It nowhere states that anybody is going to be fined any amount of money.
E... any breach by you is likely to cause loss and damage to Wikileaks including..
d. loss of value of information 5. The parties agree that a genuine and reasonable pre-estimate loss to WikiLeaks from a breach of this agreement based on a typical open market valuation for the information for a significant breach of the agreement is in the region of £12,000,000.
Nowhere does it state that the signee will be liable to that value. Only that they agree they'll be terminated for a breach thereof. Agreeing to that value of a breach may open the path TO be sued for a figure in that region, however the summation that anyone who breaches will be fined £12,000,000 is a blatant falsehood.
Which threaten court martial and execution for breaching confidentiality, or a lifetime in prison. I'd take a $12 million fine which I can default on, any day of the week.
Contortions? The arguments I'm arguing against are also contorted against reality, so the complication of the explanation is unfortunately necessary. Alternatively, I could break it down to this:
You bought a game which says it requires the internet to play. The entire multiplayer experience has been built around centralized, online servers. All the complaints I've seen attached are about the fact it requires the internet to play.
Thus, the complaint becomes entirely subjective, and turns into "hey, I could happily give up X if it meant I could do Y." For instance "I'd happily give up achievements if it meant I could LAN play." Right. But what about the guy next to you? Personal opinion has no place in discussions about fact, which this was - OP originally implying he has to fight with the DRM in Blizzard products.
I only see people fighting with the DRM if either a) they're pirated it, or b) they want a feature which doesn't exist in the product. Neither promote logical discourse.
This is false dichotomy. * They didn't decide not to add LAN play to stop piracy. In fact, PIRATED versions *can* be played on LAN, as they connect to emulated servers. * If LAN was added it wouldn't increase piracy, as you still need to activate each copy, ruling out "casual copying".
Thus, lack of LAN play is not DRM. The activation system is, but we're not talking about activation. We're talking specifically about lack of LAN play. I noted activation as an exception in my original post well above. Both what you quoted and what I replied to relate specifically to LAN play (just making this clear in case you're trying to muddle things).
In the case of the BattleNet enabled game system, LAN would simply confuse the issue. As soon as you go offline, ranking (managed by a central server) stops working. Achievements (managed by a central server) stop earning. Earned player icons and logos (managed by a central server) become unusable - sure your copy can remember its own, but how can it "know" the other player has the right to the ones they're saying they're using). Chat (managed by a central server) becomes unavailable. Etc etc etc.
You might not care about icons, or chat, or whatever. That's not the point. It's a combined package, which works harmoniously together, and which (other) people expect the complete experience from. Sure, Blizzard could write ANOTHER chat module which doesn't connect to BattleNet IRC chat servers. But why bother?
Seriously, I have yet to meet a single person who complains about lack of LAN play who doesn't have a permanent net connection anyhow. I'm sure they exist - but it's not that big of a market share anymore. It's not worth the extra development time and money it takes. Most of my modern multiplayer games don't support LAN play. And lacking a feature is still not DRM.
No LAN play, which is about half your complaint (although it's only #5, most of the rest of the text is then about the inconveniences this causes) is not DRM. It's simply no LAN play. You can play single player, or online, but not on LAN. LAN play is additional functionality which I would also like, but we knew it had no LAN play before it came out. That doesn't fall under "struggling with DRM".
The complaint in #3 relies on what you're complaining about in #4. "I can't earn achievements on my BattleNet account when playing offline.. waah". "I have to have a BattleNet account.. waah". That's fairly contradictory complaining. As I understand it, you want all the functionality of a BattleNet account, without any of the drawbacks of having to, for instance, actually legally buy the game. I don't see having a BattleNet account as a struggle, again. I find the whole thing very convenient, but of course, if you intentionally segregate yourself from society then not being able to periodically activate your BattleNet account pales in comparison to not being able to keep up to date in news, or buy milk, or post on Slashdot.
Which brings me to #2 - the only actual genuine contradiction to my post. You're right. It was an oversight on my part (forgot about it while posting) that it requires occasional server connection to maintain offline play. That *is* DRM. And indeeed, if you have no access to the internet, it could be cubersome. Like the lack of LAN play however, the fact that an internet connection is required is established before you buy the game.
Struggling with DRM implies difficulties one encounters after buying and installing a game on a system which meets the game requirements. Such as having to keep having a certain disk in the drive, or having to *constantly* log in to play a single-player game. Once every 30 days is not a struggle. Most EA games require you to log in every play. That's a hassle. If you install SC2 on a system which meets the game requirements (including the net connection), what struggles could you possibly encounter? (Although, their updating method for SC2 is stupid, but that's nothing to do with DRM).
Really, I think Blizzard figured that out all on their own after seeing how much money they make from Warcraft expansions. Folks like to blame Activision for anything they see Blizzard as doing "wrong", but it's not like Blizzard hadn't already figured out staggered release beforehand. It's not like World of Warcraft launched with the "entire experience" either, and that was well before Activision.
If anything, Blizzard identified that they can make better gameplay/story if they're concentrating on one race at a time, and making massive revenue while they're at it. Take SC1, where the "story" was told by a few videos and otherwise, plain text in your mission screen. That was pretty much awesome tech at the time, however they couldn't create enough character interaction/storyline in a text screen to "drag out" each race into individual expansions. Nowadays, they can. You can easily spend 5-10 minutes between missions in SC2, as opposed to 30 seconds in SC1.
Of course Blizzard AND Activision want to maximize profits. And naturally, breaking up a single game into 3 games does that. However, it also allows for a more polished experience from each game as well, with much longer development time. I truly believe had Activision not come on the scene, Blizzard was already clued up enough to make SC2 into three separate games.
What DRM have you run into with other Blizzard games? None currently have any DRM attached, unless you consider playing an online game online "DRM". >
The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode. I don't really see any DRM that one could be "struggling" based on Blizzard's current behavior.
In fact, Blizzard recently went through stripping out the DRM from all their older games (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, Starcraft) so you just run the installer and you're good to go. Only need an online account if you want to play them online.
To be fair, it's expected - nay, highly anticipated - that Blizzard posts "soon" announcements rather than specific dates. Official dates are announced at Blizzcon (or Blizzard Invitational) and everything else is "soon". I think we'd be disappointed if they made an official date announcement outside of a Blizzcon.
Blizzard don't really postpone things. They just don't commit to releasing. And when they do announce they'll be releasing, they almost always release on date. (rarely, a few weeks later, but no long-term postponements or delays). If it was any other company I'd understand - announcing and then postponing is commonplace in the industry. Blizzard doesn't announce until they're sure they can deliver, though. They doing in-house testing now, which puts them on-track for an open (but selective) beta by Blizzcon (October), and launch just in time for Xmas. And then patched in January.;)
If they say they're expecting to release in 2011, their track record says they'll be releasing either in 2011, or early 2012. Not 2014. They good marketers as they don't fail to deliver.
A click on the "Games" tab to the left there reveals launch announcements for:
Blizzard - Diablo 3 (this announcement) Two MIT Alumi - Gitionary id Software - Rage Paradox - Magicka 2 (possibly) Ubisoft - Movie Company
This is the first page of results. I think if you keep clicking, you'll find plenty more announcements for other games popular in the geek community. Blizzard doesn't appear to have any sort of monopoly on this. So either, they're ALL paying, or it's just the editors/firehose trying to pick out what's likely to be of interest.
I'm glad you put "possible" in italics to emphasise that this didn't necessarily mean it was the cause of the issue. Chrome implementing the sandbox, while overriding memory protection, kind of negates the purpose of the sandbox. (Although, it prevents "natively" bad stuff from affecting the system. However anything attacking the browser itself can still access system memory).
To be fair though, the demonstration of this vulnerability has exposed nothing other than the ability to load known programs in known locations, without any additional parameters. They may be able to, but that hasn't been demonstrated, and won't be if they aren't releasing any "details".
So far all the posts, including mine, are really spammy. I think that tells us just how much anybody really cares that the US finally caught their scapegoat for all the world's ills.
The backdoor in XP only gives them a master algorithm for decrypting anything protected with the tools provided with the OS. Perhaps in 7 either, 1) they've developed a method of recording keys for any encryption taking place (fairly unlikely as very easily detected), 2) Windows 7 automatically records hashes for hidden volumes when data on them is accessed (more likely, noticing a hash is in use in the reading of data on a volume by a third-party process, eg, truecrypt.dll, and they don't even need to capture the crypto-keys - also less detectable - while folks know their crypto-keys, not many know their hash by heart and wouldn't notice it being copied in memory), 3) something else I haven't thought of, 4) they actually care about your security - but given the organisation and their goals this is _extremely_ unlikely.
Disclaimer: I may have not used the correct terminology in places. Feel free to correct mis-used words, but try to do so without insulting my mother, my nerd-status, or my intellect - this merely isn't my field of expertise.
As it's possible to watch naked people having sex (simulated) and excessive violence (simulated) under the M rating, what planet are you living on that youths aren't gradually introduced to these concepts? You seem to believe that they're coddled from a young age and suddenly the world of sex and violence is thrust on them at 18. This simply isn't the case. Please elaborate on the intermediate steps between:
M: Naked bodies, with breasts visible, in simulated copulation ??? R18: The ability to view reproductive genitalia.
M: Violence, with blood and death. ??? R18: Violence, with blood and death, and gore.
If anything, youth today have access to even more explicit and violent material from a younger age than they ever have before in modern society.
Well, that's a very real possibility. While most "shooters" would be reclassified down to M, those which glorify the violence (such as, Borderlands), and many "fighting" games would most likely be bumped up to R18 - as the distinctions would be even easier for them to make than it currently is. "If a headshot produces a blood spray, it's M. If it produces gore/brains/gibs, it's R18". Realism and glorification thereof taken into account. Maybe I'm not concerned because I'm over a decade over 18, but consider - these games are already meant to be under parental supervision at the very least.
I don't know what (reasonable) parent out there can complain "Hey, when my kid shoots peoples heads off in computer games, they should be allowed to see the brain splatter across the wall!" What's wrong with such titles falling under R18 besides the inconvenience to minors who try to buy them?
I've heard (and read below) the debate about how kids need to be introduced gradually to these concepts rather than having them shoved on them at 18. Well, under the M classification they can see naked couples writhing together (with boobies!) and see folks being shot (simulated) in the head! How many intermediate steps are there between that and the ability to see actual genitalia, and brain matter splatters?:) It seems like this still allows for a fairly gradual acclimation, and the arguments crying about how children are coddled is somewhat a red herring.
Actually, it will make a difference. Almost every banned game would fall under the R18 classification if such a thing existed. As it doesn't, they're refused classification and banned. Bumping MA15+ games up to R18 means while those games fall under the adult category, games previously banned because they were refused classification could be revisited and almost all would fall under the R18 classification. The most recent Mortal Kombat, for instance, was just squeezed out of the MA15+ rating, which means it's banned outright. If an R18 classification existed, it would be allowed - with an R18 classification (Meaning, no children could buy it, etc).
You may be expressing that you believe that all games that have previously been refused classification would still be, but one of my professional acquaintances performs some of classifications. They have no hidden agenda whatsoever. They simply classify the content as they would any other content - to the best of their ability, of course. If they believe the media in a game exceeds the MA15+ classification, at present they're forced to simply refuse classification. With an R18 rating, they could slap R18 on it an be done with. As long as it's content which would get an R18 rating in any other medium, it will here. Sometimes they let games get through with the incorrect rating (they're only human, and don't play the entire games - publishers actually have to identify themselves which scenes they believe are the most violent, etc, and present those) and those get revisited and reclassified. The classifiers are not out to ban anything - they just use the classification tools available to them.
This doesn't mean X-rated content would be allowed, however. (In most of Aus, there's no X-rating, either). So no hardcore porn games would be allowed in. Excessive violence falls under R18, with the exception of snuff - except in games it's computer graphics and not considered snuff. Oh, also no beastiality or child porn, as they're illegal.
What's especially amusing is that effect could also be used in that sentence, both in relation to the creation of the "effect" and also "effect" the process - make it possible. Although I think you MEANT affect, he really was very narrow-sighted to grammar-nazi it. He should have instead replied as if you did indeed mean effect.
Right, but I own Garry's Mod. This means I can check against my friends list who doesn't own Garry's Mod, copy their steamID from the CSS games we play together, and start posting up "error messages" - this is what the person you're replying to is trying to point out.
However, presumably it only "counts" on the official forums, and only if the Steam account posting matches the SteamID in the error message.
the average bloke on a cable modem is reliably caught with this method
Well, the average bloke is narrowed down to 1km, that's still a good 50-100 residential properties, and no way for the "attacker" to know which, so this attack on it's own doesn't do much. This coupled with perhaps someone's surname and a telephone book, might get a hit for a malicious attacker, but a lot of folks don't list in telephone books anymore. Ahh.. who knows. It might be useful for something.:)
What copy/paste? At best, you can claim they paraphrased and re-wrote, not copy/pasted. The incremental edits are explicitly responding to the accusations after the fact.
Only the LAST edit is in response to the accusations. Did you not read the article correctly? Read the part about the picture. They previously had two paragraphs COPY/PASTEd, and then started removing parts which could be obviously identified as coming from an original source. After publishing. It sounds like you actually missed the entire scope of the infraction so are arguing from a different point of view from reality. They didn't merely paraphrase. They copied his page directly, and then edited after publishing, and then edited it further to mock the original writer they stole the content from.
You just argued against yourself - this is crunch time and they had only 6 minutes prior to going live... and this is online, they had no crunch time. We're not talking about a major scoop or breaking news here... but you're still telling me that someone was furiously typing in an effort to get this story out within 6 minutes? What is this, the 24 of blogs?
No, I didn't argue against myself. I corrected two incorrect positions you had. The first incorrect position being that its impossible to push a story through in 6 minutes. It's certainly possible. The second incorrect position being that the story had been held up to the finest editorial rigours, which it clearly had not been. I know you're keeping up with this and are simply arguing for the sake of it.
It's clear I didn't mean myself, since I was criticizing the practice. Only someone who's anal retentive like the individual I'm replying to would respond with a snippy "I don't, but you may," which is pretty hypocritical when said person is throwing names about.
It's clear? On Slashdot? No - most folks around here change their position on any given topic every 3 seconds depending on what they're arguing about. Around here, when Joe Public "steals" music "omg it's not stealing.. its just 1s and 0s... you can't steal information!", yet if Microsoft "steals" some GPL code, "OMG THEY NEED TO BE HUNG.. BASTARDS!".
But anyhow, I carefully avoided saying you supported the practice. I said "are anal retentives like the individual I'm replying to". Not "people who support it like the individual I'm replying to". I'm implying only that you're anal retentive, not that you support the practice.;)
You're telling me they did that, read it, re-wrote and paraphrased everything, had an editor review it, and publish it within those 6 minutes?
' No, not at all. They re-wrote hardly anything, and then proceeded to make incremental edits over the next couple of hours to try and make their copy/paste job look more original. No editor reviewed it. Editor review is becoming increasingly rare in online news formats. Furthermore, if you're unaware what can be done in 6 minutes of crunch time prior to starting printing, you have never worked for a newspaper. And no presses are involved here. This is online.
2) Why is it that we rabidly attack people who use the word "steal" in relation to copyright infringement ("It's not stealing! The original material is still there! If I 'stole' it, you wouldn't have it anymore!"), but have no qualms about it here? Hypocrisy?
Oh please. "We" don't. You may. I'm happy to use the term "steal" to describe copyright infringement. It's a colloquial usage, that's well understood to mean "take something you don't have permission to take". People who do argue the term are just anal retentives like the individual I'm replying to, whom are usually simply looking for more ways to justify their crimes. Like most criminals.
No, but you can copyright content. Such as this post for instance. It's now copyrighted. It can be quoted - that falls within fair use. However it's illegal for you to take my post and claim it as your own work.
Slashdot Mirror
It appears nobody RTFPDF.
It nowhere states that anybody is going to be fined any amount of money.
E ... any breach by you is likely to cause loss and damage to Wikileaks including..
d. loss of value of information
5. The parties agree that a genuine and reasonable pre-estimate loss to WikiLeaks from a breach of this agreement based on a typical open market valuation for the information for a significant breach of the agreement is in the region of £12,000,000.
Nowhere does it state that the signee will be liable to that value. Only that they agree they'll be terminated for a breach thereof. Agreeing to that value of a breach may open the path TO be sued for a figure in that region, however the summation that anyone who breaches will be fined £12,000,000 is a blatant falsehood.
Which threaten court martial and execution for breaching confidentiality, or a lifetime in prison. I'd take a $12 million fine which I can default on, any day of the week.
Contortions? The arguments I'm arguing against are also contorted against reality, so the complication of the explanation is unfortunately necessary. Alternatively, I could break it down to this:
You bought a game which says it requires the internet to play. The entire multiplayer experience has been built around centralized, online servers. All the complaints I've seen attached are about the fact it requires the internet to play.
Thus, the complaint becomes entirely subjective, and turns into "hey, I could happily give up X if it meant I could do Y." For instance "I'd happily give up achievements if it meant I could LAN play." Right. But what about the guy next to you? Personal opinion has no place in discussions about fact, which this was - OP originally implying he has to fight with the DRM in Blizzard products.
I only see people fighting with the DRM if either a) they're pirated it, or b) they want a feature which doesn't exist in the product. Neither promote logical discourse.
This is false dichotomy.
* They didn't decide not to add LAN play to stop piracy. In fact, PIRATED versions *can* be played on LAN, as they connect to emulated servers.
* If LAN was added it wouldn't increase piracy, as you still need to activate each copy, ruling out "casual copying".
Thus, lack of LAN play is not DRM. The activation system is, but we're not talking about activation. We're talking specifically about lack of LAN play. I noted activation as an exception in my original post well above. Both what you quoted and what I replied to relate specifically to LAN play (just making this clear in case you're trying to muddle things).
In the case of the BattleNet enabled game system, LAN would simply confuse the issue. As soon as you go offline, ranking (managed by a central server) stops working. Achievements (managed by a central server) stop earning. Earned player icons and logos (managed by a central server) become unusable - sure your copy can remember its own, but how can it "know" the other player has the right to the ones they're saying they're using). Chat (managed by a central server) becomes unavailable. Etc etc etc.
You might not care about icons, or chat, or whatever. That's not the point. It's a combined package, which works harmoniously together, and which (other) people expect the complete experience from. Sure, Blizzard could write ANOTHER chat module which doesn't connect to BattleNet IRC chat servers. But why bother?
Seriously, I have yet to meet a single person who complains about lack of LAN play who doesn't have a permanent net connection anyhow. I'm sure they exist - but it's not that big of a market share anymore. It's not worth the extra development time and money it takes. Most of my modern multiplayer games don't support LAN play. And lacking a feature is still not DRM.
is either ignorant or very dishonest.
No LAN play, which is about half your complaint (although it's only #5, most of the rest of the text is then about the inconveniences this causes) is not DRM. It's simply no LAN play. You can play single player, or online, but not on LAN. LAN play is additional functionality which I would also like, but we knew it had no LAN play before it came out. That doesn't fall under "struggling with DRM".
The complaint in #3 relies on what you're complaining about in #4. "I can't earn achievements on my BattleNet account when playing offline.. waah". "I have to have a BattleNet account.. waah". That's fairly contradictory complaining. As I understand it, you want all the functionality of a BattleNet account, without any of the drawbacks of having to, for instance, actually legally buy the game. I don't see having a BattleNet account as a struggle, again. I find the whole thing very convenient, but of course, if you intentionally segregate yourself from society then not being able to periodically activate your BattleNet account pales in comparison to not being able to keep up to date in news, or buy milk, or post on Slashdot.
Which brings me to #2 - the only actual genuine contradiction to my post. You're right. It was an oversight on my part (forgot about it while posting) that it requires occasional server connection to maintain offline play. That *is* DRM. And indeeed, if you have no access to the internet, it could be cubersome. Like the lack of LAN play however, the fact that an internet connection is required is established before you buy the game.
Struggling with DRM implies difficulties one encounters after buying and installing a game on a system which meets the game requirements. Such as having to keep having a certain disk in the drive, or having to *constantly* log in to play a single-player game. Once every 30 days is not a struggle. Most EA games require you to log in every play. That's a hassle. If you install SC2 on a system which meets the game requirements (including the net connection), what struggles could you possibly encounter? (Although, their updating method for SC2 is stupid, but that's nothing to do with DRM).
Really, I think Blizzard figured that out all on their own after seeing how much money they make from Warcraft expansions. Folks like to blame Activision for anything they see Blizzard as doing "wrong", but it's not like Blizzard hadn't already figured out staggered release beforehand. It's not like World of Warcraft launched with the "entire experience" either, and that was well before Activision.
If anything, Blizzard identified that they can make better gameplay/story if they're concentrating on one race at a time, and making massive revenue while they're at it. Take SC1, where the "story" was told by a few videos and otherwise, plain text in your mission screen. That was pretty much awesome tech at the time, however they couldn't create enough character interaction/storyline in a text screen to "drag out" each race into individual expansions. Nowadays, they can. You can easily spend 5-10 minutes between missions in SC2, as opposed to 30 seconds in SC1.
Of course Blizzard AND Activision want to maximize profits. And naturally, breaking up a single game into 3 games does that. However, it also allows for a more polished experience from each game as well, with much longer development time. I truly believe had Activision not come on the scene, Blizzard was already clued up enough to make SC2 into three separate games.
What DRM have you run into with other Blizzard games? None currently have any DRM attached, unless you consider playing an online game online "DRM". >
The sole exception could be SC2 which you need a BattleNet account to activate (which, if you purchased it, is a one-off). It can then be played in offline mode. I don't really see any DRM that one could be "struggling" based on Blizzard's current behavior.
In fact, Blizzard recently went through stripping out the DRM from all their older games (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, Starcraft) so you just run the installer and you're good to go. Only need an online account if you want to play them online.
To be fair, it's expected - nay, highly anticipated - that Blizzard posts "soon" announcements rather than specific dates. Official dates are announced at Blizzcon (or Blizzard Invitational) and everything else is "soon". I think we'd be disappointed if they made an official date announcement outside of a Blizzcon.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon
Blizzard don't really postpone things. They just don't commit to releasing. And when they do announce they'll be releasing, they almost always release on date. (rarely, a few weeks later, but no long-term postponements or delays). If it was any other company I'd understand - announcing and then postponing is commonplace in the industry. Blizzard doesn't announce until they're sure they can deliver, though. They doing in-house testing now, which puts them on-track for an open (but selective) beta by Blizzcon (October), and launch just in time for Xmas. And then patched in January. ;)
If they say they're expecting to release in 2011, their track record says they'll be releasing either in 2011, or early 2012. Not 2014. They good marketers as they don't fail to deliver.
A click on the "Games" tab to the left there reveals launch announcements for:
Blizzard - Diablo 3 (this announcement)
Two MIT Alumi - Gitionary
id Software - Rage
Paradox - Magicka 2 (possibly)
Ubisoft - Movie Company
This is the first page of results. I think if you keep clicking, you'll find plenty more announcements for other games popular in the geek community. Blizzard doesn't appear to have any sort of monopoly on this. So either, they're ALL paying, or it's just the editors/firehose trying to pick out what's likely to be of interest.
I'm glad you put "possible" in italics to emphasise that this didn't necessarily mean it was the cause of the issue. Chrome implementing the sandbox, while overriding memory protection, kind of negates the purpose of the sandbox. (Although, it prevents "natively" bad stuff from affecting the system. However anything attacking the browser itself can still access system memory).
To be fair though, the demonstration of this vulnerability has exposed nothing other than the ability to load known programs in known locations, without any additional parameters. They may be able to, but that hasn't been demonstrated, and won't be if they aren't releasing any "details".
So far all the posts, including mine, are really spammy. I think that tells us just how much anybody really cares that the US finally caught their scapegoat for all the world's ills.
Except this isn't a story about his death. It's a story about malware. The story about his death is over here, with over 1200 comments and counting:
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/05/02/0326243/Osama-Bin-Laden-Reported-Dead-Body-In-US-Hands
Are Timothy and Kdawson different people, or merely alter egos?
The backdoor in XP only gives them a master algorithm for decrypting anything protected with the tools provided with the OS. Perhaps in 7 either, 1) they've developed a method of recording keys for any encryption taking place (fairly unlikely as very easily detected), 2) Windows 7 automatically records hashes for hidden volumes when data on them is accessed (more likely, noticing a hash is in use in the reading of data on a volume by a third-party process, eg, truecrypt.dll, and they don't even need to capture the crypto-keys - also less detectable - while folks know their crypto-keys, not many know their hash by heart and wouldn't notice it being copied in memory), 3) something else I haven't thought of, 4) they actually care about your security - but given the organisation and their goals this is _extremely_ unlikely.
Disclaimer: I may have not used the correct terminology in places. Feel free to correct mis-used words, but try to do so without insulting my mother, my nerd-status, or my intellect - this merely isn't my field of expertise.
As it's possible to watch naked people having sex (simulated) and excessive violence (simulated) under the M rating, what planet are you living on that youths aren't gradually introduced to these concepts? You seem to believe that they're coddled from a young age and suddenly the world of sex and violence is thrust on them at 18. This simply isn't the case. Please elaborate on the intermediate steps between:
M: Naked bodies, with breasts visible, in simulated copulation
???
R18: The ability to view reproductive genitalia.
M: Violence, with blood and death.
???
R18: Violence, with blood and death, and gore.
If anything, youth today have access to even more explicit and violent material from a younger age than they ever have before in modern society.
Well, that's a very real possibility. While most "shooters" would be reclassified down to M, those which glorify the violence (such as, Borderlands), and many "fighting" games would most likely be bumped up to R18 - as the distinctions would be even easier for them to make than it currently is. "If a headshot produces a blood spray, it's M. If it produces gore/brains/gibs, it's R18". Realism and glorification thereof taken into account. Maybe I'm not concerned because I'm over a decade over 18, but consider - these games are already meant to be under parental supervision at the very least.
I don't know what (reasonable) parent out there can complain "Hey, when my kid shoots peoples heads off in computer games, they should be allowed to see the brain splatter across the wall!" What's wrong with such titles falling under R18 besides the inconvenience to minors who try to buy them?
I've heard (and read below) the debate about how kids need to be introduced gradually to these concepts rather than having them shoved on them at 18. Well, under the M classification they can see naked couples writhing together (with boobies!) and see folks being shot (simulated) in the head! How many intermediate steps are there between that and the ability to see actual genitalia, and brain matter splatters? :) It seems like this still allows for a fairly gradual acclimation, and the arguments crying about how children are coddled is somewhat a red herring.
Actually, it will make a difference. Almost every banned game would fall under the R18 classification if such a thing existed. As it doesn't, they're refused classification and banned. Bumping MA15+ games up to R18 means while those games fall under the adult category, games previously banned because they were refused classification could be revisited and almost all would fall under the R18 classification. The most recent Mortal Kombat, for instance, was just squeezed out of the MA15+ rating, which means it's banned outright. If an R18 classification existed, it would be allowed - with an R18 classification (Meaning, no children could buy it, etc).
You may be expressing that you believe that all games that have previously been refused classification would still be, but one of my professional acquaintances performs some of classifications. They have no hidden agenda whatsoever. They simply classify the content as they would any other content - to the best of their ability, of course. If they believe the media in a game exceeds the MA15+ classification, at present they're forced to simply refuse classification. With an R18 rating, they could slap R18 on it an be done with. As long as it's content which would get an R18 rating in any other medium, it will here. Sometimes they let games get through with the incorrect rating (they're only human, and don't play the entire games - publishers actually have to identify themselves which scenes they believe are the most violent, etc, and present those) and those get revisited and reclassified. The classifiers are not out to ban anything - they just use the classification tools available to them.
This doesn't mean X-rated content would be allowed, however. (In most of Aus, there's no X-rating, either). So no hardcore porn games would be allowed in. Excessive violence falls under R18, with the exception of snuff - except in games it's computer graphics and not considered snuff. Oh, also no beastiality or child porn, as they're illegal.
What's especially amusing is that effect could also be used in that sentence, both in relation to the creation of the "effect" and also "effect" the process - make it possible. Although I think you MEANT affect, he really was very narrow-sighted to grammar-nazi it. He should have instead replied as if you did indeed mean effect.
Right, but I own Garry's Mod. This means I can check against my friends list who doesn't own Garry's Mod, copy their steamID from the CSS games we play together, and start posting up "error messages" - this is what the person you're replying to is trying to point out.
However, presumably it only "counts" on the official forums, and only if the Steam account posting matches the SteamID in the error message.
the average bloke on a cable modem is reliably caught with this method
Well, the average bloke is narrowed down to 1km, that's still a good 50-100 residential properties, and no way for the "attacker" to know which, so this attack on it's own doesn't do much. This coupled with perhaps someone's surname and a telephone book, might get a hit for a malicious attacker, but a lot of folks don't list in telephone books anymore. Ahh.. who knows. It might be useful for something. :)
Jeremy Clarkson is awesome. So is Simon Cowell.
What copy/paste? At best, you can claim they paraphrased and re-wrote, not copy/pasted. The incremental edits are explicitly responding to the accusations after the fact.
Only the LAST edit is in response to the accusations. Did you not read the article correctly? Read the part about the picture. They previously had two paragraphs COPY/PASTEd, and then started removing parts which could be obviously identified as coming from an original source. After publishing. It sounds like you actually missed the entire scope of the infraction so are arguing from a different point of view from reality. They didn't merely paraphrase. They copied his page directly, and then edited after publishing, and then edited it further to mock the original writer they stole the content from.
You just argued against yourself - this is crunch time and they had only 6 minutes prior to going live... and this is online, they had no crunch time. We're not talking about a major scoop or breaking news here... but you're still telling me that someone was furiously typing in an effort to get this story out within 6 minutes? What is this, the 24 of blogs?
No, I didn't argue against myself. I corrected two incorrect positions you had. The first incorrect position being that its impossible to push a story through in 6 minutes. It's certainly possible. The second incorrect position being that the story had been held up to the finest editorial rigours, which it clearly had not been. I know you're keeping up with this and are simply arguing for the sake of it.
It's clear I didn't mean myself, since I was criticizing the practice. Only someone who's anal retentive like the individual I'm replying to would respond with a snippy "I don't, but you may," which is pretty hypocritical when said person is throwing names about.
It's clear? On Slashdot? No - most folks around here change their position on any given topic every 3 seconds depending on what they're arguing about. Around here, when Joe Public "steals" music "omg it's not stealing.. its just 1s and 0s... you can't steal information!", yet if Microsoft "steals" some GPL code, "OMG THEY NEED TO BE HUNG.. BASTARDS!".
But anyhow, I carefully avoided saying you supported the practice. I said "are anal retentives like the individual I'm replying to". Not "people who support it like the individual I'm replying to". I'm implying only that you're anal retentive, not that you support the practice. ;)
You're telling me they did that, read it, re-wrote and paraphrased everything, had an editor review it, and publish it within those 6 minutes?
'
No, not at all. They re-wrote hardly anything, and then proceeded to make incremental edits over the next couple of hours to try and make their copy/paste job look more original. No editor reviewed it. Editor review is becoming increasingly rare in online news formats. Furthermore, if you're unaware what can be done in 6 minutes of crunch time prior to starting printing, you have never worked for a newspaper. And no presses are involved here. This is online.
2) Why is it that we rabidly attack people who use the word "steal" in relation to copyright infringement ("It's not stealing! The original material is still there! If I 'stole' it, you wouldn't have it anymore!"), but have no qualms about it here? Hypocrisy?
Oh please. "We" don't. You may. I'm happy to use the term "steal" to describe copyright infringement. It's a colloquial usage, that's well understood to mean "take something you don't have permission to take". People who do argue the term are just anal retentives like the individual I'm replying to, whom are usually simply looking for more ways to justify their crimes. Like most criminals.
lol - that was the reply i was expecting.. took long enough! ;)
LOL!
Also, lol @ your sig. I've often thought the same. I've decided that it's a trap and if you click it, you never get 15 mod points again. ;)
No, but you can copyright content. Such as this post for instance. It's now copyrighted. It can be quoted - that falls within fair use. However it's illegal for you to take my post and claim it as your own work.