The Law and Video Games...

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/violent-games-pc-games-downloads,news-6596.html

An interesting article, which I want to point out something very interesting:

The state's appeal argues that violent games should be classified in the same category as porn, and should apply the same legal consequences to parties who sell the "violent" material to minors.

I italicized the interesting point, and even BOLDED the one thing I find fairly hilarious.

Violent games should be classified in the same category as PORN...

Now hold on here... I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Witnessed the whole tirade about how Doom and the Basketball Diaries was the 'whole reason' the two boys went on a shooting spree in Columbine. I grew up playing games like Doom, Duke Nukem, and other violent games and I have hardly went out of my way to get a gun and want to shoot up where I work, or where I went to school out of rage because of some stupidity.

I grew up watching movies like Terminator, hell, even saw Tourist Trap when I was Young and scared crapless about it that I didn't want to touch certain things again for the longest time. Now I watch horror movies and Zombie Apocalypse movies without feeling nauseousness.

But the simple statement of regarding Violent games, which involves violence to human beings on the same level as PORN... Then let's consider how the ramifications of all this, shall we?

What should be on that list, besides games that also is 'pornographic', by this definition that is NOT Rated R currently, but fits all this.

Star Wars - An Epic Fantasy that has good guys SLICING OFF people's hands or body parts. Even a depiction of Darth Maul getting cut in two. People DYING from getting shot, and that is violent. What's it rating? PG to PG-13

Toy Story - No humans involved, but I heard one person who said, "Should I show this to my kid... He was pretty sensitive to scary things and there are some things in there he knows something bad is going to happen." And let's be honest... Anthropomorphized toys where some of them get blow up by Butch... That's pretty messed up for little kids.

Disney Animated Cartoon Movies in general - Where do I begin... Classic Sleeping Beauty, you have the prince fighting a dragon, Snow White, the Queen wanting Snow White Dead and again, the Prince fighting the Queen in her evil form. 101 Dalmatians, where Cruella DeVil wants to skin puppies for her fur fetish and we have anthropomorphized dogs once again. Alladin where again violence used on Jafar to win the day...

Here is one thing also in this article:

The "Governator," California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who coincidentally is in several older "violent" video games), told Reuters that he looks forward to the final Supreme Court ruling. "We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies," he said.

I agree... We, not just the government, but WE the people, should have the responsibility to our kids and to our communities to protect them against the effects of things of these nature.

It isn't just games that have this, but simply the fact that TV and Movies also depict this and even things that supposidly have 'better' ratings are not depicted as 'porn' despite hitting the 'norms' one person alleges violent games seem to be.

The ESRB is there despite the fact that parents back when it first came to be didn't BOTHER to look at the games they were getting their kids. I remember those games before ESRB as well as how certain things on TV were easy access, but I also had parents who made sure I knew right from wrong.

These days, protecting the kids seems more of the 'Other person's' job, than that of the parent.

Just cause your paranoid...

As the saying goes:

Just cause your paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you.

Here is an article from C-Net back in March 22nd, 2010:

Malware delivered by Yahoo, Fox, Google ads

Malware delivered by Yahoo, Fox and of all people Google ads.

Now this is not a rant towards Google, (Given the fact blogger is with Google)... This is to point out something people have always wondered how the hell they are getting Malware on their computer.

The sad thing of it all, it is mostly because people aren't paranoid enough about where they browse. It used to be the joke that it is just going to the porn sites... All those damn pop ups and what not. But now a days, it isn't JUST the porn sites that are creating the problems.

6 years ago... It spread to the Lyric Sites, the cheap sites where they have ads or even some popular sites that focus on ads to support themselves. A lot of those sites have affiliates that are not well secured.

Now Yahoo, Fox and Google Ads are considered the 3 of the few sources of Malware delivery based on their advertising methods.

The problem is, the current methodologies to stop this are not 'easily' available to people. The current Security Suites rely on a 'signature', just like anti-virus programs, but of course, Anti-Virus programs are only as good as their most recent definition updates, which means a new malware or virus hitting the net is like you taking a sneeze in the face from someone with the flu before you got the flu vaccination.

And this is where the paranoia has to kick in... With the need to support websites with ads, there is the need to make ads be 'attractable'. Which means using scripting or other flashier means... And to make it easier to do it, the tools to make them are put out, but at the same time, it enables hackers and the like to create their malware and find weakly defended servers to host their malware and infect others, by passing all possible security measures...

So what can you do to protect yourself? Besides being paranoid and never going out to the internet again?

Well, self-education would be a good start. Learn what the hackers are trying to do to mess with your computer. Take the time to do research on things, both online and off.

Next, look at what you use to browse the internet, also WHERE you browse to the internet. Internet Explorer, not one of the best Browsers out there at the moment. Why? Well, besides the usual banter and insults about it being a Microsoft Product, it is because it is a Microsoft Product you want to be careful where you go out on the web for. The reason why: Ease of programming. Microsoft got most of its power from how it made things easy for users, which also included interoperability with its OS, its Office Suite, and also with many of their other products, which means their Web Browsers, their Web Servers products and basically anything Microsoft. The original intention, just like many things, was to provide a medium for users to develop communication and linking of things.

The real drawback on it, was not considering the security ramifications and making sure such things were properly secured to avoid how they could be easily exploited. And unfortunately, you can't put in a lot of security if you want things to have interoperability, the quintessential catch 22.

Now Google's Chrome... I haven't played with it, but I know there are some complaints about it for other reasons. Opera and Safari, well, not enough information for me to comment on them either. The one thing I seem to prefer is Firefox and some of the Add-ons like NoScript and AdBlock Plus to help in some of the issues, if not all of them.

The drawback of using this solution is taking the stance of "OMG - BLOCK EVERYTHING!"... Which is what they sort of do... And then you slowly go, "Ok... I will let you do what you do..." Which can be annoying at times when you keep going to a site for the first time and you are filling out stuff, and finding out you can't go further unless you allow scripting for that site, which means... Re-entering all that information you spent x minutes filling in the first place.

But again... Even with this precaution, this doesn't stop the e-mail tricks, which rely on you to be informed and paranoid to not trust the link!

The best way to be internet savvy... Is to question everything!

The 'Customer'...

One of my bosses referred people we help in IT as the 'customer'... And IT is sort of Customer Service.

The sad thing of it all, the motto of "The customer is always right..." is always touted so many times when it comes to Customer Service. Sometimes, it is ranted about by the very customers in the face of the Customer Service Rep who is doing their job.

Now, I will tell you, I am no 'shining' or 'happy' type of person at times. It always makes me want to hang up on some people who think that yelling at me would make me be 'more effective'.

Now, let's point out some examples of 'customers' that make me wonder just how they could be 'right' in any sense of the word.

1) The Angry Customer
Now these are the usual, red in the face "I'm PISSED and you are going to give me what I want or I will just yell at you!" type of people. You've all seen it, some of you have actually acted it out with the customer service agent when they don't give you what you want and thinking that yelling at them will make them cower and bow down before you.

Seriously... Take a moment to consider what you are doing. The whole angry routine just stresses out the agent. He or she wants to help you, but treating them with hostility isn't really winning you points. Sure, it might get their manager to come over and see what they can do, but the thing you all have to understand is, there are some things just throwing a fit at won't really solve.

2) Playing the 'Title' Card
I have had this pulled on me a few times. One where I literally had a VP ask me if it would help if they called a vendor and use their name and title to help 'grease' the wheels. Sometimes it works, but often times, a title doesn't mean anything unless you happen to be Mr. Moneybags who can move mountains of cash and can afford to throw money like you were exhaling gold.

On the flip side, I had to take a call from someone, he was actually using his company to get tech support on something of a personal nature, and given I was contracted only for company support, I couldn't help him. Now he tried to pull the whole "I'm one of the principles of this company..." with me, but I was told that given the nature of his call wasn't company related, I couldn't help him.

So something has to be said about this. Be realistic. There are limitations to what a title can seriously do. In the first case, the problem was there was a procedure, one that couldn't be expedited any further than the situation, but given the answer wasn't good enough, time to throw the title around. Same with the second part, given I had to tell him I couldn't help him with a personal problem with his company's account, he tried to use his title to justify that we HAD to help him.

In both cases, the customer was simply in the wrong.

3) The stupid customer...
Now this is a story someone mentioned:

'I graduated in 2009. How can I get my student e-mail account back?'
'You'd have to re-enroll as a student.'
'Okay, transfer me to Admissions.'
'okey dokey'

Now, just to be clear... Someone graduated from this College/University... And they want their student e-mail account back... So, the person is going to re-enroll to get their student account. *boggle*

Now, sure, I can understand people wanting to keep certain things, but there is also some things you can't keep. Unless this person wanted a copy of their old e-mail, which would be kind of amazing if it was still there after several months of not being in the system anymore.

It does make you wonder about how people like this could be 'right' in any way. As I posted before, there are some people who make these lame ass arguments from no real experience other than their ASSUMED belief. And as the old saying goes for 'ASSUME'...

4) The Arrogant Customer
This type of customer is right next to the angry ones in 'numbers'. They are sort of a mixture of 'stupid' or 'title' types as well, but they tend to push their ego in enough to try and beat people in doing what they want, ignoring the whole 'reality' thing all together.

It doesn't matter that in the existence of Reality, what they believe is utterly wrong and completely insane... It is simply not something they will accept and will just put forth that something can be done simply because they said so.

These types tend to make you want to back hand them, but of course, being the customer service person, you have to make them happy.

These few types I put up are just ones I can think of that bug me the most. It bugs me because they prove that there are people who aren't grounded by being rational or willing to be rational, simply because it does not 'fit' their view of things.

To follow up on the iPad...

Something to share with people from Gizmodo... I am one for some pranks, and given it is after April Fool's day that the iPad came out, doesn't stop people from playing pranks with it:

8 Cruel, but completely justified iPad Wallpaper pranks

Not too original, but still ones people could easily pull on other people, just like many others. :)

iPad and Star Trek's PADD...

So here we are... We have finally reached the point were we have a device similar to the Star Trek: The Next Generation PADD. Yes, originally, we could have said that for the Blackberry, or for the iPhone or even with the Droid, as they have touch screens and display stuff, but then again, they were small in comparison to what the Star Trek PADD is. There is even eBook readers now about the same size as the iPad, but in this case, not quite as 'versatile' as what the iPad is now.

Now, the iPad isn't really original technology. Microsoft pushed out TabletPC several years before Apple made iPad. Why is it not popular? Well, partially, spin. Tablet PCs, like PocketPCs weren't advertised as much as the iPad is, the style of it is basically an expensive laptop with a flip and touch screen.

Apple is taking advantage of its current iPhone and iPod 'look and feel' appeal that is the hit for many of their iPhone and iPod users. The simplicity of it. Amazon's Kindle is working on the same premise, although given it is using eInk, basically plain black and white technology for basically, pure paper and ease of Reading, which is what an eBook focuses on... The iPad will blow the pants of eBook reading as it will allow users to not only read documents, but watch videos and compose documents on something simple.

Looking at the technical specification, it is literally an oversized iPhone/iPod... The biggest storage capacity is about 64 gigs. It comes with WiFi or WiFi/3G (Through AT&T), so it isn't going to act like a laptop, more like a Netbook without the keyboard. At best, it is literally an iPhone/iPod for people who don't want the small screen, but a much better size screen to read text like papers and one of the pushes, comic books.

Now I know some people have written some interesting comments about the iPad and what it will do for some of us.

1. Publications - Reduces the need to use paper for various publications, such as newspapers, books and comics that a lot of us have nowadays. Which means less impact on the tons of wood and chemicals needed to make these items.
   
2. Faster access to information - No longer waiting for things to be delivered to your doorstep or to your store, it can be pulled up when you are near a WiFi or using a cellular service.
3. Elimination of multiple forms - While I saw this before the iPad, there are some medical facilities using Data Pad entry systems to help get patients registered without having to do 'double entry'. Double entry being that the patient puts down the information, and then the nurse or person at the office has to re-enter it into the computer system. The multiple forms would be for areas who have large ethnic diversities, where not everyone reads or writes in the same language.
   

But there are some things that people didn't consider to be a drawback

1. Publications - The old Science Fiction book by Ray Bradbury, 451 Fahrenheit, comes to mind. Controlled publication and information. Similar to the movie, 'The Net', where electronic information can be manipulated, where as printed information can also be manipulated as well, but once printed, it cannot be unprinted. A record of something is now physically manifested until it is destroyed. Paper based information, while not environmentally friendly, is also harder to manipulate short of destruction, and eventually, it might lead to such things.
2. Eventual dumbing down of technology - As more and more electronic toys are being made for the simplistic use, the less need to care how it works, just that it works. A classic example is something my junior high school teacher noticed that annoyed the crap out of him. Go to a fast food restaurant. When the computer is down, watch how they tend to twiddle their thumbs. "Can't take your order, our system is down." This was back in the 80s. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but paper orders and calculating the cost of something on paper when you have posted prices... Isn't that hard.

Notice that I spent more on writing on the cons than the pros, and unfortunately, that is the pessimistic side of me kicking in. Yes, a techno-geek insulting technology, but at the same time, look at the types of people we have nowadays. Look at the trend of how things are being handled and of course, the paranoid in me kicking in on regards to certain things like... How things change to fit the needs of the people.

Political Correctness tends to do that. And eventually, would direct some of the technology to allow it to happen much easier.