"Storyline is what disturbs. Let's get back to telling real stories."
I agree, when I think of the games that have affected me the most they have been RGPs with well written storylines. Shooting monsters and commanding armies might occupy the majority of my gaming time, but its the RPGs I remember the longest.
I predict that this type of thing is going to happen a LOT more in the future, as Wikipedia becomes more popular and used as a resource by the mainstream public. What celebrity or political figure is going to sit by and have negative details posted at their entry? Corporations will certainly make sure that their pages are squeaky clean. How long before the page for "Microsoft" or "McDonalds" is being checked daily or hourly by paid staff to alter any critical material as soon as it is posted?
The only reason video gaming was ever identified with youth in the first place has to do with the first systems being portrayed as toys, rather than entertainment. This is changing, of course, and in a couple decades seeing a buttoned-down senior citizen with a controller in hand will seem no stranger than seeing one in front of the TV.
Yes, just about everything I know about the historic Terran-Zerg-Protoss conflict on Aiur comes from playing Starcraft. And that time the soviets tried to seize america using mind control? It's all portrayed accurately in Red Alert 2. Thank goodness for historical gaming.
Most of my favortite games are not the ones with the greatest graphics. Gaming is about having a good time, and there is no rule that you have to be immersed in a replication of the real world to do that. Pac-man and the original Mario Bros. weren't fun because they resembled reality, but because they took us away from real life for a while. But of course, there will always be games out there that realism because it is part of the experience: sports games, GTA types, and realistic FPS's. But let's not fall in the trap of believing that realism is automatically better, in many cases it's not.
What ever happened to the concept of something just plain being enjoyable? Just because something is fun enough that one is inclined to do it to excess does not make the activity an addiction.
I am currently staging a mock time-wasting drill in my office. The goal is to find out what would happen if an employee here were to spend all morning looking at slashdot instead of working. Will I be caught? Stay tuned for the results!
Maybe they will have a mod that unlocks secret scenes of violence in this otherwise sexually-oriented game. I wonder which party will throw a fit first.
Probably wouldn't happen nowadays. The ethical requirements in psych experiments have changed a lot since the 70s, just look at the Stanford Prison Experiments.
Actually, I was quite pleased that they avoided religion. Making people happy is just as much the realm of psychology as curing depression, but many people have the attitude that happiness is only possible through devotion to a religion. Tell people that you want to make them happy, and they will most likely assume that you are about to tell them about your God (or coming on to them).
It sure sounds like Austria has a screwed up legal system. Corporations can bring criminal charges against individuals? Here we have horror stories about SLAPP lawsuits, but this is a whole new level. If a company or powerful person doesn't like what you have to say, you go could to jail at their whim.
Isn't that the cleverest thing ever! Nobody could possibly guess that, not in 1000 years. Who would possibly think to look for such an obvious word?
And when that doesn't work, I make my password my login name.
It hurts being this smart.
Aside from the points made about this not being the correct vector form and also not taking into account in/elasticity, it is only a first order approximation to the correct relativistic expression. And if you really want to nitpick, in the ultra-high energy regime (> Planck Scale) we do not know how the laws of quantum field theory work, and we cannot be sure how the particles in the asteroid would interact during the collision.
I'll stop now, even serious nerds are looking annoyed.
"[internet news sites] must be directed toward serving the people and socialism and insist on correct guidance of public opinion for maintaining national and public interests."
Ever wish you could just send out 1.2 billion copies of Orwell's '1984'? Because I can think of a certain national population that is a little too tolerant of totalitarianism.
"the federal government will soon be paying FBI agents to surf the web in search of questionable content"
I don't care how you feel about porn, this should piss you off! Ask yourself this, do you think those agents might be enjoying their work a little too much? These are your tax dollars, being paid to an FBI agent who is undoubtedly stroking it in a dark basement somewhere!
Sadly, there are a lot of people who do care about porn, and they are not necessily old cranks on the verge of extinction. These social conservatives vote in larger percentages than any other group, they have an loud voice in the capitol, and they don't want you looking at smut (or engaging in a lot of other 'undesirable' behaviors).
In the short term: court battles will probably hold any new obscenity laws off for a year or two, but...
In the long term: with conservative xtians in control of two branches of government and working on a third, it is inevitable that whatever they decide is pornographic will eventually come under fire. The ACLU et al can only litagate for so long. Hope for the best in November '06 and '08, maybe the congress and whitehouse will be brought back to more moderate control. That is the place where decisions revolving around the porn war are coming from, and this isn't something the right-wingers are likely to take their eyes off of as long as they hold power.
Slashdot Mirror
Sephiroth killing Aeris in FFVII. In fact that game was full of disturbing moments: seeing Jenova for the first time, Cloud's flashbacks, and more.
"Storyline is what disturbs. Let's get back to telling real stories." I agree, when I think of the games that have affected me the most they have been RGPs with well written storylines. Shooting monsters and commanding armies might occupy the majority of my gaming time, but its the RPGs I remember the longest.
I predict that this type of thing is going to happen a LOT more in the future, as Wikipedia becomes more popular and used as a resource by the mainstream public. What celebrity or political figure is going to sit by and have negative details posted at their entry? Corporations will certainly make sure that their pages are squeaky clean. How long before the page for "Microsoft" or "McDonalds" is being checked daily or hourly by paid staff to alter any critical material as soon as it is posted?
Or Monty Python at the airport:
"Are you a terrorist?"
"Yes. Wait, no! I mean no!"
(Sound of a dozen M-16 safeties being released)
"Oh, crap"
Looks like somebody unleased a horde of barbarians here...
The only reason video gaming was ever identified with youth in the first place has to do with the first systems being portrayed as toys, rather than entertainment. This is changing, of course, and in a couple decades seeing a buttoned-down senior citizen with a controller in hand will seem no stranger than seeing one in front of the TV.
Yes, just about everything I know about the historic Terran-Zerg-Protoss conflict on Aiur comes from playing Starcraft. And that time the soviets tried to seize america using mind control? It's all portrayed accurately in Red Alert 2. Thank goodness for historical gaming.
Most of my favortite games are not the ones with the greatest graphics. Gaming is about having a good time, and there is no rule that you have to be immersed in a replication of the real world to do that. Pac-man and the original Mario Bros. weren't fun because they resembled reality, but because they took us away from real life for a while. But of course, there will always be games out there that realism because it is part of the experience: sports games, GTA types, and realistic FPS's. But let's not fall in the trap of believing that realism is automatically better, in many cases it's not.
..Your anxiety is provoked by a fear of needles or blood?
What ever happened to the concept of something just plain being enjoyable? Just because something is fun enough that one is inclined to do it to excess does not make the activity an addiction.
I'm glad to see that those employees are challenging everything (spoken with emphatic whisper).
I am currently staging a mock time-wasting drill in my office. The goal is to find out what would happen if an employee here were to spend all morning looking at slashdot instead of working. Will I be caught? Stay tuned for the results!
Maybe they will have a mod that unlocks secret scenes of violence in this otherwise sexually-oriented game. I wonder which party will throw a fit first.
Probably wouldn't happen nowadays. The ethical requirements in psych experiments have changed a lot since the 70s, just look at the Stanford Prison Experiments.
Actually, I was quite pleased that they avoided religion. Making people happy is just as much the realm of psychology as curing depression, but many people have the attitude that happiness is only possible through devotion to a religion. Tell people that you want to make them happy, and they will most likely assume that you are about to tell them about your God (or coming on to them).
It sure sounds like Austria has a screwed up legal system. Corporations can bring criminal charges against individuals? Here we have horror stories about SLAPP lawsuits, but this is a whole new level. If a company or powerful person doesn't like what you have to say, you go could to jail at their whim.
find: moon landing AND mars landing NOT 15 year wait NOT 10 Billion dollar price tag
Isn't that the cleverest thing ever! Nobody could possibly guess that, not in 1000 years. Who would possibly think to look for such an obvious word? And when that doesn't work, I make my password my login name. It hurts being this smart.
Aside from the points made about this not being the correct vector form and also not taking into account in/elasticity, it is only a first order approximation to the correct relativistic expression. And if you really want to nitpick, in the ultra-high energy regime (> Planck Scale) we do not know how the laws of quantum field theory work, and we cannot be sure how the particles in the asteroid would interact during the collision.
I'll stop now, even serious nerds are looking annoyed.
Digital as opposed to what? Those wax cylinders that they squeeze into telephone lines?
"[internet news sites] must be directed toward serving the people and socialism and insist on correct guidance of public opinion for maintaining national and public interests." Ever wish you could just send out 1.2 billion copies of Orwell's '1984'? Because I can think of a certain national population that is a little too tolerant of totalitarianism.
"the federal government will soon be paying FBI agents to surf the web in search of questionable content" I don't care how you feel about porn, this should piss you off! Ask yourself this, do you think those agents might be enjoying their work a little too much? These are your tax dollars, being paid to an FBI agent who is undoubtedly stroking it in a dark basement somewhere!
Yep... pretty much. Nothing is quite as beautiful as watching the sun rise from my computer desk, usually at about the year 1900.
Sadly, there are a lot of people who do care about porn, and they are not necessily old cranks on the verge of extinction. These social conservatives vote in larger percentages than any other group, they have an loud voice in the capitol, and they don't want you looking at smut (or engaging in a lot of other 'undesirable' behaviors).
In the short term: court battles will probably hold any new obscenity laws off for a year or two, but... In the long term: with conservative xtians in control of two branches of government and working on a third, it is inevitable that whatever they decide is pornographic will eventually come under fire. The ACLU et al can only litagate for so long. Hope for the best in November '06 and '08, maybe the congress and whitehouse will be brought back to more moderate control. That is the place where decisions revolving around the porn war are coming from, and this isn't something the right-wingers are likely to take their eyes off of as long as they hold power.