I'm sure iLife can also run on MacOS 9 *technically* I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.
Gee, I wish that people could once for all underatand that running an OS or a game is NOT A HUMAN RIGHT, but a contract between parts. That depends on your viewpoint, I guess. No, it's not a human right, but if there's no technical limitation of why an application or game can't run on a given operating system, then the only reason to put an artificial limitation in there is to sell new software.
Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business. Well, this doesn't really apply in markets where there is a monopolist running things. MSFT can do things like this and get away with it precisely because they own more than 90% of the desktop OS market. Your only other choice is to run an alternative platform, like Mac OS X or Linux, neither of which are particularly good platforms from a gamer's perspective.
IOW, the fact that Microsoft gets away with 'forced upgrades' and the like is all the proof you need that they should have been broken up following the DOJ anti-trust trial, per the orders of Judge Jackson.
Well, again, the issue is more with AT&T as a wireless carrier. I had them and their service was really crappy, at least where I lived at the time. Dropped calls, 'static', etc., despite all of their advertisements as having 'fewer dropped calls' than other carriers. If Apple went with a different carrier, I would get one of these in a minute. I've had good success with Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile... AT&T, forget it. That's on top of the fact that they fully supported the illegal NSA wiretapping, which, in itself is unforgivable in my book.
one would presume the iPod functionality of the device still needs to work when the contract expires Maybe, maybe not. Remember, this isn't just an Apple product, it is an AT&T product as well.
The only way this might not be the case is if the entire phone is just locked until activated, which seems unlikely. Unlikely for Apple, maybe, but I'll bet it's not at all unlikely for AT&T. Remember, AT&T has an exclusive deal to sell this thing, and they're going to want to enforce that. I really wish that Apple would have cut a deal with more than one mobile phone service. AT&T is not my ideal wireless company.
You do know that the lunar lander challenge has nothing to do with going to the moon, right?
I guess I didn't remember that until you pointed it out, no.
I can't see what Scaled Composites have to gain from it.
No, but I can see what Burt Rutan and Richard Branson personally have to gain from it. These guys are high-achievers. They want to be on top, and they will stop at nothing to be on top.
Well, not all security personnel can be swayed by someone's status. I know people who have worked airport security (prior to the TSA takeover, in fact) and you'd better believe that everyone was required to go through the screening, at least at Detroit's Metro Airport (DTW). And I mean everyone. The pilots, the flight attendants, even high-ranking politicians, celebrities, off-duty police, off-duty FBI, and other high-ranking officials. (The only people allowed through without screening were U.S. military showing proper ID, and police or FBI/ATF/etc. if they were on duty). They all complained, and the louder they complained, the more insistent the security people got.
The reason is that it boils down to training. The security folks prior to the TSA takeover were actually very well-trained -- security is actually worse with the TSA takeover than before. They were told "You don't let anyone by, no matter who they are."
But I sort of agree about scientists and engineers -- but I also know that with proper security measures and procedures in place, it's definitely possible to get even the worst offenders to cooperate with you.
It's 100% certain that a new administration will be taking over in January of 2009. Best to get all of Microsoft's transgressions out in the open now so that by the time the new administration comes in, all the controversy will be hitting the new Attorney General's office in full force.
No, it's not the same. Let's take into account the advertisers, first.
Let's say you write a fairly Apple- and Linux-centric blog (we'll call it 'athloidot') and your advertisers, who are Microsoft-centric, demand that you start posting nice things about Microsoft products. You, as the editorial staff, can either bend over and grease up, writing some nice stuff about Vista, or, you can tell the advertisers to politely fuck off and go get yourself another set of advertisers.
Now, the bloggers in China cannot tell the Chinese government to politely fuck off, because that would be a crime punishable by imprisonment, torture, or both.
As for whether it will offend anyone -- well, it hasn't seemed to stop Slashdot, now has it?
It's not Blue Origin. They're known to be using hydrogen peroxide as the fuel for their 'mystery project', which isn't going to get anyone to the moon, considering rockets based on H2O2 are barely enough to get you into a suborbital flight.
I'll bet it's Burt Rattan and Scaled Composites, but this time instead of being backed by Paul Allen, they'll be backed by Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic outfit. They may even be using the Virgin Galactic as the team name. It's just Branson's style to pull something like this.
My other guess, if that doesn't pan out, is Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX. SpaceX may have only barely got a prototype rocket into space, but they have a lot of very smart people on that team. Somehow I doubt it's them, because I don't think hiding the team's name is Musk's style.
No one has yet shown that an otherwise mentally healthy individual WILL BECOME ADDICTED to video games after playing them X hours.
I'd have to ask her to pull out citations, but yes, I could cite them.
The question wasn't whether an 'otherwise mentally-healthy individual will become addicted to video games after playing them X hours,' it was whether 'those without obsessive/compulsive tendancies would become addicted...' yada.
People with addictive personalities and/or that exhibit addictive behavior don't necessarily have obsessive/compulsive tendancies. The two characteristics aren't necessarily correlative. (As an aside, it's worth it to point out that most people have some degree of obsessive/compulsive behavior, but not all of those people could be classified as having OCD -- it just depends on the degree of OC behavior and whether or not that affects their life.)
BTW--most addicts won't ever find out that they are addicted until they hit rock-bottom -- IOW, their addiction consumes them to the point that it has a large negative impact on their life, such as loss of a job, destruction of their marriage, etc. There is help for such people, including groups like OGLA (On-Line Gamers Anonymous).
But I think it is a fair question whether to name it as a separate subclass of OCD in the DSM. I think the real deciding factor should be if there are different treatments for gaming as compulsive behavior as opposed to any other kind of compulsive behavior. If there is a different treatment or intervention approach, then it probably should be subclassed. That would be useful information for psychologists and psychiatrists to make the distinction between general OCD and this particular kind. But if it is always the same approach to treat gaming addiction the same way as other OCD, then I think it doesn't need a subclass of its own.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -- the DSM -- isn't really about deciding a course of treatment as much as it is about cataloging and classifying different disorders, which makes it easier to diagnose what the problem is. How to treat it is a totally separate thing and treatment of psychological disorders is often up to the mental health professional in question.
Anyway, most OC disorders are treated in much the same way. Addictions are actually treated in a different way, but there is some overlap between OCD and addiction treatments. Alcoholism is listed as a disorder in the DSM. It would be more likely that video game addiction would be listed along with alcoholism and other related addiction disorders rather than with OCD. But there are OC elements in addiction, so some treatments for OCD patients are often applied to those with addictions, including interventions, rehabilitation such as that used for drugs, and sometimes even aversion therapy. Group therapy is often involved, as is some type of 12-step program, similar to alcoholics anonymous (AA) or narcotics anonymous (NA).
I'm not exactly sure as to what is so hard to figure out about this. Action = Pleasure things can pretty much all be addictive. From video games, to music, to drugs, to masturbation, action = pleasure. The difference is if I quit video games I don't have a real biological withdrawl like I would if I just quit crack. Physical addiction is not the same as psychological addiction. Physical addictions involve your body actually failing to function when the substance is removed.
Just the same, people with psychological addictions can experience physical withdrawal symptoms. In the case of video games, one thing that people become physically addicted to is the natural 'high' or 'rush' that is obtained through the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine (which produce similar effects in the brain to that of opiates) when the subject 'beats' the game.
Withdrawal from these neurotransmitters is the same as withdrawal from opiates an can cause every type of physical withdrawal symptom that opiates can produce, including delirium tremens (the 'DTs').
Example, take someone who has passed the mental exams and shows NO tendency towards obsessive/compulsive behaviours and then DEMONSTRATE that such a person can become addicted to video games after X hours of playing.
Studies have been done, yes. My wife has particpated in such studies, in fact.
I'm still not buying it. I've played video games and I have no problem leaving them.
You sound like any drug addict or alcoholic: "I can quit any time I want." One of the signs of addiction is denial.
ust because someone can become "addicted" to something does NOT mean that it is addictive
Let's look up the word addictive, shall we?
addictive (-dk'tv) Pronunciation Key adj.
1. Causing or tending to cause addiction: an addictive substance.
2. Characterized by or susceptible to addiction: an addictive personality.
(addictive. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/addictive)
The first definition is the one of interest: 'causing or tending to cause addiction'. So yes, just because someone can become addicted to an object (in this case, playing video games), yes, it does necessarily mean that that object is addictive.
Actually, my wife is, interestingly enough, a psychologist. The main reason that they've taken to adding so many disorders to the DSM is not that they've found new ones per se but that they have found that within certain disorders, like the autistic spectrum of diseases, that there are many more subtypes. At one point, anyone with a pervasive development (autistic-like) disorder was slapped with the label of 'autism'. Now they have identified specific types of autism, everything from 'classic' autism to Asperger's to multiple-complex developmental disorder.
As for video game addiction, my wife happens to also be a specialist in addiction studies and she was actually one of the first people to write about video game addiction as a disorder back in the late 80s/early 90s. It was not widely-accepted at that point that video game playing could be addictive -- but now that it's becoming generally-accepted to be so, she's feeling vindicated.
No kidding. Has the author of this article actually been on the Internet for longer than 5 minutes? Lately? I'm pretty sure Ugh the Caveman was arguing with his friends Lug and Slag about whether RockOS 1.0 or BoulderSoft Rubble XP were better.
Notice how he doesn't say that he has any grief with Mac OS X. That's because Mac OS X is the height of perfection. Apple is such a great company that they produce what is quite possibly the world's most perfect OS. Look at the iPod! It's so simple and elegant, and that's exactly what Mac OS X is. Operating system perfection. Never had a lick of trouble with it.
I worship the Great Black Turtlenecked One! Ohhhmmmmmmmmmm!
Copyright and trademark are entirely different things. IANAL but I'm quite certain that at least in the USA you cannot lose copyright by not prosecuting cases of infringement. Trademark on the other hand, can be lost if it isn't "protected".
That's right. But you can lose your right to collect statutory and even actual damages in certain cases. There is a certain doctrine of law that says that if you don't do something to mitigate your own damages, then you can't collect because you allowed the abuse to occur. How and when you are unable to collect statutory damages is, of course, something decided in court on a case-by-case basis.
Take this piece of psuedo-Python code: success = False while success != True:
print 'Password:'
pswd = read_password()
if pswd != 'h4x0r':
success = authenticate_password(pswd)
else:
success = True
Now, this code has an obvious security vulnerability: a back door. Yet, it has never been hacked. Why? I just wrote it! The question is: does the fact that the code has never been hacked matter from a security standpoint?
If you answered 'no', then you might want to think about retracting your statement.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
IOW, the fact that Microsoft gets away with 'forced upgrades' and the like is all the proof you need that they should have been broken up following the DOJ anti-trust trial, per the orders of Judge Jackson.
Well, again, the issue is more with AT&T as a wireless carrier. I had them and their service was really crappy, at least where I lived at the time. Dropped calls, 'static', etc., despite all of their advertisements as having 'fewer dropped calls' than other carriers. If Apple went with a different carrier, I would get one of these in a minute. I've had good success with Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile ... AT&T, forget it. That's on top of the fact that they fully supported the illegal NSA wiretapping, which, in itself is unforgivable in my book.
I guess I didn't remember that until you pointed it out, no.
No, but I can see what Burt Rutan and Richard Branson personally have to gain from it. These guys are high-achievers. They want to be on top, and they will stop at nothing to be on top.
Well, not all security personnel can be swayed by someone's status. I know people who have worked airport security (prior to the TSA takeover, in fact) and you'd better believe that everyone was required to go through the screening, at least at Detroit's Metro Airport (DTW). And I mean everyone. The pilots, the flight attendants, even high-ranking politicians, celebrities, off-duty police, off-duty FBI, and other high-ranking officials. (The only people allowed through without screening were U.S. military showing proper ID, and police or FBI/ATF/etc. if they were on duty). They all complained, and the louder they complained, the more insistent the security people got.
The reason is that it boils down to training. The security folks prior to the TSA takeover were actually very well-trained -- security is actually worse with the TSA takeover than before. They were told "You don't let anyone by, no matter who they are."
But I sort of agree about scientists and engineers -- but I also know that with proper security measures and procedures in place, it's definitely possible to get even the worst offenders to cooperate with you.
Like, say, Charles Manson?
I wouldn't worry about it...after all, Google's stated goal is to do no evil, right? *tongue firmly placed in cheek*
It's 100% certain that a new administration will be taking over in January of 2009. Best to get all of Microsoft's transgressions out in the open now so that by the time the new administration comes in, all the controversy will be hitting the new Attorney General's office in full force.
Pssst: He's showing classic addictive behavior. The posturing and belligerence are classsic characteristics of an addict.
Okay, I'm gonna shut up now before he goes ballistic.
No, it's not the same. Let's take into account the advertisers, first.
Let's say you write a fairly Apple- and Linux-centric blog (we'll call it 'athloidot') and your advertisers, who are Microsoft-centric, demand that you start posting nice things about Microsoft products. You, as the editorial staff, can either bend over and grease up, writing some nice stuff about Vista, or, you can tell the advertisers to politely fuck off and go get yourself another set of advertisers.
Now, the bloggers in China cannot tell the Chinese government to politely fuck off, because that would be a crime punishable by imprisonment, torture, or both.
As for whether it will offend anyone -- well, it hasn't seemed to stop Slashdot, now has it?
It's not Blue Origin. They're known to be using hydrogen peroxide as the fuel for their 'mystery project', which isn't going to get anyone to the moon, considering rockets based on H2O2 are barely enough to get you into a suborbital flight.
I'll bet it's Burt Rattan and Scaled Composites, but this time instead of being backed by Paul Allen, they'll be backed by Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic outfit. They may even be using the Virgin Galactic as the team name. It's just Branson's style to pull something like this.
My other guess, if that doesn't pan out, is Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX. SpaceX may have only barely got a prototype rocket into space, but they have a lot of very smart people on that team. Somehow I doubt it's them, because I don't think hiding the team's name is Musk's style.
The real controversy will be when Deckard shoots first. ;)
Poor, Harrison.
I'd have to ask her to pull out citations, but yes, I could cite them.
The question wasn't whether an 'otherwise mentally-healthy individual will become addicted to video games after playing them X hours,' it was whether 'those without obsessive/compulsive tendancies would become addicted...' yada.
People with addictive personalities and/or that exhibit addictive behavior don't necessarily have obsessive/compulsive tendancies. The two characteristics aren't necessarily correlative. (As an aside, it's worth it to point out that most people have some degree of obsessive/compulsive behavior, but not all of those people could be classified as having OCD -- it just depends on the degree of OC behavior and whether or not that affects their life.)
BTW--most addicts won't ever find out that they are addicted until they hit rock-bottom -- IOW, their addiction consumes them to the point that it has a large negative impact on their life, such as loss of a job, destruction of their marriage, etc. There is help for such people, including groups like OGLA (On-Line Gamers Anonymous).
Good luck.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -- the DSM -- isn't really about deciding a course of treatment as much as it is about cataloging and classifying different disorders, which makes it easier to diagnose what the problem is. How to treat it is a totally separate thing and treatment of psychological disorders is often up to the mental health professional in question.
Anyway, most OC disorders are treated in much the same way. Addictions are actually treated in a different way, but there is some overlap between OCD and addiction treatments. Alcoholism is listed as a disorder in the DSM. It would be more likely that video game addiction would be listed along with alcoholism and other related addiction disorders rather than with OCD. But there are OC elements in addiction, so some treatments for OCD patients are often applied to those with addictions, including interventions, rehabilitation such as that used for drugs, and sometimes even aversion therapy. Group therapy is often involved, as is some type of 12-step program, similar to alcoholics anonymous (AA) or narcotics anonymous (NA).
Just the same, people with psychological addictions can experience physical withdrawal symptoms. In the case of video games, one thing that people become physically addicted to is the natural 'high' or 'rush' that is obtained through the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine (which produce similar effects in the brain to that of opiates) when the subject 'beats' the game.
Withdrawal from these neurotransmitters is the same as withdrawal from opiates an can cause every type of physical withdrawal symptom that opiates can produce, including delirium tremens (the 'DTs').
Studies have been done, yes. My wife has particpated in such studies, in fact.
You sound like any drug addict or alcoholic: "I can quit any time I want." One of the signs of addiction is denial.
Let's look up the word addictive, shall we?
(addictive. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/addictive)
The first definition is the one of interest: 'causing or tending to cause addiction'. So yes, just because someone can become addicted to an object (in this case, playing video games), yes, it does necessarily mean that that object is addictive.
Actually, my wife is, interestingly enough, a psychologist. The main reason that they've taken to adding so many disorders to the DSM is not that they've found new ones per se but that they have found that within certain disorders, like the autistic spectrum of diseases, that there are many more subtypes. At one point, anyone with a pervasive development (autistic-like) disorder was slapped with the label of 'autism'. Now they have identified specific types of autism, everything from 'classic' autism to Asperger's to multiple-complex developmental disorder.
As for video game addiction, my wife happens to also be a specialist in addiction studies and she was actually one of the first people to write about video game addiction as a disorder back in the late 80s/early 90s. It was not widely-accepted at that point that video game playing could be addictive -- but now that it's becoming generally-accepted to be so, she's feeling vindicated.
No kidding. Has the author of this article actually been on the Internet for longer than 5 minutes? Lately? I'm pretty sure Ugh the Caveman was arguing with his friends Lug and Slag about whether RockOS 1.0 or BoulderSoft Rubble XP were better.
Oh, so the Israelis are the victim? Completely blamelss, eh?
I can see you're not a parent.
When you got two kids fighting, most of the time both of them did something wrong.
That being said, my post was a joke. Chill out.
Better yet, genocide of the Palestinians and the Israelis. Might as well be equal opportunity about it.
Heh. I was parodying Apple zealots in general. I knew your post wasn't a Mac fanboy post based on what I've seen you post in the past.
Notice how he doesn't say that he has any grief with Mac OS X. That's because Mac OS X is the height of perfection. Apple is such a great company that they produce what is quite possibly the world's most perfect OS. Look at the iPod! It's so simple and elegant, and that's exactly what Mac OS X is. Operating system perfection. Never had a lick of trouble with it.
I worship the Great Black Turtlenecked One! Ohhhmmmmmmmmmm!
That's right. But you can lose your right to collect statutory and even actual damages in certain cases. There is a certain doctrine of law that says that if you don't do something to mitigate your own damages, then you can't collect because you allowed the abuse to occur. How and when you are unable to collect statutory damages is, of course, something decided in court on a case-by-case basis.
IANAL.
Maybe you should.
Take this piece of psuedo-Python code:
success = False
while success != True:
print 'Password:'
pswd = read_password()
if pswd != 'h4x0r':
success = authenticate_password(pswd)
else:
success = True
Now, this code has an obvious security vulnerability: a back door. Yet, it has never been hacked. Why? I just wrote it! The question is: does the fact that the code has never been hacked matter from a security standpoint?
If you answered 'no', then you might want to think about retracting your statement.