My "media PC" is a medium tower on the floor next to my TV. It needs a decent power supply to run my GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (which I use for TV-out and to play Halo), and it could stand to be a lot quieter. It's distracting trying to watch a movie with that fan running.
When that happens, you've just created a new human (note that I don't say "person" - I'm talking about the human animal, not "souls" or personalities).
Way to gloss over a huge distinction. A person deserves our protection; a "human animal" doesn't necessarily. A baby born without a brain is a human animal, and so is a braindead accident victim who will never recover. Neither one is a person, and we shouldn't have any ethical concerns about euthanizing either (as long as we're sure they'll never recover).
But when you allow stem cells to divide and subdivide, each cluster or even individual cell is in itself a biologically viable entity that, given a suitable place to go, would gestate into a human.
As long as that "suitable place to go" is a womb, or an environment carefully set up to mimic a womb, with all the right nutrients. Hell, you could say a single sperm is a biologically viable entity that, given a suitable place to go (an egg), can gestate into a human. That doesn't mean every sperm is sacred.
When that embryo is the castoff from fertility work (ie spare embryos that had a chance but will never be complete), it's not so bad. But there's just something questionable about creating a human life simply to dismantle it.
Of course, the latter never happens, and the former is where all our embryonic stem cells come from, so I guess it's "not so bad" at all in your eyes, right?
That little blurb of "only managed to earn 380 million" is just non-sense designed to incite class/wealth envy for the purpose of sensationalism. Any reasonably-informed person can see it for what it is.
Wrong. It's relevant to compare the amount of revenue brought in by Ep III to that of other movies that weren't leaked early, to discover what the effects of early release are. In this case, it seems that releasing the movie early had little or no effect on the amount of money it brought in, which should have us all asking why our government is spending so much time and money tracking down the guys who did it.
But does Sony force you to rent/buy newer UMD games and movies?
No, I suppose not. You're right, if everyone just used their PSP as a paperweight, a doorstop, or an MP3 player/photo viewer, this wouldn't be an issue. But there are much cheaper alternatives to the PSP if you don't care about playing new games: a Game Boy Color can keep your papers from flying away just as well, and it plays all your favorite old games.
There's also no incentive for virii/trojan etc.. authors to create their 'masterpieces'... Yet they do.
Ah, but there is. Most of those trojans allow the compromised system to be used remotely somehow, either to store files, participate in a DDOS attack, or relay spam. That's valuable to whoever holds the remote control.
Files that impersonate other files (e.g. get the latest britney spears song when it's really just static) tend to only impersonate files that people don't have permission to distribute (and are therefore breaking the law). Most files that are legally distributable tend to not suffer from having poisonous files out there, so therefore people that follow the law don't actually have a problem with them.
Well, no kidding. There's no incentive, at this point in time, for anyone other than MPAA/RIAA/BSA type organizations to launch a campaign to undermine BitTorrent.
That doesn't mean the BT community (i.e. client authors) shouldn't try to detect and work around it, though. It's an attempt to trick clients, and possibly to harvest identifying information from the people who are interested in a certain type of content, and we never know who else might try something similar in the future.
In Tivo's defense here, they are really caught in bind that the various media licensing companies have set up. In order for Tivo to get a license to officially support DVDs, they also have to agree to support digital Macrovision.
TiVo didn't need to officially support DVDs.
The Macrovision license requires a company to support Macrovision in all of their products, but TiVo could've spun off a separate company to make the hardware or software for DVD-enabled units. Let that other company worry about licensing Macrovision, CSS, and all that, and then Original TiVo Inc. can keep making Macrovision-free standalone DVRs.
But my argument is the concept of one becoming desensitized to it in a way that may permit them to use such language in an inappropriate situation, especially in a situation of intense frustration or emotion.
You have no evidence for that claim, and my personal experience contradicts it.
My argument comes down to this: Is there a single positive reason that a kid/teenager should play a game such as Grand Theft Auto? Is there any positive result? As a video game, the desired result should be to invoke a temporary amount of enjoyment. However, if such a game has an intense, or even subtle, possibility of having a negative effect in the process, why should that be risked?
All I can say is I'm glad we don't apply your twisted logic to any other activities. Everything we do has some subtle risk of negative consequences. You could break your leg while skiing, you could get into an accident while driving, you could choke on a Twinkie - and all those are far more likely than getting fired because Grand Theft Auto made you swear at your boss.
You continue to fall into the trap of thinking that if you can't prove a need for something, you shouldn't have it. That's not the way a free society works.
Every time you breathe out, you're releasing carbon dioxide--a greenhouse gas--into our atmosphere. The more you breathe, the more carbon dioxide you produce, warming the environment and leading to changes in weather patterns, eliminating animal habitats and increasing the deadliness of hurricanes and tropical storms.
And we all know sex involves heavy breathing.
So please... for the sake of humanity... don't reproduce.;)
Actually, section 1201(k) of the DMCA requires VCRs to implement Macrovision. It doesn't apply to TiVo, though - it specifically mentions VHS, Beta, and 8mm analog video cassette recorders.
Swearing is inappropriate in a modern-day business setting, i.e., if you want to be successful, you can't curse out your boss. Personally, I'd prefer my kids not to be losers, and make something of their lives.
That's true. However, it's absolutely ridiculous to think that kids who watch movies or games with swearing in them will be unable to control their tongues in the real world.
There's a concept called "code switching", and just about everyone uses it without even thinking about it. It means using different styles of speech with different audiences. A black child who grows up speaking AAVE ("Ebonics") at home and with his friends can still speak standard English when he's talking to a boss or teacher. I personally can swear like a sailor when the situation calls for it, and I have a pretty lazy style of speaking with my peers, but at work or on the phone with a business, it's squeaky clean.
What that means is kids only have to be taught that the way Tommy Vercetti speaks is not the way we speak to our parents, teachers, bosses, etc. Different things are appropriate in different settings. Your boss might get pretty upset if you started eating a sandwich or making a phone call during a meeting, but that doesn't mean kids should never be exposed to food or telephones - only that they should know the proper etiquette.
However, minors can be an exception in many cases. I think they deserve more rights than they're given, especially within the school systems. However, exposure to inappropriate material is a different arguemnt I think...
No, I don't think so. You're trying to limit their choices for their own good, just like every other restriction that's placed on minors. You think you're a better judge of what's "appropriate" than those kids or their parents.
Frankly, I think "inappropriate material" is mostly a myth. Kids don't seek out stuff that's truly inappropriate for them - you don't see 5 year olds surfing the internet for porn. If they know games like GTA, violent TV shows, and movies filled with profanity and sexuality aren't a realistic portrayal of how people act or should act, then it's just recreation.
Now, if you think your kids will pick up the wrong messages if they're exposed to certain content, then feel free to keep it out of their hands. Don't let them go to the mall alone, don't let them bring GTA into your house. But I stress again: your kids. I don't want my hypothetical kids being turned away from a store or arrested because they tried to buy some movie or video game.
The difference between doing something like skiing and playing GTA is that skiing doesn't help desensitize them to things like cursing, things that are inappropriate in today's modern world. [...] I'm certainly not saying their going to grow up to steal cars or anything like that, but I would go so far as to say they would be more likely to curse and such.
You're free to personally believe that swearing is "inappropriate in today's modern world" and teach your kids never to do it, but I don't want my tax dollars going to enforce your (IMO prudish) sensibilities.
Specifically, the ruling decreed that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, the court ruling argued that Californian consumers should have the same rights they would enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book.
For the doubters I invite them along on my next trip and point out certain things then tell them to watch for it over the next 6 to 12 months. They are amazed when those ideas filter to the mainstream.
I have never seen Coke sold by the can for less than Pepsi. There are sales at the grocery store, but half the time Pepsi products are the ones on sale.
I just don't think there's a single good reason to allow even a teenager to play an M game. There's no M-rated game good enough that it has to be played.
Maybe I don't think there's a single good reason to allow even a teenager to go skiing or eat ice cream. There's no snowy slope good enough that it has to be skiied down, no dessert good enough that it has to be eaten.
But luckily, that's not how we decide whether to allow a recreational activity. You don't have to prove you need to go skiing; anyone who wants to keep you from doing it has to prove that you shouldn't.
It's not a matter of them understanding the difference between fantasy and reality, I just feel it's morally wrong to expose people to unnecessary inappropriate content.
So do you think GTA should be banned for everyone, regardless of age, or is there some magic age where a game about stealing cars, killing gangsters, and running from the cops starts being "necessary" or stops being "inappropriate"?
Sounds like Big Champagne is working with someone intent on putting them out of business. After all, no P2P = no Big Champagne.
They know, just like we know, that P2P will always be around. Stopping file sharing is as impossible as stopping drug use or prostitution - it's a consensual crime, so there's no one to report it in most cases.
If your under 18, I say to you, sorry, but we all have to go through it.
Just because you were unfairly restricted when you were that age doesn't make it right to add even more restrictions. Whatever happened to trying to make things better for the next generation?
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My "media PC" is a medium tower on the floor next to my TV. It needs a decent power supply to run my GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (which I use for TV-out and to play Halo), and it could stand to be a lot quieter. It's distracting trying to watch a movie with that fan running.
When that happens, you've just created a new human (note that I don't say "person" - I'm talking about the human animal, not "souls" or personalities).
Way to gloss over a huge distinction. A person deserves our protection; a "human animal" doesn't necessarily. A baby born without a brain is a human animal, and so is a braindead accident victim who will never recover. Neither one is a person, and we shouldn't have any ethical concerns about euthanizing either (as long as we're sure they'll never recover).
But when you allow stem cells to divide and subdivide, each cluster or even individual cell is in itself a biologically viable entity that, given a suitable place to go, would gestate into a human.
As long as that "suitable place to go" is a womb, or an environment carefully set up to mimic a womb, with all the right nutrients. Hell, you could say a single sperm is a biologically viable entity that, given a suitable place to go (an egg), can gestate into a human. That doesn't mean every sperm is sacred.
When that embryo is the castoff from fertility work (ie spare embryos that had a chance but will never be complete), it's not so bad. But there's just something questionable about creating a human life simply to dismantle it.
Of course, the latter never happens, and the former is where all our embryonic stem cells come from, so I guess it's "not so bad" at all in your eyes, right?
It wasn't their property to broadcast onto the internet.
It wasn't anyone's property. It was information, an arrangement of colors over time, and as such no one has a legitimate claim to own it.
That little blurb of "only managed to earn 380 million" is just non-sense designed to incite class/wealth envy for the purpose of sensationalism. Any reasonably-informed person can see it for what it is.
Wrong. It's relevant to compare the amount of revenue brought in by Ep III to that of other movies that weren't leaked early, to discover what the effects of early release are. In this case, it seems that releasing the movie early had little or no effect on the amount of money it brought in, which should have us all asking why our government is spending so much time and money tracking down the guys who did it.
Interesting. How do you get that code onto the card?
But does Sony force you to rent/buy newer UMD games and movies?
No, I suppose not. You're right, if everyone just used their PSP as a paperweight, a doorstop, or an MP3 player/photo viewer, this wouldn't be an issue. But there are much cheaper alternatives to the PSP if you don't care about playing new games: a Game Boy Color can keep your papers from flying away just as well, and it plays all your favorite old games.
Yes, newer games force you to upgrade.
Many people use a buffer overflow in the PS2 PS1 emulation code to run homebrew code.
Please explain.. I couldn't find anything about this on Google.
There's also no incentive for virii/trojan etc.. authors to create their 'masterpieces'... Yet they do.
Ah, but there is. Most of those trojans allow the compromised system to be used remotely somehow, either to store files, participate in a DDOS attack, or relay spam. That's valuable to whoever holds the remote control.
Files that impersonate other files (e.g. get the latest britney spears song when it's really just static) tend to only impersonate files that people don't have permission to distribute (and are therefore breaking the law). Most files that are legally distributable tend to not suffer from having poisonous files out there, so therefore people that follow the law don't actually have a problem with them.
Well, no kidding. There's no incentive, at this point in time, for anyone other than MPAA/RIAA/BSA type organizations to launch a campaign to undermine BitTorrent.
That doesn't mean the BT community (i.e. client authors) shouldn't try to detect and work around it, though. It's an attempt to trick clients, and possibly to harvest identifying information from the people who are interested in a certain type of content, and we never know who else might try something similar in the future.
In Tivo's defense here, they are really caught in bind that the various media licensing companies have set up. In order for Tivo to get a license to officially support DVDs, they also have to agree to support digital Macrovision.
TiVo didn't need to officially support DVDs.
The Macrovision license requires a company to support Macrovision in all of their products, but TiVo could've spun off a separate company to make the hardware or software for DVD-enabled units. Let that other company worry about licensing Macrovision, CSS, and all that, and then Original TiVo Inc. can keep making Macrovision-free standalone DVRs.
But my argument is the concept of one becoming desensitized to it in a way that may permit them to use such language in an inappropriate situation, especially in a situation of intense frustration or emotion.
You have no evidence for that claim, and my personal experience contradicts it.
My argument comes down to this: Is there a single positive reason that a kid/teenager should play a game such as Grand Theft Auto? Is there any positive result? As a video game, the desired result should be to invoke a temporary amount of enjoyment. However, if such a game has an intense, or even subtle, possibility of having a negative effect in the process, why should that be risked?
All I can say is I'm glad we don't apply your twisted logic to any other activities. Everything we do has some subtle risk of negative consequences. You could break your leg while skiing, you could get into an accident while driving, you could choke on a Twinkie - and all those are far more likely than getting fired because Grand Theft Auto made you swear at your boss.
You continue to fall into the trap of thinking that if you can't prove a need for something, you shouldn't have it. That's not the way a free society works.
Every time you breathe out, you're releasing carbon dioxide--a greenhouse gas--into our atmosphere. The more you breathe, the more carbon dioxide you produce, warming the environment and leading to changes in weather patterns, eliminating animal habitats and increasing the deadliness of hurricanes and tropical storms.
;)
And we all know sex involves heavy breathing.
So please... for the sake of humanity... don't reproduce.
Actually, section 1201(k) of the DMCA requires VCRs to implement Macrovision. It doesn't apply to TiVo, though - it specifically mentions VHS, Beta, and 8mm analog video cassette recorders.
Swearing is inappropriate in a modern-day business setting, i.e., if you want to be successful, you can't curse out your boss. Personally, I'd prefer my kids not to be losers, and make something of their lives.
That's true. However, it's absolutely ridiculous to think that kids who watch movies or games with swearing in them will be unable to control their tongues in the real world.
There's a concept called "code switching", and just about everyone uses it without even thinking about it. It means using different styles of speech with different audiences. A black child who grows up speaking AAVE ("Ebonics") at home and with his friends can still speak standard English when he's talking to a boss or teacher. I personally can swear like a sailor when the situation calls for it, and I have a pretty lazy style of speaking with my peers, but at work or on the phone with a business, it's squeaky clean.
What that means is kids only have to be taught that the way Tommy Vercetti speaks is not the way we speak to our parents, teachers, bosses, etc. Different things are appropriate in different settings. Your boss might get pretty upset if you started eating a sandwich or making a phone call during a meeting, but that doesn't mean kids should never be exposed to food or telephones - only that they should know the proper etiquette.
However, minors can be an exception in many cases. I think they deserve more rights than they're given, especially within the school systems. However, exposure to inappropriate material is a different arguemnt I think...
No, I don't think so. You're trying to limit their choices for their own good, just like every other restriction that's placed on minors. You think you're a better judge of what's "appropriate" than those kids or their parents.
Frankly, I think "inappropriate material" is mostly a myth. Kids don't seek out stuff that's truly inappropriate for them - you don't see 5 year olds surfing the internet for porn. If they know games like GTA, violent TV shows, and movies filled with profanity and sexuality aren't a realistic portrayal of how people act or should act, then it's just recreation.
Now, if you think your kids will pick up the wrong messages if they're exposed to certain content, then feel free to keep it out of their hands. Don't let them go to the mall alone, don't let them bring GTA into your house. But I stress again: your kids. I don't want my hypothetical kids being turned away from a store or arrested because they tried to buy some movie or video game.
The difference between doing something like skiing and playing GTA is that skiing doesn't help desensitize them to things like cursing, things that are inappropriate in today's modern world. [...] I'm certainly not saying their going to grow up to steal cars or anything like that, but I would go so far as to say they would be more likely to curse and such.
You're free to personally believe that swearing is "inappropriate in today's modern world" and teach your kids never to do it, but I don't want my tax dollars going to enforce your (IMO prudish) sensibilities.
District courts in California and Texas have disagreed
If you're in Missouri, though.. watch out.
For the doubters I invite them along on my next trip and point out certain things then tell them to watch for it over the next 6 to 12 months. They are amazed when those ideas filter to the mainstream.
For example...?
I have never seen Coke sold by the can for less than Pepsi. There are sales at the grocery store, but half the time Pepsi products are the ones on sale.
Allowing people to make their own decisions, as long as those decisions don't harm anyone else, is always better than the alternative.
I just don't think there's a single good reason to allow even a teenager to play an M game. There's no M-rated game good enough that it has to be played.
Maybe I don't think there's a single good reason to allow even a teenager to go skiing or eat ice cream. There's no snowy slope good enough that it has to be skiied down, no dessert good enough that it has to be eaten.
But luckily, that's not how we decide whether to allow a recreational activity. You don't have to prove you need to go skiing; anyone who wants to keep you from doing it has to prove that you shouldn't.
It's not a matter of them understanding the difference between fantasy and reality, I just feel it's morally wrong to expose people to unnecessary inappropriate content.
So do you think GTA should be banned for everyone, regardless of age, or is there some magic age where a game about stealing cars, killing gangsters, and running from the cops starts being "necessary" or stops being "inappropriate"?
Sounds like Big Champagne is working with someone intent on putting them out of business. After all, no P2P = no Big Champagne.
They know, just like we know, that P2P will always be around. Stopping file sharing is as impossible as stopping drug use or prostitution - it's a consensual crime, so there's no one to report it in most cases.
If your under 18, I say to you, sorry, but we all have to go through it.
Just because you were unfairly restricted when you were that age doesn't make it right to add even more restrictions. Whatever happened to trying to make things better for the next generation?