At whatever age parents determine that their child is mature.
You're the one looking to draw an arbitrary line and say that 17-year-olds aren't children, and then you ask me to set an arbitrary line?
Some kids can handle at 13 what others can't at 17. According to my father, I was one of the former; at 12-13 years of age, he believed I was emotionally mature enough to cope with the real world and begin to loosen the reins. My brother, however, was kept under much stricter rules until he was 16.
Choice 1: Teach them about the internet, then hope the lesson sank in and look the other way.
Choice 2: Hover over them every second they're on the computer to make sure they never break the rules or do anything dangerous.
Choice 3: Teach them and use monitoring software to routinely check up on their activities and see if they're doing anything wrong that you need to address.
I work at a school district. I see 17-year-olds all the time. Yes, they are children. They act without considering the consequences to themselves or others. They are irresponsible and generally stupid, with a few exceptions.
As soon as a kid shoots up a school, people ask "Where were the parents? Why didn't they see the problem?" We're very quick to point the finger at parents when something goes wrong. And then I see posts like this asserting that parents shouldn't be able to monitor their childrens' activities.
Fifty years ago, parents didn't have to watch so closely. There was far less media coming into the home, and what was available was far easier to monitor (and far more regulated, as it was all under the watchful eye of the FCC).
Now, we've got the internet. We've got a half-dozen game consoles. We've got cable and satellite television, dirt-cheap movies and music available for purchase, and a barrage of information everywhere we look. For parents to keep the same level of attention on what their kids are doing, they have to use tools like "spyware" (you know, software that lets them know what THEIR computers are being used for) to keep track of their kids and look for dangerous behavior.
I've got to say, though, that I object to nanny cams unless there is a very specific reason to have one. If you smell pot in your living room, maybe it's a good time to put in a camera to see if your kid is using illegal drugs. But putting up a camera *just in case* is paranoid.
Parents have to monitor their kids. Every generation has done so in some fashion. So long as kids know the rules, know they are being watched, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't let my kids go certain places in the city without me being around because it's risky for them; the same goes for the internet.
"Congress" isn't considering taxing e-mail that we've ever heard. One Republican is getting all hyperbolic and trying to grab headlines (quite successfully) by exaggerating the issue the way politicians are prone to doing.
Of course, this immediately prompts a swarm of "lying Republicans" posts...but hey, this is the internet. All Republicans lie here. Apparently Democrats don't.
The use of simple diagrams illustrates our society's reduced capacity to comprehend English. It's easier and cheaper to print a single simple diagram than to print a half-dozen languages. Add globalization to that, and it makes far more sense; you can print a single diagram for the entire world, or you can print dozens of multi-language instruction sheets to suit specific regions.
Another problem is, as you hinted, a reduced attention span. Modern television programming with its constant camera changes--I've seen shows that average a camera angle or scene change every eight or ten seconds--and computers have taught us that information should be presented in easy-to-digest 10-second bites. Newspapers are learning that people spend roughly half the time on any given article than they did before, and most people didn't finish the articles before.
We've created a headline society of incomplete information. I think this contributes a great deal to the knee-jerk reactions we see to so many hot topics where things are boiled down to two polarized side with no moderate middle ground to be found in popular sentiment. The two-party system in the U.S. is a shining example of how our society works most of the time. You're either with us or against us, neutrality or compromise is not an option.
At work, I deal with the software used to help kids who are struggling with reading a lot. Presently, all it does is give them a section of text, let them listen to recorded readings of it, and then have them try to emulate what they heard. It does work for a lot of kids, but it's slow going.
What I see in this new method of formatting is that the sentences are being being broken up very similar to how their natural spoken rhythm would flow, making it much easier for a struggling student to read aloud. It shouldn't be a crutch, but I can picture a kid being shown the entire written text, and then this version of it. Have the kid read the Live Ink version aloud into a microphone and play back the recording for him to hear how it sounds, then try to do that with the "normal" text.
This could really be something huge for education. I'm about to go talk to our special programs director about it, this looks like it could be very useful.
I'm a Christian who believes in evolution. I'm actually working on a series of articles on Christianity's relationship with science and my *opinion* on what the Church is doing wrong right now that is hurting our message.
One of the key points I'm hoping to raise is the fact that Christians largely do not understand the principles of science and the meanings of many of the words it uses. In our collective ignorance, the Church is often railing against things that don't mean anything close to what we think it means.
Some scientists--and physicists can be especially guilty of this in my experience--place too much faith in their own knowledge and accept the current findings of science as absulute fact. They forget that science is fluid, always changing as new information enters the equation and each answer spawns new questions. Call it arrogance if you want; I think it's something less than that.
In any case, what's the alternative? "God did it"? That may very well be true, but it doesn't answer the question of "how did it happen?"...which is what science seeks to explain.
(except for TA which has very little depth compared to pretty much any RTS)
The unit base was massive but not exactly inspired. What made TA great was the game mechanics. Weapons were no loner 100% accurate. There was no unstoppable weapon (nukes anyone).
[Eve]'s subscriber base is very weak in comparison.
So? Popularity doesn't make a game great. The Sims has outsold StarCraft almost 2 to 1...does that make it a better game?
Starcarft may be "dumbed down" (or as I like to say: "not uneccessarily convoluted with a unintuitive controls, features, and options")
None of the games I listed have any of that.
StarCraft is a clickfest. Watch the Koreans play sometimes; it's just absurd. I've seen fighting games with less potential for wrist trauma. That's not strategy. The game engine itself doesn't exactly promote strategy...the terrain barely has any effect on combat except to make chokepoints for the land units. Air units don't move like they're flying...they just hover there.
You want to talk about intuitive? Intuitive is when I move a marine out of the path of a slow-moving projectile, he doesn't get hit. Intuitive is NOT seeing that projectile strike the ground where he was standing, and still manage to injure him.
Company of Heroes Total Annihilation Supreme Commander Rome: Total War
Why? Because they don't give you a dumbed down arcade-ish "strategy" game that is full of gimmicks and driven by a rock-paper-scissors unit system. StarCraft is the Counter-Strike of RTS: popular, fun, deeper than it appears at first glance, but FAR from being the best in its genre at anything.
If by "short time" you mean "several weeks at least" I'll agree. Back in the 90s there were WAY too many apps with memory leaks and other stupid problems that never should have existed, and Windows fell victim to them.
backwards compatibility is part of the idiot-friendly "feature" set. It's so that Granny's PrintShop 95 still works ten years later, because she'd rather just not have a computer than buy a new copy of PrintShop.
Microsoft is insecure because they try to juggle security, performance, and being idiot-friendly. Windows is largely the dominant OS because people found it easier to use and more available than the alternatives in the mid-90s when the computing boom took place.
Now, MS is having to balance coddling those users who don't know jack about their OS and keeping the OS secure. Added security generally means more steps (or the same number of more complicated steps) to accomplish the same task.
I would contend that it was Windows' lack of security that made PCs accessible to the masses in the first place, in that during the 90s Windows was the *only* operating system for the "I just want it to work" crowd. Unless you want to argue that OS 7/8/9 was equally functional...in which case I'd argue that you haven't had to deal with it enough and didn't live in an area where Mac software simply wasn't sold in the days prior to commonplace broadband.
Star Trek also featured a planet which evolved a Roman Empire that never fell, and Spock found it logical.
Then Spock said it was most improbable that the Nazi party would arise on another planet the same way it had on Earth.
But when they found a world on which the cold war had gone hot and the US flag and constitution were trotted out at the end of the show, they didn't bat an eye.
Half of Star Trek should have been Sliders episodes.
Tell that to the piles of broken controllers in the dump:p
Seriously, I'd like to see some statistics. I'd wager you just made that up on the spot, since you didn't bother to even reference an article you read somewhere once. I'd also wager that gamers are no more or less violent than the general population. Maybe ten years ago, when gaming was more exclusive to certain social groups, I'd have agreed with you, but these days it's so pervasive that there are gamers in every segment of society.
Some pot might have worked wonders for the kid though. Mellow would certainly have been preferable to rampaging.
A person does not become violent because of media they choose to be exposed to. They choose the media because its violence appeals to them. Any number of things could turn someone violent; there are millions of unresolved issues that could leave a person angry with no perceived outlet, so that the anger becomes aggression. They find temporary catharsis or comfort in things that let them express their aggression inwardly or virtually, but for *SOME* of those people, it only ultimately feeds their violent tendencies and encourages them to do worse things.
Ted Bundy said that his serial killing began with normal Playboy-type pornography. He went from there to hardcore, to violent porn, to rape to ritualized murder. The porn was enough at first, then he "needed" more. The same with feeding aggression: for a few people, sometimes the game or movie or music isn't enough any more. That's when someone gets hurt.
Slashdot Mirror
At whatever age parents determine that their child is mature.
You're the one looking to draw an arbitrary line and say that 17-year-olds aren't children, and then you ask me to set an arbitrary line?
Some kids can handle at 13 what others can't at 17. According to my father, I was one of the former; at 12-13 years of age, he believed I was emotionally mature enough to cope with the real world and begin to loosen the reins. My brother, however, was kept under much stricter rules until he was 16.
Do you hover over your kids every second that they're doing homework? Are you aware just how much homework today requires a computer?
Choice 1: Teach them about the internet, then hope the lesson sank in and look the other way.
Choice 2: Hover over them every second they're on the computer to make sure they never break the rules or do anything dangerous.
Choice 3: Teach them and use monitoring software to routinely check up on their activities and see if they're doing anything wrong that you need to address.
I work at a school district. I see 17-year-olds all the time. Yes, they are children. They act without considering the consequences to themselves or others. They are irresponsible and generally stupid, with a few exceptions.
As soon as a kid shoots up a school, people ask "Where were the parents? Why didn't they see the problem?" We're very quick to point the finger at parents when something goes wrong. And then I see posts like this asserting that parents shouldn't be able to monitor their childrens' activities.
Fifty years ago, parents didn't have to watch so closely. There was far less media coming into the home, and what was available was far easier to monitor (and far more regulated, as it was all under the watchful eye of the FCC).
Now, we've got the internet. We've got a half-dozen game consoles. We've got cable and satellite television, dirt-cheap movies and music available for purchase, and a barrage of information everywhere we look. For parents to keep the same level of attention on what their kids are doing, they have to use tools like "spyware" (you know, software that lets them know what THEIR computers are being used for) to keep track of their kids and look for dangerous behavior.
I've got to say, though, that I object to nanny cams unless there is a very specific reason to have one. If you smell pot in your living room, maybe it's a good time to put in a camera to see if your kid is using illegal drugs. But putting up a camera *just in case* is paranoid.
Parents have to monitor their kids. Every generation has done so in some fashion. So long as kids know the rules, know they are being watched, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't let my kids go certain places in the city without me being around because it's risky for them; the same goes for the internet.
"Congress" isn't considering taxing e-mail that we've ever heard. One Republican is getting all hyperbolic and trying to grab headlines (quite successfully) by exaggerating the issue the way politicians are prone to doing.
:)
Of course, this immediately prompts a swarm of "lying Republicans" posts...but hey, this is the internet. All Republicans lie here. Apparently Democrats don't.
Me, I prefer to rant about lying politicians
What, you mean you've never loost anything?
The use of simple diagrams illustrates our society's reduced capacity to comprehend English. It's easier and cheaper to print a single simple diagram than to print a half-dozen languages. Add globalization to that, and it makes far more sense; you can print a single diagram for the entire world, or you can print dozens of multi-language instruction sheets to suit specific regions.
Another problem is, as you hinted, a reduced attention span. Modern television programming with its constant camera changes--I've seen shows that average a camera angle or scene change every eight or ten seconds--and computers have taught us that information should be presented in easy-to-digest 10-second bites. Newspapers are learning that people spend roughly half the time on any given article than they did before, and most people didn't finish the articles before.
We've created a headline society of incomplete information. I think this contributes a great deal to the knee-jerk reactions we see to so many hot topics where things are boiled down to two polarized side with no moderate middle ground to be found in popular sentiment. The two-party system in the U.S. is a shining example of how our society works most of the time. You're either with us or against us, neutrality or compromise is not an option.
At work, I deal with the software used to help kids who are struggling with reading a lot. Presently, all it does is give them a section of text, let them listen to recorded readings of it, and then have them try to emulate what they heard. It does work for a lot of kids, but it's slow going.
What I see in this new method of formatting is that the sentences are being being broken up very similar to how their natural spoken rhythm would flow, making it much easier for a struggling student to read aloud. It shouldn't be a crutch, but I can picture a kid being shown the entire written text, and then this version of it. Have the kid read the Live Ink version aloud into a microphone and play back the recording for him to hear how it sounds, then try to do that with the "normal" text.
This could really be something huge for education. I'm about to go talk to our special programs director about it, this looks like it could be very useful.
I, for one, welcome our spikey-headed Butterfinger-eating overlords.
Democrats vote for YOU!
Hmm...emphasis is wrong...
Democrats vote FOR you!
I'm a Christian who believes in evolution. I'm actually working on a series of articles on Christianity's relationship with science and my *opinion* on what the Church is doing wrong right now that is hurting our message.
One of the key points I'm hoping to raise is the fact that Christians largely do not understand the principles of science and the meanings of many of the words it uses. In our collective ignorance, the Church is often railing against things that don't mean anything close to what we think it means.
It's the revisions that make it science.
Some scientists--and physicists can be especially guilty of this in my experience--place too much faith in their own knowledge and accept the current findings of science as absulute fact. They forget that science is fluid, always changing as new information enters the equation and each answer spawns new questions. Call it arrogance if you want; I think it's something less than that.
In any case, what's the alternative? "God did it"? That may very well be true, but it doesn't answer the question of "how did it happen?"...which is what science seeks to explain.
(except for TA which has very little depth compared to pretty much any RTS)
The unit base was massive but not exactly inspired. What made TA great was the game mechanics. Weapons were no loner 100% accurate. There was no unstoppable weapon (nukes anyone).
[Eve]'s subscriber base is very weak in comparison.
So? Popularity doesn't make a game great. The Sims has outsold StarCraft almost 2 to 1...does that make it a better game?
Starcarft may be "dumbed down" (or as I like to say: "not uneccessarily convoluted with a unintuitive controls, features, and options")
None of the games I listed have any of that.
StarCraft is a clickfest. Watch the Koreans play sometimes; it's just absurd. I've seen fighting games with less potential for wrist trauma. That's not strategy. The game engine itself doesn't exactly promote strategy...the terrain barely has any effect on combat except to make chokepoints for the land units. Air units don't move like they're flying...they just hover there.
You want to talk about intuitive? Intuitive is when I move a marine out of the path of a slow-moving projectile, he doesn't get hit. Intuitive is NOT seeing that projectile strike the ground where he was standing, and still manage to injure him.
Four RTS games that are better than StarCraft:
Company of Heroes
Total Annihilation
Supreme Commander
Rome: Total War
Why? Because they don't give you a dumbed down arcade-ish "strategy" game that is full of gimmicks and driven by a rock-paper-scissors unit system. StarCraft is the Counter-Strike of RTS: popular, fun, deeper than it appears at first glance, but FAR from being the best in its genre at anything.
If by "short time" you mean "several weeks at least" I'll agree. Back in the 90s there were WAY too many apps with memory leaks and other stupid problems that never should have existed, and Windows fell victim to them.
backwards compatibility is part of the idiot-friendly "feature" set. It's so that Granny's PrintShop 95 still works ten years later, because she'd rather just not have a computer than buy a new copy of PrintShop.
You had a chance until you posted on slashdot.
Microsoft is insecure because they try to juggle security, performance, and being idiot-friendly. Windows is largely the dominant OS because people found it easier to use and more available than the alternatives in the mid-90s when the computing boom took place.
Now, MS is having to balance coddling those users who don't know jack about their OS and keeping the OS secure. Added security generally means more steps (or the same number of more complicated steps) to accomplish the same task.
I would contend that it was Windows' lack of security that made PCs accessible to the masses in the first place, in that during the 90s Windows was the *only* operating system for the "I just want it to work" crowd. Unless you want to argue that OS 7/8/9 was equally functional...in which case I'd argue that you haven't had to deal with it enough and didn't live in an area where Mac software simply wasn't sold in the days prior to commonplace broadband.
It's also funny for anyone who remembers the days when there truly weren't any games for the Mac.
Okay, there were a few...but the fact is, until OSX few developers wanted to mess with it.
Or he could be implying that there's no such thing as a Mac gamer.
d =118
http://www.roosterteeth.com/archive/episode.php?i
Star Trek also featured a planet which evolved a Roman Empire that never fell, and Spock found it logical.
Then Spock said it was most improbable that the Nazi party would arise on another planet the same way it had on Earth.
But when they found a world on which the cold war had gone hot and the US flag and constitution were trotted out at the end of the show, they didn't bat an eye.
Half of Star Trek should have been Sliders episodes.
Once you export something, it stays exported. You don't get to count it every year just because it was made in your country.
Tell that to the piles of broken controllers in the dump :p
Seriously, I'd like to see some statistics. I'd wager you just made that up on the spot, since you didn't bother to even reference an article you read somewhere once. I'd also wager that gamers are no more or less violent than the general population. Maybe ten years ago, when gaming was more exclusive to certain social groups, I'd have agreed with you, but these days it's so pervasive that there are gamers in every segment of society.
Some pot might have worked wonders for the kid though. Mellow would certainly have been preferable to rampaging.
A person does not become violent because of media they choose to be exposed to. They choose the media because its violence appeals to them. Any number of things could turn someone violent; there are millions of unresolved issues that could leave a person angry with no perceived outlet, so that the anger becomes aggression. They find temporary catharsis or comfort in things that let them express their aggression inwardly or virtually, but for *SOME* of those people, it only ultimately feeds their violent tendencies and encourages them to do worse things.
Ted Bundy said that his serial killing began with normal Playboy-type pornography. He went from there to hardcore, to violent porn, to rape to ritualized murder. The porn was enough at first, then he "needed" more. The same with feeding aggression: for a few people, sometimes the game or movie or music isn't enough any more. That's when someone gets hurt.