The difference is that painball doesn't simulate killing someone, but only shooting color-filled balls at someone. It's not realistic at all.
Games are at least potentially realistic - if you think about photorealistic textures, models and environments.
And the parent wasn't talking about going amok, but about losing control for a short time. It's different in the amount of sanity (which is a whole definition problem anyways) "required".
Even though I'm completely upset by current discussions of German ministers to ban "killer games" (as they call CS for example) this point seems very valid to me.
Sitting in front of a monitor is quite different from walking around, but once mankind develops some kind of neural interface (which will definitely happen in the next 100 years) the barrier between virtual and real will be much blurrier. Sure, a sane, stable person should know the difference, but if your consciousness is tricked into believing that a game you play is reality (which doesn't happen with a keyboard, mouse and monitor setup, but might be the case if you control a game with your thoughts and nerves), than that awareness might suffer.
Good idea to think about this before arch conservatives do.
What comes with Windows, that makes it very desirable to many people, is the ability to install and play real, professional games.
Also, I'm using Ubuntu because it only provides a single program for one task (one media player, one browser, etc.). Other distros install a bunch of programs leaving the newbie to decide what the heck could possibly be a good program - which is a terrible situation!
But Ubuntu rocks anyways, even if you have to install codecs (which don't come preinstalled - DVD or mp3 anyone?) and need Windows for real gaming.
As soon as OpenSource software includes the things you suggest, I will throw my Linux CDs and DVDs in the trash bin.
You would destroy one of the greatest advantages of OSS, namely NOT being dictated what you put on your computer, but rather full customization as you wish.
Give the "I don't know how to use a computer"-people all the shiney dumbed-down wizards they need, install 10 helpful browser toolbars in their... secure... IE and while your at it maybe some more ad- and spyware.
No thanks, I'll stick around with FOSS the way it is RIGHT NOW.
So when a new hardware vendor joins the BluRay player business, their players won't be able to play any movies released before they applied for a vendor key?
That sounds very unbelievable. But possible, of course, in this terrible DRM-infected world.
"There's a section of road where the two lanes merge into one, with the right lane ending. I cannot count the number of times that I've seen someone rushing along in the right lane trying to get as far ahead as they can before they're *forced* to merge"
In Germany the rule is that you have to drive as far as possible before merging.
If you think about it, it's much more logical. The existing road is used better, decreasing the length of a potential traffic jam. If everyone adheres to this rule, nobody gets cut.
Also, whenever there's a merging situation a "zipper" system is dictated (meaning one car from lane 1, then one from lane 2, one from 1, one from 2...).
IMO this is pretty fair and logical. And it works well.
You are right. My fellow Germans, as a majority, accept and frankly hardly care about their personal data at all.
Luckily, with the recent data loss scandals, it MIGHT start to get better - but the only political parties that really care about personal information security and data protection are the Green and the "Socialist" party.
Most people vote conservative or mildly leftist, so we - the people who care about freedom of information and such things - can't do much more than protest (as for example at the big demonstration "Freiheit statt Angst" a few weeks ago).
"Companies that will survive, he says, include Hulu, iTunes"
Okay, this guy knows what he's talking about.
Or the summary is badly written.
No matter what, he's so dead wrong, infact it most probably is the other way round:
People without jobs have much more free time to spend on hobbies (as in coding), and people with less money are in need of open source software much more (as in demand and usage of the resulting software).
I've switched to OpenOffice about 2 years ago and wrote several papers and reports with it. Compared to MS Word I had much fewer problems while still being able to use all the features I need.
For me, OpenOffice simply works and I will never return to MS. The only problem is that the layout gets a bit mixed up when working on MS Word files with people that use Word. Simple solution: don't use Word.;)
And how exactly should the kids then learn how to use cars?
Not everything is learned automatically by aging.
There's no reason a 40 year old driver isn't prone to abuse a car less than a teenager, so leaving it up to the parents to slow the teenager "heat" a bit down while still allowing them the means of transportation and learning how to drive responsible is a good thing.
Oh right, wars always help. They did save Bush jr. surprisingly.
Probably, in all other nations but the USA, starting a war over lies would get the president / prime minister kicked out of office before he / she could say "vote for me again".
And if the American population doesn't remember for mere four years that the "new" president already started with the economy in the trash can, well than there's no help. Poor next president...
If you do a little research regarding "mifare" (an RFID technology by NXP which is very widespread as a controll access and low-amount money booking system - for example in Bostons or Londos public transportation system or at university cafeterias) you will be shocked how real all these problems are.
It's entirely possible to clone cards and manipulate them to your liking. All it took was a year of work by a few guys. I just listened to a nice podcast about it by the Chaos Computer Club (the show's name is "Chaos Radio Express", but it's in German).
Of course many cities and companies that are using the mifare classic system are now scrambling to switch, but imagine if not honorable security experts would have broken the system, but the mafia or terrorists. Much fun for everyone (they could walk into governmental or other high security buildings) and it's not even unrealistic in the slightest way.
Solutions? Make DAMN sure that your RFID system is secure. Don't put critical information in there. Don't create interconnected databases for citizens. Don't use it just because you can, but only for useful applications.
Partly, of course, you are right. People do die and things are forgotten or at least not as shocking to us after a few decades.
But you can be damn sure that the "class" with higher education (at least in Germany) knows who Willhelm II. is and they would also recognise him. Who was fighting in the war is also well known (maybe not ALL the participants, but the most important ones like Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Russia etc.).
Some things never are forgotten (as long as history records remain intact), even though their impression on the present humanity gets weaker.
But everyone (in Europe) still knows about the 30-years war, for example, because it was such a huge tragedy.
As a side note: according to Wikipedia.de "only" 10 million people died in WW I.
There's an approach starting from Silicon Carbide and evaporating Si to form a monolayer of Graphene on top of the SiC. This should be scalable pretty well, but the research if this can be used to create transistors is still pretty basic.
Don't worry that the Graphene layer would rip. It's a very, very strong material and the connections between the atoms are strong conjugated double-bonds.
This is the same structure as in Carbon Nano Tubes and Fullerens (C60), just flat (and not cylindrically or spherically rolled up).
The problem to implement Graphene based technologies is rather the synthesis of it, since it's not yet easily possible to create a homogeneous Graphene layer on a large area
(i.E. at my Applied Physics institute they create Graphene layers that are not even 1 mmÂ).
While this is true the statement that it sublimes due to the sun radiation (which was supposed to mean high temperature, right?) isn't correct. If it was meant that the sun heats up the water ice from -150ÂC (or whatever the surface temperature is at the landing site) to 0ÂC, okay, then I misinterpreted it.
Funnily enough Mars' atmosphere has pretty much exactly the pressure of the triple point (~6 mbar) of water.
There are substances that sublime 100% (like dry ice), and water ice certainly isn't one of them. Of course many substances have a vapor pressure even their solid state, but it's much less than in their liquid state.
So my statement was not completely true. I'd guess that in this scenario water ice still would be detected.
And with temperatures at below several hundred degrees Celsius it shouldn't evaporate quickly either. It would definitely be in its liquid phase first (and flow through the screen).
Graphene is not at all nearly ready to even build reliable, well-performing transistors with it. I'm in a research group that is trying to implant a gate electrode into Silicon-carbide with a Graphene layer ontop, but that's still basic research. If it should really work with good yield and that also in an industrial process, then we can talk about Graphene-based CPUs.
And of course the participation of the United States in World War II makes them immune to any further criticism in the second millennium after Jesus Christ.
Sadly the grandparent is right, in Germany way too much tightening of the personal freedom has occurred during the last years. We can only hope that it stops very soon.
Neighboring spins influence each other (see also Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy), so indeed there can be information transported.
Probably what they mean when talking about current is that you need a lower current or they believe that it's possible to optimize the process to increase transmitted information while not increasing current.
Who wouldn't know Tesla, the eastern European electricity scientist (well I did think he was Russian thanks Wikipedia!)? Hello, didn't you play Command & Conquer Red Alert?
There's just nothing cooler than a NOD Tesla coil frying your enemies.
Slashdot Mirror
So Paint Shop Prop has a proper Red-eye-removal tool?
Yes.
The difference is that painball doesn't simulate killing someone, but only shooting color-filled balls at someone. It's not realistic at all. Games are at least potentially realistic - if you think about photorealistic textures, models and environments.
And the parent wasn't talking about going amok, but about losing control for a short time. It's different in the amount of sanity (which is a whole definition problem anyways) "required".
Sitting in front of a monitor is quite different from walking around, but once mankind develops some kind of neural interface (which will definitely happen in the next 100 years) the barrier between virtual and real will be much blurrier. Sure, a sane, stable person should know the difference, but if your consciousness is tricked into believing that a game you play is reality (which doesn't happen with a keyboard, mouse and monitor setup, but might be the case if you control a game with your thoughts and nerves), than that awareness might suffer.
Good idea to think about this before arch conservatives do.
Also, I'm using Ubuntu because it only provides a single program for one task (one media player, one browser, etc.). Other distros install a bunch of programs leaving the newbie to decide what the heck could possibly be a good program - which is a terrible situation!
But Ubuntu rocks anyways, even if you have to install codecs (which don't come preinstalled - DVD or mp3 anyone?) and need Windows for real gaming.
And my KT400 board with a VIA chipset worked really well at a FSB of 133 MHz. :)
You would destroy one of the greatest advantages of OSS, namely NOT being dictated what you put on your computer, but rather full customization as you wish.
Give the "I don't know how to use a computer"-people all the shiney dumbed-down wizards they need, install 10 helpful browser toolbars in their ... secure ... IE and while your at it maybe some more ad- and spyware.
No thanks, I'll stick around with FOSS the way it is RIGHT NOW.
So when a new hardware vendor joins the BluRay player business, their players won't be able to play any movies released before they applied for a vendor key?
That sounds very unbelievable. But possible, of course, in this terrible DRM-infected world.
In Germany the rule is that you have to drive as far as possible before merging.
If you think about it, it's much more logical. The existing road is used better, decreasing the length of a potential traffic jam. If everyone adheres to this rule, nobody gets cut.
Also, whenever there's a merging situation a "zipper" system is dictated (meaning one car from lane 1, then one from lane 2, one from 1, one from 2...).
IMO this is pretty fair and logical. And it works well.
Luckily, with the recent data loss scandals, it MIGHT start to get better - but the only political parties that really care about personal information security and data protection are the Green and the "Socialist" party.
Most people vote conservative or mildly leftist, so we - the people who care about freedom of information and such things - can't do much more than protest (as for example at the big demonstration "Freiheit statt Angst" a few weeks ago).
Okay, this guy knows what he's talking about.
Or the summary is badly written.
No matter what, he's so dead wrong, infact it most probably is the other way round:
People without jobs have much more free time to spend on hobbies (as in coding), and people with less money are in need of open source software much more (as in demand and usage of the resulting software).
For me, OpenOffice simply works and I will never return to MS. The only problem is that the layout gets a bit mixed up when working on MS Word files with people that use Word. Simple solution: don't use Word. ;)
Not everything is learned automatically by aging. There's no reason a 40 year old driver isn't prone to abuse a car less than a teenager, so leaving it up to the parents to slow the teenager "heat" a bit down while still allowing them the means of transportation and learning how to drive responsible is a good thing.
Oh right, wars always help. They did save Bush jr. surprisingly.
Probably, in all other nations but the USA, starting a war over lies would get the president / prime minister kicked out of office before he / she could say "vote for me again".
And if the American population doesn't remember for mere four years that the "new" president already started with the economy in the trash can, well than there's no help. Poor next president...
If you do a little research regarding "mifare" (an RFID technology by NXP which is very widespread as a controll access and low-amount money booking system - for example in Bostons or Londos public transportation system or at university cafeterias) you will be shocked how real all these problems are.
It's entirely possible to clone cards and manipulate them to your liking. All it took was a year of work by a few guys. I just listened to a nice podcast about it by the Chaos Computer Club (the show's name is "Chaos Radio Express", but it's in German).
Of course many cities and companies that are using the mifare classic system are now scrambling to switch, but imagine if not honorable security experts would have broken the system, but the mafia or terrorists. Much fun for everyone (they could walk into governmental or other high security buildings) and it's not even unrealistic in the slightest way.
Solutions? Make DAMN sure that your RFID system is secure. Don't put critical information in there. Don't create interconnected databases for citizens. Don't use it just because you can, but only for useful applications.
Partly, of course, you are right. People do die and things are forgotten or at least not as shocking to us after a few decades.
But you can be damn sure that the "class" with higher education (at least in Germany) knows who Willhelm II. is and they would also recognise him. Who was fighting in the war is also well known (maybe not ALL the participants, but the most important ones like Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Russia etc.).
Some things never are forgotten (as long as history records remain intact), even though their impression on the present humanity gets weaker. But everyone (in Europe) still knows about the 30-years war, for example, because it was such a huge tragedy.
As a side note: according to Wikipedia.de "only" 10 million people died in WW I.
There's an approach starting from Silicon Carbide and evaporating Si to form a monolayer of Graphene on top of the SiC.
This should be scalable pretty well, but the research if this can be used to create transistors is still pretty basic.
Don't worry that the Graphene layer would rip. It's a very, very strong material and the connections between the atoms are strong conjugated double-bonds.
This is the same structure as in Carbon Nano Tubes and Fullerens (C60), just flat (and not cylindrically or spherically rolled up).
The problem to implement Graphene based technologies is rather the synthesis of it, since it's not yet easily possible to create a homogeneous Graphene layer on a large area (i.E. at my Applied Physics institute they create Graphene layers that are not even 1 mmÂ).
Funnily enough Mars' atmosphere has pretty much exactly the pressure of the triple point (~6 mbar) of water.
Again, I was wrong. Shame on me! ;)
So my statement was not completely true. I'd guess that in this scenario water ice still would be detected.
And with temperatures at below several hundred degrees Celsius it shouldn't evaporate quickly either. It would definitely be in its liquid phase first (and flow through the screen).
Graphene is not at all nearly ready to even build reliable, well-performing transistors with it. I'm in a research group that is trying to implant a gate electrode into Silicon-carbide with a Graphene layer ontop, but that's still basic research. If it should really work with good yield and that also in an industrial process, then we can talk about Graphene-based CPUs.
And by the way: it's spelled "Arsenide"
Sadly the grandparent is right, in Germany way too much tightening of the personal freedom has occurred during the last years. We can only hope that it stops very soon.
Probably what they mean when talking about current is that you need a lower current or they believe that it's possible to optimize the process to increase transmitted information while not increasing current.
There's just nothing cooler than a NOD Tesla coil frying your enemies.
So now what do we do?
Here's an idea:
Not start WW III and instead return to a peaceful political course.