So, what's the point of having those ratings in the first place?
Aside from letting people know if a game is gruesome or not, there's no real repercussions of young kids getting a hold of 'mature' games.
Presumably the repercussions of young kids getting a hold of 'mature' games is that they're punished when their parents find out. Voluntary ratings systems ostensibly exist to inform the consumer about content, not to restrict it. Methods of enforcement are left up to the end users.
The small company I work for goes through the http://www.sbir.gov/ program. It includes grant solicitations from DOD, NIH, and others. It can be pretty cutthroat but we've been doing okay funding R&D activities with it for almost 10 years.
The (only) ISP in my town has been doing this for a long time. $30 a month gets you 1.5Mb/514kb and a 5GB/month download limit, with a $1 charge for each additional GB. They have some "premium" packages that basically come with more bandwidth (I think it's 20/30/40GB) for about another $10 each per tier.
I've actually gone over my bandwidth limit just playing WoW, and I didn't even play that much.
The really sad thing is the town is pretty decent size (100k or so) and less than half an hour from the world headquarters of a major telecom company.
I actually spoke with my company's Dell sales rep just a few days ago about this, since we have software that just doesn't run under Vista and we haven't been able to figure out why.
As I understand it, Dell's agreement with MS says that after June 30 they are no longer allowed to ship versions of Windows other than Vista. When you buy a new Dell you'll get a Vista license regardless, but if you pay the extra $50 Dell will sell you and pre-install an XP license onto the PC and just stuff Vista into the box.
The real villain here is MS, not Dell. They're actually being pretty reasonable considering the extra process they're having to maintain.
The point isn't that showing an ID is that bad. The point is that the system should be secure enough that anyone could be on the airplane, and it wouldn't make any difference. The problem we have right now is that the people are being harrassed by the government, and things aren't much safer than before.
andfarm, my sensors detect high levels of sarcasm in your post. Sarcasm toward the approved policies of Friend Computer, especially toward the wonderful plan of e-voting so that Friend Computer may continue to poll the happy inhabitants of Alpha Complex, is an indicator of unhappiness, and is dangerously close to treason.
Please become happy or report to the nearest suicide booth for reeducation immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not always about money. Sometimes it's about power. And then women.
Or so I've heard.
You need to get the sugar first however.
So, what's the point of having those ratings in the first place?
Aside from letting people know if a game is gruesome or not, there's no real repercussions of young kids getting a hold of 'mature' games.
Presumably the repercussions of young kids getting a hold of 'mature' games is that they're punished when their parents find out. Voluntary ratings systems ostensibly exist to inform the consumer about content, not to restrict it. Methods of enforcement are left up to the end users.
The small company I work for goes through the http://www.sbir.gov/ program. It includes grant solicitations from DOD, NIH, and others. It can be pretty cutthroat but we've been doing okay funding R&D activities with it for almost 10 years.
The (only) ISP in my town has been doing this for a long time. $30 a month gets you 1.5Mb/514kb and a 5GB/month download limit, with a $1 charge for each additional GB. They have some "premium" packages that basically come with more bandwidth (I think it's 20/30/40GB) for about another $10 each per tier.
I've actually gone over my bandwidth limit just playing WoW, and I didn't even play that much.
The really sad thing is the town is pretty decent size (100k or so) and less than half an hour from the world headquarters of a major telecom company.
I actually spoke with my company's Dell sales rep just a few days ago about this, since we have software that just doesn't run under Vista and we haven't been able to figure out why.
As I understand it, Dell's agreement with MS says that after June 30 they are no longer allowed to ship versions of Windows other than Vista. When you buy a new Dell you'll get a Vista license regardless, but if you pay the extra $50 Dell will sell you and pre-install an XP license onto the PC and just stuff Vista into the box.
The real villain here is MS, not Dell. They're actually being pretty reasonable considering the extra process they're having to maintain.
Perhaps if Vista came with a free Frogurt, they'd be more inclined to adopt?
Wait - does this patent come with a free Frogurt?
<mcbain>
My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!
</mcbain>
The point isn't that showing an ID is that bad. The point is that the system should be secure enough that anyone could be on the airplane, and it wouldn't make any difference. The problem we have right now is that the people are being harrassed by the government, and things aren't much safer than before.
Please become happy or report to the nearest suicide booth for reeducation immediately.