The idea isn't new, whats new is the actual fabricator. They had drills and X-acto knives working with their "fabject." Even so, it still seems to me that it will be quite a while until $2,500 fabricators exist.
By the way, I saw that evolution show too...
This "report card" almost is a work of fiction. Whoever wrote it obviously isn't too involved with the subject matter with which it is concerned.
On the one hand they are told by the industry to pay attention to the ratings. On the other hand the industry denies that any of these games are harmful.
There's a reason for this. They're telling the truth when they say it doesn't matter (which personally I've never heard from the industry) and trying to avoid lawsuits when they tell you to pay attention to the ratings. If parents weren't so ambitious to sue, perhaps the truth could be out there.
Now I'm going to point out two statements they made the contradict each other:
The important thing to remember, therefore, is that video and computer games are powerful-for good and for bad.
the amount of time kids spend playing games, even the good ones, is contributing to the obesity epidemic among American youth.
Now I'll address the second quote. I read their references. They don't cite one work to which they attribute this claim. Its annotated, so they show what they "learned" from each article. None of them had to do with obesity's relation to video games. One had to do with health, but did not have to do with video games.
the distinction between AO as not appropriate for persons under 18 and M as not appropriate for persons under 17 is impossible to decipher
I don't see why they have so much trouble understanding this. M rated games say they are recommended for those who are 17+. AO rated games say that they should not be sold to anyone under 18. That's a big difference. One's a recommendation, the other's a mandation.
And to wrap it up:
Why won't retail leaders answer questions about the games they sell?
Why won't you accept that you're a biased group who would twist anything they said to try and make it fit your agenda?
There's a huge difference between a banner ad on someone's site and your typical spyware program.
Unless of course, its like the banners we saw mentioned the other day that lead to an adware download, in which case, they're just as bad!
I agree with you completely. No matter what software does, it should be made obvious, and made possible to remove. If it doesn't do that, I will call it unethical. I would go so far as to call it malicious. If it gets in the way of ME doing what I want to do with MY computer, then its malicious. It doesn't matter if its five hundred kilobytes of RAM and a couple processor cycles, those are MY processor cycles and kilobytes of RAM.
Its like having a house and someone comes along and installs hidden surveilance, or ads all over and if the owner tries to remove the ads or the surveilance it tries to avoid being removed. Perhaps these ads or surveilance were bundled with a superfluous lamp the owner bought, and being the "smart consumer" they were, got it for a seemingly very good deal! The lamp came bundled with legalese documents which were in the box, but written in all caps and a stack of paper the size of a dictionary. Who is honestly going to read that?
That's what the summary and first portion of the article lead me to believe (that they'd created something akin to an OS, maybe a Linux distro...) but aparently the AP just wanted to talk about this a while after the relevant events occurred (the Kirkland office was news to me though).
That is the case. Traffic lights with LEDs are becoming commonplace, and for good reason. They're MUCH more apparent during the day than other methods. I know one intersection downtown where a few of the lights are LEDs and the hanging one in the middle is incandescent. The red light of the incandescent trio facing one direction has burned out, and they haven't bothered fixing it. The LEDs shine on, and are much brighter at that!
Did you even read the summary? They're allegedly redistributing it claiming it as their own and trying to make a profit. Its also obvious that the product is not open source, otherwise this would not be an allegation, but a fact.
It looks like a Death Star to me. And Marvin, while looking sufficiently depressed, doesn't look quite right either. I liked the TV series take on him. It fit.
The US Government really likes throwing money into the military. Also, have you noticed that Bush doesn't seem to want any respect? Don't expect anything good globally from him, especially not in this term when he doesn't have to deal with re-election.
Specifying it as the emissions "of one... citizen" is misleading, and makes it seem like Americans exhale more than Indians. Per capita is a more proper term. Also, other gases, like NOx, are greater in China than in the US. That is simply CO2, it does not encompass the whole problem (there are other greenhouse gases).
Let it be known that I highly disagree with President Bush and the decision to , but you can't simply put all the blame on one country.
I disagree with what the article says. I don't see hate crimes, sexism, classism in the USA. I see rampant stupidity, corporate domination, and susceptibility to the Mass Media. The "Fourteen Points" seem to generalize themselves to a point that they can encompass the USA, and even so, some of them don't. I don't see rampant sexism, I see a primarily male government, but not because of sexism. I DO see things like "Powerful and Continuing Nationalism" and "Identification of enemies and Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause." However for the most part, I do not think that the U.S. actually fits in with the definitions provided for Fascism.
I think an important part of this discussion about talking about politics is time. For instance, in my physics class, when half the class starts talking politics, thats not a good time (I'm sure you agree). Also, if one knows that parties involved are all highly prejudged on the matter, there's really not a strong reason, IMO, because nothing is being accomplished, except the degradement of the relationship amongst involved parties who disagree.
I agree completely that a larger portion of the voting poplation should go out and vote (which unfortunately won't include me. Insensitive agist clods). But in many situations, talking about politics serves no productive purpose.
For some allergies, and some people, its completely the opposite. Food allergies and bee stings especially. However with animals its not a very risky choice to try and build up an immunity, though I wouldn't put any bets on it working.
Propaganda is an overstatement. Any candidate for an office will try to tell his audience what they want to hear. And this is in no means a lie or falsehood, he probably will have to make some sort of consideration with this, just not one of any importance (if he becomes president).
Some blatant oversimplifications/falsifications the author included in his column:
"Both supported the invasion of Iraq" - Thats beyond simplification. For one thing, Kerry's said repeatedly that he only supported war as a last resort. Bush? "Offense is the best defense."
"Neither politician has the moxie to say in public that he agrees with gay marriage" - Well that's very true, because Bush is against it! Kerry has said in a nutshell, that while he wants to maintain the terminology of marriage referring to heterosexuality, that homosexuals should be able to receive the same benefits.
"both agreed with sweeping expansions of federal spending on education" - Again, the author is simplifying to a drastic point. Bush puts his education funding into the policy that very few teachers and very few students support, creating artificial standards based on test scores and making teachers teach to the tests. His party also wants to spend government money on private schooling. Kerry's claims are not as clear, but it is apparent he disagrees with Bush's policies, pointing out such things as grants for higher education, and how these are reaching the wrong audiences. That doesn't seem like agreement or the same viewpoint to me, but yeah, it does involve spending more money either way.
One other thing the author failed to mention is taxes. Taxation of the upper 1% is a big difference, I don't think I need to go into that or the tax cuts and rebates.
While perhaps this years selection doesn't offer as wide a vareity as occurs sometimes, to say that Bush and Kerry hold "few differences" on "nearly any topic imaginable" is an uneducated statement or a blatant falsehood.
The second article's website has a fake popup that says "Your browser has successfully blocked a popup" with a Windows error icon and an OK button. Clicking it would probably result in some sort of spyware. Ironic? (Yes, I'm using Firefox.)
No, they've interally ran things at over 10 GHz on a single die (as of more than a couple years ago, at that). Hobbyists have also been able to far break the mark, up to 5 or 6 GHz, in fact.
My father, who's obviously an adult, with graying hair and a scraggly beard, was carded at Best Buy, while making a purchase with a credit card. This only happened once that I can recall, because most of the cashiers weren't as strict about store policies. However its silly, being told at such an age to get your driver's liscense or somesuch out of your wallet. Of the point when Best Buy and such started doing this, my only method of getting M rated games was to bring a parent along (they approve, because my parents, like intelligent people, know that there's a difference between fiction and reality), which I would have had to do anyway, because I can't drive, and there's no public transportation save the taxi where I live. It hasn't proven to be a hindrance, but it will be most annoying when I could drive myself there, having to drag one of my parents along.
Game ratings by the ESRB were never meant to be used to determine whether or not someone could go in and buy the thing. Its a recommendation, not a restriction. Its absurd that some stores require you to be 18+ to buy games that are rated M (and the most absurd part is that M is suggested 17+. Stores just pull the extra year of restriction out of thin air). They were intended to let you know what was in the game. Parents should be expected to know what their kid is buying from the store, he'd have to have the CD, with the rating clearly printed on it, anyway, and I highly doubt that anything in a video game could be emotionally scarring.
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The idea isn't new, whats new is the actual fabricator. They had drills and X-acto knives working with their "fabject." Even so, it still seems to me that it will be quite a while until $2,500 fabricators exist. By the way, I saw that evolution show too...
They never said it was their innovation. Just that they were delivering it. =)
This "report card" almost is a work of fiction. Whoever wrote it obviously isn't too involved with the subject matter with which it is concerned.
On the one hand they are told by the industry to pay attention to the ratings. On the other hand the industry denies that any of these games are harmful.
There's a reason for this. They're telling the truth when they say it doesn't matter (which personally I've never heard from the industry) and trying to avoid lawsuits when they tell you to pay attention to the ratings. If parents weren't so ambitious to sue, perhaps the truth could be out there.
Now I'm going to point out two statements they made the contradict each other:
The important thing to remember, therefore, is that video and computer games are powerful-for good and for bad.
the amount of time kids spend playing games, even the good ones, is contributing to the obesity epidemic among American youth.
Now I'll address the second quote. I read their references. They don't cite one work to which they attribute this claim. Its annotated, so they show what they "learned" from each article. None of them had to do with obesity's relation to video games. One had to do with health, but did not have to do with video games.
the distinction between AO as not appropriate for persons under 18 and M as not appropriate for persons under 17 is impossible to decipher
I don't see why they have so much trouble understanding this. M rated games say they are recommended for those who are 17+. AO rated games say that they should not be sold to anyone under 18. That's a big difference. One's a recommendation, the other's a mandation.
And to wrap it up:
Why won't retail leaders answer questions about the games they sell?
Why won't you accept that you're a biased group who would twist anything they said to try and make it fit your agenda?
There's a huge difference between a banner ad on someone's site and your typical spyware program.
Unless of course, its like the banners we saw mentioned the other day that lead to an adware download, in which case, they're just as bad!
I agree with you completely. No matter what software does, it should be made obvious, and made possible to remove. If it doesn't do that, I will call it unethical. I would go so far as to call it malicious. If it gets in the way of ME doing what I want to do with MY computer, then its malicious. It doesn't matter if its five hundred kilobytes of RAM and a couple processor cycles, those are MY processor cycles and kilobytes of RAM.
Its like having a house and someone comes along and installs hidden surveilance, or ads all over and if the owner tries to remove the ads or the surveilance it tries to avoid being removed. Perhaps these ads or surveilance were bundled with a superfluous lamp the owner bought, and being the "smart consumer" they were, got it for a seemingly very good deal! The lamp came bundled with legalese documents which were in the box, but written in all caps and a stack of paper the size of a dictionary. Who is honestly going to read that?
That's what the summary and first portion of the article lead me to believe (that they'd created something akin to an OS, maybe a Linux distro...) but aparently the AP just wanted to talk about this a while after the relevant events occurred (the Kirkland office was news to me though).
This issue was published quite a while ago. Why is it just now appearing here?
That is the case. Traffic lights with LEDs are becoming commonplace, and for good reason. They're MUCH more apparent during the day than other methods. I know one intersection downtown where a few of the lights are LEDs and the hanging one in the middle is incandescent. The red light of the incandescent trio facing one direction has burned out, and they haven't bothered fixing it. The LEDs shine on, and are much brighter at that!
So how do you explain it when I get the same problem having installed from DVD? That's not the (only?) issue.
Did you even read the summary? They're allegedly redistributing it claiming it as their own and trying to make a profit. Its also obvious that the product is not open source, otherwise this would not be an allegation, but a fact.
It looks like a Death Star to me. And Marvin, while looking sufficiently depressed, doesn't look quite right either. I liked the TV series take on him. It fit.
The US Government really likes throwing money into the military. Also, have you noticed that Bush doesn't seem to want any respect? Don't expect anything good globally from him, especially not in this term when he doesn't have to deal with re-election.
Specifying it as the emissions "of one... citizen" is misleading, and makes it seem like Americans exhale more than Indians. Per capita is a more proper term. Also, other gases, like NOx, are greater in China than in the US. That is simply CO2, it does not encompass the whole problem (there are other greenhouse gases).
Let it be known that I highly disagree with President Bush and the decision to , but you can't simply put all the blame on one country.
Easy solution: delete IE. I've never regretted it.
I disagree with what the article says. I don't see hate crimes, sexism, classism in the USA. I see rampant stupidity, corporate domination, and susceptibility to the Mass Media. The "Fourteen Points" seem to generalize themselves to a point that they can encompass the USA, and even so, some of them don't. I don't see rampant sexism, I see a primarily male government, but not because of sexism. I DO see things like "Powerful and Continuing Nationalism" and "Identification of enemies and Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause." However for the most part, I do not think that the U.S. actually fits in with the definitions provided for Fascism.
I think an important part of this discussion about talking about politics is time. For instance, in my physics class, when half the class starts talking politics, thats not a good time (I'm sure you agree). Also, if one knows that parties involved are all highly prejudged on the matter, there's really not a strong reason, IMO, because nothing is being accomplished, except the degradement of the relationship amongst involved parties who disagree. I agree completely that a larger portion of the voting poplation should go out and vote (which unfortunately won't include me. Insensitive agist clods). But in many situations, talking about politics serves no productive purpose.
These are college teachers and students. Not 12 year olds.
For some allergies, and some people, its completely the opposite. Food allergies and bee stings especially. However with animals its not a very risky choice to try and build up an immunity, though I wouldn't put any bets on it working.
Propaganda is an overstatement. Any candidate for an office will try to tell his audience what they want to hear. And this is in no means a lie or falsehood, he probably will have to make some sort of consideration with this, just not one of any importance (if he becomes president).
Some blatant oversimplifications/falsifications the author included in his column:
"Both supported the invasion of Iraq" - Thats beyond simplification. For one thing, Kerry's said repeatedly that he only supported war as a last resort. Bush? "Offense is the best defense."
"Neither politician has the moxie to say in public that he agrees with gay marriage" - Well that's very true, because Bush is against it! Kerry has said in a nutshell, that while he wants to maintain the terminology of marriage referring to heterosexuality, that homosexuals should be able to receive the same benefits.
"both agreed with sweeping expansions of federal spending on education" - Again, the author is simplifying to a drastic point. Bush puts his education funding into the policy that very few teachers and very few students support, creating artificial standards based on test scores and making teachers teach to the tests. His party also wants to spend government money on private schooling. Kerry's claims are not as clear, but it is apparent he disagrees with Bush's policies, pointing out such things as grants for higher education, and how these are reaching the wrong audiences. That doesn't seem like agreement or the same viewpoint to me, but yeah, it does involve spending more money either way.
One other thing the author failed to mention is taxes. Taxation of the upper 1% is a big difference, I don't think I need to go into that or the tax cuts and rebates.
While perhaps this years selection doesn't offer as wide a vareity as occurs sometimes, to say that Bush and Kerry hold "few differences" on "nearly any topic imaginable" is an uneducated statement or a blatant falsehood.
No, its not new. They've had one in New York City among other places for a long time.
The second article's website has a fake popup that says "Your browser has successfully blocked a popup" with a Windows error icon and an OK button. Clicking it would probably result in some sort of spyware. Ironic? (Yes, I'm using Firefox.)
No, they've interally ran things at over 10 GHz on a single die (as of more than a couple years ago, at that). Hobbyists have also been able to far break the mark, up to 5 or 6 GHz, in fact.
That's copper, don't chips use gold, or is that just for the contacts?
My father, who's obviously an adult, with graying hair and a scraggly beard, was carded at Best Buy, while making a purchase with a credit card. This only happened once that I can recall, because most of the cashiers weren't as strict about store policies. However its silly, being told at such an age to get your driver's liscense or somesuch out of your wallet. Of the point when Best Buy and such started doing this, my only method of getting M rated games was to bring a parent along (they approve, because my parents, like intelligent people, know that there's a difference between fiction and reality), which I would have had to do anyway, because I can't drive, and there's no public transportation save the taxi where I live. It hasn't proven to be a hindrance, but it will be most annoying when I could drive myself there, having to drag one of my parents along.
Game ratings by the ESRB were never meant to be used to determine whether or not someone could go in and buy the thing. Its a recommendation, not a restriction. Its absurd that some stores require you to be 18+ to buy games that are rated M (and the most absurd part is that M is suggested 17+. Stores just pull the extra year of restriction out of thin air). They were intended to let you know what was in the game. Parents should be expected to know what their kid is buying from the store, he'd have to have the CD, with the rating clearly printed on it, anyway, and I highly doubt that anything in a video game could be emotionally scarring.