Sorry but the parent was right. What you are refering to isn't communisim but it was often labeled as such by people who were a part of that central authority.
Communism is the idea of a government that is controled directly by the people, all of them. Everything from how government funds will be spent, to if they are going to war or not has to be voted upon by the whole group. Another tenet of communism is everyone working together.
The type of "communism" you are refering to is actually totalitarinism. Such regimes were fond of calling themselves communistic states because it made them sound nicer.
Sorry, but I go to the library almost every 2-3 weeks (depending on mood). I love libraries for the simple fact that I can find books I haven't even heard of from all sorts of subjects (factual and fantasy). While in high school I often used sites such as Infotract that the schools library had registered for.
What I was trying to get at is not that they have power per se, but that some of the older librarians have a feeling of power. Its also not so much that they want to keep me away from information, its that they want you to go through them to get at the information and not just find it yourself. Granted, I had forgotten to mention the fact that libraries do have free internet access but keep in mind, it isn't always unfiltered access. The libraries in my area (I can't vouch for other areas) all have filters to block certain sites that are deemed innapropriate. Now, I don't mean that such filters aren't to a degree needed, but the filters they use are pretty bad and will often catch sites that don't need to be blocked. In addition, the people deciding what is blocked and what isn't decide it on an entirely arbitrary basis.
In any case most (if not all) public libraries are not "free" per se, they are paid with tax money, donations, etc. So although you aren't paying for the books directly, you are still in fact paying for them (saying of course you pay taxes).
One last point, I wasn't complaining about libraries, it was about a few select librarians. Specifically, the ones that seem to be most against googles book scanning.
This has probably been mentioned in previous articles but oh well.
Many librarians I have met (not all, or even most, but some) have this weird mentality of "I am the gatekeeper of knowledge, you must have my leave to access the wisdom of the ages." The basically believe that knowledge is so sacred (it is) that only they are fit to gaurd it and distribute it (very not true).
When I was younger (elementry school, early-mid 90s) and you needed to research something you had to goto the library (either your schools or the public one), use a computer to look up a book (if you knew what it was) or (more often) ask a librarian to help you find books that would be useful for your topic. This gave the librarians great power because it allows them to deturmine all the information you are going to be using. When you learn and retain something, it becomes a part of you, by deciding what you learn they are in essense chaning you.
Now (for me, ever since middle school), you want to know more about ancient egyptian art? Google it and find 100s of pages of information (well, realistically you will only likely use about 10 of those pages but you get the idea). Want to know more about the 2000 US election? Google it. Before, if you wanted to find out information about certain topics (primarily recent or highly specific) then you were out of luck because often the libraries didn't have it. However, with things such as google and wikipedia, you now have access to almost any information you want from anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection.
(Beware, point soon approaching. Be prepared to duck)
Taking all this into account, it is not suprising that many librarians are reacting so harshly to this. They are all for making information more accesible but not if it doesn't go through them. Its like a company with a monopoly that it has had for ages: They've become used to the power and don't want to give it up.
The world has been slowly changing. It has become more and more difficult to control information. And as the cliche goes: Knowledge is power.
but let them be if no harm is done.
I've been playing MMOs and various other online games ever since i got my first DSL connection (about 5-6 years ago). I've been through all the crap of Diablo 1, D2, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, GunBound, and others. Hacking/botting ruins the game. It got to the point in D1 that you pretty much had to either have an anti-hack hack or only play with people you knew didn't cheat (which kinda defeated the whole purpose of online play).
Some of those games made valiant efforts to stop cheating but most of the time it just bugged the non-hackers and the hackers were mostly unaffected. New patch that stops the latest cheating software? 30 min later it was already bypassed (this happend almost daily at some points in maple story).
I think that as long as this program doesn't transmit anything more then a "oh noes! this player is cheating message!!1!1!!11one!" there shouldn't be any problem. In fact we should be thanking Blizzard for making an anti-cheat program that actualy works and doesn't mess up your computer.
But, as always, It is always prudent to keep an eye on what ever anti-hacking measures Bliz takes.
Mars is techtonically dead so earthquakes don't happen. Also, a "couple hundred knots" of wind isn't as impressive on Mars as it is on Earth. Winds on earth that qualify as hurricane speeds on earth, would feel more like a light breeze on Mars due to the low air pressure.
Also, if we want create a colony on another celestial body besides the moon, Mars would be the best choice. Venus is way too hot and has major acid rain. Moons are a bad idea because prolonged exposure to low G environments can cause health problems. Mars, even if it has high winds, is the most similar to earth. It would also be easier to colonize with our current level of technology then venus would.
The author is completely right about the stress level of Trauma Center. Its a fun game but it isn't one you can play for hours on end or in a 24 gaming session. Your whole body starts to tense up while playing. Expecially if you keep failing a mission. I also agree with the whole wanting to throw the DS. Its gotten to the point where i have to wear the wrist strap so that I'm not too tempted to throw it.
Actually the DS has two different types of signals. It has the standard 801.11G and B signal. It also has their own special signal (often called Ni-Fi). The special signal only is compatable with DSs (at the moment). The Ni-Fi signal is normally used when 2 DSs are communicating with eachother. If they do deliver a free signal for DS owners only then they are probably going to use Ni-Fi instead of Wi-Fi
Anyone who has read The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson should recognize this invention. The character who invented the theme park that is the focus of the story made his first billions with this invention. They called it the "pap-zapper"
Microsoft can't coexist with anyone. To them, "the competition" is anyone in the computer industry who is making money or gaining power who is not them.
The reason is that competition is against the mafia ethic.
How long before this technology makes its way into the field of game AI? Imagine a game such as Deus Ex or SW:KoToR where you don't merely choose your response to NPC's from a predefined list, you type in your answer!
Lower value to thieves. How many people really want an inexpensive ebook vs a laptop? If all you can do is read textbooks from it, it's a much smaller theft target.
In addition, if they make the design of it obviously different then similar products in stores, then when someone trys to sell it at a pawn shop then they'll immediately recognise that it was stolen. All that would be needed would be to emblazon the schools logo onto it in a way that isn't easily removeable.
Another way would be to use some sort of security method so that would allow the school to upload/download data to/from it but not students/thieves/etc. Preferably it wouldn't be a password, passwords are much easier to steal/remove/guess/etc then, say, a special cord that can only be bought from the company that makes it (I personally don't like this idea but it is still an example).
As many have been pointing out, alot of anime that reaches america are full of Blue hair, oversexed teenagers, chibiness, etc.
Note, I said "anime that REACHES america". I should be even more specific to anime that actually reaches television. There is alot of anime out there that doesn't follow the the standard stereotypes. What most people think of when they think of anime are the follow: Sailor Moon (older anime generally has more of the cliches then newer), Pokemon (a bad example of anime as is. It hasen't had a truely new plot since the second season), Yugioh (hacked until it died, entire first season cut out of the english version), Digimon (I presonally like digimon but it still isn't a good example), and Dragon Ball Z (Horrible anime. It would have been better if the plot were condensed down by 200-300 episodes).
Some good examples of anime that have actually reached america (and are far less known outside of anime circles) are: Ghost In a Shell Stand Alone Complex (great plot, animation, etc. The only "fanservice" (ie, big titties), is the Major), Samurai Champloo (new on tv, airs at almost midnight though. Cowboy Bebop - Bebop + Hiphop + Samurai = Samurai Champloo), and "Now and Then, Here and There" (a great dark drama, deals with many major social issues. Only on DVD), FLCL (Aired briefly, has a really good dub), and more.
The main problem facing anime in america is that they target the majority of televised anime towards the wrong audience. They target it about 2-5 years too young. A good example of this is One Piece. One piece is a great anime with an semi-interesting plot and is just generally funny (and it has pirates and pirates are cool). However, they air it on saturday morning and all that implies. They cut out all the blood (its about pirates, so ofcourse there will be quite a bit of blood). They cut out all the profanity (actually, alot of anime have quite a bit of profanity in it). One of the characters smokes and they turned it into a lollypop. There is more but I have to keep in mind my blood presure.
Alot of anime would buy more anime if they didn't do such a hack job of translating it. As others have mentioned, why buy badly translated anime when you can get a free version that is (on average) better translated then the paid version? Another point is that when the DVD comes out, usually anime fans will buy it just because the video and audio quality is better. I personally prefer dvds over downloaded for just that reason. Granted, there are those who won't buy anime and will just download it, but most of those wouldn't buy it even if it wasn't available free.
thats my $.02 on the matter.
There are two points that I would like to make:
1) As some have mentioned, not all games have monthly/yearly charges that are required to play. Games such as http://mapleglobal.com/ and http://gunbound.net/ opperate on a differnent model. The game is totally free to play (you don't even have to pay for the game itself, you download it). However, if you want spiffy enhancements (such as cool outfits and weapons) then you have to pay a one time fee for that item (like going to a store). This model is very effective for low bandwidth games like gunbound and maple story (low bandwidth compared to, say, WoW). Because you don't have to pay, you CAN play only on weekends when you have free time without feeling you aren't getting your monies worth.
2) Some games are experimenting with the idea that although you the player don't play 24/7 your character does. In http://atriarch.com/ your character stays in even while you log out. While you aren't playing your character does whatever tasks you want it to while you are gone (like practicing skills). This allows people who don't play very much to keep up with players who do play alot. Granted, players who actually play level up faster then players who let thier AI do it for them but they don't fall nearly as far behind.
This is the second game that I know of that this has happened to. An old game called subspace was a pay to play game but they couldn't make enough money to support it. Because of that they just turned it over to the fans and they made it a free game. It is now called continnum and has 1000s of people playing it all the time.
It so true that they don't care about if our credit number is stolen, all they care about is that they get paid for the card being used.
Just this past month (i think it was visa, but it might have been another) my parents were looking at their credit card purchases for the last month and found that it was used twice at quickie mart in [i][b]Hati[/i][/b]. The annoying part about this is the fact that the credit card company didn't even notice it (there were several purchases at approximately the same time a quarter of the way around the world that were actually done by them).
Is sad how no matter how careful you are about getting that kind of data stolen, it can happen through no fault of your own.
One of the reason they are "digital media device" is 1) That is the real name of it (ast the previous reply stated) and 2) Some versions hold things besides mp3s like movies and pictures.
My old highschool still uses Win 2k not because it is better but because the school tech guy(s) hate WinXP. Another reason is that most of the people at the school (techers and students) who use computers cant get used to new interfaces because they look different (if their inbox button isn't in EXACTLY the right spot, its an instant call to tech support). Because of WinXPs candy coated interface, we can't use it because all of the students and staff are used to the ultitarian look of Win2K.
Yeah, A few years ago (it was on the front page of one of the Oregonian sections. Why, i don't know). It was basically a pill with an LED and a tiny camera. You swallowed the pill (no chewing!) and it transmitted pictures of your insides.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry but the parent was right. What you are refering to isn't communisim but it was often labeled as such by people who were a part of that central authority.
Communism is the idea of a government that is controled directly by the people, all of them. Everything from how government funds will be spent, to if they are going to war or not has to be voted upon by the whole group. Another tenet of communism is everyone working together.
The type of "communism" you are refering to is actually totalitarinism. Such regimes were fond of calling themselves communistic states because it made them sound nicer.
Sorry, but I go to the library almost every 2-3 weeks (depending on mood). I love libraries for the simple fact that I can find books I haven't even heard of from all sorts of subjects (factual and fantasy). While in high school I often used sites such as Infotract that the schools library had registered for.
What I was trying to get at is not that they have power per se, but that some of the older librarians have a feeling of power. Its also not so much that they want to keep me away from information, its that they want you to go through them to get at the information and not just find it yourself. Granted, I had forgotten to mention the fact that libraries do have free internet access but keep in mind, it isn't always unfiltered access. The libraries in my area (I can't vouch for other areas) all have filters to block certain sites that are deemed innapropriate. Now, I don't mean that such filters aren't to a degree needed, but the filters they use are pretty bad and will often catch sites that don't need to be blocked. In addition, the people deciding what is blocked and what isn't decide it on an entirely arbitrary basis.
In any case most (if not all) public libraries are not "free" per se, they are paid with tax money, donations, etc. So although you aren't paying for the books directly, you are still in fact paying for them (saying of course you pay taxes).
One last point, I wasn't complaining about libraries, it was about a few select librarians. Specifically, the ones that seem to be most against googles book scanning.
Now who still believes the boogy man doesn't come out at halloween?
This has probably been mentioned in previous articles but oh well.
Many librarians I have met (not all, or even most, but some) have this weird mentality of "I am the gatekeeper of knowledge, you must have my leave to access the wisdom of the ages." The basically believe that knowledge is so sacred (it is) that only they are fit to gaurd it and distribute it (very not true).
When I was younger (elementry school, early-mid 90s) and you needed to research something you had to goto the library (either your schools or the public one), use a computer to look up a book (if you knew what it was) or (more often) ask a librarian to help you find books that would be useful for your topic. This gave the librarians great power because it allows them to deturmine all the information you are going to be using. When you learn and retain something, it becomes a part of you, by deciding what you learn they are in essense chaning you.
Now (for me, ever since middle school), you want to know more about ancient egyptian art? Google it and find 100s of pages of information (well, realistically you will only likely use about 10 of those pages but you get the idea). Want to know more about the 2000 US election? Google it. Before, if you wanted to find out information about certain topics (primarily recent or highly specific) then you were out of luck because often the libraries didn't have it. However, with things such as google and wikipedia, you now have access to almost any information you want from anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection.
(Beware, point soon approaching. Be prepared to duck)
Taking all this into account, it is not suprising that many librarians are reacting so harshly to this. They are all for making information more accesible but not if it doesn't go through them. Its like a company with a monopoly that it has had for ages: They've become used to the power and don't want to give it up.
The world has been slowly changing. It has become more and more difficult to control information. And as the cliche goes: Knowledge is power.
but let them be if no harm is done. I've been playing MMOs and various other online games ever since i got my first DSL connection (about 5-6 years ago). I've been through all the crap of Diablo 1, D2, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, GunBound, and others. Hacking/botting ruins the game. It got to the point in D1 that you pretty much had to either have an anti-hack hack or only play with people you knew didn't cheat (which kinda defeated the whole purpose of online play). Some of those games made valiant efforts to stop cheating but most of the time it just bugged the non-hackers and the hackers were mostly unaffected. New patch that stops the latest cheating software? 30 min later it was already bypassed (this happend almost daily at some points in maple story). I think that as long as this program doesn't transmit anything more then a "oh noes! this player is cheating message!!1!1!!11one!" there shouldn't be any problem. In fact we should be thanking Blizzard for making an anti-cheat program that actualy works and doesn't mess up your computer. But, as always, It is always prudent to keep an eye on what ever anti-hacking measures Bliz takes.
Mars is techtonically dead so earthquakes don't happen. Also, a "couple hundred knots" of wind isn't as impressive on Mars as it is on Earth. Winds on earth that qualify as hurricane speeds on earth, would feel more like a light breeze on Mars due to the low air pressure.
Also, if we want create a colony on another celestial body besides the moon, Mars would be the best choice. Venus is way too hot and has major acid rain. Moons are a bad idea because prolonged exposure to low G environments can cause health problems. Mars, even if it has high winds, is the most similar to earth. It would also be easier to colonize with our current level of technology then venus would.
The author is completely right about the stress level of Trauma Center. Its a fun game but it isn't one you can play for hours on end or in a 24 gaming session. Your whole body starts to tense up while playing. Expecially if you keep failing a mission. I also agree with the whole wanting to throw the DS. Its gotten to the point where i have to wear the wrist strap so that I'm not too tempted to throw it.
Not true! It also runs on OS X. :D
Maybe this will cause all their WoW and Starcraft addicts to switch to Mac.
Actually the DS has two different types of signals. It has the standard 801.11G and B signal. It also has their own special signal (often called Ni-Fi). The special signal only is compatable with DSs (at the moment). The Ni-Fi signal is normally used when 2 DSs are communicating with eachother. If they do deliver a free signal for DS owners only then they are probably going to use Ni-Fi instead of Wi-Fi
Same thing happens to my brain whenever I hear some people speak.
Am I the only one who read that at first as "alien telescope array"?
Anyone who has read The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson should recognize this invention. The character who invented the theme park that is the focus of the story made his first billions with this invention. They called it the "pap-zapper"
I personally am waiting for the internet like in the Megaman Battle Network games. I want a PET! =)
Lower value to thieves. How many people really want an inexpensive ebook vs a laptop? If all you can do is read textbooks from it, it's a much smaller theft target. In addition, if they make the design of it obviously different then similar products in stores, then when someone trys to sell it at a pawn shop then they'll immediately recognise that it was stolen. All that would be needed would be to emblazon the schools logo onto it in a way that isn't easily removeable. Another way would be to use some sort of security method so that would allow the school to upload/download data to/from it but not students/thieves/etc. Preferably it wouldn't be a password, passwords are much easier to steal/remove/guess/etc then, say, a special cord that can only be bought from the company that makes it (I personally don't like this idea but it is still an example).
As many have been pointing out, alot of anime that reaches america are full of Blue hair, oversexed teenagers, chibiness, etc.
Note, I said "anime that REACHES america". I should be even more specific to anime that actually reaches television. There is alot of anime out there that doesn't follow the the standard stereotypes. What most people think of when they think of anime are the follow: Sailor Moon (older anime generally has more of the cliches then newer), Pokemon (a bad example of anime as is. It hasen't had a truely new plot since the second season), Yugioh (hacked until it died, entire first season cut out of the english version), Digimon (I presonally like digimon but it still isn't a good example), and Dragon Ball Z (Horrible anime. It would have been better if the plot were condensed down by 200-300 episodes).
Some good examples of anime that have actually reached america (and are far less known outside of anime circles) are: Ghost In a Shell Stand Alone Complex (great plot, animation, etc. The only "fanservice" (ie, big titties), is the Major), Samurai Champloo (new on tv, airs at almost midnight though. Cowboy Bebop - Bebop + Hiphop + Samurai = Samurai Champloo), and "Now and Then, Here and There" (a great dark drama, deals with many major social issues. Only on DVD), FLCL (Aired briefly, has a really good dub), and more.
The main problem facing anime in america is that they target the majority of televised anime towards the wrong audience. They target it about 2-5 years too young. A good example of this is One Piece. One piece is a great anime with an semi-interesting plot and is just generally funny (and it has pirates and pirates are cool). However, they air it on saturday morning and all that implies. They cut out all the blood (its about pirates, so ofcourse there will be quite a bit of blood). They cut out all the profanity (actually, alot of anime have quite a bit of profanity in it). One of the characters smokes and they turned it into a lollypop. There is more but I have to keep in mind my blood presure.
Alot of anime would buy more anime if they didn't do such a hack job of translating it. As others have mentioned, why buy badly translated anime when you can get a free version that is (on average) better translated then the paid version? Another point is that when the DVD comes out, usually anime fans will buy it just because the video and audio quality is better. I personally prefer dvds over downloaded for just that reason. Granted, there are those who won't buy anime and will just download it, but most of those wouldn't buy it even if it wasn't available free. thats my $.02 on the matter.
There are two points that I would like to make: 1) As some have mentioned, not all games have monthly/yearly charges that are required to play. Games such as http://mapleglobal.com/ and http://gunbound.net/ opperate on a differnent model. The game is totally free to play (you don't even have to pay for the game itself, you download it). However, if you want spiffy enhancements (such as cool outfits and weapons) then you have to pay a one time fee for that item (like going to a store). This model is very effective for low bandwidth games like gunbound and maple story (low bandwidth compared to, say, WoW). Because you don't have to pay, you CAN play only on weekends when you have free time without feeling you aren't getting your monies worth. 2) Some games are experimenting with the idea that although you the player don't play 24/7 your character does. In http://atriarch.com/ your character stays in even while you log out. While you aren't playing your character does whatever tasks you want it to while you are gone (like practicing skills). This allows people who don't play very much to keep up with players who do play alot. Granted, players who actually play level up faster then players who let thier AI do it for them but they don't fall nearly as far behind.
I for one welcome our zombie canine overlords.
This is the second game that I know of that this has happened to. An old game called subspace was a pay to play game but they couldn't make enough money to support it. Because of that they just turned it over to the fans and they made it a free game. It is now called continnum and has 1000s of people playing it all the time.
It so true that they don't care about if our credit number is stolen, all they care about is that they get paid for the card being used.
Just this past month (i think it was visa, but it might have been another) my parents were looking at their credit card purchases for the last month and found that it was used twice at quickie mart in [i][b]Hati[/i][/b]. The annoying part about this is the fact that the credit card company didn't even notice it (there were several purchases at approximately the same time a quarter of the way around the world that were actually done by them).
Is sad how no matter how careful you are about getting that kind of data stolen, it can happen through no fault of your own.
One of the reason they are "digital media device" is 1) That is the real name of it (ast the previous reply stated) and 2) Some versions hold things besides mp3s like movies and pictures.
My old highschool still uses Win 2k not because it is better but because the school tech guy(s) hate WinXP. Another reason is that most of the people at the school (techers and students) who use computers cant get used to new interfaces because they look different (if their inbox button isn't in EXACTLY the right spot, its an instant call to tech support). Because of WinXPs candy coated interface, we can't use it because all of the students and staff are used to the ultitarian look of Win2K.
Yeah, A few years ago (it was on the front page of one of the Oregonian sections. Why, i don't know). It was basically a pill with an LED and a tiny camera. You swallowed the pill (no chewing!) and it transmitted pictures of your insides.