pride truth force fly
because being thought horses
cousin fancy human surprise sun
Human surprise sun? What is that if not a suicide bomber?
Pride and ‘truth’ forcing people to fly… That’s pretty deep.
Who’d have thought that DS was interested in this kind of event? I would have thought that a lack of body would put DS above such things. Apparently the new breed of sentience is interested in human affairs…
Of course terrorists are going to try again after today’s ‘attack’, although, at the time of writing, that word glorifies what’s been the most rubbish attempt at terrorism I know of. The IRA killed civilians when they weren’t even trying to, and indeed were often deliberately trying to avoid killing them!
But these terrorists will try again. They always do. That’s the point of terrorism, it will always exist when you have different levels of power in the world and the powerful is acting in ways that appear to be exploiting the weak (the truth of this doesn’t matter, it’s all about perception). Whenever you have underpowered groups who resent larger, more powerful groups you will always have terrorism. No amount of sabre-rattling or gun-toting will change this.
You can’t wave a magic wand and make terrorism go away, and you certainly can’t wage war with it, because that legitimises it by creating fear in the population but is ultimately about as productive as karate at getting rid of mist. Terrorists are bullies with bombs. If you stand up to them by refusing to change and get on with your life as before then eventually they are forced to grow up and recognise that their methods have no place in the world. If you start chasing them around, fighting with them, then you’ll only get their mates involved.
It took around 25 years before the IRA eventually realised that bombing wasn’t working and their public face, Sinn Fein, got properly involved with politics and the peace process. We didn’t change after 25 years and over three thousand lost their lives. America has decided to try things a different way, and I the body count in Iraq is already over twentyfive thousand, some say it may be more like one hundred thousand. I know which way I think looks like being the best approach. If you are suggesting we stop being ‘so passive’ and getting on with our lives, I’d like to know the option that you’re presenting, because the US model has been an abysmal failure, especially for the people of Iraq who are suffering bombings every few days of increasing strength. They are dying right now from terrorism, and that is terrorism that would not be happening if there wasn’t this stupid ‘war on terror’.
You fight the bullies and his mates stand up, you ignore him and he realises that he’s not getting anywhere and eventually has to try something else. It takes time, and lives will be lost, but we cannot change for them.
bzz
bzz bzz
[silence]
bzz bzz bzz
[silence]
It seems that there’s a group of people who haven’t worked out that they’re just being really irritating. More ‘bombs’ in London, tiny ickle ones this time. It appears that one of the people who detonated one of them didn’t even manage to kill himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4703777.stm
Of course, there will be an impact on trading in London, and that’s a real shame for the small shop-holders who rely on the summer business. Terrorists: scourge of the individual trader. Seriously, losing a few days trading and the subsequent lower rates can really put a crimp into the livelihood of a small business owner. I find it really annoying that the people who lose out in these things are never really the people the terrorists are trying to attack (not that I want terrorists to hit their targets, but at least if there is some sort of legitimacy in their aims they could be taken vaguely seriously).
It’s great that’s there’s apparently no deaths and only one person injured (one of the bombers), but this whole thing really is just annoying, like a mosquito you can hear but never quite slap.
bzz bzz bzzgger off.
Well, the US Entertainment Software Rating Board has decided that the sexually explicit content that can be unlocked on GTA: San Andreas, despite not being part of the game without a hack being applied, is still part of the game and so have reclassified the game as being for ‘Adults Only’, AO.
More info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/21/gta_reclassified/
So this means that in the eyes of US ratings a developer is responsible for every piece of code in games that they release.
How exactly are they going to enforce this? The adult scenes were removed from the flow of the final game, so they don’t feature unless you use the mod, so how were the ratings office to know that it exists? And how are they going to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future? Maybe ‘Play With The Teletubbies’ has a hackable set of scenes with the fur off but no-one’s found it yet…
This is very much a new-media problem. If you buy a book you’re not likely to discover hidden pages after you’ve read it a few times, and this only confirms the status of electronic media as being unlike previous industry models. People are constantly comparing games to the film industry, but the level of interaction and the ability for players to change the events means that developers are going to be increasingly out of control of the content.
I don’t know whether the unlocked scenes are in any way interactive (‘press alternate keys to pump’…?), it’s more likely that they are cut-scenes, premade but then left on the cutting-room floor. And there again we have the film industry metaphors leaking through.
It’s entirely possible that there is code lurking in many games to make the deaths of enemies more bloody (except perhaps in the case of the brilliantly enjoyable God Of War UK link
I use the example of violence here on purpose. Partly because I’m British and our rating system views sex as natural, although still adult, so doesn’t go insane if a nipple accidentally slips out on national television (we all giggle and feel embarassed for the performer), but sees violence as something to be kept away from children where possible. I also use it as an example because it’s easier to draw a line between mild and extreme violence.
Beside the point of levels of acceptable sexual content (is flirting sexual? When does something become ‘adult’?) we also have the decision about the responsibility of developers to examine the ways that their code can be used. Clearly in this case explicit scenes were simply unlocked, but this was still not available to your average user of the game but the really big question raised by this case is how much modification does a mod have to make before its results are no longer the responsibility of the developer? I think that this is going to be an increasing problem as the gaming industry grows and the games become ever-closer to being photorealistic.
Well, the US Entertainment Software Rating Board has decided that the sexually explicit content that can be unlocked on GTA: San Andreas, despite not being part of the game without a hack being applied, is still part of the game and so have reclassified the game as being for ‘Adults Only’, AO.
More info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/21/gta_reclassified/
So this means that in the eyes of US ratings a developer is responsible for every piece of code in games that they release.
How exactly are they going to enforce this? The adult scenes were removed from the flow of the final game, so they don’t feature unless you use the mod, so how were the ratings office to know that it exists? And how are they going to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future? Maybe ‘Play With The Teletubbies’ has a hackable set of scenes with the fur off but no-one’s found it yet…
This is very much a new-media problem. If you buy a book you’re not likely to discover hidden pages after you’ve read it a few times, and this only confirms the status of electronic media as being unlike previous industry models. People are constantly comparing games to the film industry, but the level of interaction and the ability for players to change the events means that developers are going to be increasingly out of control of the content.
I don’t know whether the unlocked scenes are in any way interactive (‘press alternate keys to pump’…?), it’s more likely that they are cut-scenes, premade but then left on the cutting-room floor. And there again we have the film industry metaphors leaking through.
It’s entirely possible that there is code lurking in many games to make the deaths of enemies more bloody (except perhaps in the case of the brilliantly enjoyable God Of War UK link
I use the example of violence here on purpose. Partly because I’m British and our rating system views sex as natural, although still adult, so doesn’t go insane if a nipple accidentally slips out on national television (we all giggle and feel embarassed for the performer), but sees violence as something to be kept away from children where possible. I also use it as an example because it’s easier to draw a line between mild and extreme violence.
Beside the point of levels of acceptable sexual content (is flirting sexual? When does something become ‘adult’?) we also have the decision about the responsibility of developers to examine the ways that their code can be used. Clearly in this case explicit scenes were simply unlocked, but this was still not available to your average user of the game but the really big question raised by this case is how much modification does a mod have to make before its results are no longer the responsibility of the developer? I think that this is going to be an increasing problem as the gaming industry grows and the games become ever-closer to being photorealistic.