I'm glad they dropped the 10-day-phone-home, but really, this DRM is still bad. It sounds like the same system BioShock used, and that was bad. In fact, it's even worse because you only get 3 computers instead of 5.
It's a 3 computer install limit based on a hardware profile of your computer. If you install a new video card you need to reactivate the game using up your 2nd slot unless you remembered to uninstall the game first, or use the revocation tool if they even have one.
This benchmark article shows that SuperFetch and ReadyBoost can help improve app launch times a bit, but mostly only if you have woefully tiny amounts of RAM in your computer.
CoD absolutely had HPs. Just because they added some temporary damage as well doesn't mean it's suddenly a new concept. If I recall correctly, when you got hit you took some permanent damage and some temporary damage that slowly returned. Temporary damage wouldn't kill you, but if you got hit again while your temporary damage had you below zero you would die.
It even had a bar that clearly represented a hidden numerical value (Hit points) and you died when it was empty (zero).
Not sure if this link will work, but here is a screenshot (off GameSpot) showing the hit points in action:
Car Wars was such a great tabletop game. It's always dissapointed me that its transition into computer games died so early. By all rights it should have been a massive series of hit games.
Autoduel was released by Origin Systems way back in the Apple II days, and despite a bunch of bugs, was great fun. That was the only computer game that really carried the feeling of the Car Wars universe. Deadly highways where you could fight with deadly armaments or run using evasive munitions (oil, mines, spikes, etc..). Arena combat where you could get your tires shot out and your car totally disabled and you could still jump out and try to run for the exit on foot.
The whole courier, bounty, pirate system in Autoduel is the same theme that makes Elite/Privateer and other space games so great.
I really think Autoduel could have been what GTA is today if they had kept releasing games with that same open ended formula that Autoduel helped pioneer.
I wonder if Auto Assault will come close, and I wonder if SJ will be kicking himself as hard as I'd like to kick him if it does do well.
How can it be libel if she is simply reporting what she sees?
Because she isn't taking pictures of everything she claims she saw. Obviously if I posted in a blog that I saw you pouring oil into a lake and you did no such thing, you'd feel like a victim.
Whether the company did the things or not, they are now going to attempt to cover any traces and sue her on every point she can't prove.
Get a cheap fog machine, which heats the fog juice so it tends to fill the whole room, not just the floor. Then build a cooler system for it to chill the fog down and keep it on the floor. Plansabound...
Create spooky mixes for an iPod or laptop that involve lots of silence. Put them with mini speakers locked under the bathroom sink, or behind closed closets to periodically make creepy sounds. Having a sound go off 15 seconds after someone enters a bathroom often results in a very satisfying scream for those waiting to use it. You can also use any other sensor to set off the sounds rather than just looping them with silence between.
We had a collection of old black and white horror movie clips running without sound on a TV in a corner.
I've been wanting to have a webcam snap X seconds of video every Y minutes to provide a semi-stop-action recording of the party for later (X an Y still TBD). I've done this at other events and they can be a blast to review later. In my case a Mac is the only machine available for this and I'm a PC guy so I need to figure out what software or scripting can make that happen with an iSight. It was also suggested that the image from the webcam could be displayed on a screen in another area so that, for example, people in the back yard could see what's happening on the dance floor.
Webcams can also be used as motion detectors to trigger computerized events such as sounds.
Re:Isn't not having water more important than food
on
Just Add, Umm, Water
·
· Score: 1
That's precisely the point. This invention prevents you from carrying water in your food and in your canteen. Just carry the water in your canteen and the food is dried and ultralight. Then you can carry more water at the same weight.
The only reason to use urine would be if you were running out of your last reserves of water and you know you can't waste the water on food for the same reasons you mention.
"The significance that virtual objects hold are purely social, and, due to the fact that they do not actually exist, they serve no other function than be a drain on the economy."
The very same could be said of digital photography, or website design, or 3D computer models, or anything digital. Does a digital photograph have any significance other than social? Well you can make a living from photography, but not from games you might be thinking... but you'd be wrong.
In games like Second Life you are allowed to create your own items, houses, clothes, vehicles, etc... These creations are no different than the models created by a 3D artist in 3D Studio Max save for the level of detail. You can, and are encouraged to, sell these for either real world cash or in game cash. This is no different than a freelance artist creating art assets and selling them to game companies for use in their games.
The line is not so clear cut between games and reality. And the line will get blurred further as games allow you more freedom to create and express.
Your opinion is all fine and good, but we can all make just as rational arguments about why the Earth must be flat or that the sun revolves around it. These arguments would all contain sentences that start with "Well, think about..." or "I have heard much anecdotal evidence..."
I'm not saying that your argument lacks any merit whatsover, you might be dead on, but the original poster asked for someone TO DEMONSTRATE ACTUAL HARM. And I for one, would like to see more scientific evidence in this realm as well.
It has struck me for some time that we shouldn't be so worried about whether someone is cheating or not, but rather: "How well are they playing". Right now detecting cheating software is somewhat easier, but imagine a day in the future when we will have webcams connected to software that generates 100% valid inputs into a 100% valid client that is 100% indistinguishable from a human playing the game. At that point you can no longer "detect" that it isn't a human, and the focus will be simply: "Is that person to good for this competition bracket?"
Right now it's very difficult to create a novice only server for beginners to learn a new game. Many griefers love to log into such a server and wreak h4v0c on the n00bs. But if we had a way to measure playing ability you could restrict play to that ability. Basically someone to who is consistently surpassing the metric for a period of time would be ejected or handicapped automatically.
Now before you assume that such a method is impossible (which it might be for some games), I can give a small example from Starcraft, where it might work. An interesting statistic often discussed about masters of SC is their actions per minute (APM). An average player does 50 to 70 APM, while a tournament pro can hit 400 APM. Why not allow that to be used by those who wish to as a metric for auto-handicap or server boot.
Sure a total novice could still use cheat software to move up a bracket or two by this metric, but as long as he's playing at the same level that everyone else in that game is, who really cares? And it wouldn't help at all at the highest levels of competition where there is no cap, but when there is money/titles on the line, shouldn't all those people be in the same room, or at least have witnesses/referees present?
Another benefit of such a system would allow for auto-handicapping so that an itermediate player could play against a novice and still have an enjoyable game.
I live in the Bay area and have had great SBC internet service for many years. My same account, and email address have followed me without a hitch to residences in SF, Oakland and Berkeley. There was zero downtime in my internet service when I made my last move. It was on as soon as my telephone line was on, which was the day I moved in.
While choice is nice, I really doubt that having separate phone line and DSL providers will be able to take an existing account and transfer it to a new number in a new city with zero downtime.
And also I'm not sure what they mean by allowing people to "choose any DSL company they wish". My neighbor has DSL through SpeakEasy and my workplace has it through EarthLink.
I married a woman and put her through medical school. For 4 years it was all the game time I needed for just $13,000 a year. Man what a deal that was.
And now she's a first year resident and I've only seen her once or twice in the last year. But now she's getting paid by someone else to leave me alone at home playing games in the evening.
But seriously, if you like to have a lot of free time to yourself, then date someone who doesn't have much free time of their own.
If you are already with someone who expects to spend a certain amount of time with you, then you can probably only cut back on that amount of time by a small amount. Finding a replacement for the person she loves spending time with is not easy to do for the long term.
I still don't understand why some people think paying cash for EQ loot is strange.
You pay cash to play the game at all in the first place. Many people then pay cash for the strategy guide to let them play better. Some people buy new equipment to let them play better, like a new flightstick with detached throttle for their new flight sim.
In the old adventure game days if you got stuck, you could call a number and pay per minute to listen to hints to get you unstuck. You basically paid money to continue in the game.
What if you didn't need a strategy, or a hint to progress in the game? What if what you needed was better equipment or more levels? Why would it be so strange to pay for those, but not the other things?
Well the XBox version of Halo does support cooperative play, while the PC version does not. So there are features missing, whether or not they are grayed out...
But I don't see how this will stop bad ports from happening. Even games developed for both simultaneously, like Deus Ex 2, can have totally horrible user interfaces on the PC. Not to mention ridiculous load times and tiny zones.
The excellent Fallout series was originally based on the GURPS engine. The 2 companies later had a falling out (no pun intended) and the game was released without any mention of SJ games or GURPS. But the game still felt very much like playing GURPS, especially in character creation.
That being said, the GURPS system is, in many ways more, complicated than AD&D, and thus more difficult to put into a computer medium. The spell system jumps to mind because it has a great variety of different kinds of prerequisites for spells. Each of these would have to be accounted for in some large rules based spell advancement system, for example.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if GURPS 4 is planning to address some of these issues. To make both the pen and paper game more consistent and simpler to learn, and the computer game easier to update as new sourcebooks are released.
1. His point is that technology has hit a plateau. But he only demonstrates that graphics have hit a plateau. We are seeing huge leaps in other areas of games still. Real time physics is a huge one. If you've played Max Payne 2 you know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't just wait for HL2 and then you'll know how awesome it can be. Also AI and realism are improving a ton. And I mean the good kind of realism like the acrobatics in Prince of Persia, not annoying things like having to eat every 27 minutes of game time.
And besides graphics are improving and innovating. Far Cry has pushed the far clip plane out to an absurd distance. You can see the enemies patrolling the fort at the top of the island from your boat at the start of the first demo level. That's impressive when most games have been using fog to keep your vision on the juicy graphics right in front of you.
2. He makes no point here. Basically only that games with story compete with Hollywood. Yup I agree, and games are winning...
3. He argues that games suck as interactive movies because of death and repetition. But he is narrow mindedly presuming that interactive movie type game must retain the challenging aspects of most games. Why? How challenging is sitting on your sofa watching a movie? It isn't. Movie games can back off the challenge to keep you immersed and still loving every minute of it. Take Knights of the Old Republic, I only died a few times through the whole thing. Mostly I was just loving running through it, slicing baddies up with my lightsaber and watching the plot twists unfold and reacting to them as I saw fit.
4. He says gamers are getting older and giving up on games, and xbox and gamecube were failures. The former is crap because tons of new people are getting into games every day. Games have always been most popular among the younger crowds. Sure some aging gamers give it up, but gaming is still on the rise: just look at sales.
And the latter point about failed consoles is irrelevant, even if you consider it true. There have been tons of failed consoles over the years and the industry chugs on. It signals nothing.
5. He says the next 3 consoles might be more similar than different. Ummm, who cares? I play games on the PC. And how does having 3 awesome, powerful consoles out at the same time each with their own games hurt anything?
6. He argues that the popularity of online gaming will not grow fast enough to curb the decline of gaming in general. No need to rebut, because I don't think there will be any permanent decline. He says: "Online gaming is not the same experience as video gaming". Sure and pacman wasn't the same experience as pong. That signaled the end of pong, not video gaming. We've also barely scratched to surface of online play.
7. He mumbles about consoles with net connections might cause publishers to push buggy games and fix them later. Who cares? It happens now and the savvy gamer delays his purchase till the patch is out. The rush gamer gets his fix early. It doesn't affect the market one bit.
One of his final sentences: "All it will take is some other fad, some toy, some other hobby to come along, and interest will fade." To which, I'll simply rebut: We'll see. We'll see.
"For example, they're always available to help prevent the "establishment" of religion, but they're never around to preserve the "free-exercise" of it."
Hmm? Listed on the home page of the ACLU (www.aclu.org) amongst their TOP issues is Religious Liberty.
If someone tried to pass a law saying that you couldn't recite the lord's prayer while walking down the street, you can bet your ass that the ACLU would step up to challenge it.
That being said, they will also fight to maintain the separation of church and state.
Here is what they have to say in support of the free exercise of religion:
Religious Liberty
Americans enjoy a degree of religious freedom unknown in most of the rest of the world, and they take full advantage it: the United States is home to more than 1,500 different religious bodies and 360,000 churches, synagogues and mosques.
The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all, is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The Constitution's framers understood very well that religious liberty can flourish only if the government leaves religion alone. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees the right to practice one's religion free of government interference. The establishment clause requires the separation of church and state. Combined, they ensure religious liberty. Yet assaults on the freedom to believe continue, both in Washington and in state legislatures around the country.
The ACLU will continue working to ensure that religious liberty is protected by keeping the government out of the religion business. Use the resources on this page to learn more and take action to protect the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights.
When I download an mp3 of a song that I already own on CD I do not believe that I have broken the law. Perhaps only 9% of p2p network users are downloading music they don't already own.:)
Since you're not only reading the great journal of nerds everywhere, but are also posting using the played jokes of a/. regular, you are going to have a LOT to say to your 12 year old self in 20 years... Start taking notes now.
Windows users are very similar to Linux users in that they both value freedom highly. Just with Windows users they value the freedom to run the largest selection of games, and the freedom to install the latest and greatest funky hardware and have it work the day it comes out.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad they dropped the 10-day-phone-home, but really, this DRM is still bad. It sounds like the same system BioShock used, and that was bad. In fact, it's even worse because you only get 3 computers instead of 5.
It's a 3 computer install limit based on a hardware profile of your computer. If you install a new video card you need to reactivate the game using up your 2nd slot unless you remembered to uninstall the game first, or use the revocation tool if they even have one.
We don't want this hassle.
This benchmark article shows that SuperFetch and ReadyBoost can help improve app launch times a bit, but mostly only if you have woefully tiny amounts of RAM in your computer.
However, this slew of benchmarks shows Vista to be slower across the board then XP.
CoD absolutely had HPs. Just because they added some temporary damage as well doesn't mean it's suddenly a new concept. If I recall correctly, when you got hit you took some permanent damage and some temporary damage that slowly returned. Temporary damage wouldn't kill you, but if you got hit again while your temporary damage had you below zero you would die.
o fduty/1029/call_screen006.jpg
It even had a bar that clearly represented a hidden numerical value (Hit points) and you died when it was empty (zero).
Not sure if this link will work, but here is a screenshot (off GameSpot) showing the hit points in action:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/pc/call
Car Wars was such a great tabletop game. It's always dissapointed me that its transition into computer games died so early. By all rights it should have been a massive series of hit games.
Autoduel was released by Origin Systems way back in the Apple II days, and despite a bunch of bugs, was great fun. That was the only computer game that really carried the feeling of the Car Wars universe. Deadly highways where you could fight with deadly armaments or run using evasive munitions (oil, mines, spikes, etc..). Arena combat where you could get your tires shot out and your car totally disabled and you could still jump out and try to run for the exit on foot.
The whole courier, bounty, pirate system in Autoduel is the same theme that makes Elite/Privateer and other space games so great.
I really think Autoduel could have been what GTA is today if they had kept releasing games with that same open ended formula that Autoduel helped pioneer.
I wonder if Auto Assault will come close, and I wonder if SJ will be kicking himself as hard as I'd like to kick him if it does do well.
How can it be libel if she is simply reporting what she sees?
Because she isn't taking pictures of everything she claims she saw. Obviously if I posted in a blog that I saw you pouring oil into a lake and you did no such thing, you'd feel like a victim.
Whether the company did the things or not, they are now going to attempt to cover any traces and sue her on every point she can't prove.
That's precisely the point. This invention prevents you from carrying water in your food and in your canteen. Just carry the water in your canteen and the food is dried and ultralight. Then you can carry more water at the same weight.
The only reason to use urine would be if you were running out of your last reserves of water and you know you can't waste the water on food for the same reasons you mention.
The very same could be said of digital photography, or website design, or 3D computer models, or anything digital. Does a digital photograph have any significance other than social? Well you can make a living from photography, but not from games you might be thinking
In games like Second Life you are allowed to create your own items, houses, clothes, vehicles, etc... These creations are no different than the models created by a 3D artist in 3D Studio Max save for the level of detail. You can, and are encouraged to, sell these for either real world cash or in game cash. This is no different than a freelance artist creating art assets and selling them to game companies for use in their games.
The line is not so clear cut between games and reality. And the line will get blurred further as games allow you more freedom to create and express.
The first and most obvious question is: Does the poster have any idea how to compute MPG? And if so, what method was used?
I know that parking on a hill and eyeballing the fuel gauge would result in a hefty boost to my MPG!
Your opinion is all fine and good, but we can all make just as rational arguments about why the Earth must be flat or that the sun revolves around it. These arguments would all contain sentences that start with "Well, think about..." or "I have heard much anecdotal evidence..."
I'm not saying that your argument lacks any merit whatsover, you might be dead on, but the original poster asked for someone TO DEMONSTRATE ACTUAL HARM. And I for one, would like to see more scientific evidence in this realm as well.
This one was pretty amusing too...
It has struck me for some time that we shouldn't be so worried about whether someone is cheating or not, but rather: "How well are they playing". Right now detecting cheating software is somewhat easier, but imagine a day in the future when we will have webcams connected to software that generates 100% valid inputs into a 100% valid client that is 100% indistinguishable from a human playing the game. At that point you can no longer "detect" that it isn't a human, and the focus will be simply: "Is that person to good for this competition bracket?"
Right now it's very difficult to create a novice only server for beginners to learn a new game. Many griefers love to log into such a server and wreak h4v0c on the n00bs. But if we had a way to measure playing ability you could restrict play to that ability. Basically someone to who is consistently surpassing the metric for a period of time would be ejected or handicapped automatically.
Now before you assume that such a method is impossible (which it might be for some games), I can give a small example from Starcraft, where it might work. An interesting statistic often discussed about masters of SC is their actions per minute (APM). An average player does 50 to 70 APM, while a tournament pro can hit 400 APM. Why not allow that to be used by those who wish to as a metric for auto-handicap or server boot.
Sure a total novice could still use cheat software to move up a bracket or two by this metric, but as long as he's playing at the same level that everyone else in that game is, who really cares? And it wouldn't help at all at the highest levels of competition where there is no cap, but when there is money/titles on the line, shouldn't all those people be in the same room, or at least have witnesses/referees present?
Another benefit of such a system would allow for auto-handicapping so that an itermediate player could play against a novice and still have an enjoyable game.
I live in the Bay area and have had great SBC internet service for many years. My same account, and email address have followed me without a hitch to residences in SF, Oakland and Berkeley. There was zero downtime in my internet service when I made my last move. It was on as soon as my telephone line was on, which was the day I moved in.
While choice is nice, I really doubt that having separate phone line and DSL providers will be able to take an existing account and transfer it to a new number in a new city with zero downtime.
And also I'm not sure what they mean by allowing people to "choose any DSL company they wish". My neighbor has DSL through SpeakEasy and my workplace has it through EarthLink.
I married a woman and put her through medical school. For 4 years it was all the game time I needed for just $13,000 a year. Man what a deal that was.
And now she's a first year resident and I've only seen her once or twice in the last year. But now she's getting paid by someone else to leave me alone at home playing games in the evening.
But seriously, if you like to have a lot of free time to yourself, then date someone who doesn't have much free time of their own.
If you are already with someone who expects to spend a certain amount of time with you, then you can probably only cut back on that amount of time by a small amount. Finding a replacement for the person she loves spending time with is not easy to do for the long term.
There is such a thing already. But it isn't cheap. Especially if you buy the battery pack with it...
... but would be fabulous as a feature built into Mozilla or Opera.
No. Mozilla does not need any more features built in. What it would be useful as is a plugin for those who want it.
I still don't understand why some people think paying cash for EQ loot is strange.
You pay cash to play the game at all in the first place. Many people then pay cash for the strategy guide to let them play better. Some people buy new equipment to let them play better, like a new flightstick with detached throttle for their new flight sim.
In the old adventure game days if you got stuck, you could call a number and pay per minute to listen to hints to get you unstuck. You basically paid money to continue in the game.
What if you didn't need a strategy, or a hint to progress in the game? What if what you needed was better equipment or more levels? Why would it be so strange to pay for those, but not the other things?
Well the XBox version of Halo does support cooperative play, while the PC version does not. So there are features missing, whether or not they are grayed out...
But I don't see how this will stop bad ports from happening. Even games developed for both simultaneously, like Deus Ex 2, can have totally horrible user interfaces on the PC. Not to mention ridiculous load times and tiny zones.
The excellent Fallout series was originally based on the GURPS engine. The 2 companies later had a falling out (no pun intended) and the game was released without any mention of SJ games or GURPS. But the game still felt very much like playing GURPS, especially in character creation.
That being said, the GURPS system is, in many ways more, complicated than AD&D, and thus more difficult to put into a computer medium. The spell system jumps to mind because it has a great variety of different kinds of prerequisites for spells. Each of these would have to be accounted for in some large rules based spell advancement system, for example.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if GURPS 4 is planning to address some of these issues. To make both the pen and paper game more consistent and simpler to learn, and the computer game easier to update as new sourcebooks are released.
Point by point:
1. His point is that technology has hit a plateau. But he only demonstrates that graphics have hit a plateau. We are seeing huge leaps in other areas of games still. Real time physics is a huge one. If you've played Max Payne 2 you know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't just wait for HL2 and then you'll know how awesome it can be. Also AI and realism are improving a ton. And I mean the good kind of realism like the acrobatics in Prince of Persia, not annoying things like having to eat every 27 minutes of game time.
And besides graphics are improving and innovating. Far Cry has pushed the far clip plane out to an absurd distance. You can see the enemies patrolling the fort at the top of the island from your boat at the start of the first demo level. That's impressive when most games have been using fog to keep your vision on the juicy graphics right in front of you.
2. He makes no point here. Basically only that games with story compete with Hollywood. Yup I agree, and games are winning...
3. He argues that games suck as interactive movies because of death and repetition. But he is narrow mindedly presuming that interactive movie type game must retain the challenging aspects of most games. Why? How challenging is sitting on your sofa watching a movie? It isn't. Movie games can back off the challenge to keep you immersed and still loving every minute of it. Take Knights of the Old Republic, I only died a few times through the whole thing. Mostly I was just loving running through it, slicing baddies up with my lightsaber and watching the plot twists unfold and reacting to them as I saw fit.
4. He says gamers are getting older and giving up on games, and xbox and gamecube were failures. The former is crap because tons of new people are getting into games every day. Games have always been most popular among the younger crowds. Sure some aging gamers give it up, but gaming is still on the rise: just look at sales.
And the latter point about failed consoles is irrelevant, even if you consider it true. There have been tons of failed consoles over the years and the industry chugs on. It signals nothing.
5. He says the next 3 consoles might be more similar than different. Ummm, who cares? I play games on the PC. And how does having 3 awesome, powerful consoles out at the same time each with their own games hurt anything?
6. He argues that the popularity of online gaming will not grow fast enough to curb the decline of gaming in general. No need to rebut, because I don't think there will be any permanent decline. He says: "Online gaming is not the same experience as video gaming". Sure and pacman wasn't the same experience as pong. That signaled the end of pong, not video gaming. We've also barely scratched to surface of online play.
7. He mumbles about consoles with net connections might cause publishers to push buggy games and fix them later. Who cares? It happens now and the savvy gamer delays his purchase till the patch is out. The rush gamer gets his fix early. It doesn't affect the market one bit.
One of his final sentences: "All it will take is some other fad, some toy, some other hobby to come along, and interest will fade." To which, I'll simply rebut: We'll see. We'll see.
Terrorists are rarely acting for the sole cause of furthering evil. Demons are.
Games where you kill terrorists are presenting an overly simplified solution to a complicated problem. Games where you kill Demons aren't.
I just can't see how games where you kill imaginary demons are worse than games where you slaughter your fellow man.
"For example, they're always available to help prevent the "establishment" of religion, but they're never around to preserve the "free-exercise" of it."
Hmm? Listed on the home page of the ACLU (www.aclu.org) amongst their TOP issues is Religious Liberty.
If someone tried to pass a law saying that you couldn't recite the lord's prayer while walking down the street, you can bet your ass that the ACLU would step up to challenge it.
That being said, they will also fight to maintain the separation of church and state.
Here is what they have to say in support of the free exercise of religion:
Religious Liberty
Americans enjoy a degree of religious freedom unknown in most of the rest of the world, and they take full advantage it: the United States is home to more than 1,500 different religious bodies and 360,000 churches, synagogues and mosques.
The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all, is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The Constitution's framers understood very well that religious liberty can flourish only if the government leaves religion alone. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees the right to practice one's religion free of government interference. The establishment clause requires the separation of church and state. Combined, they ensure religious liberty. Yet assaults on the freedom to believe continue, both in Washington and in state legislatures around the country.
The ACLU will continue working to ensure that religious liberty is protected by keeping the government out of the religion business. Use the resources on this page to learn more and take action to protect the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights.
When I download an mp3 of a song that I already own on CD I do not believe that I have broken the law. Perhaps only 9% of p2p network users are downloading music they don't already own. :)
Since you're not only reading the great journal of nerds everywhere, but are also posting using the played jokes of a /. regular, you are going to have a LOT to say to your 12 year old self in 20 years... Start taking notes now.
Windows users are very similar to Linux users in that they both value freedom highly. Just with Windows users they value the freedom to run the largest selection of games, and the freedom to install the latest and greatest funky hardware and have it work the day it comes out.