I would surmise that there are probably better solutions for those special effects houses. Havok is nice for games which need to be handled in real-time, but rendered movies have more time to work their calculations and would probably want accuracy and realism over efficiency. So I'm going to guess that Havok isn't aiming for their needs.
For example, running is complicated physics but it's theoretically doable. But in games you want to save overhead so instead of a long formula drawing in all the factors, game physics can just assign the player a net velocity, keeping things simple. So I don't think Havok's specialty is achieving maximum realism, but more likely their goal is efficient realism.
And based on Nintendo's difficulty in satisfying demand, it's not much of a stretch to include them among those companies. It's easy to say something is a sure bet in hindsight, but that's not how it looked back before anyone had gotten their hands on the Nintendo Revolution.
Different doesn't always mean better, and features on paper don't necessarily describe the experience. How well has motion control worked in the past? How precise will the controller be? Assuming everything else remained the same, but the wiimote was looser, that alone could sink the console. Game controls need to be consistent and precise because that control mechanism is their only connection to the game. Plus the hardware is specced lower than the other two consoles. And their previous console came in last of the three. The Wii was not the safe bet, thus developers went with the tried and true formula on the other platforms and are now scrambling to play catch-up.
Even Nintendo didn't bet on doing this well, the numbers of consoles sold were constrained by Nintendo's supply, not demand. You can find a Wii without camping out now, after all this time, but they still get cleared off the shelves before the next shipment. When the holiday season rolls in they may be a chore to find once again.
But the upshot through all this, is that it's indeed the most prolific console now, and though developers may be a little late to the party, there will probably be a nice big wave of games hitting all at once as they finish their late-starting Wii games.
Yeah, "why bother" was the first thing that came to my mind. How many situations call for a large single explosion over a large area that I can think of. Probably just a lack of imagination on my part, but it seems like a more precise attack would be more useful on armored targets, and a napalm strike would be better and easier for toasting soft targets over a large area. Wouldn't both of those alternatives fit the target area better than one giant circle of indiscriminate boomyness:P?
In an interview with Ken Levine, I believe it was Gametrailers, he mentioned that he believed Irrational had plenty more to tell about Rapture and he loved this game format and wants to do more. He also mentioned that "games as art" isn't important to him, he mainly want to make a solid game first, and artistic themes are basically a bonus.
Personally, I'd like to see a prequel instead. Set it just as the war is brewing. They could use a thriller feel instead of horror like in Deus Ex, but with vibrant art deco. I'd love to see Rapture when it was still alive. There is plenty of story to tell during this conflict.
Or stereotypes can reinforce themselves, an asian can be loud and rude and he's just a loud and rude asshole. If a black guy is doing it, he's being a stereotypical black. The attribution of why he's loud and rude can end up going straight to the stereotype, without considering whether there's a difference between the first or the second person and the possibility of justification for their action.
That's the thing, I've been badgering him to hang out for about a year now. I'm beginning to wonder if he's become horrendously fat, or some sort of burn victim, or stupendously gay. I've already indicated to him that I'd be ok with any combination of the above.
I've tendered suspicions that he's been killed and has become some sort of advanced government prototype for a Turing test. Then I wonder what difference that would make if it were true. Then I think about TNG where Riker and Picard argue whether Data could be considered alive.
I've gotta agree with the parent. I don't see the intimacy as something can be jettisoned from a sexual relationship.
I can definitely see friendships forming online. One of my best friends is someone I went to highschool with, but haven't seen for 6 years. We talk for hours either through Ventrilo or IM every day, share links, discuss all our favorite geek topics as well as personal issues. The guy knows as much or more about me than any of the friends I hang out with in real life. He's the only person I've met that shares these geeky interests, the rest of my friends start snoring when I talk about these secret fascinations(this site being one of them). It's actually a little liberating to know I'll never see this guy in person again too, makes me feel freed to say whatever I like. Still, I'd love to meet with him in person someday.
Parent has a good point. Good things happened to other people, bully for them. No reason I should be any less happy just because others are now better off. Unless they're better off because they're taking something from you that you didn't want to give, why not just be happy for them? There's plenty of things to be upset about, no need to add to the list.
The service is harder to grasp for some jobs compared to others. Even in the case of lawyers and brokers I can fantasize a world where I wouldn't need any, but in reality, these are jobs that were formed and grown from a demand for the jobs. Laws can be simple. Just one rule, the Golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But then somebody breaks that rule and somebody needs to arbitrate. What if the arbitrator is crooked? That needs rules to regulate it too. What if the defendant is rendered incapable of defending him/herself, what if it crosses borders, what if they signed a contr--etc. etc. The economy is massive, interconnected, and complex. There is definitely bloat, but the bloat is there and is generally formed because it seemed like a good idea to someone. And it all just stacks up.
Even with brokers, it's a form of risk management and investment. Pure gambling is not an efficient application of money, like in futures trading on silly items. But even futures began as a tool for hedging price fluctuation risk for those who are actually involved in selling or buying the material. Diversifying risks keeps you from taking a large hit if one investment goes bad, and investing keeps money working when it would otherwise be sitting dormant, funding new enterprises that create the value that the enterprise pays the investor with. I can imagine that there may not be enough added efficiency from this when there are so many people working in the financial sector. I could imagine there being a net drain here, but there was also a valid reason for the creation of this industry. If someone could definitely prove that it's not worth employing these people, they wouldn't be employed any longer.
So there are jobs that seem to be a net drain on the economy, but clearly there are people out there that value that work enough to keep employing these people to do it. If the bloat is to be cut away, it needs to have a more elegant solution in place of that void that can address the origin of that bloat. Otherwise it'll just creep back in.
None of the above. There's nothing wrong with his statement, and you're being overly defensive, you never specified democracy as the method an individual wants in influencing their government, just that they would want/a/ method.
Right below the grandparent's post is a post giving a specific example of people who want to influence their government, but do not want everyone else to have a say as well.
I recommend keeping in mind how your actions will affect the result of student notes.
Blackboards are erased by teachers and progress from there, while student paper notes are permanently written on and only erased if erroneous, and then the page is turned. So a blackboard can "go back in time" through erasure, while a student's notes cannot, and would need to be redrawn to capture the new state(While the teacher is still going!).
Blackboards are an iterative construction, but result in only a snapshot of the final result in the student notes. Powerpoint slides done step-by-step can allow for students to keep both the final result and the construction.
Conversely, you could say that a blackboard is inferior, because it fails to translate into paper notes which are not progressive and must be redrawn at every interval in order to display a step-by-step progression. Blackboard erasure can destroy note progression as well.
Whereas a powerpoint presentation need not begin from the conclusion of the graph's construction as blackboard notes would appear. It too can start from a blank page and progress iteratively through the steps, and be made available for reproduction on the student's PC as well. One of my teachers did exactly this, requiring students to print the slides before class at the computer labs, then recommended that our notes be written onto the printed slides so that we could take clean and clear notes on each step rather than piling them all onto a single graph like normal notes would be.
Working out each step on the blackboard may not be preservable on paper since a blackboard lesson does not mimic how paper notes are written. Paper notes only have an eraser applied to remove an error, while a blackboard lesson regularly wipes part or all of the lesson, and may redraw over the same space.
For example, I could use a blackboard to graph 2 lines, erase the 2nd, and draw a 3rd in its place.
On paper, I need to draw 2 lines, then draw a second graph for the next pair.
When working with larger quantities of curves, the resulting blackboard graph can be nigh undecipherable with so many footnotes and so much information to absorb, such that redrawing at each step is impossible, and simply viewing the cluttered end result is unreadable.
A student can choose to venture ahead and be content with a flawed understanding while tuning out for the rest of the lesson. This is true. However in such a case the student has sabotaged him/herself due to their own attitude rather than a struggle against intractible formats. I would prefer that the student succeed, but I would much rather that the student fail by choice rather than by fortune.
"Animations are annoying at best" does not sound like a fair judgement of the potential in animations.
Blackboard lessons are not the same as the paper notes that come out. The blackboard starts blank and is filled in with accompanying explanation. The paper is a series of snapshots.
An animation simulates a lesson through time, while the paper is simply the final result. For example, I could have a simple graph of a curve on an XY plane followed by an explanation of why the curve behaves the way it does. These notes will be filled in along the edges or inside the graph, etc.
However, what happens when a second curve needs to be graphed? What if it relates to the first? Teachers draw it right over the graph, sometimes through where the student has written in their notes. A new XY plane needs to be graphed. What about 2-case scenario for the 3rd curve requiring the 1st+2nd curve to be redrawn twice to have each possibile 3rd curve written over it. This is all time spent drawing.
Worse, blackboards are erased. Permanently. Paper notes are circumvented by erasure because part of their benefit is future reference. In the case of the teacher showing both possibilities for the 3rd curve as shown above, in order to avoid re-drawing the 1st+2nd curve twice, they just do it once, draw the 3rd, erase it, and then draw another over it.
This leaves the students in the dust because erasing it means losing the permanent record of the first part of the example. Now they need to draw a new graph while the teacher doesn't and the teacher is continuing on.
With powerpoint slides, this frenzied graphing can be left behind, and step-by-step construction of the graph can be preserved rather than just starting with the complicated end result.
It's a potentially useful tool, just like the blackboards, and should be added to a repertoire for what it does best. A blackboard is still useful in that it can easily deviate from the lesson plan to answer a question in detail on the spot, while a powerpoint presentation can be kept alongside to make sure major points are covered and remain available for reference when the tangent is completed.
Plenty of information, at least as much as the MPAA.
"MATURE Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language."
I would say that a parent can make a pretty reasonable judgement if this is suitable for their children based off this. Intense violence such as death-by-shiv-through-the-eye, or death-by-gunshot-to-the-head, it's all intense violence. They've got blood n' gore, is that bloodtype A+ or B-? Is that a human liver or a human lung that just flew by?
I suppose there could be a distinction in the description between "Graphic references to and/or depictions of sexual behavior, possibly including nudity " to say "Sexual themes and suggestions" and to seperate out "There is nudity" As for language, some may desire specific tiers, like fuckshitcockcuntbitch in one tier, and crapjerkdamnidiotdumb. These are certainly possible to clarify, and as the ESRB's only responsibility rests on these definitions, they might as well do a good job defining them if they're going to do it at all.
But both the MPAA and the ESRB are not federally funded public institutions, but stem from the industry itself. It's in the industry's interests to choose how much service they'll provide to the public via elucidation of the ratings system, but there really aren't any rights at stake. You only have the "right" to what you can make happen. The public does this through dollars.
If they don't like the ESRB's ratings, they should enforce the criticism by not buying these luxury goods. If they're willing to buy either way, then there's really no leverage here. This issue is handled pretty well as it is. This is much ado about nothing from thinkofthechildren fearmongers. There are plenty of other systems that need more openness.
This is why all slippery slope arguments are not useful.
Judgement should be based on a reasonable analysis of the actual context at hand rather than a large range of fictious circumstances ranging from the plausible to the downright ridiculous and declaring them all to be an undisputable, unpreventable consequence. There really are middle grounds in the world that are more equitable than extremes.
The main difference here is that you're accepting the DRM upfront on the 360. While on the PC you're getting the DRM afterwards, and AFTER the money is paid.
There's both an important distinction, and an issue of perspective at play.
It's a valid point when you consider how ridiculous the original accusation against Bioshock is.
Both feature real people pretending to be fake people harming fake littlegirls that are actually aliens/monsters.
Neither actually endorse it. One plays it as shock humor(and if it's not shocking, then it loses all humor. The shock is the acknowledgement, it's why you laugh at racist jokes instead of simply nodding at a statement of fact). The other demonstrates how wrong it is by placing it in an extreme life or death scenario and juxtaposing this action against death for failure to equip yourself for life in Rapture. A complex moral issue, fitted against a Mature-only rating, making this a non-issue, as more serious moral issues dealing with real life are presented at earlier ages rather than this virtual dilemma only presented to older buyers.
After a scene in the fisheries, the game spawns 3 splicers scavenging in sewage water, and you stumble upon them from a high vantage point without being noticed.
Obviously in gaming terms the correct thing to do is to electrocute the water, zapping all 3 and inflicting high and/or lethal damage on the spot, saving me from the potential danger these 3 splicers represent. After all, this is a shooter, and your primary interaction with anything in the world is to well, shoot it.
So of course I zapped'em. Then something strange happened, I felt a twinge of remorse.
The game had done such a good job of immersing me into the setting, a dying city filled with desperate people fighting for survival over the remains. I, as the player had been taken from normal society and thrown into Rapture. I had climbed down into the sewage to scavenge through the remains of the 3 splicers, when I realized that I was standing where they stood, doing the exact same thing they were. I'd attacked them in the same way they would have attacked me given the chance. Hell, I'd even attacked them with a plasmid I had spliced into my own DNA, just like them. It was an interesting thing to notice and I laud Bioshock for managing this, intentionally or otherwise.
Any emotional interaction with a shooter has been incredibly rare, aside from this, they had done another "Mr. B-b-b-bubbles...". The only other game I can think of that has brought on feelings other than rage or fear, was HL2:Ep1, where my instinct was not to blast Alyx in the face with my pistol at every turn(unlike the HL1 scientists), but I had actually wanted to comfort her after a scene exiting a Combine railcar.
I'm sorry folks, I'm a failure for not simply taking the time out to properly compose my post before hitting submit so I understand why I might be modded down for this.
Still, I hate psychology study references because there's so many important details to be covered for the reference to be useful. Thus, I felt I should at least try to make the attempt at clarifying my post.
Hmm, going on a tangent here, regardless of privacy...
Some of those black plastic domes on the roofs of convenience stores don't even have cameras in them. They're for discouraging theft because they feel they/might/ be watched. They're opaque domes so that you don't know which direction the camera is pointing.
There was a psychology study where a candy bowl was left out with a sign specifying how many pieces of candy should be taken from the bowl. A hidden camera would observe the subjects. One set had a mirror in front of the bowl, the other set did not have a mirror.
Seeing themselves being observed, even by themselves caused subjects to pause longer in front of bowl, and more subjects obeyed the sign. Even the thought of being seen kept them from breaking that rule.
Anyway, if I was an asshole boss I might to tighten employee buttcheeks while on the job by creating the possibility that someone is watching their performance, even if I actually wasn't monitoring anything at all(Expensive and unproductive).
Slashdot Mirror
I would surmise that there are probably better solutions for those special effects houses. Havok is nice for games which need to be handled in real-time, but rendered movies have more time to work their calculations and would probably want accuracy and realism over efficiency. So I'm going to guess that Havok isn't aiming for their needs.
For example, running is complicated physics but it's theoretically doable. But in games you want to save overhead so instead of a long formula drawing in all the factors, game physics can just assign the player a net velocity, keeping things simple. So I don't think Havok's specialty is achieving maximum realism, but more likely their goal is efficient realism.
That was my first impression. I don't cherish the thought of AMD sinking and losing the one other option on the market.
And based on Nintendo's difficulty in satisfying demand, it's not much of a stretch to include them among those companies. It's easy to say something is a sure bet in hindsight, but that's not how it looked back before anyone had gotten their hands on the Nintendo Revolution.
Different doesn't always mean better, and features on paper don't necessarily describe the experience. How well has motion control worked in the past? How precise will the controller be? Assuming everything else remained the same, but the wiimote was looser, that alone could sink the console. Game controls need to be consistent and precise because that control mechanism is their only connection to the game. Plus the hardware is specced lower than the other two consoles. And their previous console came in last of the three. The Wii was not the safe bet, thus developers went with the tried and true formula on the other platforms and are now scrambling to play catch-up.
Even Nintendo didn't bet on doing this well, the numbers of consoles sold were constrained by Nintendo's supply, not demand. You can find a Wii without camping out now, after all this time, but they still get cleared off the shelves before the next shipment. When the holiday season rolls in they may be a chore to find once again.
But the upshot through all this, is that it's indeed the most prolific console now, and though developers may be a little late to the party, there will probably be a nice big wave of games hitting all at once as they finish their late-starting Wii games.
Yeah, "why bother" was the first thing that came to my mind. How many situations call for a large single explosion over a large area that I can think of. Probably just a lack of imagination on my part, but it seems like a more precise attack would be more useful on armored targets, and a napalm strike would be better and easier for toasting soft targets over a large area. Wouldn't both of those alternatives fit the target area better than one giant circle of indiscriminate boomyness:P?
In an interview with Ken Levine, I believe it was Gametrailers, he mentioned that he believed Irrational had plenty more to tell about Rapture and he loved this game format and wants to do more. He also mentioned that "games as art" isn't important to him, he mainly want to make a solid game first, and artistic themes are basically a bonus.
Personally, I'd like to see a prequel instead. Set it just as the war is brewing. They could use a thriller feel instead of horror like in Deus Ex, but with vibrant art deco. I'd love to see Rapture when it was still alive. There is plenty of story to tell during this conflict.
This list lacks 4chan.
Or stereotypes can reinforce themselves, an asian can be loud and rude and he's just a loud and rude asshole. If a black guy is doing it, he's being a stereotypical black. The attribution of why he's loud and rude can end up going straight to the stereotype, without considering whether there's a difference between the first or the second person and the possibility of justification for their action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_bias#Why_the_fundamental_attribution_error_occurs
That's the thing, I've been badgering him to hang out for about a year now. I'm beginning to wonder if he's become horrendously fat, or some sort of burn victim, or stupendously gay. I've already indicated to him that I'd be ok with any combination of the above.
I've tendered suspicions that he's been killed and has become some sort of advanced government prototype for a Turing test. Then I wonder what difference that would make if it were true. Then I think about TNG where Riker and Picard argue whether Data could be considered alive.
I've gotta agree with the parent. I don't see the intimacy as something can be jettisoned from a sexual relationship.
I can definitely see friendships forming online. One of my best friends is someone I went to highschool with, but haven't seen for 6 years. We talk for hours either through Ventrilo or IM every day, share links, discuss all our favorite geek topics as well as personal issues. The guy knows as much or more about me than any of the friends I hang out with in real life. He's the only person I've met that shares these geeky interests, the rest of my friends start snoring when I talk about these secret fascinations(this site being one of them). It's actually a little liberating to know I'll never see this guy in person again too, makes me feel freed to say whatever I like. Still, I'd love to meet with him in person someday.
He lives about 8 minutes away. Is that weird?
Parent has a good point. Good things happened to other people, bully for them. No reason I should be any less happy just because others are now better off. Unless they're better off because they're taking something from you that you didn't want to give, why not just be happy for them? There's plenty of things to be upset about, no need to add to the list.
The service is harder to grasp for some jobs compared to others. Even in the case of lawyers and brokers I can fantasize a world where I wouldn't need any, but in reality, these are jobs that were formed and grown from a demand for the jobs. Laws can be simple. Just one rule, the Golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But then somebody breaks that rule and somebody needs to arbitrate. What if the arbitrator is crooked? That needs rules to regulate it too. What if the defendant is rendered incapable of defending him/herself, what if it crosses borders, what if they signed a contr--etc. etc. The economy is massive, interconnected, and complex. There is definitely bloat, but the bloat is there and is generally formed because it seemed like a good idea to someone. And it all just stacks up.
Even with brokers, it's a form of risk management and investment. Pure gambling is not an efficient application of money, like in futures trading on silly items. But even futures began as a tool for hedging price fluctuation risk for those who are actually involved in selling or buying the material. Diversifying risks keeps you from taking a large hit if one investment goes bad, and investing keeps money working when it would otherwise be sitting dormant, funding new enterprises that create the value that the enterprise pays the investor with. I can imagine that there may not be enough added efficiency from this when there are so many people working in the financial sector. I could imagine there being a net drain here, but there was also a valid reason for the creation of this industry. If someone could definitely prove that it's not worth employing these people, they wouldn't be employed any longer.
So there are jobs that seem to be a net drain on the economy, but clearly there are people out there that value that work enough to keep employing these people to do it. If the bloat is to be cut away, it needs to have a more elegant solution in place of that void that can address the origin of that bloat. Otherwise it'll just creep back in.
General Tso's chicken was invented by a /Taiwanese/ man in New York.
None of the above. There's nothing wrong with his statement, and you're being overly defensive, you never specified democracy as the method an individual wants in influencing their government, just that they would want /a/ method.
Right below the grandparent's post is a post giving a specific example of people who want to influence their government, but do not want everyone else to have a say as well.
I recommend keeping in mind how your actions will affect the result of student notes.
Blackboards are erased by teachers and progress from there, while student paper notes are permanently written on and only erased if erroneous, and then the page is turned. So a blackboard can "go back in time" through erasure, while a student's notes cannot, and would need to be redrawn to capture the new state(While the teacher is still going!).
Blackboards are an iterative construction, but result in only a snapshot of the final result in the student notes. Powerpoint slides done step-by-step can allow for students to keep both the final result and the construction.
Conversely, you could say that a blackboard is inferior, because it fails to translate into paper notes which are not progressive and must be redrawn at every interval in order to display a step-by-step progression. Blackboard erasure can destroy note progression as well.
Whereas a powerpoint presentation need not begin from the conclusion of the graph's construction as blackboard notes would appear. It too can start from a blank page and progress iteratively through the steps, and be made available for reproduction on the student's PC as well. One of my teachers did exactly this, requiring students to print the slides before class at the computer labs, then recommended that our notes be written onto the printed slides so that we could take clean and clear notes on each step rather than piling them all onto a single graph like normal notes would be.
Working out each step on the blackboard may not be preservable on paper since a blackboard lesson does not mimic how paper notes are written. Paper notes only have an eraser applied to remove an error, while a blackboard lesson regularly wipes part or all of the lesson, and may redraw over the same space.
For example, I could use a blackboard to graph 2 lines, erase the 2nd, and draw a 3rd in its place.
On paper, I need to draw 2 lines, then draw a second graph for the next pair.
When working with larger quantities of curves, the resulting blackboard graph can be nigh undecipherable with so many footnotes and so much information to absorb, such that redrawing at each step is impossible, and simply viewing the cluttered end result is unreadable.
A student can choose to venture ahead and be content with a flawed understanding while tuning out for the rest of the lesson. This is true. However in such a case the student has sabotaged him/herself due to their own attitude rather than a struggle against intractible formats. I would prefer that the student succeed, but I would much rather that the student fail by choice rather than by fortune.
"Animations are annoying at best" does not sound like a fair judgement of the potential in animations.
Blackboard lessons are not the same as the paper notes that come out. The blackboard starts blank and is filled in with accompanying explanation. The paper is a series of snapshots.
An animation simulates a lesson through time, while the paper is simply the final result. For example, I could have a simple graph of a curve on an XY plane followed by an explanation of why the curve behaves the way it does. These notes will be filled in along the edges or inside the graph, etc.
However, what happens when a second curve needs to be graphed? What if it relates to the first? Teachers draw it right over the graph, sometimes through where the student has written in their notes. A new XY plane needs to be graphed. What about 2-case scenario for the 3rd curve requiring the 1st+2nd curve to be redrawn twice to have each possibile 3rd curve written over it. This is all time spent drawing.
Worse, blackboards are erased. Permanently. Paper notes are circumvented by erasure because part of their benefit is future reference. In the case of the teacher showing both possibilities for the 3rd curve as shown above, in order to avoid re-drawing the 1st+2nd curve twice, they just do it once, draw the 3rd, erase it, and then draw another over it.
This leaves the students in the dust because erasing it means losing the permanent record of the first part of the example. Now they need to draw a new graph while the teacher doesn't and the teacher is continuing on.
With powerpoint slides, this frenzied graphing can be left behind, and step-by-step construction of the graph can be preserved rather than just starting with the complicated end result.
It's a potentially useful tool, just like the blackboards, and should be added to a repertoire for what it does best. A blackboard is still useful in that it can easily deviate from the lesson plan to answer a question in detail on the spot, while a powerpoint presentation can be kept alongside to make sure major points are covered and remain available for reference when the tangent is completed.
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESRB
Plenty of information, at least as much as the MPAA.
"MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language."
I would say that a parent can make a pretty reasonable judgement if this is suitable for their children based off this. Intense violence such as death-by-shiv-through-the-eye, or death-by-gunshot-to-the-head, it's all intense violence. They've got blood n' gore, is that bloodtype A+ or B-? Is that a human liver or a human lung that just flew by?
I suppose there could be a distinction in the description between "Graphic references to and/or depictions of sexual behavior, possibly including nudity " to say "Sexual themes and suggestions" and to seperate out "There is nudity" As for language, some may desire specific tiers, like fuckshitcockcuntbitch in one tier, and crapjerkdamnidiotdumb. These are certainly possible to clarify, and as the ESRB's only responsibility rests on these definitions, they might as well do a good job defining them if they're going to do it at all.
But both the MPAA and the ESRB are not federally funded public institutions, but stem from the industry itself. It's in the industry's interests to choose how much service they'll provide to the public via elucidation of the ratings system, but there really aren't any rights at stake. You only have the "right" to what you can make happen. The public does this through dollars.
If they don't like the ESRB's ratings, they should enforce the criticism by not buying these luxury goods. If they're willing to buy either way, then there's really no leverage here. This issue is handled pretty well as it is. This is much ado about nothing from thinkofthechildren fearmongers. There are plenty of other systems that need more openness.
For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICO_score
I would think that the obfuscation there is FAR FAR more important than the ESRB scores.
This is why all slippery slope arguments are not useful.
Judgement should be based on a reasonable analysis of the actual context at hand rather than a large range of fictious circumstances ranging from the plausible to the downright ridiculous and declaring them all to be an undisputable, unpreventable consequence. There really are middle grounds in the world that are more equitable than extremes.
The main difference here is that you're accepting the DRM upfront on the 360. While on the PC you're getting the DRM afterwards, and AFTER the money is paid.
There's both an important distinction, and an issue of perspective at play.
It's a valid point when you consider how ridiculous the original accusation against Bioshock is.
Both feature real people pretending to be fake people harming fake littlegirls that are actually aliens/monsters.
Neither actually endorse it. One plays it as shock humor(and if it's not shocking, then it loses all humor. The shock is the acknowledgement, it's why you laugh at racist jokes instead of simply nodding at a statement of fact). The other demonstrates how wrong it is by placing it in an extreme life or death scenario and juxtaposing this action against death for failure to equip yourself for life in Rapture. A complex moral issue, fitted against a Mature-only rating, making this a non-issue, as more serious moral issues dealing with real life are presented at earlier ages rather than this virtual dilemma only presented to older buyers.
After a scene in the fisheries, the game spawns 3 splicers scavenging in sewage water, and you stumble upon them from a high vantage point without being noticed.
Obviously in gaming terms the correct thing to do is to electrocute the water, zapping all 3 and inflicting high and/or lethal damage on the spot, saving me from the potential danger these 3 splicers represent. After all, this is a shooter, and your primary interaction with anything in the world is to well, shoot it.
So of course I zapped'em. Then something strange happened, I felt a twinge of remorse.
The game had done such a good job of immersing me into the setting, a dying city filled with desperate people fighting for survival over the remains. I, as the player had been taken from normal society and thrown into Rapture. I had climbed down into the sewage to scavenge through the remains of the 3 splicers, when I realized that I was standing where they stood, doing the exact same thing they were. I'd attacked them in the same way they would have attacked me given the chance. Hell, I'd even attacked them with a plasmid I had spliced into my own DNA, just like them. It was an interesting thing to notice and I laud Bioshock for managing this, intentionally or otherwise.
Any emotional interaction with a shooter has been incredibly rare, aside from this, they had done another "Mr. B-b-b-bubbles...". The only other game I can think of that has brought on feelings other than rage or fear, was HL2:Ep1, where my instinct was not to blast Alyx in the face with my pistol at every turn(unlike the HL1 scientists), but I had actually wanted to comfort her after a scene exiting a Combine railcar.
*sigh*
I'm sorry folks, I'm a failure for not simply taking the time out to properly compose my post before hitting submit so I understand why I might be modded down for this.
Still, I hate psychology study references because there's so many important details to be covered for the reference to be useful. Thus, I felt I should at least try to make the attempt at clarifying my post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_glass_self
The above is the link to the experiment, hopefully it will demonstrate the idea a little better.
Or perhaps just using a mirror in the cubicle:P
Hmm, going on a tangent here, regardless of privacy...
/might/ be watched. They're opaque domes so that you don't know which direction the camera is pointing.
Some of those black plastic domes on the roofs of convenience stores don't even have cameras in them. They're for discouraging theft because they feel they
There was a psychology study where a candy bowl was left out with a sign specifying how many pieces of candy should be taken from the bowl. A hidden camera would observe the subjects. One set had a mirror in front of the bowl, the other set did not have a mirror.
Seeing themselves being observed, even by themselves caused subjects to pause longer in front of bowl, and more subjects obeyed the sign. Even the thought of being seen kept them from breaking that rule.
Anyway, if I was an asshole boss I might to tighten employee buttcheeks while on the job by creating the possibility that someone is watching their performance, even if I actually wasn't monitoring anything at all(Expensive and unproductive).