Nobody here will argue with that, well, except the kids, but...
See here's my basic problem. Everybody will tell you it's just common sense that a really young child (say 5 or 6, maybe as old as 10 depending on the child and their parents...) should not be playing GTA and the like. But I'm thinking most of those who oppose violence in video games really don't want it there in the first place. They keep screaming about ratings and keeping them out of the hands of children only because they know that you won't ever truely keep it out of the children's hands. Kids like games. Kids will get games. If kids will get cigarettes, they're going to get games. Nicotine doesn't have half the addictive properties of a really good and violent video game.
When those in opposition to violent gaming are proven right by the lack of effectiveness in ratings, they'll call for even more strict distribution guidelines and harsher rating systems. Most developers will buckle and most games will stray from the current trend of violence. Whether or not someone can make a good game without the violence is totally beside the issue. The real issue here is that artistic expression and our rights to play what some of us want to play are seriously being juggled here.
Don't kid yourself, the religious zealots and the media superpowers (i.e. those in Hollywood who stands to lose out to the video game industry) don't want to take the best of violent video games from the children, they want to take them from EVERYONE. When I say adults, I'm talking about anybody past the age where they figure out you don't shoot cops and you don't beat hookers with a baseball bat to get your money back.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any control over this issue, but that control should be in the hands of the parents. Their collective incompetence (as demonstrated) should not be a burdon on the rights of video game developers and video game players. And I'm just about getting sick and tired of every little dickless zealot out there getting pissed off about what other people want to see, hear, play, or do in their spare time.
Controlling nanoscale magnetic fields that exist in less than one dimension may prove problematic...
I didn't think anything could exist in less than one dimension. Freaky.
I would say if it can't exist in less than one dimention then controlling a nanoscale magnetic field that doesn't exist would prove QUITE problematic. If they can find a way to get around the whole "not existing" part, this could open up whole new areas of science.
KDE and Gnome (amung others) build upon the X Windows System to proveide a GUI.
You are correct, and they would be much better off if they didn't. For a networkable client-server GDI XWindow System works wonderfully. For a a desktop system it's farking horrible, relatively speaking. Many of it's "FEEL" issues, the least of which have to do with performance and usability, carry over into the "upper layers" and are noticable in KDE and GNome. That is to say, the flaws that are easily felt in XWindows alone still peek through KDE and Gnome, leaving me to believe the problem is with X, not the other way around.
The way Mac went with OS X would be a great way for a free alternative clone (of OS X) to go. X just has too much support(...well...) for people to give up on it no matter how much it sucks for a personal computer desktop environment. Linux will never have the share of users it deserves until everyone can collectively break the mindset that X is the Unix desktop. Unfortunately, for the moment X -IS- the Unix desktop and that's why Linux holds 2nd place in a one horse race.
Being faster means little when you have no modern competition. If the current ATI's remain in the lead performance wise when the next Nvidia chipset is released, that will be a major victory for ATI. On the other hand, ATI does have the crown at the moment, and the longer they are in the lead the more market share they could take from NVidia. Then back to the first hand, a whole lot of people aren't ready to upgrade yet and may not be for a while, so being in the lead when nobody is buying isn't really an advantage after all. On the other hand once again... oh, nevermind.
I can see your point, but you will have to agree with one thing. More often than not, the choice to automate results in lost jobs, without compensation.
I can see how it's easy to say the two decisions are distinct, but realistically I think we both know that the first one normally results in a second one that is unfavorable to the workers. Exceptions exist of course, but retaining and retaining one or two people happens more often than retaining and retraining many dozens.
I will agree that when automation is done to take workers out of hazardous work the debate becomes different. It's no longer just profit that is the driving force. It's the well-being of the individuals that helps make that choice, even if sometimes it's a second concern after profit. Companies will always do what they do for profit.
There is an ethical question when you consider some people are competent in many things, but skilled in certain ones. For example, sheet metal fabrication. A skilled machinist can be replaced (at least to some degree) with a person. That skilled work isn't easy, and I promise you that many of those workers do things you absolutely can not. You could be trained of course, and I'm sure eventually you too could become as skilled as they. A properly programmed machine could come along and replace all of them overnight.
Most of these said metal workers have spent many years getting where they are now, and practically have no other valuable work skills. This doesn't mean they are "only as competent as machines", it means they are highly competent in one area. They are skilled at work that can and will likely be eventually taken away from them. After that point, they'll be condemned to either spend many years learning a new trade that will too likely one day be replaced with machines or they will be working shit jobs alongside highschool students.
I'm not saying automation is totally bad, but sometimes the whole debate about whether or not we should automate certain things is driven by the bottom line of profit.
I learned a long time ago that when your motives are purely profit, nothing good can come of your actions.
I can understand automating away the cashier or the janitor, too, but I really don't agree with it. Even "lowly" jobs such as these still add a social element to the jobs. You see a person when you are checking out, or you know that there is an accountable person doing the cleaning. By having people do work, even if it's inferior work, the environment the work is being done in doesn't feel sterile or dead.
Not to mention the whole issue of unemployment. I hate to see people lose their jobs to machines. I hate to see it, because even before I lost my job it was threatened with automation, and in a way, it still is.
Eventually even yours may be as well no matter what it is you do.
Re:I am sooooooo tired of plastic!!!
on
Waterproof Books
·
· Score: 1
I feel this way about blister packaging that a lot of electronic items come in. I detest it. For starters, you can't store objects in them like you can cardboard boxes. Next, if you open them and the product is defective, it's a pain to return to the store. Lastly, they're farking impossible to open.
I would rather see companies ship the product unpackaged altogether with just a sticker on it or a hook to hang it on a shelf instead of all these damned blister packs.
The only real solution is to send these folks to the Moon themselves, let them be our first colony, which IMHO would be killing two or three birds with one rocket.
They would likely refuse to believe they were on the moon. They would step outside without suits in belief that they would be fine. They would send one out after another to see what happened to the previous one in some insane belief that each of them had been "done away with" by those who were trying to protect the truth of the hoax.
When they are all dead, those left back on earth would simply say they had not been sent at all, but rather, were "silenced" for knowing too much.
When we all leave to a bright new world, we'll leave them all behind. They'll refuse to believe we exist, and we can choose to forget that they ever did.
Not There Yet in comparison to OS X -- and they never will be until the Linux world stops chasing a goal that's not worth reaching in the first place, the shitty Microsoft interface.
I agree with most of your underlying points. The Mac OSX interface is functional. It's ugly in color scheme, of course, and I'd say down-right reupulsive. But it's quite functional and it does "FEEL" right.
Where I disagree with you is that Microsoft's interface is shitty. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that even though Microsoft's classic 9x/2000 look is steril, it FEELS right. Hovers, Drags, Movements all feel like they work as they should. Even context menus and icon behavior feels like it works, even if (as someone else has said) it feels that it's working when it actually isn't.
In that, Microsoft's interface could be said to be "ugly" too, and the XP Blue theme is definately high in gayness points. XP Silver look nice, in my opinion but then that's what the LOOKS boil down to. Opinion. I haven't seen too many interfaces that I think LOOK nice, but as long as they feel right, I don't care what they look like.
Both Mac OS X and Windows FEEL right. They feel like they function, and dispite what other problems some people may have out of XP, I have a rock solid system that I've configured to look rather nice (and minimalistic) by disabling all of the stupid shit, an option I'm glad I have with Windows. I am, after all, a Shell person first, and a Minimalist GUI person next.
KDE and GNome aren't "Quite There Yet", but XPde looks like it might be worth following. So they've managed to make it look like Windows. If it doesn't FEEL like Windows it won't matter one bit in the end. I shall give this a try, but since it is based on the XWindow System I have very low expectations from it. X is the problem, in my opinion and a whole new ground-up desktop is what is needed. In that respect, yes, something more like OS X.
A long time ago I learned the lesson of bad memory. It came at the expense of replacing nearly every component only to discover in the end it was a single memory stick that was bad.
Now, memory is one of the first things I try. And now I always buy whatever the biggest name memory stick I can find happens to be. It costs a bit more, but after a few "cheap-o" burn outs I'm convinced that you get what you pay for. So far, this rule hasn't cost me anything except a little extra cash.
Part of the problem (along with the fragmentation issue) as I see it is "look and feel". OS X and XP both have a nice look and feel. Things work like they should, and even if an application differs largely from others of it's type, using it is normally pretty intuitive.
On the looks front, the same can certainly be said about KDE, and to a lesser extent Gnome. In fact, on the looks front, KDE and Gnome both win out over OSX and XP because you can make them LOOK however you want.
But time and time again when using either of them I realize it's the "FEEL" aspect that destroys it. Hovering over gadgets (or widgets if you prefer) with the button pressed, pressing, hovering off and then releaseing, dragging and dropping, scrolling, windowing, cutting and pasting, and just about any other UI function that has existed forever FEELS sloppy.
Windows nor OS X are perfect. The Windows UI is so highly configurable though (in terms of disabling/removing buttons, etc) that it's easy to make it comfortable. Mac OS X is refined, and love it or hate it, it's very intuitive. In fact, Mac OS X is so intuitive that a friend of mine while taking a computer proficiency assesment test scored perfect on the MAC section without ever having seen one in person.
What we need, and people get pissed off every time I say this, is a whole new desktop for Unix. XWindows has it's uses. Unfortunately, getting Unix into the hands of the masses is certainly NOT one of obviously.
An opened source, ground up desktop implimentation that is integrated, standardized, attractive, functional, and totally free (BSD style) would come a long way towards not only making Linux and FreeBSD more popular, but it would also make them a more viable option for OEMs looking to break away from Microsoft.
There are many potential pitfalls with a new project of this magnitude, and I realize that's why it hasn't happened. I do honestly believe that it is what's needed to take Linux/BSD/Unix(insert your deity here) where everybody wants it to go. Maybe if people would stop flaming anyone who suggests this, and start brainstorming on how to do it, Unix could start creeping onto the desktop.
You make a good point, and it also goes along with one of my biggest gripes.
Suppose you DO in fact want to find an MPeg of a dog or something (for whatever reason). The file sharing protocals ARE so overwhelmed with copyrighted material it is becoming next to impossible to find public domain material. Pirates are hurting the file sharing services from both directions.
I'll grant you that very good point, and I do sort of agree with you, but ask yourself one question and I think you will no longer be so clear cut on the issue.
How long after the introduction of self-destructive media before that's the only media for sell?
I know what you're going to say... "They wouldn't dare..."
Slashdot Mirror
"Kids should not get violent video games..."
Nobody here will argue with that, well, except the kids, but...
See here's my basic problem. Everybody will tell you it's just common sense that a really young child (say 5 or 6, maybe as old as 10 depending on the child and their parents...) should not be playing GTA and the like. But I'm thinking most of those who oppose violence in video games really don't want it there in the first place. They keep screaming about ratings and keeping them out of the hands of children only because they know that you won't ever truely keep it out of the children's hands. Kids like games. Kids will get games. If kids will get cigarettes, they're going to get games. Nicotine doesn't have half the addictive properties of a really good and violent video game.
When those in opposition to violent gaming are proven right by the lack of effectiveness in ratings, they'll call for even more strict distribution guidelines and harsher rating systems. Most developers will buckle and most games will stray from the current trend of violence. Whether or not someone can make a good game without the violence is totally beside the issue. The real issue here is that artistic expression and our rights to play what some of us want to play are seriously being juggled here.
Don't kid yourself, the religious zealots and the media superpowers (i.e. those in Hollywood who stands to lose out to the video game industry) don't want to take the best of violent video games from the children, they want to take them from EVERYONE. When I say adults, I'm talking about anybody past the age where they figure out you don't shoot cops and you don't beat hookers with a baseball bat to get your money back.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any control over this issue, but that control should be in the hands of the parents. Their collective incompetence (as demonstrated) should not be a burdon on the rights of video game developers and video game players. And I'm just about getting sick and tired of every little dickless zealot out there getting pissed off about what other people want to see, hear, play, or do in their spare time.
Controlling nanoscale magnetic fields that exist in less than one dimension may prove problematic...
I didn't think anything could exist in less than one dimension. Freaky.
I would say if it can't exist in less than one dimention then controlling a nanoscale magnetic field that doesn't exist would prove QUITE problematic. If they can find a way to get around the whole "not existing" part, this could open up whole new areas of science.
KDE and Gnome (amung others) build upon the X Windows System to proveide a GUI.
You are correct, and they would be much better off if they didn't. For a networkable client-server GDI XWindow System works wonderfully. For a a desktop system it's farking horrible, relatively speaking. Many of it's "FEEL" issues, the least of which have to do with performance and usability, carry over into the "upper layers" and are noticable in KDE and GNome. That is to say, the flaws that are easily felt in XWindows alone still peek through KDE and Gnome, leaving me to believe the problem is with X, not the other way around.
The way Mac went with OS X would be a great way for a free alternative clone (of OS X) to go. X just has too much support(...well...) for people to give up on it no matter how much it sucks for a personal computer desktop environment. Linux will never have the share of users it deserves until everyone can collectively break the mindset that X is the Unix desktop. Unfortunately, for the moment X -IS- the Unix desktop and that's why Linux holds 2nd place in a one horse race.
They own a whole lot of other stuff I just can't think of off hand.
I'll help you.
It starts with an "E" and ends with a "G"... and that which is between is VERYTHIN.
That should clear things up.
End it.
Problem solved.
Being faster means little when you have no modern competition. If the current ATI's remain in the lead performance wise when the next Nvidia chipset is released, that will be a major victory for ATI. On the other hand, ATI does have the crown at the moment, and the longer they are in the lead the more market share they could take from NVidia. Then back to the first hand, a whole lot of people aren't ready to upgrade yet and may not be for a while, so being in the lead when nobody is buying isn't really an advantage after all. On the other hand once again... oh, nevermind.
Inyouraboveexampleuppercaselettersbecomeunnecessar yfieldseperators.
I can see your point, but you will have to agree with one thing. More often than not, the choice to automate results in lost jobs, without compensation.
I can see how it's easy to say the two decisions are distinct, but realistically I think we both know that the first one normally results in a second one that is unfavorable to the workers. Exceptions exist of course, but retaining and retaining one or two people happens more often than retaining and retraining many dozens.
I will agree that when automation is done to take workers out of hazardous work the debate becomes different. It's no longer just profit that is the driving force. It's the well-being of the individuals that helps make that choice, even if sometimes it's a second concern after profit. Companies will always do what they do for profit.
Right... it's like the old saying goes...
No model is perfectly accurate, but some are useful.
There is an ethical question when you consider some people are competent in many things, but skilled in certain ones. For example, sheet metal fabrication. A skilled machinist can be replaced (at least to some degree) with a person. That skilled work isn't easy, and I promise you that many of those workers do things you absolutely can not. You could be trained of course, and I'm sure eventually you too could become as skilled as they. A properly programmed machine could come along and replace all of them overnight.
Most of these said metal workers have spent many years getting where they are now, and practically have no other valuable work skills. This doesn't mean they are "only as competent as machines", it means they are highly competent in one area. They are skilled at work that can and will likely be eventually taken away from them. After that point, they'll be condemned to either spend many years learning a new trade that will too likely one day be replaced with machines or they will be working shit jobs alongside highschool students.
I'm not saying automation is totally bad, but sometimes the whole debate about whether or not we should automate certain things is driven by the bottom line of profit.
I learned a long time ago that when your motives are purely profit, nothing good can come of your actions.
I can understand automating away the cashier or the janitor, too, but I really don't agree with it. Even "lowly" jobs such as these still add a social element to the jobs. You see a person when you are checking out, or you know that there is an accountable person doing the cleaning. By having people do work, even if it's inferior work, the environment the work is being done in doesn't feel sterile or dead.
Not to mention the whole issue of unemployment. I hate to see people lose their jobs to machines. I hate to see it, because even before I lost my job it was threatened with automation, and in a way, it still is.
Eventually even yours may be as well no matter what it is you do.
I feel this way about blister packaging that a lot of electronic items come in. I detest it. For starters, you can't store objects in them like you can cardboard boxes. Next, if you open them and the product is defective, it's a pain to return to the store. Lastly, they're farking impossible to open.
I would rather see companies ship the product unpackaged altogether with just a sticker on it or a hook to hang it on a shelf instead of all these damned blister packs.
I believe they are out to make money and will say whatever it takes to get that money. Truth is not an important factor.
The alternative approaches based on authenticating the genuine signal simply won't get a hearing.
Maybe you should attend and give your view on things?
The only real solution is to send these folks to the Moon themselves, let them be our first colony, which IMHO would be killing two or three birds with one rocket.
They would likely refuse to believe they were on the moon. They would step outside without suits in belief that they would be fine. They would send one out after another to see what happened to the previous one in some insane belief that each of them had been "done away with" by those who were trying to protect the truth of the hoax.
When they are all dead, those left back on earth would simply say they had not been sent at all, but rather, were "silenced" for knowing too much.
When we all leave to a bright new world, we'll leave them all behind. They'll refuse to believe we exist, and we can choose to forget that they ever did.
Well, if you have a job, and no degree. Don't complain. I'm without a degree AND a job, and things aren't looking too good.
At this point, I may just start delivering Pizza. It's not exactly a job in my area of expertise, but at least it agrees with my tastes.
Mmmm. Pizza.
The article mentions the possibility of making car tires that get 90% better grip in icy conditions, yet this article cares more about skiers.
For some reason, I'm thinking someone's vision on the uses for technology is a little out of focus here.
Don't these CD's have to be pressed in a factory?
Yes, but I'm sure RIAA skillfully ignored all those COMPUTER SOFTWARE DISCS that have to be pressed.
Not There Yet in comparison to OS X -- and they never will be until the Linux world stops chasing a goal that's not worth reaching in the first place, the shitty Microsoft interface.
I agree with most of your underlying points. The Mac OSX interface is functional. It's ugly in color scheme, of course, and I'd say down-right reupulsive. But it's quite functional and it does "FEEL" right.
Where I disagree with you is that Microsoft's interface is shitty. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that even though Microsoft's classic 9x/2000 look is steril, it FEELS right. Hovers, Drags, Movements all feel like they work as they should. Even context menus and icon behavior feels like it works, even if (as someone else has said) it feels that it's working when it actually isn't.
In that, Microsoft's interface could be said to be "ugly" too, and the XP Blue theme is definately high in gayness points. XP Silver look nice, in my opinion but then that's what the LOOKS boil down to. Opinion. I haven't seen too many interfaces that I think LOOK nice, but as long as they feel right, I don't care what they look like.
Both Mac OS X and Windows FEEL right. They feel like they function, and dispite what other problems some people may have out of XP, I have a rock solid system that I've configured to look rather nice (and minimalistic) by disabling all of the stupid shit, an option I'm glad I have with Windows. I am, after all, a Shell person first, and a Minimalist GUI person next.
KDE and GNome aren't "Quite There Yet", but XPde looks like it might be worth following. So they've managed to make it look like Windows. If it doesn't FEEL like Windows it won't matter one bit in the end. I shall give this a try, but since it is based on the XWindow System I have very low expectations from it. X is the problem, in my opinion and a whole new ground-up desktop is what is needed. In that respect, yes, something more like OS X.
A long time ago I learned the lesson of bad memory. It came at the expense of replacing nearly every component only to discover in the end it was a single memory stick that was bad.
Now, memory is one of the first things I try. And now I always buy whatever the biggest name memory stick I can find happens to be. It costs a bit more, but after a few "cheap-o" burn outs I'm convinced that you get what you pay for. So far, this rule hasn't cost me anything except a little extra cash.
First you make the gun fire only in the hands of those it trusts.
Then you control who the guns trust.
Then you control the people.
When they make my gun only fire if I'm allow to fire my gun, I will not be able to fire a gun.
End of story.
Part of the problem (along with the fragmentation issue) as I see it is "look and feel". OS X and XP both have a nice look and feel. Things work like they should, and even if an application differs largely from others of it's type, using it is normally pretty intuitive.
On the looks front, the same can certainly be said about KDE, and to a lesser extent Gnome. In fact, on the looks front, KDE and Gnome both win out over OSX and XP because you can make them LOOK however you want.
But time and time again when using either of them I realize it's the "FEEL" aspect that destroys it. Hovering over gadgets (or widgets if you prefer) with the button pressed, pressing, hovering off and then releaseing, dragging and dropping, scrolling, windowing, cutting and pasting, and just about any other UI function that has existed forever FEELS sloppy.
Windows nor OS X are perfect. The Windows UI is so highly configurable though (in terms of disabling/removing buttons, etc) that it's easy to make it comfortable. Mac OS X is refined, and love it or hate it, it's very intuitive. In fact, Mac OS X is so intuitive that a friend of mine while taking a computer proficiency assesment test scored perfect on the MAC section without ever having seen one in person.
What we need, and people get pissed off every time I say this, is a whole new desktop for Unix. XWindows has it's uses. Unfortunately, getting Unix into the hands of the masses is certainly NOT one of obviously.
An opened source, ground up desktop implimentation that is integrated, standardized, attractive, functional, and totally free (BSD style) would come a long way towards not only making Linux and FreeBSD more popular, but it would also make them a more viable option for OEMs looking to break away from Microsoft.
There are many potential pitfalls with a new project of this magnitude, and I realize that's why it hasn't happened. I do honestly believe that it is what's needed to take Linux/BSD/Unix(insert your deity here) where everybody wants it to go. Maybe if people would stop flaming anyone who suggests this, and start brainstorming on how to do it, Unix could start creeping onto the desktop.
I've stopped buying everything. I'm protesting everyone. Having no job helps.
You make a good point, and it also goes along with one of my biggest gripes.
Suppose you DO in fact want to find an MPeg of a dog or something (for whatever reason). The file sharing protocals ARE so overwhelmed with copyrighted material it is becoming next to impossible to find public domain material. Pirates are hurting the file sharing services from both directions.
I'll grant you that very good point, and I do sort of agree with you, but ask yourself one question and I think you will no longer be so clear cut on the issue.
How long after the introduction of self-destructive media before that's the only media for sell?
I know what you're going to say... "They wouldn't dare..."
Would they not?