Bobcat Robotics! Wow. We won the Philly Regional last year with them in our alliance. You always find the coolest stuff. To the Alpha Male post, you suck, because we've all seen that copy pasta on 4Chan, and that's where it should stay. This is truly a worthy subject to talk about, because it's so rewarding.
I've been in FIRST Robotics (Counting FIRST Lego League) since 2001. It's been an amazing experience, going from building little lego robots to grab boulders in 2001 to going to Atlanta to compete in 2006. It's an amazing thing, and all students should be involved in FIRST. It's very rewarding, it helps you succeed and it helps you meet a great group of people.
I want you to rtfa and think: How many times can you go to another town across the country with a football team and say "Oh Yeah, I'm from place X." and have someone know? Probably never. Try the same thing with FIRST Teams, and they will probably instantly recognize you. It's happened before, trust me. There is a camaraderie in FIRST that can't be duplicated anywhere else, and it truly showcases the minds of tomorrow, while enriching them. Not To Mention that it is a WHOLE LOT OF FUN TOO!!!
If you read this, and are in a high school, or have a parent with a child in school (anywhere from 4-6 grade to high school), start a FIRST Team. Get people together and make a team. It will draw a lot of people and bring a lot of good attention to your school, and not to mention, the local businesses and sponsors you can get. It's a great thing, and you can (and should) really consider it. It's worth every moment.
I've been playing video games probably close to 11 years now. I'm not exactly a parent you might say, but I'm a teenager. I've been playing games since 1995, when I got my first video game system, a Super Nintendo Donkey Kong pack. Ever since then, I've been gaming. Now, I've been pushing the envelopes a bit (Comanche II was rated T for Teen and I was only 10, and my parents were VERRRY WARY about it.) and the fact that when I wanted to play GTA3 for the PC, my parents expressly forbade it. They read biased reviews that amplified the violence to at least 10x of what it was in the game, and didn't want me to play it. Even if I saved up $50 dollars of my own money (A lot of money for a 4th grader mind you) they wouldn't buy it. Eventually, after a lot of pressure they did. And I've played Every GTA game since.
And am I a mass murderer? No. Am I a sociopath? No. Am I a drug dealing hoodlum doing drive-bys on old ladies cause "I wanted it to be like GTA"? No.
But after all of this, I did notice something. I've been going out into the world learning how to drive a car, in order to get my license this June. And as I'm driving down the road, sometimes I notice people walking along the sidewalk. And I get a funny impulse in the back of my head to swerve over and hit them, just like in the video game. Mind you, I never do it. But still, the fact is, look at it honestly. How many people have you shot, stabbed, ran over and burned up in videogames? Probably more than you can count, am I right? These mass murderers they advertise, they do the same things. Except for the outside circumstances, (beaten, raped, bad childhood, druggie, sociopath, etc), they played these games. And they reached a point we all haven't yet: The game blurred the line from the game world to the real world, to the point where they felt that it was ok to run someone down on the road, because they were still in the game.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is, if you are a parent, and you want to watch what your kids play, that's alright. You are the parent, and it's your decision on what to play. If you want Hello kitty till 18, so be it. The point is, try to be a steady hand in their lives. Be sure you are there with your hand on their shoulder saying, "Whatcha doin?" And make sure to draw the line at where the game stops. That way, we can probably cut down on crazy folks saying they "lernd dey killin skill from dem vidjamagames."
If something like this research was to get into the mainstream, it could definately fix some things that have been bothering the human race for at least a good deal of it's life span. But we also have to think of who this would benefit. Sure, if we can get around the political and legal and moral bullshit that all the "Animal Rights" people, Puritans, and the political puppets who listen to them, and get a thing like this out into the public to cure, can we simply deny giving it to the aforementioned people?
"Please, please help! I lost use of my legs after an accident freeing some lab fruit flys and burning down abortion clinics!" "Well, then you will not get any of the product that you tried to get rid of. Have fun!"
The problem with what the ESRB is doing is that it is doing it to only a few games, and to these games it is giving them ratings which the developers cannot foresee in the end of their development. The big problem with what the ESRB is doing is that these supposedly "horrible" and "un-family-friendly" images are the result of third-party applications.
GTA? Hot coffee was the result of a file which you had to put into the game physically in order to access the content.
And it's the same case with Oblivion. In Morrowind, people made nude skins for it, and these even had modes that could be selected to discern to the player's liking.
The "Better Bodies" add-on I am thinking of had three choices:
1.Non-nude, which allows better underwear than the painted on "cloth diapers" originally offered. 2.Nude, which was full blown, anatomically correct nudity for both male and female characters. 3.Peanut Gallery, which was, for as it described it, "insecure teenage boys", only made females nude.
And even before, The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall had partial nudity in both male and female characters, but no one complained because it didn't detract from gameplay. All you could see was a naked male and female chest, and that was when you took off the clothes off the players. And was there controversy over this tidbit of information? Not as I can see, but at that point of time (1996), the ESRB was probably not formed/in it's infancy.
So, if they want to do this in a fair fashion, either don't do it at all (which might be hard after laying the judgment upon GTA), or make sure that it is applied to all games.
To conclude, I can get fully anatomically correct nude female and male skins for The Sims 2 and have them engage in explicit sexual contact. Does this mean that we can make The Sims 2 M-rated? Can (sarcasm)our buddy Jack Thompson(/sarcasm) sue EA for all they are worth?
Slashdot Mirror
Bobcat Robotics! Wow. We won the Philly Regional last year with them in our alliance. You always find the coolest stuff. To the Alpha Male post, you suck, because we've all seen that copy pasta on 4Chan, and that's where it should stay. This is truly a worthy subject to talk about, because it's so rewarding.
I've been in FIRST Robotics (Counting FIRST Lego League) since 2001. It's been an amazing experience, going from building little lego robots to grab boulders in 2001 to going to Atlanta to compete in 2006. It's an amazing thing, and all students should be involved in FIRST. It's very rewarding, it helps you succeed and it helps you meet a great group of people.
I want you to rtfa and think: How many times can you go to another town across the country with a football team and say "Oh Yeah, I'm from place X." and have someone know? Probably never. Try the same thing with FIRST Teams, and they will probably instantly recognize you. It's happened before, trust me. There is a camaraderie in FIRST that can't be duplicated anywhere else, and it truly showcases the minds of tomorrow, while enriching them. Not To Mention that it is a WHOLE LOT OF FUN TOO!!!
If you read this, and are in a high school, or have a parent with a child in school (anywhere from 4-6 grade to high school), start a FIRST Team. Get people together and make a team. It will draw a lot of people and bring a lot of good attention to your school, and not to mention, the local businesses and sponsors you can get. It's a great thing, and you can (and should) really consider it. It's worth every moment.
I've been playing video games probably close to 11 years now. I'm not exactly a parent you might say, but I'm a teenager. I've been playing games since 1995, when I got my first video game system, a Super Nintendo Donkey Kong pack. Ever since then, I've been gaming. Now, I've been pushing the envelopes a bit (Comanche II was rated T for Teen and I was only 10, and my parents were VERRRY WARY about it.) and the fact that when I wanted to play GTA3 for the PC, my parents expressly forbade it. They read biased reviews that amplified the violence to at least 10x of what it was in the game, and didn't want me to play it. Even if I saved up $50 dollars of my own money (A lot of money for a 4th grader mind you) they wouldn't buy it. Eventually, after a lot of pressure they did. And I've played Every GTA game since.
And am I a mass murderer? No. Am I a sociopath? No. Am I a drug dealing hoodlum doing drive-bys on old ladies cause "I wanted it to be like GTA"? No.
But after all of this, I did notice something. I've been going out into the world learning how to drive a car, in order to get my license this June. And as I'm driving down the road, sometimes I notice people walking along the sidewalk. And I get a funny impulse in the back of my head to swerve over and hit them, just like in the video game. Mind you, I never do it. But still, the fact is, look at it honestly. How many people have you shot, stabbed, ran over and burned up in videogames? Probably more than you can count, am I right? These mass murderers they advertise, they do the same things. Except for the outside circumstances, (beaten, raped, bad childhood, druggie, sociopath, etc), they played these games. And they reached a point we all haven't yet: The game blurred the line from the game world to the real world, to the point where they felt that it was ok to run someone down on the road, because they were still in the game.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is, if you are a parent, and you want to watch what your kids play, that's alright. You are the parent, and it's your decision on what to play. If you want Hello kitty till 18, so be it. The point is, try to be a steady hand in their lives. Be sure you are there with your hand on their shoulder saying, "Whatcha doin?" And make sure to draw the line at where the game stops. That way, we can probably cut down on crazy folks saying they "lernd dey killin skill from dem vidjamagames."
If something like this research was to get into the mainstream, it could definately fix some things that have been bothering the human race for at least a good deal of it's life span. But we also have to think of who this would benefit. Sure, if we can get around the political and legal and moral bullshit that all the "Animal Rights" people, Puritans, and the political puppets who listen to them, and get a thing like this out into the public to cure, can we simply deny giving it to the aforementioned people?
"Please, please help! I lost use of my legs after an accident freeing some lab fruit flys and burning down abortion clinics!"
"Well, then you will not get any of the product that you tried to get rid of. Have fun!"
Can we honestly and morally do that?
The problem with what the ESRB is doing is that it is doing it to only a few games, and to these games it is giving them ratings which the developers cannot foresee in the end of their development. The big problem with what the ESRB is doing is that these supposedly "horrible" and "un-family-friendly" images are the result of third-party applications.
GTA? Hot coffee was the result of a file which you had to put into the game physically in order to access the content.
And it's the same case with Oblivion. In Morrowind, people made nude skins for it, and these even had modes that could be selected to discern to the player's liking.
The "Better Bodies" add-on I am thinking of had three choices:
1.Non-nude, which allows better underwear than the painted on "cloth diapers" originally offered.
2.Nude, which was full blown, anatomically correct nudity for both male and female characters.
3.Peanut Gallery, which was, for as it described it, "insecure teenage boys", only made females nude.
And even before, The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall had partial nudity in both male and female characters, but no one complained because it didn't detract from gameplay. All you could see was a naked male and female chest, and that was when you took off the clothes off the players. And was there controversy over this tidbit of information? Not as I can see, but at that point of time (1996), the ESRB was probably not formed/in it's infancy.
So, if they want to do this in a fair fashion, either don't do it at all (which might be hard after laying the judgment upon GTA), or make sure that it is applied to all games.
To conclude, I can get fully anatomically correct nude female and male skins for The Sims 2 and have them engage in explicit sexual contact. Does this mean that we can make The Sims 2 M-rated? Can (sarcasm)our buddy Jack Thompson(/sarcasm) sue EA for all they are worth?
Moderato food for thought.