Sure, you aren't trying to profit from it, but your page would not be possible without slashdot's services, and your actions are possibly reducing thier revenue, which is paramount to theft.
No, theft is theft. This would be using the offered services. Much like buying food from the University of Maryland food services on your point card, and then giving it to charity for the homeless isn't theft either. (of corse the UofMD food services folks claimed it was though)
Reducing someone's revenue is not theft, even if it involves using someone else's services (so long as you use them within the bounds they have been offered). A Mobil gas station next to a Shell gas station is likely to reduce the Shell's revenue. Not theft. If the Shell is dumb enough to to sell the gas at half price to the Mobil, it still isn't theft. If the Shell sells it half price but with a no resale rider it is a contract violation though.
And please kids, don't tell me to use Linux/Pine/Elm/Mutt/whatever. My office email environment is Exchange, and very much makes use of the scheduling system in addition to email, so I'm stuck with it.
Well if you don't want anyone to give you alternatives what do you want? Should we just say "use outlook and enjoy it, dammit!"?
The only thought I've had so far is to set up an Outlook rule to forward a copy of every message I get to one of my Linux boxen, where I could chop it up and insert it into a database... but retrieving these messages would require me to use a second interface, and I need the functionality integrated into Outlook.
Can outlook use IMAP servers? Can it see folders in an IMAP box? If so you can send the mail to to a Linux box have it autofile it, serve it up via IMAP. Then you can use whatever client you want...which is apparently only outlook:-)
P.S. is it just me or is this article all about craming a bunch of stuff into a mail reader that doesn't belong? I would much rather have a bunch of applications that work together then on big one, too hard to replace the big one. With a bunch of little apps I could replace the "to do" part with one that works better with my PDA, or that has repeating items or just look better without having to find the better todo stuff in an app that does all that other crap too! Maybe this is why people like giant bloated software, and leave me puzzled?
(the Apple mail app is a little like that, it leaves the "address book" stuff up to another application; still too integrated for my taste...MH anyone?)
Let the dickhead who questioned the results do the calculations.
I know you are just flaming, but I did it because most people don't know how fast a shutter time you can use with film is, they just trust the camera's meter. So I provided the 1/film_speed at f/16 on a sunny day rule of thumb (actually I should have provided that, I just gave the exposure without the rule). Anyone else could have used units, and bc (and forgotten to convert from hours to seconds). I provide the added value of being both a film and computer geek (and not double checking my math).
This is only true for film cameras as they actually have shutters. Digital cameras (well, the ones I've owned at least) don't have shutters. They usually play a little shutter sound until you find the menu to turn that off.
Most digital cameras have shutters, but they have the "fake sound" because what people here is normally not the shutter sound but the mirror slap (on an SLR), and the film wind.
The shutter on my digital ELPH is quite quiet, but you can hear it. The shutter on my EOS-D30 is also pretty quiet, but since it is an SLR you hear the mirror slap froma fair distance (farther then from my ELAN 7 which has a very quier mirror slap, and rubberised parts on the film transport so they are very quiet...and I susspect wear faster so Canon can upsell you in 4 years rather then 10...).
The shutter in some digital cameras is a leaf shutter. I don't know a huge amount about them, but they seem to have far lower top speeds (like 1/800th, or 1/1000th), but allow flash sync for a larger range of speeds. However you can only get the higher speeds at smaller apeture as the apeture is really the shutter (I think). I know they are also very common on medimum format cameras.
The CCDs on most digital cameras can not discharge except in the dark, but some can stop accumulating light ("eletronic shutter"). The CCD in the EOS-1D is like that, which is how it gets a 1/500th of a second sync and 1/16000th max speed (the EOS-1D is almost exactly like it's film counterpart the EOS-1V which gets 1/250th and 1/8000th). I do think there are a very very few CCDs that can use only an eletronic shutter, but I'm not sure.
Anyway disable the shutter beep, hold your camera to your ear and take a shot. I bet you hear a focus motor run and then a faint click of the shutter.
If there is a camera store close by try the same with a rangefinder (one without autowind), or an EOS-1RS with the CF set that makes it not advance film (for single shots in a classical concert or other enforced quiet zones).
You're off by 3600 seconds... [...] or: 0.10267 feet in 1/1000th second.:-P
Crap, shame I can't mod that up since I already posted:-)
0.1 feet is a lot for things close to the camera, but I bet it would be decent for things some reasonable distance away, and since you are likely to be using hyperfocal focausing anyway stuff close to you will be blurry even if it is still. With a 28mm lens at f/8 focusing to 12.8559... feet gets you everything from 6.45 feet to 1799.14 feet in focus (assuming the normal circle of confusion size for 35mm film).
Question: If you're going 70-100 mph (as you are wont to do in that godforsaken wasteland), and you have your camera set to maximum shutter speed with very fast film (1000 speed), will your pictures be blurred beyond recognition if your camera pointed out the side window?
If you are shooting at f/16 (a fairly deep depth of field) on a sunny day you will have a shutter speed of (about) 1/1000. The units program claims 1 mile is 5280 feet (if I remember how to read it's output), so 70mph is 369600 feet per second. Or "only" 369.6 feet per 1/1000th. You could open up to f/8 or f/5.6 and get shutter times more like 1/4000, but not much depth of field. At 1/4000th things "only" move 100 feet or so while the shutter is open.
However on most cameras speeds over about 1/200th of a second are not "real". There are really two shutters both moving fast enough to open and close in 1/200th (on some cameras 1/60th, on others 1/500th, but most around 1/200th), this is called the "X sync speed", or "flash sync speed". For that speed or slower the first shutter opens, remains open for some amount of time, then the second slides across blocking the light. For faster speeds the first shutter starts to open, and before it finishes the second starts to close. So at anything faster then the x-sync speed you actually get more motion blur then you expect.
So how do they stop very fast action? Lots of ways, but the most common one is to use slowish film, very little ambient light, the "slow" x-sync speed, and a powerful flash (most camera strobes are 1/20,000th of a second, or faster). That doesn't work for scenic pictures though...
Have you ever tried noise cancelation headphones? I also work in a large lab (filled with noise hard disk arrays) and have often thought about getting some noise cancellation headphones
Things are far from silent in a machine room with ANR, but it is much better with them on (it sounds a little quieter, but I can stay in much much longer).
Open source being what it is, nothing can stop dedicated users from removing the expiration code from their packages. In the case of stalled development, this may even be necessary, and it can serve as a safety valve to help offset the dangers of software expiration. This makes it fundamentally different than licensing schemes that permit automated remote disabling of software packages.
Sure, until the first time your gcc expires then you are dead... (or gcc is working but ftp, httpget, and curl are not...)
Or the first time you unearth some old hardware and want to bring it back to life. Sure you could reinstall from scratch, but that lengthens the time it takes to find out if the hardware really still works, and what is on it!
Check out Dish; they have some great offers going on right now.
Also check out DTV, they also have some great offers, and they have locals some areas DISH doesn't (I think), and if one or the other is blocked by trees you don't/can't cut down the other might not. Plus DTV has the DTiVo:-)
DISH is quite good too though (I was a subscriber for 4 years), and better then any cableco I have ever seen.
I found my local cableco quite bad too which is why I switched to DISH, which was way way better. Then later to DTV because the DTiVo can record two things at once, and that is way cool. Plus the few good things on TV seem to be scheduled against each other!
First, what about syndication exclusivity? If you can drop non-local stations down in competition with a local station, how do the rules that give stations protection from others airing the same programming have to change?
I'm not sure that really exists. If you look at DISH now they broadcast national feeds of UPN and WB as they are not covered by the "network" law (ABS/CBS/NBC/Fox are). They show lots of syndicated stuff...
Don't be fooled into thinking you'll get 500 locals to choose from one day.
Actually I'm pretty sure DISH has 10 or so DC area "locals", and DISH has close to the top 50 MSAs, so there are already close to 500 locals!
I don't doubt that if it is legal for him to sell distant feeds that he will pretty much stop trying to cram on more locals and just try to sell them to everyone (at $5 a city or something).
What the heck are you talking about? Dish has had locals for quite a while, and has added a bunch of channels recently, due to must-carry.
Right, but only by filling transponder 1-32 with locals for the top 50 markets. DTV has spot beams so they re-use the same transponder in different areas of the country for different shows. So they have just as many locals on one transponder (or 3), leaving the other ones for PPV or sports packages, or whatever.
If this suit is successful then even if DISH can't get DTV's spot beam technology, they can (a) sell the not-so-locals to people who really only care about getting NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox not getting their local news, and (b) in the top 50 MSAs sell not only locals but distant feeds to make time shifting easier.
Let me add that, as a Dish customer, I am so glad that EchoStar is buying Hughes, as opposed to vice-versa
As a recent E* subscriber (I would have stayed but for the lure of the DTiVo), I have to say there isn't much difference between the two...but I hope the merger is blocked because having real choice is good. Cable or satellite is no choice at all, satellite A vs. B (er, E vs D?) is a real choice.
They don't have spot beaming, they basically used their entire second satellite for locals as opposed to more PPV or sports programming. They had a lot more total space to use then DTV until DTV bought Primestar, they use it very differently though (I think DTV is smarter about using theirs...unless you can sell distant feeds spot beams for the restricted programming is very useful).
Fact is, most people still interested in watching the local stations are doing so precisely because either A) they're too cheap or poor to subscribe to a cable or satellite subscription, or B) they want to watch the local news.
Or C) want to watch ER, West Wing, or one of the other very popular shows that are only on NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox. Cable only gives you "local" stations, and while satellite can give you distant stations they are normally prohibited from doing so by this law.
Local stations will pretty much be able to stay in business as long as there are a fair number of people interested in receiving free TV via antenna. (With cable and satellite prices climbing ever higher, I think it's safe to bet that "free" sounds good enough to lots of local residents.)
While I'm sure they exist, I don't know anyone who does this. Even my mother who was rabidly anti-TV when I was growing up, and probably watches less then 30min a day of TV has cable.
If you're a small, local store - why do you *care* that people thousands of miles away see your TV ad? They're not your target customer anyway. The ad still reaches the audience it was created for, and everything else is just "spillover" that doesn't typically benefit the person buying the advertising.
You don't, but you do care that lots of people are no longer forced to watch your advertising, when a bunch of people stop the prices you are willing to pay for advertising will go down. When they go down enough you no longer have a local ABC affiliate. Go down enough more and you have one less TV station.
Therefore, letting local stations be re-broadcast nationwide via satellite and/or cable shouldn't really change anything.
It reduces (maybe significantly) the value of advertising to local stores, and thus the money local network stations get.
That said, it sounds more fair then the status quo.
I would imagine the station doesn't pay for the networked movies - as the network licenses them for the whole country - but I was more thinking in cases where the local station pre-empts a network show with it's own programming.
Local stations pretty much never pre-empt the network feed. The will sometimes do it for sporting events (which are pretty big money makers), and once in a while for very important local news, but never for a movie. After all the network feed is the most expensive thing a local station buys, and the one that brings in the most advertising money. (Except for PBS)
BTW, Dish and DirecTV are attempting to merge, so it seems Dish has decided that the ability to offer distant locals is more valuable than the NFL Sunday Ticket revenues are.
Or this is a hedge against the merger failing. Or the figure if they sell you distant feeds at $1/station, or $5/city very few people will buy enough to drop the NFL Sunday Ticket subscription.
But would anyone besides dish users see the NY station? I don't think we're dealling with enough eyeballs here to significantly damage the local channel's standing. Cable and plain old antenna are still in the majority from what I remember.
Maybe they are, but it seems to be changing. I use to be the only one on my block with a dish, now there are 9 house that obviously have one. I don't know how many went with a harder to see install.
Plus there are a lot of areas in the country where you can't get a local cable station, so the choice is OTA with very few stations, or a dish (large or small). Of corse those areas are likely to be the least effected since they probably already quality for out-of-area reception.
I also think more people would switch to one of the mini dish systems if they knew how much better then cable it was, but that is another whole thing:-)
I do hope this goes through, it would give me 4 chances to record network TV (one DTiVo, two tuners, two air times...).
A judge can't just issue a restraining order because you ask for one. You'll have to explain why you want one. I doubt if someone in this state of mind will be able to put together a convincing argument, whether true or false.
A lawyer can, even a pretty cheap one. More over nobody said he wasn't functioning, he was depressed.
Return of the properity is also likely to be suggested to the patrents by the cops as a way to prevent charges from being pressed. Theft is theft, and cops are likly to treat it a bit softer between a parent and mentally ill offspring, but they are not just going to let the parents do it.
And without a job, it takes a long time to get another computer.
He had a job at a Pizza shop, he could afford rent and power after all. Plus have you seen how easy it is to get credit cards in this country?
All that still leaves another problem. If Everquest has become so important, might it's sudden loss be a trigger to suicide? (this is different from the arguemnt that he would have commited suicide weeks or months before without EQ).
Maybe it is just me, but that is a sign that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong. Why didn't SHE do anything? Hell, I am 28 years old, but if I locked myself in my house to play EverCrack 24/7, my parents would cut the power to my place, break the door down and take my computer away from me. In a similar situation the lack of money from the lack of job would probably put you on cold turkey REAL FAST. That is if they didn't take me to and throw me into therapy on the spot.
If your parents did cut your power and steal your computer how long would it take you to get a restraining order? And the return of your property? Or just another computer?
It is very difficult for adults to be forced to stop doing something that is legal, even if it is bad for them.
Well, there is a difference between improving a game in hopes people play longer and purposely doing "something" to MAKE them play longer, in some addictive route or otherwise.
That depends on your point of view, you, the original poster, and I probbably all agree on what would be appropriate ways to encurage people to play. The dead guy's mother, and her lawyer likely do not.
But how about a patch that every few minutes, takes 1 minute off your system clock, so you feel like you've been playing less time. There's a big difference between what he said and what you talked about.
Lots of people would be upset about that. Hoever there is a more grey area. Is the part of the game where you have to "hide" or find a safe spot before you leave the game (or risk having your stuff looted) "something" to MAKE prople play longer? Or is it just a way to make sure you can't just hang up if you are in a tight spot and escape unharmed?
Regardless, Sony did none of that in this case and aren't responsible. Plenty of people are sad, plenty of people cling to things. That doesn't make the "thing" responsible.. It's just too bad.
Oh, I pretty much beleve that...but does the (as yet unselected) jury? Or are we in fact both wrong and EQ's design team really overstep the bounds of fairness (I really doubt that)?
Or maybe take the computer away? So the guy was 21 and living in his own apartment... he wasn't exactly making the big money, so it's likely he wouldn't be able to afford a new computer...
Maybe because that would be theft, and the mother could go to jail over it? (not likely if she gave it back) Plus taking away access to the "fantasy world" could well be a suicide trigger?
You pretty much don't get to intervene in the lives of adults. You can talk to them and try to get them to change their ways, or check into a rehab center. If you can get a doctor to agree that they pose a threat to themselves or others you might be able to get them involentarally checked into a mental ward (that is about the only way you can legally get them to do something against their will). However that really doesn't happen unless they attempt suicide (and fail), or make creditable threats.
On the whole that is a good thing since it prevents other people from deciding I'm spending too much time swimming and should be watching TV like them. Or too much time watching TV and should be at a bar like them. Or that you are spending too much time looking at slashdot, and not enough making new word documents.
Slashdot Mirror
No, theft is theft. This would be using the offered services. Much like buying food from the University of Maryland food services on your point card, and then giving it to charity for the homeless isn't theft either. (of corse the UofMD food services folks claimed it was though)
Reducing someone's revenue is not theft, even if it involves using someone else's services (so long as you use them within the bounds they have been offered). A Mobil gas station next to a Shell gas station is likely to reduce the Shell's revenue. Not theft. If the Shell is dumb enough to to sell the gas at half price to the Mobil, it still isn't theft. If the Shell sells it half price but with a no resale rider it is a contract violation though.
Given the state of today's commercial software, it might be a good idea to mention things like that rather then assume.
Well if you don't want anyone to give you alternatives what do you want? Should we just say "use outlook and enjoy it, dammit!"?
Can outlook use IMAP servers? Can it see folders in an IMAP box? If so you can send the mail to to a Linux box have it autofile it, serve it up via IMAP. Then you can use whatever client you want...which is apparently only outlook :-)
P.S. is it just me or is this article all about craming a bunch of stuff into a mail reader that doesn't belong? I would much rather have a bunch of applications that work together then on big one, too hard to replace the big one. With a bunch of little apps I could replace the "to do" part with one that works better with my PDA, or that has repeating items or just look better without having to find the better todo stuff in an app that does all that other crap too! Maybe this is why people like giant bloated software, and leave me puzzled?
(the Apple mail app is a little like that, it leaves the "address book" stuff up to another application; still too integrated for my taste...MH anyone?)
I know you are just flaming, but I did it because most people don't know how fast a shutter time you can use with film is, they just trust the camera's meter. So I provided the 1/film_speed at f/16 on a sunny day rule of thumb (actually I should have provided that, I just gave the exposure without the rule). Anyone else could have used units, and bc (and forgotten to convert from hours to seconds). I provide the added value of being both a film and computer geek (and not double checking my math).
Of corse not, it came out of bc, how could it be wrong?
Yes, I goofed, someone beat you to the correction though.
Most digital cameras have shutters, but they have the "fake sound" because what people here is normally not the shutter sound but the mirror slap (on an SLR), and the film wind.
The shutter on my digital ELPH is quite quiet, but you can hear it. The shutter on my EOS-D30 is also pretty quiet, but since it is an SLR you hear the mirror slap froma fair distance (farther then from my ELAN 7 which has a very quier mirror slap, and rubberised parts on the film transport so they are very quiet...and I susspect wear faster so Canon can upsell you in 4 years rather then 10...).
The shutter in some digital cameras is a leaf shutter. I don't know a huge amount about them, but they seem to have far lower top speeds (like 1/800th, or 1/1000th), but allow flash sync for a larger range of speeds. However you can only get the higher speeds at smaller apeture as the apeture is really the shutter (I think). I know they are also very common on medimum format cameras.
The CCDs on most digital cameras can not discharge except in the dark, but some can stop accumulating light ("eletronic shutter"). The CCD in the EOS-1D is like that, which is how it gets a 1/500th of a second sync and 1/16000th max speed (the EOS-1D is almost exactly like it's film counterpart the EOS-1V which gets 1/250th and 1/8000th). I do think there are a very very few CCDs that can use only an eletronic shutter, but I'm not sure.
Anyway disable the shutter beep, hold your camera to your ear and take a shot. I bet you hear a focus motor run and then a faint click of the shutter.
If there is a camera store close by try the same with a rangefinder (one without autowind), or an EOS-1RS with the CF set that makes it not advance film (for single shots in a classical concert or other enforced quiet zones).
Crap, shame I can't mod that up since I already posted :-)
0.1 feet is a lot for things close to the camera, but I bet it would be decent for things some reasonable distance away, and since you are likely to be using hyperfocal focausing anyway stuff close to you will be blurry even if it is still. With a 28mm lens at f/8 focusing to 12.8559... feet gets you everything from 6.45 feet to 1799.14 feet in focus (assuming the normal circle of confusion size for 35mm film).
If you are shooting at f/16 (a fairly deep depth of field) on a sunny day you will have a shutter speed of (about) 1/1000. The units program claims 1 mile is 5280 feet (if I remember how to read it's output), so 70mph is 369600 feet per second. Or "only" 369.6 feet per 1/1000th. You could open up to f/8 or f/5.6 and get shutter times more like 1/4000, but not much depth of field. At 1/4000th things "only" move 100 feet or so while the shutter is open.
However on most cameras speeds over about 1/200th of a second are not "real". There are really two shutters both moving fast enough to open and close in 1/200th (on some cameras 1/60th, on others 1/500th, but most around 1/200th), this is called the "X sync speed", or "flash sync speed". For that speed or slower the first shutter opens, remains open for some amount of time, then the second slides across blocking the light. For faster speeds the first shutter starts to open, and before it finishes the second starts to close. So at anything faster then the x-sync speed you actually get more motion blur then you expect.
So how do they stop very fast action? Lots of ways, but the most common one is to use slowish film, very little ambient light, the "slow" x-sync speed, and a powerful flash (most camera strobes are 1/20,000th of a second, or faster). That doesn't work for scenic pictures though...
Things are far from silent in a machine room with ANR, but it is much better with them on (it sounds a little quieter, but I can stay in much much longer).
Oh, I already have, but it only did VAX and SPARC output (both badly).
Sure, until the first time your gcc expires then you are dead... (or gcc is working but ftp, httpget, and curl are not...)
Or the first time you unearth some old hardware and want to bring it back to life. Sure you could reinstall from scratch, but that lengthens the time it takes to find out if the hardware really still works, and what is on it!
Also check out DTV, they also have some great offers, and they have locals some areas DISH doesn't (I think), and if one or the other is blocked by trees you don't/can't cut down the other might not. Plus DTV has the DTiVo :-)
DISH is quite good too though (I was a subscriber for 4 years), and better then any cableco I have ever seen.
Yeah....but I don't know you :-)
I found my local cableco quite bad too which is why I switched to DISH, which was way way better. Then later to DTV because the DTiVo can record two things at once, and that is way cool. Plus the few good things on TV seem to be scheduled against each other!
I'm not sure that really exists. If you look at DISH now they broadcast national feeds of UPN and WB as they are not covered by the "network" law (ABS/CBS/NBC/Fox are). They show lots of syndicated stuff...
Actually I'm pretty sure DISH has 10 or so DC area "locals", and DISH has close to the top 50 MSAs, so there are already close to 500 locals!
I don't doubt that if it is legal for him to sell distant feeds that he will pretty much stop trying to cram on more locals and just try to sell them to everyone (at $5 a city or something).
Right, but only by filling transponder 1-32 with locals for the top 50 markets. DTV has spot beams so they re-use the same transponder in different areas of the country for different shows. So they have just as many locals on one transponder (or 3), leaving the other ones for PPV or sports packages, or whatever.
If this suit is successful then even if DISH can't get DTV's spot beam technology, they can (a) sell the not-so-locals to people who really only care about getting NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox not getting their local news, and (b) in the top 50 MSAs sell not only locals but distant feeds to make time shifting easier.
As a recent E* subscriber (I would have stayed but for the lure of the DTiVo), I have to say there isn't much difference between the two...but I hope the merger is blocked because having real choice is good. Cable or satellite is no choice at all, satellite A vs. B (er, E vs D?) is a real choice.
They don't have spot beaming, they basically used their entire second satellite for locals as opposed to more PPV or sports programming. They had a lot more total space to use then DTV until DTV bought Primestar, they use it very differently though (I think DTV is smarter about using theirs...unless you can sell distant feeds spot beams for the restricted programming is very useful).
Or C) want to watch ER, West Wing, or one of the other very popular shows that are only on NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox. Cable only gives you "local" stations, and while satellite can give you distant stations they are normally prohibited from doing so by this law.
While I'm sure they exist, I don't know anyone who does this. Even my mother who was rabidly anti-TV when I was growing up, and probably watches less then 30min a day of TV has cable.
You don't, but you do care that lots of people are no longer forced to watch your advertising, when a bunch of people stop the prices you are willing to pay for advertising will go down. When they go down enough you no longer have a local ABC affiliate. Go down enough more and you have one less TV station.
It reduces (maybe significantly) the value of advertising to local stores, and thus the money local network stations get.
That said, it sounds more fair then the status quo.
Local stations pretty much never pre-empt the network feed. The will sometimes do it for sporting events (which are pretty big money makers), and once in a while for very important local news, but never for a movie. After all the network feed is the most expensive thing a local station buys, and the one that brings in the most advertising money. (Except for PBS)
Or this is a hedge against the merger failing. Or the figure if they sell you distant feeds at $1/station, or $5/city very few people will buy enough to drop the NFL Sunday Ticket subscription.
Maybe they are, but it seems to be changing. I use to be the only one on my block with a dish, now there are 9 house that obviously have one. I don't know how many went with a harder to see install.
Plus there are a lot of areas in the country where you can't get a local cable station, so the choice is OTA with very few stations, or a dish (large or small). Of corse those areas are likely to be the least effected since they probably already quality for out-of-area reception.
I also think more people would switch to one of the mini dish systems if they knew how much better then cable it was, but that is another whole thing :-)
I do hope this goes through, it would give me 4 chances to record network TV (one DTiVo, two tuners, two air times...).
A lawyer can, even a pretty cheap one. More over nobody said he wasn't functioning, he was depressed.
Return of the properity is also likely to be suggested to the patrents by the cops as a way to prevent charges from being pressed. Theft is theft, and cops are likly to treat it a bit softer between a parent and mentally ill offspring, but they are not just going to let the parents do it.
He had a job at a Pizza shop, he could afford rent and power after all. Plus have you seen how easy it is to get credit cards in this country?
All that still leaves another problem. If Everquest has become so important, might it's sudden loss be a trigger to suicide? (this is different from the arguemnt that he would have commited suicide weeks or months before without EQ).
If your parents did cut your power and steal your computer how long would it take you to get a restraining order? And the return of your property? Or just another computer?
It is very difficult for adults to be forced to stop doing something that is legal, even if it is bad for them.
That depends on your point of view, you, the original poster, and I probbably all agree on what would be appropriate ways to encurage people to play. The dead guy's mother, and her lawyer likely do not.
Lots of people would be upset about that. Hoever there is a more grey area. Is the part of the game where you have to "hide" or find a safe spot before you leave the game (or risk having your stuff looted) "something" to MAKE prople play longer? Or is it just a way to make sure you can't just hang up if you are in a tight spot and escape unharmed?
Oh, I pretty much beleve that...but does the (as yet unselected) jury? Or are we in fact both wrong and EQ's design team really overstep the bounds of fairness (I really doubt that)?
Maybe because that would be theft, and the mother could go to jail over it? (not likely if she gave it back) Plus taking away access to the "fantasy world" could well be a suicide trigger?
You pretty much don't get to intervene in the lives of adults. You can talk to them and try to get them to change their ways, or check into a rehab center. If you can get a doctor to agree that they pose a threat to themselves or others you might be able to get them involentarally checked into a mental ward (that is about the only way you can legally get them to do something against their will). However that really doesn't happen unless they attempt suicide (and fail), or make creditable threats.
On the whole that is a good thing since it prevents other people from deciding I'm spending too much time swimming and should be watching TV like them. Or too much time watching TV and should be at a bar like them. Or that you are spending too much time looking at slashdot, and not enough making new word documents.