"The Oklahoma Senate unanimously approved a new violent-games bill on Monday that makes it a crime to sell violent video games to children under 18"
Was it not a crime already? Here in the UK the same rating system for movies is applied to certain video games, thus a game rated 18 cannot be sold to anyone under this age. Supplying GTA to a minor can land the shop keeper in a lot of trouble.
Do you work for RWE Npower? We have exactly the same policy on the client site I'm working on at the moment and it drives me mad. Pretty much everyone I know writes their password down, and its always a pain to think of a new one. Even though I try to be security concious i only have about three passwords, and i rotate them myself, and occasionally change the upper/lower case or the number. The old policy of changing every 3 months worked much better.
All I do is click on the icon and it launches the application! It obviously doesn't do any of that fancy stuff the article mentions or the pixies would tell me!
Universal Binaries, The Dynamic Linker, Using otool? pah!
I always wondered why the Americans refer to it as football when you spend most of the time carrying the ball. At least in football (as in what the rest of the world plays) you use your foot to control the ball...
"People learn about new software from reviews and co-workers/friends"
This is true for us in the IT community who have geeky friends and read magazines with technology reviews, but the majority of us techies have tried Firefox and decided we like it and told our friends, or have decided we don't like it and use something else.
I see no problem with advertising to reach a new audience who may otherwise not be exposed to a potential alternative that may bring them some benefits. They gained their main market share through word of mouth, this was the obvious next stage.
I'm sorry but I think the Sony comment was a little harsh. I totally detest what Sony have done, and I have since refused to buy Sony CDs, but to blame Amazon is just plain petty. Every online and offline mainstream CD dealer under the sun will stock those Sony CDs, before an after the scare.
I'm not one for sticking up for big business (yes, I'm one of the socialist liberal communist terrorists you all seem to hate these days) but I can honestly say I've never had reason to complain with Amazon.
I had a C64 as a child, and I too remember games loading from tape with flashing screens/screen borders. IIRC correctly though, it wasn't all games. Certain games had programs called "Turbo Loaders" that did fancy things with compression to make games load quicker, and to show these were working (and mostly for eye candy I'm guessing) the screen flashed with multi coloured lines.
Though when a game could take 30 mins to load, I'm relucant to use the term turbo. I guess I was spoiled when I got my 1541 disk drive for xmas one year...
I don't think you deserve to be modded a troll at all. You raise very valid points. I do myself strongly believe in freedom and believe that our views are the 'right' ones. People naturally desire freedom, which is why I'm so worried and angered by the rights and liberties both the UK and US governments are stripping away from their citizens.
My point wasn't to say "Lets not judge them", it was to question on the phrase "Ordinary Criminal" when they have different views on what constitues a criminal.
And yes, the Chinese Government does have different values/beliefs and in our eyes they are wrong. In my eyes they are wrong, but they are their beliefs.
That is the most shocking thing I have read since hearing that protests are now banned outside parliament. Your country was founded on such amazing principles and values, it's a shame they're being eroded too.
I do agree with you to be honest. I stated "I hope we don't" and these days this is false hope. I did read the story of the anti-war Mom and it shook me, but I'm a Brit and I have a similar tale from my side of the pond. An elderly gentleman was ejected from the Labour Party Conference last year and charged under terrorism(!) legislation for shouting "Nonsense!" during a speech by Jack Straw.
Hewas released and charges dropped when it hit the news. But so much for freedom of speech and being able to speak out against the Government in both countries!
'Yahoo! certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals'
But anyone who attempts to join this party is an oridinaty criminal in the eyes of the Chinese authorities. It's us in the west who do not see political dissidents (at least I hope we don't...) as criminals.
I certainly don't condone what Yahoo has done or the policies of the Chinese Government, I'm just trying to point out a possible reason it was done. Maybe we should take a step back and realise our beliefs aren't everyone's elses.
You have an interesting point there. Last year I bought a Sony (sorry, pre rootkit, i'm sorry!) MP3 player here in the UK. I was quite disappointed to discover that even at maximum volume it was very quiet, but some googling soon found out why. A recently introduced EU directive requires manufacturers of personal audio devices to limit the volume to a 'safe' limit.
Fortunately for me my googling found instructions on how to access the system menu and disabling this limiting. It is also worth noting this is only for EU countries, the US and Japanese models had this limiting disabled by default.
Just when did being liberal become a bad thing?! I'm getting damned fed up with this word being used as an insult or being blamed for everything wrong with the world. It's going to end up demonised like the word 'communist' in America - peopel will forget its real meaning and just associate it with 'evilness'. Gah.
This wasn't my intention at all. There are many, many well educated Christians. This comment was not meant to slate creationists or ID supporters, merely to say I've been brought up through the education system to believe in observable science and scientific methods, which is directly opposed to ideas based purely on faith. Maybe this is lacking on my part, but the comment was in no way meant to imply creationists cannot be well educated.
This was kind of my point. Looking back on my heading I almost sound like I'm on my high horse and speaking down to people, but this wasn't my intention at all.
As I said, I consider myself quite well educated, and I'm certainly an athiest as are the majority of people I socialise with, but I think reading this article was a good way to show me that not everyone is like me. I'm very proud of the secular qualities of the country I live in, I now just wonder if everyone else is.
But for the record, I can't think of a single person I know who actually goes to church. So maybe more people just say they are religious than actually are?
Yes I agree that Britain has very religious roots, and yes the Queen is the head of the Church of England. But there's no requirement for our Prime Minister to be Christian, or any of our MPs. I don't have to swear my allegiance to God at school every morning.
You're right about the Royal Family and religion, it all stems back a long way into our history. But the vast majority of modern Brits, religious or not, believe that the church has no right intefering in state affairs. Hence why we're one of the most secular states in Europe.
I totally agree, except with your sex reference. The others are man made, sex is natural. In fact there would be no humans without sex to create the organisation of which you speak.
Are you American by any chance? Demonising sex seems to be an American peculiarity I've never fully understood...
And i bet they're both just cut and pasted from a press release;)
Hell, it could even be an automated process to replace key words and phrases with synonyms!
But I think Google will alienate a large percentage of its user base. People started to use Google because it was clean. Even with the introduction of text ads, the site managed to remain clear. Normal banner ads will just make the site look cheap and cluttered.
Maybe time to find a new search engine. Anyone any suggestions?
Slashdot Mirror
Was it not a crime already? Here in the UK the same rating system for movies is applied to certain video games, thus a game rated 18 cannot be sold to anyone under this age. Supplying GTA to a minor can land the shop keeper in a lot of trouble.
Does the US rating system differ?
Do you work for RWE Npower? We have exactly the same policy on the client site I'm working on at the moment and it drives me mad. Pretty much everyone I know writes their password down, and its always a pain to think of a new one. Even though I try to be security concious i only have about three passwords, and i rotate them myself, and occasionally change the upper/lower case or the number. The old policy of changing every 3 months worked much better.
You generally need to add syrup or the writing will fade after a while. And remember not to burn the waffle or again the text will be illegible.
Oh everything's stolen these days. Why the fax machine is nothing more than a waffle iron with a phone attached!
Universal Binaries, The Dynamic Linker, Using otool? pah!
Do they do one in Burberry?
I always wondered why the Americans refer to it as football when you spend most of the time carrying the ball. At least in football (as in what the rest of the world plays) you use your foot to control the ball...
What's flaimbait? ;)
This is true for us in the IT community who have geeky friends and read magazines with technology reviews, but the majority of us techies have tried Firefox and decided we like it and told our friends, or have decided we don't like it and use something else.
I see no problem with advertising to reach a new audience who may otherwise not be exposed to a potential alternative that may bring them some benefits. They gained their main market share through word of mouth, this was the obvious next stage.
It sounds like something AOL would call their customers, and anyone who uses the term should be shot...
I'm not one for sticking up for big business (yes, I'm one of the socialist liberal communist terrorists you all seem to hate these days) but I can honestly say I've never had reason to complain with Amazon.
Though when a game could take 30 mins to load, I'm relucant to use the term turbo. I guess I was spoiled when I got my 1541 disk drive for xmas one year...
My point wasn't to say "Lets not judge them", it was to question on the phrase "Ordinary Criminal" when they have different views on what constitues a criminal.
And yes, the Chinese Government does have different values/beliefs and in our eyes they are wrong. In my eyes they are wrong, but they are their beliefs.
Hewas released and charges dropped when it hit the news. But so much for freedom of speech and being able to speak out against the Government in both countries!
But anyone who attempts to join this party is an oridinaty criminal in the eyes of the Chinese authorities. It's us in the west who do not see political dissidents (at least I hope we don't...) as criminals.
I certainly don't condone what Yahoo has done or the policies of the Chinese Government, I'm just trying to point out a possible reason it was done. Maybe we should take a step back and realise our beliefs aren't everyone's elses.
Fortunately for me my googling found instructions on how to access the system menu and disabling this limiting. It is also worth noting this is only for EU countries, the US and Japanese models had this limiting disabled by default.
Just when did being liberal become a bad thing?! I'm getting damned fed up with this word being used as an insult or being blamed for everything wrong with the world. It's going to end up demonised like the word 'communist' in America - peopel will forget its real meaning and just associate it with 'evilness'. Gah.
This wasn't my intention at all. There are many, many well educated Christians. This comment was not meant to slate creationists or ID supporters, merely to say I've been brought up through the education system to believe in observable science and scientific methods, which is directly opposed to ideas based purely on faith. Maybe this is lacking on my part, but the comment was in no way meant to imply creationists cannot be well educated.
As I said, I consider myself quite well educated, and I'm certainly an athiest as are the majority of people I socialise with, but I think reading this article was a good way to show me that not everyone is like me. I'm very proud of the secular qualities of the country I live in, I now just wonder if everyone else is.
But for the record, I can't think of a single person I know who actually goes to church. So maybe more people just say they are religious than actually are?
Lol, you're right their. I was a stupid typo. Thing is I get really annoyed when people make spelling mistake in stories. Talk about hypocracy!
You're right about the Royal Family and religion, it all stems back a long way into our history. But the vast majority of modern Brits, religious or not, believe that the church has no right intefering in state affairs. Hence why we're one of the most secular states in Europe.
Are you American by any chance? Demonising sex seems to be an American peculiarity I've never fully understood...
And i bet they're both just cut and pasted from a press release ;)
Hell, it could even be an automated process to replace key words and phrases with synonyms!
Maybe time to find a new search engine. Anyone any suggestions?