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User Accounts October 6, 2008 at 11:38pm |
| For any wondering, I removed the user section of the site, I decided that maintaining user accounts was a little overkill. Your comments are still there, and you can still comment, the creation of a profile just has been removed, if you have any thoughts, let me know. |
| Here We Go Again...Jack Thompson at it Again October 24, 2007 1:50am in thoughts |
 So I was watching an interview on FOX with Jack Thompson regarding Manhunt 2. It was pretty much just as I expected...Jack Thompson putting himself on this giant pedestool claiming the game should be outright banned. He claimed a corrupt ESRB and stores selling these kinds of games to kids as reasons for banning. He calls the fact that Manhunt 2 went from Adults Only to Mature a blatant sign of corruption in the ESRB. Jack goes on to say that because the game can be sold to kids, it should be banned. He says that children should be protected from this. He said kids can go onto Amazon.com and buy the game or go into stores and do the same without a parent. First let's touch the Amazon.com option. To shop at Amazon legally, you need to either be 18, or have a parent/guardian supervising. The conditions of use for Amazon say:
Amazon does sell products for children, but it sells them to adults, who can purchase with a credit card or other permitted payment method. If you are under 18, you may use Amazon.com only with involvement of a parent or guardian. Amazon reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders in their sole discretion.
So if someone goes onto the site and buys something, they should be 18, and if they are, then what is all the fuss about? If they aren't, Amazon reserves the right to cancel orders should they deem the buyer to be ineligable. Now while Amazon cannot physically monitor who is using their site, what parent in their right mind would give their 12 year old a credit card? And in terms of physical stores like Best Buy and GameStop, well that's the store's policy on whether to sell the game or not. So why the hell, Jack, are you going after the game? Go after the stores if you feel so strongly about limiting sales to minors. Jack compares this protection of children to the protection from porn. Okay, adult sites have age checkers to prevent those underage from registerring for their sites. But what about the countless sites that offer free previews or have pictures on their front page. Any unsupervised kid on a computer without some sort of filter could google "sex" and bring up hundreds of thousands of different sites. So Jack, are you going to push to ban all computers? While you're at it, why not ban the entire internet? It still comes down to one question. Where the hell are the parents? I'm not a parent, but isn't it THEIR responsibility to monitor what their children do, play, watch, see, etc? My parents did that to me, and at the time, I HATED it. Looking back at it now, I'm glad they were the way they were. I sure as hell will not let my future kids play certain games until I feel they are old enough. At the end of the day, this is the big thing. The parents should be responsible for their kids. But parents will try to pass off that responsibility to someone else instead of taking responsibility for their kids. I mean the games all have ratings clearly marked on them. E for everyone, T for teen, M for mature. I don't know enough about the inner workings about the ESRB to be able to dispute or agree with Jack's claims of corruption, but looking at the games I own and their ratings; the ratings are pretty doggone accurate. The ratings even give a brief reasoning for the rating. There are also plenty of websites with resources for parents about these video games. The parents need to be involved with what their children play. Banning a game is only going to help parents shrug off their responsibilities. I will say that I have no problem requiring stores to check for ID when buying M-rated games like they do with tobacco and alcohol. The games are not being banned, and you're still having a process to help protect the children. As far as I'm concerned, this would be a viable option to protect the children and the first amendment that Jack seems to be ignoring or at best, twisting it to fit his purposes. Several states have tried this, but seem to have the law struck down by the court systems. Jack, why don't you spend your time lobbying for this instead of trying to ban games. The First Amendment allows for freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. Video games definitely fall under this category. While I do agree with Jack in that children need to be protected, banning video games, or a video game is not the way to do it. Jack seems to have a record of twisting the amendment around to help him attempt to win his arguments. While that tactic may not be unique to him, the First Amendment allows for game makers to make whatever kind of game they choose. In the end, Jack Thompson was just being Jack Thompson. It's a shame because he seems to have a lot charisma about his "cause". If only he would put it towards a more, how shall we say it, reasonable endeavour. You can watch the interview here [Youtube.com] |
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| Space Shuttle Discovery Launches Towards International Space Station October 23, 2007 12:16pm in science |
 Space Shuttle Discovery launched today at 11:38 AM on a key mission for the construction of the International Space Station. STS-120, the second shuttle mission to be commanded by a woman, Pamela Melroy, will be delivering the Italian-built Harmony module to the ISS. The mission is scheduled to last 14 days and include 5 spacewalks. Full Story [Space.com] |
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| Microsoft Shoots Back at Hollywood October 23, 2007 12:19am in gaming |
 A little while back, Hollywood was blaming Microsoft, Bungie, & Halo 3 for a decrease in movie sales. While that may have been partly to blame, has anyone seen what Hollywood has put out lately. You probably haven't because most if not all of it is shit. I can't remember the last "good" movie I saw. The last movie I saw was the Comebacks. But that was mediocre at best. I saw Good Luck Chuck a week or so ago. Wasn't that bad, but again, not that good either...it had its parts. Well I don't know about you, but I for one blame the shit that Hollywood is trying to feed us as the cause for lackluster sales at the box office. I would like to see some good movies be released. So far, the trailers I've seen show little to no promise which is sad because I do remember when good movies came out at least semi-regularly, not rarely in today's case. Microsoft appears to agree. Microsoft executive Bob Frederickson had this to say:
"We thought we'd get some good sales, but nothing like this, but with escalating ticket prices and the crappy movies Hollywood has been putting out. People are just hungry for entertainment."
The sad part for Hollywood is, I think he's right. The quality has had a sharp decline in the past several years. You pay more to enjoy less. Sure you had hits like Casino Royale, Simpsons, and I'm sure a few others (those are the only good ones I can think of at the moment that I've seen), but overall, yeah, Hollywood's got shit. I don't think you need to be a Halo fan to agree with that. Full Story [bbspot.com] |
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| Decisions, Decisions October 22, 2007 9:18pm in life |
 So I got the job offer at ActiveStrategy. I interviewed with them I think 3 weeks ago. The position seemed pretty nice. No support was the big nice thing. I'll be doing programming in C++, C#, XML, XSLT, ASP, & SQL. It seems like a pretty good job and is what I'm looking for. Should help build up my professional programming experience. The salary is better than currently. Not by a lot, but by a decent chunk. Location is even better...closer too. Benefits are up to par with what I want and my current job. Benefits listing didn't list optical insurance, but dental and medical are both there. All in all it seems like a perfect fit for me. Why am I hesitant to actually actually accept the offer? I mean I know I'm going to. Is it because I don't want to upset Gary or any of my co-workers? Am I afraid that by some strange demented slim chance it's going to turn out the same way as currently, almost pure support? I mean they flat out told me there would be absolutely no support but why am I worried then? At the end of the day, there's really no decision to be made, I should go with the programming job with ActiveStrategy. I'm kinda worried I'll be treated like shit for my last two weeks since I'm "ditching" the company but I dunno. Leaving the Army Corps, while hard, was an easy decision. Keith needs a job, this looks promising, accept it. Well, almost 4 months later, I'm sick of the job, kinda sick of the way I've been treated, and not doing what I was looking to do...programming. Why, already knowing my decision, am I debating this so much? |
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| XBOX Vision October 22, 2007 12:45am in gaming |
 So I picked up the camera for the XBOX 360 today, pretty much on a whim and I really like it's integration into Rainbow Six Vegas. I'm sure there's other integration for it as well on other games, or if not, I'm sure new games might feature it as well. It's probably old news, but in Rainbow Six Vegas, you can take a picture of you with the camera and your custom character's face will then be modeled after yours. I'm not quite sure how it works exactly, but you take a frontal shot of your face and a side picture. From those two shots, it can model a face that looks eerily like yours. It took a few tries to get it right for me, but I got a pretty good representation of myself. I was playing one time with this one dude who put on a blue mask and then had his face modeled. It was kinda funny. Literally his head was pure blue with this crazy looking face. I'd like to think that the possibilities for this could be expanded more. The same would go for the PS3. Tags: xbox, xboxvision |
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