I applaud the effort, however, for three years now I've been part of a gaming group that makes judgements on maturity and attitude rather than age alone. We run the gamut from teenagers to a 50-something who is alarmingly good at snap-reflex roles in the games we play. Heck, they guy currently in charge is a police officer! In coversations on our forums, we've dealt with everything from marriage and divorce to job issues to illnesses in the family. You don't have to exclude the younger folks to do it (I joined when I was 16), you just have be a bit more discerning about who you're bringing in.
I can't help but wonder about how many friendly and mature people you're leaving out with your age limit, and how many complete assholes slip past such an arbitrary requirement. Certainly your signal-to-noise ratio is going to be higher than the average 1337-kiddie Xbox Live clan's recruiting pool, but I think your age requirement is kinda tangential to the real issue.
Along those lines, and as I recently experienced coming home for Thanksgiving this year, there's a perpetual tug-of-war going on at holiday gatherings and family events between my parents and myself. I'll stick around for the opening round of pleasantries, the food, and then maybe a bit longer if the conversation has any depth, and then I'll wander off and stare at the TV while thinking about things, or return to my room and browse the Internet/read a book/write something/etc... Won't be ten minutes before my parents show up and inform me through gritted teeth that I need to "come be social." What? I already did that, it got boring, so I'm doing things that engage the brain. I'm not interested in Aunt Bea's latest neighborhood gossip. I end up feeling smothered by it all and just want to get alone, but to please my parents I sit at the table for another hour or so and stare into space. Can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, huh?
Funny thing is I really only have that problem with my mom's side of the family, where everybody's loud and extroverted and pretty much superficial. On my Dad's side, we like nothing better than to all get into a room and debate the hell out of something, be it politics, philosophy, or religion. People on that side of the family are much more interesting to me, because talking with them gives me more "deep" stuff to think about.
Bottom line is that it's really no use trying to make an extrovert of an introvert. Several years ago I actually started to give a crap what the rest of the world thought, but that about it as far as extroverted behavior goes for me. I just can't make small talk for more than twenty seconds or so, and parties with more than five or ten people -- especially if I don't already know a few people there -- get downright claustrophobic. No matter how much I'm told to "be social," I'm not going to be much better at it.
It's a combination of things, I think. Scale certainly does play into it; here in America most anybody not living in an apartment has a at least a couple of acres all to themselves. But I think the larger part of it is that American culture, in general, is not nearly so technology-centric as Japan or Korea. Granny doesn't need 100Mbits per second of Internet connectivity to read her e-mail and play Flash games on the AOL Games Channel, and your average home user is perfectly satisfied with 1.5/256 -- what are they doing with the connection that they regularly need anything more than that?
The fact of the matter is that here in America, the baby boomers still would seem to be the largest residential market in terms of Internet access (just going from the advertising I see for broadband service), because they have money and own homes. These are people who grew up watching television with their families, and so they see other forms of entertainment as being more "social" and acceptable than surfing the Internet for hours at a time. These people see no need to have greater connection speeds, and until the next generations come up as a financial force in the market and start demanding enough bandwidth to, I dunno, watch IPTV while they download the music of the latest pop sensation. This is starting to happen (Verizon's FIOS initiative, for example) but it's gonna be awhile before the whole of the United States in draped in fiber optic cabling to cater to that market.
It's a question of how much importance we place on something as a society, if you ask me.
we have the FCC and other governing bodies telling big business what they are allowed to do and what they are forbidden to do
some major ISPs tried to block Vonage on their systems but after a major outcry from their subscribers this was changed quickly.
So thank goodness for big government, while the consumer outcry actually gets the work done? The problem in China is that it's a state-run monopoly and they really don't care what their "customers" may or may not want, because they don't HAVE to care. They can squash comepetition (Skype) with impunity. That's what big government accomplishes.
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So you're telling me the headcrabs have headcrabs too?
I can't help but wonder about how many friendly and mature people you're leaving out with your age limit, and how many complete assholes slip past such an arbitrary requirement. Certainly your signal-to-noise ratio is going to be higher than the average 1337-kiddie Xbox Live clan's recruiting pool, but I think your age requirement is kinda tangential to the real issue.
On the contrary, they'll be providing air cover for him. I guess maybe it's so the Martians don't kidnap him?
Funny thing is I really only have that problem with my mom's side of the family, where everybody's loud and extroverted and pretty much superficial. On my Dad's side, we like nothing better than to all get into a room and debate the hell out of something, be it politics, philosophy, or religion. People on that side of the family are much more interesting to me, because talking with them gives me more "deep" stuff to think about.
Bottom line is that it's really no use trying to make an extrovert of an introvert. Several years ago I actually started to give a crap what the rest of the world thought, but that about it as far as extroverted behavior goes for me. I just can't make small talk for more than twenty seconds or so, and parties with more than five or ten people -- especially if I don't already know a few people there -- get downright claustrophobic. No matter how much I'm told to "be social," I'm not going to be much better at it.
Huzzah for sensationalistic headlines? My first thought on reading that title was "Oh noes! We're being sucked into the vortex if d00m!!1"
It's a combination of things, I think. Scale certainly does play into it; here in America most anybody not living in an apartment has a at least a couple of acres all to themselves. But I think the larger part of it is that American culture, in general, is not nearly so technology-centric as Japan or Korea. Granny doesn't need 100Mbits per second of Internet connectivity to read her e-mail and play Flash games on the AOL Games Channel, and your average home user is perfectly satisfied with 1.5/256 -- what are they doing with the connection that they regularly need anything more than that?
The fact of the matter is that here in America, the baby boomers still would seem to be the largest residential market in terms of Internet access (just going from the advertising I see for broadband service), because they have money and own homes. These are people who grew up watching television with their families, and so they see other forms of entertainment as being more "social" and acceptable than surfing the Internet for hours at a time. These people see no need to have greater connection speeds, and until the next generations come up as a financial force in the market and start demanding enough bandwidth to, I dunno, watch IPTV while they download the music of the latest pop sensation. This is starting to happen (Verizon's FIOS initiative, for example) but it's gonna be awhile before the whole of the United States in draped in fiber optic cabling to cater to that market.
It's a question of how much importance we place on something as a society, if you ask me.
we have the FCC and other governing bodies telling big business what they are allowed to do and what they are forbidden to do
some major ISPs tried to block Vonage on their systems but after a major outcry from their subscribers this was changed quickly.
So thank goodness for big government, while the consumer outcry actually gets the work done? The problem in China is that it's a state-run monopoly and they really don't care what their "customers" may or may not want, because they don't HAVE to care. They can squash comepetition (Skype) with impunity. That's what big government accomplishes.
Both, of course!
On a related note, I code sign. Signed, He-thay Reat-Gay Luffy-Fay
That's where the Buggers have set up their listening post!