From 1999-2000, I was one of three hackers working furiously to uncover the inner workings of Monster Rancher 2, another game published by Tecmo. After the months of work, Tecmo made it very clear to us that they frowned upon our activities. I personally had a very cordial relationship with Tecmo's PR dept. through my Monster Rancher fansite, and though the PR department admitted that there were developers who appreciated our level of enthusiasm and work, the official company stance was quite the opposite as they were afraid that we would somehow reveal trade secrets to their competitors. Though we continued to actively post information about the game's internals on the monster-rancher.com message board
(now defunct, as the domain has since been acquired by a competing site), Tecmo forbid us from posting similar information on their own message boards.
Some time after I had left the scene, I visited with the old board briefly to find out that the game hackers were now asked to not mention specific memory locations (you could refer to the "lifespan register", but not to "0x800B...."); I do not know what inspired this new policy, but knowing the site's owner and board administrator personally, I suspect that Tecmo's dissatisfaction of hacker activity had grown more vocal.
Never once did we make or distribute new skins for monsters or any game modification other than altered save files, so our situation was a little different than that of www.ninjahacker.net, but this is indeed sad, and rather chilling that this could have happened to us had people been using the DMCA in such a manner at that time. In the past, Tecmo has had an amazingly good relationship with owners of fansites across the web, and domains like "monsterrancher.com" still remain in possession of the fans. Why they would sue fans for making game skins... I don't know. All that I can say is that for years, Tecmo as a corporate entity has never been happy with those of us who want to explore their products a bit more thoroughly.
From having lived on a college campus for the past 4 years, I can attest to the usefulness of something as portable as a laptop, though they are *highly* prone to theft, much moreso than a desktop. If cost is an issue, you should weight in the price difference between a desktop and equivalent laptop. Furthermore, most universities are equipped with sufficient computing services across campus. If having a laptop is a necessity in the classroom, then there is no contest, but if someone just needs a computer, there are a number of reasons to purchase a desktop instead.
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From 1999-2000, I was one of three hackers working furiously to uncover the inner workings of Monster Rancher 2, another game published by Tecmo. After the months of work, Tecmo made it very clear to us that they frowned upon our activities. I personally had a very cordial relationship with Tecmo's PR dept. through my Monster Rancher fansite, and though the PR department admitted that there were developers who appreciated our level of enthusiasm and work, the official company stance was quite the opposite as they were afraid that we would somehow reveal trade secrets to their competitors. Though we continued to actively post information about the game's internals on the monster-rancher.com message board (now defunct, as the domain has since been acquired by a competing site), Tecmo forbid us from posting similar information on their own message boards.
Some time after I had left the scene, I visited with the old board briefly to find out that the game hackers were now asked to not mention specific memory locations (you could refer to the "lifespan register", but not to "0x800B...."); I do not know what inspired this new policy, but knowing the site's owner and board administrator personally, I suspect that Tecmo's dissatisfaction of hacker activity had grown more vocal. Never once did we make or distribute new skins for monsters or any game modification other than altered save files, so our situation was a little different than that of www.ninjahacker.net, but this is indeed sad, and rather chilling that this could have happened to us had people been using the DMCA in such a manner at that time. In the past, Tecmo has had an amazingly good relationship with owners of fansites across the web, and domains like "monsterrancher.com" still remain in possession of the fans. Why they would sue fans for making game skins... I don't know. All that I can say is that for years, Tecmo as a corporate entity has never been happy with those of us who want to explore their products a bit more thoroughly.
I strongly favor using stump grinders to shred documents (as well as furniture, bosses, and any other shreddable things floating around the office).
From having lived on a college campus for the past 4 years, I can attest to the usefulness of something as portable as a laptop, though they are *highly* prone to theft, much moreso than a desktop. If cost is an issue, you should weight in the price difference between a desktop and equivalent laptop. Furthermore, most universities are equipped with sufficient computing services across campus. If having a laptop is a necessity in the classroom, then there is no contest, but if someone just needs a computer, there are a number of reasons to purchase a desktop instead.