Your prior post assumes that all people who believe that autism is caused by vaccination simply don't vaccinate. However, the more educated either look for single vaccines (DTaP, HepB, IPV) instead of the "cocktails" (Pediarix) which use thimerosal as a binding agent or we choose a different vaccination schedule (waiting 12 months before starting the HepB cycle instead of getting it right out of the womb) from what is recommended if we can't get those vaccines in individual shots.
As for vaccines being "one-time only", I am unaware of a vaccine that doesn't require some sort of booster shot after a period of time. In fact, the chicken pox vaccine was recently discovered to require a booster now that some of the long term studies have been completed. I could accept vaccines possibly having a smaller profit margin than other pharmaceuticals, but vaccines are also more widely and regularly disseminated and administered which still means substantial profit for the manufacturer. Sure the cost of something like Lipotor may be higher, but how many third-world countries are concerned about heart failure when the flu could kill them?
If you think thimerosal-based vaccines are so safe you should consider the latest flu vaccine in a lead-based hypodermic. Heavy metals (mercury, lead, arsenic) do, in fact, affect the CNS http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic237.htm and cause dysfunction in children. Many, but not all, children's vaccines are thimerosal-free or use thimerosal as a binding agent during the mixing of multiple vaccinations. http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm
In the latter case, the thimerosal is removed, but a trace amount still remains. Is this trace amount the sole cause? Likely not, but for those with a genetic predisposition it could be a trigger. The initial scare of developmental disorders associated with vaccinations are largely derived from a rescinded study on the link between autism and thimerosal from a competing vaccine manufacturer. Unfortunately, the name of the initial study escapes me (likely because my vaccine had thimerosal in it;-)).
I agree with your final statement as it would assure an international ban on your procreation.
I'm neither. I do resent though be carded to buy a game. I also resent that games are toned down to fit into some box, and that other games are never even created at all because of console maker rules. You chose to have kids, yet more and more that choice is affecting my life and freedom. Ratings systems lead to censorship, I don't appreciate that. Nor do I apprecate having to jump through hoops because you would rather a ratings system so you don't have to research. What's worse is that you are willing to do the work, you'd just rather not. Sorry, your argument, though well formed, has a few discrepencies.
I'm going to assume that you are old enough to purchase your own titles (up to AO) since going to the store with your parent to purchase a title doesn't seem to be much of a hoop to jump through. With that said, what is so difficult about presenting your identification? Unless you carry cash everywhere, you should want to do it (for security reasons) when you make a credit card purchase or cut a check. Do you also resent being carded to purchase alcohol or cigarettes? I realize that video games (and movies) are a bit more innocuous with respect to the harm their misuse would cause, but the ratings system is designed to provide an easy to understand, FIRST ORDER of protection. It is meant to protect consumers as well as developers and publishers on the surface and without additional hoops to jump through, not censor them. The GTA Hot Coffee issue comes to mind here. Had Rockstar revealed all of the features of their game, then the ESRB would have issued an initial AO rating instead of the M it received. They circumvented the protection for the consumer in order to ensure the game's successful launch with all major retailers. With the AO rating, GTA would still be released (just as uncensored, mind you) but it wouldn't appear on the shelves of retailers who are more family oriented.
With respect to the ratings system in lieu of research, I'm reminded of a grandmother who bought GTA for her 14 year old grandson because that was what he wanted for his birthday (or Christmas). The ESRB Rating is clearly displayed on the front and back of each game box with a general description of the age appropriateness of the title. Now, in her defense maybe she didn't have time to read the rating in the corner, and maybe she isn't technically savvy enough to check out the background on the game at the developer's website, and maybe the clerk who helped her didn't realize that she was purchasing this title for someone else but even a non-technical person of low intelligence would be compelled to wonder why her grandson would want to play a game titled Grand..Theft..Auto. For titles that aren't as obvious, the rating system remains the most appropriate and unobtrusive measure.
2 points. First, I obviously need to choose a more sarcastic lexicon in order to better convey the tone and B, I was remarking that Xbox and PS are fundamentally, proprietary computers that were programmed to play games (but can be reprogrammed); Whereas the Wii was built to be a proprietary gaming platform.
No, but then Sony is taking a loss on the PS3. Assuming they sold it at cost, I could get better graphics out of a system that was 8-9 hundred. Sure I'd sacrifice Blu-Ray and raw processing power, but I'd make up for it by having a bigger game library that goes back quite a few years.
The test to see if something is truly a console should be something like "Can you system be reprogrammed to complete Folding@Home units?" The PS3 can definitely say "Yes" to this and I'm sure the XBox could too, if it didn't have its current game library available.
Actually, starting with HL2, you had to verify your CD/DVD-based product via the Steam servers which then kindly "updated" your product. Steam is definitely more profitable for Valve than the costs of production, distribution and advertising. It also reduces the likelyhood of being screwed over by the production company *points insane monkey finger at Vivendi Universal*
...people keeping these systems running and designing new ones... People that keep the systems running fall into the IT category, people that design new systems (I'm talking hardware specifically, but i'll concede software too for original IP) are engineers. And no, putting a bunch of commercial-off-the-shelf parts together does not constitute "designing a new system"
China buying Seagate doesn't mean that they only get access to storage devices
From Wikipedia:
Seagate was traded for most of its life as a public company under the symbol "SGAT" on the NASDAQ system, then moved to the NYSE system under the symbol "SEG" in the 1990s. In 2000, the company was taken private by an investment group composed of Seagate management, Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group in a 3-way merger-spinoff with Veritas Software; Veritas merged with Seagate, which was bought by the investment group. Veritas was then immediately spun off to shareholders, gaining rights to Seagate Software Network and Storage Management Group (with products such as Backup Exec), as well as Seagate's shares in SanDisk and Dragon Systems. Seagate Software Information Management Group was renamed Crystal Decisions in May 2001. Seagate re-entered the public market in December 2002 on the New York Stock Exchange as STX.
Liberal arts degrees should be the new "High School Diploma". If you really want to continue to be creative, major in art or music or something a little more specific. You (the royal you, since I don't know personally if you have a degree in Liberal Arts) lazy fucks should try putting in a little effort or set your life expectations lower.
If creative outlets continue to be marginalized in the United States at this rate, all our children are going to wind up as money-grubbing, gray-suited corporate drones. Creative outlets are far from marginalized. How many engineers do you know that write Super Bowl commercials? What about playing in a {insert music genre here} band? Do you know any Engineers that direct/produce blockbuster films? There is just a greater supply of people who prefer to exert the least amount of effort.
As far as being a "money-grubbing, gray-suited corporate" drone. Well, I didn't have an agent negotiate my salary for me. I also drive a 95 civic to work instead of the chauffeured corporate limo that all engineers obviously get. My coworkers and I get to go to work in "business casual", which for some means a nice set of khaki shorts and T-Shirt without anything offensive on it and for others a pair of slacks and a polo. Our management and sales staff wear the suits, but then I almost expect that sort of thing since they're the ones that deal with the customers most often.
In animal evolution, its the creature who survives that matters, not necessarily the creature with the biggest brain. So what you're saying is the arts major who is successful at Jeopardy will perish while the engineer analytically decides and implements the best method of survival? I'm glad my degree was money well spent.
Actually, I thought DX10 was completely revamped to drop all legacy code, hence it working only with Vista. Seems to me that development would be "radically different" between the platforms.
Given the trememdous (and somewhat underutilized) processing power of the PS3, I'm not surprised. I'd also say that this is a way they can recoup some of the losses they are taking on the console while the Wii appears to outsell them.
Is the ID tag really the only difference? You would also need to make sure that encoding bit rates were the same, that the original data set (let's stick with the MP3 example) was digitized the same way, etc. It may be more efficient, but given the polluted nature of P2P, accuracy is a bit questionable.
This was already done in South Park. Blizzard gave the boys the "Sword of Ultimate Truth" (I can't remember the exact title, but I think that's close) to beat the griefer killing everyone off in WoW. Maybe Valve should give CS players the "VestHelm of Courage" to prevent "headshotters" from having so much success?
While Steam won't exterminate piracy (or cheaters, but that is a different topic), their method of delivery does work well for "indie" titles like defcon, darwinia or the ship. It gives companies like Introversion and Outerlight the opportunity to focus their efforts on their title without worry about production.
I don't necessarily like Steam as a means to deliver full versions of Halflife; HL2; etc, but it works reasonably well to deliver Halflife's episodic content. You do need a connection to the Internet for Steam to "check in", but they still operate in "offline" mode when one isn't present. As for using Steam or any title purchased through it on a new system, as long as you have an account in good standing, you can d/l the client to any pc and doubleclick to d/l the titles you own. It just takes forever to d/l because you have to get the data from Valve's content servers.
The only other comment I have deals with the episodic content business model that seems to be (pardon the pun) picking up steam. If you look at something like the first episode of SiN, you pay for what basically amounts to a demo. This is very poor form, especially from a company like Ritual who didn't have to worry about production or game engine development. There are also many people who enjoyed the first episode continuing HL2, but there just wasn't enough story there to make the episode replayable. I'll succumb to getting the next episode, but ironically enough, not for the episode. I'm more interested in the "indie" title, Portal, that is supposed to be packaged with it.
The really bad news is the junk that isn't de-orbiting, but staying up there.
The solution is quite simple actually. Since all that junk is orbiting Earth, the position of any one piece of junk at any time is function of the Earth's gravity (and the piece's velocity), that's how orbits work. Since we can't change the junk's velocity (it doesn't have an engine, or we lost contact with it), all we need to do is increase the Earth's gravity for a couple of days and all the junk will de-orbit by itself. How to increase the Earth's gravity is left as an exercise to the reader.
The unfortunate side effect of that solution though is we're in for quite a shock (and one hell of a high tide) in a couple of years time when the moon comes crashing on Mount Fiji...
Phisbut, if I could I would mod this as "Effing Brilliant". Thanks for the laugh.
Absolutely false. That was not space junk. It was atmospheric junk, which is not a problem because it falls, burns, and rapidly becomes either vaporized or on the ground. The problem with space junk is that it just sits there in orbit and never goes away. And the orbit that it is in could cross your orbit with an extremely high closing velocity.
If we could get all of our space junk to become atmospheric junk, the problem would be solved. Just a couple of technical issues with your justification. First, it was space junk because it didn't start in the atmosphere (unless you count the moment it was launched, in which case I concede). Second, falling debris (whether atmospheric or otherwise)is a problem. Something with sufficient mass that survives the free fall will cause damage. Third, the orbit of space junk is the determining factor as to whether or not it goes away. A piece of debris in a low earth orbit or with a highly eccentric orbit will eventually fall back to earth due to atmospheric drag. It may take thousands of years (or a collision) for the orbit to decay enough for that to happen, but it will happen. On a positive note, you are correct about objects in orbit having a high closing velocity since the minimum velocity to maintain a low earth orbit is about 7700 meters per second.
This analogy uses a flawed logic. When you rent your "flat", you are actually paying for something tangible. You never truly know what you are getting into with software because you can't inspect the bits and bytes to determine that the program provides what you specifically need(Sony's rootkit comes to mind here). Also when you buy property you are actually making a long term investment on something that is yours to keep (assuming eminent domain doesn't apply), but when you buy software you are only buying a license to operate, under very strict conditions, said software and you never truly own it.
"Renting" office software for a monthly fee is a bit ridiculous IMO. I'm not sure about tax laws in other countries but in the US business owner's can always purchase what they need and write off the expense.
Yeah, ok it isn't a game but the things that it does to the rest of my system make me feel like I'm facing a Super Mega Pit Boss with super speed, quad damage, and invisibility as its normal abilities. Therefore I have sworn myself off of most Ubisoft titles. Which is a shame because I really liked skulking around in the shadows in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
Slashdot Mirror
Your prior post assumes that all people who believe that autism is caused by vaccination simply don't vaccinate. However, the more educated either look for single vaccines (DTaP, HepB, IPV) instead of the "cocktails" (Pediarix) which use thimerosal as a binding agent or we choose a different vaccination schedule (waiting 12 months before starting the HepB cycle instead of getting it right out of the womb) from what is recommended if we can't get those vaccines in individual shots.
As for vaccines being "one-time only", I am unaware of a vaccine that doesn't require some sort of booster shot after a period of time. In fact, the chicken pox vaccine was recently discovered to require a booster now that some of the long term studies have been completed. I could accept vaccines possibly having a smaller profit margin than other pharmaceuticals, but vaccines are also more widely and regularly disseminated and administered which still means substantial profit for the manufacturer. Sure the cost of something like Lipotor may be higher, but how many third-world countries are concerned about heart failure when the flu could kill them?
If you think thimerosal-based vaccines are so safe you should consider the latest flu vaccine in a lead-based hypodermic. Heavy metals (mercury, lead, arsenic) do, in fact, affect the CNS http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic237.htm and cause dysfunction in children. Many, but not all, children's vaccines are thimerosal-free or use thimerosal as a binding agent during the mixing of multiple vaccinations. http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm ;-)).
In the latter case, the thimerosal is removed, but a trace amount still remains. Is this trace amount the sole cause? Likely not, but for those with a genetic predisposition it could be a trigger. The initial scare of developmental disorders associated with vaccinations are largely derived from a rescinded study on the link between autism and thimerosal from a competing vaccine manufacturer. Unfortunately, the name of the initial study escapes me (likely because my vaccine had thimerosal in it
I agree with your final statement as it would assure an international ban on your procreation.
I'm going to assume that you are old enough to purchase your own titles (up to AO) since going to the store with your parent to purchase a title doesn't seem to be much of a hoop to jump through. With that said, what is so difficult about presenting your identification? Unless you carry cash everywhere, you should want to do it (for security reasons) when you make a credit card purchase or cut a check. Do you also resent being carded to purchase alcohol or cigarettes? I realize that video games (and movies) are a bit more innocuous with respect to the harm their misuse would cause, but the ratings system is designed to provide an easy to understand, FIRST ORDER of protection. It is meant to protect consumers as well as developers and publishers on the surface and without additional hoops to jump through, not censor them. The GTA Hot Coffee issue comes to mind here. Had Rockstar revealed all of the features of their game, then the ESRB would have issued an initial AO rating instead of the M it received. They circumvented the protection for the consumer in order to ensure the game's successful launch with all major retailers. With the AO rating, GTA would still be released (just as uncensored, mind you) but it wouldn't appear on the shelves of retailers who are more family oriented.
With respect to the ratings system in lieu of research, I'm reminded of a grandmother who bought GTA for her 14 year old grandson because that was what he wanted for his birthday (or Christmas). The ESRB Rating is clearly displayed on the front and back of each game box with a general description of the age appropriateness of the title. Now, in her defense maybe she didn't have time to read the rating in the corner, and maybe she isn't technically savvy enough to check out the background on the game at the developer's website, and maybe the clerk who helped her didn't realize that she was purchasing this title for someone else but even a non-technical person of low intelligence would be compelled to wonder why her grandson would want to play a game titled Grand..Theft..Auto. For titles that aren't as obvious, the rating system remains the most appropriate and unobtrusive measure.
It would be a amusing to see Jim, cloaked by his nanosuit, sneak up on Dwight. Maximum Funny.
2 points. First, I obviously need to choose a more sarcastic lexicon in order to better convey the tone and B, I was remarking that Xbox and PS are fundamentally, proprietary computers that were programmed to play games (but can be reprogrammed); Whereas the Wii was built to be a proprietary gaming platform.
No, but then Sony is taking a loss on the PS3. Assuming they sold it at cost, I could get better graphics out of a system that was 8-9 hundred. Sure I'd sacrifice Blu-Ray and raw processing power, but I'd make up for it by having a bigger game library that goes back quite a few years.
The test to see if something is truly a console should be something like "Can you system be reprogrammed to complete Folding@Home units?" The PS3 can definitely say "Yes" to this and I'm sure the XBox could too, if it didn't have its current game library available.
Actually, starting with HL2, you had to verify your CD/DVD-based product via the Steam servers which then kindly "updated" your product. Steam is definitely more profitable for Valve than the costs of production, distribution and advertising. It also reduces the likelyhood of being screwed over by the production company *points insane monkey finger at Vivendi Universal*
For mobile service, why not become your own provider? http://www.sonopia.com/ It would be nice if we had something similar for broadband.
...people keeping these systems running and designing new ones... People that keep the systems running fall into the IT category, people that design new systems (I'm talking hardware specifically, but i'll concede software too for original IP) are engineers. And no, putting a bunch of commercial-off-the-shelf parts together does not constitute "designing a new system"From Wikipedia:
The US has every right to be concerned.
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Actually, I thought DX10 was completely revamped to drop all legacy code, hence it working only with Vista. Seems to me that development would be "radically different" between the platforms.
Given the trememdous (and somewhat underutilized) processing power of the PS3, I'm not surprised. I'd also say that this is a way they can recoup some of the losses they are taking on the console while the Wii appears to outsell them.
Is the ID tag really the only difference? You would also need to make sure that encoding bit rates were the same, that the original data set (let's stick with the MP3 example) was digitized the same way, etc. It may be more efficient, but given the polluted nature of P2P, accuracy is a bit questionable.
Political Correctness dictates that we call them HD209458b-Americans and not "little {insert color here} {insert gender here}"
In line with this thread, I was thinking that HD209458b might be useful for a proper cup of tea.
This was already done in South Park. Blizzard gave the boys the "Sword of Ultimate Truth" (I can't remember the exact title, but I think that's close) to beat the griefer killing everyone off in WoW. Maybe Valve should give CS players the "VestHelm of Courage" to prevent "headshotters" from having so much success?
While Steam won't exterminate piracy (or cheaters, but that is a different topic), their method of delivery does work well for "indie" titles like defcon, darwinia or the ship. It gives companies like Introversion and Outerlight the opportunity to focus their efforts on their title without worry about production.
I don't necessarily like Steam as a means to deliver full versions of Halflife; HL2; etc, but it works reasonably well to deliver Halflife's episodic content. You do need a connection to the Internet for Steam to "check in", but they still operate in "offline" mode when one isn't present. As for using Steam or any title purchased through it on a new system, as long as you have an account in good standing, you can d/l the client to any pc and doubleclick to d/l the titles you own. It just takes forever to d/l because you have to get the data from Valve's content servers.
The only other comment I have deals with the episodic content business model that seems to be (pardon the pun) picking up steam. If you look at something like the first episode of SiN, you pay for what basically amounts to a demo. This is very poor form, especially from a company like Ritual who didn't have to worry about production or game engine development. There are also many people who enjoyed the first episode continuing HL2, but there just wasn't enough story there to make the episode replayable. I'll succumb to getting the next episode, but ironically enough, not for the episode. I'm more interested in the "indie" title, Portal, that is supposed to be packaged with it.
The solution is quite simple actually. Since all that junk is orbiting Earth, the position of any one piece of junk at any time is function of the Earth's gravity (and the piece's velocity), that's how orbits work. Since we can't change the junk's velocity (it doesn't have an engine, or we lost contact with it), all we need to do is increase the Earth's gravity for a couple of days and all the junk will de-orbit by itself. How to increase the Earth's gravity is left as an exercise to the reader.
The unfortunate side effect of that solution though is we're in for quite a shock (and one hell of a high tide) in a couple of years time when the moon comes crashing on Mount Fiji...
Phisbut, if I could I would mod this as "Effing Brilliant". Thanks for the laugh.This analogy uses a flawed logic. When you rent your "flat", you are actually paying for something tangible. You never truly know what you are getting into with software because you can't inspect the bits and bytes to determine that the program provides what you specifically need(Sony's rootkit comes to mind here). Also when you buy property you are actually making a long term investment on something that is yours to keep (assuming eminent domain doesn't apply), but when you buy software you are only buying a license to operate, under very strict conditions, said software and you never truly own it. "Renting" office software for a monthly fee is a bit ridiculous IMO. I'm not sure about tax laws in other countries but in the US business owner's can always purchase what they need and write off the expense.
Yeah, ok it isn't a game but the things that it does to the rest of my system make me feel like I'm facing a Super Mega Pit Boss with super speed, quad damage, and invisibility as its normal abilities. Therefore I have sworn myself off of most Ubisoft titles. Which is a shame because I really liked skulking around in the shadows in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.