I think you're contradicting yourself. You claim that "in video games market economics does not necessarily apply", yet you then claim that with the PS1, the library just moved between platforms. Nintendo didn't go away. So... exactly *why* did the games jump ship? Answer: the Sony PlayStation offered a more attractive platform to developers. How exactly is that not competition?
I may have a slightly different perspective on this, as I'm a developer in the games industry. Consumers don't necessarily see the entire picture, but when a console company gets extremely successful, the tendency has been to start crapping on the developers. Ultimately, this tends to diminish the quality of games produced for that console, and the only thing that keeps this in check is a competing company.
This is *exactly* what happened when Sony usurped Nintendo. It's odd to think of it now, but Nintendo was the 800lb gorilla in the market, and Sony the upstart. After all, Nintendo was synonymous with console gaming. And unfortunately, as a company, they got way too damn arrogant. This showed both in the way they treated developers AND in the lack of innovation in their hardware (refusal to abandon cartridges, overly restrictive, high licensing fees, etc). As a result, the market corrects itself, and Sony rises to the top.
Fast-forward a few years later, and Sony has monster hits with the PS one and two. At this point, they're so arrogant, they're telling *us* (third party devs) how to change our game (it was cross-platform), with the implied threat that if we don't change it, it won't get published on the PS2. And no, this wasn't just Technical Requirement Checklist compliance, it was look and feel of the game, and gameplay features. Exactly the same kind of crap Nintendo was pulling a few years ago.
You really need to take a closer look when you say that competition isn't necessarily required for the health of the video game industry (hell, competition is necessary for the health of *any* industry). The fact that you're seeing a lot of pretty slick titles (they're not all glitz over gameplay) should be a pretty good indicator. And NES era being the pinnacle of gaming? Please... I grew up on a NES (and earlier stuff). The simple fact of the matter is that gaming today is every bit as innovative as yesteryear's games, and then some.
Yes, there were some gems, but then, as today, there's a lot of crap as well, and you just have to be a bit careful in sniffing out those gems. Sure, I like popping in an old NES game (although today it's with the Wii virtual console or my DS), but after a few minutes of nostalgia, I quickly crave something a bit more substantial. And whether that's jamming with friends on Rock Band, shooting it out with Call of Duty 4 online, getting in some platforming fun with Super Mario Galaxy, or playing a quiet game of chess against my Xbox... You have to admit we have it pretty good as gamers these days.
Well, in recent years (or perhaps in your lifetime, if you're under 30). But a few of us geezers remember not only the lack of banner years in video gaming, but outright crashes of the market. I'm being pedantic, though, I suppose. I'll presume you implied "in recent years"...
You're correct, though. It's likely we may see a downturn as near the end of this generation's lifetime, as gamers are less enthusiastic about investing in last-generation's games. However, we shouldn't have to worry about this for another few years. We're probably not even at the half-mark of this generation's life-cycle. The console makers will probably take care not to oversaturate the market by iterating too soon with hardware generations, or they may alienate consumers by devaluing existing game libraries and systems too quickly.
I've postulated that Microsoft paid a hefty price in its rush to early market in its hardware failures (to the tune of a billion dollars). Still, it may consider it's current position in the market worth the price. Sony used its console to push its HD-media standard, and I wonder how much this hurt its newest console sales. This left Nintendo to clean up with a low-cost, quirky offering of the Wii.
To be honest, although people keep seeming to want one of these competitors to break away and dominate the market, I think it's actually healthier to keep the three-way competition going strong. The ultimate winner is consumers when companies must compete fiercely for your business. The only obvious downside is having to either choose among consoles to get exclusive titles, or pony up for multiple consoles. Still, I think this is a much healthier market than when a particular company dominates the market.
BTW, you're inferring dislike where none exists. I simply indicated Moby Dick was a fairly tough read compared to Tolkien's work, nothing more. And even if I disliked Melville, I would never dissuade someone from reading classical literature.
Or Moby Dick. A single chapter describes Ishmael's room. Another chapter? Walking down the street to the ship. For ~560 pages of difficult text, very little in the way of action actually happens in that story.
I actually hadn't read The Lord of the Rings trilogy until a few years ago. I was surprised at how light a read it was, especially compared to some of the classic I remembered from my school days.
You're missing one of the points of the article. Sweeney is claiming that the gap is becoming too wide to effectively scale between the low and high end PCs like games used to be able to do. Scaling between mid and high-range, sure, but certainly not between low and high.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure why anyone is all that surprised at this. After all, there's only so much you can cram into operating systems and office productivity software before you can't slow the machine down anymore (although MS is sure as hell trying). At this point, even a fairly old and low-powered machine can effectively handle the basics, while you need a monster to run the most modern games at full visual glory.
At a certain point, it's simply not possible to scale a game down to the point where it can run on the lowest end hardware.
Every human being knows that taken individually people are more often than not quite reasonable. I didn't know that. Are you trying to make me look bad or something? You jerk!
But aside from being pedantic, I agree with your point. This guy is not a major policy-maker, and this bill, while it makes for good/. outrage, really won't amount to much. As soon as it's pointed out how ludicrous this bill is, it will quietly disappear.
You espouse on *slashdot* in a *games forum* the idea anyone who enjoys music from a video game (obviously wasting their life) is simply sucking on the teat of our corporate overlords, and should rethink their tastes (presumably to fall more in line with yours)? How wonderfully "I'm-so-enlightened-and-open-minded-oh-and-anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-an-idiot" of you.
You're making the assumption that someone who enjoys a particular genre of music is only going so because they are being spoon-fed by some corporation trying to create some sort of cross-promotional tie-in. The fact that you find it "horrifying" that someone may like to relax and play a video game... and, shocker of shockers, might also like the music that accompanies said game, is a bit baffling to me. Have you considered the remote possibility that there's a lot of enjoyable video game music out there? Why are people so quick to judge individual taste as "worthwhile" or "not worthwhile"?
I tend to prefer instrumental music. I especially enjoy classical music and symphonic music. This pretty much includes everything from Beethoven to John Williams to Jeremy Soule. Frankly, I don't give a damn if the music I like comes from a media corporation. That doesn't diminish my enjoyment of it a single bit. That's because I'm listening to the music, not thinking about where it comes from. If you want to make some sort of statement about why you listen to particular types of music, that's fine... good for you. But then, that's really not about just the music anymore, is it?
And by the way, if you're just "staring at video games", you're doing it wrong.
If you write a technical book for a reputable publisher, then the book is indeed fact-checked. As you mentioned, this typically involves someone literate in the field going over your book, using their (virtual) highlighter pen a lot, and a LOT of e-mails back and forth (at least, that was my experience). Why do you distinguish between someone being paid by the publisher to review a work and the publisher doing in themselves? The paid-reviewer methodology has obvious benefits. There's no possible way for a publishing house to be experts in the fields of all their published works. It seems rather obvious to me.
There are different ways to make money, and there are many different markets out there. One is sensationalism. Another is a reputation for quality. Just because OJ's book sells, it doesn't mean that all publishers are at their level. I'm not saying the process is perfect - but I just don't think it's quite as skewed as you make it out to be.
The big different between a publisher and Wikipedia (rather than "throw it out there and see if anyone catches anything") is that the original author's and publisher's reputations are on the line, and so, if they're interested in a reputation of reliability, they'll make every effort to ensure accuracy. A single miscreant can't vandalize a work. If inaccuracies slip through, you have accountability. If they're willing to let out and out falsehoods through the gates, then you simply know to avoid them in the future, or to view their work with healthy skepticism in the future. What's wrong with that?
Sending a human is pointless as a scientific endevour... Yes, robots are cheaper and safer. But part of sending people into space is learning more about the practical aspects of how to live and work in space. If the ultimate goal is to colonize space, then it's not wasted effort.
But beyond all that, the fact of the matter is that we're not talking *only* about scientific gain here, we're talking about exploration. And exploration is ultimately a human endeavor. How much more inspiring is it when you know a man walked on the moon? Would anyone have cared if it was an automated probe? Yes, the mars rovers are interesting and cool, but wait till you see the hubub over the first humans on mars. I remember how thrilled I was when I watched the first space shuttle launch early in the morning with my dad (and then watching it later with my schoolmates as it landed).
Frankly, I'm pretty glad that even after all these years, I'm not too cynical to get a bit thrilled at the prospect of a manned mars mission.
Probably a poor choice of words on my part. By "solution without a problem", I meant that quaternions didn't end up being the solution of choice for these sorts of computations (i.e. quaternions lost out to vectors and matrices, which are now considered the "standard" method for solving these types of problems). By the end of the nineteenth century, quaternions were certainly out of favor with the general community. Nowadays, quaternions are typically only used in places where their special properties are advantageous.
I still think timezones are a dumb idea You haven't really thought that one through, I'm guessing.
Timezones were originally invented by the railroad companies. Previous to that, it was an absolute nightmare to schedule anything accurately when moving from one location to another. Each city would need to keep it's own local time. Those in rural areas would probably just use the time from the nearest town, or perhaps calculate their own offset, but who knows where the dividing line would be.
Can you even imagine how difficult it would be to deal with this in any global communications system? Instead of representing a time offset with a simple zone identifier, you'd need unique time offset information for every location on earth. Essentially, damn near impossible to do from a practical standpoint. Timezones may seem silly and arbitrary, but clear and unambiguous rules about time management also make it possible to coordinate easier with others, irrespective of location.
Quaternions, first described in the mid 1800s, were essentially a solution without a problem until they became relevant for computer-generated animation and graphics. Until then, I believe they were mostly just considered a mathematical curiosity.
I wish more authors would just include a CD with the book that has an electronic copy of the book on it so I didn't have to hunt all over the place for them. This really isn't up to the authors. It's up to the publisher. Take a peek at who's name is in the copyright notice.
don't we all want more sequels after a sequel to a sequel which used to be an original game 10 years ago The simple fact of the matter is, that's what consumers seem to actually want. Look at the most anticipated games of 2008 (according to some writer at Yahoo, that is):
Grand Theft Auto 4 Smash Bros. Brawl Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Metal Gear Solid 4 Halo Wars Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Fallout 3 Spore World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Final Fantasy XIII
Of that list, I see only one title based on a 100% new intellectual property: Spore. One guess who is publishing that title...
The entire point of being on a jury is to weigh available evidence and come to a *decision*. Sure, the defense attorney would love to get indecisive people, but the prosecutor will be looking for those who can think and come to a reasonable decision based on the available evidence. The judge is looking for people who can work within the rules of the system, but that surely doesn't preclude decision-makers either.
I've been on a jury before, and contrary to popular opinion, it was not composed of people who had nothing but time on their hands. Nearly everyone there seemed to be a businessperson or professional of some sort. Even so, no one complained about the time it took, as we all knew a young man's future was to be greatly impacted by our decision. As such, we took our job extremely seriously (and it wasn't anything so dramatic as a murder trial). While I'd never hope to spend another day surrounded by arguing lawyers, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to recuse myself if called up again.
Resistance groups fighting uniformed militaries are routinely described as "terrorists" by the US State and Defense Departments The American Revolution was not a resistance group. It was a regular army, fighting a war of independence, and adhered to the period's conventions of honorable warfare. So no, they would not be viewed as terrorist threats by today's laws. Let me actually quote from the document you've linked to:
International terrorism involves violent acts, or acts dangerous to human life, that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state, and which are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the police of a government, or affect the conduct of a government. This reads to me that any violent act meant to coerce a populous or government would be considered terrorism. That sounds like a reasonable definition. The colonial rebels did nothing of the sort. They declared their independence from the crown by writing a letter, and Britain responded in force, as they deemed it was their right to do. War was waged, and the colonies were victorious.
There's a reasonable argument that could be made that the terms "resistance" and "terrorism" completely depends on which side of the battle you're siding with. After all, many historical resistance groups essentially committed acts of "terror" against occupying forces (WWII in occupied France, for example). Ultimately, though, semantics and word games are of little value, because terms are only as meaningful as they are applied to real-world scenarios.
The fact of the matter is that modern democracies of the world are, while nowhere near perfect, the best thing human freedom has going for it right now, and there are plenty of real "terrorists" out there who would love to see that come to an end. Should we become paranoid and throw away our liberty for the sake of security? Absolutely not. But neither is it worthwhile to simply dismiss everything as government propaganda, when we've all seen for ourselves what a few fanatical madmen are capable of inflicting on a largely unsuspecting population.
The notion of people-tracking with RFID is a bit far-fetched, isn't it? These things have a pretty short range, maybe a few meters at most if I recall correctly. Tracking a person isn't going to do much good unless there were sensors everywhere.
That being said, I'm also in no hurry to have any tracking devices implanted in me either.
America was founded by "terrorists." No, America was founded by "rebels". There's a huge difference. Those "rebels" did not use terror to achieve political aims. They used military force, by raising an army in the field, building our own seagoing attack vessels (pretty much was useless, read some history for some amusing / interesting tales), and enlisting the help of foreign nationals (the French).
Americans were criticized for unsportsmanlike conduct, such as specific targeting of officers by sharpshooters. But it's a complete myth that we fought the British mostly by small skirmishes. The simple fact was, it was a large standing army, fought in traditional fashion, that eventually defeated the British (with the help of a Naval blockade). George Washington led this army from the front lines, and it's a miracle he was never even touched by a bullet or cannon fire.
I know that America-bashing is all the rage these days, but to casually equate the folks who founded the US with modern terrorism is such a ridiculous notion, I really don't even know where to begin except to recommend you educate yourself. Yes, it's foolish to believe that the founding fathers were somehow infallible, or not without faults, but all in all, they were a remarkable group of people who are worth learning about with an open mind.
I've got no qualms about making sure hard-won liberties are not easily surrendered, but leave our "rebel" ancestors out of this.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're contradicting yourself. You claim that "in video games market economics does not necessarily apply", yet you then claim that with the PS1, the library just moved between platforms. Nintendo didn't go away. So... exactly *why* did the games jump ship? Answer: the Sony PlayStation offered a more attractive platform to developers. How exactly is that not competition?
I may have a slightly different perspective on this, as I'm a developer in the games industry. Consumers don't necessarily see the entire picture, but when a console company gets extremely successful, the tendency has been to start crapping on the developers. Ultimately, this tends to diminish the quality of games produced for that console, and the only thing that keeps this in check is a competing company.
This is *exactly* what happened when Sony usurped Nintendo. It's odd to think of it now, but Nintendo was the 800lb gorilla in the market, and Sony the upstart. After all, Nintendo was synonymous with console gaming. And unfortunately, as a company, they got way too damn arrogant. This showed both in the way they treated developers AND in the lack of innovation in their hardware (refusal to abandon cartridges, overly restrictive, high licensing fees, etc). As a result, the market corrects itself, and Sony rises to the top.
Fast-forward a few years later, and Sony has monster hits with the PS one and two. At this point, they're so arrogant, they're telling *us* (third party devs) how to change our game (it was cross-platform), with the implied threat that if we don't change it, it won't get published on the PS2. And no, this wasn't just Technical Requirement Checklist compliance, it was look and feel of the game, and gameplay features. Exactly the same kind of crap Nintendo was pulling a few years ago.
You really need to take a closer look when you say that competition isn't necessarily required for the health of the video game industry (hell, competition is necessary for the health of *any* industry). The fact that you're seeing a lot of pretty slick titles (they're not all glitz over gameplay) should be a pretty good indicator. And NES era being the pinnacle of gaming? Please... I grew up on a NES (and earlier stuff). The simple fact of the matter is that gaming today is every bit as innovative as yesteryear's games, and then some.
Yes, there were some gems, but then, as today, there's a lot of crap as well, and you just have to be a bit careful in sniffing out those gems. Sure, I like popping in an old NES game (although today it's with the Wii virtual console or my DS), but after a few minutes of nostalgia, I quickly crave something a bit more substantial. And whether that's jamming with friends on Rock Band, shooting it out with Call of Duty 4 online, getting in some platforming fun with Super Mario Galaxy, or playing a quiet game of chess against my Xbox... You have to admit we have it pretty good as gamers these days.
Well, in recent years (or perhaps in your lifetime, if you're under 30). But a few of us geezers remember not only the lack of banner years in video gaming, but outright crashes of the market. I'm being pedantic, though, I suppose. I'll presume you implied "in recent years"...
You're correct, though. It's likely we may see a downturn as near the end of this generation's lifetime, as gamers are less enthusiastic about investing in last-generation's games. However, we shouldn't have to worry about this for another few years. We're probably not even at the half-mark of this generation's life-cycle. The console makers will probably take care not to oversaturate the market by iterating too soon with hardware generations, or they may alienate consumers by devaluing existing game libraries and systems too quickly.
I've postulated that Microsoft paid a hefty price in its rush to early market in its hardware failures (to the tune of a billion dollars). Still, it may consider it's current position in the market worth the price. Sony used its console to push its HD-media standard, and I wonder how much this hurt its newest console sales. This left Nintendo to clean up with a low-cost, quirky offering of the Wii.
To be honest, although people keep seeming to want one of these competitors to break away and dominate the market, I think it's actually healthier to keep the three-way competition going strong. The ultimate winner is consumers when companies must compete fiercely for your business. The only obvious downside is having to either choose among consoles to get exclusive titles, or pony up for multiple consoles. Still, I think this is a much healthier market than when a particular company dominates the market.
BTW, you're inferring dislike where none exists. I simply indicated Moby Dick was a fairly tough read compared to Tolkien's work, nothing more. And even if I disliked Melville, I would never dissuade someone from reading classical literature.
Or Moby Dick. A single chapter describes Ishmael's room. Another chapter? Walking down the street to the ship. For ~560 pages of difficult text, very little in the way of action actually happens in that story.
I actually hadn't read The Lord of the Rings trilogy until a few years ago. I was surprised at how light a read it was, especially compared to some of the classic I remembered from my school days.
o Why o Why is my text not formatted correctly?
You're missing one of the points of the article. Sweeney is claiming that the gap is becoming too wide to effectively scale between the low and high end PCs like games used to be able to do. Scaling between mid and high-range, sure, but certainly not between low and high.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure why anyone is all that surprised at this. After all, there's only so much you can cram into operating systems and office productivity software before you can't slow the machine down anymore (although MS is sure as hell trying). At this point, even a fairly old and low-powered machine can effectively handle the basics, while you need a monster to run the most modern games at full visual glory.
At a certain point, it's simply not possible to scale a game down to the point where it can run on the lowest end hardware.
But aside from being pedantic, I agree with your point. This guy is not a major policy-maker, and this bill, while it makes for good
:Look at me, still talking when there's science to do...
You espouse on *slashdot* in a *games forum* the idea anyone who enjoys music from a video game (obviously wasting their life) is simply sucking on the teat of our corporate overlords, and should rethink their tastes (presumably to fall more in line with yours)? How wonderfully "I'm-so-enlightened-and-open-minded-oh-and-anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-an-idiot" of you.
You're making the assumption that someone who enjoys a particular genre of music is only going so because they are being spoon-fed by some corporation trying to create some sort of cross-promotional tie-in. The fact that you find it "horrifying" that someone may like to relax and play a video game... and, shocker of shockers, might also like the music that accompanies said game, is a bit baffling to me. Have you considered the remote possibility that there's a lot of enjoyable video game music out there? Why are people so quick to judge individual taste as "worthwhile" or "not worthwhile"?
I tend to prefer instrumental music. I especially enjoy classical music and symphonic music. This pretty much includes everything from Beethoven to John Williams to Jeremy Soule. Frankly, I don't give a damn if the music I like comes from a media corporation. That doesn't diminish my enjoyment of it a single bit. That's because I'm listening to the music, not thinking about where it comes from. If you want to make some sort of statement about why you listen to particular types of music, that's fine... good for you. But then, that's really not about just the music anymore, is it?
And by the way, if you're just "staring at video games", you're doing it wrong.
No, the one people were concerned about was Mortal Kombat. It was the GTA of its day.
If you write a technical book for a reputable publisher, then the book is indeed fact-checked. As you mentioned, this typically involves someone literate in the field going over your book, using their (virtual) highlighter pen a lot, and a LOT of e-mails back and forth (at least, that was my experience). Why do you distinguish between someone being paid by the publisher to review a work and the publisher doing in themselves? The paid-reviewer methodology has obvious benefits. There's no possible way for a publishing house to be experts in the fields of all their published works. It seems rather obvious to me.
There are different ways to make money, and there are many different markets out there. One is sensationalism. Another is a reputation for quality. Just because OJ's book sells, it doesn't mean that all publishers are at their level. I'm not saying the process is perfect - but I just don't think it's quite as skewed as you make it out to be.
The big different between a publisher and Wikipedia (rather than "throw it out there and see if anyone catches anything") is that the original author's and publisher's reputations are on the line, and so, if they're interested in a reputation of reliability, they'll make every effort to ensure accuracy. A single miscreant can't vandalize a work. If inaccuracies slip through, you have accountability. If they're willing to let out and out falsehoods through the gates, then you simply know to avoid them in the future, or to view their work with healthy skepticism in the future. What's wrong with that?
But beyond all that, the fact of the matter is that we're not talking *only* about scientific gain here, we're talking about exploration. And exploration is ultimately a human endeavor. How much more inspiring is it when you know a man walked on the moon? Would anyone have cared if it was an automated probe? Yes, the mars rovers are interesting and cool, but wait till you see the hubub over the first humans on mars. I remember how thrilled I was when I watched the first space shuttle launch early in the morning with my dad (and then watching it later with my schoolmates as it landed).
Frankly, I'm pretty glad that even after all these years, I'm not too cynical to get a bit thrilled at the prospect of a manned mars mission.
Probably a poor choice of words on my part. By "solution without a problem", I meant that quaternions didn't end up being the solution of choice for these sorts of computations (i.e. quaternions lost out to vectors and matrices, which are now considered the "standard" method for solving these types of problems). By the end of the nineteenth century, quaternions were certainly out of favor with the general community. Nowadays, quaternions are typically only used in places where their special properties are advantageous.
Timezones were originally invented by the railroad companies. Previous to that, it was an absolute nightmare to schedule anything accurately when moving from one location to another. Each city would need to keep it's own local time. Those in rural areas would probably just use the time from the nearest town, or perhaps calculate their own offset, but who knows where the dividing line would be.
Can you even imagine how difficult it would be to deal with this in any global communications system? Instead of representing a time offset with a simple zone identifier, you'd need unique time offset information for every location on earth. Essentially, damn near impossible to do from a practical standpoint. Timezones may seem silly and arbitrary, but clear and unambiguous rules about time management also make it possible to coordinate easier with others, irrespective of location.
Quaternions, first described in the mid 1800s, were essentially a solution without a problem until they became relevant for computer-generated animation and graphics. Until then, I believe they were mostly just considered a mathematical curiosity.
What's this "time slot" you keep refer...
Oh....
I see... You don't have a TiVo.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/10-most-anticipated-games-of-2008/1177969
Grand Theft Auto 4
Smash Bros. Brawl
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Metal Gear Solid 4
Halo Wars
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Fallout 3
Spore
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Final Fantasy XIII
Of that list, I see only one title based on a 100% new intellectual property: Spore. One guess who is publishing that title...
Irony?
The entire point of being on a jury is to weigh available evidence and come to a *decision*. Sure, the defense attorney would love to get indecisive people, but the prosecutor will be looking for those who can think and come to a reasonable decision based on the available evidence. The judge is looking for people who can work within the rules of the system, but that surely doesn't preclude decision-makers either.
I've been on a jury before, and contrary to popular opinion, it was not composed of people who had nothing but time on their hands. Nearly everyone there seemed to be a businessperson or professional of some sort. Even so, no one complained about the time it took, as we all knew a young man's future was to be greatly impacted by our decision. As such, we took our job extremely seriously (and it wasn't anything so dramatic as a murder trial). While I'd never hope to spend another day surrounded by arguing lawyers, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to recuse myself if called up again.
There's a reasonable argument that could be made that the terms "resistance" and "terrorism" completely depends on which side of the battle you're siding with. After all, many historical resistance groups essentially committed acts of "terror" against occupying forces (WWII in occupied France, for example). Ultimately, though, semantics and word games are of little value, because terms are only as meaningful as they are applied to real-world scenarios.
The fact of the matter is that modern democracies of the world are, while nowhere near perfect, the best thing human freedom has going for it right now, and there are plenty of real "terrorists" out there who would love to see that come to an end. Should we become paranoid and throw away our liberty for the sake of security? Absolutely not. But neither is it worthwhile to simply dismiss everything as government propaganda, when we've all seen for ourselves what a few fanatical madmen are capable of inflicting on a largely unsuspecting population.
The notion of people-tracking with RFID is a bit far-fetched, isn't it? These things have a pretty short range, maybe a few meters at most if I recall correctly. Tracking a person isn't going to do much good unless there were sensors everywhere.
That being said, I'm also in no hurry to have any tracking devices implanted in me either.
Americans were criticized for unsportsmanlike conduct, such as specific targeting of officers by sharpshooters. But it's a complete myth that we fought the British mostly by small skirmishes. The simple fact was, it was a large standing army, fought in traditional fashion, that eventually defeated the British (with the help of a Naval blockade). George Washington led this army from the front lines, and it's a miracle he was never even touched by a bullet or cannon fire.
I know that America-bashing is all the rage these days, but to casually equate the folks who founded the US with modern terrorism is such a ridiculous notion, I really don't even know where to begin except to recommend you educate yourself. Yes, it's foolish to believe that the founding fathers were somehow infallible, or not without faults, but all in all, they were a remarkable group of people who are worth learning about with an open mind.
I've got no qualms about making sure hard-won liberties are not easily surrendered, but leave our "rebel" ancestors out of this.