I received a similar detention a few years back for using Opera on a school computer, which happened to be pre-installed somehow. It was annoying, but hardly an outrage. The filtering software the school used (Bess) didn't work with Opera. Also, they didn't want people searching around the C drive (as I did) or installing new software on school computers.
I fully agree. How inconsiderate of teachers to get sick, have family members die, or have other personal issues affect them during the 180 day period they're supposed to be working rather than neatly condensed into the summer.
"Only a sliver of the population really gain from it"
"the majority end up getting cheaper crap at WalMart"
Sounds like more than a sliver of the population gains from it to me....
(Feel free to do the same to this.)
Ah, Slashdot, where pointing out that trolls are mean is considered "insightful."
If I told you the GNAA is not actually an advocacy organization for homesexual black men, but rather a few fat guys bothering people on the internet, would I be modded informative?
When they first came out, you could buy lifetime service instead of paying monthly. I have a Series 1 Tivo with Lifetime Service. For awhile they had a deal where you could transfer the license to Series 3, too.
It's true that the government subsidizes corn to ethanol conversion (and corn itself) to a ridiculous degree, but it's balanced by incentives against sugar-to-ethanol conversion. (If we stopped keeping sugar prices artificially high, and especially if we let Cuban sugar in, it would be amazingly cost-effective.)
Well, the constitution as it is now does. This is one of those things we should have considered before passing the 16th amendment. Before that, all "direct" taxes had to be apportioned among the states according to population, which got rid of this problem. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
If the AO rating is intended to keep the game away from 10-year-olds, what is the M rating for? This is a horrible and ineffective system. Games like RE4 should no more be in the hands of 10-year-olds than AO titles. Looking at the way ratings have been used, it's pretty clear the AO rating existed so the manufacturers and retailers had something to point to when dealing with crazy people like Jack Thompson attempting to use legal means to control them.
I have mixed opinions on whether/how to prevent children from playing certain games, but solutions that prevent adults from playing such games are not acceptable.
I think the term violence-porn makes little sense. Unless it's intended for people to masturbate to, it's not porn. In your sense of the word, it wouldn't be inappropriate to call restaurant ads food porn. But more importantly, calling these games violence porn is just making use of America's porn pathology. I think we should be much more ambivalent about youth being exposed to violence than to sex.
And why couldn't Nintendo allow the game but refuse to take their profit cut, or donate it to some charity? They wouldn't be taking a loss, as they'd have no expense in the process.
I really don't think we're going to reconcile our opinions here, because I don't see Nintendo as a children's toy company. A children's toy company would not have released the first manhunt, or any of the other M-rated games. I don't think Nintendo wants to be pidgeon-holed as one, either, but if so they're doing a good job of it.
The thing is, the AO policy didn't mean nearly as much when games weren't being rated AO. M is supposed to mean 17+, and AO 18+. There is essentially no difference between the two. Effectively, for console games AO has not existed as anything more than something companies can point to and say "we're responsible, no need to step in and regulate us." So the policy has stayed the same, but its implications haven't.
Nor am I really "boycotting" Nintendo. It would be pretty futile, because as you outlined, I don't have many options. I don't agree with what they're doing, but the reason I'm just not buying another Nintendo system if they keep acting like this, is the paucity of mature titles. I think that if Nintendo's trying to appeal to everyone, this is not the way to do it. They're just going to dig themselves deeper into the hole of only being considered a system for kids.
I probably won't be buying sony or microsoft consoles, either. I don't complain about them because I don't care about them. Neither one is really worth it to me, compared to computer games, which I can play free of hypocrisy using my unlicensed copy of windows.
The AO rating was not inevitable, and the AO rating is not being used to limit sales to adults. It is effectively being used as a covert ban on games. Ostenisbly it's all voluntary, but a large motivation behind voluntary ratings in this country is the threat of legislation being enacted if politicians don't think it goes far enough.
I'm not asking for nintendo to sell snuff films, or even this game. I'm asking them to let it be manufactured for their system. As a libertarian, I agree that they should have the right to not sell games they disapprove of, or help with their development. (Although, as I understand it, 3rd party developers really only need console manufacturer approval because of copyprotection, whose circumvention is outlawed by the DMCA. That is something I strongly disapprove of.)
But I, as a nintendo customer, am angry. I will probably not be buying another nintendo system after this, no matter how I much I like the interface. I hope other like-minded Nintendo customers will express similar concerns.
Nintendo is being fully hypocritical, too, which annoys me further.
In an email a rep said: "That's why the ESRB provides ratings to help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it. As stated on Nintendo.com, Nintendo does not allow any AO-rated content on its systems." These statements are not reconcilable. I don't want the game for PC, I don't play this sort of game on the PC. I'd like to play it on my wii, which is a lot more fun for the few decent titles available.
This is a tangent, but:
"You don't strangle someone by pushing buttons, you strangle them by strangling them."
No, you strangle someone by moving a wiimote through the air. (Which is to say, you have a slightly more releastic simulation.) Probably closer to strangling somone than pressing buttons on the spectrum of doing so, but nowhere near actually strangling a person.
I am extremely disappointed with Nintendo for this decision, as I've been looking forward to playing this game on my wii for some time. Nintendo systems get criticized a lot for their lack of titles not aimed at 8-year-olds. Now, a new and probably very popular one prepares to come out for the wii, which is lacking in non-party game titles in general, and Nintendo blocks it.
Nintendo, do you want to have the best, most entertaining system? Or are you going to base your sales strategy on soccer mom's who don't allow their children to purchase their desired system on account of their irrational paranoia? I skipped the gamecube for that reason, but I had higher expectations for the wii.
If "different content is meant for different audiences," shouldn't you be providing content for ALL audiences? Or at least not actively suppressing 3rd parties from supplying it?
It's not as if people who are offended by the content are forced to buy the game with the system, or that children can buy it on their own. As you said (and contradicted yourself by including) in your explanation, "that's why the ESRB provides ratings to help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it." Let me repeat that. "To help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it." Not to cause console manufacturers to actively prevent their adult customers from buying a game whose contents they full understand.
Virus is a latin word (originally just meaning slime or ooze, but I've seen latin-english dictionaries list it as virus-virus.) Viri does mean men (virus does not mean man) but it also is the correct plural of virus.
The summaries really should explain these things, I hate having to RTFA.
From TFA:
At first glance, such a power transfer is reminiscent of relatively commonplace magnetic induction, such as is used in power transformers, which contain coils that transmit power to each other over very short distances. An electric current running in a sending coil induces another current in a receiving coil. The two coils are very close, but they do not touch. However, this behavior changes dramatically when the distance between the coils is increased. As Karalis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, points out, "Here is where the magic of the resonant coupling comes about. The usual non-resonant magnetic induction would be almost 1 million times less efficient in this particular system."
(I created this account mainly because I had time to kill at my job last summer and trolling seemed a good way to do so, etc. And really, having a low UID is more something to be ashamed than proud of.)
In some ways you're right, but there's more than that. I first heard of Wittgenstein on the cesspool that is &totse, of all places. And Thelema may not be very important, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in a chain of things that lead me back to books like The Golden Bough that are certainly culturally relevant.
Also, trolling can involve real philosophy, if you do it correctly. Especially with amusingly flawed and passionate subjects like randroids.
This is a two-edged sword. Personally, I would never have used the computer so much if it were an a public area, simply because I wouldn't feel comfortable exploring things.
When I was in 5th grade or so, we got a family computer that we kept in a spare bedroom, and when I was in 7th I got a laptop for christmas. Almost everything I know is due either to the internet directly or books I first learned of on the internet. True, I spent alot of time looking at various sorts of pornography my parents wouldn't have approved of, but the greater amount of time I spent more pursuing various philosophies and random information is responsible for any intellectual character I now possess.
People always bring that up, but it's not really true. Comparisons to the past are just as likely to lead you astray and give you overconfidence as they are to help you correctly analyze the situation. Hegel had it right when he said "the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history."
Slashdot Mirror
I received a similar detention a few years back for using Opera on a school computer, which happened to be pre-installed somehow. It was annoying, but hardly an outrage. The filtering software the school used (Bess) didn't work with Opera. Also, they didn't want people searching around the C drive (as I did) or installing new software on school computers.
Try googling "terminal velocity," retard.
Unfortunately, arson is also a crime, so I really have no say in what they do in my name.
I fully agree. How inconsiderate of teachers to get sick, have family members die, or have other personal issues affect them during the 180 day period they're supposed to be working rather than neatly condensed into the summer.
I was under the impression that most tor exit node IPs were b& from slashdot...
I think Lunix is exactly what he means.
"Only a sliver of the population really gain from it" "the majority end up getting cheaper crap at WalMart" Sounds like more than a sliver of the population gains from it to me....
(Feel free to do the same to this.) Ah, Slashdot, where pointing out that trolls are mean is considered "insightful." If I told you the GNAA is not actually an advocacy organization for homesexual black men, but rather a few fat guys bothering people on the internet, would I be modded informative?
When they first came out, you could buy lifetime service instead of paying monthly. I have a Series 1 Tivo with Lifetime Service. For awhile they had a deal where you could transfer the license to Series 3, too.
It's true that the government subsidizes corn to ethanol conversion (and corn itself) to a ridiculous degree, but it's balanced by incentives against sugar-to-ethanol conversion. (If we stopped keeping sugar prices artificially high, and especially if we let Cuban sugar in, it would be amazingly cost-effective.)
Well, the constitution as it is now does. This is one of those things we should have considered before passing the 16th amendment. Before that, all "direct" taxes had to be apportioned among the states according to population, which got rid of this problem. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
If the AO rating is intended to keep the game away from 10-year-olds, what is the M rating for? This is a horrible and ineffective system. Games like RE4 should no more be in the hands of 10-year-olds than AO titles. Looking at the way ratings have been used, it's pretty clear the AO rating existed so the manufacturers and retailers had something to point to when dealing with crazy people like Jack Thompson attempting to use legal means to control them.
I have mixed opinions on whether/how to prevent children from playing certain games, but solutions that prevent adults from playing such games are not acceptable.
I think the term violence-porn makes little sense. Unless it's intended for people to masturbate to, it's not porn. In your sense of the word, it wouldn't be inappropriate to call restaurant ads food porn. But more importantly, calling these games violence porn is just making use of America's porn pathology. I think we should be much more ambivalent about youth being exposed to violence than to sex.
And why couldn't Nintendo allow the game but refuse to take their profit cut, or donate it to some charity? They wouldn't be taking a loss, as they'd have no expense in the process.
I really don't think we're going to reconcile our opinions here, because I don't see Nintendo as a children's toy company. A children's toy company would not have released the first manhunt, or any of the other M-rated games. I don't think Nintendo wants to be pidgeon-holed as one, either, but if so they're doing a good job of it.
The thing is, the AO policy didn't mean nearly as much when games weren't being rated AO. M is supposed to mean 17+, and AO 18+. There is essentially no difference between the two. Effectively, for console games AO has not existed as anything more than something companies can point to and say "we're responsible, no need to step in and regulate us." So the policy has stayed the same, but its implications haven't. Nor am I really "boycotting" Nintendo. It would be pretty futile, because as you outlined, I don't have many options. I don't agree with what they're doing, but the reason I'm just not buying another Nintendo system if they keep acting like this, is the paucity of mature titles. I think that if Nintendo's trying to appeal to everyone, this is not the way to do it. They're just going to dig themselves deeper into the hole of only being considered a system for kids. I probably won't be buying sony or microsoft consoles, either. I don't complain about them because I don't care about them. Neither one is really worth it to me, compared to computer games, which I can play free of hypocrisy using my unlicensed copy of windows.
The AO rating was not inevitable, and the AO rating is not being used to limit sales to adults. It is effectively being used as a covert ban on games. Ostenisbly it's all voluntary, but a large motivation behind voluntary ratings in this country is the threat of legislation being enacted if politicians don't think it goes far enough. I'm not asking for nintendo to sell snuff films, or even this game. I'm asking them to let it be manufactured for their system. As a libertarian, I agree that they should have the right to not sell games they disapprove of, or help with their development. (Although, as I understand it, 3rd party developers really only need console manufacturer approval because of copyprotection, whose circumvention is outlawed by the DMCA. That is something I strongly disapprove of.) But I, as a nintendo customer, am angry. I will probably not be buying another nintendo system after this, no matter how I much I like the interface. I hope other like-minded Nintendo customers will express similar concerns. Nintendo is being fully hypocritical, too, which annoys me further. In an email a rep said: "That's why the ESRB provides ratings to help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it. As stated on Nintendo.com, Nintendo does not allow any AO-rated content on its systems." These statements are not reconcilable. I don't want the game for PC, I don't play this sort of game on the PC. I'd like to play it on my wii, which is a lot more fun for the few decent titles available. This is a tangent, but: "You don't strangle someone by pushing buttons, you strangle them by strangling them." No, you strangle someone by moving a wiimote through the air. (Which is to say, you have a slightly more releastic simulation.) Probably closer to strangling somone than pressing buttons on the spectrum of doing so, but nowhere near actually strangling a person.
I am extremely disappointed with Nintendo for this decision, as I've been looking forward to playing this game on my wii for some time. Nintendo systems get criticized a lot for their lack of titles not aimed at 8-year-olds. Now, a new and probably very popular one prepares to come out for the wii, which is lacking in non-party game titles in general, and Nintendo blocks it. Nintendo, do you want to have the best, most entertaining system? Or are you going to base your sales strategy on soccer mom's who don't allow their children to purchase their desired system on account of their irrational paranoia? I skipped the gamecube for that reason, but I had higher expectations for the wii. If "different content is meant for different audiences," shouldn't you be providing content for ALL audiences? Or at least not actively suppressing 3rd parties from supplying it? It's not as if people who are offended by the content are forced to buy the game with the system, or that children can buy it on their own. As you said (and contradicted yourself by including) in your explanation, "that's why the ESRB provides ratings to help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it." Let me repeat that. "To help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it." Not to cause console manufacturers to actively prevent their adult customers from buying a game whose contents they full understand.
Haha. Oh wow. Let's think about the sample size of your "study" (anecdote). And then ignore your metrics, because we've already laughed enough.
Prescriptivist linguists are assholes; STFU.
Virus is a latin word (originally just meaning slime or ooze, but I've seen latin-english dictionaries list it as virus-virus.) Viri does mean men (virus does not mean man) but it also is the correct plural of virus.
The summaries really should explain these things, I hate having to RTFA. From TFA: At first glance, such a power transfer is reminiscent of relatively commonplace magnetic induction, such as is used in power transformers, which contain coils that transmit power to each other over very short distances. An electric current running in a sending coil induces another current in a receiving coil. The two coils are very close, but they do not touch. However, this behavior changes dramatically when the distance between the coils is increased. As Karalis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, points out, "Here is where the magic of the resonant coupling comes about. The usual non-resonant magnetic induction would be almost 1 million times less efficient in this particular system."
(I created this account mainly because I had time to kill at my job last summer and trolling seemed a good way to do so, etc. And really, having a low UID is more something to be ashamed than proud of.) In some ways you're right, but there's more than that. I first heard of Wittgenstein on the cesspool that is &totse, of all places. And Thelema may not be very important, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in a chain of things that lead me back to books like The Golden Bough that are certainly culturally relevant. Also, trolling can involve real philosophy, if you do it correctly. Especially with amusingly flawed and passionate subjects like randroids.
This is a two-edged sword. Personally, I would never have used the computer so much if it were an a public area, simply because I wouldn't feel comfortable exploring things. When I was in 5th grade or so, we got a family computer that we kept in a spare bedroom, and when I was in 7th I got a laptop for christmas. Almost everything I know is due either to the internet directly or books I first learned of on the internet. True, I spent alot of time looking at various sorts of pornography my parents wouldn't have approved of, but the greater amount of time I spent more pursuing various philosophies and random information is responsible for any intellectual character I now possess.
Upgrade to Vigor.
I think what he meant to say was that stupid educators do not acknoweledge six-sided cubic time.
Considering snakes are technically tetrapods, that's not a very useful outlook.
People always bring that up, but it's not really true. Comparisons to the past are just as likely to lead you astray and give you overconfidence as they are to help you correctly analyze the situation. Hegel had it right when he said "the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history."