Remains of First African Slaves Found
Don't they mean the first African slaves in America. It's not like there was no slavery in Africa before Columbus found America.
I do know that on at least one of the topics mentioned in the article, Taiwan's independence, the Chinese are very brainwashed. Talk to people from any other country, including Taiwan, and you'll get a mix of opinions on whether Taiwan is independent from China, a part of the nation of China, a part of some "Greater China" or some other weird thing. Talk to people from China and it is a very rare thing to meet someone who doesn't believe that Taiwan is part of China and that China should take Taiwan by force if necessary to support their claim. That is a dangerous thing. If people from China could hear other sides of the debate it might not change their minds completely, but it might at least lessen their belief that capturing Taiwan and taking freedom from the Taiwanese people is something worth spilling blood for.
Does a publicly traded company only have financial duties to shareholders, or should it be trying to help those shareholders in other ways? For example, would a shareholder rather live in a world where he has an extra $500, or a world where his kids won't have to fight a war with a brainwashed Chinese population? As a shareholder, I expect my companies to behave in a manner that will make my life better in more than just financial ways.
The most frustrated I've ever been with cinematics in a game was in Zelda the Windwaker. I was trying to sneak up on a guy and hit him from behind. As soon as I got within a few feet, I get a cut scene to him noticing me, then turning around and heading toward me. Of course, I couldn't react during that time. By the time I could react, he was nearly on top of me and I lost some health before I could get away.
It only happens the first time you approach the guy, but it sure is annoying.
Are there really PC gamers who stopped paying PC games and went solely to the Xbox?
Maybe only a few, but I bet there a lot of people like me who, upon getting a console game, no longer felt the desire to upgrade their PC because the PC couldn't handle game graphics but was fine for business apps.
Of course games are art. They are designed created by people to appeal to the emotions. They may not yet be great art, or they may not be art that Mr. Ebert likes (I'm not too fond of some of his movie picks), but they are art.
Mostly games aren't modern art because games are enjoyable, make sense, and cannot be created by orangutans.
Getting infuriated by bad TV is a spectacularly useless kind of rage, an exercise in futility akin to bemoaning the badness of "Star Wars'" romance scenes or the stupidity of intelligent design advocates. It's always better to just change the channel.
But getting mad about bad TV depictions of video game culture takes such pointlessness to truly stratospheric heights of inanity.
He's right you know. So why are we here? If seeing stuff on a TV screen influences your behavior, then they're right that video-games are a bad influence. If seeing stuff on a TV screen doesn't influence your behavior then why do gamers care if gamers are depicted negatively on TV?
So why am I posting? I noticed only one person posted before me and I'm hoping an early post will get modded up and help my karma:)
Whether in game ads are necessary or not, the only question for me is whether I will play them. The answer is 'no'. Even for games like hockey or racing, I don't play the game to be immersed in advertisements regardless of whether ads occur are everywhere in real-life racing and hockey.
I don't play games to experience 'reality'. If I wanted that I would turn off the game and go experience it. I play games as a temporary escape. That's what I'm willing to pay for. I think its safe to assume that one reason games are becoming more popular and TV less popular is that one has fewer commercials than the other.
You also have to look at the price of making the changes. If every device needs to have a more expensive device put in so that it uses less energy, then how much energy are we using for those devices? How much energy are we spending for each company to re-engineer it's product line to use the new devices? How much energy are the simple actions required to save energy taking? How much opportunity-cost are we using worrying about $4 a year? Could those researchers be working on a way to save each person $6 a year? Figure out a way to improve traffic conditions even slightly and you'll save more money than you will on these energy costs.
In the United States alone, over $1 billion per year is spent...
The US has about 300 million people. So that's less than $4 per person per year, or 16 bucks for a family of 4. Doesn't seem worth worrying about to me. A family of 4 spends more than that on a single tank of gas for their car.
Look, before all you ultra right wing whackos start modding me down
I don't think there's any danger of that. See how many highly modded posts ridicule Intelligent Design and how many ridicule Science or Evolution. I once posted a thoughtful article about the limitations of science and was initially modded up then overwhelmingly modded down as "overrated".
I won't defend Intelligent Design, because I think that as a "scientific theory" it is a fraud. But I will say that people shouldn't worship science. And I will say that a bit more humility tolerance for religious beliefs from science educators would go a long way toward preventing this silliness. We take reasonable steps to accommodate religion all the time (or at least we should). A no hat policy? Don't apply it to Sikhs so long as their head coverings aren't brightly colored or too big. Some Christians don't believe in evelution? Reword the questions from "Did man evolve from one-celled organisms?" to "Does the theory of evolution say man evolved from one-celled organisms?" so that a student can demostrate his knowledge without repudiating his religion.
Remember, science is only science. Whether or not it is the way to the final truth, or merely a way to understand things that seems to work really really well, is a religious question. Telling students that if it isn't scientific then it's worthless is a religious bias and has no place in the classroom. And it is an arrogant attitude I see far too often in these slashdot discussions.
I play the games to get away from the real world. When the lawyers start claiming the property is "real" (and legal enforcement starts), it is no longer a game. The bits, bytes, servers, etc. belong to the game company. You agree when you play the game to play by their rules. I like playing by the rules and keeping it "just a game". If you don't like it, go start your own game and make your own rules. The company running the game should have the right to take whatever in-game action it feels appropriate to deal with rule-breakers.
What exactly is the "happy middle" between utterly unfounded theocratic dogma disguised as "science" and actual science?
By 'unfounded theocratic dogma disguised as "science"' I'm guessing you mean "intelligent design". I suspect that if you read my post you'll find no direct mention of it, though it is part of the "backlash" I describe.
I don't think "intelligent design" is science. I was talking about a "happy middle" where you can accept both religion and science, or at least accept science without while not feeling the need to insult those who have religious beliefs.
You claim that '"compromise" would have us dilute and distort the fundamental precepts of science by saying "We don't get it, so we're gonna invent a big guy in the sky to explain it".'
Apparantly you didn't bother to read my compromise. My 'compromise' was that
It would help a lot educators could simply acknowledge that:
1. Science cannot tell us what happened, only what is a plausible explanation for what happened, and there are always alternative explanations.
2. You don't need to believe the theory of evolution to pass the class, you only need to understand it and be able to explain it because whether it turns out to be correct or not, it is widely accepted enough that you need to know about it to be educated.
I don't see anything in there about inventing or the sky or anything else you mention.
The intolerance and the willingness to jump to conclusions you display are a perfect example of the kind of thing that has caused a backlash. Religious folk wouldn't feel the need to come up with psuedoscience if people like you weren't so intolerant and so convinced of your own superiority. Thank you for providing a demonstration to help make my point.
Religion remains strong in America on both sides of the issue. The religious beliefs most Americans hold are not incompatible with science, but all too often educators and scientists fail to realize this. Instead, they make a religion of science itself and proclaim that all views that do not idolize science are wrong. This in turn has produced a backlash amoung many Americans who subcribe to a religion other than science. This is not to say that all scientists have science as their religion. Properly viewed, science is not a religion - it is a tool and like any tool it has limits.
What has caused most of the backlash is the issue of what is taught in school. It would help a lot educators could simply acknowledge that:
1. Science cannot tell us what happened, only what is a plausible explanation for what happened, and there are always alternative explanations.
2. You don't need to believe the theory of education to pass the class, you only need to understand it and be able to explain it because whether it turns out to be correct or not, it is widely accepted enough that you need to know about it to be educated.
There is a happy middle, but of course it is the most vocal on both sides of the issue who cannot compromise and who get most of the press.
One thing that bothers me about editing out things that are no longer acceptable from old movies, is that younger generations are given a false images of the past.
When I was young I heard talk about racism, and how bad it had been, but I didn't see it. All the talk just seemed like old people exaggerating to make a point. Sort of like how we only hear the good things about Lincoln and never the bad things.
What really got through to me was seeing a movie that must have been made in the late 20s or early 30s. It was set in the American south on a plantation. The treatment of blacks in what little I saw of that movie was revealing - particularly a line where a white woman explains why she need to accompany a friend from the north on a trip (from memory) "She doesn't know how to take care of herself down here...how to tell a [n-word] to do something like she means it so he'll get it done...".
The worker shortage might not be reflected by the employment figures as there are many jobs (code coolie types like maintainence, porting etc) that American workers do not want to do.
Nonsense. The only reason Americans don't want to do the jobs is they don't pay well enough, and they don't pay well enough because there are foreigners willing to do them for less. The number of foreigners in different parts of America varies greatly. Who do you think does the jobs that "Americans do not want to do" in places like Iowa, Idaho, South Dakota, and Kentucky?
I would still rather compete with them while they're paying an American cost-of-living than have to compete against them while they're paying an Indian or Chinese cost-of-living. Keep bringing those programmers over here. Keep the jobs here where at least I have a chance of getting one. And keep the costs at an American rate.
According to the story, the Taiwanese government wasn't able to "secure permission to copy the drug" even though a government official said "We have tried our best to negotiate with Roche".
The story doesn't say why negotiations failed. That seems like important information. Was Taiwan unwilling to pay a fair price? Was Roche afraid of offending bully China? What was the problem?
But how much spyware is installed by the user unknowingly, via misleading dialog boxes or other methods in which the user is fooled into installing it? I somehow doubt that would fall under the trespassing rule, due to being allowed in, no matter how sleazy the entry.
I supposed that would depend on the nature of the deception. If the message said "Click this button and you will see a picture" instead of "click this button and software will be installed", then there is little difference from someone asking if they can show you their hat and using your consent as an excuse to barge into your home and rewire your TV.
So what happens if they put these robofish in with real fish? Are they able to school with them and follow the pack around? If they could do that this could provide a neat way to track schools of fish in the ocean without having to attach sensors to real fish. Add some sensors for determining when it gets out of water and you might have a way to catch people engaged in illegal fishing.
Slashdot Mirror
Remains of First African Slaves Found Don't they mean the first African slaves in America. It's not like there was no slavery in Africa before Columbus found America.
I do know that on at least one of the topics mentioned in the article, Taiwan's independence, the Chinese are very brainwashed. Talk to people from any other country, including Taiwan, and you'll get a mix of opinions on whether Taiwan is independent from China, a part of the nation of China, a part of some "Greater China" or some other weird thing. Talk to people from China and it is a very rare thing to meet someone who doesn't believe that Taiwan is part of China and that China should take Taiwan by force if necessary to support their claim. That is a dangerous thing. If people from China could hear other sides of the debate it might not change their minds completely, but it might at least lessen their belief that capturing Taiwan and taking freedom from the Taiwanese people is something worth spilling blood for.
Does a publicly traded company only have financial duties to shareholders, or should it be trying to help those shareholders in other ways? For example, would a shareholder rather live in a world where he has an extra $500, or a world where his kids won't have to fight a war with a brainwashed Chinese population? As a shareholder, I expect my companies to behave in a manner that will make my life better in more than just financial ways.
The most frustrated I've ever been with cinematics in a game was in Zelda the Windwaker. I was trying to sneak up on a guy and hit him from behind. As soon as I got within a few feet, I get a cut scene to him noticing me, then turning around and heading toward me. Of course, I couldn't react during that time. By the time I could react, he was nearly on top of me and I lost some health before I could get away.
It only happens the first time you approach the guy, but it sure is annoying.
So Taiwan is willing to stand up to both Microsoft and China! Way to go! I wish other industrialized nations had that kind of courage!
Are there really PC gamers who stopped paying PC games and went solely to the Xbox?
Maybe only a few, but I bet there a lot of people like me who, upon getting a console game, no longer felt the desire to upgrade their PC because the PC couldn't handle game graphics but was fine for business apps.
oops, replied to the wrong topic. Boy is my face red. Mod me down boys.
Of course games are art. They are designed created by people to appeal to the emotions. They may not yet be great art, or they may not be art that Mr. Ebert likes (I'm not too fond of some of his movie picks), but they are art.
Mostly games aren't modern art because games are enjoyable, make sense, and cannot be created by orangutans.
Getting infuriated by bad TV is a spectacularly useless kind of rage, an exercise in futility akin to bemoaning the badness of "Star Wars'" romance scenes or the stupidity of intelligent design advocates. It's always better to just change the channel.
:)
But getting mad about bad TV depictions of video game culture takes such pointlessness to truly stratospheric heights of inanity.
He's right you know. So why are we here? If seeing stuff on a TV screen influences your behavior, then they're right that video-games are a bad influence. If seeing stuff on a TV screen doesn't influence your behavior then why do gamers care if gamers are depicted negatively on TV?
So why am I posting? I noticed only one person posted before me and I'm hoping an early post will get modded up and help my karma
Whether in game ads are necessary or not, the only question for me is whether I will play them. The answer is 'no'. Even for games like hockey or racing, I don't play the game to be immersed in advertisements regardless of whether ads occur are everywhere in real-life racing and hockey.
I don't play games to experience 'reality'. If I wanted that I would turn off the game and go experience it. I play games as a temporary escape. That's what I'm willing to pay for. I think its safe to assume that one reason games are becoming more popular and TV less popular is that one has fewer commercials than the other.
You also have to look at the price of making the changes. If every device needs to have a more expensive device put in so that it uses less energy, then how much energy are we using for those devices? How much energy are we spending for each company to re-engineer it's product line to use the new devices? How much energy are the simple actions required to save energy taking? How much opportunity-cost are we using worrying about $4 a year? Could those researchers be working on a way to save each person $6 a year? Figure out a way to improve traffic conditions even slightly and you'll save more money than you will on these energy costs.
In the United States alone, over $1 billion per year is spent...
The US has about 300 million people. So that's less than $4 per person per year, or 16 bucks for a family of 4. Doesn't seem worth worrying about to me. A family of 4 spends more than that on a single tank of gas for their car.
Look, before all you ultra right wing whackos start modding me down
I don't think there's any danger of that. See how many highly modded posts ridicule Intelligent Design and how many ridicule Science or Evolution. I once posted a thoughtful article about the limitations of science and was initially modded up then overwhelmingly modded down as "overrated".
I won't defend Intelligent Design, because I think that as a "scientific theory" it is a fraud. But I will say that people shouldn't worship science. And I will say that a bit more humility tolerance for religious beliefs from science educators would go a long way toward preventing this silliness. We take reasonable steps to accommodate religion all the time (or at least we should). A no hat policy? Don't apply it to Sikhs so long as their head coverings aren't brightly colored or too big. Some Christians don't believe in evelution? Reword the questions from "Did man evolve from one-celled organisms?" to "Does the theory of evolution say man evolved from one-celled organisms?" so that a student can demostrate his knowledge without repudiating his religion.
Remember, science is only science. Whether or not it is the way to the final truth, or merely a way to understand things that seems to work really really well, is a religious question. Telling students that if it isn't scientific then it's worthless is a religious bias and has no place in the classroom. And it is an arrogant attitude I see far too often in these slashdot discussions.
I play the games to get away from the real world. When the lawyers start claiming the property is "real" (and legal enforcement starts), it is no longer a game. The bits, bytes, servers, etc. belong to the game company. You agree when you play the game to play by their rules. I like playing by the rules and keeping it "just a game". If you don't like it, go start your own game and make your own rules. The company running the game should have the right to take whatever in-game action it feels appropriate to deal with rule-breakers.
Looks like most of the gaming consoles require you to stand. Not much of a "lounge" in my opinion.
What exactly is the "happy middle" between utterly unfounded theocratic dogma disguised as "science" and actual science?
By 'unfounded theocratic dogma disguised as "science"' I'm guessing you mean "intelligent design". I suspect that if you read my post you'll find no direct mention of it, though it is part of the "backlash" I describe.
I don't think "intelligent design" is science. I was talking about a "happy middle" where you can accept both religion and science, or at least accept science without while not feeling the need to insult those who have religious beliefs.
You claim that '"compromise" would have us dilute and distort the fundamental precepts of science by saying "We don't get it, so we're gonna invent a big guy in the sky to explain it".'
Apparantly you didn't bother to read my compromise. My 'compromise' was that
It would help a lot educators could simply acknowledge that:
1. Science cannot tell us what happened, only what is a plausible explanation for what happened, and there are always alternative explanations.
2. You don't need to believe the theory of evolution to pass the class, you only need to understand it and be able to explain it because whether it turns out to be correct or not, it is widely accepted enough that you need to know about it to be educated.
I don't see anything in there about inventing or the sky or anything else you mention.
The intolerance and the willingness to jump to conclusions you display are a perfect example of the kind of thing that has caused a backlash. Religious folk wouldn't feel the need to come up with psuedoscience if people like you weren't so intolerant and so convinced of your own superiority. Thank you for providing a demonstration to help make my point.
Religion remains strong in America on both sides of the issue. The religious beliefs most Americans hold are not incompatible with science, but all too often educators and scientists fail to realize this. Instead, they make a religion of science itself and proclaim that all views that do not idolize science are wrong. This in turn has produced a backlash amoung many Americans who subcribe to a religion other than science. This is not to say that all scientists have science as their religion. Properly viewed, science is not a religion - it is a tool and like any tool it has limits.
What has caused most of the backlash is the issue of what is taught in school. It would help a lot educators could simply acknowledge that:
1. Science cannot tell us what happened, only what is a plausible explanation for what happened, and there are always alternative explanations.
2. You don't need to believe the theory of education to pass the class, you only need to understand it and be able to explain it because whether it turns out to be correct or not, it is widely accepted enough that you need to know about it to be educated.
There is a happy middle, but of course it is the most vocal on both sides of the issue who cannot compromise and who get most of the press.
One thing that bothers me about editing out things that are no longer acceptable from old movies, is that younger generations are given a false images of the past.
When I was young I heard talk about racism, and how bad it had been, but I didn't see it. All the talk just seemed like old people exaggerating to make a point. Sort of like how we only hear the good things about Lincoln and never the bad things.
What really got through to me was seeing a movie that must have been made in the late 20s or early 30s. It was set in the American south on a plantation. The treatment of blacks in what little I saw of that movie was revealing - particularly a line where a white woman explains why she need to accompany a friend from the north on a trip (from memory) "She doesn't know how to take care of herself down here...how to tell a [n-word] to do something like she means it so he'll get it done...".
Just try to find ANY version of Disney's Song of the South.
I went from Atari 2600 straight to GameCube. Both are (were) great! I'm looking forward to my first experience with Zelda!
The worker shortage might not be reflected by the employment figures as there are many jobs (code coolie types like maintainence, porting etc) that American workers do not want to do.
Nonsense. The only reason Americans don't want to do the jobs is they don't pay well enough, and they don't pay well enough because there are foreigners willing to do them for less. The number of foreigners in different parts of America varies greatly. Who do you think does the jobs that "Americans do not want to do" in places like Iowa, Idaho, South Dakota, and Kentucky?
I would still rather compete with them while they're paying an American cost-of-living than have to compete against them while they're paying an Indian or Chinese cost-of-living. Keep bringing those programmers over here. Keep the jobs here where at least I have a chance of getting one. And keep the costs at an American rate.
According to the story, the Taiwanese government wasn't able to "secure permission to copy the drug" even though a government official said "We have tried our best to negotiate with Roche". The story doesn't say why negotiations failed. That seems like important information. Was Taiwan unwilling to pay a fair price? Was Roche afraid of offending bully China? What was the problem?
But how much spyware is installed by the user unknowingly, via misleading dialog boxes or other methods in which the user is fooled into installing it? I somehow doubt that would fall under the trespassing rule, due to being allowed in, no matter how sleazy the entry.
I supposed that would depend on the nature of the deception. If the message said "Click this button and you will see a picture" instead of "click this button and software will be installed", then there is little difference from someone asking if they can show you their hat and using your consent as an excuse to barge into your home and rewire your TV.
So what happens if they put these robofish in with real fish? Are they able to school with them and follow the pack around? If they could do that this could provide a neat way to track schools of fish in the ocean without having to attach sensors to real fish. Add some sensors for determining when it gets out of water and you might have a way to catch people engaged in illegal fishing.