Thank you sir, I only wish you hadn't posted as AC so I could add you to my freinds.
There is a special place in hell for people who think Lara Croft is anything like the first female hero in a video game. Fact is there are many before her, and all are better. Lara is an example of all that is wrong with female game charachters, not what is right with them, yet she has compleatly stolen the spotlight from the likes of Samus Aran.
2) Blocking emergency calls. Doctors on call, first responders, etc.
RTFA. It clearly states that they have the ability with this system to allow emergency transmissions into the shielded area. Your doctors pager will still beep, and the firemen will still get the call.
Those claims are negative assertions related to evolution though. That keeps them in the realm of science, thus you can apply the scientific method to them.
The assertions related to ID itself are still metapysical, because by definition, the Designer is outside of our physics.
I realise you were probably trying to be witty there, but to be serious for a moment: Point to my problem.
As I stated, I have a sucessful career, a healthy social life, I'm in good condition physicaly. So tell me where my 10 hour gaming sprees are hurting me.
Or do you just want to take away my ability to game for 12 hours at a time because you think it's weird and would never consider doing it yourself?
See, this is strange to me. I'm a newb to WoW (3 weeks) I'm on Dark Iron, which was listed as a high pop server when I created my characters, but I've never had to wait in a queue. I play weekday evenings from about 5:00 on, and weekends at various times of the day and night. Am I just getting lucky?
No, I would not call someone who playes a game 8 hours in a day addicted. I can comfortably game 10, 12, or even 18 hours in a day, should I so desire. And I sometimes desire just that. Yet I hold a successful job, have a normal social life, and my 10 hour game sessions do not negativly impact me in any way. To punish me for such gaming sessions is a violation of my freedoms.
On the flip side, I'm sure there exist people who only have the ability to game for an hour or two a day, yet could be said to be addicted, since they will spend that small chunk of time gaming regardless of negative effects on their lives.
This is not a viable solution, because there is no metric a game company could keep on it's players that would reliably define addiction, furthermore, it would likely be an invasion of privacy to keep such a metric if they could. The root cause of gaming addiction is not gaming, it's addictive personality. To make game companies try to solve that is ill-targeted, foolish, and IMO a violation of the freedoms of both the game company and the gamer.
You've compleatly missed the point of GP's post. Humans can become addicted to any pleasurable behavior or activity, thru the mechanisim of dopamine release you describe. Your point that we, as participants in these activites, should be aware that too much time spent doing them is bad is a valid point. However GP was adressing the fact that the providers of these activites, in this case game developers, should not be held responsible in any way for the addiction.
There is essentaly nothing that developers could do to stop game addiction, except make the games less fun to play, or not make them at all. Clearly that is not a valid or viable solution. Since they can do nothing about the problem, and the problem itself is not inherant to their product, the solution and the responsability rests with the users.
The sceintific method is universaly applicable in the realm of science, it is of nearly no use at all in the realm of metaphysics.
I think that is the crux of the matter of Evolution vs ID, and the thing that most people don't understand, or don't consider: One is a scientific matter, the other is a metaphysical one. Furthermore, they are not mutualy exclusive, or even particularly incompatable. The two theories just lie in deferent realms, and that makes them particularly hard to compare, and makes such comparisons somewhat unuseful.
In my opinion, I believe evolution ought to be taught with the one liner added: some people believe that a supreme being guided evolution, that it was not strictly natural selection. I really can't see the problem with that.
Actualy, I'd think a better approach would be to teach the mechanics of evolution in biology class, and discuss the question of weither or not it was guided by a supriem being to philosophy class. I'd think most people would be satisfied with this approach. No metaphysics should be taught in any science class, however such things can and should be taught/discussed in a philosophy class.
I like ripping on infinium as much as anyone, but unfortunatly, I think the part of that picture that looks like a wire is just a seam on the edge of that platform.
Lord knows why there's a seam there, but I'm pretty sure it's not a wire.
Guild Wars isn't really a propper MMO, since all the gaming occures in limited player instances. To really be an MMO all the players have to be in the same worlds, at least most of the time.
AOL's customers aren't capable of comprehending such a thing, that is why they are still AOL users.
All kidding aside, AOL completly relies on the fact that their customer doesn't know a thing about how computers or the internet actualy work. Just look at their commercials: (talking about their spyblocker or some such) "Because with high speed internet, the intruders come at you faster!" I don't even know where to begin with that statement. But the AOL users just nod knowingly and install more bloatware.
If by better you mean dark, foggy, and generaly representative of a heavy-handed frankenstien motif, then yes the borg look is better.
Not saying it doesn't have it's place. It's just that we already have a game with that look to it, it's called Doom 3, or Quake 4, or any of the recent Unreal games.
The bland Federation look is required for a Star Trek game, and actualy is pretty well suited to the MMO genra. Besides, they no doubt will work in borg, Klingon, Cardasian, Vulcan, and many other visual styles.
A scientist could in fact write a poem such as the one you quoted. Nothing about being a scientist is mutualy exclusive with being a poet.
It's just that a scientist would never consider such vauge, amorphous musings to be a definition.
Your point about english generaly not having a good way to describe the various aspects of love is a valid one. It's too bad you had to sully it with a cheap potshot at the scientific community.
Yes, MMOs are a perfectly good communications medium, and you can interact with others fairly well. Even better than chat or other digital, text-based means.
The problem with meeting your signifigant other on an MMO or other game is that people generaly play games to escape from real life. MMO's in particual, people play to act out a role they don't get to in real life. The percentage of people who are acting anything like their real life personality is very small.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but in the general case I would think it is a bad idea to base a real life relationship on interaction in a world that is detached, and fundamentaly different than the real one. A world who's purpose is to escape from the real one. Such a relationship would be as fragile as any other relationship that is built on false pretenses, even if they both have the best of intentions.
right... and no one will buy a $500 video card for a game, or the latest fastest processor for a game, or 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM with little blinky lights on it for a game...
The point is gamers spend rediculous money on gaming rigs, getting vista is going to seem almost trivial to these people. Making a few key games Vista only will get this whole segment to upgrade in one fell swoop.
I'm going to stand by my analogy. GTA is not open source, Rockstar owns the code regardless of the fact that it resides on a physical disc that you own. By modifying it, you are breaking into Rockstar property, virtual property, but still property according to current laws.
But you are right, analogies aren't terribly helpful here. And we basicaly agree on the facts, responsibility rests squarely with the modders, and not Rockstar or the ESRB.
At this point I find the "artifical demand" theory to be highly unlikely. I think MS could have held back stock on the initial shipment to create such a demand. But the question is: When are they planning to cash in on this artificial demand?
It would be rediculous for MS to not take advantage of their hype durring christmas. Now that Xmas is past, we are into the window in which a potential customer might wait for PS3 or Rev. The fact that they are still apparently short stocked when the peak oppertunity for artifical demand has come and gone leads me to belive that they did in fact have a manufacturing problem.
Xbox 360 sales are not weak. They have sold very nearly 100% of the systems that have left the factory. They have only sold 700,000 systems because they have only produced 700,000 systems, not because "gamers are reserving judgement"
That's not even close to a good analogy. A good analogy would be if the Jackson boob was on the tape at the studio, but never broadcast. Then some guy broke in, stole the tape, and broadcast it on a different channel. (I understand this was a live event, so there was no "tape", but you can see the point.)
People keep failing to recognize that just because something is in the code does not mean that it is in the final game. To access the content in question requires violating the EULA, there is no legal, legitimate way to access the content. This means it is not the responsibility of the ESRB.
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There is a special place in hell for people who think Lara Croft is anything like the first female hero in a video game. Fact is there are many before her, and all are better. Lara is an example of all that is wrong with female game charachters, not what is right with them, yet she has compleatly stolen the spotlight from the likes of Samus Aran.
RTFA. It clearly states that they have the ability with this system to allow emergency transmissions into the shielded area. Your doctors pager will still beep, and the firemen will still get the call.
The assertions related to ID itself are still metapysical, because by definition, the Designer is outside of our physics.
As I stated, I have a sucessful career, a healthy social life, I'm in good condition physicaly. So tell me where my 10 hour gaming sprees are hurting me.
Or do you just want to take away my ability to game for 12 hours at a time because you think it's weird and would never consider doing it yourself?
See, this is strange to me. I'm a newb to WoW (3 weeks) I'm on Dark Iron, which was listed as a high pop server when I created my characters, but I've never had to wait in a queue. I play weekday evenings from about 5:00 on, and weekends at various times of the day and night. Am I just getting lucky?
On the flip side, I'm sure there exist people who only have the ability to game for an hour or two a day, yet could be said to be addicted, since they will spend that small chunk of time gaming regardless of negative effects on their lives.
This is not a viable solution, because there is no metric a game company could keep on it's players that would reliably define addiction, furthermore, it would likely be an invasion of privacy to keep such a metric if they could. The root cause of gaming addiction is not gaming, it's addictive personality. To make game companies try to solve that is ill-targeted, foolish, and IMO a violation of the freedoms of both the game company and the gamer.
There is essentaly nothing that developers could do to stop game addiction, except make the games less fun to play, or not make them at all. Clearly that is not a valid or viable solution. Since they can do nothing about the problem, and the problem itself is not inherant to their product, the solution and the responsability rests with the users.
I think that is the crux of the matter of Evolution vs ID, and the thing that most people don't understand, or don't consider: One is a scientific matter, the other is a metaphysical one. Furthermore, they are not mutualy exclusive, or even particularly incompatable. The two theories just lie in deferent realms, and that makes them particularly hard to compare, and makes such comparisons somewhat unuseful.
Actualy, I'd think a better approach would be to teach the mechanics of evolution in biology class, and discuss the question of weither or not it was guided by a supriem being to philosophy class. I'd think most people would be satisfied with this approach. No metaphysics should be taught in any science class, however such things can and should be taught/discussed in a philosophy class.
Lord knows why there's a seam there, but I'm pretty sure it's not a wire.
Furthermore, I think it was 3 years ago that you could get gas for $0.98 in southern California. That lasted for almost the whole summer.
Guild Wars isn't really a propper MMO, since all the gaming occures in limited player instances. To really be an MMO all the players have to be in the same worlds, at least most of the time.
Why I had to walk two miles, barefoot, through the snow to get to my controller, and it was uphill, both ways...
All kidding aside, AOL completly relies on the fact that their customer doesn't know a thing about how computers or the internet actualy work. Just look at their commercials: (talking about their spyblocker or some such) "Because with high speed internet, the intruders come at you faster!" I don't even know where to begin with that statement. But the AOL users just nod knowingly and install more bloatware.
Not saying it doesn't have it's place. It's just that we already have a game with that look to it, it's called Doom 3, or Quake 4, or any of the recent Unreal games.
The bland Federation look is required for a Star Trek game, and actualy is pretty well suited to the MMO genra. Besides, they no doubt will work in borg, Klingon, Cardasian, Vulcan, and many other visual styles.
It's just that a scientist would never consider such vauge, amorphous musings to be a definition.
Your point about english generaly not having a good way to describe the various aspects of love is a valid one. It's too bad you had to sully it with a cheap potshot at the scientific community.
This was of course back in the day when LucasArts made good games. If only that was still true.
The problem with meeting your signifigant other on an MMO or other game is that people generaly play games to escape from real life. MMO's in particual, people play to act out a role they don't get to in real life. The percentage of people who are acting anything like their real life personality is very small.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but in the general case I would think it is a bad idea to base a real life relationship on interaction in a world that is detached, and fundamentaly different than the real one. A world who's purpose is to escape from the real one. Such a relationship would be as fragile as any other relationship that is built on false pretenses, even if they both have the best of intentions.
The point is gamers spend rediculous money on gaming rigs, getting vista is going to seem almost trivial to these people. Making a few key games Vista only will get this whole segment to upgrade in one fell swoop.
And yes, if he doesn't like that type of gameplay, then MMO's are probably not for him.
But you are right, analogies aren't terribly helpful here. And we basicaly agree on the facts, responsibility rests squarely with the modders, and not Rockstar or the ESRB.
It would be rediculous for MS to not take advantage of their hype durring christmas. Now that Xmas is past, we are into the window in which a potential customer might wait for PS3 or Rev. The fact that they are still apparently short stocked when the peak oppertunity for artifical demand has come and gone leads me to belive that they did in fact have a manufacturing problem.
Xbox 360 sales are not weak. They have sold very nearly 100% of the systems that have left the factory. They have only sold 700,000 systems because they have only produced 700,000 systems, not because "gamers are reserving judgement"
People keep failing to recognize that just because something is in the code does not mean that it is in the final game. To access the content in question requires violating the EULA, there is no legal, legitimate way to access the content. This means it is not the responsibility of the ESRB.
Or, you know, an attack helicopter...
Airplanes and balloons are not the only things that fly.