The universe is wild and wooly. It doesn't knock, it doesn't ask politely. It does whatever it wants and the survivors (if there are any) pick up the pieces when its done.
Your point seems to be that because we might not anticipate a problem, we shouldn't try to do anything to prevent the ones we already know can happen. That's silly.
Sure, don't panic, but if we ARE aware that something is a threat, why shouldn't we do something about it?
(You also implied that we can only do some of these things, rather than all. It wouldn't take a global effort to knock an asteroid off course; that can be done with a few billion dollars and a few thousand people, at *most*.)
Why the big hub-bub? They happen. Its part of living in this giant green and blue globe. Instead of freaking out and building ourselves fallout shelters, how about we all take time to donate time or effort into helping those that are in need from the last disaster?
Uh, because prevention is a fuckload cheaper than rebuilding, and most people don't really want to be killed by a disaster if they can prevent it?
Blow it out your ass, you anonymous shitbag. I work in the entertainment industry, creating intellectual property. I know the issues damn well. I don't want a free ride; I want a sane fucking justice system. And my whole point was that the circumstances and situation of copyright infringement do NOT justify even the POSSIBILITY of 15 year jail sentences.
True, but none of the examples you gave above are applied knowledge (except maybe the "heavy on pushes" bit, but that's stretching it). They're memorized reaction to stimuli. Intelligence is really about being able to solve problems. Knowing that you should do X whenever Y happens isn't intelligence; it's rote reaction. Now there's nothing wrong with being able to rapidly react to external stimuli, but to call that "intelligence" is misleading at best.
Intelligence is applied knowledge, and I assure you that 11 year olds can retain some staggering intelligence.
Yeah. They can also be staggeringly immature, and a lot of them are quite stupid. What's your point, exactly?
Remember, these are not the same type of kids we were. These guys have had computers, gamesystems, and the like ALL THEIR LIFE. They might know a bit more about it. They are the entertainment generation.
You appear to be implying that because these kids grew up with computerized equipment (but then, so did I, and I'm 26), they're somehow more intelligent than people of previous generations! That's absurd.
For example, we predict the trajectories of space probes through space decades in advance with very tiny margins of error.
Most of those space probes have adjustment thrusters that can be used (once or twice, anyway) to give corrections to the probe's course. If our estimates were off (for whatever reason), we can nudge things a little bit one way or the other.
Add to that the fact that the probes are usually sending us a direct signal, constantly updating us with exactly where they are. Asteroids have neither thrusters nor transmitters.
Microsoft was found guilty of being a monopoly under the Sherman Act.
Actually, I misspoke here. To quote from Judge Jackson's decision:
the court concludes that Microsoft maintained its monopoly power by anti-competitive means and attempted to monopolize the Web browser market, both in violation of Section 2 [of the Sherman Act]. Microsoft also violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by unlawfully tying its Web browser to its operating system.
...but in any case, it was found guilty under the Sherman Act.
I love how people on/. cannot think of ways to say things without resorting to the schoolyard practice of calling people names.
I never called you any names. I said you were ignorant. This seemed true based on your post. You've demonstrated in the parent of this post that you aren't, but it was a reasonable assumption at the time, since you appeared to be conflating "illegal monopoly in the Sherman Act sense" with "dictionary usage of the word 'monopoly'".
By that alone, the Sherman Act is hardly applicable to modern times.
Microsoft was found guilty of being a monopoly under the Sherman Act. That qualifies as "hardly applicable to modern times"?
A legal monopoly is when you control the overwhelming majority of a market, not just when you control the majority (or all) of the distribution of a particular product. By your logic, Apple is a monopoly because they're the only ones who sell iPods. While technically, yes, they have a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of iPods, they aren't a legal monopoly in the Sherman Act sense.
Similarly, neither the EA nor the NFL have monopoly control over any markets. ("Football games with NFL content" is not a market.) Microsoft selling 90% of the desktop PC OSes out there? Yeah, that's a monopoly on a particular market (and one they abused in order to gain power in other markets, which the Sherman Act makes illegal).
Basically, you're ignorant. Go learn about what a legal monopoly is.
Too many here on SlashDot are self righteous idiots who think their opinion is the majority one because its obviously right.
Guess what -- you just described about 98% of all the people who have ever lived. Including yourself. It's not a phenomenon confined to Slashdot. Go learn some history.
The biggest problem I have with Google Suggest is not technical or moral; it's usability. If I type my entry at the speed I normally type, then the drop-box changes so fast that I end up sort of spastically trying to keep my fingers from hitting the next key. UI elements that change instantly when you hit a key are good when you're hitting a command key, but not good when they're changing in realtime in response to typing words or phrases.
To use it effectively, I have to hit one key at a time, see what it suggests, then hit the next key... tedious. And I wouldn't use it that way anyway.
It's a neat little toy, but it doesn't really seem to have a lot of useful applications at the moment. 'Course, Google's smarter than I am, so I'm sure that either I've missed something or they've got other plans.
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
What it is not, you boiling cunt, is a hypothesis, which is the word you meant when you wrote "theory."
And you've got no evidence to support your explanation as well.
Go read a few books on evolution. Take some classes. Pull your head out of your ass. Then come back and say there's "no evidence for my explanation." How about the fact that I can electrically stimulate a specific area of your brain and cause at will the exact same kinds of "religious" experiences that people so often think are gods talking to them?
not because I can cite someones scientific evidence but because there has to be something more to the world that we don't understand.
In other words, "I can't emotionally cope with the idea that there's no God, so I'm going to believe in one in order to make myself feel better." That's fine, a lot of people have that problem, but you know what? It's no premise on which to try and run a society. Keep your emotional crutches to yourself.
A simpler explanation is that our brains evolved this response to "religious feeling" because it helped us flourish as a species. Religion allowed us to have strong central controlling authorities, which were instrumental in overcoming nature.
It's a simpler explanation, with more evidence to support it (read: any at all) than "There exists an undetectable magical sentient entity" (which has no evidence at all).
You're free to "prefer" to explain it the way you do, but you've got no evidence supporting that explanation.
Sure, I got no problem with you finding one game more fun than another.:) It just irks me when people claim that X is "better" than Y, when what they inevitably mean (and yet are frequently unaware of) is that they enjoyed it more.
but I don't really see this as any different than carding at movie theaters and stores that sell beer and tobacco.
It's not illegal to let a 14-year old see an R-rated movie. You might get fired from your job at the theater for doing so (for violating theater policy), but you won't have broken the law. The MPAA's rating system is a voluntary one adopted by the movie industry in the 1960s, specifically so that the Federal government wouldn't start passing laws about it. ('Course, they probably would have been struck down by the Supreme Court for prior restraint...)
The law that Blagojevich is proposing would make it a crime, punishable with jail time to sell an M-rated game to a minor. You don't see the difference?
Alcohol and tobacco are not comparable as they cause direct, measurable, physical damage to the user. Movies and video games do not.
Language note -- the term "high concept" generally means "a simple, memorably concept that can be explained in a few words." What you meant was "highbrow," not "high concept," which are actually opposites.
Say what? Both DF and KOTOR are great games, but 1) they're different genres (FPS and RPG), and 2) they're both great examples of their respective genres. There's no justification to say that DF is "much" better than KOTOR, or even that it's "better." That's nonsensical.
Slashdot Mirror
At first glance I saw "Wireless Security By Gollum". I can't even begin to figure out what that might involve. The One Token Ring, perhaps?
Sure, don't panic, but if we ARE aware that something is a threat, why shouldn't we do something about it?
(You also implied that we can only do some of these things, rather than all. It wouldn't take a global effort to knock an asteroid off course; that can be done with a few billion dollars and a few thousand people, at *most*.)
Blow it out your ass, you anonymous shitbag. I work in the entertainment industry, creating intellectual property. I know the issues damn well. I don't want a free ride; I want a sane fucking justice system. And my whole point was that the circumstances and situation of copyright infringement do NOT justify even the POSSIBILITY of 15 year jail sentences.
Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't you be backing up your data to a safe place if you're that worried about people overwriting or deleting it?
Fifteen years for distributing data. The jail time for violent crimes must be way longer than that!
What? What's that, you say? You can be in prison for less than a year for beating the shit out of another human being?
Something is terribly wrong with this system.
It sounds like you're confusing intelligence and maturity with knowledge.
Add to that the fact that the probes are usually sending us a direct signal, constantly updating us with exactly where they are. Asteroids have neither thrusters nor transmitters.
Screw pets! Bring back Phil Hartman!
A legal monopoly is when you control the overwhelming majority of a market, not just when you control the majority (or all) of the distribution of a particular product. By your logic, Apple is a monopoly because they're the only ones who sell iPods. While technically, yes, they have a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of iPods, they aren't a legal monopoly in the Sherman Act sense.
Similarly, neither the EA nor the NFL have monopoly control over any markets. ("Football games with NFL content" is not a market.) Microsoft selling 90% of the desktop PC OSes out there? Yeah, that's a monopoly on a particular market (and one they abused in order to gain power in other markets, which the Sherman Act makes illegal).
Basically, you're ignorant. Go learn about what a legal monopoly is.
The biggest problem I have with Google Suggest is not technical or moral; it's usability. If I type my entry at the speed I normally type, then the drop-box changes so fast that I end up sort of spastically trying to keep my fingers from hitting the next key. UI elements that change instantly when you hit a key are good when you're hitting a command key, but not good when they're changing in realtime in response to typing words or phrases.
To use it effectively, I have to hit one key at a time, see what it suggests, then hit the next key... tedious. And I wouldn't use it that way anyway.
It's a neat little toy, but it doesn't really seem to have a lot of useful applications at the moment. 'Course, Google's smarter than I am, so I'm sure that either I've missed something or they've got other plans.
What it is not, you boiling cunt, is a hypothesis, which is the word you meant when you wrote "theory."
Better phrasing:
Can God create a site with so much bandwidth that even He can't Slashdot it?
A simpler explanation is that our brains evolved this response to "religious feeling" because it helped us flourish as a species. Religion allowed us to have strong central controlling authorities, which were instrumental in overcoming nature.
It's a simpler explanation, with more evidence to support it (read: any at all) than "There exists an undetectable magical sentient entity" (which has no evidence at all).
You're free to "prefer" to explain it the way you do, but you've got no evidence supporting that explanation.
Sure, I got no problem with you finding one game more fun than another. :) It just irks me when people claim that X is "better" than Y, when what they inevitably mean (and yet are frequently unaware of) is that they enjoyed it more.
The law that Blagojevich is proposing would make it a crime, punishable with jail time to sell an M-rated game to a minor. You don't see the difference?
Alcohol and tobacco are not comparable as they cause direct, measurable, physical damage to the user. Movies and video games do not.
Language note -- the term "high concept" generally means "a simple, memorably concept that can be explained in a few words." What you meant was "highbrow," not "high concept," which are actually opposites.
Say what? Both DF and KOTOR are great games, but 1) they're different genres (FPS and RPG), and 2) they're both great examples of their respective genres. There's no justification to say that DF is "much" better than KOTOR, or even that it's "better." That's nonsensical.