Roswell, or you'd have already seen 500 pictures of them on CNN...
Why doesn't CNN march into Area 51 and refuse to leave then because the "public wants to know the truth". I have no doubts at it's highest levels, the US government has ways to control the media both subtle and not so subtly.
The problem is that kids are naturally curious about the games that are BAD. It doesn't matter how many good video games there are out there....kids are always going to find the one game that's evil.
And as a parent, it's your job to prevent your children from getting it, if you don't want them to have it. Just like there are plenty of good and bad magazines out there, if you don't want your child reading Stuff, or Maxim then you will actually have to be a parent and watch what your kids are doing. It's not the rest-of-the world's job to raise a parents child for them.
Really, there are only three solutions:
1) Forbid all video games that do not impose "correct" morality
I don't think it has to be avoid all games that don't teach morals, just try to keep your children away from ones that that display senseless violence without concequence, and the ones that are way too sexually explicit. Is it hard for parents to figure out that the latest Mario or Star Wars game is ok while a game named "Grand Theft Auto" is not?
2) Raise your children in an isolated bubble, never exposing them to anything that espouses "bad" morality
Again, I don't think it's a matter of putting your children in a bubble although pop culture may make it that way soon. It's a matter of sheltering your children from the worst ideas (men and women as purely sexual objects, violence, racism) until they are in their teenage years and can at least make somewhat reasonable decisions.
3) Let your children experience what they want, within limits, so long as you teach them what is right and wrong
This is kind of reasonable, but at what point? If I had children (and plenty of my friends do at this point) I would try to keep them away from some of the aspects I discussed, because it clearly effects children in a negative manner.
You can let a kid play all the violent video games he wants; so long as he has a caring mother and father, he'll turn out OK....
I disagree, Eric Harris didn't come from a horribly abusive background at home and look what he did? I don't think good parents alone can do it. If children see violence with no conequence they often will try to act it out in play form despite how much you tell them it's fake. It's not really a good thing at a young age.
It's more of a problem of society in general has become a lot less "kid/family friendly" in the past 20-30 years. The legalization of abortion, the growth of 1 parent families, birth control and the decline of relgion have led to less children. Therefor society as a whole has less tolerance for caring for them. I agree in a way, I'm over 18 and if I want GTA, I should be able to buy it. I don't want it censored just because some halfwit parent can't keep their child from playing it.
and if he doesn't have caring parents, if it's not GTA teaching him how to be a criminal, it'll just be something else.
This is a bit too broad of a brush, there have been many successful people who came from broken homes/people who were poor parents. It doesn't help, but it's not as simple as, if your parents don't love you, you will be a criminal when you grow up.
In short, bad parenting creates bad kids who have independent, unrelated desires to play "bad" video games and do "bad" things.
Agreed, having bad parents makes it easier for kids to play "bad" games.
Good parenting creates "good" kids who have the same desire to play "bad" video games but less chance of a desire to do "bad" things.
Young children are still influenced by television and games and will act them out.
To all of the parents who are always whining "the video games are controlling my childen" I say: you have a thousand times more influence than any video game ever will...
Heh, I just say where the hell is your child getting the money for video games? And if you don't like them so m
That is completly beyond the point. Cube's goal is to be FUN. Not to compete in the commercial games market.
But the only thing you really need in the commercial game market is to be Fun. Counter Strike uses the old half life engine and is still insanly popular despite it's outdated graphics.
Slashdot Mirror
That is moronic, and yet oddly it is used by school districts all the time to put a Windows monoculture in place. Think about it: what system could possibly be used that isn't totally outdated by the time kids graduate in 5 years? Even if you gave them expert-level training on Windows XP, Microsoft's defacto standard that enjoys a monopoly position, that "education" is down the drain when Longhorn ships.
Not really. If you gave a student "expert" level training on Windows 2000, they were fine with XP. Heck, if you gave a student expert level training with 98 or 95, they just have to learn the new changes. How to do things within the gui is the same. It really depends what you are talking about. If you are talking about systems administrators, that is a different story.
What school administration needs to go with is a computer that will build a technology base for the students without causing the teachers a lot of headaches. That neither describes Windows nor Linux.
Nor Mac. I work at a university that uses almost all apple products with a few unix/windows servers thrown in to communicate with other systems that wont work with macs.
We still have our share of problems, it's not like mac is the utopia many zealots make it out to be. Nor is it a "coders paradise". I can tell you this since I spend 95% of my time coding for the Mac platform (The other 5% reading slashdot). The one big advantage of the mac platform is we don't run into the virus scares every month that windows admins run into. They do of course effect those few windows machines we have.
I posted this in another thread, but for those of you who don't know, you can get rid of BHO's with BHO Demon .
I run ad-aware and Spybot search and destroy but BHO Demon found some crapware that neither adaware or spybot found.
Anytime I hear of BHO's its always malware/spyware/adware...so when is it used for good? Seriously....
It's used for adobe acrobats PDF plug in for IE. I turn all of them off on my computer using BHO Demon
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.
Porn thrives on the internet because adults can view porn anonymously. It really is one of the 'killer' apps of the internet. What I don't get about this thing is how come no one ever blames the parents? I don't have children yet, but when I do I know I won't let them surf the net unsupervised at home until they are at least teenagers. Of course they will probably go to their friends house and check out hotlatinasluts.com or whatever else.
Do any slashdotters here have children (haha Slashdot users reproduce?) and if so do you let them online?
And Doom was developed on a NExT workstation. Yes, NExT was from the same guy as the Apple II. But there is a HUGE difference between a NExT workstation and an Apple II....
You mean that steve jobs guy? Yeah it's easy to forget about him.
I'm really enjoying this thread, to be honest. I'm befuddled what all the hype is about because I simply don't have to worry about it on any of my computers. I just get to sit here and chuckle that these dark-clothed Russian hakerz can't crack me Mac!
Do you really think it's that they can't crack your mac, or that there is no sense in targeting an OS that makes up about 2% of the internet users?
Gates' bank accounts are gutted or we experience some sot of 'net attack we haven't imagined yet brings part of the country to its knees because everyone uses M$ software but can't buy a clue about security.
It's not a matter of 'buying a clue' about security, it's a matter of monoculture on top of poor security measures. While IE/Outlook is poorly implimented on the PC, if the PC was only 2-5% of the OS market on the internet, ppl wouldn't care about it either.
I'm sorry, but this problem is going to get exponentially worse over the next few years. I see NO solution to what's going on unless there is some sort of bizarre migration to Macs or Linux boxes which seem to be immune to everything I read about.
Mac has had plenty of security vunrabilities, it's just that you get that nifty "software update" thing on the mac automagically. For some reason Windows update doesn't just run by default. Everything else ships "on" with a windows box but the one thing that should be on, isn't.
Do you really think the mac userbase is immune to viruses and general malware? Do you remember the "virus" that was going around limewire a few weeks ago that was just a simple shell script renamed as "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac" that would delete a users home directory?
There are bigger nightmares in that scenario than a few allergic reactions.
Hah, like the super plants growing out of control and killing everyone? Sounds crazy right? There is a good write up about it here Interesting stuff.
It will certainly increase its adoption, especially in the open source world, thus fulfilling its original purpose: write once, run anywhere.
No, it will break write once, run anywhere just like microsoft's JVM and custom Java did. In order to have write once, run anywhere there needs to be some sort of strict central control over the JVM and the lanugage. This is a bad idea for Sun, and a bad idea for Java. That may not be a popular opinion around here, but that is the opinion of plenty of other developers as well.
As a professional Java developer, I despise the thought of Java going open source.
Heat.net which I believe was owned by Sega used to host high speed servers which catered to @home users. They had custom games that you had to pay to play, but they also had Quake 2 and Sin servers. They also ran deathmatch games with cash prizes, and had their own software to connect to the servers and hang out in lobbies. It was a nice little community. The best part was the deathmatch for cash, like twice a week for each game they would get players together to play a normal DM game, and whoever won would get $50. Not a huge prize, but it's a fun way for a casual gamer to compete.
I think that comcast can succeed if they can build a community. Some exclusive content would be nice too.
Wow, this is some pretty deep stuff. Lets see..
If people can potentially live for thousands of years will they become more scared of dying? All those things that you mentioned, instead of cutting a potential 70 year life short, it's now cutting a 5000 year life short. How will people react to that? Or after the first hundred years have most people already accepted that their life will end sometime due to an unforseen event.
It seems almost tragic does it? Of course the article only mentioned old age, so I'm sure Cancer, AIDS, Heart Disease, etc will get some people. Eventually there might be cures (2000 years in the future?). Then everyone will die a violent death or not die at all. Kind of twisted to think about.
I would guess that at the beginning, it wouldn't be quite as big a deal. Say a person died at 150. "Oh well, they lived a good long life, a helluva lot longer than they would have without the treatment."
But as time goes on and people becomed accustomed to the idea that they will live 5000 years,
Could you image the job requirements? Java Programmer needed. Must know JDK 400.4.2. Must have 1000 years experence with Java and Oracle. Will people go to college for 50 years?
I think people will be very scared of dying "young". 150 years will now be a life cut "tragically short". I think people will then be a lot more cautious about things we might even consider rediculous.
I would suspect that the other side of the spectrum would come about also. Where people would "live for the day". Long term planning for countries will be the norm, after all it (pollution, the national debt, etc) will no longer be your grandkids problem.
Even to the point where people might lock themselves in a safe environment for hundreds of years at a time.
Kind of like the shut in teens in Japan? I could see it happening.
Another question is will it slow down progress... will it take a thousand years to change laws or regulations while people debate and study it?
Probably. Another interesting idea is that if you have the lifespan of 5000 years, manned space travel becomes much more feasable. Although finding volunteers might be a problem. "I'm not going up there, I'm too young to die! I'm only 950 years old!"
Bullshit. Check out the facts. I had heard for years that the U.S. is below replacement level, yadda yadda. Then I went to the U.S. Census Beuro, and low and behold we have greater than 2.1 births per married couple and our birth rate exceeds our death rate.
European-American birth rates are below replacement level. Immigrants have higher birthrates, as do the poor (that will change, when the numbers catch up with the welfare reform passed in the late 1990s).
We may have a slowing of population growth and an aging population but there is no population implosion about to occour here.
True, as long as the US continues to allow liberal immigration the US population will be "okay". The fact is the population will be highly balkanized in 50 years if this continues.
Add to that immigration and the U.S. is fine through the end of this century at least.
Wrong, without immigration to support the US population it will implode. If the desire to immigrate to the US changes, or the US attitude twards immigration changes the US will have a problem. About 2050 is the forcasted breaking point where the US will no longer be a Euro-American Country. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing but historically nations don't do well with being balkanized. If any country has a history of accepting new cultures into the mix, it is the US. Maybe it will all work out well and we will live in harmony.
To play devils advocate, will all of the Mexican-American Immigrants eventually want statehood for Mexico or want California and Texas back for their homeland? That could be nasty.
Certain xenophobic cultures that have also promoted low birth rates might have a problem (Japan and Germany) but the overall population curve won't peak for at least 50 more years. China has finally brought their population growth under controll after 50 years of effort but India isn't even trying yet.
China, India and the Islamic countries will continue to grow if the current numbers hold up.
You forgot to observe that "dying out" is caused by people actually *DYING*. Take away the dying part, and you have population growth again, even if only one child is born to a couple. And of course, elimination of aging will extend the fertility period, thus increasing the chance that people will have more than one offspring.
If you take away aging, people will still die. Accidents, Disease, War, Murder, Suicide, etc. None of that goes away if you cure aging.
This is as naive as the people who predicted a constant exponential growth - you're trying to predict a trend based on the last few data points. There's no reason to believe that industrialized nations cause themselves to die out. For one thing, the nations having the most problems (the Scandinavian countries) are beginning to push towards trying to encourage people to have more children (one of the countries suggested putting state sponsored porn on TV, if memory serves).
:_(
Porn is going to encourage people to have children? Now there is a backwards through if I ever saw one. The problem isn't a lack of sexual desire.
And you also forgot another one - late interest in children.
I didn't want to make a 5 page post out of it. There are several reasons for a population implosion. Late interest in children due to working mothers is one, another is lack of religon, lack of agriculture (no need for 10 kids to work the farm), de-valuation of the family unit, female liberation, increased acceptance of homosexuality, etc. That isn't even getting into increases in impotence, or people just choosing not to have children. I'm not saying these are all bad things, what I am saying is that western culture could bring about it's own death which would be sad.
Here's a thought experiment for you - what if it's not that people don't want children, but that people want children later in life?
that is only one small piece of the problem.
Fertility drops off significantly in the 40s,
Only for women.
so convolving the dropping fertility with a shift in the age at which people want children will naturally lead to a lower birth rate. The total number of average *desired* children might not be changing at all.
Ok, so say women can have babies until they are 50. I still don't think that will make a large difference in the grand scheme of things. It wont change 1.5 million abortions a year in the US alone, or how many children aren't born because of birth control. Again, I'm not saying these are bad things socially, but the are leading the US to a shrinking population.
But then what happens when science is able to significantly improve the fertility of those in their 40s? A boom happens all over again.
Unlikely. How many children are they going to have at 40? 1? Not only do you have to improve a women's chance to become pregnant, you have to do something about the greater miscarrage rate women have over 35.
Like I said, it's a little naive to say that the birth rate trend won't change. They thought this back in the 80s, as well. I'm sure they had just as impressive reasons
No, they didn't. Their reasoning was "People are fucking, people are going to continue to fuck". Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that was about the extent of it. I don't think in the 70's when "the population bomb" (or whatever the book was named) came out that they put much thought into what role abortion or womens rights might play with the population.
as we have for believing that the birth rate will continue along its (relatively recent) trend. But despite our arrogance, we really haven't figured out human societal trends yet.
Agreed it might not continue along it's trend, but I don't see any factors to stop it. Do you? Improved fertility will help, but that alone wont do it. Men and Women have to have the desire to have large families. They may have the desire to "do the deed" but they certainly don't want to deal with trying to raise a large family, at least here in the US. The best solution might be incentives from the government. As much as I like the idea of Free Porn (god bless the Scandinavian countries) I don't think that alone will do it. Perhaps the affected countries could make some kind of large finacial incentive for the middle class to have children. In the end, I think the US will solve it's problem VIA mass immigration.
The worry isn't about OVERPOPULATION, the worry is about a Population Implosion due to development (just about every country in the developed world is already well below replacement birth rates). Demographically, we're less than 5 years away from the Population Implosion- at which point I guess India takes over as the new superpower?
India, China and a Muslim super-state if they ever create one. Mostly it's European and Euro-American birthrates that are declining. China's population would explode again if they stopped the governments regulation of the birthrate. India is huge, and birth control/abortion isn't big in islamic countries. Those populations are going to explode while the western world is heading twards population implosion due to birth control, women in the workforce, etc etc. Russia is going to be particularly fucked if their population keeps dropping. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember it pans out that by 2050 if birthrates stay the same, China will have doubled their population, and the islamic states will have doubled theirs while Russia's population is halved. At some point, China is going to want her old land (Siberia) back. Nuclear weapons may be the only deterant.
Russia also has it's own terrorism problems with radical islam.
Overall, the western world could use some population growth.
Despite the bacteria's ability to ive in magma vents or in nuclear waste, I'm sure the AMD chips run too hot for them to live in there.
I'm not on one side or the other in particular, but for the sake of devil's advocacy:
You seem to be pretty hardcore antiwar from your posts...
1. Terrorists are more inclined to attack US troops in Iraq than civilians on American soil. It's cheaper, quicker and easier for the terrorists than trying to strike on American soil.
How is that a fact? More people died in 9/11 than all the soldiers killed in the Iraq war to date. And what about non-Americans such as the people on the train in Madrid? There is no real evidence the "terrorists"/"insurgents" in Iraq are al Queda. Most of them are al Sadr's militia. In fact, it was announced today that our own government believes the terrorists are going to strike big again this summer. The attacks in Iraq are more frequent, mind you, but those are "insurgents" who may believe they're liberating their country instead of terrorists hell-bent on removing the United States and its people from existence.
I would bet there is a mix of people in Iraq now attacking the troops. It's been reported that the American troops have be attacked by Al Quadia and that the Syrian boarder is still pretty wide open
2. The war in Iraq may bring stability to the country and a regime that is more US friendly.
The fact, as you stated is that it "may" bring stability. Logically, then, it is also a fact that it may NOT bring stability to Iraq. In fact, the sense I get is that Iraq is less stable now than it was under its former dictator. And, apparently, you still have about the same chance of getting tortured in prison!
This statement is just false. A few terrorists (not just iraqis, terrorists) that were held were tortured. Mass graves have been found from the Saddam era. It's just not the same. The democrats might try to paint it that way because it's an election year, but if you sit back and think about it you know it isn't even close to the same thing.
3. The war in Iraq will show the middle eastern countries that the US will follow through on military actions despite casualties.
That remains to be seen. Will we follow through? We have so far. It may also show that we will attack a country that doesn't have WMDs and they they did, while leaving alone those thonry countries we KNOW have WMD, such as North Korea. In that case, all the more reason to obtain WMDs to defend yourself.
North Korea doesn't support international terrorism, Iraq did. In addition to paying suicide bombers, Saddam also tried to have George H Bush Assassinated while he was in office. That is an act of war that should not have been forgiven.
5. With a friendly Iraq, perhaps gas prices will come down in the US (not likely though).
This is not really a "fact", is it? You even admit its not likely. So what was the point of this? In fact, the instability in Iraq has likely contributed to higher oil prices.
Yep, but there really isn't a supply and demand problem. The insabitlity has driven the price of gas up, but it seems more like it's the American gas comanies raping the consumers.
And the number 6 point, which I'll add, is thatthis is only giving more evidence to for the terrorists to twist as propoganda.
Agreed
American's sexually uhmiliating and toruturing innocent Iraqis.
Again, this is only a few soldiers who weren't following orders. It's being played up in the media because it's a election year. Worse things go on in US prisons everyday but no one talks about that, because it's not a sexy issue, and it's not going to get anyone elected.
Americans firing on wedding parties.
Again, there are conflicting reports about if it was or wasn't a wedding party. Even if it was a wedding party, the planes were fired upon because the Iraqis didn't have the common sense not to fire their guns in the air during a time
I've even heard hints that those pictures were PURPOSEFULY leaked to set an example of the kind of torture/humiliation you'd face if you don't cooperate with American interrogations.
I'm not trying to get into an idological arguement here, but I think you might be a wee bit blinded by your idology and your distaste for the American government. It would be idiotic for the military to release those pictures if they really had a policy of torture.
Plus there is no need to do that. If the military sponsored torture you don't have to release photos to show what people would face from the interrogators. You just torture them to get your information.
I'm open minded twards your arguments/opinions, but this statement made no sense since the Army would have no motivation to leak the pictures if they really sponsored sexual torture.
I would say the most likely scenario was that some soldiers felt guilty over what they saw, and leaked the pictures to CBS for 60 minutes.
What do you think about CBS's decision to run the story even though the military was already conducting an investigation and planning a trial? If the photos had never aired, perhaps Nick Berg wouldn't have been beheaded (since the terroists claimed it was in direct response to the photos).
Yup. We don't know that CNN crews haven't already tried this, been stripped, prodded into a human pyramid, had their pictures taken
Quick send Paula Zahn Now! Hopefully someone will leak the photos. Just please, no Larry King.
Yep...that's what we have.. and will continue to have until people exercise their responsibility and vote all the scoundrels out!
I'm not big on kookiness, or conspiracy theories, but the two major parties are conspiring even if it's informally to keep third parties out of majority elections. In 1992 Ross Perot captured 19 percent of the vote and participated in the highest rated presidential debate of all time. After Perot's preformance in 1992, the Republicans and Democrats conspired to not include Perot in 1996. Clinton's aid, George Stephanopolous said:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: "[The Dole campaign] didn't have leverage going into negotiations. They were behind. They needed to make sure Perot wasn't in it. As long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted going in. We got our time frame, we got our length, we got our moderator."
In 2000 it was announced that candidates wouldn't be allowed in the elections unless they were polling at 15% of the vote ahead of time. Such a threshold would have barred Perot from the 1992 debates (he finished with 19 percent of the vote), and would have excluded Reform candidate Jesse Ventura from the 1998 gubernatorial debates in Minnesota (at 10 percent in polls before the debates, he won the election with 37 percent).
While this has strayed off topic a bit, how can you expect not to have laws against the will of the people when the people are no longer in control of who they can vote for? Politicians do their best to make the Republicans and Democrats look different, and they are on social issues, but surely not on economic issues despite what some democrats and republicans might think. They both spend carelessly, and support big business. As long as these people are in power, you will have crap like the RIAA getting free lawsuits going on.
Uh, some of those pictures were leaked by government employees. When you speak of the government keeping secrets, remember that The Government is just made out of ordinary, individual people.
:D
Sorry my brush was a bit broad when I made that statement. The pictures were leaked by soldiers from everything I've read who do fall under "government employees" I suppose. But by government employees what I really ment were scientists and maybe MP's that would be at a place like Area 51. Not to mention, the pictures had to do with rape and abuse. The Soldier who leaked the pictures probably wanted to make sure the abuse stopped. A government employee doesn't have that kind of motivation to leak things about Area 51 unless people are dying/being abused there or there is a threat to the public. Like I mentioned in the parent post, if ET was there I'm sure people would leak it. If it's an air force research lab, I'm sure people would for the most part be quiet. Despite what we might think from reading and posing on Slashdot, people don't talk without reason.
More plainly, there's such an abundance of things we don't know that a mere strongly-worded assertion about any one of them can set off the kooks, and the increasingly kook-friendly media. (Mumble mumble Fox mumble.)
I don't think fox is any worse than any of the other channels when it comes to this. They are kook friendly because kook friendly = ratings. It's like the history channel, you wouldn't say that the history channel is Hitler friendly because they run so many WW2 shows. It's just that WW2 is what history channel viewers like to watch.
I don't believe government employees are not any more fanatical about keeping secrets than ordinary employees, though on some levels they are much more indoctrinated.
I would bet they are. Just for the simple fact that they want to keep their clearance never mind other motavating factors. Loyalty to their country comes to mind.
But still, the thing about Area 51 rumors that have always bugged me is the number of people who would have to be "in" on it, and not talk. And in these days of near-instant communication, it gets a lot harder to prevent leaks.
I doubt there are little green men running around in there. It would be hard to keep something like that quiet. It's probably an advanced air force research facility like other people have suggested. Keeping that quiet isn't too hard, you just tell your employees it's for national security. I think people could shut up about the Aurora and it's no big deal. If (Darth Vader, ET, Alf, whichever Alien) were in there, someone would leak it.
But the thing that bugs me about Area 51 the most is that the culture of secrecy that some sectors of the government enjoy makes possible a rich environment for spurious stories to flourish.
I think the government officials have come to the point where the enjoy doing this to the kooks. Look at the whole planet X thing. There was some kind of internet cult that spammed the newsgroup sci.astronomy for a long time that "Planet X/Nibiru" was returning on May 15 2003 to (bring peace, kill everyone, balance my checkbook, whatever else). They contended that there was one world government that was conspiring not to tell the people they were all going to die. Someone in the military obviously caught wind of the kooks, and to drive them batty named one of their operations in Iraq "Operation Planet X" and launched it on may 15 2003. I think the government likes playing with these people, it's got to be fun to mess with their heads.
Much worse, to me, than the stories is the secrecy itself, especially since it's alegedly *our* government that's so tightlipped about so much, and Bush and company have made it a lot worse.
That is just kookery in my opinion. I doubt there is that many secrets going around, except in the military where there is a need for them. I really don't think George Bush is holding satanic rituals underground with his nazi armys and the illuminati planning to take over the world and enslave humanity when ET lands. I guess I could be wrong.
So I almost want to wish the conspiracy mongers well on their propaganda efforts -- anything that causes the public to distrust that air of secrecy, and the actions of spooky secret people supposedly in their interest, for there is no force on Earth so horrifying as that of people willing to do wrong things for what they think are right reasons,
Do you really think the US government is doing "the wrong things". What exactly do you think they are doing in secret that is so bad for the general population of the US?
things like that that work towards increasing that distrust are somewhat positive in my book.
Do you think there are some things you should trust a government to keep secret (ie, new weapons of mass destruction) so they don't fall into the wrong hands?
Arrest a million people all at once? Pack up and move before a million people get on thier doorstep? Tear gas? Land Mines?
If they are really serious? Just start firing into the crowd. Sure, they wouldn't. But if they did you would see 1 million people turn tail, start running and trampling each other to death. Realistically, people will assemble and fight to the death for certain things (food, safety, freedom). The little green men, or whatever in area 51 isn't enough.
Seriously. We're talking about people who can't even keep their happy snaps from Iraq secret.
Those are apples and oranges my friend. Keeping pictures secret that were sent out to private citizens over the internet is different than keeping a secret among government employees
The American government hasn't been able to keep a single secret longer than about 15 minutes.
How do you know? If they did have a well kept secret, it's well kept so you might not have found out. I'm not trying to be rude, just trying to point out that just because you know some things, doesn't mean you know everything
They's no aliens at Roswell, or you'd have already seen 500 pictures of them on CNN...
Why doesn't CNN march into Area 51 and refuse to leave then because the "public wants to know the truth". I have no doubts at it's highest levels, the US government has ways to control the media both subtle and not so subtly.
The problem is that kids are naturally curious about the games that are BAD. It doesn't matter how many good video games there are out there....kids are always going to find the one game that's evil.
And as a parent, it's your job to prevent your children from getting it, if you don't want them to have it. Just like there are plenty of good and bad magazines out there, if you don't want your child reading Stuff, or Maxim then you will actually have to be a parent and watch what your kids are doing. It's not the rest-of-the world's job to raise a parents child for them.
Really, there are only three solutions:
1) Forbid all video games that do not impose "correct" morality
I don't think it has to be avoid all games that don't teach morals, just try to keep your children away from ones that that display senseless violence without concequence, and the ones that are way too sexually explicit. Is it hard for parents to figure out that the latest Mario or Star Wars game is ok while a game named "Grand Theft Auto" is not?
2) Raise your children in an isolated bubble, never exposing them to anything that espouses "bad" morality
Again, I don't think it's a matter of putting your children in a bubble although pop culture may make it that way soon. It's a matter of sheltering your children from the worst ideas (men and women as purely sexual objects, violence, racism) until they are in their teenage years and can at least make somewhat reasonable decisions.
3) Let your children experience what they want, within limits, so long as you teach them what is right and wrong
This is kind of reasonable, but at what point? If I had children (and plenty of my friends do at this point) I would try to keep them away from some of the aspects I discussed, because it clearly effects children in a negative manner.
You can let a kid play all the violent video games he wants; so long as he has a caring mother and father, he'll turn out OK....
I disagree, Eric Harris didn't come from a horribly abusive background at home and look what he did? I don't think good parents alone can do it. If children see violence with no conequence they often will try to act it out in play form despite how much you tell them it's fake. It's not really a good thing at a young age.
It's more of a problem of society in general has become a lot less "kid/family friendly" in the past 20-30 years. The legalization of abortion, the growth of 1 parent families, birth control and the decline of relgion have led to less children. Therefor society as a whole has less tolerance for caring for them. I agree in a way, I'm over 18 and if I want GTA, I should be able to buy it. I don't want it censored just because some halfwit parent can't keep their child from playing it.
and if he doesn't have caring parents, if it's not GTA teaching him how to be a criminal, it'll just be something else.
This is a bit too broad of a brush, there have been many successful people who came from broken homes/people who were poor parents. It doesn't help, but it's not as simple as, if your parents don't love you, you will be a criminal when you grow up.
In short, bad parenting creates bad kids who have independent, unrelated desires to play "bad" video games and do "bad" things.
Agreed, having bad parents makes it easier for kids to play "bad" games. Good parenting creates "good" kids who have the same desire to play "bad" video games but less chance of a desire to do "bad" things.
Young children are still influenced by television and games and will act them out.
To all of the parents who are always whining "the video games are controlling my childen" I say: you have a thousand times more influence than any video game ever will...
Heh, I just say where the hell is your child getting the money for video games? And if you don't like them so m
That is completly beyond the point. Cube's goal is to be FUN. Not to compete in the commercial games market.
But the only thing you really need in the commercial game market is to be Fun. Counter Strike uses the old half life engine and is still insanly popular despite it's outdated graphics.