"An e-book reader is not really any more convenient to carry around than a paperback book... The only real advantage is the ability to carry around your entire library with you."
"I see no proof of this. Apple responds relatively quickly to security holes and releases regular patches and updates."
To be fair, this is so silly that it should never have been a security problem. This shouldn't be measured by how quick they fix it, but rather how long they let it last.
"Apple's overzealous moderation of their own forums is well known, and unfortunate. But it has nothing to do with how well they manage their OS security and how well they respond to exploits."
I don't think you entirely got his point. The less an exploit is known, the more dangerous it is. Microsoft wouldn't get away with this, Apple shouldn't either.
"Yes, we all know, there is now a windows service that initiates at boot and monitors the system for a crash that would initiate a BSOD, so instead this service reboots the system..."
I'm amused by this myth that Windows users wouldn't notice their computer rebooting.
Face it, the BSOD (or reboot, as you've re-labled it to maintain your grip on zealotry) virtually went extinct with Windows 2000. With XP, it only improved. If you wish to sit there in denial of that, that's fine, but at least use rationale that's a little more plausible than "Your computer frequently reboots only you don't notice."
Don't get me wrong, it's fun to think about. I mean, if Windows could reboot, put all your apps and windows back, and restore all of the unsaved data, that'd be pretty slick.
"It doesn't randomly change its tolerance.... "...intervention may be more frequent. For the same reason, and because of the different way in which they are experienced, the Board may take a more precautionary approach in the case of those digital games which are covered by the Video Recordings Act."
Uh huh. It's very stable and predictable, unless you're making a video game, in which case, they're predictably and scientifically more 'precautionary'. That's why Rockstar was able to interpret these wonderfully clear rules and avoid all this development expense.
"It is consistent, measurable and definable to the extent that it can be for subjective material. Obviously there are borderline cases where context and intensity of scenes can push a decision one way or another but I'm sure you'd know all this if you bothered to read the BBFC's own website."
And if you had bothered to read... anything.. about this topic, you'd see what the problem is. Heck, you even alluded to part of it in your own post.
"Just because one game was rated 18 in 2003 doesnt mean its sequel in 2007 will be, especially (as happened) the guidelines have changed in the interim."
Umm.. yeah. Don't complain about me not reading stuff if you're not gonna read what I said.
"If you don't like the new movies, your not special around here, but I want to remember a time when Star Wars ment something. When Star Wars was like the coolest thing ever."
I don't see how you really can. We've got prequels and special editions to wade through. (Amusingly, that's why that joke in particular was funny.)
"I'm not sure the importance of this "confirmation" ranks as front page news. Honestly, I'd much rather see some, any theory of our current climate changes proven. At least then we might be able to start effectively making some changes. For that matter, proving the theory of cold fusion would go a long way to improving our lives."
Hey, that's fine. But the guys working on the aurora aren't the same guys working on cold fusion. It's like throwing aerospace engineers into cancer research. We don't focus our energies like that. (I'd argue that we're better off that way. Diversity has ways of helping out other fields...) On top of that, something has to happen before it makes the front page news. It's not like cold fusion was bumped out for this story.
"Bah, I guess I'm a little overly critical at the moment...I'm having a bad week."
"I'm wondering why independent shows haven't started popping up and gaining in popularity over the internet."
They have, but they're few and far between. Despite popular belief, it's not easy to make a good TV sho. Writing and acting actually require a good deal of talent. Set design and construction require a good deal of money and labor. Funding requires faith in your product. It's not like there was a hoarde of independent TV show makers simply waiting for a delivery mechanism. They've had that for at least 5 years, 10 for early adopters.
That said, there have been a couple of successes. This, of course, depends on how you measure success. I'm going simply by positive reaction here, meaning the likelihood is good they'd be able to gain a big audience if they were really on TV. Ninjai had quite a following. It was a Flash animated series that ran in 11 chunks. In the end, it had a lot of people keeping an eye on it. (Pity it has died.) The other.. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a fan made Star Trek TV show. It even managed to get actors from the original series to appear in it. Sadly, there's no way they'll ever make money off it, rights issues etc.
Anyway Im just kind of babbling right now. There are some shows out there, but don't expect an explosion of them. Even if you know what you're doing, it's VERY hard to make an 'episode' of something. That's an underlying reality that won't be overcome by some technological magic bullet.
"That they did this without making me nauseous also deserves some sort of award. I seriously wonder how they did it."
They removed some of the flexibility with the camera that Mario 64 enjoyed. With the camera more or less fixed, you didn't have to do a lot of mental compensation to figure out which direction to go.
If this wasn't a sequel, Rockstar'd have less to bitch about.
"If Rockstar chose to ignore ratings boards and subsequently got banned that's their own stupid fault. It's no good whining about the system as if it's being unfair."
If the BBFC randomly changes its tolerance on violent games, that ain't Rockstar's fault. That actually is unfair.
"As to whether censorship "right" or not, British laws is enacted by democratically elected representatives."
Surely the democratic public would prefer British Law to not spontaneously change, especially when it comes to using vague and inconsistent terms to cause silence.
"Do you think there should be no restrictions on the content of games and movies or not?"
I think if the gov't insists on censorship, it should be consistent, measurable/definable, and not change on a whim. You can censor the word 'fuck' pretty easily, right? That's an easy rule to follow. But if you're allowed to say that, and then the next day you're not, that's not fair. Become an enemy of the gov't, suddenly you're a law-breaker. But, hey, if you want to live in that world, be my guest.
"You're in a power outage posting to slashdot? Do you have a backup satalite link and generator just in case you lose internet for a few hours?"
Cripes. Does this really need to even be asked? He could simply be at a friend's house or at the library or something. Maybe he took his laptop to Starbucks and logged on there. Maybe he has a generator.
"Don't be absurd. Cell phones as a necessity is only true in countries where there is little to no telecommunications infrastructure. In north america one can easily get by without a cell phone, and I do so every single day."
I like how you guys are dumb enough to argue this with two different definitions of 'necessity'.
"Does the average person still have any idea that there is an alternative to Microsoft? I doubt it."
The average user hasn't heard of a Mac? Bullshit.
"In a sense, the battle of OSS against Microsoft is a mirror of the battle of individual freedoms against the tyranny of domination for "the public good" that is going on the U.S. and elsewhere. Right now, the good guys are losing, IMO. But they are not down and far from out."
If OSS really is 'losing' a battle against Microsoft, you might want to let them know they're actually fighting it.
As far as I know the Daily Show is not available on DVD, whereas South Park is. So if you wanted to watch the Daily Show and you didn't have Comedy Central, your only option was to pirate the episodes; making them available for free online made sense. But with South Park you can buy the DVDs, so making them available for free online would only hurt their DVD sales (unless of course the downloads are of very poor quality). Mm maybe. There's a flip-side, though. I don't catch South Park when it's on anymore. Yet, once in a while, my coworkers talk about something funny they saw. That makes me want to see it, but I'm not buying a season of DVDs or waiting until it comes around again to see it. If I could just go download the episode, I may find it amusing. If that happens, I'm more likely to catch the next one when it airs. In short, what I'm saying is that making them available on-line could increase their fan base. Maybe they won't buy the earlier DVDs, but it's likely more will watch the show. That keeps them in business to make new seasons.
It could shorten sales in one aspect and create more in another.
Slashdot doesn't actually go and find news, the news is delivered to it via user submissions. For this reason, it'll never actually 'break' news. It's really more of a blog than a 'news site'.
Disappointing, I know. Frankly, though, it's been like this for YEARS. There's nothing to bitch about, here.
Slashdot Mirror
INSTANT REPLAY:
"An e-book reader is not really any more convenient to carry around than a paperback book... The only real advantage is the ability to carry around your entire library with you."
"Seems to me that if you're concerned about security, you should think very carefully about using a public terminal."
If the real world worked that way there'd be no guard rails.
"I see no proof of this. Apple responds relatively quickly to security holes and releases regular patches and updates."
To be fair, this is so silly that it should never have been a security problem. This shouldn't be measured by how quick they fix it, but rather how long they let it last.
"Apple's overzealous moderation of their own forums is well known, and unfortunate. But it has nothing to do with how well they manage their OS security and how well they respond to exploits."
I don't think you entirely got his point. The less an exploit is known, the more dangerous it is. Microsoft wouldn't get away with this, Apple shouldn't either.
"Yes, we all know, there is now a windows service that initiates at boot and monitors the system for a crash that would initiate a BSOD, so instead this service reboots the system..."
I'm amused by this myth that Windows users wouldn't notice their computer rebooting.
Face it, the BSOD (or reboot, as you've re-labled it to maintain your grip on zealotry) virtually went extinct with Windows 2000. With XP, it only improved. If you wish to sit there in denial of that, that's fine, but at least use rationale that's a little more plausible than "Your computer frequently reboots only you don't notice."
Don't get me wrong, it's fun to think about. I mean, if Windows could reboot, put all your apps and windows back, and restore all of the unsaved data, that'd be pretty slick.
"It doesn't randomly change its tolerance. ... " ...intervention may be more frequent. For the same reason, and because of the different way in which they are experienced, the Board may take a more precautionary approach in the case of those digital games which are covered by the Video Recordings Act."
Uh huh. It's very stable and predictable, unless you're making a video game, in which case, they're predictably and scientifically more 'precautionary'. That's why Rockstar was able to interpret these wonderfully clear rules and avoid all this development expense.
"It is consistent, measurable and definable to the extent that it can be for subjective material. Obviously there are borderline cases where context and intensity of scenes can push a decision one way or another but I'm sure you'd know all this if you bothered to read the BBFC's own website."
And if you had bothered to read... anything.. about this topic, you'd see what the problem is. Heck, you even alluded to part of it in your own post.
"Just because one game was rated 18 in 2003 doesnt mean its sequel in 2007 will be, especially (as happened) the guidelines have changed in the interim."
Umm.. yeah. Don't complain about me not reading stuff if you're not gonna read what I said.
"If you don't like the new movies, your not special around here, but I want to remember a time when Star Wars ment something. When Star Wars was like the coolest thing ever."
I don't see how you really can. We've got prequels and special editions to wade through. (Amusingly, that's why that joke in particular was funny.)
"I'm not sure the importance of this "confirmation" ranks as front page news. Honestly, I'd much rather see some, any theory of our current climate changes proven. At least then we might be able to start effectively making some changes. For that matter, proving the theory of cold fusion would go a long way to improving our lives."
Hey, that's fine. But the guys working on the aurora aren't the same guys working on cold fusion. It's like throwing aerospace engineers into cancer research. We don't focus our energies like that. (I'd argue that we're better off that way. Diversity has ways of helping out other fields...) On top of that, something has to happen before it makes the front page news. It's not like cold fusion was bumped out for this story.
"Bah, I guess I'm a little overly critical at the moment...I'm having a bad week."
I hear ya on that. Have a good night, man.
"We've confirmed a theory that was already pretty well accepted as being fact."
Way to understate the importance of confirming theories. Heh.
"I'm wondering why independent shows haven't started popping up and gaining in popularity over the internet."
They have, but they're few and far between. Despite popular belief, it's not easy to make a good TV sho. Writing and acting actually require a good deal of talent. Set design and construction require a good deal of money and labor. Funding requires faith in your product. It's not like there was a hoarde of independent TV show makers simply waiting for a delivery mechanism. They've had that for at least 5 years, 10 for early adopters.
That said, there have been a couple of successes. This, of course, depends on how you measure success. I'm going simply by positive reaction here, meaning the likelihood is good they'd be able to gain a big audience if they were really on TV. Ninjai had quite a following. It was a Flash animated series that ran in 11 chunks. In the end, it had a lot of people keeping an eye on it. (Pity it has died.) The other.. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a fan made Star Trek TV show. It even managed to get actors from the original series to appear in it. Sadly, there's no way they'll ever make money off it, rights issues etc.
Anyway Im just kind of babbling right now. There are some shows out there, but don't expect an explosion of them. Even if you know what you're doing, it's VERY hard to make an 'episode' of something. That's an underlying reality that won't be overcome by some technological magic bullet.
"That they did this without making me nauseous also deserves some sort of award. I seriously wonder how they did it."
They removed some of the flexibility with the camera that Mario 64 enjoyed. With the camera more or less fixed, you didn't have to do a lot of mental compensation to figure out which direction to go.
(At least that's my humble observation...)
"Manhunt 1 is not Manhunt 2 is it?"
If this wasn't a sequel, Rockstar'd have less to bitch about.
"If Rockstar chose to ignore ratings boards and subsequently got banned that's their own stupid fault. It's no good whining about the system as if it's being unfair."
If the BBFC randomly changes its tolerance on violent games, that ain't Rockstar's fault. That actually is unfair.
"As to whether censorship "right" or not, British laws is enacted by democratically elected representatives."
Surely the democratic public would prefer British Law to not spontaneously change, especially when it comes to using vague and inconsistent terms to cause silence.
"Do you think there should be no restrictions on the content of games and movies or not?"
I think if the gov't insists on censorship, it should be consistent, measurable/definable, and not change on a whim. You can censor the word 'fuck' pretty easily, right? That's an easy rule to follow. But if you're allowed to say that, and then the next day you're not, that's not fair. Become an enemy of the gov't, suddenly you're a law-breaker. But, hey, if you want to live in that world, be my guest.
"Who modded the first post "redundant"?"
Why should posters be exempt from the silliness they accuse Slashdot of?
"Censorship is not some new phenomenon, something that appeared after they started work on Manhunt 2."
Funny, because Manhunt 1 was sold just fine.
"It's a reality and should have been considered before they embarked on this money pit."
It's a reality that NOBODY can buy the game, not just 18's. It's not fair. Even if it was 100% expected, that doesn't make it right.
"This is no time to argue about time, we don't have the time!"
Hmm.. You're laughing at a Troi quote.... NO SEX FOR YOU!
"You're in a power outage posting to slashdot? Do you have a backup satalite link and generator just in case you lose internet for a few hours?"
Cripes. Does this really need to even be asked? He could simply be at a friend's house or at the library or something. Maybe he took his laptop to Starbucks and logged on there. Maybe he has a generator.
Use your brain, yeesh.
"Do the crime, serve the time. What's the difference?"
I accuse you of copyright infringement. Hand over your computer, please.
"Heck the Xbox consoles at their core run a highly customized version of WinNT and they only take up a few MB why do they need 2GB for the OLPC?"
The XBOX does not have the Windows GUI or apps. A laptop running the XBOX OS would be about as useful as a dating tip from a Babylon 5 fan.
Where does 'innovative' come in? Is somebody going to look at their tiny part of the code and go "wooo we should use fuzzy logic, here!" ??
"I was always wondering what's the name of that guy with the big ears, making the computers run.."
You know, it's not very often that somebody on Slashdot mixes up Yoda and Mr. Spock.
"Sounds like I've touched a nerve on the cell phone political correctness topic on slashdot."
Sounds like my original critcism about your lack of reading comprehension didn't take. Ha!
"Don't be absurd. Cell phones as a necessity is only true in countries where there is little to no telecommunications infrastructure. In north america one can easily get by without a cell phone, and I do so every single day."
I like how you guys are dumb enough to argue this with two different definitions of 'necessity'.
"Does the average person still have any idea that there is an alternative to Microsoft? I doubt it."
The average user hasn't heard of a Mac? Bullshit.
"In a sense, the battle of OSS against Microsoft is a mirror of the battle of individual freedoms against the tyranny of domination for "the public good" that is going on the U.S. and elsewhere. Right now, the good guys are losing, IMO. But they are not down and far from out."
If OSS really is 'losing' a battle against Microsoft, you might want to let them know they're actually fighting it.
It could shorten sales in one aspect and create more in another.
"Why is /. always the last to know these days?"
Slashdot doesn't actually go and find news, the news is delivered to it via user submissions. For this reason, it'll never actually 'break' news. It's really more of a blog than a 'news site'.
Disappointing, I know. Frankly, though, it's been like this for YEARS. There's nothing to bitch about, here.
"2. How cute is your sister?"
Sorry, she's not ugly enough for you to be able to take a real serious shot at her.