Right, and like I said - that kind of stuff is absurd. He wanted the rules changed in a way that would impact *everyone* - that's the bad kind of accomodation.
See how it's not just black and white? If there had been a way to let that guy play professional golf in a way that wouldn't give any kind of advantage or change play for everyone else, then that would be fine. Alas, for the guy you mention, using a golf cart is considered to be an edge.
There are reasonable accomodations and then there are unreasonable ones. I've already given my opinion on how to tell the difference, and I think I was reasonably clear when doing so.
Just because *some* people want to have unreasonable accomodations made doesn't make *all* accomodations unreasonable, nor does providing reasonable accomodations put us on a slippery slope.
Are you seriously suggesting that Stephen Hawking suffers from "A condition in which a patient is unable to speak or follow simple commands and does not respond in any psychologically meaningful way."
I said persistent vegetative state, and I meant persistent vegetative state.
Actually, that's a perfect example of the principle I'm talking about:
There are accomodations that can be made that would allow this guy to go to school without impacting everyone else. He can go on-line or he could go in person, assuming he's able to be somewhat mobile. If he hadn't had such useless parents, your guy probably could have gone back to school. He isn't a vegetable, not by a long shot, but it sounds like he was being treated like one.
Having these options does not negatively effect the education that other students would get (might even enhance it for some) and it could have been the difference between a full life and one confined to a bed.
As long as accomodations don't ruin the value of a thing for everyone else, then I think we have an obligation to provide those accomodations. For things that can't be made more commodious - the NBA, etc. - well, that's life. I don't think anyone is asking for such ridiculous accomodations anyway.
If it were possible to add something to Tennis or Football that would allow a two-fingered person to play without changing the game for able-bodied people, then yes.
This is not about Tennis or Football. This is about a video game, a video game where the addition of a customizeable GUI would allow disabled people to play without having any impact at all on able-bodied people.
Everyone seems to be going to the absurd extreme of thinking "And next they'll want to make Physics PhD programs open to people in persistent vegatative states! And the NFL open to people with no arms or legs!" That is not what is being talked about, and going to such an absurd argument isn't insightful - it's the exact opposite, and it avoids speaking about the very real merits of the issue.
No, the alternative is to do something in cases where something *can* be done to help disabled folks do stuff that everyone else can do.
We're not talking about redesigning the planet so that people in chairs can get about - we're talking about adding a bit of GUI customization so that people who were able to play the game BEFORE a recent update borked it for them can play the game again. Nobody is suggesting that everyone be hobbled so that we all compete at the same level - just that, when possible, things be added on to allow more people to use them.
There is a line where it becomes absurd to try to accomodate - Stephen Hawking will never play in the NBA - but I think we're rather far from that line when we're talking about something like a customizeable GUI.
In this case, able-bodied players will not be affected in the slightest. Nobody is calling for the creation of a Handicapper General.
A good friend of mine, who was suffering of adult onset leukemia, played SWG for quite a while because it was both fun and accessible, if pretty buggy. If she were around still, I shudder when I think what would happen to Sony.
That's the thing - many people look at games like this as more than a game, and it is more than a game, it can be a kind of lifeline.
I used to play, and on my server there was a girl who passed from leukemia - to her friends in-game it was more than a game too, as they organized a charity benefit after her death, gave a bunch of money to an organization. Things like that show that these sorts of games aren't just about dollars and cents.
Your difficulties getting laid aren't due to your geekiness - they're due to your being an asshole who parrots back Ayn Rand.
If we lived in a barren, red in tooth and claw world where only bare survival was possible, then I might begin to see the value in the purely cut-throat beliefs you express. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world of absurd abundance, one where we certainly can help those who are less fortunate, if we choose to.
You don't choose to - that's fine. If that's the case, then live up to your own ideals and get the fuck out. You want each individual to rely solely on their own merits? Then no society for you, chum. Every facet of your life is subsidized in some way by other people. You just happen to be lucky enough to be in a position where it isn't as glaringly obvious to you as it is to some guy like Nick Dupre.
Nobody's saying ruin everything, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator so that everyone is perfectly equal and we all have rainbows and ponies - they're just asking for simple things like the ability to make the control set-up for one of their primary ways of interacting with others (and ask yourself just how bad off you'd have to be in order to find SWG a primary form of interaction...) a little easier.
We live in a world of shocking abundance, and whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, one of the responsibilities of taking part in that is helping others when they NEED it. If you don't think that being stuck in a chair, hooked up to a ventillator and able to only use 2 fingers qualifies as "need" then all I can say is that I'm horribly sorry for your parents - it must be heartbreaking to have such a worthless creature as yourself for a child.
Back then, it was quite frequent for canvasses to be reused. Some very interesting works have been found by looking under the surface work, but usually it's just crap.
In the case of Leonardo, I would not be at all surprised if he was a fan of leaving such "easter eggs" in his paintings.
... assuming that I can also have unfettered access to what the politicians are doing as well. Let me listen in on their "private" and personal conversations, let me access their bank records, let me track their credit card purchases, online behavior, and email - let me get all the info on them that they can get on me, and I'll be the first kid on my block to agree they can do the same to me.
I wonder - if such access were to be given to the citizenry, how many elected officials would commit suicide the day before it went into effect?
I've 2GB of RAM and I don't have any of the slowing problems - huge maps, long game sessions etc. It's quite a bit of game to get in to, but now that I've begun mastering the details of the interface (how to get all cities to follow the same build queue, etc) it is ROCKING.
I don't care if many people believe they have souls - until they can provide some empirical evidence to back up that belief it is absolutely irrelevant to any discussion of scientific and technologic issues.
You say that morality - a sense of good/evil - has kept us from destroying ourselves. I say bullshit - I can cite numerous reasons for not engaging in various "immoral" acts that are based purely on empirical evidence and things that don't rely on hand-waving and the invoking of some supreme being.
If your beliefs comfort you, then that's wonderful and nice for you - but your beliefs, in the absence of evidence (your faith, in other words) has absolutely nothing to do with science, has no relevance to science, and has no place in any sort of scientific discussion. Nor do mine. Nor do the beliefs of any one person or any group of people.
Just because "many people" believe in something doesn't give it validity. Many people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, and yet one man with a telescope was able to prove that it isn't.
You state that because this recent development involves humans that it is somehow special and thus necessitates discussion. Why? What makes humans so special? Don't wave your hands and say "souls" - I'm not buying that. Make an argument based on facts, on things that impartial observers can agree on, that can be demonstrated to have at least some basis in the objective world.
Is it possible to have a conversation about science that doesn't bring in unprovable spiritual stuff, like souls etc?
There are plenty of reasons for doing or not doing stuff that aren't based on spirituality/religion/moral beliefs - reasons that can be expressed in terms that are related to the actual universe we inhabit, terms that are more or less empirical and objective, rather than based on purely subjective beliefs that vary from person to person based on whim and caprice.
I am not saying that people shouldn't have their own morality - they will or they won't, and it's none of my business if they do or don't - but I am saying that attempting to apply an individual's moral framework that is, by definition, personal and subjective to something that is, by definition, impersonal and objective, is pointless at best and lethal at worst.
No, the polls are showing that 1 in 5 of the responses to the polls are claiming that they have a 360, and that it is having problems. This is much different than 1 in 5 360's actually having problems.
If someone brings suit, and loses, and is deemed, in the eyes of the judge (or some group of judges, or some other body) to have filed a stupid lawsuit, then I think yes, they should have to pay.
In the case above, the RIAA could bring suit, but the person *being sued* would not be liable for any legal expenses but their own (unless they agree otherwise in the settlement) - RIAA would be on the hook for it.
If I take an action and that action is injurious to others AND "stupid" (whatever that means) then I should be responsible. But if I take no action - if someone else sues me over something "stupid" - then I shouldn't be responsible as I didn't initiate anything.
Granted, all of this hinges on what's "stupid" - on the surface, many lawsuits sound phenomenally stupid - hell, you can spin anything to make it sound stupid - Roe v. Wade, Miranda, whatever, pick any piece of landmark adjudication and if you give it a/. style summary it'll sound stupid. So it very well may be that it would cost more in time and effort to determine what is in fact stupid and what is just being made to seem stupid. (And the reverse is also true - many things that are absurd can be made to sound quite reasonable if you choose your terms carefully.)
Anyway - my thought is that this particular lawsuit is pretty silly for several reasons:
1) Microsoft is actually trying to address the problem. Why sue someone when they're already taking what actions they can to fix a problem?
2) It's a game console. What "damages" could there possibly have been? I have not heard a single report of houses burning down or any kind of *real* damage from this. Loss of play time is not, in my opinion, a damage.
3) Forced recalls - why, exactly? Many people *aren't* having problems. The ones who *aren't* having problems have no need to send their units in (and probably just wouldn't comply with a recall). People who *are* having problems will be getting their units replaced. What, exactly, would a recall do that isn't already being done? Shame them or something?
It just doesn't make *any* sense to me. If MS were to have said "Hey, fuck you - caveat emptor and all that shit" then yeah, sue em. But they sound like they're being pretty reasonable about how they're handling the problem, so again, what's the point? Lawsuits are there to force actions when the appropriate action isn't being taken, which is not the case here. (Or doesn't seem to be)
It is to indicate the these companies are only interested in $$$$$$$.
My god, man, you've blown the case wide open! Extra! Extra! Read all about it: FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION ONLY INTERESTED IN PROFIT! Your keen insight and penetrating analysis of this situation will doubtless earn you a special place in history.
I always filled out my checks to Bell$outh & $BC. And I was amused my this "personal joke" that the banks did't have a problem cashing them. Sorry if you didn't/don't get it.
Not only are you an ace journalistic style type of investigator, but you're a brilliant satirist as well! I don't even know why you wasted your time apologizing to some guy who *clearly* is too stupid to get the vastly amusing joke, but I sure am glad you took the time to explain it!
Well, I'm sure you have much more important things to do than dilly-dally around on/., but before you go, what would happen if you replaced the "C" in "SBC" as well? That'd show those money grubbing bastards! DOLLARS *and* CENTS! Get it? It might take awhile, because the humor is so deep, but it'll come to you, I am sure.
And the unfortunate, extremely desperate people who didn't get one before it sold out are having to pay triple the price on Ebay. Just lame Microsoft, LAME!
It isn't as if this is something like insulin and MSFT is the only supplier, you know.
Unfortunate? Hardly. Extremely desperate? Ok. "HAVING to pay triple the price"? Only if they're unable to exhibit the least iota of self-control.
It is a consumer electronics product, a luxury item, and MS played this exactly right in order to make the most out of the market. It was an excellent marketing effort, and that's what they have a responsibility to do.
It may surprise you, but if everyone who wanted one was able to get one right off, they'd probably sell far fewer in the long run, and generate much less hype and buzz.
Really, even movies and books aren't art, then - they are not entirely passive things, they do require the viewer or reader to make choices (minimal choices, and certainly films and books don't react, but the material is still processed differently depending on what choices the audience makes).
Authorial control is never absolute - it is a matter of degree. Movies and books tend to have more, video games tend to have less. Some movies and books allow less control than others A book or film might go into great detail about some aspect of the story - that removes some choice from the audience in how to interpret that aspect. Or a book or film might gloss over certain aspects, which allows the audience to fill in the blanks and thus have choice. A fine example of the former would be a Dicken's novel where every last detail of certain environments is spelled out in (excruciating) detail. An example of the latter would be Episode III where Palpatine is talking about the Force being used to create life - it is never made certain that Palpatine "fathered" Anakin in this way.
Still, who has been given the "right" to spend that money? My complaint here is that nobody has such a right.
By joining the EU, they gave permission to have their money spent for them. I don't know how much clearer I can make that statement. By joining the EU they gave the right to other people how some of their money is spent. By being part of a larger whole, and getting the privilleges and advantages of such, they also take on the responsibilities and disadvantages involved.
Especially when it comes to paying for costs and risks from a choice.
Right. They made a choice to join the EU. One of the costs and risks of that was that sometimes their money would be spent in ways that don't directly benefit them.
If you voluntarily live in a certain location, you should accept any risks or costs of that location not pay for them with public funds. The US (where I live) has an extreme example of this in coastal development.
This is not, in fact, how things actually work in the US. Millions of dollars get spent on crazy shit here all the time - bridges in Alaska that connect two barely habitable islands, for example. Subsidizing farmers to *not* grow crops.
There is also a benefit to diverse living arrangements. If people didn't live on the coasts - in other words, if they weren't subsidized to do so in various ways - we'd have more crowding in areas that are, without subsidies, much better places to live.
You seem to be advocating some sort of "everyone for themselves" thing. Which sounds great in theory, but in practice tends to not end up well - old people eating cat-food, that sort of thing.
Some people call me a socialist, as if that's a bad thing.
What I think is being neglected here is this: I wasn't presenting some sort of complete and 100% justified argument. I was making a quick response to a comment that I felt didn't have any thought to it that was made in an informal medium.
The original comment I was responding to indicated that the poster felt that if we simply did away with *all* security measures that would be a good thing. I highly disagree with that, and put forth an example of why.
Was it a great example? Hardly, and I can accept that. In the 30 seconds or so I took to type out my reply, I didn't bother getting into hundreds of details and side issues all around - all the nuances of the argument. I didn't feel that in this context it was important.
So, tell you what, let me present my argument in favor of airport security measures:
1) There are people who wish to use airliners as weapons. Whether they wish to crash them into buildings or use them to "count coupe" and spit in the eye of the great Satan is irrelevant.
2) Some of those people are extremely intelligent, well trained, motivated, and well funded.
3) Some of those people are idiots. (Witness that shoe-bomber guy. Had he gone to the bathroom for privacy rather than tried to set his shoes on fire in front of people, that scenario would have played out much more differently, I'm sure)
4) The people from number 2 will be extremely difficult to stop without incredibly strict measures - absurd measures, in my opinion. We should think about the people from number 2, but we should absolutely not form our security policy around them - there's just no way to make something airtight without placing an undue burden on people. Fortunately, such people are, I believe, fairly rare.
5) The people from number 3, however, are relatively easy to dissuade or stop. These people are much more common than the people described in 2. These people are usually going to make any number of obvious mistakes - mistakes which can be caught at a number of times as they wend through the process. If nothing is done to take advantage of their stupidity and lack of planning, these people are every bit as dangeorous as the people from number 2.
6) Any security setting will have exploitable holes or weak links. People from 2 will be able to find the ones that have not been plugged - and, while spending time thinking about those kinds of holes and weak links is a good idea, spending too many resources on such things is counter productive.
7) A security sytem comprised of multiple checks, however, will tend to have a greater chance of catching the people from number 3. Stupid, ill prepared people will make mistakes - having more ways for them to make mistakes allows for more chances of catching those mistakes.
8) Even if possible (almost certainly it isn't) extreme, airtight security or even just "fantastically great" security and protection from people from number 2 is likely an obscenely expensive proposition - to the point where it is prohibitive. It is, however, possible to diffuse a great number of risks posed by the people from number 3, and it is not prohibitively expensive to do so.
9) The measures taken to weed out the stupid individuals should, ideally, be plentiful (more mistakes), passive (less harassment of other passengers) and relatively inexpensive in terms of manpower (fewer mistakes on the part of security personell) and money (better spent elsewhere).
10) Voice analysis (passive) combined with facial recognition (passive) combined with body language analysis (passive) combined with a database check to look for various warning flags (passive) combined with metal detection (mostly passive) combined with chemical sniffers (passive) combined with x-ray (mostly passive) combined with observant security guards (passive) would provide a great number of opportunities for catching idiotic terrorists while also being relatively benign to everyone else.
11) Not all the people from category 3 are going to be "terrorists." Some
I didn't respond to your post because you're playing a rhetorical game, and not making an actual argument. You keep invoking Gitmo as an example of what people might do using my argument as justification.
More clearly: You're saying that, because *some* people would use my argument to justify their actions that it is a bad argument.
I disagree with that premise.
The Bush cabal makes the argument that they're spreading freedom, too. Is "freedom" now tainted because some criminals have decided to hide behind it in order to make their crimes more palatable?
You earlier made the argument that removing some laws might lead to better behavior. There are some people who've murdered in the name of removing laws - does that now mean that your argument is invalid because some loon hijacked it?
Sony claims that they are unaware of any case where their rootkit caused damages to customers.
Which is irrelevant. If I were to get my rootkit installed on Sony's machines, even if I didn't do any damage, I can't imagine they wouldn't go after me like Star Jones after the last Snackwell.
The Sony executives responsible for releasing this thing into the wild should get the exact same punishment any other criminal would get for distributing millions of copies of a trojan into the wild. Maybe if that were to happen (dream on!) - maybe if a few corporate execs were put in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison, forbidden from using a phone or a computer - treated like the criminals they are - people would rethink this crap...
One, is that if you play an MMO, you're paying for a consistent (more or less) game world. The experience may change over time, but generally it'll be fairly consistent. Completely gutting everything... not good.
Two, is that this is pretty interesting from a game design challenge aspect. I played SWG way back when it first launched. I've sampled the Combat Upgrade, and I'm debating sampling the NGE - not because I'm interested in playing the game again, but because I'm interested in the concept of the whole MMO overhaul deal. It's kind of like how people who aren't terribly interested in getting plastic surgery done can still be fascinated by watching the procedure on a Discovery show.
From an entertainment standpoint, I think SWG is a miserable failure. One person I know said that it was a spreadsheet with a 3D interface, and that's about as apt a description as any I could think of.
From a game design standpoint, as a learning experience, as an example of what kinds of things can go right and what kinds of things can go so very, very wrong, as a window into the MMO business world, it's interesting. I found the recent/. Q&A with Smedley to be interesting - it was very clear that the one hand doesn't know what's going on with the other, and yet, they are still somehow managing to keep this sucker alive.
I think that, at one of those schools that's now offering a degree in game design (or whatever they're calling it) SWG would be a very fine bit of learning material.
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Right, and like I said - that kind of stuff is absurd. He wanted the rules changed in a way that would impact *everyone* - that's the bad kind of accomodation.
See how it's not just black and white? If there had been a way to let that guy play professional golf in a way that wouldn't give any kind of advantage or change play for everyone else, then that would be fine. Alas, for the guy you mention, using a golf cart is considered to be an edge.
There are reasonable accomodations and then there are unreasonable ones. I've already given my opinion on how to tell the difference, and I think I was reasonably clear when doing so.
Just because *some* people want to have unreasonable accomodations made doesn't make *all* accomodations unreasonable, nor does providing reasonable accomodations put us on a slippery slope.
Are you seriously suggesting that Stephen Hawking suffers from "A condition in which a patient is unable to speak or follow simple commands and does not respond in any psychologically meaningful way."
I said persistent vegetative state, and I meant persistent vegetative state.
Actually, that's a perfect example of the principle I'm talking about:
There are accomodations that can be made that would allow this guy to go to school without impacting everyone else. He can go on-line or he could go in person, assuming he's able to be somewhat mobile. If he hadn't had such useless parents, your guy probably could have gone back to school. He isn't a vegetable, not by a long shot, but it sounds like he was being treated like one.
Having these options does not negatively effect the education that other students would get (might even enhance it for some) and it could have been the difference between a full life and one confined to a bed.
As long as accomodations don't ruin the value of a thing for everyone else, then I think we have an obligation to provide those accomodations. For things that can't be made more commodious - the NBA, etc. - well, that's life. I don't think anyone is asking for such ridiculous accomodations anyway.
Why else do you think they call him Mr. Fantastic?
If it were possible to add something to Tennis or Football that would allow a two-fingered person to play without changing the game for able-bodied people, then yes.
This is not about Tennis or Football. This is about a video game, a video game where the addition of a customizeable GUI would allow disabled people to play without having any impact at all on able-bodied people.
Everyone seems to be going to the absurd extreme of thinking "And next they'll want to make Physics PhD programs open to people in persistent vegatative states! And the NFL open to people with no arms or legs!" That is not what is being talked about, and going to such an absurd argument isn't insightful - it's the exact opposite, and it avoids speaking about the very real merits of the issue.
No, the alternative is to do something in cases where something *can* be done to help disabled folks do stuff that everyone else can do.
We're not talking about redesigning the planet so that people in chairs can get about - we're talking about adding a bit of GUI customization so that people who were able to play the game BEFORE a recent update borked it for them can play the game again. Nobody is suggesting that everyone be hobbled so that we all compete at the same level - just that, when possible, things be added on to allow more people to use them.
There is a line where it becomes absurd to try to accomodate - Stephen Hawking will never play in the NBA - but I think we're rather far from that line when we're talking about something like a customizeable GUI.
In this case, able-bodied players will not be affected in the slightest. Nobody is calling for the creation of a Handicapper General.
A good friend of mine, who was suffering of adult onset leukemia, played SWG for quite a while because it was both fun and accessible, if pretty buggy. If she were around still, I shudder when I think what would happen to Sony.
That's the thing - many people look at games like this as more than a game, and it is more than a game, it can be a kind of lifeline.
I used to play, and on my server there was a girl who passed from leukemia - to her friends in-game it was more than a game too, as they organized a charity benefit after her death, gave a bunch of money to an organization. Things like that show that these sorts of games aren't just about dollars and cents.
Your difficulties getting laid aren't due to your geekiness - they're due to your being an asshole who parrots back Ayn Rand.
If we lived in a barren, red in tooth and claw world where only bare survival was possible, then I might begin to see the value in the purely cut-throat beliefs you express. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world of absurd abundance, one where we certainly can help those who are less fortunate, if we choose to.
You don't choose to - that's fine. If that's the case, then live up to your own ideals and get the fuck out. You want each individual to rely solely on their own merits? Then no society for you, chum. Every facet of your life is subsidized in some way by other people. You just happen to be lucky enough to be in a position where it isn't as glaringly obvious to you as it is to some guy like Nick Dupre.
Nobody's saying ruin everything, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator so that everyone is perfectly equal and we all have rainbows and ponies - they're just asking for simple things like the ability to make the control set-up for one of their primary ways of interacting with others (and ask yourself just how bad off you'd have to be in order to find SWG a primary form of interaction...) a little easier.
We live in a world of shocking abundance, and whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, one of the responsibilities of taking part in that is helping others when they NEED it. If you don't think that being stuck in a chair, hooked up to a ventillator and able to only use 2 fingers qualifies as "need" then all I can say is that I'm horribly sorry for your parents - it must be heartbreaking to have such a worthless creature as yourself for a child.
Back then, it was quite frequent for canvasses to be reused. Some very interesting works have been found by looking under the surface work, but usually it's just crap.
In the case of Leonardo, I would not be at all surprised if he was a fan of leaving such "easter eggs" in his paintings.
... assuming that I can also have unfettered access to what the politicians are doing as well. Let me listen in on their "private" and personal conversations, let me access their bank records, let me track their credit card purchases, online behavior, and email - let me get all the info on them that they can get on me, and I'll be the first kid on my block to agree they can do the same to me.
I wonder - if such access were to be given to the citizenry, how many elected officials would commit suicide the day before it went into effect?
I've 2GB of RAM and I don't have any of the slowing problems - huge maps, long game sessions etc. It's quite a bit of game to get in to, but now that I've begun mastering the details of the interface (how to get all cities to follow the same build queue, etc) it is ROCKING.
I reject the very premise of your statement.
I don't care if many people believe they have souls - until they can provide some empirical evidence to back up that belief it is absolutely irrelevant to any discussion of scientific and technologic issues.
You say that morality - a sense of good/evil - has kept us from destroying ourselves. I say bullshit - I can cite numerous reasons for not engaging in various "immoral" acts that are based purely on empirical evidence and things that don't rely on hand-waving and the invoking of some supreme being.
If your beliefs comfort you, then that's wonderful and nice for you - but your beliefs, in the absence of evidence (your faith, in other words) has absolutely nothing to do with science, has no relevance to science, and has no place in any sort of scientific discussion. Nor do mine. Nor do the beliefs of any one person or any group of people.
Just because "many people" believe in something doesn't give it validity. Many people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, and yet one man with a telescope was able to prove that it isn't.
You state that because this recent development involves humans that it is somehow special and thus necessitates discussion. Why? What makes humans so special? Don't wave your hands and say "souls" - I'm not buying that. Make an argument based on facts, on things that impartial observers can agree on, that can be demonstrated to have at least some basis in the objective world.
Is it possible to have a conversation about science that doesn't bring in unprovable spiritual stuff, like souls etc?
There are plenty of reasons for doing or not doing stuff that aren't based on spirituality/religion/moral beliefs - reasons that can be expressed in terms that are related to the actual universe we inhabit, terms that are more or less empirical and objective, rather than based on purely subjective beliefs that vary from person to person based on whim and caprice.
I am not saying that people shouldn't have their own morality - they will or they won't, and it's none of my business if they do or don't - but I am saying that attempting to apply an individual's moral framework that is, by definition, personal and subjective to something that is, by definition, impersonal and objective, is pointless at best and lethal at worst.
No, the polls are showing that 1 in 5 of the responses to the polls are claiming that they have a 360, and that it is having problems. This is much different than 1 in 5 360's actually having problems.
If someone brings suit, and loses, and is deemed, in the eyes of the judge (or some group of judges, or some other body) to have filed a stupid lawsuit, then I think yes, they should have to pay.
/. style summary it'll sound stupid. So it very well may be that it would cost more in time and effort to determine what is in fact stupid and what is just being made to seem stupid. (And the reverse is also true - many things that are absurd can be made to sound quite reasonable if you choose your terms carefully.)
In the case above, the RIAA could bring suit, but the person *being sued* would not be liable for any legal expenses but their own (unless they agree otherwise in the settlement) - RIAA would be on the hook for it.
If I take an action and that action is injurious to others AND "stupid" (whatever that means) then I should be responsible. But if I take no action - if someone else sues me over something "stupid" - then I shouldn't be responsible as I didn't initiate anything.
Granted, all of this hinges on what's "stupid" - on the surface, many lawsuits sound phenomenally stupid - hell, you can spin anything to make it sound stupid - Roe v. Wade, Miranda, whatever, pick any piece of landmark adjudication and if you give it a
Anyway - my thought is that this particular lawsuit is pretty silly for several reasons:
1) Microsoft is actually trying to address the problem. Why sue someone when they're already taking what actions they can to fix a problem?
2) It's a game console. What "damages" could there possibly have been? I have not heard a single report of houses burning down or any kind of *real* damage from this. Loss of play time is not, in my opinion, a damage.
3) Forced recalls - why, exactly? Many people *aren't* having problems. The ones who *aren't* having problems have no need to send their units in (and probably just wouldn't comply with a recall). People who *are* having problems will be getting their units replaced. What, exactly, would a recall do that isn't already being done? Shame them or something?
It just doesn't make *any* sense to me. If MS were to have said "Hey, fuck you - caveat emptor and all that shit" then yeah, sue em. But they sound like they're being pretty reasonable about how they're handling the problem, so again, what's the point? Lawsuits are there to force actions when the appropriate action isn't being taken, which is not the case here. (Or doesn't seem to be)
It is to indicate the these companies are only interested in $$$$$$$.
/., but before you go, what would happen if you replaced the "C" in "SBC" as well? That'd show those money grubbing bastards! DOLLARS *and* CENTS! Get it? It might take awhile, because the humor is so deep, but it'll come to you, I am sure.
My god, man, you've blown the case wide open! Extra! Extra! Read all about it: FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION ONLY INTERESTED IN PROFIT! Your keen insight and penetrating analysis of this situation will doubtless earn you a special place in history.
I always filled out my checks to Bell$outh & $BC. And I was amused my this "personal joke" that the banks did't have a problem cashing them. Sorry if you didn't/don't get it.
Not only are you an ace journalistic style type of investigator, but you're a brilliant satirist as well! I don't even know why you wasted your time apologizing to some guy who *clearly* is too stupid to get the vastly amusing joke, but I sure am glad you took the time to explain it!
Well, I'm sure you have much more important things to do than dilly-dally around on
STICK IT TO THE MAN! WOO! WOO!
I don't get it. No one I know wants one of these things and yet they're running out of them? Something's not right here.
Yes - you're aparrently old enough to communicate with the outside world, but seemingly don't realize that you aren't the center of it.
And the unfortunate, extremely desperate people who didn't get one before it sold out are having to pay triple the price on Ebay. Just lame Microsoft, LAME!
It isn't as if this is something like insulin and MSFT is the only supplier, you know.
Unfortunate? Hardly. Extremely desperate? Ok. "HAVING to pay triple the price"? Only if they're unable to exhibit the least iota of self-control.
It is a consumer electronics product, a luxury item, and MS played this exactly right in order to make the most out of the market. It was an excellent marketing effort, and that's what they have a responsibility to do.
It may surprise you, but if everyone who wanted one was able to get one right off, they'd probably sell far fewer in the long run, and generate much less hype and buzz.
Really, even movies and books aren't art, then - they are not entirely passive things, they do require the viewer or reader to make choices (minimal choices, and certainly films and books don't react, but the material is still processed differently depending on what choices the audience makes).
Authorial control is never absolute - it is a matter of degree. Movies and books tend to have more, video games tend to have less. Some movies and books allow less control than others A book or film might go into great detail about some aspect of the story - that removes some choice from the audience in how to interpret that aspect. Or a book or film might gloss over certain aspects, which allows the audience to fill in the blanks and thus have choice. A fine example of the former would be a Dicken's novel where every last detail of certain environments is spelled out in (excruciating) detail. An example of the latter would be Episode III where Palpatine is talking about the Force being used to create life - it is never made certain that Palpatine "fathered" Anakin in this way.
Don't they know the reason that I use the web is because I don't like the phone?
Don't you know that you don't have to use this service if you don't want to?
Still, who has been given the "right" to spend that money? My complaint here is that nobody has such a right.
By joining the EU, they gave permission to have their money spent for them. I don't know how much clearer I can make that statement. By joining the EU they gave the right to other people how some of their money is spent. By being part of a larger whole, and getting the privilleges and advantages of such, they also take on the responsibilities and disadvantages involved.
Especially when it comes to paying for costs and risks from a choice.
Right. They made a choice to join the EU. One of the costs and risks of that was that sometimes their money would be spent in ways that don't directly benefit them.
If you voluntarily live in a certain location, you should accept any risks or costs of that location not pay for them with public funds. The US (where I live) has an extreme example of this in coastal development.
This is not, in fact, how things actually work in the US. Millions of dollars get spent on crazy shit here all the time - bridges in Alaska that connect two barely habitable islands, for example. Subsidizing farmers to *not* grow crops.
There is also a benefit to diverse living arrangements. If people didn't live on the coasts - in other words, if they weren't subsidized to do so in various ways - we'd have more crowding in areas that are, without subsidies, much better places to live.
You seem to be advocating some sort of "everyone for themselves" thing. Which sounds great in theory, but in practice tends to not end up well - old people eating cat-food, that sort of thing.
Some people call me a socialist, as if that's a bad thing.
What I think is being neglected here is this: I wasn't presenting some sort of complete and 100% justified argument. I was making a quick response to a comment that I felt didn't have any thought to it that was made in an informal medium.
The original comment I was responding to indicated that the poster felt that if we simply did away with *all* security measures that would be a good thing. I highly disagree with that, and put forth an example of why.
Was it a great example? Hardly, and I can accept that. In the 30 seconds or so I took to type out my reply, I didn't bother getting into hundreds of details and side issues all around - all the nuances of the argument. I didn't feel that in this context it was important.
So, tell you what, let me present my argument in favor of airport security measures:
1) There are people who wish to use airliners as weapons. Whether they wish to crash them into buildings or use them to "count coupe" and spit in the eye of the great Satan is irrelevant.
2) Some of those people are extremely intelligent, well trained, motivated, and well funded.
3) Some of those people are idiots. (Witness that shoe-bomber guy. Had he gone to the bathroom for privacy rather than tried to set his shoes on fire in front of people, that scenario would have played out much more differently, I'm sure)
4) The people from number 2 will be extremely difficult to stop without incredibly strict measures - absurd measures, in my opinion. We should think about the people from number 2, but we should absolutely not form our security policy around them - there's just no way to make something airtight without placing an undue burden on people. Fortunately, such people are, I believe, fairly rare.
5) The people from number 3, however, are relatively easy to dissuade or stop. These people are much more common than the people described in 2. These people are usually going to make any number of obvious mistakes - mistakes which can be caught at a number of times as they wend through the process. If nothing is done to take advantage of their stupidity and lack of planning, these people are every bit as dangeorous as the people from number 2.
6) Any security setting will have exploitable holes or weak links. People from 2 will be able to find the ones that have not been plugged - and, while spending time thinking about those kinds of holes and weak links is a good idea, spending too many resources on such things is counter productive.
7) A security sytem comprised of multiple checks, however, will tend to have a greater chance of catching the people from number 3. Stupid, ill prepared people will make mistakes - having more ways for them to make mistakes allows for more chances of catching those mistakes.
8) Even if possible (almost certainly it isn't) extreme, airtight security or even just "fantastically great" security and protection from people from number 2 is likely an obscenely expensive proposition - to the point where it is prohibitive. It is, however, possible to diffuse a great number of risks posed by the people from number 3, and it is not prohibitively expensive to do so.
9) The measures taken to weed out the stupid individuals should, ideally, be plentiful (more mistakes), passive (less harassment of other passengers) and relatively inexpensive in terms of manpower (fewer mistakes on the part of security personell) and money (better spent elsewhere).
10) Voice analysis (passive) combined with facial recognition (passive) combined with body language analysis (passive) combined with a database check to look for various warning flags (passive) combined with metal detection (mostly passive) combined with chemical sniffers (passive) combined with x-ray (mostly passive) combined with observant security guards (passive) would provide a great number of opportunities for catching idiotic terrorists while also being relatively benign to everyone else.
11) Not all the people from category 3 are going to be "terrorists." Some
I didn't respond to your post because you're playing a rhetorical game, and not making an actual argument. You keep invoking Gitmo as an example of what people might do using my argument as justification.
More clearly: You're saying that, because *some* people would use my argument to justify their actions that it is a bad argument.
I disagree with that premise.
The Bush cabal makes the argument that they're spreading freedom, too. Is "freedom" now tainted because some criminals have decided to hide behind it in order to make their crimes more palatable?
You earlier made the argument that removing some laws might lead to better behavior. There are some people who've murdered in the name of removing laws - does that now mean that your argument is invalid because some loon hijacked it?
Sony claims that they are unaware of any case where their rootkit caused damages to customers.
Which is irrelevant. If I were to get my rootkit installed on Sony's machines, even if I didn't do any damage, I can't imagine they wouldn't go after me like Star Jones after the last Snackwell.
The Sony executives responsible for releasing this thing into the wild should get the exact same punishment any other criminal would get for distributing millions of copies of a trojan into the wild. Maybe if that were to happen (dream on!) - maybe if a few corporate execs were put in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison, forbidden from using a phone or a computer - treated like the criminals they are - people would rethink this crap...
Nah. They have money. Money > Justice.
One, is that if you play an MMO, you're paying for a consistent (more or less) game world. The experience may change over time, but generally it'll be fairly consistent. Completely gutting everything ... not good.
/. Q&A with Smedley to be interesting - it was very clear that the one hand doesn't know what's going on with the other, and yet, they are still somehow managing to keep this sucker alive.
Two, is that this is pretty interesting from a game design challenge aspect. I played SWG way back when it first launched. I've sampled the Combat Upgrade, and I'm debating sampling the NGE - not because I'm interested in playing the game again, but because I'm interested in the concept of the whole MMO overhaul deal. It's kind of like how people who aren't terribly interested in getting plastic surgery done can still be fascinated by watching the procedure on a Discovery show.
From an entertainment standpoint, I think SWG is a miserable failure. One person I know said that it was a spreadsheet with a 3D interface, and that's about as apt a description as any I could think of.
From a game design standpoint, as a learning experience, as an example of what kinds of things can go right and what kinds of things can go so very, very wrong, as a window into the MMO business world, it's interesting. I found the recent
I think that, at one of those schools that's now offering a degree in game design (or whatever they're calling it) SWG would be a very fine bit of learning material.
Too bad they broke the game, though.