Agreed. It's been said before, and probably will be said again, but the PS2 did well because it played all those PSX games. That capability gave it an instant, humongous, game library. The same is true with Wii and GameCube, which is part of why Wii is selling so well. Since PS3 really has no backwards compatibility, I won't even consider purchasing it.
Some of the latest stuff for PS2 is quite impressive--not because of of the raw power of the system, but because developers got so good at wringing every last bit of performance out of the platform. Okami as we know it would have never been written for PS3, but the limitations of the PS2 hardware forced Capcom/Clover to do something different, and I, for one, am glad they chose to be different. A PS3-centric version probably wouldn't have been nearly as distinctive.
Horsepower leads to laziness, not just with games, but with software in general. Any time that industry experts proclaim that "it is time to move on" like the author of this article suggests, I get a bit queasy. A jump in raw computing ability though it may be, it's also usually a setback in game playability and quality. "It's time to move on" to me says "It's too hard to work within these old constraints."
What about the hacking tool that resides between the ears? I could give you a hundred different "hacking tools" and a hundred different machines to hack, and unless you know which tool to use on which machine, they're all worthless to you. Unless you know how to use them, they're worthless to you. It's that big old hunk of grey matter that makes program code into a legitimate tool. It's that same stuff that makes a legitimate tool into a weapon. Some 90-year-old grandmother isn't (likely) going to be breaking into other machines for kicks. She probably doesn't have the knowledge or desire to do so, both of which reside in the minds of those who think it's funny to steal people's data.
The solution: ban brains.
Outside the sarcasm tags, I wonder how long it will be before some moron tries that.
GP is not off-topic. The treatment a company gives its employees and the treatment a company gives its customers are often one and the same. After all, the employees are just an indirect revenue stream (by helping to separate the customer from his money). As far as the big mega-corp is concerned, money is king, and it will do whatever is necessary to milk their customers (and employees) for every cent of profit it can get. Things like good customer service only cut into that profit (in the mega-corp's mind), and the mega-corp would rather take the small chance that spyware would bring them more money than to have good customer service because the spyware costs less.
Of course, the obvious way to avoid problems like these is to not sign up for such things in the first place. How many people receive an actual benefit by signing up for this kind of service?? I'd bet the number is somewhere between zero and two.
The original language of the commandment you refer to can be also be translated as "Thou shalt not murder." Though "murder" and "kill" are somewhat synonymous, they really do not mean the same thing. Thousands of years, ambiguous words and no constant (and some possibly revisionist) translations lead to this particular debate. And, as others have pointed out, there are provisos for punishment (what most consider murder) and self-defense (not murder). Given a look at the context of the Old Testament, the original language most likely meant something closer to "murder" than to "kill."
That, however, is nitpicking, and I do agree 100% with the main point of this post, and, in some ways, the definition of "murder" is left open to as much interpretation as the definition of "sex offender." This business of "not knowing how to deal with X" is not just limited to murderers and rapists and paedophiles. It applies to all people, regardless of who they are and what they do. What people are good at is being selfish. They incarcerate others to feel "safe." Look at zero-tolerance rules in our public schools, mandatory sentencing guidelines for prisoners, and just about every heavy-handed law/rule/guideline ever written in the history of mankind. Sadly, nothing will change until two things happen: man becoming much less selfish than he truly is (and that probably won't ever happen), and the definitions of most criminal acts being clearly and reasonably defined (which leads to greater problems of its own).
Unless this Knight Rider is going to be brought up to date with the expectations of a mature viewership (like they did with Battle Star Galactica)
I think that the update of Galactica is parallel to the maturing of TV audiences across all ages. Television is a great medium for campy adventure shows, but as is has grown in popularity, the viewers have (generally) demanded more. Almost all shows from the 50's through the 80's were highly camp-filled love fests, and the darker, grittier shows such as those found on HBO and Showtime would never have made it to air back then. It's acceptable today to have flawed anti-hero types because that's what viewers want, and it does make for better television.
Personally, I'd like to see Knight Rider get the same treatment as Galactica has, with Michael as a much more bitter, renegade personality. Think the mistrust of a House-like character with the wild, almost lawless nature of Tony Soprano. That's how I imagine a person shot and left for dead would turn out, and, if you watch the first episode of Knight Rider, you'll see that's where it was heading to. Michael was a lot more distant and distrusting ('cept for with the ladies) than he later turned out to be. If done right, watching him battle his inner demons through his crime-fighting (for not entirely selfless reasons) would draw pretty good ratings. Leave out most of the CSI stuff and stick with the action.
And yes, this car sucks. Seriously. KITT was stealthy and aerodynamic. Both the car and the driver could blend in because they were designed NOT to stand out in a crowd. This rolling hunk of crap leads me to believe that whatever sequel this is will be heavily infused with a Fast and the Furious attitude. If I want to see that, I'll watch a F&F movie. The first time this abomination pulls a drift or some other dangerous driving stunt.........
I'm so glad my tax dollars pay for them to waste time like this.
Don't they have better things to do than to nitpick about video game ratings? Or would doing those things require the intestinal fortitude to look at a real problem and come up with a real solution, which is far beyond what they're capable of?
If this waste of legislation does become law, I wonder how accurate the enforcement will be. I'd imagine that the cops would be relying on things like IP addresses and unconfirmable identities to track down these serious threats to the integrity of Massacheusetts. Maybe they'll hire the same detectives that the RIAA members used to try to nail that other big scourge of the internet--music pirates. And, of course, it wouldn't matter that Hanz Schroeder is 87 years old and has no computer and is blind; his name and credit card and other personal information were attached to some poker website account, so he must have been testing his mad casino skills online.
Sheesh, everything about this proposition is so fundamentally flawed, I hope they'll never get a conviction out of it. Any reasonable judge will see the RIAA lawsuits that have been smacked down because of the inability to reliably track people online by IP and other identifying information and think, "the plaintiffs could not even produce a probability of guilt in a civil case using these methods," and immediately dismiss a criminal case prosecuted under this farce. Sadly, reasonable judges are in short supply. But, then again, so are reasonable lawmakers. I look forward to seeing similar legislation here in Illinois, as my state's economy needs to be more robust to be considered "in the shitter."
True, true. However, Quanta != Dell. ASUS laptops have ASUS motherboards. Dell makes no motherboards, therefore, Dell laptops cannot have Dell motherboards.
Who says what the job of the government is? You? God? The constitution? I claim that the job of the government is to do what the people want it to do.
Actually, that's exactly what The U.S. Constitution (or any, for that matter)is for--for specifically outlining what the job of of the government is. Federal constitutions describe federal governments; state constitutions define state governments--and so on. The last thing that the government should be doing is everything the people tell it to do. People can, do, and will give away their own freedoms for what, in the end, amounts to nothing. That nothing takes many forms, usually safety from terrorists, and, as in this case, safety from (death by) illness. Worse yet, people can, do, and will give away other people's freedoms for the same reasons! Don't believe me? Remember the Japanese internments of the 1940s, or Nazi Germany, or sex-offender laws that ruin people's lives for the stupid, mostly harmless things that they did when they were fifteen.
...a part of the populace suffer a real loss, a loss of dignity, a loss of life worth living.
And when the money is created from thin air, because of rampant inflation, or demanded from the citizens at an ever-increasing rate, again due to inflation, to pay for it all, how is this any different than not providing those services? Instead of some people having quality health care while others don't, no one will have it. Will you be happy to pay so much in taxes that someone else, who may not have your work ethic, freeloads off the government while your quality of life takes a swim in the crapper? Let's see what you say when that possibility comes up, as it most certainly will if this country (the United States) continues its current course.
No, it's not okay for people to be forced to live on the streets, starving to death, being treated as criminals for daring to be alive. Yes, it is the human thing to do to help those in need, for the strong to assist the weak. Should it be forced by law? No. Freedom does include the right to be an ass to the rest of society, so long as you don't actively seek to destroy it. Just as is the rule with free speech, only permitting "popular" freedoms does not count as preserving freedom at all.
You say it is cruel to ignore those who have lesser means to get by, to throw them under the bus for your own gain. That is true. Do realize, though, that it is just as cruel to force someone to take care of another person without an implied or explicit agreement to do so (such as would be made in the case of parenthood). Legally, I have no responsibility for anyone other than myself, any children I help create, or anyone for whom I take legal guardianship of. Morally, I should help those in need, but the government has no place legislating based on all but the most basic moralities (such as the prohibition of murder). And yes, it is as morally wrong to force someone to degrade his own life to support the life of someone else, agreed-to commitments aside, as it is to leave a homeless man to die.
ASUS is the only laptop company to actually build their own machines--they are, after all--one of the world's largest motherboard manufacturers. Dell, Gateway, Apple, etc. can't make that claim. Also, ASUS started a really great two-year warranty program where the first year is, for all purposes, no-fault replacement. Add in their build quality, and you have three very good reasons to trust and buy ASUS.
Given the size of the Eee, I'd hope it's covered under that new warranty program. I think there will be a lot of people buying this who aren't accustomed to owning such a small machine and that there will be a lot of accidental breakage the first time around. I like the idea of these ultra-small laptops and other similar devices, but I stay away from the specifically because I'd probably break them precisely because their size makes them easy to toss in a bag or car, and then forget about and sit on or something like that. Having a one-year no-fault replacement warranty would be a huge draw for any laptop computer--and even more so for one this size.
And, no, I don't think they'll void your warranty if you install XP.
Gold is only valuable because it's shiny and pleasant to look at and you can beat it into useful shapes and it's been used as money for a long time. You can't eat it, you can't live in it, you can't plow a field with it -- aside from some applications in the jewelry and electronics industries, you can't do much of anything with it.
This is a part of why gold has historically made such good money. One ounce of gold is always one ounce of gold. One pound of food gets eaten. One house rots and becomes inhabitable. One plow gets worn beyond usefulness. Making consumables the basis of a monetary system means that the money supply will always be in flux.
Money is NOT wealth. Ask someone in Zimbabwe how it feels to be a millionaire. He'd say it's not that great because his money is all but worthless, and all his millions can't even buy a day's worth of food for his family. He may have millions, but he's not wealthy because true wealth is, in part, the ability to acquire necessities and luxuries. By the way, true wealth means these necessities and luxuries are paid for in full, not on credit. Remember, the key is the ability to acquire without debt, not the posessions themselves.
The purpose of business is to keep people busy, because if they are not busy, nothing gets done, and we have a depression, and starvation, and deprivation, and death.
Why can the purpose of business not be both? People need jobs to fill their days with things to do. People need money to live. Though some will get more work than others and some will get more money than others, a business accomplishes both of these things at the same time.
People with a purpose in life usually live longer, happier, healtier lives than those who don't, but depression and starvation and deprivation and death are also a result of having too much to do. Only a proper balance between work and play does better at keeping people happy and healthy. People can, and do, work themselves to death.
If everyone is happy to just keep doing useful things with their life and take what they need instead of trying to show off how many toys they have at the next guys expense, money is a liability, wasted bureaucratic effort that distract people from what was really important.
While there is nothing wrong with having toys, it is the competitive nature of trying to one-up the neighbors that sucks the joy out of it. And yes, there is something definitely wrong when the acquisition of bigger and better goods prevents people from contributing to society. However, a healthy, moderated desire for bigger and better is what drives social and technological development. It opens up more useful avenues for people to explore. When what people satisfying only their needs becomes a limiting factor to what they do in life, society is no better off than when they compensate for their insecurities with rampant greed.
Those who are doing things because they think it's good and important stuff to be doing are more successful than those who are doing things because they are compelled by money.
Absolutely. Money is always a poor end to try to achieve. In and of itself, money is almost universally worthless, and things that are only done for money are also just as worthless. On the other hand, when the passion for being the best at what one does is satisfied, money is many times a by-product of that achievement. In these cases, money is a means to a different end. That is where money's true value is--as a way to better one's own life and the lives of those nearby. Money can't buy happiness by itself, but it can buy the tools that a person uses to make his own happiness.
As time progresses, we will assemble new mechanisms to support these people in their efforts, mechanisms that don't rely on money.
And we will do this because it is simply a better way to run a society, and those societies that don't get with the program will disappear as so many failed societies have done before.
Money will always exist in some form. It is the best way for people to assign worth to things they require or desire, and to deprive worth from things they do not want or need. Removing people's ability to financially support what they agree with is a lousy way to run a society, even if what they support is amoral to you. In this way, money is a form of speech. It is a form of freedom. If you eliminate money as we know it, something else will just take its place, and eventually we'll have this debate again.
Or to put it another way, you're talking about towing the horse with the cart because you don't really understand the way the game works or what its purpose is.
Most people don't.
I am a musician and a poet. Everything I do outside of work is driven by passion. Come to think of it, so is everything I do while at work. I understand that passion is what truly makes people rich, with money as a side benefit. I also understand that money speaks in ways that words never can hope to. People can spout all sort
Too bad the real world isn't like Star Trek--and I say this without the usual sarcasm that such a statement would normally have here. Here in the 21st century, we humans need jobs for both reasons. The beauty of the capitalist ideology is that people can make a living by being involved in arts and sciences. In other words, they can share their knowledge and skills with the rest of the world, and the world will show its appreciation by allowing those people to live. Everyone wins. Granted, our current economic system is not perfect, but it sure as heck beats getting nothing more than a pat on the back for decades of hard work. If you want to talk about a sure fire way to let humanity die, your "let's not pay people for contributing to society" idea will work quite well. After all, it's got a perfect track record of destroying the countries that have tried it.
And speaking of socialist systems:
well, if they come up with a decent socialist system, that respects the rights of the people first and foremost, then I would probably sign up in no time.
Unfortunately for you, such a socialist system can never exist. Socialism is fundamentally based on the premise that a government has the right to tell people what they do and do not need/can and cannot want/can and cannot have. That intrusion into the every day lives of people is mutually exclusive with freedoms and rights. A wonderful part of free economic policies is that it allows people to aspire to have better things than they do now without having to worry that the big, bad, government auditors will come in and quash their dreams. Socialism fixes people in their current social and financial classes because it removes the ability and incentive for people to better themselves. And then, a society dies as no one can be bothered to contribute to it due to lack of reward.
Bottom line: people want newer and better things. Use that desire to further society instead of trying to control it and destroying what makes mankind as unique as it is.
You do realize that the official, government-released CPI is rigged to make things appear better than they are, via the magic of substitution. Cheaper, lower-quality products are factored in place of more expensive, better quality products. (Theoretically, starvation could be a substitution for eating, and inflation would only be 2%)
And yes, your dollar should be worth half what it was three years ago. The supply of money in that time has almost doubled. As it becomes easier to obtain a dollar, its value decreases by roughly the same increase in the ease of obtaining that dollar. It is only because of the lag between infusions of fiat currency and the resulting increases in prices that the dollar is as "strong" as it is now. That some people actually destroy money through loan defaults helps a bit. Government subsidies also close some of the gap. Food is still relatively cheap because tax dollars from everyone go to alleviate the cost for everyone. Electronics are still cheap because many are sold as loss-leaders. (Anyone seen the markup on a digital video cable lately?)
Bottom line is that yes, in terms of bang for the buck, however it is measured, is impressive in terms of nominal dollars. In terms of real money (gold or silver), we truly have it the best anyone has ever had it. In 1987, gold was between 400 and 500 dollars an ounce. An IBM PS/2 was, at minimum, 1700 dollars, or three or four ounces of gold. Today, the same relative amount of computing power (to the competition) is about 600 dollars, or less than one ounce of gold (currently almost 680 dollars an ounce). Relative computing power has fallen to one-third of the price from 20 years ago. The only reason it hasn't fallen even more is because of the lag between the latest round of inflation has yet to really kick our behinds. Never worry, though, it will.
"Yeah, the internet is one of the last things Africa needs.
I'd say that Social, Political, and Agricultural reforms are FAR more important to the average African than the good old WWW.
Africa is living proof that imposition of a foreign structure and hierarchy followed by throwing fists-full of aid money is not enough to improve the lives of a people."
Interesting viewpoint. A few points immediately sprang to mind though:
Firstly, access to better information via the internet can play its part in improving social, political and agricultural conditions in Africa.
Yes, the internet can open people's eyes to how other people have it better: how they can live their lives mostly without fear of civil war, super-massive corruption, and the specter of starvation hanging overhead. Is that what will happen? Probably not. The internet is just as easily used for the exact opposite. Look at all the oppressive regimes who throttle it down to a shell of what it can, and should, be. Most of Africa is stuck centuries ago in terms of economic, social, and technological development. Where the governments hold "power," the internet would be used just as another tool to keep the citizens down. Where there really is no government as we know it, the people will fight even more because it will be that much easier to incite violence. Either way, more people will die. I know this may sound definitely un-PC, but as I said, it is already mostly a lawless (as we define rule of law) continent. The internet will just make it worse.
Secondly, the "imposition of a foreign structure and hierarchy followed by throwing fists-full of aid money" can work... in the right circumstances. West Germany after the Second World War is one example. Clearly today's Iraq isn't though.
There are no "right" circumstances for this, only better and worse circumstances. West Germany, post-World War Two, only worked because that society was quite similar to our own. It wasn't the "imposition of a foreign structure" as much as it was the re-establishment of what the people (somewhat) inadvertently gave away. Hitler wasn't appointed by divine right, holy succession, or whatever other excuse he could conjure. He was chosen by the people of his own country. In retrospect, not a wise choice, but that's a bit off-topic.
The people of Africa didn't choose to be colonized by the European powers. Their way of life was deemed by their conquerors to be immoral, heathenistic, uncivilized, or whatever else you wish to call it from the Europeans' point of view. It was replaced with something that was so different to the African people, they didn't really have the opportunity to come to terms with it. Of course, it doesn't help that the Europeans had no real interest in the welfare of their conquered subjects. They just wanted the cheap goods and labor. When they left, the African countries couldn't go back to what they were before, as things had changed too much. Nor could they become "civilized" (as the Europeans define that term), because they never were allowed to learn about "civilizaton." By default, they just replaced the Europeans with whomever could bully the best, which is exactly what they learned from the European conquerors. Who knows what African societies could have evolved into had they been allowed to advance on their own.
Interesting that you bring up Iraq. We have the same situation there that the African continent faced before. It's a shame that the President can't crack open a book, or he'd have known what happens when you impose a "foreign structure and hierarchy" on a people who have no need for or don't want it. He'd also know what happens when you hand out unlimited cash and advanced technology to people who don't know how to properly use it (sorry, un-PC, but true). The Europeans pillaged Africa once, and look at the havoc caused by what they left behind, politically and technologically
Being a Linux user v. being a Windows user is not a mutually exclusive condition. There are things that Windows does better (like games and multimedia creation), and things that Linux does better (everything else). Perhaps I'm a bit naive because I used WinXP until recently, but I figure that if you're computer runs with the penguin, you're a Linux user. If it runs on glass (maybe that's why Windows is so fragile......), you're a Windows user. It's as simple as that.
100% of graduating seniors going off to college is not an indication that Summit is doing well. It is a nice accomplishment to brag about, but quite meaningless in the long run. If you want to know how good the school is, ask this: How many of those college-bound students will actually graduate from their universities and contribute to society? How many will drop out and end up in minimum wage jobs and their parents' basements until they're thirty because they were pressured into doing something that wasn't right for their futures?
What this country needs is more schools like HTH--schools that actually get their students excited about learning and instill in them a lifelong love for seeking out answers to questions that haven't been asked. What goes on in the vast majority of public, government-run schools (and private ones as well) is not education. It is indoctrination. Charter schools like HTH are necessary because they pose an alternative to the system of mass indoctrination. That it was forced to close its doors is sad for everyone that knows the true value of education--that it is not an end, but rather a means to an end. Seeing schools brag about their rigged average ACT scores and narrow-minded focus on college admissions does nothing but prove to me that they have it wrong.
I completely agree, especially with the public sympathy part. The RIAA could point to this and say they're protecting the rights of their customers to buy (read: rent) legitimate, band- and recordlabel-approved discs. They can trot out the spin about how their costumers can't even be sure the music is actually performed by the original artists. I dislike the industry as much as the next guy here, but in this one case, they did it the right way. It just so happens, as an added and unintentional benefit, that this is a gold mine for them. A bit of applying their massive media muscle to people's vanity about owning the real deal, and they won't even need the nuisance suits.
Imagines some sappy elevator music with a Mister Rogers-type voice-over.Are you sure that is really Bono's voice coming out of your speakers....
I'm reminded of comedian Conan O'Brien's state quarters: Nebraska, home of people about to leave Nebraska. With business, it's already like that here in the grate (intentional spelling) state of Illinois. His desire for misspending taxpayer dollars on unconstitutional things like this makes me want to leave. Sadly, most people here are too stupid to realize how much of what he wants to do is flat-out illegal, and that the rest is not much removed from asking us to grab our ankles once more. This is what we get for electing a governor who has spent five years campaigning (and a few days actually governing).
Somewhat related, is there any state that doesn't do BS like this? I'd really like to know, so that I can leave Illinois to those who deserve it.
Yes, knowledge is power, and governments and their puppet institutions (i.e. schools) already have too much power. Why should they be given more when they can't wisely use what they have? I can't tell if these points are being brought up in a positive light or not, but there's no reason for anyone to see where I am/have been with a mouse-click or two.
1) Crime would be ended since, after any crime, the police would only have to log onto the computer to see who was present at the moment the crime was comitted.
2) Population control would be easy since whenever a boy dot was in very close proximity, say less than 1 inche, to a girl dot, a little pink heart could start flashing on the screen and the government watchperson could administer a little remote-controlled voltage zap to the two parties to ruin the amore of the moment.
3) Transportation problems...a thing of the past...since you would need a permit to commute over road xyz which would specify your permitted travel times.
4) Money? Who would need it? Your id tag would just be automatically billed for whatever. If you didn't pay...you could just be confined to whereever and monitored for compliance. No need for prisons, either, for anyone but the most dangerous.
5) Adultery, stalking, speeding, trespassing, etc. are examples of a few of the many crimes that would be obsoleted due to their degree of difficulty and the ease with which transgressors would be identified.
All this assumes that you are who your RFID says you are. There's no need for high-tech hacking to ruin the system. All you'd need to do is steal a wallet, and you're someone else. What if you need cough medicine or something like that at 1 am, and your RFID blocks access to the public highways because you're suppposed to be alseep? Advocating the use of stupid machines with no capacity for common sense to do the job of people only invites trouble. There is no excuse for seriously suggesting this kind of system. Anyone who does needs to have his RFID identity stolen, temporarily, so that he can see what foolishness he's brought into the world.
It's urban sprawl, at least around Chicago. There's a little town called Pingree Grove on U.S 20. The town is about 50 miles from the Chicago City Limits. Five years ago, the population of this town was 150 people; now, it's over 2000. All the other towns by the Illinois 47 corridor (Marengo, Hampshire, etc.) are seeing the same thing. This invasion of cookie-cutter mansions--starting price is mid-three hundred thousands--makes me sick.
I liked being able to find something resembling open country so relatively close to home. It was nice to get away from all the overhead lamps and stoplights and Wal-Marts and all those other suburban staples that lurk around every corner. Seeing the sun rise over a Wal-Mart parking lot isn't majestic. It doesn't inspire awe or wonder. All it does is remind me that I'm living in the wrong place. I like open spaces and quiet nights, and I know that those things are being pushed out for more 24-hour this-and thats.
I also know that I'm not the only one who wants these quieter places. The sad irony is that trying to escape the busy city nightlife only drags it out further. I imagine that quite soon, the Chicago Metropolitan Area will extend halfway across the state, not because Rockford and everyone else on I-39 wants to be absorbed by that growing urban area, but rather because of people who only want to sleep at night without halogen lamps blinding them at midnight. Unless one picks someplace that really is the middle of nowhere, escape is impossible. Eventually, even that might not be enough.
>>An apostrophe is usually a marker of possessiveness. It is NEVER used for plurality.
Plurals of foreign, non-anglicized words can carry an apostrophe for plurality--Archaic, but true.
Personally, I think it's quite telling that you can't debate this topic without resorting to old, cliched arguments against this kind of behavior--not because you're lacking in the intelligence department, but because it's just that difficult to argue against the whole "National Security/Think of the Children" crowd that constantly asks for more and more, when it can only provide less and less. Every time a story like this comes up, I see countless quotes along the lines of "Those who trade freedom for security...." and "The more you tighten your grasp...." If that is the best that we, as people who value freedom, can come up with, we've already lost. Fear (or greed) is a hard motivator to counter because it takes something that everyone has and turns it against them. Using cliches to fight against fear is like trying to cut concrete with a butter knife; neither will be successful, ever.
Having said all that, I put this out there:
The three arguments you've stated are the most often used, but they are entirely correct. I think the best way to look at why all this surveillance is bad is quite simple. Our elected government officials are supposed to be public servants, and it is we, as citizens, who are supposed to be the masters. Their jobs and salaries are drawn directly from the people for whom they are supposed to work. Corporations are much the same--their jobs and salaries are supposed to be dependent on actually satisfying the needs of their customers. We submit ourselves to governments and corporations because we can not do everything that a proper, free society needs to have to survive. Not everyone can farm, build cars, or use language (or violence, if necessary) to promote his needs and defend his rights.
This surveillance society that Western Civilization is moving towards has it backwards. Instead of remembering that they are granted the privilege of working for us, corporations like Microsoft and the government view it as their birthright to have perpetual power over the very people who allowed them to exist in the first place. They see us as resources to be exploited, much the same attitude as was held by slave owners back before the civil war. They are all hypocrites, pretending to be acting in the best interests of their customers while really undermining everything they say they stand for. To them, all that matters is power--political, military, or financial. They wish to rule over us when they really should only operate with our permission. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that, and we're too afraid to go back and reclaim what belongs to us.
I wish not to be accused of stating the obvious, but the violence came first, and videogames are a form of art imitating violence in life (however twisted it might be). So long as mankind has been mankind, and no doubt before then, the species has always had its violent sociopaths. Caveman art, the Bible, and every form of the communication of ideas that has ever existed within our species has depicted violence because the violence was there first.
Even if all forms of commuication, including various forms of art, were banned, there would still be indefensable acts of violence. In fact, there probably would be more, since being able to peacefully communicate ideas and use them to resolve conflict is part of what makes humans (as a whole) different from the rest of creation. To take that away would remove what may be the only thing keeping us from destroying ourselves.
Outside of some rapid mass evolution of the human race into a completely peaceful being, the only way to truly eliminate all but the most necessary forms of violence between people would be to ban humans. Obviously, I don't propose such a thing, but making violent video games illegal does no more to protect us from ourselves than does banning books or shuttering art museums--both of which contain more depictions of violence than video games could hope to boast in the next thousand years.
One company or ten, the point is the same, that the media as a source of reputable news is an ancient ideal. Any time one turns on the television or reads the paper, what he gets isn't unbiased journalism, but heavily biased sensationalism. Just like in the movies, mindless crap violence and scare tactics bring in the big ratings. No matter what FOX or ABC or anyone else says, there is no fair and balanced and true journalism in mass media today. Talk radio is slightly different because it is a more interactive medium (listener call-ins), but at the end of the day, it's just a different flavor of the same crap.
Most of the American public is too naive to see this. Most of the America public is too naive to realize that in many ways, the internet is the last bastion of true journalism in the country--quite possibly in the world. It should be obvious that they don't care about or "don't want" net neutrality. A free internet is different than being spoon-fed "news" in soundbite-sized pieces; it requires independent thought. A free internet scares the crap out of the telcos because it takes control out of their hands and puts it back in the hands of the public. They want it locked down just the same way as the traditional mass media before the public wakes up and sees the need for hip-waders, though I don't know that there's really anything to be afaid of on their part. The results of the "survey" clearly show that the American public is far more stupid and docile than could possibly have been imagined.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of the latest stuff for PS2 is quite impressive--not because of of the raw power of the system, but because developers got so good at wringing every last bit of performance out of the platform. Okami as we know it would have never been written for PS3, but the limitations of the PS2 hardware forced Capcom/Clover to do something different, and I, for one, am glad they chose to be different. A PS3-centric version probably wouldn't have been nearly as distinctive.
Horsepower leads to laziness, not just with games, but with software in general. Any time that industry experts proclaim that "it is time to move on" like the author of this article suggests, I get a bit queasy. A jump in raw computing ability though it may be, it's also usually a setback in game playability and quality. "It's time to move on" to me says "It's too hard to work within these old constraints."
The solution: ban brains.
Outside the sarcasm tags, I wonder how long it will be before some moron tries that.
Of course, the obvious way to avoid problems like these is to not sign up for such things in the first place. How many people receive an actual benefit by signing up for this kind of service?? I'd bet the number is somewhere between zero and two.
The original language of the commandment you refer to can be also be translated as "Thou shalt not murder." Though "murder" and "kill" are somewhat synonymous, they really do not mean the same thing. Thousands of years, ambiguous words and no constant (and some possibly revisionist) translations lead to this particular debate. And, as others have pointed out, there are provisos for punishment (what most consider murder) and self-defense (not murder). Given a look at the context of the Old Testament, the original language most likely meant something closer to "murder" than to "kill."
That, however, is nitpicking, and I do agree 100% with the main point of this post, and, in some ways, the definition of "murder" is left open to as much interpretation as the definition of "sex offender." This business of "not knowing how to deal with X" is not just limited to murderers and rapists and paedophiles. It applies to all people, regardless of who they are and what they do. What people are good at is being selfish. They incarcerate others to feel "safe." Look at zero-tolerance rules in our public schools, mandatory sentencing guidelines for prisoners, and just about every heavy-handed law/rule/guideline ever written in the history of mankind. Sadly, nothing will change until two things happen: man becoming much less selfish than he truly is (and that probably won't ever happen), and the definitions of most criminal acts being clearly and reasonably defined (which leads to greater problems of its own).
I think that the update of Galactica is parallel to the maturing of TV audiences across all ages. Television is a great medium for campy adventure shows, but as is has grown in popularity, the viewers have (generally) demanded more. Almost all shows from the 50's through the 80's were highly camp-filled love fests, and the darker, grittier shows such as those found on HBO and Showtime would never have made it to air back then. It's acceptable today to have flawed anti-hero types because that's what viewers want, and it does make for better television.
Personally, I'd like to see Knight Rider get the same treatment as Galactica has, with Michael as a much more bitter, renegade personality. Think the mistrust of a House-like character with the wild, almost lawless nature of Tony Soprano. That's how I imagine a person shot and left for dead would turn out, and, if you watch the first episode of Knight Rider, you'll see that's where it was heading to. Michael was a lot more distant and distrusting ('cept for with the ladies) than he later turned out to be. If done right, watching him battle his inner demons through his crime-fighting (for not entirely selfless reasons) would draw pretty good ratings. Leave out most of the CSI stuff and stick with the action.
And yes, this car sucks. Seriously. KITT was stealthy and aerodynamic. Both the car and the driver could blend in because they were designed NOT to stand out in a crowd. This rolling hunk of crap leads me to believe that whatever sequel this is will be heavily infused with a Fast and the Furious attitude. If I want to see that, I'll watch a F&F movie. The first time this abomination pulls a drift or some other dangerous driving stunt.........
Don't they have better things to do than to nitpick about video game ratings? Or would doing those things require the intestinal fortitude to look at a real problem and come up with a real solution, which is far beyond what they're capable of?
Sheesh, everything about this proposition is so fundamentally flawed, I hope they'll never get a conviction out of it. Any reasonable judge will see the RIAA lawsuits that have been smacked down because of the inability to reliably track people online by IP and other identifying information and think, "the plaintiffs could not even produce a probability of guilt in a civil case using these methods," and immediately dismiss a criminal case prosecuted under this farce. Sadly, reasonable judges are in short supply. But, then again, so are reasonable lawmakers. I look forward to seeing similar legislation here in Illinois, as my state's economy needs to be more robust to be considered "in the shitter."
True, true. However, Quanta != Dell. ASUS laptops have ASUS motherboards. Dell makes no motherboards, therefore, Dell laptops cannot have Dell motherboards.
Actually, that's exactly what The U.S. Constitution (or any, for that matter)is for--for specifically outlining what the job of of the government is. Federal constitutions describe federal governments; state constitutions define state governments--and so on. The last thing that the government should be doing is everything the people tell it to do. People can, do, and will give away their own freedoms for what, in the end, amounts to nothing. That nothing takes many forms, usually safety from terrorists, and, as in this case, safety from (death by) illness. Worse yet, people can, do, and will give away other people's freedoms for the same reasons! Don't believe me? Remember the Japanese internments of the 1940s, or Nazi Germany, or sex-offender laws that ruin people's lives for the stupid, mostly harmless things that they did when they were fifteen.
And when the money is created from thin air, because of rampant inflation, or demanded from the citizens at an ever-increasing rate, again due to inflation, to pay for it all, how is this any different than not providing those services? Instead of some people having quality health care while others don't, no one will have it. Will you be happy to pay so much in taxes that someone else, who may not have your work ethic, freeloads off the government while your quality of life takes a swim in the crapper? Let's see what you say when that possibility comes up, as it most certainly will if this country (the United States) continues its current course.
No, it's not okay for people to be forced to live on the streets, starving to death, being treated as criminals for daring to be alive. Yes, it is the human thing to do to help those in need, for the strong to assist the weak. Should it be forced by law? No. Freedom does include the right to be an ass to the rest of society, so long as you don't actively seek to destroy it. Just as is the rule with free speech, only permitting "popular" freedoms does not count as preserving freedom at all.
You say it is cruel to ignore those who have lesser means to get by, to throw them under the bus for your own gain. That is true. Do realize, though, that it is just as cruel to force someone to take care of another person without an implied or explicit agreement to do so (such as would be made in the case of parenthood). Legally, I have no responsibility for anyone other than myself, any children I help create, or anyone for whom I take legal guardianship of. Morally, I should help those in need, but the government has no place legislating based on all but the most basic moralities (such as the prohibition of murder). And yes, it is as morally wrong to force someone to degrade his own life to support the life of someone else, agreed-to commitments aside, as it is to leave a homeless man to die.
Given the size of the Eee, I'd hope it's covered under that new warranty program. I think there will be a lot of people buying this who aren't accustomed to owning such a small machine and that there will be a lot of accidental breakage the first time around. I like the idea of these ultra-small laptops and other similar devices, but I stay away from the specifically because I'd probably break them precisely because their size makes them easy to toss in a bag or car, and then forget about and sit on or something like that. Having a one-year no-fault replacement warranty would be a huge draw for any laptop computer--and even more so for one this size.
And, no, I don't think they'll void your warranty if you install XP.
This is a part of why gold has historically made such good money. One ounce of gold is always one ounce of gold. One pound of food gets eaten. One house rots and becomes inhabitable. One plow gets worn beyond usefulness. Making consumables the basis of a monetary system means that the money supply will always be in flux.
Money is NOT wealth. Ask someone in Zimbabwe how it feels to be a millionaire. He'd say it's not that great because his money is all but worthless, and all his millions can't even buy a day's worth of food for his family. He may have millions, but he's not wealthy because true wealth is, in part, the ability to acquire necessities and luxuries. By the way, true wealth means these necessities and luxuries are paid for in full, not on credit. Remember, the key is the ability to acquire without debt, not the posessions themselves.
Why can the purpose of business not be both? People need jobs to fill their days with things to do. People need money to live. Though some will get more work than others and some will get more money than others, a business accomplishes both of these things at the same time.
People with a purpose in life usually live longer, happier, healtier lives than those who don't, but depression and starvation and deprivation and death are also a result of having too much to do. Only a proper balance between work and play does better at keeping people happy and healthy. People can, and do, work themselves to death.
If everyone is happy to just keep doing useful things with their life and take what they need instead of trying to show off how many toys they have at the next guys expense, money is a liability, wasted bureaucratic effort that distract people from what was really important.
While there is nothing wrong with having toys, it is the competitive nature of trying to one-up the neighbors that sucks the joy out of it. And yes, there is something definitely wrong when the acquisition of bigger and better goods prevents people from contributing to society. However, a healthy, moderated desire for bigger and better is what drives social and technological development. It opens up more useful avenues for people to explore. When what people satisfying only their needs becomes a limiting factor to what they do in life, society is no better off than when they compensate for their insecurities with rampant greed.
Absolutely. Money is always a poor end to try to achieve. In and of itself, money is almost universally worthless, and things that are only done for money are also just as worthless. On the other hand, when the passion for being the best at what one does is satisfied, money is many times a by-product of that achievement. In these cases, money is a means to a different end. That is where money's true value is--as a way to better one's own life and the lives of those nearby. Money can't buy happiness by itself, but it can buy the tools that a person uses to make his own happiness.
Money will always exist in some form. It is the best way for people to assign worth to things they require or desire, and to deprive worth from things they do not want or need. Removing people's ability to financially support what they agree with is a lousy way to run a society, even if what they support is amoral to you. In this way, money is a form of speech. It is a form of freedom. If you eliminate money as we know it, something else will just take its place, and eventually we'll have this debate again.
I am a musician and a poet. Everything I do outside of work is driven by passion. Come to think of it, so is everything I do while at work. I understand that passion is what truly makes people rich, with money as a side benefit. I also understand that money speaks in ways that words never can hope to. People can spout all sort
And speaking of socialist systems:
Unfortunately for you, such a socialist system can never exist. Socialism is fundamentally based on the premise that a government has the right to tell people what they do and do not need/can and cannot want/can and cannot have. That intrusion into the every day lives of people is mutually exclusive with freedoms and rights. A wonderful part of free economic policies is that it allows people to aspire to have better things than they do now without having to worry that the big, bad, government auditors will come in and quash their dreams. Socialism fixes people in their current social and financial classes because it removes the ability and incentive for people to better themselves. And then, a society dies as no one can be bothered to contribute to it due to lack of reward.
Bottom line: people want newer and better things. Use that desire to further society instead of trying to control it and destroying what makes mankind as unique as it is.
And yes, your dollar should be worth half what it was three years ago. The supply of money in that time has almost doubled. As it becomes easier to obtain a dollar, its value decreases by roughly the same increase in the ease of obtaining that dollar. It is only because of the lag between infusions of fiat currency and the resulting increases in prices that the dollar is as "strong" as it is now. That some people actually destroy money through loan defaults helps a bit. Government subsidies also close some of the gap. Food is still relatively cheap because tax dollars from everyone go to alleviate the cost for everyone. Electronics are still cheap because many are sold as loss-leaders. (Anyone seen the markup on a digital video cable lately?)
Bottom line is that yes, in terms of bang for the buck, however it is measured, is impressive in terms of nominal dollars. In terms of real money (gold or silver), we truly have it the best anyone has ever had it. In 1987, gold was between 400 and 500 dollars an ounce. An IBM PS/2 was, at minimum, 1700 dollars, or three or four ounces of gold. Today, the same relative amount of computing power (to the competition) is about 600 dollars, or less than one ounce of gold (currently almost 680 dollars an ounce). Relative computing power has fallen to one-third of the price from 20 years ago. The only reason it hasn't fallen even more is because of the lag between the latest round of inflation has yet to really kick our behinds. Never worry, though, it will.
Yes, the internet can open people's eyes to how other people have it better: how they can live their lives mostly without fear of civil war, super-massive corruption, and the specter of starvation hanging overhead. Is that what will happen? Probably not. The internet is just as easily used for the exact opposite. Look at all the oppressive regimes who throttle it down to a shell of what it can, and should, be. Most of Africa is stuck centuries ago in terms of economic, social, and technological development. Where the governments hold "power," the internet would be used just as another tool to keep the citizens down. Where there really is no government as we know it, the people will fight even more because it will be that much easier to incite violence. Either way, more people will die. I know this may sound definitely un-PC, but as I said, it is already mostly a lawless (as we define rule of law) continent. The internet will just make it worse.
There are no "right" circumstances for this, only better and worse circumstances. West Germany, post-World War Two, only worked because that society was quite similar to our own. It wasn't the "imposition of a foreign structure" as much as it was the re-establishment of what the people (somewhat) inadvertently gave away. Hitler wasn't appointed by divine right, holy succession, or whatever other excuse he could conjure. He was chosen by the people of his own country. In retrospect, not a wise choice, but that's a bit off-topic.
The people of Africa didn't choose to be colonized by the European powers. Their way of life was deemed by their conquerors to be immoral, heathenistic, uncivilized, or whatever else you wish to call it from the Europeans' point of view. It was replaced with something that was so different to the African people, they didn't really have the opportunity to come to terms with it. Of course, it doesn't help that the Europeans had no real interest in the welfare of their conquered subjects. They just wanted the cheap goods and labor. When they left, the African countries couldn't go back to what they were before, as things had changed too much. Nor could they become "civilized" (as the Europeans define that term), because they never were allowed to learn about "civilizaton." By default, they just replaced the Europeans with whomever could bully the best, which is exactly what they learned from the European conquerors. Who knows what African societies could have evolved into had they been allowed to advance on their own.
Interesting that you bring up Iraq. We have the same situation there that the African continent faced before. It's a shame that the President can't crack open a book, or he'd have known what happens when you impose a "foreign structure and hierarchy" on a people who have no need for or don't want it. He'd also know what happens when you hand out unlimited cash and advanced technology to people who don't know how to properly use it (sorry, un-PC, but true). The Europeans pillaged Africa once, and look at the havoc caused by what they left behind, politically and technologically
Being a Linux user v. being a Windows user is not a mutually exclusive condition. There are things that Windows does better (like games and multimedia creation), and things that Linux does better (everything else). Perhaps I'm a bit naive because I used WinXP until recently, but I figure that if you're computer runs with the penguin, you're a Linux user. If it runs on glass (maybe that's why Windows is so fragile......), you're a Windows user. It's as simple as that.
What this country needs is more schools like HTH--schools that actually get their students excited about learning and instill in them a lifelong love for seeking out answers to questions that haven't been asked. What goes on in the vast majority of public, government-run schools (and private ones as well) is not education. It is indoctrination. Charter schools like HTH are necessary because they pose an alternative to the system of mass indoctrination. That it was forced to close its doors is sad for everyone that knows the true value of education--that it is not an end, but rather a means to an end. Seeing schools brag about their rigged average ACT scores and narrow-minded focus on college admissions does nothing but prove to me that they have it wrong.
Imagines some sappy elevator music with a Mister Rogers-type voice-over.Are you sure that is really Bono's voice coming out of your speakers....
Somewhat related, is there any state that doesn't do BS like this? I'd really like to know, so that I can leave Illinois to those who deserve it.
1) Crime would be ended since, after any crime, the police would only have to log onto the computer to see who was present at the moment the crime was comitted.
2) Population control would be easy since whenever a boy dot was in very close proximity, say less than 1 inche, to a girl dot, a little pink heart could start flashing on the screen and the government watchperson could administer a little remote-controlled voltage zap to the two parties to ruin the amore of the moment.
3) Transportation problems...a thing of the past...since you would need a permit to commute over road xyz which would specify your permitted travel times.
4) Money? Who would need it? Your id tag would just be automatically billed for whatever. If you didn't pay...you could just be confined to whereever and monitored for compliance. No need for prisons, either, for anyone but the most dangerous.
5) Adultery, stalking, speeding, trespassing, etc. are examples of a few of the many crimes that would be obsoleted due to their degree of difficulty and the ease with which transgressors would be identified.
All this assumes that you are who your RFID says you are. There's no need for high-tech hacking to ruin the system. All you'd need to do is steal a wallet, and you're someone else. What if you need cough medicine or something like that at 1 am, and your RFID blocks access to the public highways because you're suppposed to be alseep? Advocating the use of stupid machines with no capacity for common sense to do the job of people only invites trouble. There is no excuse for seriously suggesting this kind of system. Anyone who does needs to have his RFID identity stolen, temporarily, so that he can see what foolishness he's brought into the world.
I liked being able to find something resembling open country so relatively close to home. It was nice to get away from all the overhead lamps and stoplights and Wal-Marts and all those other suburban staples that lurk around every corner. Seeing the sun rise over a Wal-Mart parking lot isn't majestic. It doesn't inspire awe or wonder. All it does is remind me that I'm living in the wrong place. I like open spaces and quiet nights, and I know that those things are being pushed out for more 24-hour this-and thats.
I also know that I'm not the only one who wants these quieter places. The sad irony is that trying to escape the busy city nightlife only drags it out further. I imagine that quite soon, the Chicago Metropolitan Area will extend halfway across the state, not because Rockford and everyone else on I-39 wants to be absorbed by that growing urban area, but rather because of people who only want to sleep at night without halogen lamps blinding them at midnight. Unless one picks someplace that really is the middle of nowhere, escape is impossible. Eventually, even that might not be enough.
>>An apostrophe is usually a marker of possessiveness. It is NEVER used for plurality. Plurals of foreign, non-anglicized words can carry an apostrophe for plurality--Archaic, but true.
Having said all that, I put this out there:
The three arguments you've stated are the most often used, but they are entirely correct. I think the best way to look at why all this surveillance is bad is quite simple. Our elected government officials are supposed to be public servants, and it is we, as citizens, who are supposed to be the masters. Their jobs and salaries are drawn directly from the people for whom they are supposed to work. Corporations are much the same--their jobs and salaries are supposed to be dependent on actually satisfying the needs of their customers. We submit ourselves to governments and corporations because we can not do everything that a proper, free society needs to have to survive. Not everyone can farm, build cars, or use language (or violence, if necessary) to promote his needs and defend his rights.
This surveillance society that Western Civilization is moving towards has it backwards. Instead of remembering that they are granted the privilege of working for us, corporations like Microsoft and the government view it as their birthright to have perpetual power over the very people who allowed them to exist in the first place. They see us as resources to be exploited, much the same attitude as was held by slave owners back before the civil war. They are all hypocrites, pretending to be acting in the best interests of their customers while really undermining everything they say they stand for. To them, all that matters is power--political, military, or financial. They wish to rule over us when they really should only operate with our permission. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that, and we're too afraid to go back and reclaim what belongs to us.
Even if all forms of commuication, including various forms of art, were banned, there would still be indefensable acts of violence. In fact, there probably would be more, since being able to peacefully communicate ideas and use them to resolve conflict is part of what makes humans (as a whole) different from the rest of creation. To take that away would remove what may be the only thing keeping us from destroying ourselves.
Outside of some rapid mass evolution of the human race into a completely peaceful being, the only way to truly eliminate all but the most necessary forms of violence between people would be to ban humans. Obviously, I don't propose such a thing, but making violent video games illegal does no more to protect us from ourselves than does banning books or shuttering art museums--both of which contain more depictions of violence than video games could hope to boast in the next thousand years.
Most of the American public is too naive to see this. Most of the America public is too naive to realize that in many ways, the internet is the last bastion of true journalism in the country--quite possibly in the world. It should be obvious that they don't care about or "don't want" net neutrality. A free internet is different than being spoon-fed "news" in soundbite-sized pieces; it requires independent thought. A free internet scares the crap out of the telcos because it takes control out of their hands and puts it back in the hands of the public. They want it locked down just the same way as the traditional mass media before the public wakes up and sees the need for hip-waders, though I don't know that there's really anything to be afaid of on their part. The results of the "survey" clearly show that the American public is far more stupid and docile than could possibly have been imagined.