I liked the part in TFA which suggests that violent games could actually act as tension release valves in teenagers. Granted, in the absence of an actual upbringing, these games can teach harmful lessons, but I'll leave the blame issue out of this.
The fact that today's kids are actually less violent than ever would only help reinforce my idea of what I used these games for: virtual punching bags.
If you ask me, I think a lot of these 'violent youth crimes' are nothing new, they're just periodically televised and labeled by politicians to further the goals of manipulative demagogues.
There are too many times I have frozen my machine just by using the search feature and opted to the command line instead (which I'm still not an expert with) Although I do like the sort of tooltips in the kicker.
Although I'm quite enthused for the new feature in home: I like the idea of having a mac-like user folder so easily accesible for things like dropbox functionality.
And they'll already start working on Linux for the Xbox 360, though. Take your pick;)
In seriousness though, I applaud the effort. Maybe with this knowledge of what had to be changed and a quick port of Linux to the 360, maybe FreeBSD can be ported to the 360 with a much quicker turnaround.
I'm from the same crowd of kids who played all these games and never killed anyone. But I'm not saying that no kid is capable of handling games like this because, obviously, we were.
The point that I'm trying to make here, though, is that this bill is attacking the wrong people. Most of the children that these media illiterate soccer moms are trying to save are thier own. They probably bought a slew of these games for thier own children and so it's complete hypocracy for them to shift the blame onto store clerks who are actually responsible for very little of the copies of GTA:SA that wound up in the hands of those under 17.
I do actually believe that there are enough bad parents out there to warrent a bill that would fine parents that buy their children games that have a higher age requirement dictated by the rating, though. It's staggering how many kids growing up are NOT like us that aren't being taught morals, or even self-control in absence of that. Besides, even if those fines were to be put in place, would it stop the reasonable parents and kids from getting/playing these games and just keeping it to themselves?
As far as my main post goes, though, I just think it's ludicrous that they're putting the heat on game store clerks when they have some of the cleanest hands in this whole GTA:SA controversy (because we know that's what sparked this all).
"rhymes about elite script compiling and dope machine code"
How many rhymes are there for '0' and '1'?
Re:Why not in America?
on
Gamer Nation
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In a lot of ways, you're quite right. Not only would the American government not want to get involved, they probably can't. Only when we're so behind the times that we have the largest percent of the population in a developed nation without broadband would the government push legislation to only make it easier for companies to provide it to us; They wouldn't do any of the actual work to set it up.
If someone proposed that they should, then we'd have arguments comparing it to socialized healthcare and communism and others called it a waste of funds or a threat to the 'American Way'.
Korea, also, has a slightly easier time wiring a nation for the fact that they have much less real estate to wire and fewer people to manage. We have a rather stretched out government that can hardly agree on anything on a scale larger than a city without riots over policy changes.
To some degree, I can see where people would want us to concentrate government spending on other issues, but I still have something nagging what little is left of my conscience. That little something tells me that if America wants to stay in the game when it comes to the entertainment and technology industry, maybe we need a push to get us up to date. Get us using fiber lines (or at least CAT6, I'm not sure which is better for what), start implementing IPv6, make broadband affordable. How can Americans expect their youth to become the next rising stars in the technology/gaming entertainment market when the common protocols are outdated and the new ones are usually too expensive? It's hard to create a masterpiece with broken brushes.
That's an idea, or they could just invent a new compression format that could match the diminutive size one of these darling little devices. That would save me space in my pocket and my hard disk!
I have to wonder is any Microsoft published games will include tracking software to send the gamer's general PC activity back to further customize the ads beyond the demographic for the game.
That would be scary, games inharmoniously welded to adware.::shudder::
The only problem I could see with that is that a lot of MMO's and other online games are starting to disable accounts (or at least disable login) for anybody using third-party software classified as a bot. I can't blame them either considering how many MMO account holders have had their details ripped by bots that steal their keys and such, but it could make these ad-blocking 'patches' that much harder to implement.
One thing that most people overlook is how tight their case is. If your tower is made of metal of any kind, make sure to eliminate any room for the walls to rattle or vibrate and that will cut down on noise by great leaps and bounds. Also, I try not to have my tower on a metal surface, because the vibrations also cause more noise than most people give credit to, or at least get some kind of boots under the machine.
I agree to a large extent, but I've also noticed a trend. Beyond games like The Sims, the next most popular genre of game that I see women play is RPGs. The problem is that there are still plenty of studios that believe that RPGs are only played by 14 year old boys. Some RPGs are getting better at keeping the 'ho trash' meter in the green, but it's taking a while.
There's a reason the phrase doesn't make sense. It was created by the industry, for the industry. The companies and organizations that usually use it are the people who are snickering back stage because they know that they've already got the majority. They tell you to vote with your dollars because the people that will vote against them make no difference.
Then again, male characters don't look like Captian Hero anymore. Guys have actually been toned down from muscle bound bruisers to more sleek assassin-like figures like Solid Snake and the main characters from Half-Life, Splinter Cell and others. Guys are less like actions heroes these days when you look at the scene. There's a few in which we're starting to look almost like pretty boys (Devil May Cry)
Women, however, still have a pretty unrealistic template to work with in most games. Even if the proportions aren't that bad, the outfits are right up there with the title of 'ho trash' in a lot of games. Guys are looking more like they came out of bootcamp in contrast with figures. The scales aren't even
It's kind of sad really. Originally, the internet was a place that you could create your own little pocket universe and not care about how many friends someone else has on their buddy list as long as you have somebody to chat with.
On the other hand, with the internet becoming nearly ubiquitous, it's hard to keep out the trends of real life social stratum now that everybody's on.
Oh well. I guess I go back to being a hermit:) </bemoaning_my_fate>
And those parents should probably be fined for 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor'.
And while I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I have seen cases where a parent is buying Offensive Game X for their 9 year old and they tell the clerk it's for their teenage son at home. The clerk stops arguing (are you really going to refuse a sale because you don't think the customer has another child?), and the 9 year old opens the game as soon as they walk out of the store.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant under penalty of lawsuit for breach of contract. I know it isn't the same as law, but still quite legit to pursue action for breaching contract if the conditions are kept true.
The geographical area is a point I forgot about, tough. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Either way, I see enough articles that claim MS is actually suing Google directly (a few say they are suing their ex-employee). I can't think of a single contractual agreement that could warrant suing a new company for hiring a former employee before the no-compete term is over, even if it was within the terms of the no-comete clause. The old company can file suit against the ex-employee, but not the new company.
As far as your point c) is concerned: The clause can actually be related to the business and not your job specifically. A janitor for Intel isn't critical to the manufacturing of CPUs. They may not be able to quit and immediately work for AMD because of possibly overhead trade secrets, but they can be hired as a janitor in most cases for a company that isn't related to Intel's main business. This isn't always the clause, but it is relatively common.
Not exactly, in Microsoft's argument (and this is quite common of most industries), once you are employed by them, you are not allowed to take any side jobs in the same industry while working for Microsoft. In addition to that, if you choose to leave the company, the contract states that you are not allowed by law, to work for in a position of direct competition to the one you held within the first year of leaving Microsoft. For some smaller companies, this is only for companies in the same industry, (i.e. a financial advisor for a real estate business may not be able to work for another real estate business for another year but could start as a financial advisor for a retail chain immediately.)
On one hand, I agree that this game was already intended for an audience far older than the children that lawmakers and soccer moms are trying to protect. However, with no forms of penalty to enforce the ratings on these games, nobody can expect them to follow. They're only mild suggestions without any kind of fine for selling to/buying for children under the age recommended by rating.
However, R* is also quite guilty of deliberatly hiding an easter egg in the game that (in America, anyway) dramatically changes some peoples' view on it. In a country where sex is almost strictly taboo, it was purposely sneaky of R* to put the Hot Coffee material into the game because we, as gamers and geeks, have already proven many years ago that if it can be cracked, it will. They can't just unhook the content and expect it to be done, and that's not what they did. R* left it in there for the people curious enough to find a way to get Hot Coffee.
I hope both of these parties can learn something from this. Ratings aren't effective without being enforced and unhooked content can and will always be found, cracked, and distributed on the internet within an hour.
You also have to remember the word 'prospect'. Which, of course, would refer to all the features that have been promised and taken back. Then all of the prospective features that have yet to be taken out until all we are left with is a view that leaves the user feeling pretty distant from a decent OS.
I understand it entirely, but accidentally forgot to add my tag at the end.
I was simply saying that, if possible, it would be a good idea to remind the FDA that regulations should be set in place so those that implant these devices don't use them to radically alter brain behavior beyond simply balancing it.
I tell people that the only difference between ADD and ADHD is 250mg if that lets you know how much I despise certain recent medical trends. However, I have seen cases that are beyond the limits of any easy solution. My fear isn't so much the magnitude of change in brain activity due to the implant. This thing is designed to correct problems that current treatments have proven fruitless against. My concern is actually this:
I have a medical condition that doctors thought would render me unusually short because of damage to my pituitary gland. I would have had to undergo a growth horomone treatment that lasts for several hours to correct it, but lo and behold, I came out fine. That treatment is used on many people with my condition, but to my disgust, the FDA approved it last year for 'cosmetic use'. That's right, if you want your child to be taller, you can have it for a treatment that costs a few thousand dollars that used to be reserved for only those that needed it. My fear is when people seek out this implant (if it does, indeed, work) because they don't want to go through the hassle of remembering their pills. It would probably take a few years for the FDA to approve it for Joe Sixpack, but that's when the normal state of mind would change. What we need to do is get strong regulations on this quickly, before it can get that out of hand.
Slashdot Mirror
I liked the part in TFA which suggests that violent games could actually act as tension release valves in teenagers. Granted, in the absence of an actual upbringing, these games can teach harmful lessons, but I'll leave the blame issue out of this.
The fact that today's kids are actually less violent than ever would only help reinforce my idea of what I used these games for: virtual punching bags.
If you ask me, I think a lot of these 'violent youth crimes' are nothing new, they're just periodically televised and labeled by politicians to further the goals of manipulative demagogues.
They can ask that Russian astrologer that sued over the Temple 1 probe for the 'moral damages'.
There are too many times I have frozen my machine just by using the search feature and opted to the command line instead (which I'm still not an expert with) Although I do like the sort of tooltips in the kicker.
Although I'm quite enthused for the new feature in home: I like the idea of having a mac-like user folder so easily accesible for things like dropbox functionality.
And they'll already start working on Linux for the Xbox 360, though. Take your pick ;)
In seriousness though, I applaud the effort. Maybe with this knowledge of what had to be changed and a quick port of Linux to the 360, maybe FreeBSD can be ported to the 360 with a much quicker turnaround.
I'm from the same crowd of kids who played all these games and never killed anyone. But I'm not saying that no kid is capable of handling games like this because, obviously, we were.
The point that I'm trying to make here, though, is that this bill is attacking the wrong people. Most of the children that these media illiterate soccer moms are trying to save are thier own. They probably bought a slew of these games for thier own children and so it's complete hypocracy for them to shift the blame onto store clerks who are actually responsible for very little of the copies of GTA:SA that wound up in the hands of those under 17.
I do actually believe that there are enough bad parents out there to warrent a bill that would fine parents that buy their children games that have a higher age requirement dictated by the rating, though. It's staggering how many kids growing up are NOT like us that aren't being taught morals, or even self-control in absence of that. Besides, even if those fines were to be put in place, would it stop the reasonable parents and kids from getting/playing these games and just keeping it to themselves?
As far as my main post goes, though, I just think it's ludicrous that they're putting the heat on game store clerks when they have some of the cleanest hands in this whole GTA:SA controversy (because we know that's what sparked this all).
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2001-05- 16&res=l/
This law means nothing when junior can get away with this kind of crap. And he does. He does every day.
I agree whole heartedly. It goes on and on about what it does to stores that provide these games to minors, but there's one thing that irks me:
There's no penalty for parents that buy their 10 year old a game rated 'M'
Hooray for loopholes</sarcasm>
"rhymes about elite script compiling and dope machine code"
How many rhymes are there for '0' and '1'?
In a lot of ways, you're quite right. Not only would the American government not want to get involved, they probably can't. Only when we're so behind the times that we have the largest percent of the population in a developed nation without broadband would the government push legislation to only make it easier for companies to provide it to us; They wouldn't do any of the actual work to set it up.
If someone proposed that they should, then we'd have arguments comparing it to socialized healthcare and communism and others called it a waste of funds or a threat to the 'American Way'.
Korea, also, has a slightly easier time wiring a nation for the fact that they have much less real estate to wire and fewer people to manage. We have a rather stretched out government that can hardly agree on anything on a scale larger than a city without riots over policy changes.
To some degree, I can see where people would want us to concentrate government spending on other issues, but I still have something nagging what little is left of my conscience. That little something tells me that if America wants to stay in the game when it comes to the entertainment and technology industry, maybe we need a push to get us up to date. Get us using fiber lines (or at least CAT6, I'm not sure which is better for what), start implementing IPv6, make broadband affordable. How can Americans expect their youth to become the next rising stars in the technology/gaming entertainment market when the common protocols are outdated and the new ones are usually too expensive? It's hard to create a masterpiece with broken brushes.
That's an idea, or they could just invent a new compression format that could match the diminutive size one of these darling little devices. That would save me space in my pocket and my hard disk!
I have to wonder is any Microsoft published games will include tracking software to send the gamer's general PC activity back to further customize the ads beyond the demographic for the game.
::shudder::
That would be scary, games inharmoniously welded to adware.
The only problem I could see with that is that a lot of MMO's and other online games are starting to disable accounts (or at least disable login) for anybody using third-party software classified as a bot. I can't blame them either considering how many MMO account holders have had their details ripped by bots that steal their keys and such, but it could make these ad-blocking 'patches' that much harder to implement.
One thing that most people overlook is how tight their case is. If your tower is made of metal of any kind, make sure to eliminate any room for the walls to rattle or vibrate and that will cut down on noise by great leaps and bounds. Also, I try not to have my tower on a metal surface, because the vibrations also cause more noise than most people give credit to, or at least get some kind of boots under the machine.
Make sure you don't use/need a DragonOrb3. I have one for an AMD Palomino 1.2 GHz and it wakes the dead, and sometimes even me!
Gee, after reading enough articles like this, I'm starting to think AMD should start checking /. for arguments in their Intel-monopoly lawsuit ;)
I agree to a large extent, but I've also noticed a trend. Beyond games like The Sims, the next most popular genre of game that I see women play is RPGs. The problem is that there are still plenty of studios that believe that RPGs are only played by 14 year old boys. Some RPGs are getting better at keeping the 'ho trash' meter in the green, but it's taking a while.
There's a reason the phrase doesn't make sense. It was created by the industry, for the industry. The companies and organizations that usually use it are the people who are snickering back stage because they know that they've already got the majority. They tell you to vote with your dollars because the people that will vote against them make no difference.
That's just my two cents.
Then again, male characters don't look like Captian Hero anymore. Guys have actually been toned down from muscle bound bruisers to more sleek assassin-like figures like Solid Snake and the main characters from Half-Life, Splinter Cell and others. Guys are less like actions heroes these days when you look at the scene. There's a few in which we're starting to look almost like pretty boys (Devil May Cry)
Women, however, still have a pretty unrealistic template to work with in most games. Even if the proportions aren't that bad, the outfits are right up there with the title of 'ho trash' in a lot of games. Guys are looking more like they came out of bootcamp in contrast with figures. The scales aren't even
It's kind of sad really. Originally, the internet was a place that you could create your own little pocket universe and not care about how many friends someone else has on their buddy list as long as you have somebody to chat with.
:) </bemoaning_my_fate>
On the other hand, with the internet becoming nearly ubiquitous, it's hard to keep out the trends of real life social stratum now that everybody's on.
Oh well. I guess I go back to being a hermit
And those parents should probably be fined for 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor'.
And while I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I have seen cases where a parent is buying Offensive Game X for their 9 year old and they tell the clerk it's for their teenage son at home. The clerk stops arguing (are you really going to refuse a sale because you don't think the customer has another child?), and the 9 year old opens the game as soon as they walk out of the store.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant under penalty of lawsuit for breach of contract. I know it isn't the same as law, but still quite legit to pursue action for breaching contract if the conditions are kept true.
The geographical area is a point I forgot about, tough. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Either way, I see enough articles that claim MS is actually suing Google directly (a few say they are suing their ex-employee). I can't think of a single contractual agreement that could warrant suing a new company for hiring a former employee before the no-compete term is over, even if it was within the terms of the no-comete clause. The old company can file suit against the ex-employee, but not the new company.
As far as your point c) is concerned: The clause can actually be related to the business and not your job specifically. A janitor for Intel isn't critical to the manufacturing of CPUs. They may not be able to quit and immediately work for AMD because of possibly overhead trade secrets, but they can be hired as a janitor in most cases for a company that isn't related to Intel's main business. This isn't always the clause, but it is relatively common.
Not exactly, in Microsoft's argument (and this is quite common of most industries), once you are employed by them, you are not allowed to take any side jobs in the same industry while working for Microsoft. In addition to that, if you choose to leave the company, the contract states that you are not allowed by law, to work for in a position of direct competition to the one you held within the first year of leaving Microsoft. For some smaller companies, this is only for companies in the same industry, (i.e. a financial advisor for a real estate business may not be able to work for another real estate business for another year but could start as a financial advisor for a retail chain immediately.)
I hope that clears things up.
Glad it over. There, I said it too.
On one hand, I agree that this game was already intended for an audience far older than the children that lawmakers and soccer moms are trying to protect. However, with no forms of penalty to enforce the ratings on these games, nobody can expect them to follow. They're only mild suggestions without any kind of fine for selling to/buying for children under the age recommended by rating.
However, R* is also quite guilty of deliberatly hiding an easter egg in the game that (in America, anyway) dramatically changes some peoples' view on it. In a country where sex is almost strictly taboo, it was purposely sneaky of R* to put the Hot Coffee material into the game because we, as gamers and geeks, have already proven many years ago that if it can be cracked, it will. They can't just unhook the content and expect it to be done, and that's not what they did. R* left it in there for the people curious enough to find a way to get Hot Coffee.
I hope both of these parties can learn something from this. Ratings aren't effective without being enforced and unhooked content can and will always be found, cracked, and distributed on the internet within an hour.
You also have to remember the word 'prospect'. Which, of course, would refer to all the features that have been promised and taken back. Then all of the prospective features that have yet to be taken out until all we are left with is a view that leaves the user feeling pretty distant from a decent OS.
Good definition!
I understand it entirely, but accidentally forgot to add my tag at the end.
I was simply saying that, if possible, it would be a good idea to remind the FDA that regulations should be set in place so those that implant these devices don't use them to radically alter brain behavior beyond simply balancing it.
I tell people that the only difference between ADD and ADHD is 250mg if that lets you know how much I despise certain recent medical trends. However, I have seen cases that are beyond the limits of any easy solution. My fear isn't so much the magnitude of change in brain activity due to the implant. This thing is designed to correct problems that current treatments have proven fruitless against. My concern is actually this:
I have a medical condition that doctors thought would render me unusually short because of damage to my pituitary gland. I would have had to undergo a growth horomone treatment that lasts for several hours to correct it, but lo and behold, I came out fine. That treatment is used on many people with my condition, but to my disgust, the FDA approved it last year for 'cosmetic use'. That's right, if you want your child to be taller, you can have it for a treatment that costs a few thousand dollars that used to be reserved for only those that needed it. My fear is when people seek out this implant (if it does, indeed, work) because they don't want to go through the hassle of remembering their pills. It would probably take a few years for the FDA to approve it for Joe Sixpack, but that's when the normal state of mind would change. What we need to do is get strong regulations on this quickly, before it can get that out of hand.