Reading the posts it seems that most every one here is in favor of sex and graphic violence in video games. Personally I don't really have a problem with this content being in games. As a sociology graduate, I am familiar with the research on this topic and it basically says that sex and violence on TV has no discernable impact on one's behaviour. (I'm not aware of any good research on video games, or violence of an interactive nature, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.)
That being said, I don't play games with overly graphic depictions of violence or gore, nor do I often play games where the sole object is indiscriminate violence like FPS. The only exception I make is when my friends set up a LAN game. Even then I don't get invited too often because then we generally end up playing Starcraft (hopefully CIV4 one day).
I guess you could say that I have a personal philosophical objection to overly graphic or violent games. Frankly, I feel that if you wouldn't play the game without it, you're getting something from it and I just don't like the idea of getting something from violence.
S.
Could it not be possible that those with a more positive outlook on life view their symptoms and not so bad, whereas those with a negitive outlook view their symptoms as more troublesome?
S.
Seems a lot of people out there can't see a use for airships and frankly I'm surprised, Slashdotters have tremendous imaginations!
Coming from Alberta, Canada I know there is a huge market for transportation of goods, especially moving big things to hard-to-get-to places. Right now there are startup blimp companies offering their services to haul huge vessels up to the tar sands. Advantages: you don't tear up highways with hundreds of wheels. You don't have to get travel permits for roads. You don't have to raise very power line and remove and then subsequently replace light standards. You don't have to install bridges, build one use roads etc. the list goes on. In the logging industry they use heavy lift helicopters to log impossible to access mountain sides. A ligher than air ship with fantastic manuverability would be perfect. Farther north, many communities can currently only be accessed via ice road in the winter (a time window that is shrinking thanks to GW).
Point is, there are markets. Will it take over the entire transportation market; No way.
S.
Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. This law sounds like it is less to do with equal access for the blind and more to to with sneaking technology that is currently banned for hunting back in.
I guess I don't really have a problem with the blind shooting guns, assuming that it's properly supervised. The real issue I see here is that the bill apparently makes some technologies, like lazer sites, legal. Why do the blind need technologies designed to be seen? How long till every hunter wants these techs? It seems more likely to me that this is the thin edge of the wedge opening the way for general use of these 'forbiden' technologies.
There may well be nothing we can do about the arctic now, but it doesn't mean that we should do nothing since the melting arctic is not the final effect of global warming. THe longer we do nothing = more and more drastic effects around the world.
I'm not familiar with the legality of this so I need to ask: why make their own format, couldn't they do the same thing with someone elses format? I mean, they could do the same thing with ODF right? Adopt it as their default then, in a few years, make their version of ODF incompatible with every other word processor. Or is this impossible?
S
Expedience I would guess, the article said that it would take something like 9 days for it to fully set. Also the material they we using as concrete was actually more like a limestone, I believe, and it was only used on the outside since limestone is not really good enough to be structural support.
Your point is well made and were it any other issue I would agree with you. The case of child porn is so abhorrent to me, however, that I cannot resist this proposal. Yes, it is not a complete solution, nor likely even an overly effective one but it is a step against child porn. At the very least, it shows that we as Canadians will not tolerate this kind of crap. If it stops a casual or unskilled attempt or accidental exposure then I would consider it a success.
As for the potential of a slippery slope, I do acknowledge it is a very real possibility and I do believe that someone will eventually try to expand it to their own pet cause. However, when this occurs it will be up to us to blow the whistle and fight back. On balance, the benefit of this proposal outweighs the inconvenience the innocent may suffer.
Don't be fooled by the size of someone. Yes, people can get fat by eating too much but they can also get fat by eating the wrong things. The sad thing is that many low income people don't have the education to maintain a balanced diet and if you don't have the money for rent it becomes difficult to even cook for yourself, let alone store food. Contrary to popular belief, in many low income households he provider(s) work long hours and multiple low wage jobs just to scrape by. This leaves little or no time for proper nutrition. In all these cases fast food becomes a mainstay, because of it's low relative cost and it can make you feel full. As we all know, a diet like this leads too a host of short and long term medical problems, like obesity and malnourishment, especially if you combine it with alcohol.
As for budgetary pressure, yes, every one wants more so they can do more, this isn't new. However, this is not a reason to doubt the figures; America is leading the charge in the developed world with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking. This means that assistance budgets must now grow faster than the rate of inflation, just to maintain the same levels of assistance! Since the middle class pays a huge portion and they are the shrinking class, the relative burden on each of them grows even faster!
Whoa, there's a good reason why people don't normally say things like this: it's reactionary and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of an issue. Granted, folks here at/. tend to be technology oriented so it, kind of makes sense that some of them might be blinded by the promise of technological solutions.
"All of our current problems stem from a previous solution"
-Jist of a quote from somebody I can't remember.
Now, here's were the environmental 'hippies' are coming from. The environmental problem we face today are, fundamentally, not about where we're burying our garbage, what we are dumping in the rivers, lakes and oceans, how many Rainforests are cut and burned, how many fish and what kind we catch, or what fuels we utilize to energize ourselves. Our problems stem from the fact we are OVERutilizing and being wasteful with what we have. Technology, on it's own, doesn't solve this, it only postpones the consequences. The danger is allowing ourselves blind faith in a technological band-aid which, unless we're careful, will not address this fundamental problem with our society and may come with it's own unintended concequences. We cannot attack people just because we don't like there position on a specific issue, just look at it in the spirit it was intended; they're just worried that we're going to take our eye off the ball.
Personally, I'm excited about fusion technology. I think it's long overdue and hopefully one day it will work and can be part of a comprehensive solution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that you can have black holes of any mass, even that of subatomic particles, if you could implode them, like in a supernova, big bang, or a very large particle accelerator.
On the other hand, if the 'hole you were trying to stop was really big don't forget that all the particles would be getting there kinetic energy from whatever they particle gun was anchored to, likely our planet or solarsystem. We might want to be carefull and not fire too many at a really big one.
So, the electorate in the UK are like 'Teenagers' who make 'demands' but refuse to 'be governed'. What an arrogant statement. Democratic governments work in the interests and by the grace of electorate, not the other way around. The electorate is fed up with virtually no accountability from the leadership. Countries with a first-past-the-post voting style are going to increasingly run into this problem. The average Joe has issues that he wants addressed with but no one listens to him, so why should he be required to worry about someone else's problems as well? In my experience whenever the government talks about tradeoffs, they generally look like this: Company X wishes something. People complain since it offers them no tangible benefit, often the opposite. Government then 'compromises' by giving company X some of what it demanded. People lose.
For too long politicians have had the luxury of campaigning on the interests of the electorate then flipping and governing in the interests of those who fund their campaigns or have the money to lobby and make connections. Times are changing, and peoples interests are more diverse. This means that government must become more representative of a diverse range of interests.
The real problem with many of these articles 'debunking' global warming is that they have no real intent to disprove the science behind global warming, rather they have the goal of creating confusion and the appearance of controversy with a net result of inaction and a continuation of the status quo. This is why virtually all 'debunking' publications occur in the mainstream media whereas the actual science continues where it always has, in academia, away from the public eye.
One can only speculate on the motives of these 'debunkers'. Obviously there are those who profit mightily and so have a powerful interest in the status quo. Next, there are skeptics who will never accept anything, no matter the evidence or risk of inaction. As near as I can tell, their only goal is to drag as many people as possible to their side. Finally, as an Albertan, I see many other people who have been frightened by the economic doom and gloom emanating from certain quarters. These people will not accept Climate change because they see it as an attack on them and their livelihood. They don't want to change how they live so they choose only to believe what will enable them to continue as they are. The first two groups of people can never be convinced so we shouldn't really bother trying, rather we must be mindful of their effects on legitimate debate. The third, and far largest group, can be convinced once they realize that combating climate change is not just a problem but can be an opportunity; an opportunity to reinvent society and unleash innovation! Certainly, once you accept the science behind climate change most rational people must acknowledge a moral imperative to our fellow human beings to combat this issue.
Ok, now I know nothing about this but I'm going to ask anyway 'cause I'm curious. How much energy is out there in these belts? Is there anyway to harness this energy and is there enough for usefull work, like protecting the occupants or perhaps increasing the speed of the climber?
S.
Re:About the 'Digg fraud' campaign...
on
The Zune Cometh
·
· Score: 1
Quote: ""For example, Murphey has been working to create rumors of an imminently available new "video iPod," apparently in an effort to try to get iPod buyers to hold off on their purchases and perhaps consider the Zune."
That doesn't make any sense at all. If Murphey is trying to get people more interested in Zune and wanting to buy a Zune, why would he suggest that a new iPod is coming out. This would actually make people considering a Zune potentially abort that purchase waiting for Apple to produce an iPod with WiFi or something similar." end quote.
Not necessarily; marketing efforts today have diffuse goals. Advertising is no longer about TV or radio spots that clearly identify that they are selling something. That doesn't work so well anymore. Nowadays, marketing is all about generating an image of 'cool' at the grassroots level. This can be done in many ways, from hiring people to write blogs to chatting about products or brands on forum sites such as/. (thereby creating 'buzz') to physically scouting the next 'it' activity and tying your brand to it. Seemingly the one thing these modern efforts have in common is that they disguise where the message is coming from and often the message itself. Now, if you're trying to capture a market, why would this not include undermining your competition? Microsoft has a long history of trying to do just that. As to the actual effectiveness of damaging a rival brand by creating false expectations I'll leave to you, but I would not doubt a companies willingness to try it.
Isn't that one of reasons that electronic voting is being promoted? I mean, as much as it sucks, it's sort of understandable, in the context of human error how one single vote could be miscounted. It is a whole lot more disturbing how a machine designed specifically for this task could err.
Uhhh, they asked for PEER REVIEWED articles not links to a couple JUNK SCIENCE websites.
Just to be clear a PEER REVIEWED article must be reviewed by EXPERTS in the field to ensure a proper methodology was used, then evaluated to ensure the conclusions that are drawn can scientifically follow from that data. Finally those articles must be published in a RESPECTABLE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL like NATURE for everyone to read. At this point those articles are still just a curiosity until the results are REPLICATED and COOBERATED by INDEPENDENT researchers.
I don't care how many letters you have after your name you still have to go through the proper process to make a scientific claim. Don't give me a website, give me the journals name and issue number that these articles appeared in, because I would be very interested to read them.
The simple fact is that there is no way to SCIENTIFICALLY gather and then evaluate that data to deny that climate change is happening, therefore there are precisely ZERO! ZIP! NADA! NONE! Peer reviewed articles that have come to the conclusion that climate change is not a reality.
With the first major hurdle being the production of hydrogen I'm supprised that no one has mentioned bacteria. I seem to recall a previous article on Slashdot which indicated that a biological production method was the 'way of the hydrogen future'
I relize that bacteria would ultimatly be powered by the sun, but they would still be much more efficient than electrolosis by solar cells.
S.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the correct analogy would be: Do you rent a car, make an exact duplicate, then return the original. S.
Reading the posts it seems that most every one here is in favor of sex and graphic violence in video games. Personally I don't really have a problem with this content being in games. As a sociology graduate, I am familiar with the research on this topic and it basically says that sex and violence on TV has no discernable impact on one's behaviour. (I'm not aware of any good research on video games, or violence of an interactive nature, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.) That being said, I don't play games with overly graphic depictions of violence or gore, nor do I often play games where the sole object is indiscriminate violence like FPS. The only exception I make is when my friends set up a LAN game. Even then I don't get invited too often because then we generally end up playing Starcraft (hopefully CIV4 one day). I guess you could say that I have a personal philosophical objection to overly graphic or violent games. Frankly, I feel that if you wouldn't play the game without it, you're getting something from it and I just don't like the idea of getting something from violence. S.
Could it not be possible that those with a more positive outlook on life view their symptoms and not so bad, whereas those with a negitive outlook view their symptoms as more troublesome? S.
Seems a lot of people out there can't see a use for airships and frankly I'm surprised, Slashdotters have tremendous imaginations! Coming from Alberta, Canada I know there is a huge market for transportation of goods, especially moving big things to hard-to-get-to places. Right now there are startup blimp companies offering their services to haul huge vessels up to the tar sands. Advantages: you don't tear up highways with hundreds of wheels. You don't have to get travel permits for roads. You don't have to raise very power line and remove and then subsequently replace light standards. You don't have to install bridges, build one use roads etc. the list goes on. In the logging industry they use heavy lift helicopters to log impossible to access mountain sides. A ligher than air ship with fantastic manuverability would be perfect. Farther north, many communities can currently only be accessed via ice road in the winter (a time window that is shrinking thanks to GW). Point is, there are markets. Will it take over the entire transportation market; No way. S.
Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. This law sounds like it is less to do with equal access for the blind and more to to with sneaking technology that is currently banned for hunting back in.
The article states that the use of laser sites for hunting are NOT legal in texas
I guess I don't really have a problem with the blind shooting guns, assuming that it's properly supervised. The real issue I see here is that the bill apparently makes some technologies, like lazer sites, legal. Why do the blind need technologies designed to be seen? How long till every hunter wants these techs? It seems more likely to me that this is the thin edge of the wedge opening the way for general use of these 'forbiden' technologies.
There may well be nothing we can do about the arctic now, but it doesn't mean that we should do nothing since the melting arctic is not the final effect of global warming. THe longer we do nothing = more and more drastic effects around the world.
Hire a house sitter.
I'm not familiar with the legality of this so I need to ask: why make their own format, couldn't they do the same thing with someone elses format? I mean, they could do the same thing with ODF right? Adopt it as their default then, in a few years, make their version of ODF incompatible with every other word processor. Or is this impossible? S
Expedience I would guess, the article said that it would take something like 9 days for it to fully set. Also the material they we using as concrete was actually more like a limestone, I believe, and it was only used on the outside since limestone is not really good enough to be structural support.
Your point is well made and were it any other issue I would agree with you. The case of child porn is so abhorrent to me, however, that I cannot resist this proposal. Yes, it is not a complete solution, nor likely even an overly effective one but it is a step against child porn. At the very least, it shows that we as Canadians will not tolerate this kind of crap. If it stops a casual or unskilled attempt or accidental exposure then I would consider it a success.
As for the potential of a slippery slope, I do acknowledge it is a very real possibility and I do believe that someone will eventually try to expand it to their own pet cause. However, when this occurs it will be up to us to blow the whistle and fight back. On balance, the benefit of this proposal outweighs the inconvenience the innocent may suffer.
Don't be fooled by the size of someone. Yes, people can get fat by eating too much but they can also get fat by eating the wrong things. The sad thing is that many low income people don't have the education to maintain a balanced diet and if you don't have the money for rent it becomes difficult to even cook for yourself, let alone store food. Contrary to popular belief, in many low income households he provider(s) work long hours and multiple low wage jobs just to scrape by. This leaves little or no time for proper nutrition. In all these cases fast food becomes a mainstay, because of it's low relative cost and it can make you feel full. As we all know, a diet like this leads too a host of short and long term medical problems, like obesity and malnourishment, especially if you combine it with alcohol.
As for budgetary pressure, yes, every one wants more so they can do more, this isn't new. However, this is not a reason to doubt the figures; America is leading the charge in the developed world with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking. This means that assistance budgets must now grow faster than the rate of inflation, just to maintain the same levels of assistance! Since the middle class pays a huge portion and they are the shrinking class, the relative burden on each of them grows even faster!
Assuming this drug works as advertized, how long till it's not a 'option' and we're all working 24 hour days?
-Jist of a quote from somebody I can't remember.
Now, here's were the environmental 'hippies' are coming from. The environmental problem we face today are, fundamentally, not about where we're burying our garbage, what we are dumping in the rivers, lakes and oceans, how many Rainforests are cut and burned, how many fish and what kind we catch, or what fuels we utilize to energize ourselves. Our problems stem from the fact we are OVERutilizing and being wasteful with what we have. Technology, on it's own, doesn't solve this, it only postpones the consequences. The danger is allowing ourselves blind faith in a technological band-aid which, unless we're careful, will not address this fundamental problem with our society and may come with it's own unintended concequences. We cannot attack people just because we don't like there position on a specific issue, just look at it in the spirit it was intended; they're just worried that we're going to take our eye off the ball.
Personally, I'm excited about fusion technology. I think it's long overdue and hopefully one day it will work and can be part of a comprehensive solution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that you can have black holes of any mass, even that of subatomic particles, if you could implode them, like in a supernova, big bang, or a very large particle accelerator.
On the other hand, if the 'hole you were trying to stop was really big don't forget that all the particles would be getting there kinetic energy from whatever they particle gun was anchored to, likely our planet or solarsystem. We might want to be carefull and not fire too many at a really big one.
Finally, a soloution to this annoying superbowl chicken wing shortage!
So, the electorate in the UK are like 'Teenagers' who make 'demands' but refuse to 'be governed'. What an arrogant statement. Democratic governments work in the interests and by the grace of electorate, not the other way around. The electorate is fed up with virtually no accountability from the leadership. Countries with a first-past-the-post voting style are going to increasingly run into this problem. The average Joe has issues that he wants addressed with but no one listens to him, so why should he be required to worry about someone else's problems as well? In my experience whenever the government talks about tradeoffs, they generally look like this: Company X wishes something. People complain since it offers them no tangible benefit, often the opposite. Government then 'compromises' by giving company X some of what it demanded. People lose.
For too long politicians have had the luxury of campaigning on the interests of the electorate then flipping and governing in the interests of those who fund their campaigns or have the money to lobby and make connections. Times are changing, and peoples interests are more diverse. This means that government must become more representative of a diverse range of interests.
The real problem with many of these articles 'debunking' global warming is that they have no real intent to disprove the science behind global warming, rather they have the goal of creating confusion and the appearance of controversy with a net result of inaction and a continuation of the status quo. This is why virtually all 'debunking' publications occur in the mainstream media whereas the actual science continues where it always has, in academia, away from the public eye.
One can only speculate on the motives of these 'debunkers'. Obviously there are those who profit mightily and so have a powerful interest in the status quo. Next, there are skeptics who will never accept anything, no matter the evidence or risk of inaction. As near as I can tell, their only goal is to drag as many people as possible to their side. Finally, as an Albertan, I see many other people who have been frightened by the economic doom and gloom emanating from certain quarters. These people will not accept Climate change because they see it as an attack on them and their livelihood. They don't want to change how they live so they choose only to believe what will enable them to continue as they are. The first two groups of people can never be convinced so we shouldn't really bother trying, rather we must be mindful of their effects on legitimate debate. The third, and far largest group, can be convinced once they realize that combating climate change is not just a problem but can be an opportunity; an opportunity to reinvent society and unleash innovation! Certainly, once you accept the science behind climate change most rational people must acknowledge a moral imperative to our fellow human beings to combat this issue.
Ok, now I know nothing about this but I'm going to ask anyway 'cause I'm curious. How much energy is out there in these belts? Is there anyway to harness this energy and is there enough for usefull work, like protecting the occupants or perhaps increasing the speed of the climber? S.
Quote: ""For example, Murphey has been working to create rumors of an imminently available new "video iPod," apparently in an effort to try to get iPod buyers to hold off on their purchases and perhaps consider the Zune." That doesn't make any sense at all. If Murphey is trying to get people more interested in Zune and wanting to buy a Zune, why would he suggest that a new iPod is coming out. This would actually make people considering a Zune potentially abort that purchase waiting for Apple to produce an iPod with WiFi or something similar." end quote. Not necessarily; marketing efforts today have diffuse goals. Advertising is no longer about TV or radio spots that clearly identify that they are selling something. That doesn't work so well anymore. Nowadays, marketing is all about generating an image of 'cool' at the grassroots level. This can be done in many ways, from hiring people to write blogs to chatting about products or brands on forum sites such as /. (thereby creating 'buzz') to physically scouting the next 'it' activity and tying your brand to it. Seemingly the one thing these modern efforts have in common is that they disguise where the message is coming from and often the message itself. Now, if you're trying to capture a market, why would this not include undermining your competition? Microsoft has a long history of trying to do just that. As to the actual effectiveness of damaging a rival brand by creating false expectations I'll leave to you, but I would not doubt a companies willingness to try it.
Isn't that one of reasons that electronic voting is being promoted? I mean, as much as it sucks, it's sort of understandable, in the context of human error how one single vote could be miscounted. It is a whole lot more disturbing how a machine designed specifically for this task could err.
Uhhh, they asked for PEER REVIEWED articles not links to a couple JUNK SCIENCE websites.
Just to be clear a PEER REVIEWED article must be reviewed by EXPERTS in the field to ensure a proper methodology was used, then evaluated to ensure the conclusions that are drawn can scientifically follow from that data. Finally those articles must be published in a RESPECTABLE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL like NATURE for everyone to read. At this point those articles are still just a curiosity until the results are REPLICATED and COOBERATED by INDEPENDENT researchers.
I don't care how many letters you have after your name you still have to go through the proper process to make a scientific claim. Don't give me a website, give me the journals name and issue number that these articles appeared in, because I would be very interested to read them.
The simple fact is that there is no way to SCIENTIFICALLY gather and then evaluate that data to deny that climate change is happening, therefore there are precisely ZERO! ZIP! NADA! NONE! Peer reviewed articles that have come to the conclusion that climate change is not a reality.
With the first major hurdle being the production of hydrogen I'm supprised that no one has mentioned bacteria. I seem to recall a previous article on Slashdot which indicated that a biological production method was the 'way of the hydrogen future' I relize that bacteria would ultimatly be powered by the sun, but they would still be much more efficient than electrolosis by solar cells. S.
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