Then again, I certainly understand your concern because I think complacency is the root of a lot of problems that our society suffers from (see also, the most recent MS related article no matter when you happen to read this).
However, while I know that most companies would want to use this as an instant fix to make the patient feel good no matter what, the scientific goal here is not to make the depressed 'happy' per se. Rather, the original goal of inventions like this as well as anti-depressants are to simply return the depressed to a normal state of mind in which they can cope with everyday life without the overwhelming imbalance.
I can only hope that this implant would be used correctly.
Re:This is all getting quite confusing...
on
Firefox 1.1 Scrapped
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Then again, I'm not really complaining about it. All the available extensions out there have got to be giving the Mozilla development team more to consider for the next stable releases. Consider, also, that the other (major) alternatives are broken and commercial (IE and Opera). Not that the latter is bad, but for such a fantastic browser to be completely free and have a wide range of extendability is something that must be accounted for.
Then again, if they've already changed the release schedule once, who's to say that they won't do it in our favor in the near future? All this talk of new features makes me want to start coding...
...video game scandals and political debates over video game controversy are boring is because nobody believes that they're dangerous enough to do anything about it on the censorship side. I remember the big PTA rally against GTA when they first found out that you gained life by getting a hooker into your car and you got bonus points for killing her afterwards. But do the consersatives really believe that these games are harmful? Not enough of them.
It is true that there are those who have been either abandoned or neglected by parents to the point that media is the child's prefered family, comfort, mentor and friend. Personally, I would hope that we could create some kind of media literacy campaign to help parents do their job better.</pipedream> But that isn't going to happen, and for those that have no good parenting to teach them, the media takes over and can give very dangerous messages to 5 year old minds that were given no other form of morals to rely on.
Honestly, I think if these groups understood how bad the parenting situation really is, they would band together and vote to impose fines for selling games to people under the age required by rating with a severity comparable to that of fines for selling cigarettes to minors. But these parenting groups won't do because they don't want to admit two things:
1. There are a frightening number of parents who don't raise their children properly. 2. These games, in the lack of good parenting, can and do teach children dangerous lessons when they get games intended for audiences far older than them.
Nobody wants to think that something known as a 'game' can be as harmful as drugs. The pro censorship groups think that tightening the rating on games will just fix everything, but it won't when nobody follows or enforces that system. If they created a system that actually has legal penalties for providing games to people under the limit dictacted by its rating, that would actually help achieve their goals without trying to make all games either rated E or AO. But none of these soccer moms think these games are really 'harmful', just offensive and calling them dangerous is a good excuse to get rid of them.
I noticed that Bob leaves a large hole in his attack on OSS. It is true in that most companies just want a shiny box and packaging with a guarantee that the vendor will fix everything without having to teach a class on it. However, just because software is OS doesn't mean it was sold by some college CS undergrad who forgot to spellcheck the readme.txt. Novell (for example) doesn't sell you a Novell enterprise desktop package for your business on an unlabeled Staples CD-R wth a note scribbled on the back.
Companies like them use OSS to build enterprise level suites with support that are still usually (but not always) cheaper than an MS or Unix alternative. Then they compete in the market based upon the merits of a system that is 'rigorously tested and constantly updated by the top programmers in the world and maintained by our top-rated staff' as opposed to getting an operating system programmed by a bunch of college CS geeks.
I think Bob needs to realize that companies don't need to know they're using OSS because a company that uses it can be every bit as professional as he thinks Microsoft is. If OSS doesn't work because it doesn't work for the consumer as well as Microsoft does, then why is that so many web servers are running Apache on (likely) some version of Red Hat?
I could be wrong on this (if so, pleas be polite when correcting me) but I remember reading that the mac OS has only been Unix based since OSX. The transition from 9.x to X was the adoption of a modified BSD kernel (Darwin BSD actually). Before which, I don't believe the mac ever was a unix system.
I just got 1.0.6 and I'm glad to report that Lightningdonkey is working just fine. Although I wasn't refering to the firesomething extension only. I was commenting on the slew of decent, if not actually good extensions that have been lost in the dust bin of 0.8 - 1.0PR obsolescence.
Now if only they could fix a bug that would get authors to update their extensions to the new browser version. I miss my FireGoat browswer
(yes, I know there's a way to fix firesomething, but I haven't had time and it's just annoying to install an extension to get an error saying that it's for an older version)
I thank you for a very valuable new perspective on the topic. And I will share with you why I have the perspective that I do.
I grew up in a lower middle class family in a nice town with good parents, but as a teenager, I fit the stereotype for another highschool shooter. 5 brain surgeries had made me a pariah in every sense of the word and I have even had someone pull a gun on me (shot two different times) for such blind hatred bred from fear and misunderstanding. A good deal of the stories I have heard about the media 'provoking' some youth to kill another are acts commited by those who come from respectable homes.(I'm not saying those are the only cases that happen, I'm merely referring to the ones blamed on music and games mostly) Despite the good parenting, enough of the people they knew beat them down to the point of snapping. I was the perfect model for this situation of an otherwise good kid pushed too far, and there were even plenty of times I wished that I could have lived up to it. Psychologists at school 'knew' that I would snap and they were just waiting for it to happen.
I, also, came out fine. I'm one of the few graduates of my high school who finished college and one of an even smaller number that got a job afterwards. The world was not a 'great place' growing up even with good parenting. Through junior high and high school I thought that everyone should die because they either deserved it or it would be a merciful escape from the torment they would receive from those I used to think deserved to die. I've come a long way from that.
There are extreme cases on both sides of an issue. What I had been waiting for on this particular topic was a good, sound argument that wasn't just trying to mess with someone's emotions to get a vote. I thank you for sharing your side and giving me another way of thinking of it. I'm not saying I've pulled a flakey 180 on my stance, but you've provided some good insight to something I hadn't considered before. Again, thank you.
On the topic of regulations, how effective would the tobaco and alcohol laws be if all vendors sold freely without checking the age of the buyer? If nobody enforces the regulations, they don't work. I am not saying that the current rating system is just fine and dandy the way it is, but actually 'using' the rating system would result in a dramatic lack of substance for the pro-restriction crowd to argue about.
And to advocate the devil a little more, I'll return to the battle cry "I played violent games all my life and I turned out fine." Yes, I've used this one before and there is a pretty decent reason why I continue to use it with little fear of logical reply:
The majority of those that would call themselves 'experts' on the topic will tell you that each generation is becoming more and more technology savvy than us that came previously. Children today are grasping new technology much more rapidly today than the youth of even 5 years ago. If that is the case (and I've never seen an arugment otherwise) then why are the younger generations somehow 'weaker' to the influence that technology insinuates upon the user? Why has the issue been almost completely dropped on violent movies as well?
Did we somehow lose the gene that allows us to tell fantasy from reality?</sarcasm>
So now we fast-forward to a dismal future of overly regulated entertainment, and junior can probably still get games without being asked his age or at least he's able to convince mom that the game isn't really that bad. I really doubt that a majority of people would vote to put legal restrictions on video games with severity that is comparable to that of tobaco and alcohol because of this: Despite the fact that it raises a huge debate, I have yet to meet a single game restriction advocate that thinks that games are as dangerous as smoking as drinking. And that's why mom may still buy GTA:Idaho for junior, because she won't be slapped with any sort of 'contributing to the deliquency of a minor' charge.
The reason that I continue to defend games on this topic time and time again is because the attack upon games is almost always nothing but demagogical sophistry. I refuse to stay quiet and let people attempt to pass meaningless legislation to create a helmet-head state where the laws protect to point of smothering when there isn't even a real supporting statement that can't be refuted with nothing more than a lack of evidence. You really can't make an argument about how something affects a child regardless of upbringing (or lack thereof)
And in playing the devil's advocate, you earn my respect. I love to advocate the devil;) With that in mind, here's my counter-counterpoint:
I do understand your main point, but where the scales in/. lean more towards games is drawing from the fact that there is likely to be a large number of readers here who aren't too dissimilar from me in thier early childhood gaming experience. I played Wolfenstien 3D when it first came out and Doom, Heretic, and Hexen after that at the same age that proposed legislations are claiming to protect. All this and I have never been foolish enough to consider the majority of what I see in most entertainment as acceptable behavior.
Also, provided that a person has an understanding and acceptance of basic moral concepts (yes, I know how broad that can be) that decry things like theft and violence, neurochemical changes resulting from a video game are quite impossible to result in the dramatic behavior problems that these conversatives speak of unless these games are played to an extent that would consistute as brainwashing.
Neurochemical changes do take place as a result of gameplay regardless of age, but to train a child into deviant behavior shows both the excessive amount of time invested into the game and the lack of parentally learned behaviors that would provide a child with the knowledge that video games, just like cartoons, aren't real and should not be treated as such.
Which goes to show that deviant behavior as a result in gameplay is largely due to parental neglect.
I usually like to debate issues from both sides as well, but this is one that doesn't allow both sides to be fairly portrayed because those that would have stronger restrictions on games are consistently leaving gigantic holes in their logic.
You know, I used to just hear this crap from parents who were too lazy/selfish to dedicate their time to actually raising their ill-begat loin spawn that threatened to shoot the school. Now it's gone too far when we've got self-proclaimed experts on these games' effects on children telling us:
You're under hypnosis.
You would think that these people are getting kickbacks from the game industry to convince us that games have some unbreakable and mystical spell that irrevocably alters neuro-chemical activity. I've already had enough of the national PTA crying out against accountability, but this is nuts when members of our own government are suggesting that games are actually 'hypnotic' when they should be trying to tell us just the opposite.
Fun: yes
Interesting: yes
But to suggest that we are powerless in the face of the (often misinterpreted) messages that video games portray is pure insanity. I refuse to stand for any politician telling me that I need to vote on their proposal because I am mentally incapable of resisting some 'evil influence of immoral games'.
Seriously. I find it kind of hysterical that/. reports that Blizzard has been removing official forum posts on duping instructions and then we provide a link to someone with unofficial instructions. But now that the link is/.ed, we just helped Blizzard get rid of more sites with dupe bug instructions.
If this story dupes, check the unofficial instructions link to see if it changed;) </silliness>
Given your reply, I should rephrase my stance on the human race's desire for a quick fix: We have always wanted a quick fix (or at least an excuse), but now with the internet, that excuse is just a few clicks away. Not all technology is bad, but some of it enables us to become more reliant on it to find the answer; not always the correct answer, but the answer that we want to hear.
The only reason that I see the quick fix trend as growing in any sort of way is with the advent of ordering that solution and having it shipped to your home the next day courtesy of www.$foo.com makes it so much easier to find the answers we want to hear. And while modern medicine and technology produces many marvels, a great deal of these quick solutions people are finding on the internet are nostrums in every way that snake oil was 100 years ago. These modern faux cures are more attractive because you don't even have to leave your home to look for it.
I don't think it's just the web that's making people out to be fools lately. Personally, I think the root of it is peoples' growing desire for instant gratification. I think most people would rather not admit that they have the flu and that they'll feel miserable for two weeks until they get over it. Most of people I've met would rather look up symptoms on the net and find some condition that tells them they would only need to take 150mg of $foo for two days and be done that much quicker. The wealth of misinformation on the internet is a definate player in this field, but I think the root of the problem stems from the desire for a quick fix.
Trust me, I have no problem with sex at all, and I personally think that most(not all) Americans are either way too uptight about sex or just careless and stupid about it. I don't mind eye candy in a video game either, but I'm not sure you got the point I'm making.
Where as most everyone says it's wrong to rate a game based upon a woman's proportions, I think the raters do have a point when a female character is made only for her sex appeal to be used as a marketing scheme and major selling point of the game.
And remember, this is the 'E' rating the ESRB is talking about. I somehow doubt that/. has so many 5 year old readers. They're not talking about all games with 'naughty' content to be banned or anything. They're just saying that a game with characters made purely for sex-appeal-marketing shouldn't get a rating that would allow a 6 year old to buy it.
I agree completely with Brandybuck. Too many of these sexy females in games are anatomically impossible. Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.
Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is. It's usually completely unrealistic, even in comparisson to the game. I think these games get the ratings they do because distributors know that those too young to buy the game will just want it that much more (even if it's just a little) because it's really cool and they know that they're not supposed to have it.
There's two points to consider about your argument:
1. MTV lost it's M because it knew how to pander to what they deemed to be the 'popular' crowd. iTunes music videos could get a little more steam for being able to let users download the videos they want and create a playlist. It's just like the merits of iTunes vs. radio. The user can tailor it to what they want instead of hoping they'll play your favorite song.
2. There was a previously mentioned idea of the capability of video-out jacks which could turn an iPod into less of a poor substitute for a portable TV and more of a portable video library to hook up without bringing a case full of DVDs. It's a long shot, but when people have already created a Linux distro for the iPod, who knows how we'll hack a new format.
I seem to recall Steve Jobs mentioning that video was never meant to be portable. If memory serves, that was only one or two years ago.
Fast forward and any technology statement can and will be proven wrong by technology advances, customer demand, or the latter despite the lack of the former followed by several years of beta testing that people will call 1G.
Regardless, I'm still looking forward to what Apple can bring to the less than booming world of portable video players. And does anyone know when Microsoft is supposed to release a contender to this possible product?
The biggest problem with a vigilante company using DDoS to attack spammers is that they could end up protecting them in a way.
If a spam king decoy came out of hiding to sue this 'security' company and took the fall after winning the case, that case could set up a legal precent to help protect spammers. One goes down for the 'good' of the group.
This is why I install almost everything with a DVD sized distro so far, not to discredit anyone:
1. I'm still not totally familiar with all the ins and outs of Linux systems, so until I get more proficient with them, I find it easier to have all the dependancies there to start and worry about getting rid of unused ones when I learn how to tell the difference.
2. I learn/experiment with a myriad of progamming languages, web development tools and technolgies, so it's nice to have all the options there so I test for myself what programs and interfaces work best for me without having to worry about installing and dependancies in between tests.
This is just my methodology, which will probably change with time and experience, but that's what I find to be the appeal of Linux; not only are there eight million different tools for any given job, each tool comes in roughly 12 different assorted shapes and sizes;)
One of the reasons I'm looking forward to Plasma is the same reason I like using 4CD/DVD install distros in general. I install just about everything to start, then I weed out what I don't want/need until I might have something that looks like a candied-out SimpleKDE with a few extra tools.
The point is how much detail you can gather about someone, their personal information, and where they live just through a search engine. Google isn't the only possible culprit for this kind of thing either. If you take a look at most search engines that have an image only search, you can gather a wealth of information and scanned records that allow so many people out there to commit identity theft without even sorting through the trash.
I'm not trying to give (bad) advice, but some people have information about them on the net that they never knew was out there. Back in the early days of the identity theft scare, there were plenty of articles online urging people to be careful about what information they disclose about themselves on the internet and what may be out there without them even posting anything (see also: telephone directories).
Never before have I been happier to keep myself unlisted.
Well, as long as they couldn't hack past the browser, I guess they decided to go for the site all about the browser. Makes sense in a sick sort of way.
Slashdot Mirror
Then again, I certainly understand your concern because I think complacency is the root of a lot of problems that our society suffers from (see also, the most recent MS related article no matter when you happen to read this).
However, while I know that most companies would want to use this as an instant fix to make the patient feel good no matter what, the scientific goal here is not to make the depressed 'happy' per se. Rather, the original goal of inventions like this as well as anti-depressants are to simply return the depressed to a normal state of mind in which they can cope with everyday life without the overwhelming imbalance.
I can only hope that this implant would be used correctly.
Then again, I'm not really complaining about it. All the available extensions out there have got to be giving the Mozilla development team more to consider for the next stable releases. Consider, also, that the other (major) alternatives are broken and commercial (IE and Opera). Not that the latter is bad, but for such a fantastic browser to be completely free and have a wide range of extendability is something that must be accounted for. Then again, if they've already changed the release schedule once, who's to say that they won't do it in our favor in the near future? All this talk of new features makes me want to start coding...
...video game scandals and political debates over video game controversy are boring is because nobody believes that they're dangerous enough to do anything about it on the censorship side. I remember the big PTA rally against GTA when they first found out that you gained life by getting a hooker into your car and you got bonus points for killing her afterwards. But do the consersatives really believe that these games are harmful? Not enough of them.
It is true that there are those who have been either abandoned or neglected by parents to the point that media is the child's prefered family, comfort, mentor and friend. Personally, I would hope that we could create some kind of media literacy campaign to help parents do their job better.</pipedream> But that isn't going to happen, and for those that have no good parenting to teach them, the media takes over and can give very dangerous messages to 5 year old minds that were given no other form of morals to rely on.
Honestly, I think if these groups understood how bad the parenting situation really is, they would band together and vote to impose fines for selling games to people under the age required by rating with a severity comparable to that of fines for selling cigarettes to minors. But these parenting groups won't do because they don't want to admit two things:
1. There are a frightening number of parents who don't raise their children properly.
2. These games, in the lack of good parenting, can and do teach children dangerous lessons when they get games intended for audiences far older than them.
Nobody wants to think that something known as a 'game' can be as harmful as drugs. The pro censorship groups think that tightening the rating on games will just fix everything, but it won't when nobody follows or enforces that system. If they created a system that actually has legal penalties for providing games to people under the limit dictacted by its rating, that would actually help achieve their goals without trying to make all games either rated E or AO. But none of these soccer moms think these games are really 'harmful', just offensive and calling them dangerous is a good excuse to get rid of them.
I noticed that Bob leaves a large hole in his attack on OSS. It is true in that most companies just want a shiny box and packaging with a guarantee that the vendor will fix everything without having to teach a class on it. However, just because software is OS doesn't mean it was sold by some college CS undergrad who forgot to spellcheck the readme.txt. Novell (for example) doesn't sell you a Novell enterprise desktop package for your business on an unlabeled Staples CD-R wth a note scribbled on the back.
Companies like them use OSS to build enterprise level suites with support that are still usually (but not always) cheaper than an MS or Unix alternative. Then they compete in the market based upon the merits of a system that is 'rigorously tested and constantly updated by the top programmers in the world and maintained by our top-rated staff' as opposed to getting an operating system programmed by a bunch of college CS geeks.
I think Bob needs to realize that companies don't need to know they're using OSS because a company that uses it can be every bit as professional as he thinks Microsoft is. If OSS doesn't work because it doesn't work for the consumer as well as Microsoft does, then why is that so many web servers are running Apache on (likely) some version of Red Hat?
I could be wrong on this (if so, pleas be polite when correcting me) but I remember reading that the mac OS has only been Unix based since OSX. The transition from 9.x to X was the adoption of a modified BSD kernel (Darwin BSD actually). Before which, I don't believe the mac ever was a unix system.
Update:
I just got 1.0.6 and I'm glad to report that Lightningdonkey is working just fine. Although I wasn't refering to the firesomething extension only. I was commenting on the slew of decent, if not actually good extensions that have been lost in the dust bin of 0.8 - 1.0PR obsolescence.
Now if only they could fix a bug that would get authors to update their extensions to the new browser version. I miss my FireGoat browswer
(yes, I know there's a way to fix firesomething, but I haven't had time and it's just annoying to install an extension to get an error saying that it's for an older version)
I thank you for a very valuable new perspective on the topic. And I will share with you why I have the perspective that I do.
I grew up in a lower middle class family in a nice town with good parents, but as a teenager, I fit the stereotype for another highschool shooter. 5 brain surgeries had made me a pariah in every sense of the word and I have even had someone pull a gun on me (shot two different times) for such blind hatred bred from fear and misunderstanding. A good deal of the stories I have heard about the media 'provoking' some youth to kill another are acts commited by those who come from respectable homes.(I'm not saying those are the only cases that happen, I'm merely referring to the ones blamed on music and games mostly) Despite the good parenting, enough of the people they knew beat them down to the point of snapping. I was the perfect model for this situation of an otherwise good kid pushed too far, and there were even plenty of times I wished that I could have lived up to it. Psychologists at school 'knew' that I would snap and they were just waiting for it to happen.
I, also, came out fine. I'm one of the few graduates of my high school who finished college and one of an even smaller number that got a job afterwards. The world was not a 'great place' growing up even with good parenting. Through junior high and high school I thought that everyone should die because they either deserved it or it would be a merciful escape from the torment they would receive from those I used to think deserved to die. I've come a long way from that.
There are extreme cases on both sides of an issue. What I had been waiting for on this particular topic was a good, sound argument that wasn't just trying to mess with someone's emotions to get a vote. I thank you for sharing your side and giving me another way of thinking of it. I'm not saying I've pulled a flakey 180 on my stance, but you've provided some good insight to something I hadn't considered before. Again, thank you.
On the topic of regulations, how effective would the tobaco and alcohol laws be if all vendors sold freely without checking the age of the buyer? If nobody enforces the regulations, they don't work. I am not saying that the current rating system is just fine and dandy the way it is, but actually 'using' the rating system would result in a dramatic lack of substance for the pro-restriction crowd to argue about.
;)
And to advocate the devil a little more, I'll return to the battle cry "I played violent games all my life and I turned out fine." Yes, I've used this one before and there is a pretty decent reason why I continue to use it with little fear of logical reply:
The majority of those that would call themselves 'experts' on the topic will tell you that each generation is becoming more and more technology savvy than us that came previously. Children today are grasping new technology much more rapidly today than the youth of even 5 years ago. If that is the case (and I've never seen an arugment otherwise) then why are the younger generations somehow 'weaker' to the influence that technology insinuates upon the user? Why has the issue been almost completely dropped on violent movies as well?
Did we somehow lose the gene that allows us to tell fantasy from reality?</sarcasm>
So now we fast-forward to a dismal future of overly regulated entertainment, and junior can probably still get games without being asked his age or at least he's able to convince mom that the game isn't really that bad. I really doubt that a majority of people would vote to put legal restrictions on video games with severity that is comparable to that of tobaco and alcohol because of this: Despite the fact that it raises a huge debate, I have yet to meet a single game restriction advocate that thinks that games are as dangerous as smoking as drinking. And that's why mom may still buy GTA:Idaho for junior, because she won't be slapped with any sort of 'contributing to the deliquency of a minor' charge.
The reason that I continue to defend games on this topic time and time again is because the attack upon games is almost always nothing but demagogical sophistry. I refuse to stay quiet and let people attempt to pass meaningless legislation to create a helmet-head state where the laws protect to point of smothering when there isn't even a real supporting statement that can't be refuted with nothing more than a lack of evidence. You really can't make an argument about how something affects a child regardless of upbringing (or lack thereof)
I have to admit, this has been fun
And in playing the devil's advocate, you earn my respect. I love to advocate the devil ;)
/. lean more towards games is drawing from the fact that there is likely to be a large number of readers here who aren't too dissimilar from me in thier early childhood gaming experience. I played Wolfenstien 3D when it first came out and Doom, Heretic, and Hexen after that at the same age that proposed legislations are claiming to protect. All this and I have never been foolish enough to consider the majority of what I see in most entertainment as acceptable behavior.
With that in mind, here's my counter-counterpoint:
I do understand your main point, but where the scales in
Also, provided that a person has an understanding and acceptance of basic moral concepts (yes, I know how broad that can be) that decry things like theft and violence, neurochemical changes resulting from a video game are quite impossible to result in the dramatic behavior problems that these conversatives speak of unless these games are played to an extent that would consistute as brainwashing.
Neurochemical changes do take place as a result of gameplay regardless of age, but to train a child into deviant behavior shows both the excessive amount of time invested into the game and the lack of parentally learned behaviors that would provide a child with the knowledge that video games, just like cartoons, aren't real and should not be treated as such.
Which goes to show that deviant behavior as a result in gameplay is largely due to parental neglect.
I usually like to debate issues from both sides as well, but this is one that doesn't allow both sides to be fairly portrayed because those that would have stronger restrictions on games are consistently leaving gigantic holes in their logic.
Fun: yes
Interesting: yes
But to suggest that we are powerless in the face of the (often misinterpreted) messages that video games portray is pure insanity. I refuse to stand for any politician telling me that I need to vote on their proposal because I am mentally incapable of resisting some 'evil influence of immoral games'.
Seriously. I find it kind of hysterical that /. reports that Blizzard has been removing official forum posts on duping instructions and then we provide a link to someone with unofficial instructions. But now that the link is /.ed, we just helped Blizzard get rid of more sites with dupe bug instructions.
;)
If this story dupes, check the unofficial instructions link to see if it changed
</silliness>
Given your reply, I should rephrase my stance on the human race's desire for a quick fix: We have always wanted a quick fix (or at least an excuse), but now with the internet, that excuse is just a few clicks away. Not all technology is bad, but some of it enables us to become more reliant on it to find the answer; not always the correct answer, but the answer that we want to hear.
The only reason that I see the quick fix trend as growing in any sort of way is with the advent of ordering that solution and having it shipped to your home the next day courtesy of www.$foo.com makes it so much easier to find the answers we want to hear. And while modern medicine and technology produces many marvels, a great deal of these quick solutions people are finding on the internet are nostrums in every way that snake oil was 100 years ago. These modern faux cures are more attractive because you don't even have to leave your home to look for it.
I don't think it's just the web that's making people out to be fools lately. Personally, I think the root of it is peoples' growing desire for instant gratification. I think most people would rather not admit that they have the flu and that they'll feel miserable for two weeks until they get over it. Most of people I've met would rather look up symptoms on the net and find some condition that tells them they would only need to take 150mg of $foo for two days and be done that much quicker. The wealth of misinformation on the internet is a definate player in this field, but I think the root of the problem stems from the desire for a quick fix.
Trust me, I have no problem with sex at all, and I personally think that most(not all) Americans are either way too uptight about sex or just careless and stupid about it. I don't mind eye candy in a video game either, but I'm not sure you got the point I'm making. Where as most everyone says it's wrong to rate a game based upon a woman's proportions, I think the raters do have a point when a female character is made only for her sex appeal to be used as a marketing scheme and major selling point of the game. And remember, this is the 'E' rating the ESRB is talking about. I somehow doubt that /. has so many 5 year old readers. They're not talking about all games with 'naughty' content to be banned or anything. They're just saying that a game with characters made purely for sex-appeal-marketing shouldn't get a rating that would allow a 6 year old to buy it.
I agree completely with Brandybuck. Too many of these sexy females in games are anatomically impossible. Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.
Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is. It's usually completely unrealistic, even in comparisson to the game. I think these games get the ratings they do because distributors know that those too young to buy the game will just want it that much more (even if it's just a little) because it's really cool and they know that they're not supposed to have it.
There's two points to consider about your argument:
1. MTV lost it's M because it knew how to pander to what they deemed to be the 'popular' crowd. iTunes music videos could get a little more steam for being able to let users download the videos they want and create a playlist. It's just like the merits of iTunes vs. radio. The user can tailor it to what they want instead of hoping they'll play your favorite song.
2. There was a previously mentioned idea of the capability of video-out jacks which could turn an iPod into less of a poor substitute for a portable TV and more of a portable video library to hook up without bringing a case full of DVDs. It's a long shot, but when people have already created a Linux distro for the iPod, who knows how we'll hack a new format.
Does anyone see the hilarity of an Apple article reported by MSNBC and an Microsoft related ad in the middle of it on 3 out of 5 refreshes?
I seem to recall Steve Jobs mentioning that video was never meant to be portable. If memory serves, that was only one or two years ago.
Fast forward and any technology statement can and will be proven wrong by technology advances, customer demand, or the latter despite the lack of the former followed by several years of beta testing that people will call 1G.
Regardless, I'm still looking forward to what Apple can bring to the less than booming world of portable video players. And does anyone know when Microsoft is supposed to release a contender to this possible product?
The biggest problem with a vigilante company using DDoS to attack spammers is that they could end up protecting them in a way. If a spam king decoy came out of hiding to sue this 'security' company and took the fall after winning the case, that case could set up a legal precent to help protect spammers. One goes down for the 'good' of the group.
This is why I install almost everything with a DVD sized distro so far, not to discredit anyone:
;)
1. I'm still not totally familiar with all the ins and outs of Linux systems, so until I get more proficient with them, I find it easier to have all the dependancies there to start and worry about getting rid of unused ones when I learn how to tell the difference.
2. I learn/experiment with a myriad of progamming languages, web development tools and technolgies, so it's nice to have all the options there so I test for myself what programs and interfaces work best for me without having to worry about installing and dependancies in between tests.
This is just my methodology, which will probably change with time and experience, but that's what I find to be the appeal of Linux; not only are there eight million different tools for any given job, each tool comes in roughly 12 different assorted shapes and sizes
One of the reasons I'm looking forward to Plasma is the same reason I like using 4CD/DVD install distros in general. I install just about everything to start, then I weed out what I don't want/need until I might have something that looks like a candied-out SimpleKDE with a few extra tools.
The point is how much detail you can gather about someone, their personal information, and where they live just through a search engine. Google isn't the only possible culprit for this kind of thing either. If you take a look at most search engines that have an image only search, you can gather a wealth of information and scanned records that allow so many people out there to commit identity theft without even sorting through the trash.
I'm not trying to give (bad) advice, but some people have information about them on the net that they never knew was out there. Back in the early days of the identity theft scare, there were plenty of articles online urging people to be careful about what information they disclose about themselves on the internet and what may be out there without them even posting anything (see also: telephone directories).
Never before have I been happier to keep myself unlisted.
Well, as long as they couldn't hack past the browser, I guess they decided to go for the site all about the browser. Makes sense in a sick sort of way.
The sad truth of that statement is that it seems like that what SCO's actually using as 'evidence'.