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Comment: Re:Ron Paul (Score 1) 565

by Chardish (#34539472) Attached to: WikiLeaks, Money, and Ron Paul

By not solving the root problem of 'some men are intimidating and coercive,' you're merely creating a system where women feel compelled to have abortions, and allowing these men to continue to dominate and control the lives of these women. You also make the problem worse by insisting that it's ultimately the woman's decision, totally ignoring the situation that she came from.

Way to go, hero.

Comment: Re:Well shit (Score 1) 401

by Chardish (#33875710) Attached to: Final Fantasy XIV Launches To Scathing Reviews

For example, FF13's dungeon design was vastly simplified, to the point that 99.99% of all dungeons in the game are single straight corridors, with no side paths nor possible ways to get lost. They're very pretty, but it's also very similar to playing "Final Fight: The RPG" -- walk forward, fight, walk forward, fight, walk forward, fight... This is indicative of a group of executives who have a very, very poor opinion of their target audience as a whole - "Today's gamers aren't smart enough to figure out a maze, make it a straight line."

Look, I'm not a fanboy - I hated FF8, never touched FF11, and thought FF5 and the NES titles were largely forgettable. But I've got to say something about this "linearity is bad" mentality.

Look at the FPS genre: the earliest examples were very nonlinear (W3D, Doom, Quake, etc.), providing the player with very little information about the environment. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 come along, providing the player with a completely linear experience with very little real choices for exploration, and get lauded as some of the finest games ever. Those who originally thought that exploration was a necessary part of the genre were proven wrong.

FF13 was an attempt to see if the same principle worked with RPGs. The answer is: it's mixed. On the one hand, the path forward never seems confusing or unclear, which is a mechanic consistent with the narrative (the protagonists always have a clear mission and destination in mind.) However, the lack of meaningful actions to take during the non-battle sequences (your choices are basically "advance to the next battle/plot point" or "open the menu") makes time in the field seem wasted or unnecessary. I hope future entries in the series (and JRPGs in general) take lessons from the game - the compromise seems to be "have a clear path forward, with optional activities available down alternate paths that clearly indicate that they are asides from the main quest."

Comment: Re:brilliant (Score 1) 696

by Chardish (#33637234) Attached to: Stewart and Colbert Plan Competing D.C. Rallies

Let's look at this year's State of the Union, shall we?




That's one speech, and the themes of "do as I say, or else disaster is imminent" are all there and all clear. I could dig harder, but I don't have the time right now.

Bush's fearmongering was "do as I say, or we'll be attacked again." Obama's is "do as I say, or our economy will collapse." Same rhetoric.

Comment: Re:Price (Score 1) 565

by Chardish (#33498214) Attached to: WikiLeaks Calls For Assange To Step Down

You don't understand the point of bail.

Bail isn't a presumption of guilt. Bail is required so that you actually show up in court. When the trial is over, innocent or guilty, the bail gets repaid. It's not saying "we think this person is guilty," it's saying "we want some sort of guarantee that the person is going to show up at trial."

Without bail, realistically, we'd have a huge number of arrested people running away and assuming new identities.

Comment: It's fairly simple. (Score 1) 1328

by Chardish (#33450822) Attached to: Hawking Picks Physics Over God For Big Bang

And atheist scientists continue to try to use science to suggest the nonexistence of an omnipotent being. An omnipotent being, by definition, could render itself immune to all forms of detection, including detection by scientific/rational deduction. In the end, therefore, it's faith one way or the other: faith that there is no God, or faith that there is.

I would have thought Dr. Hawking would have been above succumbing to such a simple fallacy, but I guess not.


Denials Aside, Feds Storing Body Scan Images 560

Posted by timothy
from the we-are-neither-amused-nor-surprised dept.


by Chardish (#32969146) Attached to: Apple Offers Free Cases To Solve iPhone 4 Antenna Problems

It was more lies! How could you NOT be pissed off about that press conference?

You, and much of the Internet population in general, are acting like there's some sort of massive scam taking place. Scams typically don't come with no-questions-asked money-back return policies. If I didn't like my iPhone, I'd take it back and get a refund. So could anyone else. It's not like anyone's being cheated out of their money here.

But don't let facts get in the way of your outrage over a device you don't own.

Comment: Re:I see a lot of denial in this post (Score 2, Insightful) 917

by Chardish (#32930262) Attached to: Apple Offers Free Cases To Solve iPhone 4 Antenna Problems

To summarize Jobs: "Most people aren't seeing this issue. A small percentage are." They didn't say it wasn't a problem, otherwise they wouldn't have given out the free cases. At the same time, you don't hold a giant mass recall for a product that 99% of your customers are satisfied with.

I don't see how anyone could have an issue with Jobs's response. Like the iPhone? Great, keep it, and you get a free case. Like the iPhone, but are in the small minority having signal issues? Consumer Reports says cases fix it. Have a free case. Still don't want the iPhone? Return it, get your money back.

What's the problem for the consumer here?

Comment: Re:simple math (Score 1) 973

by Chardish (#32813618) Attached to: A Composer's-Eye View of the Copyright Wars

By that logic, should any work of the mind be copyrightable? Paintings are existing colors turned into new pictures. Novels are existing words turned into new stories. Computer code is existing bits given new values. Inventions are just existing raw materials turned into new devices.

If your answer is "that's all free too, no one should own that" then you have created a world where no one can make money from the fruits of their mind, only the fruits of their physical labor. In essence, everyone must have a job either physically laboring or selling things that have been physically labored for, and intellectual culture would grind to a halt.

Copyright guarantees that you can make money coming up with better ideas than other people. How could that do anything but create progress?

Comment: "Denialist" (Score 1) 872

by Chardish (#32776174) Attached to: Climategate's Final Days

I'd just like reasoned answers to the following questions by objective and informed people who have no stake (financial/career/political/etc.) in their answers:

  1. is climate change a man-made phenomenon,
  2. if so, is it a net bad for the world,
  3. if so, is it worth stopping,
  4. if so, can we stop it,
  5. if so, should we try to stop it (costs/ethics/potential for worse catastrophes),
  6. if so, how should we stop it?

The fact that I have yet to see such answers from the aforementioned neutral parties makes me a skeptic. The "denialist" label is insulting to skeptics, and is at war with reason.

Comment: Re:Formula change (Score 2, Insightful) 534

by Chardish (#32774936) Attached to: Apple To Issue a 'Fix' For iPhone 4 Reception Perception

The end result is still a dropped call,



Comment: Re:I don't like it, but it's probably correct (Score 1) 431

by Chardish (#32656784) Attached to: Court Takes Away Some of the Public Domain

If something is in the public domain, anyone has the right to publish it. If something is not in the public domain, only certain people have the right to publish it.

Thus, removing something from the public domain is revoking people's right to publish it.

Isn't revoking rights of publishing a pretty egregious violation of freedom of the press?

Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available.