I also remember years ago somebody had distributed.net software running on their laptop. It was stolen, and the thief never wiped anything and d.net kept running and fetching/flushing work. The owner contacted Nugget (the coordinator for d.net) and they tracked down the IP address of the laptop and found the thief.
I guess Prime95/SETI@Home/Folding@Home/etc could probably work the same way. So see? Do something good AND protect your portable box.
So what's to stop a sex offender getting on the bus to your friends district and repeat offending?
Some sex offenses are crimes of opportunity. (I hesitate to say 'most' or 'the majority' because someone will ask me for proof). Also, given that sex crime can be a sign of a mental illness, the offender could simply see the girl walking down the street, walking into her apartment, etc, and an 'idea' forms. Seeing her over and over again begins reinforcing the idea, and planning starts. That's how it can work in the case of illness; You go with what you see.
Think about this: How many times have you looked around a place of business and thought to yourself, even just academically, "Man it would be easy to rob this place.". Maybe you've thought that about your workplace. Point is, if you were criminally-inclined, you would probably not go halfway across town and rob some place blind... no, you'd rob a place that you'd seen and analyzed before... and it's probably a place close to you rather than further away.
It's not a great parallel, but the theory holds. If I'm a sex offender (note: IANASO), and I see the same group of fifteen kids walking past my apartment from the bus stop to their homes every day, then the chances I'll pick one out of the crowd and start getting ideas are high... and if I do make the decision to commit a sex crime, it will more likely be against my 'target' than some random person miles away.
This post is a generalization based on the little I know about this topic and common sense.
Hey, I'm not saying that fertility drugs resulting in $multiple-tuplets are the cat's meow or dogs whiskers or whatever. I'm just taking issue with the idea that couples only get pregnant involuntarily and that some actually make efforts to get pregnant. The morality of said efforts is outside the scope of my message.
I'll join the parade here... this is an amazingly ignorant post, assuming that every single child out there was an unplanned pregnancy. Such mental blindness is unbelievable. Yes, there are unplanned pregnancies, just as there are unplanned car collisions, unplanned STD acquisition, and unplanned "format c:" commands issued. But some people actually choose to have children, or at least remove the barriers (pun intended) that prevent pregnancy on the theory that they'd like to have kids. In fact, if I understand correctly, there's an entire medical profession devoted to increasing the fertility of women. Imagine that.
There is more to life than work. And while I agree that it's somewhat unfair that parents (yes, I am one) might be able to duck out of work to take care of a sick child or whatever, these instances should either consume vacation time or be few and far between. Any employer who just lets an employee wander off and get paid without using vacation is in trouble, no matter what the reason for the wandering.
Somebody please mod the parent as flamebait, because the more I read it in attempting to reply, the more that's all I see.
... and this reply almost guarantees the parent gets a '5'.
Of course, I can't wait to see what reversing the phase inducers to create a low-level graviton well will do to the plasma injector. That stuff is so hard to clean up, though, so maybe I'd best wait until this technology stuff advances a little more. "Um, Ensign! Yes, that plasma there needs to be cleaned up, there's a mop and bucket in the corner, take care of it won't you, there's a good lad."
I was thinking along the same lines.. I have no intention of shutting down F@H, bu tthis seems liek it could ride along without causing too much speed loss... of course, the cumulative effect of the twenty things that pop up in my system tray now when I boot up might have some effect.. *sigh* right-click, exit, right-click, exit, etc etc etc.
But anyway, yeah this just seems like an ethical sniffer, not really something CPU-intensive. Someone running a d.net client might want to verify that, since that's what I always used to do to estimate proc speed and performance.
Re:The main spam run was April 12
on
Happy Spamiversary!
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I actually remember where I was...
I was working for the University of Georgia as a computer lab rat.. checking through my regular newsgroups I saw this post over.. and over.. and over... and I'd seen crossposting before but this just seemed insane.. checking more groups, unrelated ones, and there it was. Dead, alive, made no difference.
I was amazed and gladdened by the reactions I saw.. which varied from "What is this?" (WTF hadn't been coined back then) from "AHHH!!! KILL KILL KILL!", depending on the mental outlook of the readers. Suggestions were made to fax C&S black pieces of paper, call them as much as humanly possible, email them electronic copies of the Bible and Koran, etc etc. It was great to see the backlash.
I even, in my budding nerdom, bought the Joel Furr t-shirt commemorating the occasion.. "Green Card Lawyers, Spamming the Globe!" Even back then, there were t-shirts.
I worked for the-company-then-known-as-MindSpring back before the 56K upgrade deal, and I had a USR Courier because I was told they were the bes there was. They were right. I handled all kinds of calls from people with Sportsters, Winmodems, and other crappy analog-to-digital communications devices that got sold back in the day, and daily I was glad for my Courier. When X2 (USR's 56K protocol) was in beta, I was among the people that got to play with it specifically because I worked for MSPG and had a Courier. That was the best; We'd flash the modems, then download files from our local server, sending the NetEng folks the results each time.
I've been online since 1200 baud was the fashion of the day, and no modem I ever had could stand up to the Courier. Arguably the best money I've ever spent on a computer component.
There was an article some time ago about a white paper someone at IBM (I believe) had written about a system wherein the recipient had the option to charge the sender of an email. The sender was informed whenever an email delivery was attempted that the recipient could charge the sender for the email. It was up to the recipient to do so, therefore your friends could send you email and you wouldn't charge them, unless your subscription to hotcollegecoeds.com was running out. Spammers, though, you'd charge. The application was put over to telemarketing too... the caller heard the blurb about the charge and had to press a tone to accept. Again, you could bless phone numbers the same way you could bless email addresses to avoid the system. But it didn't categorically block everyone you didn't have listed, just informed them of the possible charges. Wish I could remember the link but it's back in the archives somewhere. I loved the idea, myself.
It's no coincidence that people who smoke and are perfectly happy with smoking usually don't characterize themselves as addicted. There's no stigma, there's no need to quit, so they don't have to worry about that facet. And yes, I'm sure if I thought that porn was perfectly okay I wouldn't look at it as often as I want to now. That's the nature of self-denial... ask any dieter. That cheesecake in the fridge can sit there for days for all I care, I'm not on a diet. Put me on one and suddenly I'm a cheesecake-obsessing mofo and you have to chain the fridge shut to keep me away from it. "Addiction" loses its stigma when there's no stigma attached to the addicting item.
Okay fine, you just described what I go through with pornography. To me, as as much of an addiction as I've ever had, and I was a smoker for three years. Unfortunately since nobody is likely to peer-review this posting, it won't meet your criteria.
Wonder if the same people in favor of this voluntary, opt-in do-not-call list are the same ones that decried the voluntary, opt-in net-usage monitor in the previous article.;)
I remembering having to cat together messages then run them thru uudecoding and finally FTP them to a Mac before I could get to see it proper. I thought Free Agent was a miracle.
Addiction is a well-defined condition consisting of tolerance, withdrawl, continued use in the face of strong negative consequences, and repeated failed attempted to quit
You don't think that applies to online pr0n as well? There are plenty folk that exhibit this sort of behavior in reference to it.
Addiction is a mental state, not just a physical one.
You really don't think porn is addictive? What about people who go and spend hundreds at strip clubs on the weekend? Think they're not addicted? And besides, at the prices most online pr0n stops are charging, you'd have to be addicted to some degree or another.
If you want to stop doing something and have great difficulty doing so, then it's an addiction. Ask anybody who's addicted to anything. It's a weird mental mindset, to which the simplistic "If you don't want to see porn, don't go to porn sites" reasoning fails to work.
Well, think about addictions. There are plenty of people who want to kick addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, hell most anything really. They want to quit, but their willpower is weak. So they turn themselves into rehab, sign up for Weight Watchers (where you weigh in as a group once a week), that sort of thing. I mean there are honestly people out there, and I'm one of them, who really try to get away from online pr0n but find the addiction too seductive sometimes to resist. It's the nature of addiction and temptation; it wouldn't be addictive and tempting if you didn't enjoy it. It's easy to enjoy things that you know are wrong.. the hard bit is stopping. This is legitimate help for some people.
Not a bad idea, really... but it's only as effective as any other form of self-censorship is. If there's any way to turn it off... unless it works on a double-key system, wherein you need two separate passwords.... or it just can't be bypassed completely. At any rate, glad to see that the concept of self-censorship is alive and well. And it wouldn't be such a bad thing to just have a regular way to track your internet usage for your own personal information anyway. Just the other day my wife lamented the lack of a game timer on The Sims Online..
Seems like when we're online, sometimes self-awareness goes out the window. Nothing new to most of us, but I think we'd all be shocked at how much time we actively spend online, where we go, that sort of thing. Bring it on.
At least she's a 15 year old hottie, as mentioned earlier. Always wanted an excuse to hang about the restaurat and scope out the female cashier population.
Of course, surfing about on your laptop for an hour hurts your chances with them even more, if such a thing is possible for folks like us. *sigh* "Eye candy with that, sir?"
Of the list, I've only seen Perfect Blue and Lain, but neither can be called anything close to kid's fare... I'm not even sure when I'll let my daughter (who is only 2 now) watch Perfect Blue. I don't think PB is worthy of an award, but it's definately an example of the maturation of the genre. Lain is just... Lain. I have a hard time pidgeonholeing that one.
Spirited Away has some good things going for it. Length is one; Over two hours gives it some significant weight, with most animated features being short for one reason or another. Depth of characters is another... we learn so much about Chihiro/Sen, as well as Haku, and learn that there is really nothing like a good guy and a bad guy, just people with their own motives that vary along a grey morality. Chihiro finds an inner strength she didn't know she had, overcomes her (very obvious) fears, and does what has to be done. Great story, great lesson.
Unhappily, since the majority of American beliefs center around monotheism, it's possible that this will run against the grain of Spirited Away. Still, a bathhouse and relaxation spot for weary gods is intriguing at the very least.
I think the real failing of Anime and Animation is in the American psyche, not in Anime. People see Anime and automatically think "a cartoon", forgetting how far animation has come. I think as our generation (20's and 30's, pardon the generalisation) continue to mature and expose our children to the possibilities of real, quality Anime/nation the more likely we are to change the landscape of the film-going public at large, and hopefully soon what the original author said won't happen will instead. Miyazaki is at the forefront of a slow incursion into the American psyche, and for one I welcome him over the mass-produced, kill-the-bad-guy-and-get-the-girl kinda movie.. SA ends with Chihiro going home. Yubaba is chagrined but still in power, Haku is still in service but aiming to get out.. she didn't kill Yubaba or destroy the bath house or anything like that. She solved her problem realistically and that was that.
Oh, to add to the list... Princess Mononoke. With name voice actors in English, even.
I've got the same set... I sort of wondered about the too-good-to-be-trueism of all this, especially since they're uncoded DVDs and therefore play on my home DVD player just fine. It also came with "Spirited Away" as a separate film. I feel bad if they're bootlegs, but I don't really know what to do now.
It's so nice to watch Spirited Away, though, so soon after having seen it in the theatre. I will buy as many of them as I legally can when they're released, I'll say that much. But the packaging on these is very well-done... You definately wouldn't know they were bootleg by the packaging or the quality of the movies themselves (I've only watch Totoro thusfar, though, but the quality seemed very good).
I don't have the set here so I don't know the maker.. but the menus for Spirited Away are in Chinese and Japanese, subbing in English. Well, the first DVD, anyway. The second is all Chinese and Japanese, unhappily for me. Not sure about the options on the others since we only watch subbed anime.;)
Well, there's a difference between an Ad and a product placement, IMHO. The ad is more in-your-face, designed to get your attention and capture it long enough to send you a message. A product placement is more subtle and, to me at least, less offensive (Return of the Killer Tomatoes excluded, of course). If done correctly, product placements can actually be useful. Since we're already aware of of the brand in real life, we have a reasonable expectation of its function in the game. As I mentioned in a previous comment, the computers all do the Intel splash-and-noise when they're turned on in the game... it's not necessarily an ad, but just.. well, they've got to be run by something.
Having said that, I've always enjoyed the product descriptions for the items... "Nothing says luxury like hand-carved mahogany, alluring brass finishings, a luxurious shine... unless it's this Chipboard dresser by GloChemCo Furnishings." I *do* sincerely hope this sort of creativity doesn't get stifled by corporate edicts.
I think this is a venue to be carefully explored. And like it has been said before, if you don't like advertising in a game, don't buy it. Vote with your dollars; That's your real power.
I don't understand why it shouldn't. It's certainly a possibility. At any rate, this enhances EA's revenue stream at a time where such a stream is critically important. Customers will see the benefits of this stream, whether it be lower costs, better network reliability, more options in the game, or something else that will ultimately benefit the customer. I don't think EA/Maxis will take the money and stick it in their pockets, mainly because as this sort of reaction/backlash grows, they'll have to justify what they've done in terms of co-branding.
You've already got commercial messages... when you turn on a computer in the game, you get the Intel Inside logo on the little computer screen and the trademark noise. So this isn't the first deal they've struck. Hell, I say if it makes it cheaper and keeps them from jacking up the monthly user fees, I'm all for it. Just as long as it's a few carefully-placed placements and doesn't make every house into a NASCAR race, I'm fine with it.
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I also remember years ago somebody had distributed.net software running on their laptop. It was stolen, and the thief never wiped anything and d.net kept running and fetching/flushing work. The owner contacted Nugget (the coordinator for d.net) and they tracked down the IP address of the laptop and found the thief.
I guess Prime95/SETI@Home/Folding@Home/etc could probably work the same way. So see? Do something good AND protect your portable box.
So what's to stop a sex offender getting on the bus to your friends district and repeat offending?
Some sex offenses are crimes of opportunity. (I hesitate to say 'most' or 'the majority' because someone will ask me for proof). Also, given that sex crime can be a sign of a mental illness, the offender could simply see the girl walking down the street, walking into her apartment, etc, and an 'idea' forms. Seeing her over and over again begins reinforcing the idea, and planning starts. That's how it can work in the case of illness; You go with what you see.
Think about this: How many times have you looked around a place of business and thought to yourself, even just academically, "Man it would be easy to rob this place.". Maybe you've thought that about your workplace. Point is, if you were criminally-inclined, you would probably not go halfway across town and rob some place blind... no, you'd rob a place that you'd seen and analyzed before... and it's probably a place close to you rather than further away.
It's not a great parallel, but the theory holds. If I'm a sex offender (note: IANASO), and I see the same group of fifteen kids walking past my apartment from the bus stop to their homes every day, then the chances I'll pick one out of the crowd and start getting ideas are high... and if I do make the decision to commit a sex crime, it will more likely be against my 'target' than some random person miles away.
This post is a generalization based on the little I know about this topic and common sense.
Hey, I'm not saying that fertility drugs resulting in $multiple-tuplets are the cat's meow or dogs whiskers or whatever. I'm just taking issue with the idea that couples only get pregnant involuntarily and that some actually make efforts to get pregnant. The morality of said efforts is outside the scope of my message.
There is more to life than work. And while I agree that it's somewhat unfair that parents (yes, I am one) might be able to duck out of work to take care of a sick child or whatever, these instances should either consume vacation time or be few and far between. Any employer who just lets an employee wander off and get paid without using vacation is in trouble, no matter what the reason for the wandering.
Somebody please mod the parent as flamebait, because the more I read it in attempting to reply, the more that's all I see.
... and this reply almost guarantees the parent gets a '5'.
Of course, I can't wait to see what reversing the phase inducers to create a low-level graviton well will do to the plasma injector. That stuff is so hard to clean up, though, so maybe I'd best wait until this technology stuff advances a little more. "Um, Ensign! Yes, that plasma there needs to be cleaned up, there's a mop and bucket in the corner, take care of it won't you, there's a good lad."
I was thinking along the same lines.. I have no intention of shutting down F@H, bu tthis seems liek it could ride along without causing too much speed loss... of course, the cumulative effect of the twenty things that pop up in my system tray now when I boot up might have some effect.. *sigh* right-click, exit, right-click, exit, etc etc etc.
But anyway, yeah this just seems like an ethical sniffer, not really something CPU-intensive. Someone running a d.net client might want to verify that, since that's what I always used to do to estimate proc speed and performance.
I actually remember where I was ...
I was working for the University of Georgia as a computer lab rat.. checking through my regular newsgroups I saw this post over.. and over.. and over... and I'd seen crossposting before but this just seemed insane.. checking more groups, unrelated ones, and there it was. Dead, alive, made no difference.
I was amazed and gladdened by the reactions I saw.. which varied from "What is this?" (WTF hadn't been coined back then) from "AHHH!!! KILL KILL KILL!", depending on the mental outlook of the readers. Suggestions were made to fax C&S black pieces of paper, call them as much as humanly possible, email them electronic copies of the Bible and Koran, etc etc. It was great to see the backlash.
I even, in my budding nerdom, bought the Joel Furr t-shirt commemorating the occasion.. "Green Card Lawyers, Spamming the Globe!" Even back then, there were t-shirts.
I worked for the-company-then-known-as-MindSpring back before the 56K upgrade deal, and I had a USR Courier because I was told they were the bes there was. They were right. I handled all kinds of calls from people with Sportsters, Winmodems, and other crappy analog-to-digital communications devices that got sold back in the day, and daily I was glad for my Courier. When X2 (USR's 56K protocol) was in beta, I was among the people that got to play with it specifically because I worked for MSPG and had a Courier. That was the best; We'd flash the modems, then download files from our local server, sending the NetEng folks the results each time.
I've been online since 1200 baud was the fashion of the day, and no modem I ever had could stand up to the Courier. Arguably the best money I've ever spent on a computer component.
There was an article some time ago about a white paper someone at IBM (I believe) had written about a system wherein the recipient had the option to charge the sender of an email. The sender was informed whenever an email delivery was attempted that the recipient could charge the sender for the email. It was up to the recipient to do so, therefore your friends could send you email and you wouldn't charge them, unless your subscription to hotcollegecoeds.com was running out. Spammers, though, you'd charge. The application was put over to telemarketing too... the caller heard the blurb about the charge and had to press a tone to accept. Again, you could bless phone numbers the same way you could bless email addresses to avoid the system. But it didn't categorically block everyone you didn't have listed, just informed them of the possible charges. Wish I could remember the link but it's back in the archives somewhere. I loved the idea, myself.
It's no coincidence that people who smoke and are perfectly happy with smoking usually don't characterize themselves as addicted. There's no stigma, there's no need to quit, so they don't have to worry about that facet. And yes, I'm sure if I thought that porn was perfectly okay I wouldn't look at it as often as I want to now. That's the nature of self-denial... ask any dieter. That cheesecake in the fridge can sit there for days for all I care, I'm not on a diet. Put me on one and suddenly I'm a cheesecake-obsessing mofo and you have to chain the fridge shut to keep me away from it. "Addiction" loses its stigma when there's no stigma attached to the addicting item.
Okay fine, you just described what I go through with pornography. To me, as as much of an addiction as I've ever had, and I was a smoker for three years. Unfortunately since nobody is likely to peer-review this posting, it won't meet your criteria.
Wonder if the same people in favor of this voluntary, opt-in do-not-call list are the same ones that decried the voluntary, opt-in net-usage monitor in the previous article. ;)
Nah, none of that kinda crowd in here, I'm sure.
I remembering having to cat together messages then run them thru uudecoding and finally FTP them to a Mac before I could get to see it proper. I thought Free Agent was a miracle.
Addiction is a well-defined condition consisting of tolerance, withdrawl, continued use in the face of strong negative consequences, and repeated failed attempted to quit
You don't think that applies to online pr0n as well? There are plenty folk that exhibit this sort of behavior in reference to it.
Addiction is a mental state, not just a physical one.
You really don't think porn is addictive? What about people who go and spend hundreds at strip clubs on the weekend? Think they're not addicted? And besides, at the prices most online pr0n stops are charging, you'd have to be addicted to some degree or another.
If you want to stop doing something and have great difficulty doing so, then it's an addiction. Ask anybody who's addicted to anything. It's a weird mental mindset, to which the simplistic "If you don't want to see porn, don't go to porn sites" reasoning fails to work.
Well, think about addictions. There are plenty of people who want to kick addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, hell most anything really. They want to quit, but their willpower is weak. So they turn themselves into rehab, sign up for Weight Watchers (where you weigh in as a group once a week), that sort of thing. I mean there are honestly people out there, and I'm one of them, who really try to get away from online pr0n but find the addiction too seductive sometimes to resist. It's the nature of addiction and temptation; it wouldn't be addictive and tempting if you didn't enjoy it. It's easy to enjoy things that you know are wrong.. the hard bit is stopping. This is legitimate help for some people.
Not a bad idea, really... but it's only as effective as any other form of self-censorship is. If there's any way to turn it off... unless it works on a double-key system, wherein you need two separate passwords.... or it just can't be bypassed completely. At any rate, glad to see that the concept of self-censorship is alive and well. And it wouldn't be such a bad thing to just have a regular way to track your internet usage for your own personal information anyway. Just the other day my wife lamented the lack of a game timer on The Sims Online..
Seems like when we're online, sometimes self-awareness goes out the window. Nothing new to most of us, but I think we'd all be shocked at how much time we actively spend online, where we go, that sort of thing. Bring it on.
At least she's a 15 year old hottie, as mentioned earlier. Always wanted an excuse to hang about the restaurat and scope out the female cashier population.
Of course, surfing about on your laptop for an hour hurts your chances with them even more, if such a thing is possible for folks like us. *sigh* "Eye candy with that, sir?"
Of the list, I've only seen Perfect Blue and Lain, but neither can be called anything close to kid's fare... I'm not even sure when I'll let my daughter (who is only 2 now) watch Perfect Blue. I don't think PB is worthy of an award, but it's definately an example of the maturation of the genre. Lain is just... Lain. I have a hard time pidgeonholeing that one.
Spirited Away has some good things going for it. Length is one; Over two hours gives it some significant weight, with most animated features being short for one reason or another. Depth of characters is another... we learn so much about Chihiro/Sen, as well as Haku, and learn that there is really nothing like a good guy and a bad guy, just people with their own motives that vary along a grey morality. Chihiro finds an inner strength she didn't know she had, overcomes her (very obvious) fears, and does what has to be done. Great story, great lesson.
Unhappily, since the majority of American beliefs center around monotheism, it's possible that this will run against the grain of Spirited Away. Still, a bathhouse and relaxation spot for weary gods is intriguing at the very least.
I think the real failing of Anime and Animation is in the American psyche, not in Anime. People see Anime and automatically think "a cartoon", forgetting how far animation has come. I think as our generation (20's and 30's, pardon the generalisation) continue to mature and expose our children to the possibilities of real, quality Anime/nation the more likely we are to change the landscape of the film-going public at large, and hopefully soon what the original author said won't happen will instead. Miyazaki is at the forefront of a slow incursion into the American psyche, and for one I welcome him over the mass-produced, kill-the-bad-guy-and-get-the-girl kinda movie.. SA ends with Chihiro going home. Yubaba is chagrined but still in power, Haku is still in service but aiming to get out.. she didn't kill Yubaba or destroy the bath house or anything like that. She solved her problem realistically and that was that.
Oh, to add to the list... Princess Mononoke. With name voice actors in English, even.
FWIW, the "Me fail English? That's unpossible!" quote was by Ralph Wiggum, not Homer S.
I've got the same set... I sort of wondered about the too-good-to-be-trueism of all this, especially since they're uncoded DVDs and therefore play on my home DVD player just fine. It also came with "Spirited Away" as a separate film. I feel bad if they're bootlegs, but I don't really know what to do now.
;)
It's so nice to watch Spirited Away, though, so soon after having seen it in the theatre. I will buy as many of them as I legally can when they're released, I'll say that much. But the packaging on these is very well-done... You definately wouldn't know they were bootleg by the packaging or the quality of the movies themselves (I've only watch Totoro thusfar, though, but the quality seemed very good).
I don't have the set here so I don't know the maker.. but the menus for Spirited Away are in Chinese and Japanese, subbing in English. Well, the first DVD, anyway. The second is all Chinese and Japanese, unhappily for me. Not sure about the options on the others since we only watch subbed anime.
Well, there's a difference between an Ad and a product placement, IMHO. The ad is more in-your-face, designed to get your attention and capture it long enough to send you a message. A product placement is more subtle and, to me at least, less offensive (Return of the Killer Tomatoes excluded, of course). If done correctly, product placements can actually be useful. Since we're already aware of of the brand in real life, we have a reasonable expectation of its function in the game. As I mentioned in a previous comment, the computers all do the Intel splash-and-noise when they're turned on in the game... it's not necessarily an ad, but just.. well, they've got to be run by something.
Having said that, I've always enjoyed the product descriptions for the items... "Nothing says luxury like hand-carved mahogany, alluring brass finishings, a luxurious shine... unless it's this Chipboard dresser by GloChemCo Furnishings." I *do* sincerely hope this sort of creativity doesn't get stifled by corporate edicts.
I think this is a venue to be carefully explored. And like it has been said before, if you don't like advertising in a game, don't buy it. Vote with your dollars; That's your real power.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? No advertising in that game. Nor in "Kingdom Hearts" for that matter. :)
I don't understand why it shouldn't. It's certainly a possibility. At any rate, this enhances EA's revenue stream at a time where such a stream is critically important. Customers will see the benefits of this stream, whether it be lower costs, better network reliability, more options in the game, or something else that will ultimately benefit the customer. I don't think EA/Maxis will take the money and stick it in their pockets, mainly because as this sort of reaction/backlash grows, they'll have to justify what they've done in terms of co-branding.
You've already got commercial messages... when you turn on a computer in the game, you get the Intel Inside logo on the little computer screen and the trademark noise. So this isn't the first deal they've struck. Hell, I say if it makes it cheaper and keeps them from jacking up the monthly user fees, I'm all for it. Just as long as it's a few carefully-placed placements and doesn't make every house into a NASCAR race, I'm fine with it.