"Do you imagine for a moment that the participants in the WEF--whether they be the CEOs of Amoco an IBM of the leaders of Amnesty International and OXFAM--waste their time with Internet chat rooms and discussions such as this? Do you actually believe, as you type your random thoughts in such Internet settings, that you are participating in Civilization? In Democracy? In changing your world?"
Being an obvious newbie to the culture of the Internet, I suppose it's understandable that you didn't realize you should always ponder a bit before turning on the flame thrower. Perhaps if you'd taken a moment to think about it, you might have had a moment of shock at the realization that there exists an entire culture of political thought of which you were apparently completely unaware. Perhaps you'd have realized that some of the participants in these political discussions will _BE_ the policy makers of tomorrow. Perhaps you'd have taken a moment to be frightened of a future that will be defined by a culture that is so completely foreign to you. You see Laurie, we are in the process of changing the world; you've just been blissfully ignorant of it.
This thing has all the makings of a good book simply for all the suspicious behavior of everyone involved.
You've got the obvious villan in the bullying, blackmailing Microsoft.
The not-so-obvious villan of the hometown company who claims to be a do-gooder but keeps dropping intersting hints foreshadowing future mischief. ("Several patents have been filed for" {insert obvious technology here})
You've got a large group of victims that are easy to empathize with played by the poor citizens of Houston who desperately need access to an office suite.
There are politics (Houston City Council), big battles (MS vs SimDesk), and accusations of wrong-doing are thick as mosquitoes. The only thing we need now is a love interest and it would be perfect.
Hmmm...a company with little or no history in IT, based in a city not known for business integrity (Enron), employing a former staff member of a presidential administration not known for its ethics (Clinton), founded on dirty (garbage..get it, haha) money, brokered by someone who left as soon as the deal was completed and is now indicted for unrelated embezzling charges, and claiming patents on seemingly obvious technology
Versus
A global software monopoly, sputtering in outrage at the temerity of Houston to scorn MS's blackmail. ("Pay up now or else we'll sue! Hey, wait, where are you going? Damnit! Get back here and respond to our blackmail! Please?")
I can almost see Open Source Man leaping over the horizon in his cape and tights to free the oppressed citizens of Houston.
I've got Vonage also because we were already spending $40/month in long distance so we figured we'd give it a try.
So far our experience with the company has been great. Contrary to the article the voice quality is excellent the vast majority of the time; usually unless I tell someone they can't tell I'm not calling from a normal land-line. At it's worst the sound quality has still been better than any cell phone on a good day.
I'm actually of two minds about the article mentioning Vonage. On one hand I think the company is great so I want them to sign up lots of new customers and do well. On the other, I fear that as it becomes more popular the ILECs are going to descend on them and I'll find my $40/month phone bill balloned by idiotic regulatory fees.
For instance: my total bill for my $39.99 Vonage service comes out to $41 and some change. My land-line costs just a hair over $21 but after I pay all the taxes and fees my total monthly bill is nearly $36!!!!!
In the matter of the notice of proposed rulemaking FCC 02-230, the FCC should reject the proposal as unacceptable as a whole for the following reasons:
1) The rulemaking is based on faulty premises. 2) The rulemaking does not solve the problem it is intended
to address. 3) The rulemaking unfairly infringes upon the fair use rights
of consumers under copyright law. 4) The rulemaking unfairly represents the views of a minority of
stakeholders. 5) The rulemaking unfairly externalizes the costs of protecting
intellectual property.
Originators of intellectual property have a valid interest in exercising their rights to protect the fruits of their labor and it is in the interest of everyone to find a compromise that balances the rights of content producers and consumers. However, the proposed rulemaking satisfies neither the legitimate need of intellectual property holders to protect their content nor does it protect the rights of the consumer to engage in fair use of that content. The proposal is flawed and should be rejected for the following reasons:
1) The rulemaking is based on faulty premises.
The premises under which the rulemaking was authored are
faulty and results in a subsequently flawed rulemaking. The
faulty premises advanced to support this rulemaking and the
arguments refuting these premises are as follows:
a) Premise: Content released in digital media are more
Susceptible to piracy than content released in analog
media because digital copies can be made with no loss of
quality.
Content released in digital media are no more susceptible
to piracy than content released in analog media. Any
analog content can be transferred to a digital media and
thereafter retransmitted with no loss of quality. The
rate of technological advance assures that any imperfections
in the transfer process from an analog master to a digital copy
will continue to fade. Thus, any attempt to discriminate between
analog and digital transmission or media when considering the
implications of piracy is nothing more than an attempt to secure
a government sanctioned monopoly for digital technologies that
is non-existent for analog technologies.
Further, the issue of quality as a motivator to encourage
piracy of content is seriously called into question by
the actual behavior of consumers in the music market. The
most popular format for exchanging digital copies of music
files, legitimately or not, is the MP3 format. This format
is a "lossy" format meaning that information about the music
is dropped selectively to reduce the size of the resulting
file. Any copy of piece of content that is stored in MP3
format is by definition inferior to the original copy, often
times noticeably so. Despite the fact that these copies are
inferior to the original, music industry representatives
continue to claim that these imperfect copies are having
a significant impact on the sales of content. Quality, then,
does not appear to be a significant factor in piracy of music
and there is no reason to assume that consumer behavior will
change with respect to video media.
b) Premise: Content providers will not provide content in the
absence of this rulemaking or regulation or legislation that
is substantially similar.
This assertion is false on its face. The technology required
to make illegal copies of content already exists and is easy
to acquire, both in digital and analog form. Despite the fact
that piracy of content is trivial, content providers have
not changed either the channels of distribution or the frequency
of distribution of their content. As examples:
Content providers continue to provide broadcast programming
despite the fact that piracy of that content is entirely
possible. Content providers will argue that the content being
broadcast is analog and of lower quality and is therefore
undesirable for piracy. As demonstrated above ( See: 1a ),
neither of these conditions is an inhibitor to piracy. New
programming continues to appear on broadcast television
despite the lack of any effective controls on the content.
The encryption system for Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) has
proven trivial to circumvent and the tools for consumers to
make copies of the digital content contained therein are
easily available. Thus, any content distributed on DVD
media is an easy and obvious target for piracy. Again, even
in the absence of any effective protection for their content,
DVDs continue to be offered for sale.
Intellectual property owners' arguments that they will be
unwilling to provide content in the absence of this regulation
is inconsistent with their own behavior.
2) The rulemaking does not solve the problem it is intended
to address.
In the age of the Internet it is unrealistic to believe that this
regulation will negatively impact the rate of piracy of intellectual
property. The United States is not isolated from the rest of the
world and a single illegal copy of a piece of content that is
subsequently posted to the Internet effectively knocks down the
house of cards that this regulation is constructing. Pirates will
continue to operate with the same ease as before this regulation but
law abiding citizens, now presumed guilty until proven innocent, will
be forced to pay to support this farce.
3) The rulemaking unfairly infringes upon the fair use rights
of consumers under copyright law.
The purpose of intellectual property law is to balance the
rights of the intellectual property creator and the benefit
to the public. This rulemaking undermines legitimate non-infringing
uses of copyright protected content, such as time shifting, while
granting new and substantial power to intellectual property holders
without an offsetting benefit to the public.
4) The rulemaking unfairly represents the views of a minority of
stakeholders.
In the recommendations of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Subgroup
implemented in this proposed rulemaking one significant stakeholder
is conspicuously absent: the consumer. Ultimately it is the
consumer who will have to pay for and live with this rulemaking.
5) The rulemaking unfairly externalizes the costs of protecting
intellectual property.
Under the laws of the United States intellectual property holders
are already provided remedies to discourage and
prosecute those who abuse the holders' property rights. In this
rulemaking IP holders are asking for additional protections above
and beyond those provided for by law and are asking that the costs
of that additional protection are carried by the entire populace
of consumer electronics purchasers. The costs of this additional
protection should instead be carried by those that derive the
benefit of the protection, namely the IP holders and the consumers
of their content.
All this stuff about the rental stores is baloney; the real use for this technology is to make "renting" a movie an impulse purchase that can take place anywhere. Think about it:
What if you could pickup a brand new release while you're on your way through the checkout at the grocery store for something like $1? Maybe you're interested in watching the movie but not necessarily interested in owning it or maybe you just want to check it out to see if it's worth a buy; either way you'd pay a dollar to find out right?
I think the real goal as far as the movie studios are concerned is to get people like BlockBuster out of the way. If a really cheap disposable DVD might lead to a more expensive purchase (say a boxed set with extra goodies) then that's even better for the studios.
It's also not necessarily bad for consumers since you're potentially not risking much to check out if a movie is worth a purchase or not.
As far as piracy goes this could be a big winner for the studios also. What's the point of hassling with ripping a DVD that you might only watch one or twice if you can grab one for about the price of a candy bar when you stop for gas?
IBM, worried about their own antitrust problems, based their PC on commodity hardware and decided to license the PC operating system rather than buy it outright or write one for it themselves.
Not according to any of the IBM histories I've read. IBM went with both commodity parts and an off the shelf operating system because they didn't have the time or internal financial backing to do otherwise.
The makers of CP/M refused to deal with IBM, so MS bought a quick hack of a system called QDOS and licensed it to IBM themselves.
Actually, Digital didn't refuse to meet with IBM. The real problem was that the then CEO of Digital left his wife to handle the negotitations with IBM while he was off flying his plane. Presumably she was very competent to make the deal but when IBM showed up, they were offended that Digital's CEO didn't take them seriously and so IBM left. Also, MS didn't actually own any OS prior to making a deal with IBM for what was to become IBM-DOS. IIRC MS didn't start seriously trying to buy an OS until after IBM approached them.
Thanks for bringing up the point that the exams are split between rpm and deb. LPI is a vendor and distribution neutral certification exam. We do not recommend, specify, or require any training program or courseware. You're free to study on your own from the published exam objectives or to work with one of the many training and courseware vendors who support LPI.
Additionally our development process for the exams is community based and open to anyone who wants to participate. Right now we're in the middle of beta testing our Level 2 exams. During the beta, you can take both of the Level 2 exams in one combined form for only $84 (USD) at any VUE testing center. (See the bottom of the page.)
With regard to your certificate, be sure to contact us at info@lpi.org. If you're overseas, it sometimes takes things a while to get there via snail mail.
Actually my two main reasons for wanting to use something with a small footprint were power consumption (since it's going to be on pretty much all the time) and closet space (because I'm going to want to tuck it out of the way and basically forget about it.) I'm assuming that the libretto is going to draw less power than an old 486/586...so while we're on the subject, anyone have any experience in this area?
I'm getting a cable modem next week (f/x: fingers crossed) and I want to put a libretto in as my firewall/proxy/gateway/whatever. I know I'll need to use the 100 or 110 in order to physically support two PCMCIA ethernet cards. Does anyone have any experience using two pcmcia ethernet cards in this kind of setup w/Linux?
There are Linux certification efforts underway, including the Linux Professional Institute. LPI is a community based effort to answer the criticism that there is no support for Linux and no "qualified" professionals. In order to create a program that isn't just a paper cert., we need your help in designing and qualifiying the tests. Please visit our web site at www.lpi.org for more info.
LPI's Mission Statement:
The Linux Professional Institute believes in the need for a standardized, multi-national, and respected program to certify levels of individual expertise in Linux. This program must be able to satisfy the requirements of Linux professionals, as well as organizations which would employ or contract them.
Our goal is to design and deliver such a program from within the Linux community, using both volunteer and hired resources as necessary. We resolve to undertake a well-considered, open, disciplined development process, leading directly to the establishment of a recognized and widely-endorsed Linux certification body.
sorry to burst your bubble...You must be kidding
on
Review:Wing Commander
·
· Score: 1
You can't be serious. As far as the game goes WC4 blows; it's the least playable and least enjoyable of all of the series so far. (Although I haven't had the ?pleasure? of trying P2 yet.)
Somewhere, a long time ago, Origin forgot that it was about the _game_ and not about the freaking cinematics. I will give WC4 its due though. The opening scenes are fantastic and MUCH MUCH better done than the movie was. Despite WC4's crappy game play, just knowing that Digital Anvil and Chris Roberts worked on WC4's intro and the movie made me have high hopes that the movie wouldn't turn in to a cheezy piece of crap. Too bad I was wrong. Someone needs to take WC and Priv away from Origin/Roberts and give the game and the movie rights to someone with a clue.
Slashdot Mirror
"Do you imagine for a moment that the participants in the WEF--whether they be the CEOs of Amoco an IBM of the leaders of Amnesty International and OXFAM--waste their time with Internet chat rooms and discussions such as this? Do you actually believe, as you type your random thoughts in such Internet settings, that you are participating in Civilization? In Democracy? In changing your world?"
Being an obvious newbie to the culture of the Internet, I suppose it's understandable that you didn't realize you should always ponder a bit before turning on the flame thrower. Perhaps if you'd taken a moment to think about it, you might have had a moment of shock at the realization that there exists an entire culture of political thought of which you were apparently completely unaware. Perhaps you'd have realized that some of the participants in these political discussions will _BE_ the policy makers of tomorrow. Perhaps you'd have taken a moment to be frightened of a future that will be defined by a culture that is so completely foreign to you. You see Laurie, we are in the process of changing the world; you've just been blissfully ignorant of it.
I've had VOIP (IP Telephony) for nearly 5 years at work and the quality is as-good-as or better than our traditional PBX systems.
Additionally I'm also a Vonage customer and even running over the rough and tumble Internet, the voice quality and availability are excellent.
This thing has all the makings of a good book simply for all the suspicious behavior of everyone involved.
You've got the obvious villan in the bullying, blackmailing Microsoft.
The not-so-obvious villan of the hometown company who claims to be a do-gooder but keeps dropping intersting hints foreshadowing future mischief. ("Several patents have been filed for" {insert obvious technology here})
You've got a large group of victims that are easy to empathize with played by the poor citizens of Houston who desperately need access to an office suite.
There are politics (Houston City Council), big battles (MS vs SimDesk), and accusations of wrong-doing are thick as mosquitoes. The only thing we need now is a love interest and it would be perfect.
Hmmm...a company with little or no history in IT, based in a city not known for business integrity (Enron), employing a former staff member of a presidential administration not known for its ethics (Clinton), founded on dirty (garbage..get it, haha) money, brokered by someone who left as soon as the deal was completed and is now indicted for unrelated embezzling charges, and claiming patents on seemingly obvious technology
Versus
A global software monopoly, sputtering in outrage at the temerity of Houston to scorn MS's blackmail. ("Pay up now or else we'll sue! Hey, wait, where are you going? Damnit! Get back here and respond to our blackmail! Please?")
I can almost see Open Source Man leaping over the horizon in his cape and tights to free the oppressed citizens of Houston.
This should be fun to watch unfold...
I've got Vonage also because we were already spending $40/month in long distance so we figured we'd give it a try.
So far our experience with the company has been great. Contrary to the article the voice quality is excellent the vast majority of the time; usually unless I tell someone they can't tell I'm not calling from a normal land-line. At it's worst the sound quality has still been better than any cell phone on a good day.
I'm actually of two minds about the article mentioning Vonage. On one hand I think the company is great so I want them to sign up lots of new customers and do well. On the other, I fear that as it becomes more popular the ILECs are going to descend on them and I'll find my $40/month phone bill balloned by idiotic regulatory fees.
For instance: my total bill for my $39.99 Vonage service comes out to $41 and some change. My land-line costs just a hair over $21 but after I pay all the taxes and fees my total monthly bill is nearly $36!!!!!
Sheesh, ok, ok. To whomever rated me redundant, here's the link to my reduntant comment instead of the link to my FCC submission.
8 15 504
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46724&cid=4
(picky picky, I mean it was still on topic and I didn't get any feedback on the other thread.)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?na tive_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6513391850
Jared
In the matter of the notice of proposed rulemaking FCC 02-230, the
FCC should reject the proposal as unacceptable as a whole for
the following reasons:
1) The rulemaking is based on faulty premises.
2) The rulemaking does not solve the problem it is intended
to address.
3) The rulemaking unfairly infringes upon the fair use rights
of consumers under copyright law.
4) The rulemaking unfairly represents the views of a minority of
stakeholders.
5) The rulemaking unfairly externalizes the costs of protecting
intellectual property.
Originators of intellectual property have a valid interest in
exercising their rights to protect the fruits of their labor and
it is in the interest of everyone to find a compromise that
balances the rights of content producers and consumers. However,
the proposed rulemaking satisfies neither the legitimate need of
intellectual property holders to protect their content nor does
it protect the rights of the consumer to engage in fair use of
that content. The proposal is flawed and should be rejected for
the following reasons:
1) The rulemaking is based on faulty premises.
The premises under which the rulemaking was authored are
faulty and results in a subsequently flawed rulemaking. The
faulty premises advanced to support this rulemaking and the
arguments refuting these premises are as follows:
a) Premise: Content released in digital media are more
Susceptible to piracy than content released in analog
media because digital copies can be made with no loss of
quality.
Content released in digital media are no more susceptible
to piracy than content released in analog media. Any
analog content can be transferred to a digital media and
thereafter retransmitted with no loss of quality. The
rate of technological advance assures that any imperfections
in the transfer process from an analog master to a digital copy
will continue to fade. Thus, any attempt to discriminate between
analog and digital transmission or media when considering the
implications of piracy is nothing more than an attempt to secure
a government sanctioned monopoly for digital technologies that
is non-existent for analog technologies.
Further, the issue of quality as a motivator to encourage
piracy of content is seriously called into question by
the actual behavior of consumers in the music market. The
most popular format for exchanging digital copies of music
files, legitimately or not, is the MP3 format. This format
is a "lossy" format meaning that information about the music
is dropped selectively to reduce the size of the resulting
file. Any copy of piece of content that is stored in MP3
format is by definition inferior to the original copy, often
times noticeably so. Despite the fact that these copies are
inferior to the original, music industry representatives
continue to claim that these imperfect copies are having
a significant impact on the sales of content. Quality, then,
does not appear to be a significant factor in piracy of music
and there is no reason to assume that consumer behavior will
change with respect to video media.
b) Premise: Content providers will not provide content in the
absence of this rulemaking or regulation or legislation that
is substantially similar.
This assertion is false on its face. The technology required
to make illegal copies of content already exists and is easy
to acquire, both in digital and analog form. Despite the fact
that piracy of content is trivial, content providers have
not changed either the channels of distribution or the frequency
of distribution of their content. As examples:
Content providers continue to provide broadcast programming
despite the fact that piracy of that content is entirely
possible. Content providers will argue that the content being
broadcast is analog and of lower quality and is therefore
undesirable for piracy. As demonstrated above ( See: 1a ),
neither of these conditions is an inhibitor to piracy. New
programming continues to appear on broadcast television
despite the lack of any effective controls on the content.
The encryption system for Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) has
proven trivial to circumvent and the tools for consumers to
make copies of the digital content contained therein are
easily available. Thus, any content distributed on DVD
media is an easy and obvious target for piracy. Again, even
in the absence of any effective protection for their content,
DVDs continue to be offered for sale.
Intellectual property owners' arguments that they will be
unwilling to provide content in the absence of this regulation
is inconsistent with their own behavior.
2) The rulemaking does not solve the problem it is intended
to address.
In the age of the Internet it is unrealistic to believe that this
regulation will negatively impact the rate of piracy of intellectual
property. The United States is not isolated from the rest of the
world and a single illegal copy of a piece of content that is
subsequently posted to the Internet effectively knocks down the
house of cards that this regulation is constructing. Pirates will
continue to operate with the same ease as before this regulation but
law abiding citizens, now presumed guilty until proven innocent, will
be forced to pay to support this farce.
3) The rulemaking unfairly infringes upon the fair use rights
of consumers under copyright law.
The purpose of intellectual property law is to balance the
rights of the intellectual property creator and the benefit
to the public. This rulemaking undermines legitimate non-infringing
uses of copyright protected content, such as time shifting, while
granting new and substantial power to intellectual property holders
without an offsetting benefit to the public.
4) The rulemaking unfairly represents the views of a minority of
stakeholders.
In the recommendations of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Subgroup
implemented in this proposed rulemaking one significant stakeholder
is conspicuously absent: the consumer. Ultimately it is the
consumer who will have to pay for and live with this rulemaking.
5) The rulemaking unfairly externalizes the costs of protecting
intellectual property.
Under the laws of the United States intellectual property holders
are already provided remedies to discourage and
prosecute those who abuse the holders' property rights. In this
rulemaking IP holders are asking for additional protections above
and beyond those provided for by law and are asking that the costs
of that additional protection are carried by the entire populace
of consumer electronics purchasers. The costs of this additional
protection should instead be carried by those that derive the
benefit of the protection, namely the IP holders and the consumers
of their content.
All this stuff about the rental stores is baloney; the real use for this technology is to make "renting" a movie an impulse purchase that can take place anywhere. Think about it:
What if you could pickup a brand new release while you're on your way through the checkout at the grocery store for something like $1? Maybe you're interested in watching the movie but not necessarily interested in owning it or maybe you just want to check it out to see if it's worth a buy; either way you'd pay a dollar to find out right?
I think the real goal as far as the movie studios are concerned is to get people like BlockBuster out of the way. If a really cheap disposable DVD might lead to a more expensive purchase (say a boxed set with extra goodies) then that's even better for the studios.
It's also not necessarily bad for consumers since you're potentially not risking much to check out if a movie is worth a purchase or not.
As far as piracy goes this could be a big winner for the studios also. What's the point of hassling with ripping a DVD that you might only watch one or twice if you can grab one for about the price of a candy bar when you stop for gas?
CmdrTaco,
Congratulations to you both!
Specter
Not according to any of the IBM histories I've read. IBM went with both commodity parts and an off the shelf operating system because they didn't have the time or internal financial backing to do otherwise.
The makers of CP/M refused to deal with IBM, so MS bought a quick hack of a system called QDOS and licensed it to IBM themselves.Actually, Digital didn't refuse to meet with IBM. The real problem was that the then CEO of Digital left his wife to handle the negotitations with IBM while he was off flying his plane. Presumably she was very competent to make the deal but when IBM showed up, they were offended that Digital's CEO didn't take them seriously and so IBM left. Also, MS didn't actually own any OS prior to making a deal with IBM for what was to become IBM-DOS. IIRC MS didn't start seriously trying to buy an OS until after IBM approached them.
Thanks for bringing up the point that the exams are split between rpm and deb. LPI is a vendor and distribution neutral certification exam. We do not recommend, specify, or require any training program or courseware. You're free to study on your own from the published exam objectives or to work with one of the many training and courseware vendors who support LPI.
Additionally our development process for the exams is community based and open to anyone who wants to participate. Right now we're in the middle of beta testing our Level 2 exams. During the beta, you can take both of the Level 2 exams in one combined form for only $84 (USD) at any VUE testing center. (See the bottom of the page.)
With regard to your certificate, be sure to contact us at info@lpi.org. If you're overseas, it sometimes takes things a while to get there via snail mail.
Thanks for supporting LPI!
Jaredjared@lpi.org
Way to go UMR!
WARNING: Blatent Plug for My Employer Follows!
u re s/features.html
Although it's not a pad, the TI-83+ Silver Edition does include an organizer. See:
http://education.ti.com/product/tech/83pse/feat
(As to future developments, I'm not allowed to comment, but let's just say we're well aware of the potential...)
Jared
http://education.ti.com/
Actually my two main reasons for wanting to use something with a small footprint were power consumption (since it's going to be on pretty much all the time) and closet space (because I'm going to want to tuck it out of the way and basically forget about it.) I'm assuming that the libretto is going to draw less power than an old 486/586...so while we're on the subject, anyone have any experience in this area?
I'm getting a cable modem next week (f/x: fingers crossed) and I want to put a libretto in as my firewall/proxy/gateway/whatever. I know I'll need to use the 100 or 110 in order to physically support two PCMCIA ethernet cards. Does anyone have any experience using two pcmcia ethernet cards in this kind of setup w/Linux?
There are Linux certification efforts underway, including the Linux Professional Institute. LPI is a community based effort to answer the criticism that there is no support for Linux and no "qualified" professionals. In order to create a program that isn't just a paper cert., we need your help in designing and qualifiying the tests. Please visit our web site at www.lpi.org for more info.
LPI's Mission Statement:
The Linux Professional Institute believes in the need for a standardized, multi-national, and respected program to certify levels of individual expertise in Linux. This program must be able to satisfy the requirements of Linux professionals, as well as organizations which would employ or contract them.
Our goal is to design and deliver such a program from within the Linux community, using both volunteer and hired resources as necessary. We resolve to undertake a well-considered, open, disciplined development process, leading directly to the establishment of a recognized and widely-endorsed Linux certification body.
You can't be serious. As far as the game goes WC4 blows; it's the least playable and least enjoyable of all of the series so far. (Although I haven't had the ?pleasure? of trying P2 yet.)
Somewhere, a long time ago, Origin forgot that it was about the _game_ and not about the freaking cinematics. I will give WC4 its due though. The opening scenes are fantastic and MUCH MUCH better done than the movie was. Despite WC4's crappy game play, just knowing that Digital Anvil and Chris Roberts worked on WC4's intro and the movie made me have high hopes that the movie wouldn't turn in to a cheezy piece of crap. Too bad I was wrong. Someone needs to take WC and Priv away from Origin/Roberts and give the game and the movie rights to someone with a clue.