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User: rsilvergun

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  1. Nope on Labyrinthine 'EVE Online' Scam Recounted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your license agreement begs to differ. I don't remember who pointed this out to me, but companies running MMORPGs go out of their way to keep in game objects from having legally recognized value. The reason being is if the objects have value according to law, then the companies become liable for the investments people make in the items. For example, If I bought 100 of those Micro Warp Drives to sell or use to earn money to sell, then when the game devs changed the balance on them rendering them useless, I could quite literally sue them for reducing the value of 'My Property'. Or worse, if the publisher wants to cancel the game, suddenly they've got to pay out losses to all those ebayers. This is why the publishers themselves aren't selling items. It has nothing to do with trying to keep the game balanced. It's all about liablity

    If you stop to think, it has to be this way. Otherwise the devs would be buried under an avalanche of lawsuits.

  2. Can anyone else on A Look Back at Sonic the Hedgehog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    still hum the theme to the Green Hill Zone? I swear that little ditty ranks up with the Super Mario theme for cachiness.

    Still, after the Green Hill zone the rest of the game felt a little rushed. Not bad, just not as fully realized as the Green Hill Zone. I remember seeing a magazine article with some of the features that didn't make it into the release cart. And the game just felt a little short (like most early Genesis games). Still an amazing game, and Sonic 2 more than made up for any short commings of the first game :).

  3. But it's easy to control the polution on Getting Serious About Fuel Cells · · Score: 1

    it's a bitch keeping 250+ million cars in control. If the polution's being generated by a few fuel cell factories, we can concentrate our efforts there. Plus, the factories can be located outside of cities. No more breathing smog :).

  4. Raise your hands if... on Online Replacements for Desktop Apps? · · Score: 5, Funny

    you just spent 5 minutes making the online text to speech tool say dumb stuff like 'all your base are belong to us'.

  5. What I really want to know is... on Are You Ready for the SCO Blitz? · · Score: 4, Funny

    a) If Darl Eats beans
    b) If Darl would like to see a movie staring George Wendt
    c) If Darl would like to see George Wendt Eating Beans in a movie.

    Obscure references are the best

  6. You're right on Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech · · Score: 1

    we're not really capitalist. But the reason is Globalism breaks Capitalism. Adam Smith envisioned a world of small shop owners with a stake in seeing their comunities thrive because they where a part of those comunities. With Globalism and modern communications, we can live far away from the squaler and slums Capitalism creates and still manger those slums effectively. We know this is happening. America's high standard of living is on the backs of poor, miserable people in places like China and India. But we don't care, since it's far enough away to ignore and our media is careful to ignore it.

    Comunity is how Capitalism deals with people's fundemental selfishness. But our rulers are part of the community any more, they're Global.

  7. Actually... on Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech · · Score: 1

    the problem with things being finite is there isn't enough metal to go around for China and India to industrialized like the US/Europe have. There's a really nasty war brewing over that. Remember, wars aren't fought over ideology, they're resource grabs.

    As for South Carolina, wait till Bush/Kerry (doesn't matter which one) signs law letting 20 million desparate Mexicans have work visas. Sure, they'll take jobs mostly out west. But shit runs down hill.

    And don't give me that crap about Americans not wanting those jobs. The work needs to be done. If there weren't people desparate for work, wages would go up until someone took the job. That's supply and demand. Funny how our rulers forget that little economic principle as it suits them.

  8. Wrong on Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because when people join the ruling class, they don't become happy go lucky champions of freedom, they become greedy little bastards like Bush, Cheney, and hell Kerry too.

    That upward mobility is largly an illusion. It took a while, but the rulers have finnally figured out how to keep people down (and preserve their God like standards of living). The trick is to have a small middle class, and the occasional new entry in the ruling class. The poor of the world end up spending all their energy trying to move up, and the middle class are wasted just trying to stay middle class.

    The large amount of upward moblity seen in America/Europe around 1950 was largely due to the population crash following WWII. Now that the baby boomers have fucked thier way back to a surplus of laborers (and the cold war's ended) Globalism can kick in full steam with all it's truely nasty implicatons. Capital flows to where ever labor's cheapest, and just the mere threat of closing factories will keep unions from ever exisiting. That's the real scary thing actually. When unions form, the bosses just leave. No workers protests, no beatings, no sensational stories about worker abuse. Just a bunch of starving people nobody cares about.

    I guess the point I'm driving at (albeit poorly) is Capitalism is perfecting itself. It's approaching a perpetual system of hard working fools and the Capitalist Kings they work for. The only thing I see stopping the trend is another population crash. Which is all well and good, unless you happen to be a member of the crashing populace.

  9. Well Duh on Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They're our ruling class. They take positions that benefit them, and only them. It bugs me to hear starry eyed morons going on about gov't for/by the people, and never stop to consider that America's got rulers just like any Dictatorship you care to name. The fact that you can sometimes join the ruling class doesn't change that. If the people ever really do wise up and start trying to change things, you can bet your @$$ our facade of democracy's gonna colapse real quick.

  10. How will it be playable? on Gran Turismo's PSP Conversion Gets Details, Video · · Score: 1

    Gran Tourismo is a simulation game. It's physics are more or less realistic (please no physics geeks, I'm talking relative to RRT4). I found the game unplayable on a digital pad, and nearly so on analog (try stearing your car some time by throwing the wheel all the way to the left and right to turn, you'll see what I mean). Unless they're gonna make it into an arcade racer, this game'll be an exorcise in frustration

  11. Troll? on Japanese Deploy Solar Sail · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is a reference to Galaxy Express 999. It's a joke near as I can tell. Not a fair mod in my eyes

  12. Marketing won't like this... on MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since they integrated it, upgrades to IE become upgrades to the OS. I'm sure marketing would much rather hold out till longhorn hits. It'd make thier job of selling a bloated, complex upgrade that much easier. I tell you, I wouldn't want to be the guy who had to come up with reasons why you should upgrade to Windows ME.

  13. If the content's protected on Ziff Davis To Website: License To Link, Updated · · Score: 5, Interesting

    with a password, then yes, you should need permission/a license to link to the article. However, I believe posting snippets for editorial/review purposes is _always_ legal. It's fair use and newspapers rely on it daily.

    If there's no password protection then it's publically available information. As long as you're not cut and pasting, you're not copying, so copywrite doesn't come into play. Heck, as long as the data comes off ziff's servers, the only copying taking place is onto the users computers (which you have an implicit right to do so). This is kinda like me giving a speech in the park and sueing passers-by for infringment.

    Now, in the fscked-up world of US copyright law, all the common sense outlined above probably doesn't mean much. All I can say is, good luck to these guys.

  14. Better support for going to and fro would be nice on Mass Migration/Bughunt For Thunderbird Tuesday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just finished moving my mom to Thunderbird... from Mozilla mail. Some of the folders came from Kmail (standard unix mailbox format imported into Kmail from Outlook, it's a long story), and I used a CD to move them, meaning they had the read-only bit set without me realizing it (I forgot, sue me). Still, for reasons I cannot fathom, Mozilla Mail stopped displaying mail in about half the folders, even after clearing the read-only bit. The messages where there (I could see them in Thunderbird), they just didn't show up in Mozilla. I got everything working under Thunderbird, and tried copying over the Mail folder, no dice. Heck, on one of the folders I can see one message and nothing else. It's a real mess. At the momemt I've got her mail shortcut launching Thunderbird instead of Mozilla mail, but it really bugs me, since don't know if the mail is gonna stop working.

  15. Funny thing is... on British Schoolkids Get Copyright Education · · Score: 1

    We shouldn't be using the term "intellectual property" either. It's their term, and it makes it sound like you can own ideas, which is contrary to the original intention of our entire system of content law.

  16. Can't resist this one :) on British Schoolkids Get Copyright Education · · Score: 1

    God does not grant rights which the Government is duty bound to protect. If he did, then the Government's legitimacy and purpose would derive from God, and we would have a theocracy (in principle if not in practice). The Government's power derives from it's people, who grant it the rights deemed fit for a Government. Have a gander at the 10th admendment (which specifically restricted the powers of our National Government to those spelled out in the Constitution). You'll see what I mean.

    God is not a safe thing to base a Government on. He's fickle, quick to anger and does really awful things when mad (like have his flock flip people upside down and saw them in half slowly). Hence the separation of church/state.

    Our 'rights' can be derived just as easily from Natural Order than God. Natural Order decrees that certain rights must be inalieable for a society to function. This is a much sounder basis for a society, and I'd argue it's what the founders more or less intended (nice sounding rhetoric mentioning God aside).

  17. Seen it... on EVO2K4 Competition Shows Off Crazed Street Fighter Skills · · Score: 1

    the GameCrazy up in Pheonix, Az had a Virtua Fighter machine with sensors ala the Sega Activator (google for it, I'm too lazy to link). Actually never played it myself, but it looked fun. Still, you couldn't expect to do combos or anything that way.

  18. Yes but... on Microsoft has Delayed SP2, Again · · Score: 1

    it really doesn't matter if you're one of the people who gets their computer hosed by installing SP2. Also, such computers are hardly 'corrupted beyond repair', just run adaware/spybot. I agree that users need to take some responsiblity, but at the same time Microsoft should include better warnings/suggestions pre-install (i.e., something like 'if you have viruses/spyware, this may kill your computer, do a back up first you nitwit'). But I guess marketing wouldn't like that (since nobody likes to have to tell customers to back up their data, it's like telling a spoiled brat to clean up his toys).

  19. I thought it was odd on PS3 To Use Blu-Ray Technology · · Score: 1

    Nintendo was releasing two disk games near the Gamecube launch (Resident Evil 0). It's clear games have grown too big for CDs, now if PC game makers will just drop the CD format once and for all so I don't have to track 4 CDs just to install a game :).

  20. PDA? on RJ Mical On The DS, PSP, Current Game Hardware · · Score: 1

    Anyone else think Nintendo is eyeing the low end pda market? Why the heck else build that silly stylus in (I can't imagine playing with it being comfortable)?

  21. The amazing thing was... on Dr Who, Daleks Kiss And Make Up · · Score: 2, Interesting

    that the author had any say in the first place. Here in the good 'ole us of a, there never would have been an issue, since the author would've signed away his rights ages ago. Not defending our system, just saying I'm amazed this happened at all.

  22. Re:What's next? on FCC Says TiVo Owners Can Share Shows · · Score: 1

    It's not that hard to download DVD isos and burn them. Yes, it takes time, but if you're a $9 or less wage slave, your time is worth less than the cost of the DVD, especially when you consider how little real effort it takes to pirate stuff these days compared to the time you spend working to afford the actual DVD.

  23. What's next? on FCC Says TiVo Owners Can Share Shows · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Legit bittorrent downloads? Sounds cool, but I wonder how long it'll last (TV shows to DVD is a lucrative market, and I doubt studios like the idea of competing with downloads). There's bound to be some limitations (I'm at work and too lazy/busy to read the whole article just yet), but still, I just can't believe this is happening. How did this get through?

  24. You want facts... on 70% Of 2004 Virus Activity Down To One Man · · Score: 2, Funny

    we want sensational head lines and vague generalizations. They're much more fun :).

  25. Re:Buying an Intel on The Athlon 64 3000+, A Budget Gamer's Perspective · · Score: 1

    Whoops, I am. Sorry, I confuse those two constantly.