Chances are, based on the text of the article, ZoneAlarm would've failed too. The title and description are a bit misleading. One of their tests, as an example, was to hack a way out through the browser. Since the browser already (typically) has rights to get on the wire, ZoneAlarm probably wouldn't flag it.
Personally, I think their tests are sort of flawed for showing holes in the firewall itself. I've used ZoneAlarm for a while and think it does a great job.
Free speech? I do not see them slapping fines on people for unsolicited snail mail. And trust me, you can get a lot of that crap and getting addresses is really damn easy.
If we were talking about normal spam, then you'd be right. However, we're talking about adult-oriented spam. That takes it out of the free speech arena
You'd "take the risk" if you hired some incompetent IT guy to maintain your servers, and didn't police it carefully. There are a lot of good reasons that not every box in your shop should be able to hit the Internet. And that the ones that do are well maintained and secured in some real fashion.
Arguably World of Warcraft is the best example of how good a casual game can do. Sure, once you get to 60 your options as a casual gamer become more limited. But as your leveling up, one of its greatest strengths is that all players can get on and get something done, even with a limited amount of time.
The best way to prevent accidental firing of a gun is to outlaw them completely, like here in the UK.
Then what? Go for a ban on knives like they are in the UK? Last time I read the BBC, they pointed out that gun crimes are on the increase in the UK, post the full-on ban. While it's cliche, it does bring some credibility to the mantra "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
It would for people that know about such things, or their families. The question isn't really whether one browser is inherently better than another, it's whether people will start to care enough to learn. For your average person that gets slammed with spyware, a trip to the local computer store once every few months to let them patch it up may be an innevitability they've learned to deal with. If the local computer store doesn't do their part to explain what's going on, and suggest alternatives, nothing'll really change. People will continue to use what shipped on their system.
When I was in, 10 years ago, the actual doctors (officers) were top-notch. A lot of them were reservists that had a private practice and were spending their two weeks helping out as a way to help cut the costs of college. Now...the enlisted people that you have to shuffle through to get to talk to a real doctor were another story. I had bronchitis in a bad way for three weeks before they decided the standard "cold pack" wasn't cutting it and maybe I should get to see a real physician.
*shrug* It takes a lot more effort to develop a game with a lot of quests that can keep people entertained for an extended period of time. I'll grant you that the current mantra around MMORPGs is that there have to be massive time sinks to keep people playing. My guess is that's primarily because nobody's tried to develop one without relying on that "crutch."
I don't mean to suggest that every time sink be removed, but if things like the epic mount quests were more a string of individual quests no less time consuming than farming for the 1000 gold, people wouldn't worry about farming and would spend the time doing the quests.
If they actually want to do something about this, they need to reduce the need to buy gold to get anything done in a reasonable timeframe, and/or start banning people who BUY gold. They're the problem anyway.
The people that buy gold aren't the problem. You pointed to the problem yourself...Blizzard is the problem. Face it, if there weren't a ton of gold sinks in the game and if gold was easier to get, there'd be no market for buying gold from other players. As it is, gold is tedious to come up with and is also required for a lot of "must have" equipment in game. At that point, it becomes a pretty basic question for a lot of players. Is it worth my hours of play time to get gold myself, or is it more worth it to me to pay dollars and get in game gold?
Most players probably choose to do it the right way, they play the game, enjoy their time and eventually get whatever rewards/gear they're after. But if some of the goals weren't so "time sinky" in nature, I bet everybody would just play the game.
While that does seem to be the case, I don't see why the FTC is involved at all or doing any monitoring of this sort of thing if they have no intention of intervening if they decide the ESRB isn't doing a good enough job. Maybe I'm just a little too paranoid and untrusting... I don't know.
As I've admitted, I may a little too optimistic on this front. Which is an unusual turn for me. My point of view is that video game censorship has become a neat political talking point. People on both sides of the aisle are all about "protecting our childrenz!!!111" as long as they don't have to do anything substantive. The FTC, like all other government agencies, needs truckloads of funding to keep things going. So they're piggy-backing onto the current "easy" hot-button issue of the day, getting some visability to various panels, and basically making it impossible for anybody to slash their funding. If you do, it's practically a vote for immorality and turning children into horrible, horrible beings.
Essentially, I view this as a dog and pony show for the FTC. They said what they wanted to say about how the First Ammendment makes it tough to regulate, and how the industry is currently doing a decent job. If anything else is going to happen, it's going to be through Congress and probably involve a Supreme Court fight. Which is probably a bit too far for the issue of today. Again, I imagine movies went through the same sort of thing at one point. And I remember watching Tipper Gore talk about the evils of music. Nothing too bad came from all that.
Also, keep in mind that the FTC doesn't appear to actually comprehend how video games or digital content works, based on their decisions to force games to an M rating (which is highly questionable imo) based on content that, while coded somewhere in the game, was not coded to actually be shown or viewed and required a third party modification to do so
But as I understand it the FTC didn't force the rating to an M. Public outcry caused the ESRB to modify their rating. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic. I read the article more like a "You know, the industry is doing ok, but there's room for improvement" than a "We want to assume power over games!" I'm relatively sure movies had the same sorts of problems when they started getting more and more explicit, and the government managed to stay out of their way. Granted, actors donate a lot more to political campaigns than do game producers...
The FTC essentially says that game manufacturers need to actually tell the ESRB about the content in their games, and that retailers shouldn't sell "M" rated games to underage kids. Aside from this being Slashdot, is there anything truly unreasonable in those requests?
Yeah, I know I'm also choosing to believe that the FTC wouldn't step in with some wide ranging rules allowing the ATF to become the ATGF. Although visions of moderately trained ATGF agents conducting a SWAT style raid on a LAN party do make me smirk. "Damn, those are good speakers! That really sounded like a flash-bang!"
Seems like blatently dangerous and illegal activity is endorsed by the industry (shooting people; blowing things up; etc) - while perfectly legal stuff (wasn't the sex in the GTA mod consentual?) ends up being shunned and forbidden.
I think it was consentual and legal...as long as you don't consider prostitution to be illegal and believe that prostitutes aren't effectively coerced into prostitution because of other circumstances in their life.
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids.
You're a parent. It's your job to make sure that your kids are only exposed to things you find appropriate. That's why you should paying attention to what your children watch, play and listen to. And it's also not a bad idea to keep up with what they're learning from their friends and in school to make sure it matches your belief system. <tinfoil>And you should feel free to speak out if you don't like the idea that your kids are learning to be submissive to all form of authority while not learning to actually think for themselves</tinfoil> (yeah, I think that's the case, but it's pretty tinfoil hat-ish).
If you rely on the government or some industry or another to monitor what your kids learn and see, I'd wager your going to be VERY disappointed someday.
It may not be the case for the DS, but generally the best reason is to get your name out there around the same time some of your competitors are planning something. Steal some of their thunder.
Maybe they wanted to release something around mid-year so that Nintendo will still be on peoples minds when the Wii ships. Then they go from being a company that hasn't released a new product (in the US) for a while, to being those guys that are always inovating. And hey, look at that cool controller! Or something.
he wanted to create something profoundly unique and confrontational that would promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.
I think what he wanted to do was generate some free promotion for himself, and he figured that school shootings would be a great way to get people to take a look at him. Instant noteriety.
As a former member of the US military, the government has my DNA, fingerprints, and some of the best first-hand information with regards to how I react to stressful situations.
I tend to see both sides of this. One the one hand, I did volunteer for service. And having DNA samples to figure out whether that patch of blood is all that's left of me or not is good (at least for closure for my family, doesn't help me much). On the other hand, I don't think *every* citizen should be required to give DNA samples, fingerprints or anything of the sort.
I don't believe that felons, regardless of the crime, should get that same right to (relative) privacy. Nor should they be provided more civil liberties than I was entitled under the UCMJ. Heck, I don't think they should get more rights and priveleges than I got in basic. Sure, I volunteered for the service. But they chose to commit a crime, whatever the crime might've been.
I really liked the part where all the guys with the dragon loot caught the guy fresh off the farm and killed him. Then camped him for four hours. That was hillarious! Much better than when it happens to me in game.
Saddam's regime was no threat whatsoever to Americans.
Unless you count continued attempts to shoot down US planes patrolling the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone. Or the continued development of weapons that violated UN restrictions in terms of range. Then there's the financial support for the families of suicide bombers...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the USA PATRIOT act and other sorts of legislature. It makes me sick that, at least in the initial bill, only 1 (one) person voted against it. But Saddam was far from a downtrodden lamb.
It's actually a bit surprising that they missed terrorists.
That's because it's a Democrat bringing this forward. They can't afford to admit there's a problem with terrorism in an election year, otherwise the "War on Terror" is almost validated.
I always chuckle when my company brings on someone that's been directly responsible (at the executive level) for busines decisions in other companies that have failed misserably. Often, they recite all their past experiences, and the only thing I can think of is "Why did we hire them, and how much are we spending?"
Slashdot Mirror
Chances are, based on the text of the article, ZoneAlarm would've failed too. The title and description are a bit misleading. One of their tests, as an example, was to hack a way out through the browser. Since the browser already (typically) has rights to get on the wire, ZoneAlarm probably wouldn't flag it.
Personally, I think their tests are sort of flawed for showing holes in the firewall itself. I've used ZoneAlarm for a while and think it does a great job.
I wonder if it would be possible to train someone to consciously ignore the pain centre of the brain in this manner?
I would think the number of men that are able to watch chick flicks in order to earn brownie points with their wives would prove it's possible.
Free speech? I do not see them slapping fines on people for unsolicited snail mail. And trust me, you can get a lot of that crap and getting addresses is really damn easy.
If we were talking about normal spam, then you'd be right. However, we're talking about adult-oriented spam. That takes it out of the free speech arena
Our vision is to deliver a one-two punch of cinematic action paired with a thrilling and compelling interactive experience
:(
Someone let the marketing guys talk to the design team again
You'd "take the risk" if you hired some incompetent IT guy to maintain your servers, and didn't police it carefully. There are a lot of good reasons that not every box in your shop should be able to hit the Internet. And that the ones that do are well maintained and secured in some real fashion.
Arguably World of Warcraft is the best example of how good a casual game can do. Sure, once you get to 60 your options as a casual gamer become more limited. But as your leveling up, one of its greatest strengths is that all players can get on and get something done, even with a limited amount of time.
The best way to prevent accidental firing of a gun is to outlaw them completely, like here in the UK.
Then what? Go for a ban on knives like they are in the UK? Last time I read the BBC, they pointed out that gun crimes are on the increase in the UK, post the full-on ban. While it's cliche, it does bring some credibility to the mantra "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
It would for people that know about such things, or their families. The question isn't really whether one browser is inherently better than another, it's whether people will start to care enough to learn. For your average person that gets slammed with spyware, a trip to the local computer store once every few months to let them patch it up may be an innevitability they've learned to deal with. If the local computer store doesn't do their part to explain what's going on, and suggest alternatives, nothing'll really change. People will continue to use what shipped on their system.
When I was in, 10 years ago, the actual doctors (officers) were top-notch. A lot of them were reservists that had a private practice and were spending their two weeks helping out as a way to help cut the costs of college. Now...the enlisted people that you have to shuffle through to get to talk to a real doctor were another story. I had bronchitis in a bad way for three weeks before they decided the standard "cold pack" wasn't cutting it and maybe I should get to see a real physician.
Nah. Jack Thompson worries me and makes me sorta laugh. It worrys me when people with federal power start deciding to impose federal laws.
*shrug* It takes a lot more effort to develop a game with a lot of quests that can keep people entertained for an extended period of time. I'll grant you that the current mantra around MMORPGs is that there have to be massive time sinks to keep people playing. My guess is that's primarily because nobody's tried to develop one without relying on that "crutch."
I don't mean to suggest that every time sink be removed, but if things like the epic mount quests were more a string of individual quests no less time consuming than farming for the 1000 gold, people wouldn't worry about farming and would spend the time doing the quests.
If they actually want to do something about this, they need to reduce the need to buy gold to get anything done in a reasonable timeframe, and/or start banning people who BUY gold. They're the problem anyway.
The people that buy gold aren't the problem. You pointed to the problem yourself...Blizzard is the problem. Face it, if there weren't a ton of gold sinks in the game and if gold was easier to get, there'd be no market for buying gold from other players. As it is, gold is tedious to come up with and is also required for a lot of "must have" equipment in game. At that point, it becomes a pretty basic question for a lot of players. Is it worth my hours of play time to get gold myself, or is it more worth it to me to pay dollars and get in game gold?
Most players probably choose to do it the right way, they play the game, enjoy their time and eventually get whatever rewards/gear they're after. But if some of the goals weren't so "time sinky" in nature, I bet everybody would just play the game.
While that does seem to be the case, I don't see why the FTC is involved at all or doing any monitoring of this sort of thing if they have no intention of intervening if they decide the ESRB isn't doing a good enough job. Maybe I'm just a little too paranoid and untrusting... I don't know.
As I've admitted, I may a little too optimistic on this front. Which is an unusual turn for me. My point of view is that video game censorship has become a neat political talking point. People on both sides of the aisle are all about "protecting our childrenz!!!111" as long as they don't have to do anything substantive. The FTC, like all other government agencies, needs truckloads of funding to keep things going. So they're piggy-backing onto the current "easy" hot-button issue of the day, getting some visability to various panels, and basically making it impossible for anybody to slash their funding. If you do, it's practically a vote for immorality and turning children into horrible, horrible beings.
Essentially, I view this as a dog and pony show for the FTC. They said what they wanted to say about how the First Ammendment makes it tough to regulate, and how the industry is currently doing a decent job. If anything else is going to happen, it's going to be through Congress and probably involve a Supreme Court fight. Which is probably a bit too far for the issue of today. Again, I imagine movies went through the same sort of thing at one point. And I remember watching Tipper Gore talk about the evils of music. Nothing too bad came from all that.
Also, keep in mind that the FTC doesn't appear to actually comprehend how video games or digital content works, based on their decisions to force games to an M rating (which is highly questionable imo) based on content that, while coded somewhere in the game, was not coded to actually be shown or viewed and required a third party modification to do so
But as I understand it the FTC didn't force the rating to an M. Public outcry caused the ESRB to modify their rating. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic. I read the article more like a "You know, the industry is doing ok, but there's room for improvement" than a "We want to assume power over games!" I'm relatively sure movies had the same sorts of problems when they started getting more and more explicit, and the government managed to stay out of their way. Granted, actors donate a lot more to political campaigns than do game producers...
The FTC essentially says that game manufacturers need to actually tell the ESRB about the content in their games, and that retailers shouldn't sell "M" rated games to underage kids. Aside from this being Slashdot, is there anything truly unreasonable in those requests?
Yeah, I know I'm also choosing to believe that the FTC wouldn't step in with some wide ranging rules allowing the ATF to become the ATGF. Although visions of moderately trained ATGF agents conducting a SWAT style raid on a LAN party do make me smirk. "Damn, those are good speakers! That really sounded like a flash-bang!"
Seems like blatently dangerous and illegal activity is endorsed by the industry (shooting people; blowing things up; etc) - while perfectly legal stuff (wasn't the sex in the GTA mod consentual?) ends up being shunned and forbidden.
I think it was consentual and legal...as long as you don't consider prostitution to be illegal and believe that prostitutes aren't effectively coerced into prostitution because of other circumstances in their life.
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids.
You're a parent. It's your job to make sure that your kids are only exposed to things you find appropriate. That's why you should paying attention to what your children watch, play and listen to. And it's also not a bad idea to keep up with what they're learning from their friends and in school to make sure it matches your belief system. <tinfoil>And you should feel free to speak out if you don't like the idea that your kids are learning to be submissive to all form of authority while not learning to actually think for themselves</tinfoil> (yeah, I think that's the case, but it's pretty tinfoil hat-ish).
If you rely on the government or some industry or another to monitor what your kids learn and see, I'd wager your going to be VERY disappointed someday.
It may not be the case for the DS, but generally the best reason is to get your name out there around the same time some of your competitors are planning something. Steal some of their thunder.
Maybe they wanted to release something around mid-year so that Nintendo will still be on peoples minds when the Wii ships. Then they go from being a company that hasn't released a new product (in the US) for a while, to being those guys that are always inovating. And hey, look at that cool controller! Or something.
Stevie Job's fantastical glass elevator began acting a bit wonky,
Why isn't anyone talking about the girl that got transformed into a blueberry? There's a cover-up, I tell you!
What will happen when every company has sued every other company?
I'll start regretting not going to law school.
he wanted to create something profoundly unique and confrontational that would promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.
I think what he wanted to do was generate some free promotion for himself, and he figured that school shootings would be a great way to get people to take a look at him. Instant noteriety.
As a former member of the US military, the government has my DNA, fingerprints, and some of the best first-hand information with regards to how I react to stressful situations.
I tend to see both sides of this. One the one hand, I did volunteer for service. And having DNA samples to figure out whether that patch of blood is all that's left of me or not is good (at least for closure for my family, doesn't help me much). On the other hand, I don't think *every* citizen should be required to give DNA samples, fingerprints or anything of the sort.
I don't believe that felons, regardless of the crime, should get that same right to (relative) privacy. Nor should they be provided more civil liberties than I was entitled under the UCMJ. Heck, I don't think they should get more rights and priveleges than I got in basic. Sure, I volunteered for the service. But they chose to commit a crime, whatever the crime might've been.
I really liked the part where all the guys with the dragon loot caught the guy fresh off the farm and killed him. Then camped him for four hours. That was hillarious! Much better than when it happens to me in game.
Saddam's regime was no threat whatsoever to Americans.
Unless you count continued attempts to shoot down US planes patrolling the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone. Or the continued development of weapons that violated UN restrictions in terms of range. Then there's the financial support for the families of suicide bombers...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the USA PATRIOT act and other sorts of legislature. It makes me sick that, at least in the initial bill, only 1 (one) person voted against it. But Saddam was far from a downtrodden lamb.
It's actually a bit surprising that they missed terrorists.
That's because it's a Democrat bringing this forward. They can't afford to admit there's a problem with terrorism in an election year, otherwise the "War on Terror" is almost validated.
I always chuckle when my company brings on someone that's been directly responsible (at the executive level) for busines decisions in other companies that have failed misserably. Often, they recite all their past experiences, and the only thing I can think of is "Why did we hire them, and how much are we spending?"