If you don't/own/ the property, why/should/ you receive any compensation?
I've sold rental properties with tenants in them before. It's my property. I give notice as stipulated in the agreed contract, they leave, I sell. The previous tenants don't get any of the money.
Wouldn't it be cool to launch your robotic servants to Mars long before humans went, and remotely control them (or not) to build the infrastructure for us before we arrive?
>Trying to paint OSS evangelism as trying to get "free money" is naive and shows a complete >failure to understand how OSS development cuts costs for participants.
See, this sentence sums up why I wonder why businesses would want to jump on the OSS bandwagon.
It's great if you're a startup, as you can leverage the work of other people. But if I'm already the Goliath that everyone is chasing, it is in my interest to keep barriers to entry into my market as high as possible - why would I want to make it easier for other participants?
Sure, it might cut my costs, too, but I'd rather keep my costs a little higher because I have to do more in-house creative work than lower the costs for my competitors so that they can more easily catch up to me without the investment in creative work that I've already put in.
Until wireless broadband is comparable in speed and price so that I can turn off my cable internet and sign up for wireless internet, I'll never sign up for wireless internet.
I'm not going to be nickeled and dimed any more by getting roped into endless revenue streams.
>So you agree that there is no evidence whatsoever to justify your belief that a realistic depiction of >what is known to be a fictional event can cause harm.
>Any reports of PTSD from players of those games?
I've been doing some Googling, and it seems that there is evidence that supports the claim that exposure to fictional violence can have adverse consequences:
Nonetheless, I still believe all the video games I have seen are reasonably cartoonish to not be a serious problem. I believe this is going to change, however, as they become more and more realistic.
>And if you think that video games aren't realistic enough, what about movies that are literally photorealistic?
My 2-year old daughter was sufficiently traumatized from watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" that it gave her nightmares, and the toy monster we got at McDonald's yesterday looks enough like "The Beast" that it upset her. Now bad dreams are a long way from acting out violent behavior, but the point here is that audio/visual stimuli/can/ have deep, lasting mental impacts. The extent of those impacts is debatable and is likely different for different people. I know I can't watch movies like "Hostel" or "Saw" - they disturb me. I suspect authentic simulations (or real depictions) of audio/video stimuli of violence can have adverse effects, and I bet I can go Google and find something to support this suspicion. But I suspect that/participatory/ stimuli have an even stronger effect. To use your phobia example, I suppose viewing realistic footage of heights could help someone become acclimated to such environments. But actual exposure to the real environment would go even further. Thus it is logical to assume the more realistic the simulation, the greater the acclimation effect.
>Gears of War comes pretty close, and I gather that some of the newer PC games go even further when played on a top end gaming PC.
I just Googled Gears of War - it does look pretty good. I've got a pretty high-end machine - I'll have to give it a go. I tend to prefer 1st-person games over 3rd person, though. I just played the latest Half Life game a couple of months ago and it was pretty realistic, too. Enough so that the crab-headed zombies grossed me out.:)
>I've never heard of anybody experiencing PTSD from training scenarios in which the >people participating know that they are not real--not even real life scenarios. Have you?
"Depression and anxiety in particular have been associated with attrition during initial military training"
"It has been estimated that most recruits who demonstrate problems with adaptation are referred for mental health evaluation within the first 14 days of training.10 Although most of those referred are diagnosed with adjustment disorder,10,11 more serious levels of depression and suicide are likely to occur within the first 20 to 60 days of basic training.12 This report of referral for depression and suicide during the beginning of basic training coincides with reports of stress levels over the course of basic training. Fluctuating levels of stress have been noted in some groups of basic trainees, with peaks in stress levels after the first 1 week of training.2 However, most
>If you want to deal in reality rather than groundless hand-waving, you need to look at actual data, >such as whether the incidence of violent crime has increased or decreased as entertainments have become more realistically violent.
I don't believe such data exists. Like I have said twice now, I don't believe video games are yet realistic enough to qualify as harmful stimuli.
>So what real evidence do you have of any real harmful effect?
Of what? Harmful stimuli? Of course, just Google "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome". There is plenty of evidence regarding the harmful effects of harmful stimuli. I believe you are asking what real evidence to I have of any real harmful effects _from_video_games_, and I don't have any, because like I said, video games aren't realistic enough _yet_ to cause these kinds of problems.
>For that matter, aside from your personal bias, what evidence do you have that there are no beneficial effects?[/b]
None, and I have not claimed that there are none. It is logical to believe that beneficial stimuli can have beneficial effects, just as harmful stimuli can have harmful effects. This is the whole basis of any training program, for example. Even stressful programs, such as military or firefighter training.
>They still, by your own argument, should be "desensitized" to the consequences of violence. >So what harmful effects of that can you demonstrate in paramedics and ER doctors?
No doubt they/are/ desensitized to the/consequences/ of violence. This is quite different from becoming desensitized to/participating in violence/. You've actually made my case for me. You admit, "There is no doubt, for example, that paramedics and emergency room physicians become desensitized to the site of extreme blood and gore." Well if they can become desensitized to the/sight/ of violence, is it not logical that people could become desensitized to the/act/ of violence also???
>Oh, I see. So there is no actual harm, even though games have become enormously >more realistic and violent. So it is just about to start causing harm Real Soon Now.
The most realistic video game I have seen to date is the Call of Duty series. Yet for all its realism, it is still pretty unrealistic compared to any modern horror film. Video games, particularly first person shooters (I've been a fan since "Wolfenstein"), have gotten progressively more and more realistic. I do not believe it is unreasonable to expect this trend to continue. And if the act of committing real violence is in fact harmful and desensitizing, then I believe it is reasonable that at some point simulations will become realistic enough to cause the same effect. Note that I did not give a time table for this nor did I claim it would happen "real soon now". It would not surprise me, however, to see movie-quality horror effects in video games within 10 years.
>What makes it obvious that is is not real is not the realism of the display (and some modern games are >virtually photorealistic, and it is hard to imagine how a movie can get any more realistic--3D perahaps?),
What games do you see as being virtually photorealistic? I want to play them.:)
>but the fact that when one plays a game or attends a movie, one chooses to experience something that one knows is not real.
There are many artificial scenarios that we create for training purposes that the people participating in know are not real - they know it is just training. And yet the training is still effective because it provides/mental conditioning/ to the trainee's mind so that they will be on familiar ground when they experience the event "in real life". Even though the participant knows that it is not real, there is some level of familiarity imprinted on the trainee - that is the whole point of the exercise. I guess the question is, c
>That really says nothing unless you can put a number to that "probability." For example, it may well be >that there is one chance in 10 million that a person will be harmfully affected by a particular scene, >and twice as great a chance -- one in 5 million -- that a person will be harmfully affected by a more >realistic depiction of the same scene. Twice negligible is still negligible.
Obviously I provided no data to support my assertion. That is why I specifically said "probably". Nonetheless, if we agree that there are harmful stimuli, then again, I believe it is probably likely that the more realistic simulations of harmful stimuli become the more likely it is that people will experience the harmful effects.
I have no idea what the chances are of effect, and was not trying to make any assertion of such. I believe they are much greater than 1 in 5 million, however.
>Quite likely. Here, the unstated assumption that you are making is that a major reason why people do not commit >violent acts is because they find them shocking to look at, irrespective of whether they are real or fantasy. >There is no doubt, for example, that paramedics and emergency room physicians become desensitized to the site >of extreme blood and gore, yet I've seen no evidence that they are more prone to commit bloody crimes.
First of all, you are making the assumption that violent acts are the only harmful result from harmful stimuli. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has lots of expressions other than acts of violence. Moreover, paramedics and emergency room physicians may be exposed to lots of blood and gore, but it usually in the context of a compassionate, merciful act, like saving lives. This is opposed to say, a simulation of chopping people up with chainsaws or mowing them down with machine guns.
>That doesn't necessarily prove that these entertainments prevent violence, but it does demonstrate that any >hypothetical violence enhancing effect must be so small as to be completely swamped by other social and >cultural factors affecting rates of violent crime.
Like I said, even the most realistic video games today are still pretty unrealistic, so I wouldn't expect much psychological impact/today/. The whole point of my original response is that it is not smart to dismiss such eventualities, with a wave of the hand, as many today do, saying, "It's just a VIDEO GAME!". Yes, it's a video game, and today, that's obvious. What happens when it isn't so obvious?
Let me ask you a not-so-hypothetical question. Do you think there would be harmful side-effects to people who could, through a live audio/video feed, direct acts of/real/ violence against/real/ people?
>So don't you think that it is reasonable to consider the possibility that people >actually do have the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, no matter how "realistic" it might look?
I don't disagree that people have the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, no matter how realistic something might look, though I think that the more realistic the experience becomes the more difficult it will be to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
What I am saying is that as that the harmful stimuli become higher in fidelity, the more likely it probably is that the person experiencing it will experience the same harmful side effects.
I believe there is more to making certain stimuli harmful than just whether it is real or simulated.
Also, it has been well documented that the human brain does become conditioned to stimuli, like drugs, or pornography, and it requires more and more stimuli over time to achieve the same affect. It does not seem illogical that the shock value of violent stimuli may likewise wear off with exposure.
I said: "If you cheat on your homework, you are going to fail your exams and probably not graduate. It's a self-correcting problem."
I am NOT endorsing CHEATING.
I am saying that the answers to ALL HOMEWORK PROBLEMS should be PROVIDED so that when you work the problem and get STUCK, you have the SOLUTION to show you HOW YOU SCREWED UP.
And, LIKE I SAID, if you just use those answers to CHEAT ON YOUR HOMEWORK, you are going to FAIL your exams.
If you CHEAT on your homework, odds are high you will never BECOME a doctor, or a software developer, or work for Microsoft.
It is very hard to cheat your way to a degree, unless you can find some novel way to cheat on tests and not get caught.
Look, I love video games. I've been playing them for years. COD is currently my favorite addiction.
Today, video games look pretty much like video games. You can tell you are not watching something real, though single-player COD is getting pretty photo-realistic. Flying bodies, spurting blood. But it's still cartoonish. Cartoonish enough that you know it's a game.
What happens when the game becomes indistinguishable from reality? When it becomes photo-realistic? We know that people can become desensitized to stimuli by constant exposure.
If we had games that simulated warfare like, say, a "holodeck", would there be any debate as to the harmful effects it would have on the psyche of the players? Would we not see traumatic stress issues?
If you agree that we would see such problems with hyper-realistic games, then I think it is reasonable to debate and discuss what happens as we approach that level of realism. At what point does the game become realistic enough to start being harmful?
>When I was in college, the point was that I myself solve those differential equations problem. If I had somebody >else figure it out for me, then I missed the point of the class. Too many students these days think the point of >college is getting your homework done. It's not! The point is to DEVELOP YOUR MIND!
The point of college is getting high marks in your classes, so you can get a degree and make money. If I can do all that without developing my mind, that's OK with me.
If you cheat on your homework, you are going to fail your exams and probably not graduate. It's a self-correcting problem.
This isn't a direct response to you, tacocat, but it was a convenient place to jump in.
I have been going to school a LONG time. It took me some 17 years to finish my BS in Computer Science, and I'm currently working on a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
I personally believe that ALL the answers should be made available to all questions posed to the students for assignments.
The solutions guide that they publish is great, but it only gives answers to half the problems. I want them all. Why? Because the way I learn a subject is exactly backwards of how they want me to learn it.
It has become obvious to me over the 17+ years of advanced education I have done that what professors/want/ is to present the material, you to understand the material, and then you go off and solve problems based on that understanding. The last thing they want is to teach you a "technique" or a "formula" for solving problems, and you then can solve problems. They want you to/understand/ the subject, not just be able to solve problems.
I hate this approach. I want to get straight to the punchline. I want to learn THE ALGORITHM TO IDENTIFY AND SOLVE A PROBLEM, not the underlying whys and wherefores. Then, armed with the algorithm, I go and do hundreds of problems, over and over again. THEN, somewhere along the way, the lightbulb goes on and I see the whys and wherefores. This is where having the worked-out solutions are awesome. I use them when I get stuck on a problem to work out where I went wrong in my algorithm for identifying and solving the problem.
Anyone who uses these answers just to cheat on their homework is going to totally fail the class, because you will BOMB THE TESTS. In fact, I don't think professors should even bother collecting homework. Those who are going to cheat are just going to cheat on it anyway, and then fail the class because they fail the tests. Those who weren't going to cheat but do the homework to gain understanding of how to solve the problems don't need their homework taken up anyway.
So in closing, I think all the answers should be made available to everyone. You use them as you may to understand how to solve problems. Then you will be tested to see how well you learned the techniques to solve different but similar problems.
Don't you think a question as basic as yours would have been considered by the folks putting forth this research?/Obviously/, the article is lacking in sufficient detail to prevent such idle speculations as yours.
>(Note to 2nd amendment types: your guns will not keep you free. If the government wants your ass, they're going to get it.)
Of course, the government getting one or two asses is one thing. Thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of asses - that's a bit harder to contain.
Ask the Vietnamese. Or the Mogadishuans. Or the Iraqies.
>Now that's funny. We always have a good laugh at that bullshit. You have a gun so the pigs have >armor piercing rounds, gas, and tanks. They train for armed resistance and usually shoot to >kill if there is even the suspicion of a weapon (or a piece of tinfoil). The pigs are a lot >more polite on this side of the Atlantic.
I am one of those who strongly believes the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was primarily to arm the citizenry so that they could revolt against tyranny if necessary.
I am always amazed by people who say, "The common people could never rise in armed revolt against a modern military force."
There are so many reasons why this is clearly untrue.
First of all, it has been demonstrated historically that it is indeed possible for numerically and technologically inferior forces to force the withdrawal of superior forces. Four relatively modern scenarios that come to mind are Vietnam, Mogadishu, Afghanistan vs. the Soviets, and probably Iraq. Remember, for an insurgency to be effective it does not have to win battles with military victories. It merely has to sap enough resources until the enemy finds it not worth fighting.
Second of all, domestic insurrections have another "positive" in their favor - they are highly disruptive to the local economy. Since it is the tax revenue that feeds the government that will be resisted, any disruption of tax revenue erodes the power of the tyrannical government, and probably gets their attention more readily that the loss of troops and material. I'm sure congress people get upset over troop losses. I bet they get more upset over losses in tax revenue. We saw from the DC sniper case that 2 guys shooting out of the keyhole in the trunk of a car caused a huge financial impact over a wide area because people stopped going outside to go shopping. Imagine the economic disruption caused by 10,000 insurgents.
Third of all, if things deteriorated to the point that it motivated a significant portion of the population to engage in a rebellion, it is likely that not all troops would stay in step with the federal government.
To me, the biggest problem with the safeguard of the 2nd Amendment is not how effective will average citizens be as resistance fighters. To me the biggest problem is will average citizens be too apathetic to ever stand up and rise in rebellion should it be warranted.
With all this talk of "carbon neutral" energy conversion processes, this scheme strikes me as the ultimate "carbon positive" process we could come up with. Let's go get hydrocarbons from outside Earth and burn them here!
Look, I'm not sure I buy into the doom and gloom and the sky is falling we always here from the global environmental change crowd.
But if things are as bad as they say they are, and this atmosphere regenerating technique being bandied about is so easy, why don't we fix our own atmosphere? I mean if it was so easy you'd think they'd at least have an atmospheric processor capable of at least cleaning up the air in and around major cities.
Thanks, found it. When you go under Preferences -> User Info, a window pops up. I missed the slider bar on that window - you have to scroll down to see your sig.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't /own/ the property, why /should/ you receive any compensation?
I've sold rental properties with tenants in them before. It's my property. I give notice as stipulated in the agreed contract, they leave, I sell. The previous tenants don't get any of the money.
Wouldn't it be cool to launch your robotic servants to Mars long before humans went, and remotely control them (or not) to build the infrastructure for us before we arrive?
>Trying to paint OSS evangelism as trying to get "free money" is naive and shows a complete
>failure to understand how OSS development cuts costs for participants.
See, this sentence sums up why I wonder why businesses would want to jump on the OSS bandwagon.
It's great if you're a startup, as you can leverage the work of other people. But if I'm already the Goliath that everyone is chasing, it is in my interest to keep barriers to entry into my market as high as possible - why would I want to make it easier for other participants?
Sure, it might cut my costs, too, but I'd rather keep my costs a little higher because I have to do more in-house creative work than lower the costs for my competitors so that they can more easily catch up to me without the investment in creative work that I've already put in.
The thing actually looks kind of creepy because it actually gives the impression of being /alive/.
:)
I hope they fix the annoying whine it makes though.
Until wireless broadband is comparable in speed and price so that I can turn off my cable internet and sign up for wireless internet, I'll never sign up for wireless internet.
I'm not going to be nickeled and dimed any more by getting roped into endless revenue streams.
>So you agree that there is no evidence whatsoever to justify your belief that a realistic depiction of
/can/ have deep, lasting mental impacts. The extent of those impacts is debatable and is likely different for different people. I know I can't watch movies like "Hostel" or "Saw" - they disturb me. I suspect authentic simulations (or real depictions) of audio/video stimuli of violence can have adverse effects, and I bet I can go Google and find something to support this suspicion. But I suspect that /participatory/ stimuli have an even stronger effect. To use your phobia example, I suppose viewing realistic footage of heights could help someone become acclimated to such environments. But actual exposure to the real environment would go even further. Thus it is logical to assume the more realistic the simulation, the greater the acclimation effect.
:)
>what is known to be a fictional event can cause harm.
>Any reports of PTSD from players of those games?
I've been doing some Googling, and it seems that there is evidence that supports the claim that exposure to fictional violence can have adverse consequences:
This is just one supporting article I found:
http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html
Nonetheless, I still believe all the video games I have seen are reasonably cartoonish to not be a serious problem. I believe this is going to change, however, as they become more and more realistic.
>And if you think that video games aren't realistic enough, what about movies that are literally photorealistic?
My 2-year old daughter was sufficiently traumatized from watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" that it gave her nightmares, and the toy monster we got at McDonald's yesterday looks enough like "The Beast" that it upset her. Now bad dreams are a long way from acting out violent behavior, but the point here is that audio/visual stimuli
>Gears of War comes pretty close, and I gather that some of the newer PC games go even further when played on a top end gaming PC.
I just Googled Gears of War - it does look pretty good. I've got a pretty high-end machine - I'll have to give it a go. I tend to prefer 1st-person games over 3rd person, though. I just played the latest Half Life game a couple of months ago and it was pretty realistic, too. Enough so that the crab-headed zombies grossed me out.
>Any reports of PTSD from players of those games?
I found a link of a soldier who had a PTSD episode possibly triggered by CoD:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/10/ex-marine-goes-missing-after-call-of-duty-triggered-flashbacks/
>I've never heard of anybody experiencing PTSD from training scenarios in which the
>people participating know that they are not real--not even real life scenarios. Have you?
This is one I turned up with Google:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_200602/ai_n16087458
"Depression and anxiety in particular have been associated with attrition during initial military training"
"It has been estimated that most recruits who demonstrate problems with adaptation are referred for mental health evaluation within the first 14 days of training.10 Although most of those referred are diagnosed with adjustment disorder,10,11 more serious levels of depression and suicide are likely to occur within the first 20 to 60 days of basic training.12 This report of referral for depression and suicide during the beginning of basic training coincides with reports of stress levels over the course of basic training. Fluctuating levels of stress have been noted in some groups of basic trainees, with peaks in stress levels after the first 1 week of training.2 However, most
>If you want to deal in reality rather than groundless hand-waving, you need to look at actual data,
/are/ desensitized to the /consequences/ of violence. This is quite different from becoming desensitized to /participating in violence/. You've actually made my case for me. You admit, "There is no doubt, for example, that paramedics and emergency room physicians become desensitized to the site of extreme blood and gore." Well if they can become desensitized to the /sight/ of violence, is it not logical that people could become desensitized to the /act/ of violence also???
:)
/mental conditioning/ to the trainee's mind so that they will be on familiar ground when they experience the event "in real life". Even though the participant knows that it is not real, there is some level of familiarity imprinted on the trainee - that is the whole point of the exercise. I guess the question is, c
>such as whether the incidence of violent crime has increased or decreased as entertainments have become more realistically violent.
I don't believe such data exists. Like I have said twice now, I don't believe video games are yet realistic enough to qualify as harmful stimuli.
>So what real evidence do you have of any real harmful effect?
Of what? Harmful stimuli? Of course, just Google "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome". There is plenty of evidence regarding the harmful effects of harmful stimuli. I believe you are asking what real evidence to I have of any real harmful effects _from_video_games_, and I don't have any, because like I said, video games aren't realistic enough _yet_ to cause these kinds of problems.
>For that matter, aside from your personal bias, what evidence do you have that there are no beneficial effects?[/b]
None, and I have not claimed that there are none. It is logical to believe that beneficial stimuli can have beneficial effects, just as harmful stimuli can have harmful effects. This is the whole basis of any training program, for example. Even stressful programs, such as military or firefighter training.
>They still, by your own argument, should be "desensitized" to the consequences of violence.
>So what harmful effects of that can you demonstrate in paramedics and ER doctors?
No doubt they
>Oh, I see. So there is no actual harm, even though games have become enormously
>more realistic and violent. So it is just about to start causing harm Real Soon Now.
The most realistic video game I have seen to date is the Call of Duty series. Yet for all its realism, it is still pretty unrealistic compared to any modern horror film. Video games, particularly first person shooters (I've been a fan since "Wolfenstein"), have gotten progressively more and more realistic. I do not believe it is unreasonable to expect this trend to continue. And if the act of committing real violence is in fact harmful and desensitizing, then I believe it is reasonable that at some point simulations will become realistic enough to cause the same effect. Note that I did not give a time table for this nor did I claim it would happen "real soon now". It would not surprise me, however, to see movie-quality horror effects in video games within 10 years.
>What makes it obvious that is is not real is not the realism of the display (and some modern games are
>virtually photorealistic, and it is hard to imagine how a movie can get any more realistic--3D perahaps?),
What games do you see as being virtually photorealistic? I want to play them.
>but the fact that when one plays a game or attends a movie, one chooses to experience something that one knows is not real.
There are many artificial scenarios that we create for training purposes that the people participating in know are not real - they know it is just training. And yet the training is still effective because it provides
>That really says nothing unless you can put a number to that "probability." For example, it may well be
/today/. The whole point of my original response is that it is not smart to dismiss such eventualities, with a wave of the hand, as many today do, saying, "It's just a VIDEO GAME!". Yes, it's a video game, and today, that's obvious. What happens when it isn't so obvious?
/real/ violence against /real/ people?
>that there is one chance in 10 million that a person will be harmfully affected by a particular scene,
>and twice as great a chance -- one in 5 million -- that a person will be harmfully affected by a more
>realistic depiction of the same scene. Twice negligible is still negligible.
Obviously I provided no data to support my assertion. That is why I specifically said "probably". Nonetheless, if we agree that there are harmful stimuli, then again, I believe it is probably likely that the more realistic simulations of harmful stimuli become the more likely it is that people will experience the harmful effects.
I have no idea what the chances are of effect, and was not trying to make any assertion of such. I believe they are much greater than 1 in 5 million, however.
>Quite likely. Here, the unstated assumption that you are making is that a major reason why people do not commit
>violent acts is because they find them shocking to look at, irrespective of whether they are real or fantasy.
>There is no doubt, for example, that paramedics and emergency room physicians become desensitized to the site
>of extreme blood and gore, yet I've seen no evidence that they are more prone to commit bloody crimes.
First of all, you are making the assumption that violent acts are the only harmful result from harmful stimuli. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has lots of expressions other than acts of violence. Moreover, paramedics and emergency room physicians may be exposed to lots of blood and gore, but it usually in the context of a compassionate, merciful act, like saving lives. This is opposed to say, a simulation of chopping people up with chainsaws or mowing them down with machine guns.
>That doesn't necessarily prove that these entertainments prevent violence, but it does demonstrate that any
>hypothetical violence enhancing effect must be so small as to be completely swamped by other social and
>cultural factors affecting rates of violent crime.
Like I said, even the most realistic video games today are still pretty unrealistic, so I wouldn't expect much psychological impact
Let me ask you a not-so-hypothetical question. Do you think there would be harmful side-effects to people who could, through a live audio/video feed, direct acts of
They'll take any ideology necessary as long as it leads to spread legs. :)
>So don't you think that it is reasonable to consider the possibility that people
>actually do have the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, no matter how "realistic" it might look?
I don't disagree that people have the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, no matter how realistic something might look, though I think that the more realistic the experience becomes the more difficult it will be to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
What I am saying is that as that the harmful stimuli become higher in fidelity, the more likely it probably is that the person experiencing it will experience the same harmful side effects.
I believe there is more to making certain stimuli harmful than just whether it is real or simulated.
Also, it has been well documented that the human brain does become conditioned to stimuli, like drugs, or pornography, and it requires more and more stimuli over time to achieve the same affect. It does not seem illogical that the shock value of violent stimuli may likewise wear off with exposure.
I said: "If you cheat on your homework, you are going to fail your exams and probably not graduate. It's a self-correcting problem."
I am NOT endorsing CHEATING.
I am saying that the answers to ALL HOMEWORK PROBLEMS should be PROVIDED so that when you work the problem and get STUCK, you have the SOLUTION to show you HOW YOU SCREWED UP.
And, LIKE I SAID, if you just use those answers to CHEAT ON YOUR HOMEWORK, you are going to FAIL your exams.
If you CHEAT on your homework, odds are high you will never BECOME a doctor, or a software developer, or work for Microsoft.
It is very hard to cheat your way to a degree, unless you can find some novel way to cheat on tests and not get caught.
Your post is insulting.
Look, I love video games. I've been playing them for years. COD is currently my favorite addiction.
Today, video games look pretty much like video games. You can tell you are not watching something real, though single-player COD is getting pretty photo-realistic. Flying bodies, spurting blood. But it's still cartoonish. Cartoonish enough that you know it's a game.
What happens when the game becomes indistinguishable from reality? When it becomes photo-realistic? We know that people can become desensitized to stimuli by constant exposure.
If we had games that simulated warfare like, say, a "holodeck", would there be any debate as to the harmful effects it would have on the psyche of the players? Would we not see traumatic stress issues?
If you agree that we would see such problems with hyper-realistic games, then I think it is reasonable to debate and discuss what happens as we approach that level of realism. At what point does the game become realistic enough to start being harmful?
>When I was in college, the point was that I myself solve those differential equations problem. If I had somebody
>else figure it out for me, then I missed the point of the class. Too many students these days think the point of
>college is getting your homework done. It's not! The point is to DEVELOP YOUR MIND!
The point of college is getting high marks in your classes, so you can get a degree and make money. If I can do all that without developing my mind, that's OK with me.
If you cheat on your homework, you are going to fail your exams and probably not graduate. It's a self-correcting problem.
This isn't a direct response to you, tacocat, but it was a convenient place to jump in.
/want/ is to present the material, you to understand the material, and then you go off and solve problems based on that understanding. The last thing they want is to teach you a "technique" or a "formula" for solving problems, and you then can solve problems. They want you to /understand/ the subject, not just be able to solve problems.
I have been going to school a LONG time. It took me some 17 years to finish my BS in Computer Science, and I'm currently working on a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
I personally believe that ALL the answers should be made available to all questions posed to the students for assignments.
The solutions guide that they publish is great, but it only gives answers to half the problems. I want them all. Why? Because the way I learn a subject is exactly backwards of how they want me to learn it.
It has become obvious to me over the 17+ years of advanced education I have done that what professors
I hate this approach. I want to get straight to the punchline. I want to learn THE ALGORITHM TO IDENTIFY AND SOLVE A PROBLEM, not the underlying whys and wherefores. Then, armed with the algorithm, I go and do hundreds of problems, over and over again. THEN, somewhere along the way, the lightbulb goes on and I see the whys and wherefores. This is where having the worked-out solutions are awesome. I use them when I get stuck on a problem to work out where I went wrong in my algorithm for identifying and solving the problem.
Anyone who uses these answers just to cheat on their homework is going to totally fail the class, because you will BOMB THE TESTS. In fact, I don't think professors should even bother collecting homework. Those who are going to cheat are just going to cheat on it anyway, and then fail the class because they fail the tests. Those who weren't going to cheat but do the homework to gain understanding of how to solve the problems don't need their homework taken up anyway.
So in closing, I think all the answers should be made available to everyone. You use them as you may to understand how to solve problems. Then you will be tested to see how well you learned the techniques to solve different but similar problems.
Don't you think a question as basic as yours would have been considered by the folks putting forth this research? /Obviously/, the article is lacking in sufficient detail to prevent such idle speculations as yours.
But give the freaking MIT scientists a break, eh?
>Fine examples of people whose guns have bought them high levels of freedom.
The ability to control your destiny does not mean you will always make the right choices concerning your destiny.
This does not mean we should not have the ability to control our destinies.
Firearms are a tool. They provide the means to resist perceived threats. Guns won't help you decide what to do once the perceived threat is gone.
>(Note to 2nd amendment types: your guns will not keep you free. If the government wants your ass, they're going to get it.)
Of course, the government getting one or two asses is one thing. Thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of asses - that's a bit harder to contain.
Ask the Vietnamese. Or the Mogadishuans. Or the Iraqies.
I for one really don't want content providers owning the infrastructure to access content.
Guess whose content they are going to throttle and whose they are not?
All this time I thought "kimchi" was a euphemism for "shit".
You know the saying, "We're in deep kimchi now..."
Instead of having a 50 pound weight, why not have a much lower mass spring provide the equivalent pull?
...advertisements for KY Jelly skyrocket...
>Now that's funny. We always have a good laugh at that bullshit. You have a gun so the pigs have
>armor piercing rounds, gas, and tanks. They train for armed resistance and usually shoot to
>kill if there is even the suspicion of a weapon (or a piece of tinfoil). The pigs are a lot
>more polite on this side of the Atlantic.
I am one of those who strongly believes the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was primarily to arm the citizenry so that they could revolt against tyranny if necessary.
I am always amazed by people who say, "The common people could never rise in armed revolt against a modern military force."
There are so many reasons why this is clearly untrue.
First of all, it has been demonstrated historically that it is indeed possible for numerically and technologically inferior forces to force the withdrawal of superior forces. Four relatively modern scenarios that come to mind are Vietnam, Mogadishu, Afghanistan vs. the Soviets, and probably Iraq. Remember, for an insurgency to be effective it does not have to win battles with military victories. It merely has to sap enough resources until the enemy finds it not worth fighting.
Second of all, domestic insurrections have another "positive" in their favor - they are highly disruptive to the local economy. Since it is the tax revenue that feeds the government that will be resisted, any disruption of tax revenue erodes the power of the tyrannical government, and probably gets their attention more readily that the loss of troops and material. I'm sure congress people get upset over troop losses. I bet they get more upset over losses in tax revenue. We saw from the DC sniper case that 2 guys shooting out of the keyhole in the trunk of a car caused a huge financial impact over a wide area because people stopped going outside to go shopping. Imagine the economic disruption caused by 10,000 insurgents.
Third of all, if things deteriorated to the point that it motivated a significant portion of the population to engage in a rebellion, it is likely that not all troops would stay in step with the federal government.
To me, the biggest problem with the safeguard of the 2nd Amendment is not how effective will average citizens be as resistance fighters. To me the biggest problem is will average citizens be too apathetic to ever stand up and rise in rebellion should it be warranted.
With all this talk of "carbon neutral" energy conversion processes, this scheme strikes me as the ultimate "carbon positive" process we could come up with. Let's go get hydrocarbons from outside Earth and burn them here!
Look, I'm not sure I buy into the doom and gloom and the sky is falling we always here from the global environmental change crowd.
But if things are as bad as they say they are, and this atmosphere regenerating technique being bandied about is so easy, why don't we fix our own atmosphere? I mean if it was so easy you'd think they'd at least have an atmospheric processor capable of at least cleaning up the air in and around major cities.
Thanks, found it. When you go under Preferences -> User Info, a window pops up. I missed the slider bar on that window - you have to scroll down to see your sig.