It was the Daily Mail who picked up on these notes, and like usual they get it completely wrong. The quality of the UK tabloids is frankly shocking; basically the Mail's only function is to anger up the blood of xenophobic middle-class idiots. They will run front page stories on how some immigrant gets a nice house from the govt, or how a white, God-fearing kid didn't get an ice cream because a family of asylum seekers cut in line etc. etc. And they are self-righteous beyond belief, with their campaigns to ban computer games, or chat rooms, or whatever. At least with other tabloids like the Sun or the Mirror, no-one takes their stories seriously. Grr.
You can't get games like FIFA or The Sims in China? Aren't they missing out on an incredibly lucrative market? I'm especially surprised at EA, they have shown themselves to be money-grabbing scumbags at the best of times.
Ok, the points you made just now seem very fair. What I was really trying to say was that just because someone isn't completely altruistic, it doesn't mean that their donation of money and effort is worth any less. However, I fully understand that you were primarily concerned with people considering Gates to be a generous, caring soul. I personally believe that in this case, his actions have spoken louder than (dammit, I didn't want to use this cliche...) words.
What is the alternative? He doesn't give money to charity? Because, I assure you, that will do more hurt to people. Or he could have donated the $750 million anonymously. If I was a shareholder in M$, I would want to know where that three-quarters of a billion went. A lot of people would. If he was to remain secretive in his donations, people might start to speculate and the companies image will be tarnished. Also, people have an interest in where donations from the big companies are going, so that, for example, they can see it is being spent wisely. By giving encouragement to acts of charity, it may lead to more money being donated and a more giving and generous culture. As it stands, people are happy to take cheap, mal-informed shots at Gates just because they, well, don't like the man.
I do not think it is our place to choose who is worthy enough to donate to charity. If an extremist political group, or a tobacco company pledged money to a charity, they could reasonably decline the money on moral grounds without too many objections. But I am pretty sure that if a group turned down a $750 million dollar donation from M$ (although a very irritating company, it is not physically hurting or oppressing people), people wouldn't be too impressed. The issues people have with M$, although important, are negligible compared to the need to curb disease, famine, and many other things.
Also, what is wrong with feeling a compulsion to give to charity? He may well feel guilty, considering his huge wealth compared to the millions of needy people out there. Giving money out of guilt isn't a bad thing. Indeed, it is a very good thing if good causes benefit as a result of the accepted practise of generousity and charity.
I would consider the reason to be highlighting the desperate need for vaccination in developing countries.
You know, I very much doubt that people would buy Microsoft product on the basis of Bill Gates donating a shedload of money for chairty. I am very impressed with him for being so generous, but I still dislike his products and his attitude to business. Surely on his charity work there is no faulting him - not only is he pledging huge sums of money, he is getting involved with the charities. So let's thank him for this, but keep on pushing for a fairer software market:)
I wonder how many people who click adverts by mistake are actually pleased with the page they get? After all, Google ads are supposed to be relevant...
It seems wierd that they don't have the ti-83+, seeing how that was one of the most popular ones. I'm a bit hesitant to use the French page - trying to overclocking my calc with a French guide is a recipe for disaster. Is there any English guides?
Isn't the whole thing a bit contradictory? When they say "gamers". I presume they mean people who play games A LOT, as their primary hobby - otherwise most nearly all people are gamers. Now, if gamers spend a lot of time playing games, of course they are going to miss out on other social or cultural activites. If they don't play a lot, they have time for other stuff and they are classed "normal". So what is this article saying?
I definitely wouldn't let children use google. It is incredibly easy for them to stumble across inappropriate information, even with innocuous searches. There are child-friendly search engines like www.ajkids.com and www.yahooligans.com, which give results (mostly) relevant to the search queries, and contain no nasty stuff.
Never mind searching for the great nudes, how about simply searching for porn? If google didn't want people to use their service for porn gathering, they shouldn't index the sites.
They have no reason to hide these words; a person who is offended by the word "sex" in their browser window shouldn't be using google at all, frankly.
For people who would like to hear orchestral Final Fantasy but don't live in the States (i.e. me:( ) there are lots of excellent CDs on Amazon and stuff. My recommendation is Final Fantasy Potion; truly relaxing music.
You called it a disability in your previous comment >.>
You seem to have very strong views on this. Stammering has basically no effect on my life, apart from speech recognition stuff, so I thought I would like a little article. I go to speech therapy regularly, and it's helped, but in the end it actually doesn't matter. I can still speak, as you point out.
At the same time, I wanted to highlight the difficulties that a significant (yes, it is significant, 550,000 people is 1% of the UK population) may have when trying to use this new techology. Read what I said as a plea for sympathy, a pathetic, ignorant comment, whatever.
So what I said was the most absurd thing you've ever heard for some time? Wow.
Regardless of your view, I think that it is important that adequate help is given to people who can't use speech recognition methods; no different to braille on public buildings, or whatever. If a person with a stammer tries to book a theatre ticket, but they can't because the speech recognition picks up on every hesitation in the voice, what else can they do? You can't just expect them to speak better, just as you can't expect a blind person to just "make an effort" and read the signs.
Heh, I thought no-one had wrote about this so I posted a comment. Directly below yours. =/
I have a stammer and I know what you mean about not stuttering when talking to yourself. What worries me is when speech recognition replaces more forgiving methods (i.e. a call operator). When you have a stammer it takes a bit of courage to pick up the phone, and having to talk to a machine which judges you on every word is too much pressure.
News reports claiming that speech recognition is the future really worry me. I have a stammer, and even when I am speaking my best my voice is dysfluent and interspersed with "ums" and "ahs". At worse I cannot say anything at all - a "block". Although I try to avoid the phone, when I do talk I can at least explain to the operator that I have a stammer. Speech recognition does nothing of the sort.
Now that it is unavoidable - for example, booking a seat at a cinema - I really feel that a significant portion of society is being discriminated against. There are 550,000 people in the UK alone who have speech dysfluency problems, and yet speech recognition cannot deal with the multitude of different manifestations of this; repetition of sounds, blocking, or laboured or breathless speaking. What am I, and everyone else who has these problems, supposed to do? Even if they did put effort into making the system smarter, I can think of nothing more intimidating than having my stammer strutinized by a piece of code.
And nothing can replace the feeling of acceptance when you can tell the operator about your stammer, and what s/he can do to make it easier for you. I place the human virtues of patience and understanding over all software (even Firefox)
What about non-commerical sites? To give an example, gameFAQs. It -needs- the money from advertising, but if it didn't you could be rest assured that CjayC wouldn't put adverts on the site. Sites like gamefaqs have saved me many hours of stress (plus the cost of strategy guides), yet I never see adverts on the site because of AdBlock. Is that fair? They are only trying to break even.
You are definitely right about the types of ads. Ads used to have pretty strict guidelines - banner ads had specific sizes, etc. etc. But now flash turns the screen into a carnival of sounds and flying images. Still, Adblock removes -all- ads. Maybe sites which have unobtrusive, helpful adverts could be "ad approved" (like when a well-made site is HTML approved). That way we could set up adblock to keep the ads intact on those sites, but remove the spammy, flashy ads on other sites.
As a sidenote, I use Firefox, and have all the ad blocking stuff set up. But I still can't help but think that it is very unethical to do so.
Websites cost money. The site owner may need advertising money for revenue; there is nothing wrong with this. If a browser actively encourages people to never click on adverts, and therefore never help out the sites they frequent, it is bound to have a negative effect on the internet. I just feel that, although annoying, adverts do serve a purpose.
If you drive good, then you get karma points. A scanner at the traffic lights picks up on your karma and weights the light sequence accordingly. At times where they have no choice but turn red, you get karma points at compensation. Might be a little bit tricky to implement, but would certainly remove the "Why do I always get caught on red?" frustrations, and encourage better driving. (This post originally started as a joke but now that I think of it, it's a pretty good idea)
Time for the game and film industries to split up
on
Doom Movie Update
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Personally I think that video gaming as an industry needs to distance itself from the film industry. Over the years, through countless tie-ins and franchises (most of which have been risible), we have come to associate them as natural bedfellows. It is a massive cash cow for all involved, but ultimately they dilute the franchise and leave gaming/films fans feeling cheated and disappointed. Especially game fans: paying £40 for a substandard piece of advertising isn't very fun. Dropping the shameless cash-ins and concentrating on upping the thrills and emotions felt and desired by both game and film fans would be much appreciated:)
I would much rather watch a film which captures the claustrophobic and downright scary nature of Doom, than one which simply shares the name.
Slashdot Mirror
Jim Kelly is a SF writer who has recordings of some of his stories (around 10), read by him, on his site. Check them out. http://www.jimkelly.net/pages/free_reads.htm
It was the Daily Mail who picked up on these notes, and like usual they get it completely wrong. The quality of the UK tabloids is frankly shocking; basically the Mail's only function is to anger up the blood of xenophobic middle-class idiots. They will run front page stories on how some immigrant gets a nice house from the govt, or how a white, God-fearing kid didn't get an ice cream because a family of asylum seekers cut in line etc. etc. And they are self-righteous beyond belief, with their campaigns to ban computer games, or chat rooms, or whatever. At least with other tabloids like the Sun or the Mirror, no-one takes their stories seriously. Grr.
You can't get games like FIFA or The Sims in China? Aren't they missing out on an incredibly lucrative market? I'm especially surprised at EA, they have shown themselves to be money-grabbing scumbags at the best of times.
Ok, the points you made just now seem very fair. What I was really trying to say was that just because someone isn't completely altruistic, it doesn't mean that their donation of money and effort is worth any less. However, I fully understand that you were primarily concerned with people considering Gates to be a generous, caring soul. I personally believe that in this case, his actions have spoken louder than (dammit, I didn't want to use this cliche...) words.
I do not think it is our place to choose who is worthy enough to donate to charity. If an extremist political group, or a tobacco company pledged money to a charity, they could reasonably decline the money on moral grounds without too many objections. But I am pretty sure that if a group turned down a $750 million dollar donation from M$ (although a very irritating company, it is not physically hurting or oppressing people), people wouldn't be too impressed. The issues people have with M$, although important, are negligible compared to the need to curb disease, famine, and many other things.
Also, what is wrong with feeling a compulsion to give to charity? He may well feel guilty, considering his huge wealth compared to the millions of needy people out there. Giving money out of guilt isn't a bad thing. Indeed, it is a very good thing if good causes benefit as a result of the accepted practise of generousity and charity.
I would consider the reason to be highlighting the desperate need for vaccination in developing countries. You know, I very much doubt that people would buy Microsoft product on the basis of Bill Gates donating a shedload of money for chairty. I am very impressed with him for being so generous, but I still dislike his products and his attitude to business. Surely on his charity work there is no faulting him - not only is he pledging huge sums of money, he is getting involved with the charities. So let's thank him for this, but keep on pushing for a fairer software market :)
How are you going to know when he does donate anonymously? How do you know that he hasn't donated anonymously in the past?
I wonder how many people who click adverts by mistake are actually pleased with the page they get? After all, Google ads are supposed to be relevant...
It seems wierd that they don't have the ti-83+, seeing how that was one of the most popular ones. I'm a bit hesitant to use the French page - trying to overclocking my calc with a French guide is a recipe for disaster. Is there any English guides?
Isn't the whole thing a bit contradictory? When they say "gamers". I presume they mean people who play games A LOT, as their primary hobby - otherwise most nearly all people are gamers. Now, if gamers spend a lot of time playing games, of course they are going to miss out on other social or cultural activites. If they don't play a lot, they have time for other stuff and they are classed "normal". So what is this article saying?
I definitely wouldn't let children use google. It is incredibly easy for them to stumble across inappropriate information, even with innocuous searches. There are child-friendly search engines like www.ajkids.com and www.yahooligans.com, which give results (mostly) relevant to the search queries, and contain no nasty stuff.
They have no reason to hide these words; a person who is offended by the word "sex" in their browser window shouldn't be using google at all, frankly.
For people who would like to hear orchestral Final Fantasy but don't live in the States (i.e. me :( ) there are lots of excellent CDs on Amazon and stuff. My recommendation is Final Fantasy Potion; truly relaxing music.
You seem to have very strong views on this. Stammering has basically no effect on my life, apart from speech recognition stuff, so I thought I would like a little article. I go to speech therapy regularly, and it's helped, but in the end it actually doesn't matter. I can still speak, as you point out.
At the same time, I wanted to highlight the difficulties that a significant (yes, it is significant, 550,000 people is 1% of the UK population) may have when trying to use this new techology. Read what I said as a plea for sympathy, a pathetic, ignorant comment, whatever.
Regardless of your view, I think that it is important that adequate help is given to people who can't use speech recognition methods; no different to braille on public buildings, or whatever. If a person with a stammer tries to book a theatre ticket, but they can't because the speech recognition picks up on every hesitation in the voice, what else can they do? You can't just expect them to speak better, just as you can't expect a blind person to just "make an effort" and read the signs.
Heh, I thought no-one had wrote about this so I posted a comment. Directly below yours. =/ I have a stammer and I know what you mean about not stuttering when talking to yourself. What worries me is when speech recognition replaces more forgiving methods (i.e. a call operator). When you have a stammer it takes a bit of courage to pick up the phone, and having to talk to a machine which judges you on every word is too much pressure.
Now that it is unavoidable - for example, booking a seat at a cinema - I really feel that a significant portion of society is being discriminated against. There are 550,000 people in the UK alone who have speech dysfluency problems, and yet speech recognition cannot deal with the multitude of different manifestations of this; repetition of sounds, blocking, or laboured or breathless speaking. What am I, and everyone else who has these problems, supposed to do? Even if they did put effort into making the system smarter, I can think of nothing more intimidating than having my stammer strutinized by a piece of code.
And nothing can replace the feeling of acceptance when you can tell the operator about your stammer, and what s/he can do to make it easier for you. I place the human virtues of patience and understanding over all software (even Firefox)
What about non-commerical sites? To give an example, gameFAQs. It -needs- the money from advertising, but if it didn't you could be rest assured that CjayC wouldn't put adverts on the site. Sites like gamefaqs have saved me many hours of stress (plus the cost of strategy guides), yet I never see adverts on the site because of AdBlock. Is that fair? They are only trying to break even.
You are definitely right about the types of ads. Ads used to have pretty strict guidelines - banner ads had specific sizes, etc. etc. But now flash turns the screen into a carnival of sounds and flying images. Still, Adblock removes -all- ads. Maybe sites which have unobtrusive, helpful adverts could be "ad approved" (like when a well-made site is HTML approved). That way we could set up adblock to keep the ads intact on those sites, but remove the spammy, flashy ads on other sites.
As a sidenote, I use Firefox, and have all the ad blocking stuff set up. But I still can't help but think that it is very unethical to do so. Websites cost money. The site owner may need advertising money for revenue; there is nothing wrong with this. If a browser actively encourages people to never click on adverts, and therefore never help out the sites they frequent, it is bound to have a negative effect on the internet. I just feel that, although annoying, adverts do serve a purpose.
If you drive good, then you get karma points. A scanner at the traffic lights picks up on your karma and weights the light sequence accordingly. At times where they have no choice but turn red, you get karma points at compensation. Might be a little bit tricky to implement, but would certainly remove the "Why do I always get caught on red?" frustrations, and encourage better driving. (This post originally started as a joke but now that I think of it, it's a pretty good idea)
Personally I think that video gaming as an industry needs to distance itself from the film industry. Over the years, through countless tie-ins and franchises (most of which have been risible), we have come to associate them as natural bedfellows. It is a massive cash cow for all involved, but ultimately they dilute the franchise and leave gaming/films fans feeling cheated and disappointed. Especially game fans: paying £40 for a substandard piece of advertising isn't very fun. Dropping the shameless cash-ins and concentrating on upping the thrills and emotions felt and desired by both game and film fans would be much appreciated :)
I would much rather watch a film which captures the claustrophobic and downright scary nature of Doom, than one which simply shares the name.