"By downloading this program you take full responsibility for the Bad Things that might happen to the author of this software. You assume liability shared and in whole for any damages, lawsuits, or jail time resulting from the creation of this software.
You are aware of the DMCA stupidity and agree that you know what this program does and are capable of the circumvention on your own without assistance. By clicking yes below you understand that you are adding and additional byte to the program that completes the code and makes this function as a circumvention tool. Without the additional byte required, this program will not provide circumvention of anything including your password protected pron"
There...then he can point to his EULA and give 'em the finger. His circumvention doesn't work without an extra byte which is inserted by the end user clicking OK.
Of course, using the parent's quote... "a technological measure that controls access".
So if i put a lock on my front door and a burgular comes in the window and takes a picture of the doodles in a notebook (if dog poo on the virgin mary is art, then my doodles are art) he's guilty of a DMCA violation.
A lock is technology. Granted, it's 100+ years old but that's not specified. It controlled access. Hell, what if he went around the other side of my house and used the back door? OMG horrible pun, i appologize.
Now, the actual guy in the article *may* be guilty of a DMCA violation. In fact, I honestly thing he is given how it's written. I also think this may be one of the worst laws created in the past 100 years. Prohibition might have been equally stupid. Maybe. At least that law wasn't designed by and for large corporations.
Am I the only one who things claiming copyright on a coupon is insane?
They created online coupons and don't have the technology or ability to limit the receiving side (i.e. store where you use them) so they hide behind the monstrosity that is the DMCA. Yet another company that feels the need to twist laws around to suit their business model.
Next thing you know, they're going to make coupons non-transferrable. Not the online ones, the ones you get with your paper every week. They'll sue grandma for trading coupons with her sister. I mean, if it's copyrighted they can state you can't transfer it...
Why is it that coupons of all things get this treatment but books and left alone. Perhaps writers are one of the few types of creative people that aren't greedy, self centered and manipulated by huge corporations?
"ersonally I think most of the clogging going on in the court system has nothing to do with frivilous lawsuits, it has to do more with the lack of streamlining in the judiciary process in regards to how many filings are needed to get anything done. I mean c'mon, other than discovery, and analysis thereof, how long should this shit really take?"
I couldn't agree more. File your suit, meet once if you need to force discovery (i.e. company refuses to provide records, etc.), simply and directly provide DIRECT & RELEVANT evidence, counterargument. Judgement and done.
Now, to me that's a total of a couple hours of court time for the vast majority of cases. There's no need for a 20 page motion detailing the number of rolls of toilet paper needed for each of the 12 atty's on staff for this case. Hell, i watched a divorce case drag out for about 18 months. This was not a billionaire's estate being fought over. 18 months - a year and a half. How desperatly screwed up are the courts?
Not only do you agree to binding arbitration, but you agree to binding arbitration via mail/cell/fax/email with a specific statement that there is to be NO personal appearances required for resolution. Oh, and you're required to do everything in their jurisdiction and if you DO file suit elsewhere you're subject to a PENALTY FEE if you don't immediately drop the suit a/o re-locate it to their home town.
Are you kidding me? So not only do they try to force someone to waive their right to a trial, they THREATEN to CHARGE YOU MONEY for suing them? "Oh no, someone sued us in state XY and we have to send a lawyer. Lets charge them money for this" Now, you can sucessfully defend a case and be awarded your legal fees but how can a company charge you up-front?? Insanity.
Think about it - how often are contracts pushed in your face and some sales person/kid/uncaring cog in the corporate entity gave you the "summary" of what it meant. Have you ever tried to take 15 minutes to read and understand one of those? After about 30 seconds they're reiterating their "summary" and rolling their eyes because they want to abuse their next customer and you're holding up the line.
I went to open a checking/savings acount recently and, as always, the bank had a million forms for me to sign. Would you believe one of them (i think it was one of the 'national security' nonsense ones) they refused to give me a copy of? I *HAD* to sign it but could *NOT* have a copy. I almost walked out but my wife...well, those of us who are married understand. wife > any possible legal trouble
McD (or the particular franchise in question) acknowledged that they intentionally kept their coffee at a MUCH higher temperature than what they were supposed to (extends holding time if it starts hotter).
So yes, she deserved to win *A* lawsuit. I don't believe she (aka her lawyer) deserved a multi-million payout.
Hey, I'll start voting when the popular vote matters. When politicians ignore major states because it's a guaranteed win and instead fight to the death over (no offense) stupid states like ohio i've no interest in voting.
As for local reps, well find me a single one you'd trust to borrow lunch money and return it.
If i had time or cared. If you truly believe that comment was so uniquie no one could ever have said it...well i guess you know everything about everything.
"So, you're right: we all understand that nobody has a right to profit, or any sort of guarantee that their business will succeed. I presume that we also understand that you don't have a right to piracy, either."
I don't recall ever saying we had a right to pirate anything. I just don't believe a copmany should be allowed to create and then subsequently twist laws to suit their purpose to the detriment of the majority. Let them learn how to adapt. If they can't handle the world as it is...close up shop and go home. I guarantee someone will gladly fill the void they leave. Hell, with 25k in computer audio equipment and a one-time cost of a sound booth you can reproduce audio easily equal to most CDs onthe market.
Seriously, isn't our country 'By the people for the people'. If the VAST MAJORITY have issues with a law or set or laws or the behavior of a corporate entity in relation to the laws...maybe it's time to rethink those laws or the interpretation of them. Eh?
I hope this goes well, and I hope everyone that was terrorized and blackmailed but the MAFIAA gets a sweet judgement.
Someone wrote in a different forum that the MAFIAA needs to change their business model with cope with the times. Someone replied and asked the first person to suggest a business model and implied that the MAFIAA deserve to be in business and have a 'right' to preserve their business model. Hopefully the people here are smart enough to understand that there is nothing that guarantees you or your corporation the right to a sucessful commercial venture. Hell, maybe I should sue every resident of manhatten because my street meat cart didn't make money and i went out of business, right? Or maybe i should sue NYC to force people to eat at vendor cards once weekly? LOL...
If you ask me, 99c is a bit high, 10c...perhaps a bit low.
To everyone saying 'every artist would have to sell a million songs a year to beat poverty...' I say so what? Lets say we charge 25c for ~160kbit and 35c for FLAC. That's 3 or 4 songs for a buck...who's NOT going to get a couple tracks they 'think they heard' along with the one they wanted? Now you just multiplied your sales by 4.
Lets go a step further to prove out this business model. You buy a track and download it...and it's corrupted. You just pay another 25c and get it again. Your kid sister despises metallica and deletes your 200 song metallica folder. Ah well, you have a backup. Oh wait, smart kid trashed that too. Well, i'll spend 20 bucks and get the 75-80 songs i know off the top of my head i want back. I'll get the rest later when i have time. 20 bucks, meh. Disposable income to just about any age from teens to senior citizen. Not the artist got paid twice for his song by one person! Imagine that!
You go to a friends house "check out this song"... what's easier, remember ahead of time and bring a copy or make him/her click a few times to download on their account? Your friend HATES the song. Oh well, it was a quarter, who cares? He deletes it but his kid brother happens to love the band and remember the song...downloads it again.
I hear hundereds of songs on the radio i would download for the sake of having. Would i spend $1-300? No. Would I spend $50? Probably.
Lowering the price point makes repeat sales to individuals common. It makes buying songs simply to "try" them common. 99c is ok, but 25c is the range where people ignore the cost completly.
Crybabies! Why is/. suggesting we sensor information? There is NOTHING in this article or video that is not commonly available information. Granted, it's a novel idea to run the laser in a flashlight but that's about it.
Who are YOU to decide what's safe for me??? God...I hate you people today.
Why???/. is usually the group arguing against big business and governmental controls and, in general, being told what to do.
Granted, a warning is generally a good idea but why can't peope be responsible for their own lives? I mean, the DVD drive has a big warning sticker on it. Half the posts about this are "omg teh dangerz!!!" or "wherz teh warnings???".
Come on guys (and girls) - how about we let people be vaugely responsible for what they do? Someone else mentioned it i think, but the next thing the FCC will be banning is DVD players. God help us if information about somethign that might be dangerous is used incorrectly is available. Should i be required to sign a wavier when i buy a gas can or propane for my BBQ? Or how about the BBQ itself?
Come on! Grow up and stop helping the babies. If someone's smart enough to repeat this and stupid enough to blind him/herself...hopefully that will discourage that person from breeding.
Some countries have laws where it's legal for a 40 year old man to have a 24 hour "temporary marriage" with a 9 year old girl. Using the existance of a law to justify your argument is worse than referring to the FUD-based study!
BTW, big hallway copiers haven't necessarialy been around longer. The old ones you might remember from school (depending on your age) were photostat machines. No toner, it was a chemical process if memory serves. The warnings you see on big copiers? Well they have loose toner in many cases (xerox comes to mind) and besides being messy, spilling and inhaling a cloud of that stuff will land you a hospital visit. Keeping in mind a cloud of printer toner is something like 50,000x more dense than the particles that come out of the printer/copier through use.
I'm not advocating sitting in a room 24/7 with 50 printers going non-stop with no air circulating. I think this is just the panic nonsense of the week.
So some research group writes a bunch of pages of nonsense and starts off the latest annoying "OMG YOUR OFFICE JOB MAY KILL YOU, News at 11" theme.
Really, sheeple will listen to anything and take it as fact. I'm an IT manager at work and someone actually came to us yesterday with 'How do we get this printer replaced, it's a huge polluter, see attached study'. Luckily it was in email so he didn't hear me laughing.
I mean, if you actually look at things there's stuff that doesn't make sense. At least one of HP's printers is listed in two different coulumns. It's 'above average but *may* be high'. So they list it in high as well. No further explanation, no reasoning, just FUD. Of course, people just automaticlly check the high column and don't read thst study or look at the others in detail.
I swore i'd quit when TBC came out. I didn't. heck, i even got a job again and i still play.
I'll sware i'm quitting when the litch king comes out. I probably won't.
But, despite the license to play money even the OCDish among us (like me) eventually tire of a particular repetitive thing and look for a different repetitive thing.
My big "problem" with TBC is that they solved the 'you need 39 friends to do anything good' syndrome. Unfortunately they knocked it down to 10 for the first real raid content. This means you have a lot less flex in your grouping. out of the 10, 2 MUST be tanks, 2 MUST be specced healers (if not 3). In a 40man raid you needed x healers and y tanks... but you had MUCH more flex for off-specced tanks, part time healers, etc.
I can't take a shadow priest to Kara and expect reasonable healing.
Hasn't it occured to people (read: idiots who write, propose, and pass laws) that by making something that's commonplace in society illegal they just make "fake" criminals?
Even worse, by passing laws that people are either 1) not even going to even KNOW about 2) not care about or 3) intentionally break because they dislike the law... they take yet another step towards total disregard for our laws and lawmakers and courts.
I say: WAY TO GO!!! Yet another excuse to totally ignore laws being passed solely for the benefit of large corporations.
It's not that there is NO homebrew. It's that the majority of the use is not FOR homebrew. There's a heck of a lot more quality and available titles compared to homebrew.
Beyond that, why are people mad about armed robots patrolling and protecting our soldiers in a trial when we're e EXPECTING a chip to protect our children so we don't have to?
Beyond that, who REALLY uses the v-chip besides cartman? I'm sure it's in all of my TVs and i have two young children at home...but personally it's more complicated to program the friggin thing that to, uhm, keep an eye on what my kids are watching?
Bla Bla Bla. Backup this, legitimate that.
Now lets be HONEST. Do we really thing the majority (or even a substantial minority) of people with modchips are really using it only for 1) playing backups of games they own or 2) playing imports they have purchased 3) playing "homebrew" bla bla bla?
How many others are copying games from blockbuster or online rental (netflix for games, forget the name) or loading up emulators and installing the "every NES game that ever existed" rom pack? Modchip sites and such always go on about the "legit" uses.
Be realistic. Now, if something has a legitimate and illegitimate use - should it be illegal? NO! Good god what a slippery slope. Walking canes can be used to beat people to death, should they be illegal? Besides that, i'd argue that certain levels of piracy actually HELP game sellers. "Oh, did you play super-mario-madden '09 any Joe's house?" "Yeah, he has one of those modded consoles so we couldn't play online though. I bought it and it's awesome playing agaist Tom online!"
It does amaze me that modchips that have the POTENTIAL to allow you to commit copyright infringement are more important than going after violent criminals, repairing worn out roads, or how about actually rebuilding WTC after 6 friggin years?
Well the US (and other parts of the world along with us) are heading in a horrible direction.
Do you realize the number of laws that exist SOLELY TO PROTECT THE INDIVIDUAL THAT WOULD BE BREAKING THEM? There are laws that require you to wear a helmet on a bicycle (NYC is passing a law requiring couriers - adults - to wear helmets), wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle...and tons of others. Now, granted, it's probably a smart idea. But why the fsck do I need a LAW to force me to wear one? It's against the law to be stupid...or more exactly act in a less than prudent fasion? Well, i guess nascar drivers shold be jailed. Bungee jumpers much less sky divers should probably get the death penalty, right?
How about the laws that say 'because some miniscule % of the population might make crystal meth from pseudophedrine after it being on the market for ?20? years, we're going to make it all but illegal/impossible to buy.' Oh, and pseudoephedrine is DECONGESTANT. You know - the shit in nyquil. Well, it *used* to be in nyquil.
Now, smoking is bad. We know that. Yet THAT is legal. Welcome to big business. So, if it's bad for you, it's illegal unless it's making someone a shit load of money. Brillaint.
Remind me again how this is a 'government of the people for the people'? What fucking people does this government exist for? The extremely wealthy and the extremely lazy (read: poor).
Tell me: Why can't stupidity be painful and why can't people be HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS???
Some idiot DRUNK TEENAGER falls under a train in NY and somehow - SOMEHOW - it's the train company (MTA for you new yorkers) fault??? That gap has been there for longer than that idiot was alive. Really. It's not like the put an invisible trap door and shot her full of psychoactives against her will just before she tried to get on the train.
Now we're talking about privacy being interpreted as a crime. Lovely. Why don't we all just stop shaving, grow fur, and live like the sheeple we're expected to be.
Now, you want to talk about a truly invasive society. Cameras everywhere to enforce laws. Ok. People complain. WHy? Because even the most honest among us still break laws. You speed by 5-10 miles and hour on the highway. everyone does. It's still illegal. I could cite a zillion examples. Privacy is used as an excuse to balance out a bit of the stupidity in our laws.
How about if there was no speed limit. Traffic signs and lights were optional. Guns were free to buy for anyone. Drugs legal. And surveilance everywhere. Every street, home, room, car, pool, etc. You can do anything you want but you're 100% responsible for anything you do to someone else.
Immagine that? Evolution might actually kick up again and weed out the totally useless among us.
Slashdot Mirror
He just needs an EULA on his program:
"By downloading this program you take full responsibility for the Bad Things that might happen to the author of this software. You assume liability shared and in whole for any damages, lawsuits, or jail time resulting from the creation of this software.
You are aware of the DMCA stupidity and agree that you know what this program does and are capable of the circumvention on your own without assistance. By clicking yes below you understand that you are adding and additional byte to the program that completes the code and makes this function as a circumvention tool. Without the additional byte required, this program will not provide circumvention of anything including your password protected pron"
There...then he can point to his EULA and give 'em the finger. His circumvention doesn't work without an extra byte which is inserted by the end user clicking OK.
Of course, using the parent's quote ... "a technological measure that controls access".
So if i put a lock on my front door and a burgular comes in the window and takes a picture of the doodles in a notebook (if dog poo on the virgin mary is art, then my doodles are art) he's guilty of a DMCA violation.
A lock is technology. Granted, it's 100+ years old but that's not specified. It controlled access. Hell, what if he went around the other side of my house and used the back door? OMG horrible pun, i appologize.
Now, the actual guy in the article *may* be guilty of a DMCA violation. In fact, I honestly thing he is given how it's written. I also think this may be one of the worst laws created in the past 100 years. Prohibition might have been equally stupid. Maybe. At least that law wasn't designed by and for large corporations.
Am I the only one who things claiming copyright on a coupon is insane?
They created online coupons and don't have the technology or ability to limit the receiving side (i.e. store where you use them) so they hide behind the monstrosity that is the DMCA. Yet another company that feels the need to twist laws around to suit their business model.
Next thing you know, they're going to make coupons non-transferrable. Not the online ones, the ones you get with your paper every week. They'll sue grandma for trading coupons with her sister. I mean, if it's copyrighted they can state you can't transfer it...
Why is it that coupons of all things get this treatment but books and left alone. Perhaps writers are one of the few types of creative people that aren't greedy, self centered and manipulated by huge corporations?
"ersonally I think most of the clogging going on in the court system has nothing to do with frivilous lawsuits, it has to do more with the lack of streamlining in the judiciary process in regards to how many filings are needed to get anything done. I mean c'mon, other than discovery, and analysis thereof, how long should this shit really take?"
I couldn't agree more. File your suit, meet once if you need to force discovery (i.e. company refuses to provide records, etc.), simply and directly provide DIRECT & RELEVANT evidence, counterargument. Judgement and done.
Now, to me that's a total of a couple hours of court time for the vast majority of cases. There's no need for a 20 page motion detailing the number of rolls of toilet paper needed for each of the 12 atty's on staff for this case. Hell, i watched a divorce case drag out for about 18 months. This was not a billionaire's estate being fought over. 18 months - a year and a half. How desperatly screwed up are the courts?
How about paypal's user agreement?
Not only do you agree to binding arbitration, but you agree to binding arbitration via mail/cell/fax/email with a specific statement that there is to be NO personal appearances required for resolution. Oh, and you're required to do everything in their jurisdiction and if you DO file suit elsewhere you're subject to a PENALTY FEE if you don't immediately drop the suit a/o re-locate it to their home town.
Are you kidding me? So not only do they try to force someone to waive their right to a trial, they THREATEN to CHARGE YOU MONEY for suing them? "Oh no, someone sued us in state XY and we have to send a lawyer. Lets charge them money for this" Now, you can sucessfully defend a case and be awarded your legal fees but how can a company charge you up-front?? Insanity.
"Blind Masses"
Think about it - how often are contracts pushed in your face and some sales person/kid/uncaring cog in the corporate entity gave you the "summary" of what it meant. Have you ever tried to take 15 minutes to read and understand one of those? After about 30 seconds they're reiterating their "summary" and rolling their eyes because they want to abuse their next customer and you're holding up the line.
I went to open a checking/savings acount recently and, as always, the bank had a million forms for me to sign. Would you believe one of them (i think it was one of the 'national security' nonsense ones) they refused to give me a copy of? I *HAD* to sign it but could *NOT* have a copy. I almost walked out but my wife...well, those of us who are married understand. wife > any possible legal trouble
One minor detail that most people leave out:
McD (or the particular franchise in question) acknowledged that they intentionally kept their coffee at a MUCH higher temperature than what they were supposed to (extends holding time if it starts hotter).
So yes, she deserved to win *A* lawsuit. I don't believe she (aka her lawyer) deserved a multi-million payout.
Hey, I'll start voting when the popular vote matters. When politicians ignore major states because it's a guaranteed win and instead fight to the death over (no offense) stupid states like ohio i've no interest in voting.
As for local reps, well find me a single one you'd trust to borrow lunch money and return it.
"Bullshit. Post a link."
If i had time or cared. If you truly believe that comment was so uniquie no one could ever have said it...well i guess you know everything about everything.
"So, you're right: we all understand that nobody has a right to profit, or any sort of guarantee that their business will succeed. I presume that we also understand that you don't have a right to piracy, either."
I don't recall ever saying we had a right to pirate anything. I just don't believe a copmany should be allowed to create and then subsequently twist laws to suit their purpose to the detriment of the majority. Let them learn how to adapt. If they can't handle the world as it is...close up shop and go home. I guarantee someone will gladly fill the void they leave. Hell, with 25k in computer audio equipment and a one-time cost of a sound booth you can reproduce audio easily equal to most CDs onthe market.
Oh. My. God. Finally!
Seriously, isn't our country 'By the people for the people'. If the VAST MAJORITY have issues with a law or set or laws or the behavior of a corporate entity in relation to the laws...maybe it's time to rethink those laws or the interpretation of them. Eh?
I hope this goes well, and I hope everyone that was terrorized and blackmailed but the MAFIAA gets a sweet judgement.
Someone wrote in a different forum that the MAFIAA needs to change their business model with cope with the times. Someone replied and asked the first person to suggest a business model and implied that the MAFIAA deserve to be in business and have a 'right' to preserve their business model. Hopefully the people here are smart enough to understand that there is nothing that guarantees you or your corporation the right to a sucessful commercial venture. Hell, maybe I should sue every resident of manhatten because my street meat cart didn't make money and i went out of business, right? Or maybe i should sue NYC to force people to eat at vendor cards once weekly? LOL...
If you ask me, 99c is a bit high, 10c...perhaps a bit low.
... what's easier, remember ahead of time and bring a copy or make him/her click a few times to download on their account? Your friend HATES the song. Oh well, it was a quarter, who cares? He deletes it but his kid brother happens to love the band and remember the song...downloads it again.
To everyone saying 'every artist would have to sell a million songs a year to beat poverty...' I say so what? Lets say we charge 25c for ~160kbit and 35c for FLAC. That's 3 or 4 songs for a buck...who's NOT going to get a couple tracks they 'think they heard' along with the one they wanted? Now you just multiplied your sales by 4.
Lets go a step further to prove out this business model. You buy a track and download it...and it's corrupted. You just pay another 25c and get it again. Your kid sister despises metallica and deletes your 200 song metallica folder. Ah well, you have a backup. Oh wait, smart kid trashed that too. Well, i'll spend 20 bucks and get the 75-80 songs i know off the top of my head i want back. I'll get the rest later when i have time. 20 bucks, meh. Disposable income to just about any age from teens to senior citizen. Not the artist got paid twice for his song by one person! Imagine that!
You go to a friends house "check out this song"
I hear hundereds of songs on the radio i would download for the sake of having. Would i spend $1-300? No. Would I spend $50? Probably.
Lowering the price point makes repeat sales to individuals common. It makes buying songs simply to "try" them common. 99c is ok, but 25c is the range where people ignore the cost completly.
Crybabies! Why is /. suggesting we sensor information? There is NOTHING in this article or video that is not commonly available information. Granted, it's a novel idea to run the laser in a flashlight but that's about it.
Who are YOU to decide what's safe for me??? God...I hate you people today.
Why??? /. is usually the group arguing against big business and governmental controls and, in general, being told what to do.
Granted, a warning is generally a good idea but why can't peope be responsible for their own lives? I mean, the DVD drive has a big warning sticker on it. Half the posts about this are "omg teh dangerz!!!" or "wherz teh warnings???".
Come on guys (and girls) - how about we let people be vaugely responsible for what they do? Someone else mentioned it i think, but the next thing the FCC will be banning is DVD players. God help us if information about somethign that might be dangerous is used incorrectly is available. Should i be required to sign a wavier when i buy a gas can or propane for my BBQ? Or how about the BBQ itself?
Come on! Grow up and stop helping the babies. If someone's smart enough to repeat this and stupid enough to blind him/herself...hopefully that will discourage that person from breeding.
Some countries have laws where it's legal for a 40 year old man to have a 24 hour "temporary marriage" with a 9 year old girl. Using the existance of a law to justify your argument is worse than referring to the FUD-based study!
BTW, big hallway copiers haven't necessarialy been around longer. The old ones you might remember from school (depending on your age) were photostat machines. No toner, it was a chemical process if memory serves. The warnings you see on big copiers? Well they have loose toner in many cases (xerox comes to mind) and besides being messy, spilling and inhaling a cloud of that stuff will land you a hospital visit. Keeping in mind a cloud of printer toner is something like 50,000x more dense than the particles that come out of the printer/copier through use.
I'm not advocating sitting in a room 24/7 with 50 printers going non-stop with no air circulating. I think this is just the panic nonsense of the week.
So some research group writes a bunch of pages of nonsense and starts off the latest annoying "OMG YOUR OFFICE JOB MAY KILL YOU, News at 11" theme.
Really, sheeple will listen to anything and take it as fact. I'm an IT manager at work and someone actually came to us yesterday with 'How do we get this printer replaced, it's a huge polluter, see attached study'. Luckily it was in email so he didn't hear me laughing.
I mean, if you actually look at things there's stuff that doesn't make sense. At least one of HP's printers is listed in two different coulumns. It's 'above average but *may* be high'. So they list it in high as well. No further explanation, no reasoning, just FUD. Of course, people just automaticlly check the high column and don't read thst study or look at the others in detail.
SHEEPLE!
I swore i'd quit when TBC came out. I didn't. heck, i even got a job again and i still play.
... but you had MUCH more flex for off-specced tanks, part time healers, etc.
I'll sware i'm quitting when the litch king comes out. I probably won't.
But, despite the license to play money even the OCDish among us (like me) eventually tire of a particular repetitive thing and look for a different repetitive thing.
My big "problem" with TBC is that they solved the 'you need 39 friends to do anything good' syndrome. Unfortunately they knocked it down to 10 for the first real raid content. This means you have a lot less flex in your grouping. out of the 10, 2 MUST be tanks, 2 MUST be specced healers (if not 3). In a 40man raid you needed x healers and y tanks
I can't take a shadow priest to Kara and expect reasonable healing.
Hasn't it occured to people (read: idiots who write, propose, and pass laws) that by making something that's commonplace in society illegal they just make "fake" criminals? Even worse, by passing laws that people are either 1) not even going to even KNOW about 2) not care about or 3) intentionally break because they dislike the law ... they take yet another step towards total disregard for our laws and lawmakers and courts.
I say: WAY TO GO!!! Yet another excuse to totally ignore laws being passed solely for the benefit of large corporations.
I actually laughed out loud. Now, maybe we could get the mafiaa to try that?
It's not that there is NO homebrew. It's that the majority of the use is not FOR homebrew. There's a heck of a lot more quality and available titles compared to homebrew.
Obligatory LOTR reference.
Beyond that, why are people mad about armed robots patrolling and protecting our soldiers in a trial when we're e EXPECTING a chip to protect our children so we don't have to?
Beyond that, who REALLY uses the v-chip besides cartman? I'm sure it's in all of my TVs and i have two young children at home...but personally it's more complicated to program the friggin thing that to, uhm, keep an eye on what my kids are watching?
Bla Bla Bla. Backup this, legitimate that. Now lets be HONEST. Do we really thing the majority (or even a substantial minority) of people with modchips are really using it only for 1) playing backups of games they own or 2) playing imports they have purchased 3) playing "homebrew" bla bla bla? How many others are copying games from blockbuster or online rental (netflix for games, forget the name) or loading up emulators and installing the "every NES game that ever existed" rom pack? Modchip sites and such always go on about the "legit" uses. Be realistic. Now, if something has a legitimate and illegitimate use - should it be illegal? NO! Good god what a slippery slope. Walking canes can be used to beat people to death, should they be illegal? Besides that, i'd argue that certain levels of piracy actually HELP game sellers. "Oh, did you play super-mario-madden '09 any Joe's house?" "Yeah, he has one of those modded consoles so we couldn't play online though. I bought it and it's awesome playing agaist Tom online!" It does amaze me that modchips that have the POTENTIAL to allow you to commit copyright infringement are more important than going after violent criminals, repairing worn out roads, or how about actually rebuilding WTC after 6 friggin years?
Well the US (and other parts of the world along with us) are heading in a horrible direction. Do you realize the number of laws that exist SOLELY TO PROTECT THE INDIVIDUAL THAT WOULD BE BREAKING THEM? There are laws that require you to wear a helmet on a bicycle (NYC is passing a law requiring couriers - adults - to wear helmets), wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle...and tons of others. Now, granted, it's probably a smart idea. But why the fsck do I need a LAW to force me to wear one? It's against the law to be stupid...or more exactly act in a less than prudent fasion? Well, i guess nascar drivers shold be jailed. Bungee jumpers much less sky divers should probably get the death penalty, right? How about the laws that say 'because some miniscule % of the population might make crystal meth from pseudophedrine after it being on the market for ?20? years, we're going to make it all but illegal/impossible to buy.' Oh, and pseudoephedrine is DECONGESTANT. You know - the shit in nyquil. Well, it *used* to be in nyquil. Now, smoking is bad. We know that. Yet THAT is legal. Welcome to big business. So, if it's bad for you, it's illegal unless it's making someone a shit load of money. Brillaint. Remind me again how this is a 'government of the people for the people'? What fucking people does this government exist for? The extremely wealthy and the extremely lazy (read: poor). Tell me: Why can't stupidity be painful and why can't people be HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS??? Some idiot DRUNK TEENAGER falls under a train in NY and somehow - SOMEHOW - it's the train company (MTA for you new yorkers) fault??? That gap has been there for longer than that idiot was alive. Really. It's not like the put an invisible trap door and shot her full of psychoactives against her will just before she tried to get on the train. Now we're talking about privacy being interpreted as a crime. Lovely. Why don't we all just stop shaving, grow fur, and live like the sheeple we're expected to be. Now, you want to talk about a truly invasive society. Cameras everywhere to enforce laws. Ok. People complain. WHy? Because even the most honest among us still break laws. You speed by 5-10 miles and hour on the highway. everyone does. It's still illegal. I could cite a zillion examples. Privacy is used as an excuse to balance out a bit of the stupidity in our laws. How about if there was no speed limit. Traffic signs and lights were optional. Guns were free to buy for anyone. Drugs legal. And surveilance everywhere. Every street, home, room, car, pool, etc. You can do anything you want but you're 100% responsible for anything you do to someone else. Immagine that? Evolution might actually kick up again and weed out the totally useless among us.