The entire reason for paying for a higher Mbit connection is so that I can download and use applications which require *more* bandwidth! So what would be the incentive to upgrade my services if they'll just throttle it anyways?
Sure, by default no profession instantly makes you successful. But working in a highly paid field where you get to use your brain for a living is generally considered a good position to be in. If you can't handle the stress or don't feel productive within the environment that you work to the point of it making you unhappy, that's a personal problem and can usually be fixed by finding a job that better suits you. And if you're living your life, waiting for retirement to feel successful/happy, then thats a whole different ballgame.
Some people start in the gutter, being a bad accident away from the gutter is a lot better.
Myself and 7 other of my highly motivated and successful co-workers, who also happen to be software engineers, enjoy playing WoW when we have the time.
Having drive and ambition doesn't mean you have to cut out the fun. And kids who play WoW all day would likely not be job competition weather WoW existed or not so I wouldn't get too excited.
Ever since I was old enough to get an allowance, I've been buying new video games every couple of months or so, starting around the time of Super Nintendo. That was until I started playing, you guessed it, World of Warcraft. A little over a year ago I bought WoW, have been playing it ever since, and haven't bought one single new game. I guess the key factor is that I haven't gotten bored of it yet. I love and still play many of my older games, but they just can't hold my attention like WoW can. A major part of it is the people that I've come to know in my guild that make it interesting. Another part is that since I'm not this uber hardcore player, there's ton's of content that I haven't even seen yet, even after a year of playing.
Well, I still think they are pretty damn stupid regardless of how likely it was that they were to be caught. Besides, their chances of being caught would have quickly dropped to zero had they just not used the sidekick the way they did. That 1% prosecution rate is sure hurtin' like a bitch now isn't it?
I love how this goes to show how easy it is for anyone to find out information about you, and the people you know with social networking sites. You had better think twice about creating a myspace page if ever engage in any kind of criminal activity no matter seemingly small or insigificant it is. Granted the people who were involved here were exceedingly stupid.
Cue up the "stupidity of people on myspace" jokes....
While I do understand the need to comply with local laws in order to do bussiness there, to what extent can Yahoo! ethically take this stance? This is the question they fail to answer, and saying "This is a real example of why this issue is bigger than any one company and any one industry." is really just passing the buck so they can keep making the bucks. What is hard to know is just how much leverage companies like Yahoo and Google have in these situations. I have a feeling it's not much by Yahoo's reponse anyways, or I think we would be hearing more from them about how they might be putting pressure on the Chinese Gov't to release them from having to divulge such information.
Their stance seems to be that they are just hoping for change due to the increasing distribution of access to technology. While there is some merit to that hope, I think these companies need to be a little more proactive about voicing and engaging in opposition to the repression. Hoping for a cultural revolution isn't going to start one. Somebodies got to actually take some action, not that it has to be Yahoo, but by their being so passive to the situation makes them appear to be more in the Gov'ts camp than the people's.
Yes, I'd have to agree that the runner up design was much much better. It has a much more organic feel to it. Very warm and inviting. Where as the winning design, while being an improvement over the old design, is much for sterile and cold feeling. Much to clinical for my tastes.
I used to post all the pictures of myself smoking crack and heroin with captions listing my full legal name and social security number. But then I read on article that said that might not be so hot if your looking for a job. So I wised up and posted the pictures under the alias: uber-rocksmokeerdood69woot!
No problems so far! hope this helps....
"I've been living in San Francisco for going on two years now and have yet to meet anyone who is working in a "Web" or "e-commerce" job up here."
have you meet anyone? I work at a "web/e-commerce" job, and so do half the people I know here in SF. Your right about there being fewer jobs, but there's still a lot compared to most cities in the US.
Google has been getting quite a bashing lately for setting up shop in China. I'm not sure I agree though with some who think this is all bad. While google must censor specific search results relating to freedom of speech, civil liberties and the like, they still have the means to search and access all the world's information via the google search engine outside of the specific restricted key word searches. Just giving the people the power of all this knowledge and information is incredibly empowering and will allow their minds to look beyond what their government has restricted in an indirect manner. While these people will not be allowed to search for specific events like Tiananmen Square, they can, with more ease research world history, current events, and things that will be enable them to draw independent conclusions about the world around them, and in turn, question the government that restricts them. Also, on the google.cn page, when the search result is blocked, this message is displayed:
"To comply with local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not displayed".
This is where I think google really won one against the Chinese gov't. They are basically saying 'look, we could've provided you the info you are looking for, but your gov't has choosen to have the information blocked' This is a serious defeat the propaganda machine and the way that censorship works. In a perfect totalitarian society, the citizens would have no idea that there was information out there that was being restricted in the first place. The society would live in complete ignorance to the fact that they weren't getting the whole truth. What google is able to do is show them that there is more out there, and if it wasn't for their gov't, they would have access to it. This strikes me as better than no access at all.
All modern 'proper' languages were at one point varients of more ancient languages, and were probably thought of as improper by the generation before. Maybe its that these youngsters are becoming more adept at this particular varient of their native language, and its the older generation that is failing to keep up with the evolving nature of their language and speech. If you are talking about etiquette, then it is always thought of as 'proper' to speak in a manner which is respectfully in the style of the older, more traditional language for the older people who may be present. I think your problem might be more of issue of etiquette, than of young people being less skillful in language.
I most certainly agree that Fox gets away with way too much, and dislike the content that is made available for viewing durring hours when young children are awake. I was merely trying to point out the double standard that video games face.
The government already has laws barring the sale of pornography to minors. Which is what this seems to most closely related.
I fail to see what about GTA would even get it an NC-17 rating. The worst thing you could even see beyond violence would be the hot coffee mod, which shows two blocky cartoon charaters, with clothes on, engaging in consensual sex. You can't even see any sexual organs. Hardly relating to porn. Nothing that you couldn't see in an episode of the OC, except for maybe the cursing. Definately nothing here that you wouldn't see in any R rated movie. The point is, the government doesn't exert any control over who see's what movies, or reads what books, so why should they control who plays what games? They are trying to make the argument, without any evidence, that this kind of content is more damaging in video games. But if that were true, why has youth violent crime been dropping for the last 10 years, while video games sales have skyrocketed? This is issue has almost nothing to do about protecting our youth, and has everything to do with political sensationalism. If they were really concerned with protecting kids from this stuff they would be going after fox as well, but they won't because there is no perceived political gain from doing so. I think that a few years from now, we'll look back on this the way we look at people like Tipper Gore who were trying to protect our youth from the evils of Twisted Sister. What I wonder is, will this cycle keep on repeating itself forever? Will every new form of entertainment undergo this type of censorship by the older generation that is out of touch with the modern world? I sure hope not.
"when a game allows a player to virtually commit sexual assault and murder, as a society we must do what we can to protect our children, as we do for alcohol, tobacco, and pornography, among other items..."
In making this statment he is basically equating video games that contain violent or sexual material to alcohol, tobacco, and porn. The problem is that in order to make such an absurd claim hold any weight, you would have to assume that any form of media or literature that contained violence or sexuality, would have to be held under the same light. So how is it ok for Fox to display sex and violence everynight where children are most certainly watching, but then its not ok for these things to be in videogames? Give me a break, this law will be smacked down for sure. You can't censor one form of media just because its the new kid on the block. And whats with the lies about being able to rape in a video game? There is no game where you can do that. Just goes to show they are resorting to sesationalist tactics to try to make an impact. What a bunch of clowns.
I have been killing aliens and bad guys (and even cops in GTA) for 20 years in videogames and have never once, even thought about doing something harmfull to another human being. So somehow videogames are bad, but football, a sport where coked out, steriod slamming, thugs beat the ever-loving shit out of each other is ok? I'd love to see a study to find out who ends up being more violent on average: nerdy kids who spend their youth playing videogames, or testosterone addicted jocks. When's the last time you saw a bench clearing brawl at a LAN party? Actually, that might make them more fun.....
I don't belive my government is bought and paid for, I believe my vote counts, and I'm dont belive the candidates are predetermined political conspiracy blah blah blah. That doesn't mean I should just roll over and sit quietly while GW screws this country over though. How does expressing my opinion about how much I dislike the current admin make me a stupid nut job? I understand your original point was more about trolling then about representative govt. but hey, too bad. You make a statement public and then you get all mad and uncivil about it when someone replies. You sound like an uneducated child when you say stuff like "shut up now." Thats ok though, I forgive you. I'm now supremely confident that I've had a better life than some hothead like you. I also took the time to look at your journal....man, shitting on someone elses lawn and then being suprised when someone gets mad at you for it? Talk about dim-witted. Have a nice day:)
PS trolls, please spare us your "your government doesn't represent you anymore" crap.
So what exactly are you saying? That we should all blindly support our representitives in the government? Around the year 1776, a bunch of people got fed up with the way their "representitives" were exerting control, so they decided for the benefit of of their people, that they weren't going to stand for it anymore. We're now living in a place known as the United States precisley because people had the courage to stand up and declare that: their government doesn't represent them anymore
An administration that will go down in history as one of the most incompetent bunch of corporate shills, full of failed ideologues, in no way represents me. I would be embarrased to say that a guy who said this represents me in any way:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
"I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004
I remember that my favorite thing to do while playing the game with my friends at school, was to use the name of my friends for the in-game family. Then I would purposefully set the rations to meager and the pace to the fastest possible. Then I would laugh my best evil laugh as I watched all my friends get horrible diseases! Josh has Cholera!, Dusty has Typhoid Fever, Katie has broken her leg! Muwahahahahahaha! Oh to be so easily amused.......
Record lables dream of finding the next Britney Spears or 50 Cent, low grade horse shit that 13 year old girls will eat up. These kinds of artists take a minimal investment and have the largest returns. Which means that they do not like to nurture new artists who take more than a couple albums of investment in, to start seeing returns. This is why the indie lable market is so important because it creates a space for emerging artists to develop their art. The problem is that the RIAA has such a strangle-hold on mass media, (in conjucntion with clear channel and the like)that these indie artist are not able to find exposure, and people are not able to find the music they want through normal channels. What we have is an industry catering exlusively to 14 year olds. Un-established artists that do not appeal to that sales demographic, are basically left hung out to dry if they are not an istant sales success with the lables. We have a lot of good musicians in this world making really good music. Unfortunatley due to the recording industries current business model, it becomes very hard for people to find the music they are truly looking for. It is hard to see an industry built upon so many problems lasting for too much longer without serious changes in the way it opperates. This should be about THE MUSIC! making beautiful works of art! You should be able to make some decent money at it too. But suing the shit out of people who don't have the ability to fight your legal jugernaut? Thats about as far from the beauty of music as I can imagine.
Slashdot Mirror
OK good point. Then can I get a 20% reduction in my bill? That would be too fair I suppose.....
The entire reason for paying for a higher Mbit connection is so that I can download and use applications which require *more* bandwidth! So what would be the incentive to upgrade my services if they'll just throttle it anyways?
The game trailer for Red Alert 3 literally made me cringe at the screen.
Sure, by default no profession instantly makes you successful. But working in a highly paid field where you get to use your brain for a living is generally considered a good position to be in. If you can't handle the stress or don't feel productive within the environment that you work to the point of it making you unhappy, that's a personal problem and can usually be fixed by finding a job that better suits you. And if you're living your life, waiting for retirement to feel successful/happy, then thats a whole different ballgame. Some people start in the gutter, being a bad accident away from the gutter is a lot better.
Myself and 7 other of my highly motivated and successful co-workers, who also happen to be software engineers, enjoy playing WoW when we have the time. Having drive and ambition doesn't mean you have to cut out the fun. And kids who play WoW all day would likely not be job competition weather WoW existed or not so I wouldn't get too excited.
Ever since I was old enough to get an allowance, I've been buying new video games every couple of months or so, starting around the time of Super Nintendo. That was until I started playing, you guessed it, World of Warcraft. A little over a year ago I bought WoW, have been playing it ever since, and haven't bought one single new game. I guess the key factor is that I haven't gotten bored of it yet. I love and still play many of my older games, but they just can't hold my attention like WoW can. A major part of it is the people that I've come to know in my guild that make it interesting. Another part is that since I'm not this uber hardcore player, there's ton's of content that I haven't even seen yet, even after a year of playing.
Well, I still think they are pretty damn stupid regardless of how likely it was that they were to be caught. Besides, their chances of being caught would have quickly dropped to zero had they just not used the sidekick the way they did. That 1% prosecution rate is sure hurtin' like a bitch now isn't it?
I love how this goes to show how easy it is for anyone to find out information about you, and the people you know with social networking sites. You had better think twice about creating a myspace page if ever engage in any kind of criminal activity no matter seemingly small or insigificant it is. Granted the people who were involved here were exceedingly stupid. Cue up the "stupidity of people on myspace" jokes....
While I do understand the need to comply with local laws in order to do bussiness there, to what extent can Yahoo! ethically take this stance? This is the question they fail to answer, and saying "This is a real example of why this issue is bigger than any one company and any one industry." is really just passing the buck so they can keep making the bucks. What is hard to know is just how much leverage companies like Yahoo and Google have in these situations. I have a feeling it's not much by Yahoo's reponse anyways, or I think we would be hearing more from them about how they might be putting pressure on the Chinese Gov't to release them from having to divulge such information.
Their stance seems to be that they are just hoping for change due to the increasing distribution of access to technology. While there is some merit to that hope, I think these companies need to be a little more proactive about voicing and engaging in opposition to the repression. Hoping for a cultural revolution isn't going to start one. Somebodies got to actually take some action, not that it has to be Yahoo, but by their being so passive to the situation makes them appear to be more in the Gov'ts camp than the people's.
Yes, I'd have to agree that the runner up design was much much better. It has a much more organic feel to it. Very warm and inviting. Where as the winning design, while being an improvement over the old design, is much for sterile and cold feeling. Much to clinical for my tastes.
..to Peter Lada whose design actually survived the slashdot effect. Can't say the same for the other two.
I used to post all the pictures of myself smoking crack and heroin with captions listing my full legal name and social security number. But then I read on article that said that might not be so hot if your looking for a job. So I wised up and posted the pictures under the alias: uber-rocksmokeerdood69woot! No problems so far! hope this helps....
"I've been living in San Francisco for going on two years now and have yet to meet anyone who is working in a "Web" or "e-commerce" job up here."
have you meet anyone? I work at a "web/e-commerce" job, and so do half the people I know here in SF. Your right about there being fewer jobs, but there's still a lot compared to most cities in the US.
Google has been getting quite a bashing lately for setting up shop in China. I'm not sure I agree though with some who think this is all bad. While google must censor specific search results relating to freedom of speech, civil liberties and the like, they still have the means to search and access all the world's information via the google search engine outside of the specific restricted key word searches. Just giving the people the power of all this knowledge and information is incredibly empowering and will allow their minds to look beyond what their government has restricted in an indirect manner. While these people will not be allowed to search for specific events like Tiananmen Square, they can, with more ease research world history, current events, and things that will be enable them to draw independent conclusions about the world around them, and in turn, question the government that restricts them. Also, on the google.cn page, when the search result is blocked, this message is displayed:
"To comply with local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not displayed".
This is where I think google really won one against the Chinese gov't. They are basically saying 'look, we could've provided you the info you are looking for, but your gov't has choosen to have the information blocked' This is a serious defeat the propaganda machine and the way that censorship works. In a perfect totalitarian society, the citizens would have no idea that there was information out there that was being restricted in the first place. The society would live in complete ignorance to the fact that they weren't getting the whole truth. What google is able to do is show them that there is more out there, and if it wasn't for their gov't, they would have access to it. This strikes me as better than no access at all.
All modern 'proper' languages were at one point varients of more ancient languages, and were probably thought of as improper by the generation before. Maybe its that these youngsters are becoming more adept at this particular varient of their native language, and its the older generation that is failing to keep up with the evolving nature of their language and speech. If you are talking about etiquette, then it is always thought of as 'proper' to speak in a manner which is respectfully in the style of the older, more traditional language for the older people who may be present. I think your problem might be more of issue of etiquette, than of young people being less skillful in language.
yeah, real rape and murder certainly gets less press, so it must be less important.
I most certainly agree that Fox gets away with way too much, and dislike the content that is made available for viewing durring hours when young children are awake. I was merely trying to point out the double standard that video games face.
The government already has laws barring the sale of pornography to minors. Which is what this seems to most closely related.
I fail to see what about GTA would even get it an NC-17 rating. The worst thing you could even see beyond violence would be the hot coffee mod, which shows two blocky cartoon charaters, with clothes on, engaging in consensual sex. You can't even see any sexual organs. Hardly relating to porn. Nothing that you couldn't see in an episode of the OC, except for maybe the cursing. Definately nothing here that you wouldn't see in any R rated movie. The point is, the government doesn't exert any control over who see's what movies, or reads what books, so why should they control who plays what games? They are trying to make the argument, without any evidence, that this kind of content is more damaging in video games. But if that were true, why has youth violent crime been dropping for the last 10 years, while video games sales have skyrocketed? This is issue has almost nothing to do about protecting our youth, and has everything to do with political sensationalism. If they were really concerned with protecting kids from this stuff they would be going after fox as well, but they won't because there is no perceived political gain from doing so. I think that a few years from now, we'll look back on this the way we look at people like Tipper Gore who were trying to protect our youth from the evils of Twisted Sister. What I wonder is, will this cycle keep on repeating itself forever? Will every new form of entertainment undergo this type of censorship by the older generation that is out of touch with the modern world? I sure hope not.
"when a game allows a player to virtually commit sexual assault and murder, as a society we must do what we can to protect our children, as we do for alcohol, tobacco, and pornography, among other items..."
In making this statment he is basically equating video games that contain violent or sexual material to alcohol, tobacco, and porn. The problem is that in order to make such an absurd claim hold any weight, you would have to assume that any form of media or literature that contained violence or sexuality, would have to be held under the same light. So how is it ok for Fox to display sex and violence everynight where children are most certainly watching, but then its not ok for these things to be in videogames? Give me a break, this law will be smacked down for sure. You can't censor one form of media just because its the new kid on the block. And whats with the lies about being able to rape in a video game? There is no game where you can do that. Just goes to show they are resorting to sesationalist tactics to try to make an impact. What a bunch of clowns.
I have been killing aliens and bad guys (and even cops in GTA) for 20 years in videogames and have never once, even thought about doing something harmfull to another human being. So somehow videogames are bad, but football, a sport where coked out, steriod slamming, thugs beat the ever-loving shit out of each other is ok? I'd love to see a study to find out who ends up being more violent on average: nerdy kids who spend their youth playing videogames, or testosterone addicted jocks. When's the last time you saw a bench clearing brawl at a LAN party? Actually, that might make them more fun.....
I don't belive my government is bought and paid for, I believe my vote counts, and I'm dont belive the candidates are predetermined political conspiracy blah blah blah. That doesn't mean I should just roll over and sit quietly while GW screws this country over though. How does expressing my opinion about how much I dislike the current admin make me a stupid nut job? I understand your original point was more about trolling then about representative govt. but hey, too bad. You make a statement public and then you get all mad and uncivil about it when someone replies. You sound like an uneducated child when you say stuff like "shut up now." Thats ok though, I forgive you. I'm now supremely confident that I've had a better life than some hothead like you. I also took the time to look at your journal....man, shitting on someone elses lawn and then being suprised when someone gets mad at you for it? Talk about dim-witted. Have a nice day:)
PS trolls, please spare us your "your government doesn't represent you anymore" crap.
So what exactly are you saying? That we should all blindly support our representitives in the government? Around the year 1776, a bunch of people got fed up with the way their "representitives" were exerting control, so they decided for the benefit of of their people, that they weren't going to stand for it anymore. We're now living in a place known as the United States precisley because people had the courage to stand up and declare that: their government doesn't represent them anymore An administration that will go down in history as one of the most incompetent bunch of corporate shills, full of failed ideologues, in no way represents me. I would be embarrased to say that a guy who said this represents me in any way:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
"I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004
Those responses were just plain terrible. It read as if the Bush administration were doing PR for blizzard. They owed this crowd a lot more than that.
I remember that my favorite thing to do while playing the game with my friends at school, was to use the name of my friends for the in-game family. Then I would purposefully set the rations to meager and the pace to the fastest possible. Then I would laugh my best evil laugh as I watched all my friends get horrible diseases! Josh has Cholera!, Dusty has Typhoid Fever, Katie has broken her leg! Muwahahahahahaha! Oh to be so easily amused.......
Really Incompetent Assholes of America
Record lables dream of finding the next Britney Spears or 50 Cent, low grade horse shit that 13 year old girls will eat up. These kinds of artists take a minimal investment and have the largest returns. Which means that they do not like to nurture new artists who take more than a couple albums of investment in, to start seeing returns. This is why the indie lable market is so important because it creates a space for emerging artists to develop their art. The problem is that the RIAA has such a strangle-hold on mass media, (in conjucntion with clear channel and the like)that these indie artist are not able to find exposure, and people are not able to find the music they want through normal channels. What we have is an industry catering exlusively to 14 year olds. Un-established artists that do not appeal to that sales demographic, are basically left hung out to dry if they are not an istant sales success with the lables. We have a lot of good musicians in this world making really good music. Unfortunatley due to the recording industries current business model, it becomes very hard for people to find the music they are truly looking for. It is hard to see an industry built upon so many problems lasting for too much longer without serious changes in the way it opperates. This should be about THE MUSIC! making beautiful works of art! You should be able to make some decent money at it too. But suing the shit out of people who don't have the ability to fight your legal jugernaut? Thats about as far from the beauty of music as I can imagine.