While I do think there are benefits to this type of surveillance the risks for abuse are far too great. It's all too easy to take this sort of thing way too far, and unfortunately I think it's going to happen whether we like it or not. The government will simply be far more secretive about it. I think Obama is the sort of guy who will engage in these kinds of activities just as intensively as Bush, the difference is he'll be a lot more careful about keeping it quiet.
The real concern I have is how people have grown extremely tolerant of what the government is doing now that we have a democrat as president. People who were rabidly anti-Bush for engaging in these activities, among other things, now blindly adore Obama and everything he does. That's the real danger, to blindly follow any leader and embrace everything he does because you believe he's on your side. When there are so-called journalists out there comparing Obama to god I think there's cause for concern.
I think people under 30 are highly supportive of putting a man on the moon
Well, amongst the people I know in that age group there while there are some who are highly enthusiastic about the idea I also know far too many who don't have the foresight to see the benefit such a venture would provide humanity. They see landing on the moon, or anywhere else as a complete waste of money. Every last one of them already thinks too much is spent on NASA and would rather see the money spent on social programs instead. I always feel like they expect the government to shield them from the hardships of life, but that's a whole other discussion.
I think if Americans had a real desire to return to the moon we'd be there already.
I agree. And I also feel it's time parents started being held accountable for what their kids are doing. Too many parents just don't care and that needs to change.
I went to what most would consider inner city schools. I noticed, fairly consistently, that those kids who's parents actually paid attention to what their kids were doing tended to do well. The ones where the parents were virtually non-existent were the biggest troublemakers, troublemaker being a huge understatement. And the ones who truly excelled were the ones who's parents were demanding and didn't tolerate nonsense. It certainly wasn't a guarantee at all, but doubtless it improved the odds.
Income seems to not make a difference, except for the obvious fact that if a kid grows up around successful chances are they will learn from them and do well themselves. Although I know quite a few people who grew up fairly well off and are quite messed up. So again, parenting is important. I think race is irrelevant but cultural background is very important. Virtually all of my Asian friends in the US are successful and excelled in school. It wasn't because of any sort of inherent ability but because their parents were extremely demanding and would never tolerate poor grades. Some parents see it as a source of pride that their kids end up in ivy league schools, almost to the point of being vain, like owning a BMW or something from Burberry.
A problem I find with a lot of Americans is that they segregate children from adults. I'll go to a party and see the kids all sent off to the children's table and told to to interrupt adults. Growing up, whenever we had get together kids were sitting around with adults, learning from them. Sometimes the topics were mature and the kids didn't get it, but that was irrelevant. The problem with keeping them separate is that kids are stupid. So what are they going to learn from each other? Nothing but more stupidity. Certainly it's perfectly fine for kids to interact and play together, but American culture has taken it to an extreme. To the point where even kids think it's uncool to be around adults. Look at kid's television, this nonsense is constantly perpetuated. So how are they supposed to have any respect for anything and learn? Another problem is this importance a lot of parents place on their kids being sociable; the more friends they have, the more activities they engage in, the better. That's all well and good, but again, from what I've seen it causes too many problems. The moment kids get too fixated on their friends their grades suffer, among other things.
Honestly, I don't know how parents are held accountable for their children, especially in cases where guys just knock up a girl and dump her. Not that these girls are victims themselves. I've had a few classmates who got pregnant as teenagers, but kept living the single lifestyle, going to clubs and whatnot and got pregnant with second and third children, often each by a different father. How the hell do you address that? Especially when some people don't even see the problem or don't care.
I think it's more than a lack of adventure. There's this undercurrent in society, particularly American society, of extreme cynicism. There's this excessive, irrational desire to be iconoclastic. Not everyone, but the attitudes are prevalent enough that I think it hurts the nation as a whole. And of course, it's a vicious cycle. Why should anyone care when nobody else seems to?
I think chances are good we're going to see progress in space exploration come from nations like China where there still is strong nationalistic pride. However, I think they're far enough behind that it wont be for a while. And certainly, in the meantime attitudes here could change, although I'm not optimistic.
I'd say the increases in spending have continued, pretty much unabated. It's just that the government has found other, arguably less productive, stuff to spend that money on.
Much of the rest of the world is incapable of providing good basic health care. Good is the key word here.
I've got family in Portugal, France and England who will tell you socialized health care is shit. I've got in-laws in Taiwan who have similar problems although it isn't quite as bad as Europe.
Everything people say about waiting lists, not treating those deemed not worth the expense, lack of good doctors and all the rest are true. Every couple of months I hear a story of something that directly effected a family member.
One of the most recent being my uncle, in Portugal, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer. If he waited for the government program he'd be sitting around 6 months. His doctor strongly recommended he pay out of his own pocket and get the treatment immediately. That's what he did. So explain to me again the point of government health care?
In France, my family there, 3 uncles and 2 aunts all married with families, have private insurance because the government keeps cutting back. They tell us they're moving towards a US style health care system because the government simply can't afford to support their current system. They're no happy about it, but they're even less happy with the crap the government is offering.
Taiwan's system isn't as bad, but it's suffering from overuse. When I was there it cost US$2 to see a doctor. What here someone would take Tylenol for there they'd be at the doctor. So what happens? Everyone gets a crappy, rushed 3 minute visit where the doctor asks the patient to describe the symptoms. You're lucky if they even take your blood pressure. They make a few assumptions and then type up some stuff on their computer and send you on your way with packs of several pills, one for each potential symptom. Although the government prohibits this, a lot of doctors try to encourage their patients to visit them at their private practices. The patients pay more and its out of pocket, but the promise is that they'll get a more thorough checkup.
One of the examples within the United States which politicians have trumpeted as a model for the entire country is MassHealth. Here's another piece of garbage where just recently they dropped coverage for legal immigrants because of budget shortfalls. My sister in law works at a hospital in the state and has many stories of abuse.
And that brings me to another problem, which is that people want this but expect it to be free. I know someone who's brother originally lived out of state, but moved in with her sister in MA temporarily in order to take advantage of the system because of something he got diagnosed with. It was great for him that the residents of the state got to pay for his treatment.
Americans tend to suffer from the grass is greener syndrome. I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems with the American system, because there are. But the solution sure has hell isn't to turn things into a big, government controlled mess that they won't be able to run efficiently and can't even afford.
I believe that limited socialism and very limited welfare are necessary. Without some regulations a small group of individuals manage to turn a free market into a restrictive one, actually the same happens with too much regulation, but that's another story. So I'm not naive to the needs of a nation. But Europe is a case study in the failure of excessive socialism, unfortunately too many Americans are blind to that fact. Of course, I can give examples until I'm blue in the face and some people still wont be convinced.
I don't think there's any possible way the Apollo program would ever survive to day. If it hadn't been cut in 1967 it would have been cut sometime later. There are too many small-minded people, in my opinion, who can't see the forest for the trees. They have a hard time imagining for envisioning why such ambitious projects are ultimately better for the country, and humanity in general than wasteful, overblown social programs. Of course, the social programs guarantee power to the politicians.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Anyone who buys used games from Gamestop and their ilk is a sap. Anyone who believes they're sticking it to developers and publishers by doing so is an even bigger sap. Used games from these retailers is one of the biggest sucker deals I've seen in years, $5 to $10 off games with battered, dirty cases, missing instruction manuals and worn, scratched discs. Even more ridiculous is how little they offer customers for used games.
I can't count the times I've seen used games at Gamestop going for more than a new copy at Target. If you're a truly discerning shopper concerned with saving money you'd go online where the best deals, by far, can be had. I don't think waiting a couple of days for delivery is going to kill anyone.
This is not to say I have some kind of problem with used games. Not at all. But if you're buying used games for a deal, which I presume most people are, then you should be shopping on eBay because that's one of the few days to find a good deal. And even better option is to just the game.
But the fact is that there are such good deals to be had online that there's virtually no good reason to buy a used game. Even new games can be had for about $5 off, at least, which is how much Gamestop is charging for the same game used. The way I see it, if a person is so impatient that they have to have a game immediately then they really aren't all that serious about saving money. If I don't think a new game is worth $60 then I don't buy it. I wait until prices have dropped.
The only people being screwed by used game sales are the consumers themselves but only because they allow themselves to be screwed. I remember as a kid collecting a bunch of old Atari 2600 games we had laying around and taking them to various pawn shops to make a few bucks to that in turn I could buy some Sega Master System games. I went from shop to shop trying to find a good deal, but in the end I gave up a decent number of good Atari games to end up with a single, average SMS game. Live and learn.
The sample page looks great, in Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4 anyway. Those dingbats don't look particularly good, but I don't know if that's what the font itself looks like or if they aren't rendering properly. The page does take a bit longer to load, but once it's loaded I don't see problems.
I recall back in college, over 10 years ago now, hearing about custom web fonts. I even played with it a few times, but that went out the window when the type foundries all freaked out. It certainly is encouraging not to have to be dependent on Flash if I want custom fonts, however, I have my reservations. I'll have to see how this works going forward.
The one downside with this ability, however, if that we're going to have people going absolutely nuts with fonts. If you thought MySpace pages looked like crap, wait until people start using crazy, illegible fonts.
What I suspect is meant by an attractive woman is someone with nice hips and ample breasts, meaning the appropriate qualities for child-bearing. However, because of humanity's appreciation for aesthetic qualities other factors may come into play. I also think that popular culture was twisted what men find attractive so that guys end up going for woman who are overly plasticky or, at the other extreme, thin as toothpicks.
I think there is probably a general template for what is considered attractive, but certainly there are specific characteristics that are more appealing in some cultures. And again, I think popular culture has turned beauty into a caricature.
Holy crap, is my company seriously undercharging for the work we do. What in the hell is it with companies that take government contracts that get away with charging such an absurd amount of money for work?
This is what we get when idiots in government don't ever shop around like any sensible person at any company would. Although what reason do they have to care what these projects cost when it's not their own money? They'll just raise taxes on us. And then I'm supposed to feel good about the taxes I pay.
Like being assessed a full year of taxes on a car I sold barely one month into this tax period. I look forward to seeing my tax money spent having snow plows running all night to clear a dusting of snow. Or having the city overpay for a crappy website that looks unprofessional and barely functions properly.
The issue isn't citizens being taxed directly, it's that utilities and the like will pass the costs of cap and trade onto consumers. We will all be paying for it indirectly. In addition to that these companies may be forced to cut costs in other ways, and one of the simplest ways to do so is to eliminate employees.
What about if some farmer burns brush in his yard? What about campfires?
Don't parts of California already prohibit the use of fireplaces?
Given how much of this crap comes out of that state I feel like we've got a bunch of people who've decided to live in a hot, arid environment and are now complaining about the weather and trying to force the rest of us into doing something about it. It would be like Alaskans mandating that every American be supplied a parka or something.
Having tried various control pads over the years I personally think the PS2/PS3 controller is among the best. I generally find the placement of controls to be quite comfortable. The biggest problem I've encountered with control pads stems from poor game design, specifically function overload. Developers will overdo it with buttons having multiple functions in different scenarios, too many actions using too many buttons, and no thought given to how a gamer will interact with the controller.
However, as others have mentioned, it really comes down to the game. On the PC I primarily use the keyboard/mouse combination and find it to be excellent for FPSs, RTSs and many RPGs. Control pads are extremely imprecise and suck the fun from any FPS.
As for motion controllers, including the Wiimote and Guitar Hero/Rockband instruments, they can be great fun. The Wiimote has issues with precision, but I don't count that against it because the technology is in its infancy. The problem is, however, that these controllers clearly don't work for many games and sometimes I just want to sit and relax. I don't want the nuisance of having to wave my arms every time I play a game.
As for racing games, obviously wheels and pedals are ideal. However, a few years ago I had this controller for the PC that was reminiscent of controllers for RC cars. The wheel sat on top of the controller and the trigger moved both forwards and back. I thought it was one of the most precise controllers I've ever used for racing games. Certainly, it's not quite the same as a full steering wheel, but it made it easy to be precise and react quickly and it had the advantage of being compact.
Still, if I were to choose a controller that was the best all-around for the widest variety of games it would have to be the traditional control pad. The mouse and keyboard combination is close behind and surpasses everything else in certain genres. Motion controllers are great for only a limited set of games.
Unfortunately I live in an area where much of our power is generated by petroleum, of all things, so I'm almost certainly screwed. Even with the entire house equipped with CFLs, and careful usage of electricity I still spend nearly twice what friends in some other states spend on electricity. There are things I'd like to do to lower my electricity bill, but I don't have the money to spend without very careful planning.
And it's not just this garbage we need to contend with. Bear in mind that state and federal government is looking to suck us dry in many other ways. I'm facing the prospect of my city raising property tax by a substantial amount this summer. Taxes are already high here but the city is incapable of managing its finances. But then I'm convinced government sees citizens as an endless source of income.
Without a doubt, the prospect of all this is very concerning. It would certainly put a strain on my finances. Perhaps it will make me eligible for some kind of government bailout.
The irony is that temperatures in this area have been colder than normal for a few years now, and so far the difference has been quite pronounced this year. It's been a good 10 degrees below normal since the end of winter.
If I'm not mistaken that's essentially how the GM Volt works. The gasoline engine generates electricity and doesn't actually motivate the vehicle. In my opinion, by far the smart idea for a hybrid I've seen to date, but the media couldn't help but shitt on the concept because it's GM.
Bullshit. If you need sex and violence then you're not particularly creative. Certainly either can be a crucial part of a story and add to that experience, but it certainly isn't the end all and be all of creativity. I don't understand this obsession with "mature" themes, like gamers and developers alike are trying to prove they're mature in the most immature way possible. And let's not kid ourselves, developers are making their games more violent and adding more sex not because of some creative need, but for the simple reason that it sells.
Technologically gaming certain has progressed to an impressive degree over the past few decades. But in terms of quality of storytelling, outside of a handful of exceptions I actually think we've regressed. Unfortunately, the game industry is taking Hollywood's approach to entertainment which means it's appealing to the lowest common denominator.
If fail to see the connections the author is trying to make. Japan's high concept games, for example, have come about independently of anything else the industry might be producing. Ironically, most high-concept games are light on violence. Games like Fallout 3 or Bioshock are not art and certainly not intellectual. Well, they're the Hollywood version of profound thought, which means they aren't very deep at all.
I think too many people are trying to rationalize why they play violent or sexual games and expect non-gamers to understand and accept it. The fact is that many people are turned off by that sort of thing. People play these games because they get a rise out of them, it's titillating. And that's perfectly acceptable. I'm not suggesting adults should be banned from playing these games. In fact, I sometimes enjoy them myself. My problem is with people making ridiculous justifications for their existence and somehow suggesting that they're necessary for the advancement of art.
And interestingly, sometimes people are their most creative when they're limited in some way. When they're free to do whatever they like it's like they don't know what they want and the end result is crap. Again, I'm not endorsing censorship. I'm pointing out that people can be creative if they wanted to be, but it doesn't make for a profitable business model. More esoteric games in Japan occasionally enjoy success there because culturally they're more open to that sort of thing. Unfortunately in the US, where your average gamer needs everything to exude attitude and menace such games rarely get any attention. But then that's what we've got indie gaming for.
In principle I like the idea of having no caps on usage. However, while I don't doubt that ISPs love to nickle and dime us, increased usage must put additional load on the system. If everyone is downloading HD movies, for examples, ISP providers are going to have additional expense meeting that demand.
As others have pointed out, switching to a utility-type model isn't necessarily a good one. Sure, I can use electricity, water or natural gas as much as I like. But I'm also paying for every little bit I use. And it certainly doesn't prevent the providers from increasing rates.
But who knows? Perhaps this is a more logical model for internet usage. However, I suspect it wouldn't work quite the same way. With electricity or natural gas I pay for what I use, which means if I didn't use any I'd pay next to nothing. I'm guessing ISPs make more money with the current model than they would under that one.
I suspect providers will charge a flat fee in addition to usage charges, pretty much like mobile phones. I personally think that sucks and I expect internet service would be more expensive than it is now. I think more competition would address this problem far more effectively than any legislation, as well-intentioned as it might be. The government is inevitably going to compromise somehow if they force these rules on providers which likely means we'll get screwed one way or another. Open things up so that it's easier for competitors to enter the market.
To be completely frank, anyone buying used games from Gamestop and other such stores is a fool. These retailers pay next to nothing for these games and then go and discount $5 or $10 off what a new copy would cost. Shopping around online anyone can find a far better deal for a new game than they will trying to buy one used. No game is that good that a person cant wait a couple of days in order to get a good value.
I would fully support the used game market if it weren't such a complete scam.
I wouldn't be surprised. In my area one of the major highways was repaved less than 10 years ago and over long stretches there is already rutting occurring because of big trucks compressing the asphalt. And that's not to mention that the quality of paving and maintenance is garbage to begin with.
I love in the winter when snow plows come down the street, sparks flying as the flow scrapes the pavement and the entire house rumbling. The snow starts disappearing a few days later and large chunks are torn out of the pavement. Then every single year, we have to put up with damaged streets for most of the year, until late fall when crews come along and start patching streets and highways, poorly, just in time for them to be torn up again in the winter.
As bad as it can get in my area, try driving into the New York area and it's an absolute joke. Maintenance seems to non-existent and when they do new work they might as well not have bothered because they've done such an awful job. I could ride blind-folded in a car and know when I've entered New York state.
I don't understand why the PCjr is bashed so much. We had one and I thought it was pretty damn good. Granted I was quite young, but we did put that machine to good use for quite a few years. We did get the chiclet keyboard, but by that point IBM was already including a similar keyboard with conventional keys so it was a moot point. I actually thought the keyboard was pretty cool. It wasn't the best for typing, but I think it was more a consequence of the technology available at the time and the size of the buttons than anything else. I'd like to think that current Apple keyboards are a spiritual successor and show that the concept wasn't necessarily a bad one. As for the IR, certainly you had to be careful with anything getting in between the keyboard and the machine, but generally it was excellent and we never ran into problems. I must preferred that to having to deal with a cable.
As for the sidecars, it's not like people at the time were upgrading machines anywhere near as frequently as they do now. And there were tons of clumsy upgrade solutions for many computers at the time. When a 128K memory card was as large, if not larger, than most video cards today there aren't many options for efficient packaging. Actually, the upgrade we got was from a company called Legacy and it pretty much was a whole other case, the size of the PCjr which added 512K of ram and added a second floppy drive. It doubled the size of the machine, but that's just how things were back then; it never bothered us.
The PCjr was a better machine than pretty much anything else I encountered through much of elementary school. It was far superior than the crappy Apple IIs we had in school. It offered better resolution and 16 colors. What did suck, however, was that it was somewhat less powerful than the IBM PCs available then and later on. While it supported CGA, it's 16 color format was proprietary and not compatible at all with EGA. But regardless, for $1000 it was a great deal and generally compatible with most IBM PC applications.
I haven't gone through all the "mistakes", but it seems like this article is written from a modern-day perspective which is inappropriate given the era when these machines were designed and manufactured.
Don't like the terms they are giving you? OPT OUT!
This is a very important point. Far too many people nowadays complain about some service or technology but hand over their money anyway. It reminds me of this idiot post I read recently where people were complaining about a game developer. This guy actually posts that he was going to buy this particular game anyway, but he was going to give them the finger on the way out the door.
Congratulations, what this guy has accomplished is the equivalent of being kicked in the nuts and giving the attacker a back rub in response.
The clearest message a consumer can make is to not buy products from companies they're not happy with. And this means not pirating as well, because by pirating you're merely saying that the demand exists and thus justifying the constant push for DRM. These companies are obviously convinced that some day they're going to develop totally effective DRM.
Don't like it? Don't buy it. Especially considering that none of this is really a necessity for living. There are other, potentially more fulfilling, ways to entertain yourself.
They currently don't "care" because they don't have the resources to do so or are focused on other things. But they absolutely have the ambition. Follow the news in Asia and you'll see that they do like meddling, it's just that currently it's mostly localized to Asia.
Anyone who believe China doesn't have this ambition is being naive. They wouldn't be increasing investment in their military and wouldn't be buying up US debt if they didn't have bigger plans. By no means do I think America should regard China as the enemy, but they certainly should be pragmatic about the relationship.
I really like Futurama; I have all four DVD sets and the four movies. However, I think this series should rest in peace. It's over.
The series was great and got progressively better as time went on. However, if the movies are any indication the revived series will be crap. Each movie was worse than the last. They weren't particularly creative with the stories and overall the writing overwrought and not compelling. There was so much untapped potential in the series but instead the movies degraded into pathetic, poorly executed fan service. Some jokes were quite funny but otherwise I felt like they were trying too hard to recreate Family Guy and Adult Swim's brand of humor. And probably the most obnoxious part was the constant environmentalist proselytizing. Some episodes used Al Gore and that theme to great effect but Bender's Game, in particular, was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the crotch.
However, I am a sucker for Futurama, so I'll definitely watch. But if it ends up being the same kind of crap I saw in the movies I wont be watching for long.
Having had experience with printing for years printing on demand is considerably more expensive than conventional offset printing at least when such large numbers are involved. This is assuming, of course, that they will be printing hard copies of electronic textbooks which they almost certainly will.
Of course, whatever vendor provides the service will almost definitely charge as much, if not more for this service than a traditional text book publisher would. The real problem here is that publishers seriously overcharge for their books. But ultimately that is the fault of buyers, in this case the schools, who don't bother shopping around and don't make any demands of the publishers. There's no need for expensive 4-color printing. There's no need for hard covers. Take a look at textbooks overseas and it because quite apparent how wasteful and overdone American textbooks are. And let's not forget that for many courses there's no need whatsoever to always acquire the latest edition.
I have friends who are already forced to use online textbooks for class and they hate it. They're accessed via a restrictive, convoluted interface. And it's far more difficult to read a computer screen than a sheet of paper. If you're ultimately going to just print the thing out why not provide the damn printed textbook to begin with?
And lets not forget that the last thing kids need is yet another distraction. It is already bad enough with my the college kids in the class I taught screwing around on chat and social networking sites during class. Imagine how much worse it would be with kids in elementary and high school. Then there's the maintenance of the computers themselves. Even college kids completely trash their machines. The university where I taught provides many, if not all, of their students with laptops and by the end of the year most of them are trashed because they're so battered.
In every possible way I can see this is pure stupidity and a complete and utter waste.
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I know some Toyota owners who would beg to differ about not needing spare parts.
While I do think there are benefits to this type of surveillance the risks for abuse are far too great. It's all too easy to take this sort of thing way too far, and unfortunately I think it's going to happen whether we like it or not. The government will simply be far more secretive about it. I think Obama is the sort of guy who will engage in these kinds of activities just as intensively as Bush, the difference is he'll be a lot more careful about keeping it quiet.
The real concern I have is how people have grown extremely tolerant of what the government is doing now that we have a democrat as president. People who were rabidly anti-Bush for engaging in these activities, among other things, now blindly adore Obama and everything he does. That's the real danger, to blindly follow any leader and embrace everything he does because you believe he's on your side. When there are so-called journalists out there comparing Obama to god I think there's cause for concern.
Well, amongst the people I know in that age group there while there are some who are highly enthusiastic about the idea I also know far too many who don't have the foresight to see the benefit such a venture would provide humanity. They see landing on the moon, or anywhere else as a complete waste of money. Every last one of them already thinks too much is spent on NASA and would rather see the money spent on social programs instead. I always feel like they expect the government to shield them from the hardships of life, but that's a whole other discussion.
I think if Americans had a real desire to return to the moon we'd be there already.
I agree. And I also feel it's time parents started being held accountable for what their kids are doing. Too many parents just don't care and that needs to change.
I went to what most would consider inner city schools. I noticed, fairly consistently, that those kids who's parents actually paid attention to what their kids were doing tended to do well. The ones where the parents were virtually non-existent were the biggest troublemakers, troublemaker being a huge understatement. And the ones who truly excelled were the ones who's parents were demanding and didn't tolerate nonsense. It certainly wasn't a guarantee at all, but doubtless it improved the odds.
Income seems to not make a difference, except for the obvious fact that if a kid grows up around successful chances are they will learn from them and do well themselves. Although I know quite a few people who grew up fairly well off and are quite messed up. So again, parenting is important. I think race is irrelevant but cultural background is very important. Virtually all of my Asian friends in the US are successful and excelled in school. It wasn't because of any sort of inherent ability but because their parents were extremely demanding and would never tolerate poor grades. Some parents see it as a source of pride that their kids end up in ivy league schools, almost to the point of being vain, like owning a BMW or something from Burberry.
A problem I find with a lot of Americans is that they segregate children from adults. I'll go to a party and see the kids all sent off to the children's table and told to to interrupt adults. Growing up, whenever we had get together kids were sitting around with adults, learning from them. Sometimes the topics were mature and the kids didn't get it, but that was irrelevant. The problem with keeping them separate is that kids are stupid. So what are they going to learn from each other? Nothing but more stupidity. Certainly it's perfectly fine for kids to interact and play together, but American culture has taken it to an extreme. To the point where even kids think it's uncool to be around adults. Look at kid's television, this nonsense is constantly perpetuated. So how are they supposed to have any respect for anything and learn? Another problem is this importance a lot of parents place on their kids being sociable; the more friends they have, the more activities they engage in, the better. That's all well and good, but again, from what I've seen it causes too many problems. The moment kids get too fixated on their friends their grades suffer, among other things.
Honestly, I don't know how parents are held accountable for their children, especially in cases where guys just knock up a girl and dump her. Not that these girls are victims themselves. I've had a few classmates who got pregnant as teenagers, but kept living the single lifestyle, going to clubs and whatnot and got pregnant with second and third children, often each by a different father. How the hell do you address that? Especially when some people don't even see the problem or don't care.
I think it's more than a lack of adventure. There's this undercurrent in society, particularly American society, of extreme cynicism. There's this excessive, irrational desire to be iconoclastic. Not everyone, but the attitudes are prevalent enough that I think it hurts the nation as a whole. And of course, it's a vicious cycle. Why should anyone care when nobody else seems to?
I think chances are good we're going to see progress in space exploration come from nations like China where there still is strong nationalistic pride. However, I think they're far enough behind that it wont be for a while. And certainly, in the meantime attitudes here could change, although I'm not optimistic.
I'd say the increases in spending have continued, pretty much unabated. It's just that the government has found other, arguably less productive, stuff to spend that money on.
Much of the rest of the world is incapable of providing good basic health care. Good is the key word here.
I've got family in Portugal, France and England who will tell you socialized health care is shit. I've got in-laws in Taiwan who have similar problems although it isn't quite as bad as Europe.
Everything people say about waiting lists, not treating those deemed not worth the expense, lack of good doctors and all the rest are true. Every couple of months I hear a story of something that directly effected a family member.
One of the most recent being my uncle, in Portugal, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer. If he waited for the government program he'd be sitting around 6 months. His doctor strongly recommended he pay out of his own pocket and get the treatment immediately. That's what he did. So explain to me again the point of government health care?
In France, my family there, 3 uncles and 2 aunts all married with families, have private insurance because the government keeps cutting back. They tell us they're moving towards a US style health care system because the government simply can't afford to support their current system. They're no happy about it, but they're even less happy with the crap the government is offering.
Taiwan's system isn't as bad, but it's suffering from overuse. When I was there it cost US$2 to see a doctor. What here someone would take Tylenol for there they'd be at the doctor. So what happens? Everyone gets a crappy, rushed 3 minute visit where the doctor asks the patient to describe the symptoms. You're lucky if they even take your blood pressure. They make a few assumptions and then type up some stuff on their computer and send you on your way with packs of several pills, one for each potential symptom. Although the government prohibits this, a lot of doctors try to encourage their patients to visit them at their private practices. The patients pay more and its out of pocket, but the promise is that they'll get a more thorough checkup.
One of the examples within the United States which politicians have trumpeted as a model for the entire country is MassHealth. Here's another piece of garbage where just recently they dropped coverage for legal immigrants because of budget shortfalls. My sister in law works at a hospital in the state and has many stories of abuse.
And that brings me to another problem, which is that people want this but expect it to be free. I know someone who's brother originally lived out of state, but moved in with her sister in MA temporarily in order to take advantage of the system because of something he got diagnosed with. It was great for him that the residents of the state got to pay for his treatment.
Americans tend to suffer from the grass is greener syndrome. I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems with the American system, because there are. But the solution sure has hell isn't to turn things into a big, government controlled mess that they won't be able to run efficiently and can't even afford.
I believe that limited socialism and very limited welfare are necessary. Without some regulations a small group of individuals manage to turn a free market into a restrictive one, actually the same happens with too much regulation, but that's another story. So I'm not naive to the needs of a nation. But Europe is a case study in the failure of excessive socialism, unfortunately too many Americans are blind to that fact. Of course, I can give examples until I'm blue in the face and some people still wont be convinced.
I don't think there's any possible way the Apollo program would ever survive to day. If it hadn't been cut in 1967 it would have been cut sometime later. There are too many small-minded people, in my opinion, who can't see the forest for the trees. They have a hard time imagining for envisioning why such ambitious projects are ultimately better for the country, and humanity in general than wasteful, overblown social programs. Of course, the social programs guarantee power to the politicians.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Anyone who buys used games from Gamestop and their ilk is a sap. Anyone who believes they're sticking it to developers and publishers by doing so is an even bigger sap. Used games from these retailers is one of the biggest sucker deals I've seen in years, $5 to $10 off games with battered, dirty cases, missing instruction manuals and worn, scratched discs. Even more ridiculous is how little they offer customers for used games.
I can't count the times I've seen used games at Gamestop going for more than a new copy at Target. If you're a truly discerning shopper concerned with saving money you'd go online where the best deals, by far, can be had. I don't think waiting a couple of days for delivery is going to kill anyone.
This is not to say I have some kind of problem with used games. Not at all. But if you're buying used games for a deal, which I presume most people are, then you should be shopping on eBay because that's one of the few days to find a good deal. And even better option is to just the game.
But the fact is that there are such good deals to be had online that there's virtually no good reason to buy a used game. Even new games can be had for about $5 off, at least, which is how much Gamestop is charging for the same game used. The way I see it, if a person is so impatient that they have to have a game immediately then they really aren't all that serious about saving money. If I don't think a new game is worth $60 then I don't buy it. I wait until prices have dropped.
The only people being screwed by used game sales are the consumers themselves but only because they allow themselves to be screwed. I remember as a kid collecting a bunch of old Atari 2600 games we had laying around and taking them to various pawn shops to make a few bucks to that in turn I could buy some Sega Master System games. I went from shop to shop trying to find a good deal, but in the end I gave up a decent number of good Atari games to end up with a single, average SMS game. Live and learn.
The sample page looks great, in Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4 anyway. Those dingbats don't look particularly good, but I don't know if that's what the font itself looks like or if they aren't rendering properly. The page does take a bit longer to load, but once it's loaded I don't see problems.
I recall back in college, over 10 years ago now, hearing about custom web fonts. I even played with it a few times, but that went out the window when the type foundries all freaked out. It certainly is encouraging not to have to be dependent on Flash if I want custom fonts, however, I have my reservations. I'll have to see how this works going forward.
The one downside with this ability, however, if that we're going to have people going absolutely nuts with fonts. If you thought MySpace pages looked like crap, wait until people start using crazy, illegible fonts.
What I suspect is meant by an attractive woman is someone with nice hips and ample breasts, meaning the appropriate qualities for child-bearing. However, because of humanity's appreciation for aesthetic qualities other factors may come into play. I also think that popular culture was twisted what men find attractive so that guys end up going for woman who are overly plasticky or, at the other extreme, thin as toothpicks.
I think there is probably a general template for what is considered attractive, but certainly there are specific characteristics that are more appealing in some cultures. And again, I think popular culture has turned beauty into a caricature.
Holy crap, is my company seriously undercharging for the work we do. What in the hell is it with companies that take government contracts that get away with charging such an absurd amount of money for work?
This is what we get when idiots in government don't ever shop around like any sensible person at any company would. Although what reason do they have to care what these projects cost when it's not their own money? They'll just raise taxes on us. And then I'm supposed to feel good about the taxes I pay.
Like being assessed a full year of taxes on a car I sold barely one month into this tax period. I look forward to seeing my tax money spent having snow plows running all night to clear a dusting of snow. Or having the city overpay for a crappy website that looks unprofessional and barely functions properly.
The issue isn't citizens being taxed directly, it's that utilities and the like will pass the costs of cap and trade onto consumers. We will all be paying for it indirectly. In addition to that these companies may be forced to cut costs in other ways, and one of the simplest ways to do so is to eliminate employees.
Don't parts of California already prohibit the use of fireplaces?
Given how much of this crap comes out of that state I feel like we've got a bunch of people who've decided to live in a hot, arid environment and are now complaining about the weather and trying to force the rest of us into doing something about it. It would be like Alaskans mandating that every American be supplied a parka or something.
Having tried various control pads over the years I personally think the PS2/PS3 controller is among the best. I generally find the placement of controls to be quite comfortable. The biggest problem I've encountered with control pads stems from poor game design, specifically function overload. Developers will overdo it with buttons having multiple functions in different scenarios, too many actions using too many buttons, and no thought given to how a gamer will interact with the controller.
However, as others have mentioned, it really comes down to the game. On the PC I primarily use the keyboard/mouse combination and find it to be excellent for FPSs, RTSs and many RPGs. Control pads are extremely imprecise and suck the fun from any FPS.
As for motion controllers, including the Wiimote and Guitar Hero/Rockband instruments, they can be great fun. The Wiimote has issues with precision, but I don't count that against it because the technology is in its infancy. The problem is, however, that these controllers clearly don't work for many games and sometimes I just want to sit and relax. I don't want the nuisance of having to wave my arms every time I play a game.
As for racing games, obviously wheels and pedals are ideal. However, a few years ago I had this controller for the PC that was reminiscent of controllers for RC cars. The wheel sat on top of the controller and the trigger moved both forwards and back. I thought it was one of the most precise controllers I've ever used for racing games. Certainly, it's not quite the same as a full steering wheel, but it made it easy to be precise and react quickly and it had the advantage of being compact.
Still, if I were to choose a controller that was the best all-around for the widest variety of games it would have to be the traditional control pad. The mouse and keyboard combination is close behind and surpasses everything else in certain genres. Motion controllers are great for only a limited set of games.
Unfortunately I live in an area where much of our power is generated by petroleum, of all things, so I'm almost certainly screwed. Even with the entire house equipped with CFLs, and careful usage of electricity I still spend nearly twice what friends in some other states spend on electricity. There are things I'd like to do to lower my electricity bill, but I don't have the money to spend without very careful planning.
And it's not just this garbage we need to contend with. Bear in mind that state and federal government is looking to suck us dry in many other ways. I'm facing the prospect of my city raising property tax by a substantial amount this summer. Taxes are already high here but the city is incapable of managing its finances. But then I'm convinced government sees citizens as an endless source of income.
Without a doubt, the prospect of all this is very concerning. It would certainly put a strain on my finances. Perhaps it will make me eligible for some kind of government bailout.
The irony is that temperatures in this area have been colder than normal for a few years now, and so far the difference has been quite pronounced this year. It's been a good 10 degrees below normal since the end of winter.
If I'm not mistaken that's essentially how the GM Volt works. The gasoline engine generates electricity and doesn't actually motivate the vehicle. In my opinion, by far the smart idea for a hybrid I've seen to date, but the media couldn't help but shitt on the concept because it's GM.
Bullshit. If you need sex and violence then you're not particularly creative. Certainly either can be a crucial part of a story and add to that experience, but it certainly isn't the end all and be all of creativity. I don't understand this obsession with "mature" themes, like gamers and developers alike are trying to prove they're mature in the most immature way possible. And let's not kid ourselves, developers are making their games more violent and adding more sex not because of some creative need, but for the simple reason that it sells.
Technologically gaming certain has progressed to an impressive degree over the past few decades. But in terms of quality of storytelling, outside of a handful of exceptions I actually think we've regressed. Unfortunately, the game industry is taking Hollywood's approach to entertainment which means it's appealing to the lowest common denominator.
If fail to see the connections the author is trying to make. Japan's high concept games, for example, have come about independently of anything else the industry might be producing. Ironically, most high-concept games are light on violence. Games like Fallout 3 or Bioshock are not art and certainly not intellectual. Well, they're the Hollywood version of profound thought, which means they aren't very deep at all.
I think too many people are trying to rationalize why they play violent or sexual games and expect non-gamers to understand and accept it. The fact is that many people are turned off by that sort of thing. People play these games because they get a rise out of them, it's titillating. And that's perfectly acceptable. I'm not suggesting adults should be banned from playing these games. In fact, I sometimes enjoy them myself. My problem is with people making ridiculous justifications for their existence and somehow suggesting that they're necessary for the advancement of art.
And interestingly, sometimes people are their most creative when they're limited in some way. When they're free to do whatever they like it's like they don't know what they want and the end result is crap. Again, I'm not endorsing censorship. I'm pointing out that people can be creative if they wanted to be, but it doesn't make for a profitable business model. More esoteric games in Japan occasionally enjoy success there because culturally they're more open to that sort of thing. Unfortunately in the US, where your average gamer needs everything to exude attitude and menace such games rarely get any attention. But then that's what we've got indie gaming for.
In principle I like the idea of having no caps on usage. However, while I don't doubt that ISPs love to nickle and dime us, increased usage must put additional load on the system. If everyone is downloading HD movies, for examples, ISP providers are going to have additional expense meeting that demand.
As others have pointed out, switching to a utility-type model isn't necessarily a good one. Sure, I can use electricity, water or natural gas as much as I like. But I'm also paying for every little bit I use. And it certainly doesn't prevent the providers from increasing rates.
But who knows? Perhaps this is a more logical model for internet usage. However, I suspect it wouldn't work quite the same way. With electricity or natural gas I pay for what I use, which means if I didn't use any I'd pay next to nothing. I'm guessing ISPs make more money with the current model than they would under that one.
I suspect providers will charge a flat fee in addition to usage charges, pretty much like mobile phones. I personally think that sucks and I expect internet service would be more expensive than it is now. I think more competition would address this problem far more effectively than any legislation, as well-intentioned as it might be. The government is inevitably going to compromise somehow if they force these rules on providers which likely means we'll get screwed one way or another. Open things up so that it's easier for competitors to enter the market.
To be completely frank, anyone buying used games from Gamestop and other such stores is a fool. These retailers pay next to nothing for these games and then go and discount $5 or $10 off what a new copy would cost. Shopping around online anyone can find a far better deal for a new game than they will trying to buy one used. No game is that good that a person cant wait a couple of days in order to get a good value.
I would fully support the used game market if it weren't such a complete scam.
I wouldn't be surprised. In my area one of the major highways was repaved less than 10 years ago and over long stretches there is already rutting occurring because of big trucks compressing the asphalt. And that's not to mention that the quality of paving and maintenance is garbage to begin with.
I love in the winter when snow plows come down the street, sparks flying as the flow scrapes the pavement and the entire house rumbling. The snow starts disappearing a few days later and large chunks are torn out of the pavement. Then every single year, we have to put up with damaged streets for most of the year, until late fall when crews come along and start patching streets and highways, poorly, just in time for them to be torn up again in the winter.
As bad as it can get in my area, try driving into the New York area and it's an absolute joke. Maintenance seems to non-existent and when they do new work they might as well not have bothered because they've done such an awful job. I could ride blind-folded in a car and know when I've entered New York state.
I don't understand why the PCjr is bashed so much. We had one and I thought it was pretty damn good. Granted I was quite young, but we did put that machine to good use for quite a few years. We did get the chiclet keyboard, but by that point IBM was already including a similar keyboard with conventional keys so it was a moot point. I actually thought the keyboard was pretty cool. It wasn't the best for typing, but I think it was more a consequence of the technology available at the time and the size of the buttons than anything else. I'd like to think that current Apple keyboards are a spiritual successor and show that the concept wasn't necessarily a bad one. As for the IR, certainly you had to be careful with anything getting in between the keyboard and the machine, but generally it was excellent and we never ran into problems. I must preferred that to having to deal with a cable.
As for the sidecars, it's not like people at the time were upgrading machines anywhere near as frequently as they do now. And there were tons of clumsy upgrade solutions for many computers at the time. When a 128K memory card was as large, if not larger, than most video cards today there aren't many options for efficient packaging. Actually, the upgrade we got was from a company called Legacy and it pretty much was a whole other case, the size of the PCjr which added 512K of ram and added a second floppy drive. It doubled the size of the machine, but that's just how things were back then; it never bothered us.
The PCjr was a better machine than pretty much anything else I encountered through much of elementary school. It was far superior than the crappy Apple IIs we had in school. It offered better resolution and 16 colors. What did suck, however, was that it was somewhat less powerful than the IBM PCs available then and later on. While it supported CGA, it's 16 color format was proprietary and not compatible at all with EGA. But regardless, for $1000 it was a great deal and generally compatible with most IBM PC applications.
I haven't gone through all the "mistakes", but it seems like this article is written from a modern-day perspective which is inappropriate given the era when these machines were designed and manufactured.
This is a very important point. Far too many people nowadays complain about some service or technology but hand over their money anyway. It reminds me of this idiot post I read recently where people were complaining about a game developer. This guy actually posts that he was going to buy this particular game anyway, but he was going to give them the finger on the way out the door.
Congratulations, what this guy has accomplished is the equivalent of being kicked in the nuts and giving the attacker a back rub in response.
The clearest message a consumer can make is to not buy products from companies they're not happy with. And this means not pirating as well, because by pirating you're merely saying that the demand exists and thus justifying the constant push for DRM. These companies are obviously convinced that some day they're going to develop totally effective DRM.
Don't like it? Don't buy it. Especially considering that none of this is really a necessity for living. There are other, potentially more fulfilling, ways to entertain yourself.
They currently don't "care" because they don't have the resources to do so or are focused on other things. But they absolutely have the ambition. Follow the news in Asia and you'll see that they do like meddling, it's just that currently it's mostly localized to Asia.
Anyone who believe China doesn't have this ambition is being naive. They wouldn't be increasing investment in their military and wouldn't be buying up US debt if they didn't have bigger plans. By no means do I think America should regard China as the enemy, but they certainly should be pragmatic about the relationship.
I really like Futurama; I have all four DVD sets and the four movies. However, I think this series should rest in peace. It's over.
The series was great and got progressively better as time went on. However, if the movies are any indication the revived series will be crap. Each movie was worse than the last. They weren't particularly creative with the stories and overall the writing overwrought and not compelling. There was so much untapped potential in the series but instead the movies degraded into pathetic, poorly executed fan service. Some jokes were quite funny but otherwise I felt like they were trying too hard to recreate Family Guy and Adult Swim's brand of humor. And probably the most obnoxious part was the constant environmentalist proselytizing. Some episodes used Al Gore and that theme to great effect but Bender's Game, in particular, was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the crotch.
However, I am a sucker for Futurama, so I'll definitely watch. But if it ends up being the same kind of crap I saw in the movies I wont be watching for long.
Having had experience with printing for years printing on demand is considerably more expensive than conventional offset printing at least when such large numbers are involved. This is assuming, of course, that they will be printing hard copies of electronic textbooks which they almost certainly will.
Of course, whatever vendor provides the service will almost definitely charge as much, if not more for this service than a traditional text book publisher would. The real problem here is that publishers seriously overcharge for their books. But ultimately that is the fault of buyers, in this case the schools, who don't bother shopping around and don't make any demands of the publishers. There's no need for expensive 4-color printing. There's no need for hard covers. Take a look at textbooks overseas and it because quite apparent how wasteful and overdone American textbooks are. And let's not forget that for many courses there's no need whatsoever to always acquire the latest edition.
I have friends who are already forced to use online textbooks for class and they hate it. They're accessed via a restrictive, convoluted interface. And it's far more difficult to read a computer screen than a sheet of paper. If you're ultimately going to just print the thing out why not provide the damn printed textbook to begin with?
And lets not forget that the last thing kids need is yet another distraction. It is already bad enough with my the college kids in the class I taught screwing around on chat and social networking sites during class. Imagine how much worse it would be with kids in elementary and high school. Then there's the maintenance of the computers themselves. Even college kids completely trash their machines. The university where I taught provides many, if not all, of their students with laptops and by the end of the year most of them are trashed because they're so battered.
In every possible way I can see this is pure stupidity and a complete and utter waste.