something that is annoying and ineffectual, but that will cost no lives or even a lot of money
Tell that to people falsely accused of being child molesters. You'll find they largely have their lives destroyed, and quite a few of them commit suicide as a direct consequence.
And while you're at it, tell it to your founding fathers, who were quite willing to stage a bloody revolution over something as dumb as taxes, that cost no lives... oh yeah, and the ideals of freedom and all that.
Yes, if they're starting to turn Germany into a totalitarian state again, I'm quite for stopping them by any means necessary, this time before it's too late.
If you think that justifies taking up arms against any government, you're a clueless and dangerous idiot; clearly, you have neither a knowledge of history nor a sense of proportion.
I know from my history lessons that things develop their own momentum, and if you want to stop something, your chances are higher the earlier you start to do something about it.
It's been less than two days now, and it is already becoming clear that this is not about kiddie porn at all, but about enabling censorship of the Internet. One member of parliament already wants to extend the blacklist to violent computer games "and other objectionable content", while the music and movie industry were among the first to congratulate on the passing of the law. If that doesn't give you shivers, I feel sorry for you.
It's a DNS-level block. All the pedos have to do is use some other DNS server, or set up their own, or use an anonymizer, or any of at least a dozen other simple, easy methods.
It will stop the real pedophiles for all of five minutes.
Which is an extremely easy to solve problem, especially when the cheat mode is official - just mark whether the score was reached with or without cheating, or even with how much cheating.
Because they're not actually interested in eliminating kiddie porn, or protecting children, or any of the other reasons they're giving.
If they were, what you say is exactly what they'd do. When the discussion started, some activist picked the danish block list and called up or mailed all german ISPs that hosted a site listed on that list. Surprise, almost all of them got shut down, and very quickly.
When I'm competing against other humans, "cheating" is an appropriate term.
In a single-player game, that I paid for, the interaction is between me and something owned by me. Its purpose is my entertainment. Challenge is part of that, but if I want to use an easy way, what could anyone possibly have against it? Seriously, that's like saying your favourite poet can only be read in candle light on a stormy night, because doing it any other way would ruin the atmosphere.
No, "cheating" does not describe this at all. There's no party that is being cheated on, after all.
In any way, this is certain to backfire on her. I wonder if she has any idea what she's doing here.
No, she doesn't. If anything outside of scientific experiments was ever strongly proven, then the fact that Ursula von der Leyen has no clue whatsoever about this topic she's been pushing.
She's stupid and/or mallicious, and very likely both. She should be forced to resign, and stripped of her pension.
Hitler's first steps in power were not to start war. It took him six years to attack Poland, even though he had always planned to do that.
What he did during those six years was consolidate his power by silencing dissenting voices. Censorship was one of the methods. Control of the media was another one.
Our german parliament has revived both of these yesterday.
Which means that no, we're not yet in a totalitarian state, but yes, the groundworks are being laid (again).
The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
It already did. So, by politician logic, they stopped caring about us at all.
The SPD (one of the two major parties) recently formed a technical consulting committee which helped the party leaders understand Internet and other modern technologies, and helped them campaign in these new mediums, etc.
Most of the committee walked out on them in disgust after yesterday's vote.
If people were really, honestly interested in fighting fanatic ideologies, they'd start with, you know, the fanatic ideologies. Start with religion. Heck, if you're a wussie, start with cults and leave the mainstream religions alone for the moment. There are several cults still in existence, unchallenged, who have single-handedly and directly killed more people than you can attribute to "killer games" even if you stick every school shooting on them that has a remote connection to someone who once met someone who knew someone who had once heard about one of those games.
Whenever politicians (or activists, for that matter) claim something must be outlawed, for the sake of (whatever), ask if the same problem exists elsewhere, without activities to make it illegal. If it does, they don't really care about and/or understand the problem they claim to be interested in.
Actually, there's a shorter version of the above. Start with the assumption that with politicians at least, that's always the case and look for evidence to the contrary.
If you still needed proof that our political system is crap, this is it.
The vast majority of politicians who voted "yes" on this topic could not even explain the base technologies if you asked them. Nor do they understand how their censorship law works, or what its consequences are. Despite having this pointed out to them repeatedly.
It's becoming rapidly clear, especially with the economic crisis happening at the same time, that we're ruled by people who're simply not good at ruling, nor much else for that matter. Their expertise is in politics, i.e. getting into power, not in anything that matters once you are in power.
If anyone shoots them all, I'll be there to applaud. And yes, I write that with my name on it. These people have nothing to lose and they act like it. While I'm not for violence, I'm starting to believe that at least the danger of violence and personal consequences is required or else our politicians will destroy us all - or, if you think about climate change, kill us all.
Funny how it takes but weeks to throw billions at mismanaged banks, but it's taken years and no end in sight to agree on matters vital to the survival of the damn planet.
Dude, everyone's medical records are kept secret - it's that privacy thing we sometimes talk about on/.,....
Not true. For people in positions of power where certain medical problems could lead to them being unfit for that position, it is fairly common to reveal those parts of the medical records. In this case, there is solid evidence that the minister of interior is suffering from a mental problem that impairs his judgement. He should show the medical records to disprove this fear, or step down. We don't allow people with bad vision to fly planes, and their medical records regarding eyesight are revealed to their employers. Why not for ministers?
Minority parties with a few specific points does not need to get a majority to change the world. If they get 10%, even 5%, the other parties will pick up their points.
See, the decision about who rules is made between the major parties. But a few percentage points can decide it one way or the other. So if by, say, changing your Internet policy to what the Pirate Party demands they think they can get those few percentage points back, they will.
And, of course, once the Pirate Party passes the 5% limit and gets a couple seats in parliament, they might become interesting coalition partners. And if you only have a few points, you can put all your focus on these, and your coalition partner knows that they have to give in on those, because you're not interested in anything else.
We shouldn't claim that as a fact if we have no actual evidence, i.e. the records.
There are several well-sourced articles on this question, and he shows all signs of it. Since the records are kept secret we do not know for sure, but the very fact that they are sealed when there's strong evidence that he's unfit for a position of responsibility only makes the assumption more likely.
This is the records on this particular problem I'm talking about, not any kind of general health records. I don't care if our minister of interior has cancer or bad teeth, but I do think it matters to the public at large whether or not his judgement is impeded due to a serious psychological problem.
When you read up a little on the history, views and personalities of the main politicians involved in this - Ursula von der Leyen and Wolfgang Schäuble - you find out quickly that they are both almost certainly borderline insane.
Schäuble is suffering from PTSD since that failed attack on him many years back. His medical records are kept secret.
von der Leyen is either a fanatic or crazy. The amount of disconnect from reality she displays certainly has a medical term, but I can't recall it right now. She's acting like the guy who insists on being Napoleon no matter what evidence to the contrary you come up with. You could show her a room full of scientific studies disproving each and every word she's ever said on the matter - and she wouldn't change her course one inch.
Quite frankly, these people are dangerous and criminally insane.
Interestingly, I can confirm those percentages. I run a free online game (see footer) where you can donate, if you want to. Whenever I checked, it was around 10% (+/- 2% maybe) of the long-term player base that had donated anything, ever. "long-term" here means that I don't count the accounts that go inactive within a few weeks, those people obviously just took a look and decided the game's not for them.
At the same time, those people who do give anything are often very generous. Again, confirmation there.
Does this work as a business model? Not for me (too few players) but then again I've never tried to make a living off what I consider a hobby. Very nice to know, however, that it can work. The problem is, of course, long-term viability. If your income depends crucially on a fairly small number of customers, you're always at risk of them moving elsewhere. Online gamers have a bit of a herd mentality, they often take their friends with them when they move somewhere else.
a fun platformer. (focused around killing, I suppose)
And that doesn't creep you out, when you think about it? Not even a little? A "fun platformer, focuesed around killing".
50 years ago, if you had told any WW2 survivor how much fun it is to sneak up on and kill people, they'd probably given you a solid beat-up, and that's if you are lucky.
Mainly when torture or other illegal activities become the primary focus of the game.
I hope you didn't mean that. For one, killing is just as illegal as torture. Two, let's not open a debate on whether torture or killing is "more ethical". I have an opinion on that that you don't want to hear. And frankly, in my mind either you have a problem with both, or neither. Everything else is just dishonest, disconnected from reality, or creepy.
At least with stuff like GTA:SA it's the openness that attracts people. You get to do whatever the hell you want. When the single defining element of a game is illegal and quite disturbing, then there may be an issue.
Agreed. Killing, stealing, etc. as a non-essential part of a game allows you to actually make a conscious decision about whether or not you want to use those methods or not. Well, GTA doesn't give you entirely free choice as you can't complete the storyline without some of these acts, but at least outside of the story it is entirely your decision. It even has consequences, however laughable they may be.
If what you say about MS and holes is true, why don't they just eliminate software sales to the general public and just limit it to a few official blessed vendors, so they can maintain strict integrated quality control?
Because they are just as locked-in to their own trap as everyone else. The moment they do something big and obvious like that, millions of consumers will start looking for alternatives.
Yes, you're right that they are very obviously not stopping to sell to everyone. That is exactly the trap I mean. MS survives because it is everywhere. Monopoly, lock-in, whatever you call it. They can't stop doing that or the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
Better yet, let them finally catch up with the other OS manufacturers and release an OS that can be used on a machine besides the ones that Apple sells.
That's not catching up, that's stepping down. Once you support generic hardware, there's nothing you can do about Cheap Chinese Chop selling the crappiest crap ever and your customers blaming you for the resulting crashes. MS knows that, and I'm pretty sure if they had a chance to dig themselves out of that hole, they would.
Apple intends to simply stay out of the hole in the first place.
if time were infinite all things would have an equal probability of happening.
Proof?
While you could potentially say "in infinite, time, everything has a probability of 1", I don't think that's a valid argument. Things with higher probabilities will still happen more often, and thus the entire argument hangs on the semantics of "probability".
The primary objective is to abduct and subdue people in different ways,
Like, say, Assassin's Creed? Or some of the less-well-known sneaker-shooters?
For some reason that's probably got to do with Hollywood depictions and gun fanatics, there's this impression in the world that shooting someone is a little non-ok, but stabbing someone is a horribly barbaric deed. Sorry, bloke, but that's the attackers POV. From the victim's POV, more distance doesn't make it any less real, painful or evil. Getting shot or getting stabbed isn't that much of a difference, and the location is usually more important in either case. In fact, getting shot is probably worse due to hydrostatic shock.
And if you absolutely want to make the connection to the real world, then while emotionally the creepy guy who abducts and kills someone appears "more evil", the guy who randomly shoots two dozen people is actually doing a lot more harm. So if I had to choose (and couldn't pick "neither"), I'd rather take the creepy "sneaky" guy and one body than the "heroic CS player" shooting cowboy, thank you.
So in summary: I reject your view that FPS games in general are any better than creepy "kill the victim" games. In both of them, people end up dead. Any attempt to declare one of them morally superior, more or less dangerous, etc. appears deranged to me, and powered by emotions (fear of the "creepy guy" vs. acceptance through familarity).
For the overall topic yes, but this specific branch of the thread shifted towards whether air or car travel in general was safer, focusing on the concept in general rather than the specific flight which served merely to prompt the inquiry.
And with that amount of generalisation, we should not argue with specifics of airline, airplane model or country, wouldn't you say?
Ok, this is becoming a "I'm right" contest, so I'll leave it here. I am serious, however, with my initial comment, and some of the replies only reinforce that - this "in case of doubt, we're talking about america" attitude does come across as arrogance to pretty much every foreigner.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, I'd love for this to be true, but it isn't.
What you applaud is not Europe getting better at democracy, it's one man's gesture against the constant getting worse.
something that is annoying and ineffectual, but that will cost no lives or even a lot of money
Tell that to people falsely accused of being child molesters. You'll find they largely have their lives destroyed, and quite a few of them commit suicide as a direct consequence.
And while you're at it, tell it to your founding fathers, who were quite willing to stage a bloody revolution over something as dumb as taxes, that cost no lives... oh yeah, and the ideals of freedom and all that.
Yes, if they're starting to turn Germany into a totalitarian state again, I'm quite for stopping them by any means necessary, this time before it's too late.
If you think that justifies taking up arms against any government, you're a clueless and dangerous idiot; clearly, you have neither a knowledge of history nor a sense of proportion.
I know from my history lessons that things develop their own momentum, and if you want to stop something, your chances are higher the earlier you start to do something about it.
It's been less than two days now, and it is already becoming clear that this is not about kiddie porn at all, but about enabling censorship of the Internet. One member of parliament already wants to extend the blacklist to violent computer games "and other objectionable content", while the music and movie industry were among the first to congratulate on the passing of the law. If that doesn't give you shivers, I feel sorry for you.
Not in the least.
It's a DNS-level block. All the pedos have to do is use some other DNS server, or set up their own, or use an anonymizer, or any of at least a dozen other simple, easy methods.
It will stop the real pedophiles for all of five minutes.
Which is an extremely easy to solve problem, especially when the cheat mode is official - just mark whether the score was reached with or without cheating, or even with how much cheating.
Because they're not actually interested in eliminating kiddie porn, or protecting children, or any of the other reasons they're giving.
If they were, what you say is exactly what they'd do. When the discussion started, some activist picked the danish block list and called up or mailed all german ISPs that hosted a site listed on that list.
Surprise, almost all of them got shut down, and very quickly.
Incidently, "delete instead of block" is the motto of the counter-movement - http://loeschenstattsperren.de/
When I'm competing against other humans, "cheating" is an appropriate term.
In a single-player game, that I paid for, the interaction is between me and something owned by me. Its purpose is my entertainment. Challenge is part of that, but if I want to use an easy way, what could anyone possibly have against it? Seriously, that's like saying your favourite poet can only be read in candle light on a stormy night, because doing it any other way would ruin the atmosphere.
No, "cheating" does not describe this at all. There's no party that is being cheated on, after all.
In any way, this is certain to backfire on her. I wonder if she has any idea what she's doing here.
No, she doesn't. If anything outside of scientific experiments was ever strongly proven, then the fact that Ursula von der Leyen has no clue whatsoever about this topic she's been pushing.
She's stupid and/or mallicious, and very likely both. She should be forced to resign, and stripped of her pension.
You've not read your history books, it seems.
Hitler's first steps in power were not to start war. It took him six years to attack Poland, even though he had always planned to do that.
What he did during those six years was consolidate his power by silencing dissenting voices. Censorship was one of the methods. Control of the media was another one.
Our german parliament has revived both of these yesterday.
Which means that no, we're not yet in a totalitarian state, but yes, the groundworks are being laid (again).
The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
It already did. So, by politician logic, they stopped caring about us at all.
The SPD (one of the two major parties) recently formed a technical consulting committee which helped the party leaders understand Internet and other modern technologies, and helped them campaign in these new mediums, etc.
Most of the committee walked out on them in disgust after yesterday's vote.
Yes, it is.
We need instructions on using OpenDNS posted to the daily evening news. If someone can accomplish that, in whatever way, he'll be my personal hero.
Quite frankly, this is dishonest to the extreme.
If people were really, honestly interested in fighting fanatic ideologies, they'd start with, you know, the fanatic ideologies. Start with religion. Heck, if you're a wussie, start with cults and leave the mainstream religions alone for the moment. There are several cults still in existence, unchallenged, who have single-handedly and directly killed more people than you can attribute to "killer games" even if you stick every school shooting on them that has a remote connection to someone who once met someone who knew someone who had once heard about one of those games.
Whenever politicians (or activists, for that matter) claim something must be outlawed, for the sake of (whatever), ask if the same problem exists elsewhere, without activities to make it illegal. If it does, they don't really care about and/or understand the problem they claim to be interested in.
Actually, there's a shorter version of the above. Start with the assumption that with politicians at least, that's always the case and look for evidence to the contrary.
If you still needed proof that our political system is crap, this is it.
The vast majority of politicians who voted "yes" on this topic could not even explain the base technologies if you asked them. Nor do they understand how their censorship law works, or what its consequences are. Despite having this pointed out to them repeatedly.
It's becoming rapidly clear, especially with the economic crisis happening at the same time, that we're ruled by people who're simply not good at ruling, nor much else for that matter. Their expertise is in politics, i.e. getting into power, not in anything that matters once you are in power.
If anyone shoots them all, I'll be there to applaud. And yes, I write that with my name on it. These people have nothing to lose and they act like it. While I'm not for violence, I'm starting to believe that at least the danger of violence and personal consequences is required or else our politicians will destroy us all - or, if you think about climate change, kill us all.
Funny how it takes but weeks to throw billions at mismanaged banks, but it's taken years and no end in sight to agree on matters vital to the survival of the damn planet.
Dude, everyone's medical records are kept secret - it's that privacy thing we sometimes talk about on /., ....
Not true. For people in positions of power where certain medical problems could lead to them being unfit for that position, it is fairly common to reveal those parts of the medical records. In this case, there is solid evidence that the minister of interior is suffering from a mental problem that impairs his judgement. He should show the medical records to disprove this fear, or step down. We don't allow people with bad vision to fly planes, and their medical records regarding eyesight are revealed to their employers. Why not for ministers?
Minority parties with a few specific points does not need to get a majority to change the world. If they get 10%, even 5%, the other parties will pick up their points.
See, the decision about who rules is made between the major parties. But a few percentage points can decide it one way or the other. So if by, say, changing your Internet policy to what the Pirate Party demands they think they can get those few percentage points back, they will.
And, of course, once the Pirate Party passes the 5% limit and gets a couple seats in parliament, they might become interesting coalition partners. And if you only have a few points, you can put all your focus on these, and your coalition partner knows that they have to give in on those, because you're not interested in anything else.
We shouldn't claim that as a fact if we have no actual evidence, i.e. the records.
There are several well-sourced articles on this question, and he shows all signs of it. Since the records are kept secret we do not know for sure, but the very fact that they are sealed when there's strong evidence that he's unfit for a position of responsibility only makes the assumption more likely.
This is the records on this particular problem I'm talking about, not any kind of general health records. I don't care if our minister of interior has cancer or bad teeth, but I do think it matters to the public at large whether or not his judgement is impeded due to a serious psychological problem.
Actually, it's only a selected few politicians.
Everyone outside their small circle is opposed to this. From techies to NGOs and even abuse victims.
When you read up a little on the history, views and personalities of the main politicians involved in this - Ursula von der Leyen and Wolfgang Schäuble - you find out quickly that they are both almost certainly borderline insane.
Schäuble is suffering from PTSD since that failed attack on him many years back. His medical records are kept secret.
von der Leyen is either a fanatic or crazy. The amount of disconnect from reality she displays certainly has a medical term, but I can't recall it right now. She's acting like the guy who insists on being Napoleon no matter what evidence to the contrary you come up with. You could show her a room full of scientific studies disproving each and every word she's ever said on the matter - and she wouldn't change her course one inch.
Quite frankly, these people are dangerous and criminally insane.
We have a Pirate Party over here in Germany, and it's about time they get some more votes so the major parties start to listen.
Money and votes are the only things the bastards are interested in, after all.
Interestingly, I can confirm those percentages. I run a free online game (see footer) where you can donate, if you want to. Whenever I checked, it was around 10% (+/- 2% maybe) of the long-term player base that had donated anything, ever. "long-term" here means that I don't count the accounts that go inactive within a few weeks, those people obviously just took a look and decided the game's not for them.
At the same time, those people who do give anything are often very generous. Again, confirmation there.
Does this work as a business model? Not for me (too few players) but then again I've never tried to make a living off what I consider a hobby. Very nice to know, however, that it can work. The problem is, of course, long-term viability. If your income depends crucially on a fairly small number of customers, you're always at risk of them moving elsewhere. Online gamers have a bit of a herd mentality, they often take their friends with them when they move somewhere else.
a fun platformer. (focused around killing, I suppose)
And that doesn't creep you out, when you think about it? Not even a little? A "fun platformer, focuesed around killing".
50 years ago, if you had told any WW2 survivor how much fun it is to sneak up on and kill people, they'd probably given you a solid beat-up, and that's if you are lucky.
Mainly when torture or other illegal activities become the primary focus of the game.
I hope you didn't mean that. For one, killing is just as illegal as torture. Two, let's not open a debate on whether torture or killing is "more ethical". I have an opinion on that that you don't want to hear. And frankly, in my mind either you have a problem with both, or neither. Everything else is just dishonest, disconnected from reality, or creepy.
At least with stuff like GTA:SA it's the openness that attracts people. You get to do whatever the hell you want. When the single defining element of a game is illegal and quite disturbing, then there may be an issue.
Agreed. Killing, stealing, etc. as a non-essential part of a game allows you to actually make a conscious decision about whether or not you want to use those methods or not. Well, GTA doesn't give you entirely free choice as you can't complete the storyline without some of these acts, but at least outside of the story it is entirely your decision. It even has consequences, however laughable they may be.
If what you say about MS and holes is true, why don't they just eliminate software sales to the general public and just limit it to a few official blessed vendors, so they can maintain strict integrated quality control?
Because they are just as locked-in to their own trap as everyone else. The moment they do something big and obvious like that, millions of consumers will start looking for alternatives.
Yes, you're right that they are very obviously not stopping to sell to everyone. That is exactly the trap I mean. MS survives because it is everywhere. Monopoly, lock-in, whatever you call it. They can't stop doing that or the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
Better yet, let them finally catch up with the other OS manufacturers and release an OS that can be used on a machine besides the ones that Apple sells.
That's not catching up, that's stepping down. Once you support generic hardware, there's nothing you can do about Cheap Chinese Chop selling the crappiest crap ever and your customers blaming you for the resulting crashes. MS knows that, and I'm pretty sure if they had a chance to dig themselves out of that hole, they would.
Apple intends to simply stay out of the hole in the first place.
Plus, they're still mostly a hardware company.
if time were infinite all things would have an equal probability of happening.
Proof?
While you could potentially say "in infinite, time, everything has a probability of 1", I don't think that's a valid argument. Things with higher probabilities will still happen more often, and thus the entire argument hangs on the semantics of "probability".
The primary objective is to abduct and subdue people in different ways,
Like, say, Assassin's Creed? Or some of the less-well-known sneaker-shooters?
For some reason that's probably got to do with Hollywood depictions and gun fanatics, there's this impression in the world that shooting someone is a little non-ok, but stabbing someone is a horribly barbaric deed. Sorry, bloke, but that's the attackers POV. From the victim's POV, more distance doesn't make it any less real, painful or evil. Getting shot or getting stabbed isn't that much of a difference, and the location is usually more important in either case. In fact, getting shot is probably worse due to hydrostatic shock.
And if you absolutely want to make the connection to the real world, then while emotionally the creepy guy who abducts and kills someone appears "more evil", the guy who randomly shoots two dozen people is actually doing a lot more harm. So if I had to choose (and couldn't pick "neither"), I'd rather take the creepy "sneaky" guy and one body than the "heroic CS player" shooting cowboy, thank you.
So in summary: I reject your view that FPS games in general are any better than creepy "kill the victim" games. In both of them, people end up dead. Any attempt to declare one of them morally superior, more or less dangerous, etc. appears deranged to me, and powered by emotions (fear of the "creepy guy" vs. acceptance through familarity).
For the overall topic yes, but this specific branch of the thread shifted towards whether air or car travel in general was safer, focusing on the concept in general rather than the specific flight which served merely to prompt the inquiry.
And with that amount of generalisation, we should not argue with specifics of airline, airplane model or country, wouldn't you say?
Ok, this is becoming a "I'm right" contest, so I'll leave it here. I am serious, however, with my initial comment, and some of the replies only reinforce that - this "in case of doubt, we're talking about america" attitude does come across as arrogance to pretty much every foreigner.