And anyone who feels the same way should send a similar email. It's how we would get them to "give a sh*t."
Not really.
Blizzard knows that they can get away with stuff like this and people will still buy their games. Especially now that they have moved past the initial "get our money back"-phase of the release, any money they make at this point is profit so they can afford to go draconian on their users, since those people already shelled out their $ and any new users either don't know or don't care about the "evil" Blizzard is doing, alternatively there are lots, and lots of people who don't speak or read English and thus does not know about this story.
Point being that unless you can somehow get a significant portion of the people who are currently playing the game to stop playing it and also somehow get people to stop buying the game, Blizzard is not going to give a damn about the whiny or vitriolic e-mails you send them, the e-mails just go to some dude in India anyhow who'll promptly ignore the message since they have no appropriate scripted response for it.
Alternatively you can try to somehow out-lawyer them, and after you manage that go fix world peace because you're obviously some kind of messianic superman.
Well as I understand it, it is not just because of budget constraints that the LHC is being shut down, I seem to recall there being a story here on/. about a number of upgrades being planned for the LHC over the next few years.
Even so, the accelerator has produced a lot of data already, which needs to be processed by some theoreticians.
Iran is being spied upon. And in other news, horoscopes are fake and pie is delicious.
Horoscopes aren't fake, they're a real thing. They're right there in the back of the newspaper every day, it's the predictions that are fake. The horoscopes themselves are perfectly real, why you'd think otherwise confuses me.
Also the deliciousness depends on the kind of pie, like for example I doubt that a dish soap/spam pie would be particularly delicious.
Really I've got nothing to add other than: "yes, people spy on countries that are perceived as 'dangerous' "
The App store has got a bunch of satellite tracking apps, couldn't those be used to aim an anti-satellite missiles and usher in a new age of SPACE TERRORISM!?
Hey, I have a right to bear arms. You iPhone users can git your own amendment or else you can git out!
I really don't think the 2nd amendment makes allowances for the possession of strategic or tactical air defenses.
Speaking of which, instead of spending time on worrying about iPhone apps, maybe these terrorism "experts" should be concentrating on preventing terrorists from gaining access to surface-to-air missiles.
You'd have to check in your jurisdiction, but in most places hiring someone to do something illegal is illegal. It doesn't matter where the people running the DoS live - the RIAA member companies have seizable assets in countries that have such laws.
I really hope the RIAA goes ahead with this. Once following RIAA strategy starts costing these companies a lot of money, maybe they'll notice that they could make a lot more by being less hostile to their customers.
Well it seems obvious to me that if the RIAA and MPAA were going through with this sort of thing they'd make sure that had plausible deniability. They'd place the order through some third party which they control but cannot be directly linked to; then when some random guy named Kumar stands up and tells the media the horrible things the **AA ordered him to do there is no direct link back to the **AA.
no LAN play for SC2... SC2 is linked to one and only one battle.net account ever (effectively getting rid of resale and eliminating multiple people being able to play online via one copy of the game)... bnetd. etc
From what I heard from an SC-geek friend of mine, Blizzard has a 'pro'-version in the works for tournaments and stuff. You still need a copy of the game per machine you want to play it on, but Blizzard will send out a representative with the hardware and software to set up a local server. Needless to say you will have to pay through the nose for one of these 'tournament' licenses, will you'll have to pay until the pirates get ahold of this thing, or write their own.
Piracy? NWN1 did something which did well at stopping piracy in the long term, and that was eventually chucking the CD-ROM DRM and requiring a valid and unique CD key to play multiplayer. No matter what, the pirates will be cracking the game anyway, might as well just keep them from using network services which legit players would use. This is a simple DRM mechanism, and it does an excellent job long term.
This. The majority of the games I have bought and paid for as opposed to just downloaded off a certain Swedish torrent tracker, I bought because I wanted access to the online multiplayer. If it is just a game I want to play in singleplayer mode then I have no problem just downloading it, and for the most part I wont even be representing a lost sale since I wouldn't have bought the damn thing in the first place.
I don't think you can get addicted to anti-depressants.
Thats a goddamned lie. I was on an SSRI (Citalopram) for a while, and once it came time to quiet I got the most annoying withdrawal symptoms. It took me well over two months to properly taper off the stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up.
And anyone who feels the same way should send a similar email. It's how we would get them to "give a sh*t."
Not really.
Blizzard knows that they can get away with stuff like this and people will still buy their games. Especially now that they have moved past the initial "get our money back"-phase of the release, any money they make at this point is profit so they can afford to go draconian on their users, since those people already shelled out their $ and any new users either don't know or don't care about the "evil" Blizzard is doing, alternatively there are lots, and lots of people who don't speak or read English and thus does not know about this story.
Point being that unless you can somehow get a significant portion of the people who are currently playing the game to stop playing it and also somehow get people to stop buying the game, Blizzard is not going to give a damn about the whiny or vitriolic e-mails you send them, the e-mails just go to some dude in India anyhow who'll promptly ignore the message since they have no appropriate scripted response for it.
Alternatively you can try to somehow out-lawyer them, and after you manage that go fix world peace because you're obviously some kind of messianic superman.
...I wanted to cheat with each other either, if we used LAN play.l.
There's no LAN in SC2.
Well as I understand it, it is not just because of budget constraints that the LHC is being shut down, I seem to recall there being a story here on /. about a number of upgrades being planned for the LHC over the next few years.
Even so, the accelerator has produced a lot of data already, which needs to be processed by some theoreticians.
I thought crossing the streams was the whole point of the LHC.
Well crossing the streams and bringing about the apocalypse.
Oh yeah...imperial units. Damn those, always foiling my attempts at thunder stealing.
It was my impression that NASA already did this, and did it from a higher altitude.
Oh yeah and they did it 51 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior
Iran is being spied upon. And in other news, horoscopes are fake and pie is delicious.
Horoscopes aren't fake, they're a real thing. They're right there in the back of the newspaper every day, it's the predictions that are fake. The horoscopes themselves are perfectly real, why you'd think otherwise confuses me.
Also the deliciousness depends on the kind of pie, like for example I doubt that a dish soap/spam pie would be particularly delicious.
Really I've got nothing to add other than: "yes, people spy on countries that are perceived as 'dangerous' "
How do they get the lasers only to burn the cancer cells and not burn tissue on the way to the cancer cells?
Magic.
Good point but wouldn't they technically be considered a 'destructive device' as per The National Firearms Act of 1934
Also would the 2nd amendment allow one to own fully weaponized tanks and fighter jets? Because if it does I'm SO moving to the US.
Have they had issues with terrorists accidentally targeting endangered condors with missiles by mistake?
I don't think so. But I hope it shows up on YouTube when it does happen.
The App store has got a bunch of satellite tracking apps, couldn't those be used to aim an anti-satellite missiles and usher in a new age of SPACE TERRORISM!?
... instead of, say, the surface-to-air missiles
Hey, I have a right to bear arms. You iPhone users can git your own amendment or else you can git out!
I really don't think the 2nd amendment makes allowances for the possession of strategic or tactical air defenses.
Speaking of which, instead of spending time on worrying about iPhone apps, maybe these terrorism "experts" should be concentrating on preventing terrorists from gaining access to surface-to-air missiles.
Well to be fair most open source "just works".
It's whether it "just works" well that's the big question.-
You'd have to check in your jurisdiction, but in most places hiring someone to do something illegal is illegal. It doesn't matter where the people running the DoS live - the RIAA member companies have seizable assets in countries that have such laws.
I really hope the RIAA goes ahead with this. Once following RIAA strategy starts costing these companies a lot of money, maybe they'll notice that they could make a lot more by being less hostile to their customers.
Well it seems obvious to me that if the RIAA and MPAA were going through with this sort of thing they'd make sure that had plausible deniability.
They'd place the order through some third party which they control but cannot be directly linked to; then when some random guy named Kumar stands up and tells the media the horrible things the **AA ordered him to do there is no direct link back to the **AA.
Don't know about India, but in the US most of us consider due process pretty damned important.
Not the RIAA and MPAA apparently.
Or are you to chicken to do all this and does it only aply to stuff you can steal without leaving your house?
Pretty much, yes. I'm thief but I'm also a lazy thief.
I think there's a practical problem with running wires to Predator or Global Hawk drones...
IT's here; http://googlesightseeing.com/2009/07/the-buzzer-uvb-76/
And unsurprisingly I don't care.
no LAN play for SC2... SC2 is linked to one and only one battle.net account ever (effectively getting rid of resale and eliminating multiple people being able to play online via one copy of the game)... bnetd. etc
From what I heard from an SC-geek friend of mine, Blizzard has a 'pro'-version in the works for tournaments and stuff.
You still need a copy of the game per machine you want to play it on, but Blizzard will send out a representative with the hardware and software to set up a local server. Needless to say you will have to pay through the nose for one of these 'tournament' licenses, will you'll have to pay until the pirates get ahold of this thing, or write their own.
Piracy? NWN1 did something which did well at stopping piracy in the long term, and that was eventually chucking the CD-ROM DRM and requiring a valid and unique CD key to play multiplayer. No matter what, the pirates will be cracking the game anyway, might as well just keep them from using network services which legit players would use. This is a simple DRM mechanism, and it does an excellent job long term.
This. The majority of the games I have bought and paid for as opposed to just downloaded off a certain Swedish torrent tracker, I bought because I wanted access to the online multiplayer.
If it is just a game I want to play in singleplayer mode then I have no problem just downloading it, and for the most part I wont even be representing a lost sale since I wouldn't have bought the damn thing in the first place.
I don't think you can get addicted to anti-depressants.
Thats a goddamned lie.
I was on an SSRI (Citalopram) for a while, and once it came time to quiet I got the most annoying withdrawal symptoms. It took me well over two months to properly taper off the stuff.
So yeah, there's withdrawal.
But this scam isn't advanced. Not in the least.
It's the whole 'expensive == good'-mentality, you see it in wine tasters too, and gourmets and all kinds of other rich people stuff.
Drugs.
Alternatively if you are not into illicit substances, try beer.
Might not help you find all your bugs, but at least the whole experience might be more interesting.
It's kind of annoying to burn down your own house every time.
Makes ya wonder where the Fire in Firefox came from, doesn't it...
Not really, no.