If by "updated weekly" you mean "updated weekly or monthly or whenever they feel like getting around to it," then yeah. It's good to see that they updated last week, since they _are_ the best source i've found for such info, but the last update before that was several weeks prior.
Not technically, but there are a lot of things i don't need that i'm much happier having.
Yesterday a friend of mine was in town and wanted to hang out with me, so she had her boyfriend IM me and give me the phone number where i could reach her.
I realized that i hadn't been to the club we were going to meet at in quite awhile and wasn't sure i remembered how to get there, so i did a search on the name and got the address.
Then i went to mapquest and printed out directions.
Then i IMed my girlfriend to tell her i was going to be leaving work a little early and heading off to the club, so we needed to make the nightly call earlier than usual.
Then of coruse there are the more usual activites of checking up on news, paying bills, reading reviews of the newest games, chatting with friends, looking up random tidbits of information, etc.
Most of that stuff could technically be done without the net, given the necessary other resources, but the net sure made it a lot easier and more convenient.
Look, do you think people with a billion dollars are just like you?
No, i don't but because they have so much more money than i do it doesn't matter if they don't invest it in the same way i do.
It depends on what definition of "more" that you use. The rich will lose more measured in a dollar amount, the middle class and poor will lose more measured in a "lifestyle" sense.
Let's say i have $10,000 invested in a college fund, and hyperinflation cuts the effective value of that amount in half. A millionaire would only need to have one dollar more than 1% of their wealth in an account in order to lose more than me. A billionaire would only need to have one dollar more than one thousandth of a percent of their value in an account. You think a billionaire doesn't have at least a measly $10,000 in some form of cash equivalent that would be affected by inflation?
So, thanks for attaching your thoughts to a Howard Dean for President sig. You've told me who not to vote for!
Given the level of maturity that comment would seem to indicate (not to mention plain old stupidity, even if i was to believe your analysis of myself, "there is no cause so right you cannot find a fool following it") i couldn't care less.
It's fair because higher taxes on the rich ensure that those who have benefited the most from the current social structure pay the most for it. If the US was conquered by another country, the rich would lose the most. If our economy collapsed and the US dollar underwent hyperinflation the rich would lose the most. If social order broke down and everyone was free to loot and murder the rich would lose the most.
Since the rich have the most to lose, it is only fair that they pay more to ensure the safety of what they have.
A Kilobyte was defined as 2^10 right from the begining, and same with Megabyte as 2^20, etc. Back before they got (even more) greedy HD manufacturers used to use the right amounts.
The invention of Kibibyte and Mibibyte and such as "binary SI" terms and the relegation of Kilobyte Megabyte and Gigabyte to the decimal version is just revisionism based on the co-opting of the original words by the manufacturers and a misguided sense of adhering to the SI standards.
Sure, it's unfortunate that the terms kilo and mega got applied they way they did because of the similarity between 2^10 and 10^3, but the definition is practical within the field and we (speaking as a general member of the CS/SE community) defined them that way first damn it!
No one would take seriously an attempt to define 1 AU as 10^11 meters just to make it fit in with SI standards. And if we're going to redefine Kilobyte and Megabyte why not redefine a byte as ten bits while we're at it? Or to ressurect an old joke, why not have congress define pi as 3.0 so that the average person can remember it?
Yeah, i'm overreacting a bit, but it just annoys me that they want us to stop using the name/definition we've been using for decades and go with stupid sounding things like "kibi" and "mibi" instead.
Don't make ignorant comments about a scene you know nothing about just because you feel that it is not "cool", for it is not your place to judge.
It's not his/my place to judge if/how people make their cars loud and annoying, as long as they keep it to themselves. But when they choose to make them loud in a time and place where it's annoying me (say, the parking lot of my apartment complex at 2 in the morning for example,) then it is my place to judge.
No, it's the impressive juggernaut that is the Sony Hype Machine.
It seems that the only way to go up against Sony is to either figure out how to copy their Hype Machine marketing style effectively, or to release competing systems at the exact same time. If your system comes out earlier Sony will convince everyone that theirs will be better and you shouldn't waste money on it. If yours comes out after theirs, well, they've got a much larger install base and more games, so you should clearly go with them.
This is a great game, especially when compared to the diapointing Masters of Orion 3. (Although MoO fans be warned, the gameplay is more like Civ in space than MoO) I just wish i had more time to play it, although a free expansion pack is the perfect excuse to make some time:)
#1 Satellites (weather)
#2 Satellites (communications)
#3 Satellites (communications)
#4 Satellites (solar power)
#5 Satellites (communications/weather)
#6 Satellites (communications/GPS)
#7 Satellites (military)
#8 Big rocks are scary and coming to get us!
#9 Space is cool, damn it!
#10 ??? - no, seriously, they said top ten reasons but they didn't give a numbered list and only highlighted nine things.
"What's the big deal with exclusive games? I play videogames, not exclusive games."
"And I'm glad to have an Xbox, because I can play Amped, KOTOR, Halo and Splinter Cell, games I own which are exclusive to Xbox (Amped)" (and Halo for all practical purposes) ", or on the Xbox months before it is on another console or the PC." (or years, and won't be on PC till the sequel is out most likely, see Halo again)
There seems to be a gap in the logic you're using. Clearly you don't mean that you don't play any exclusive games, and you furthermore cite several exclusive games as reasons for why you're happy with the XBox.
Assuming you make decisions about what games you play rather than just picking up the first game in the store that you don't have in alphabetical order, it's important to buy the console that has the most games you want. Since you seem to have done that, it's silly to claim that exclusive games don't factor into the equation.
As for exclusive or semi-exclusive games that the XBox doesn't have, off the top of my head there's Super Monkey Ball, Metroid Prime, BomberMan, Xenosaga, Disgaea, Suikoden, Kingdom Hearts, FF:X (and soon FF:X-2) Skies of Arcadia, Super Smash Brothers, F-Zero, (and soon Mario Kart, and as you mentioned, FF:CC)
He said:
Mega Man is a very Japanese game. Capcom clearly wants to sell a lot of these in Japan, so it makes sense that they would only focus on the two successful systems over yonder.
You said: Sure, but I bet there are lots of NES owners who own an Xbox now and nothing else and are pissed at CAPCOM. I mean, what do they think I was playing when I was 8? A NES of course, like almost everyone else.
Capcom is a Japanese company, as such they are probably more concerned than they should be with sales in their home country compared to sales in the rest of the world. (Sure, they'd rather have it sell well everywhere, but it's kind of embaresing if your product flops in your own teritory even if it does well elsewhere)
As such, the first poster is probably right, the abysmal XBox sales in Japan may well have affected the decision.
And you only own an XBox, and not a PS2 or GameCube? What were you thinking? To the best of my knowledge there are only three or four worthwhile games that are exclusive to XBox, but there's a lot for the PS2 and GameCube.
Vacation days and weekends may also cause some economic loss, but that isn't necessarily a big problem because most people who just work work work work without taking days off end up becoming less productive on a per-day basis, and the increased stress eventually leads to more illnesses, resulting in days off anyway. In addition, there is value that people place on getting days off, even if it can't always be measured in dollars. In other words, most people are willing to forgo the extra cash income in order to have vacation days and holidays available.
And people who never take sick days off when they get sick fall over dead after awhile, and never produce anything again:)
(This of course doesn't apply to the people taking sick days off so they can go skiing)
"...rejoicing changed to bewilderment as more information and assets appeared - assets that had Yuna kickin' it in a pair of hot pants and packin' a pair of pistols."
They specifically mention FF5 and Tactics in the review, why did they think the characters putting on funky costumes is so strange? FF5 certainly had some very odd looks when certain characters equiped certain jobs, so it's not really anything new.
I'm glad that the review says that "new skills and abilities that can be earned and mastered," although I'm unsure how any skills you learn will be worked in given the "change job class on the fly" system. I'd really like to see a full fledged job class system in the mainline FF series again though.
>> B: didn't force you to buy the adapter for the headphones.
> GBA yes, GBA SP no: For the SP you need an adapter. But you can get cheaper adapter from Thrustmaster if you want.
They GBA SP does not _force_ you to buy an adapter. You need to buy one if you want to use headphones with it, but if you're okay with just the built in speakers or playing with no sound, there's nothing more you need to buy.
The NGage is bundled with a set of headphones with an adapter, which means the cost is included in the total price of the NGage, so you are being _forced_ to pay for the headphones when you buy the NGage, whether you want them or not.
However, in this instance we found ourselves reaching for the volume control - only to discover that there isn't one, and that volume has to be adjusted using internal software menus on the games. The unit does, however, come supplied with a decent pair of headphones and hands-free kit - although we noticed that there's no normal 3.5mm jack for standard headphones on the deck, and you'll need to use the bundled adapter cable to plug in your own third party cans.
That's the exact same thing Nintendo did, except Nintendo A: provided physical volume controls so you could turn it down if you didn't want to listen to the sound, and B: didn't force you to buy the adapter for the headphones.
Nokia may be including a set of headphones that works with the system, but you're still paying for them, the cost is just hidden in the overall cost for the system.
So what you're saying is that the missile shield will give America the opportunity to attack other countries without fearing any kind of retaliation. That's a very noble goal my friend. Well worth spending all that money.
Don't kid yourself, the ballistic missile defense is an offensive weapon more than anything else. And also a good opportunity to funnel some taxpayer money into the greasy hands of the weapons / high-tech lobby. Both suit the interests of Bush & co. like a glove, but for you and me this is all a gigantic and dangerous money waste.
An offensive weapon is something used for offense, to attack. A defensive device is something used to defend, to protect from attack. No matter how much you attempt to twist the words around, you can't change what they really mean.
Sure, a good defense allows a good offense, that has ALWAYS been true. Likewise, weapons can always be used as a defense. Bows and arrows allowed protected defensive positions to be held more easily, that doesn't make a bow and arrow defensive. Castles allowed strategic points to be held with less men, thus freeing up soldiers to go attack elsewhere, that doesn't make castles offensive. Likewise heavy armor, clearly a defensive technology, allowed knights to wipe out opposing forces.
Do you think we'd be in Iraq right now if not for out bullet-proof vests and helmets? I've seen the news shots of US soldiers showing off the dented helmets that saved them from getting their brains blown out. Bulletproof vests are defensive, but without them we either never would have gotten into the Iraq war knowing the costs, or we'd still be fighting it now with thousands or more dead american soldiers instead of a few hundred.
Whether the US would use an antimissile shield as leverage for offensive actions or not does not affect whether the shield would be offensive or defensive. It would protect us from attack, so it would be defensive. Nuclear weapons kill other people, they are offensive weapons. It doesn't matter if we use them as a threat to enforce peace, they are not a defense.
That's a somewhat simpleminded analysis. Yes, having antimissiles for defense won't protect us from all nukes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't develop them.
No one would accept the army following the logic, "The enemy has guns, so we could buy bulletproof vests for our soldiers, but if we did that the enemy would just sneak up on them and use knives or bombs instead, so let's not bother with the bulletproof vests and let our soldiers get shot to pieces."
Who's to say that there won't be a suicidal/insane dictator in Africa? Or more likely, what happens if the US decides to invade N. Korea? (Perhaps on a mistaken belief that they don't really have long range missiles, or perhaps for other reasons) In that situation the leader of N. Korea might decide that he's fucked anyways, and decide to launch against the US.
If the US has no antimissile defense, it's going to be in a tough spot. The fact that we can turn N. Korea into a parking lot afterwards won't make those of us on the west coast feel much better about the situation. There's even a slight chance the US won't feel that launching a counterstrike is politically viable. Our friends in S. Korea wouldn't be too happy about all the radiation right next door, and although i would expect internation opinion to be on our side, the way the US has been treating it's allies lately, who knows?
If the US had an antimissile shield on the other hand, N. Korea's nukes get blown up in flight, and the ground invasion grinds on.
With my Palm, yes! Must've read four books w/ it in locations ranging from subway to bed to toilet.
Wow? _Four_ whole books? That's amazing.
In the past year i've read at least 40 paper books, and in the last three months i've listened to six audio books.
I don't know if i'm a representative sample or not, but if on average the people who like the paper version read ten times as much as the people who read the e-book versions, i can see why Barnes and Noble might decide to discontinue the service.
You're not paying atention to the overall argument. If Sony made a movie about vampires that fit one of the clans in V:tM, White Wolf would have a hard time with the lawsuit, because as you say, most of the clans align with one of the historicaly portrayed kinds of vampire. Sony would just say there were basing it off of the earlier legends, and even if they had done all their research in White Wolf books White Wolf would have an almost impossibly hard time proving it.
However when Sony has a setting that is very similar to WW's gothic-punk world AND two or three bloodlines of vampires which are similar to bloodlines in WW's world, AND they use the same terminology in many of the cases (such as Abomination and coven, and i believe bloodline itself) AND they are using an almost identical plot from a WW novel, AND all the other similarities cited above, then WW has a pretty strong case for copyright infringement.
If all you had to do was show that each individual element was used somewhere else no one would ever be able to sue _anyone_ for copyright. I could reprint an exact copy of one of the Harry Potter books but change the names and use a thesaurus every so often to swap words, and by the argument you're making i could say it was legal by pointing out every similarity between my book and the original Harry Potter was also present independently in some other fantasy book.
However in reality each example i showed would most likely share only one or two similarities with Harry Potter, whereas my book would share hundreds or thousands of similarities. Sure, "Harry Potter has wizards and your book has wizards" isn't much of an argument all by itself, but it's one of the many many feathers on the camel's back.
I am no ecco-hippy I support nuclear power and don't give a fuck about my/. "karma" and I actually am a registered libertarian and vote that way. As far as I can assess most/.ers are left wing democrats and are very active in reading or contributing to left wing liberal web activism. Just the exact group I would think would be as opposed to nuclear energy as you are seeing here.
Great way to respond to stereotyping with yet more stereotyping. I'm a left wing democrat, contribute a little to left wing liberal web activism, and am totally in support of nuclear power plants. (Given of course that when designing the plants more attention is paid to safety-minded engineers and scientists rather than budget minded acountants.)
That would all make sense if you only found this stuff in the World of Darkness. However, that is not the case. All of this stuff can be found in other works of fiction as well as in ancient myths and legends. Not to mention what was stolen from other folks who did piece work for them.
If it was only the earlier points, I might grant you that. However when you get down to the later points where they're ripping off pretty much the entire story from the novel it's a lot harder to make that case.
If Sony had just the basic similarities but an entirely different story, White Wolf would have a much harder case, although the use of the exact same word in many cases ("Abomination" particularly stands out) would still give them some leverage.
Likewise, if story was the same but a lot of the world settings were different again White Wolf would have a tougher case. However when both the specific story line elements and the generalized world elements are so similar, one really has to start questioning exactly what Sony was up to.
when describing the movie to my friends, and it's been described the same way by my coworkers. "Have you seen the new Underworld trailer? It's like a White Wolf movie!" The fact that it is so much like the White Wolf universe has gotten a lot of people (including me) excited about it. I want to go see it because of the similarities. I hadn't stoped to think about the legal repurcusions until now.
I have no idea if it was intentional or not, but Sony is clearly benefiting from the similarities between the Masquerade/Apocalypse worlds and their own.
There's a big difference between a professional article and what people post on slashdot. I make a lot of spelling mistakes and gramemr mistakes when posting to message boards and writing email. (Although i usually manage to avoid the there/their and your/you're traps, though ocasionally i get caught by its/it's)
However when writing an article or paper that you expect to be published in some format you are expected to take a little more care. If someone were to post an article critisizing someone for spelling/grammer then i would consider it hypocritical for them to have mistakes themselves. However making mistakes in a message board post while pointing out that a professional article has mistakes in it isn't hypocritical, it's just acknowledging the different standards to which the two are supposed to be held.
Unfortunately this means little to nothing outside japan, this is good news for GC owners though because it means they will probably be more japanese support for the console. but chances for this to revive the gamecube worldwide are minimal.
It's a bit early to say it will mean nothing for the GameCube worldwide since Japan is the only place where Tales of Symphonia and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles has been released so far. I don't expect the GameCube to see the same meteoric rise in the US when the games get here, but it might be enough to edge it past the XBox.
And as a secondary benefit of course more japanese support for the console means more games that can be ported to other countries to help it sell better worldwide.
Slashdot Mirror
If by "updated weekly" you mean "updated weekly or monthly or whenever they feel like getting around to it," then yeah. It's good to see that they updated last week, since they _are_ the best source i've found for such info, but the last update before that was several weeks prior.
Yesterday a friend of mine was in town and wanted to hang out with me, so she had her boyfriend IM me and give me the phone number where i could reach her.
I realized that i hadn't been to the club we were going to meet at in quite awhile and wasn't sure i remembered how to get there, so i did a search on the name and got the address.
Then i went to mapquest and printed out directions.
Then i IMed my girlfriend to tell her i was going to be leaving work a little early and heading off to the club, so we needed to make the nightly call earlier than usual.
Then of coruse there are the more usual activites of checking up on news, paying bills, reading reviews of the newest games, chatting with friends, looking up random tidbits of information, etc.
Most of that stuff could technically be done without the net, given the necessary other resources, but the net sure made it a lot easier and more convenient.
No, i don't but because they have so much more money than i do it doesn't matter if they don't invest it in the same way i do.
It depends on what definition of "more" that you use. The rich will lose more measured in a dollar amount, the middle class and poor will lose more measured in a "lifestyle" sense.
Let's say i have $10,000 invested in a college fund, and hyperinflation cuts the effective value of that amount in half. A millionaire would only need to have one dollar more than 1% of their wealth in an account in order to lose more than me. A billionaire would only need to have one dollar more than one thousandth of a percent of their value in an account. You think a billionaire doesn't have at least a measly $10,000 in some form of cash equivalent that would be affected by inflation?
So, thanks for attaching your thoughts to a Howard Dean for President sig. You've told me who not to vote for!
Given the level of maturity that comment would seem to indicate (not to mention plain old stupidity, even if i was to believe your analysis of myself, "there is no cause so right you cannot find a fool following it") i couldn't care less.
Since the rich have the most to lose, it is only fair that they pay more to ensure the safety of what they have.
The invention of Kibibyte and Mibibyte and such as "binary SI" terms and the relegation of Kilobyte Megabyte and Gigabyte to the decimal version is just revisionism based on the co-opting of the original words by the manufacturers and a misguided sense of adhering to the SI standards.
Sure, it's unfortunate that the terms kilo and mega got applied they way they did because of the similarity between 2^10 and 10^3, but the definition is practical within the field and we (speaking as a general member of the CS/SE community) defined them that way first damn it!
No one would take seriously an attempt to define 1 AU as 10^11 meters just to make it fit in with SI standards. And if we're going to redefine Kilobyte and Megabyte why not redefine a byte as ten bits while we're at it? Or to ressurect an old joke, why not have congress define pi as 3.0 so that the average person can remember it?
Yeah, i'm overreacting a bit, but it just annoys me that they want us to stop using the name/definition we've been using for decades and go with stupid sounding things like "kibi" and "mibi" instead.
It's not his/my place to judge if/how people make their cars loud and annoying, as long as they keep it to themselves. But when they choose to make them loud in a time and place where it's annoying me (say, the parking lot of my apartment complex at 2 in the morning for example,) then it is my place to judge.
It seems that the only way to go up against Sony is to either figure out how to copy their Hype Machine marketing style effectively, or to release competing systems at the exact same time. If your system comes out earlier Sony will convince everyone that theirs will be better and you shouldn't waste money on it. If yours comes out after theirs, well, they've got a much larger install base and more games, so you should clearly go with them.
This is a great game, especially when compared to the diapointing Masters of Orion 3. (Although MoO fans be warned, the gameplay is more like Civ in space than MoO) I just wish i had more time to play it, although a free expansion pack is the perfect excuse to make some time :)
#1 Satellites (weather)
#2 Satellites (communications)
#3 Satellites (communications)
#4 Satellites (solar power)
#5 Satellites (communications/weather)
#6 Satellites (communications/GPS)
#7 Satellites (military)
#8 Big rocks are scary and coming to get us!
#9 Space is cool, damn it!
#10 ??? - no, seriously, they said top ten reasons but they didn't give a numbered list and only highlighted nine things.
"And I'm glad to have an Xbox, because I can play Amped, KOTOR, Halo and Splinter Cell, games I own which are exclusive to Xbox (Amped)" (and Halo for all practical purposes) ", or on the Xbox months before it is on another console or the PC." (or years, and won't be on PC till the sequel is out most likely, see Halo again)
There seems to be a gap in the logic you're using. Clearly you don't mean that you don't play any exclusive games, and you furthermore cite several exclusive games as reasons for why you're happy with the XBox.
Assuming you make decisions about what games you play rather than just picking up the first game in the store that you don't have in alphabetical order, it's important to buy the console that has the most games you want. Since you seem to have done that, it's silly to claim that exclusive games don't factor into the equation.
As for exclusive or semi-exclusive games that the XBox doesn't have, off the top of my head there's Super Monkey Ball, Metroid Prime, BomberMan, Xenosaga, Disgaea, Suikoden, Kingdom Hearts, FF:X (and soon FF:X-2) Skies of Arcadia, Super Smash Brothers, F-Zero, (and soon Mario Kart, and as you mentioned, FF:CC)
Mega Man is a very Japanese game. Capcom clearly wants to sell a lot of these in Japan, so it makes sense that they would only focus on the two successful systems over yonder.
You said:
Sure, but I bet there are lots of NES owners who own an Xbox now and nothing else and are pissed at CAPCOM. I mean, what do they think I was playing when I was 8? A NES of course, like almost everyone else.
Capcom is a Japanese company, as such they are probably more concerned than they should be with sales in their home country compared to sales in the rest of the world. (Sure, they'd rather have it sell well everywhere, but it's kind of embaresing if your product flops in your own teritory even if it does well elsewhere)
As such, the first poster is probably right, the abysmal XBox sales in Japan may well have affected the decision.
And you only own an XBox, and not a PS2 or GameCube? What were you thinking? To the best of my knowledge there are only three or four worthwhile games that are exclusive to XBox, but there's a lot for the PS2 and GameCube.
And people who never take sick days off when they get sick fall over dead after awhile, and never produce anything again :)
(This of course doesn't apply to the people taking sick days off so they can go skiing)
They specifically mention FF5 and Tactics in the review, why did they think the characters putting on funky costumes is so strange? FF5 certainly had some very odd looks when certain characters equiped certain jobs, so it's not really anything new.
I'm glad that the review says that "new skills and abilities that can be earned and mastered," although I'm unsure how any skills you learn will be worked in given the "change job class on the fly" system. I'd really like to see a full fledged job class system in the mainline FF series again though.
> GBA yes, GBA SP no: For the SP you need an adapter. But you can get cheaper adapter from Thrustmaster if you want.
They GBA SP does not _force_ you to buy an adapter. You need to buy one if you want to use headphones with it, but if you're okay with just the built in speakers or playing with no sound, there's nothing more you need to buy.
The NGage is bundled with a set of headphones with an adapter, which means the cost is included in the total price of the NGage, so you are being _forced_ to pay for the headphones when you buy the NGage, whether you want them or not.
That's the exact same thing Nintendo did, except Nintendo A: provided physical volume controls so you could turn it down if you didn't want to listen to the sound, and B: didn't force you to buy the adapter for the headphones.
Nokia may be including a set of headphones that works with the system, but you're still paying for them, the cost is just hidden in the overall cost for the system.
You seem to think that people who like Nintendo have the same mindless devotion that you have to trolling and hating Nintendo.
Don't kid yourself, the ballistic missile defense is an offensive weapon more than anything else. And also a good opportunity to funnel some taxpayer money into the greasy hands of the weapons / high-tech lobby. Both suit the interests of Bush & co. like a glove, but for you and me this is all a gigantic and dangerous money waste.
An offensive weapon is something used for offense, to attack. A defensive device is something used to defend, to protect from attack. No matter how much you attempt to twist the words around, you can't change what they really mean.
Sure, a good defense allows a good offense, that has ALWAYS been true. Likewise, weapons can always be used as a defense. Bows and arrows allowed protected defensive positions to be held more easily, that doesn't make a bow and arrow defensive. Castles allowed strategic points to be held with less men, thus freeing up soldiers to go attack elsewhere, that doesn't make castles offensive. Likewise heavy armor, clearly a defensive technology, allowed knights to wipe out opposing forces.
Do you think we'd be in Iraq right now if not for out bullet-proof vests and helmets? I've seen the news shots of US soldiers showing off the dented helmets that saved them from getting their brains blown out. Bulletproof vests are defensive, but without them we either never would have gotten into the Iraq war knowing the costs, or we'd still be fighting it now with thousands or more dead american soldiers instead of a few hundred.
Whether the US would use an antimissile shield as leverage for offensive actions or not does not affect whether the shield would be offensive or defensive. It would protect us from attack, so it would be defensive. Nuclear weapons kill other people, they are offensive weapons. It doesn't matter if we use them as a threat to enforce peace, they are not a defense.
No one would accept the army following the logic, "The enemy has guns, so we could buy bulletproof vests for our soldiers, but if we did that the enemy would just sneak up on them and use knives or bombs instead, so let's not bother with the bulletproof vests and let our soldiers get shot to pieces."
Who's to say that there won't be a suicidal/insane dictator in Africa? Or more likely, what happens if the US decides to invade N. Korea? (Perhaps on a mistaken belief that they don't really have long range missiles, or perhaps for other reasons) In that situation the leader of N. Korea might decide that he's fucked anyways, and decide to launch against the US.
If the US has no antimissile defense, it's going to be in a tough spot. The fact that we can turn N. Korea into a parking lot afterwards won't make those of us on the west coast feel much better about the situation. There's even a slight chance the US won't feel that launching a counterstrike is politically viable. Our friends in S. Korea wouldn't be too happy about all the radiation right next door, and although i would expect internation opinion to be on our side, the way the US has been treating it's allies lately, who knows?
If the US had an antimissile shield on the other hand, N. Korea's nukes get blown up in flight, and the ground invasion grinds on.
Wow? _Four_ whole books? That's amazing.
In the past year i've read at least 40 paper books, and in the last three months i've listened to six audio books.
I don't know if i'm a representative sample or not, but if on average the people who like the paper version read ten times as much as the people who read the e-book versions, i can see why Barnes and Noble might decide to discontinue the service.
However when Sony has a setting that is very similar to WW's gothic-punk world AND two or three bloodlines of vampires which are similar to bloodlines in WW's world, AND they use the same terminology in many of the cases (such as Abomination and coven, and i believe bloodline itself) AND they are using an almost identical plot from a WW novel, AND all the other similarities cited above, then WW has a pretty strong case for copyright infringement.
If all you had to do was show that each individual element was used somewhere else no one would ever be able to sue _anyone_ for copyright. I could reprint an exact copy of one of the Harry Potter books but change the names and use a thesaurus every so often to swap words, and by the argument you're making i could say it was legal by pointing out every similarity between my book and the original Harry Potter was also present independently in some other fantasy book.
However in reality each example i showed would most likely share only one or two similarities with Harry Potter, whereas my book would share hundreds or thousands of similarities. Sure, "Harry Potter has wizards and your book has wizards" isn't much of an argument all by itself, but it's one of the many many feathers on the camel's back.
Great way to respond to stereotyping with yet more stereotyping. I'm a left wing democrat, contribute a little to left wing liberal web activism, and am totally in support of nuclear power plants. (Given of course that when designing the plants more attention is paid to safety-minded engineers and scientists rather than budget minded acountants.)
If it was only the earlier points, I might grant you that. However when you get down to the later points where they're ripping off pretty much the entire story from the novel it's a lot harder to make that case.
If Sony had just the basic similarities but an entirely different story, White Wolf would have a much harder case, although the use of the exact same word in many cases ("Abomination" particularly stands out) would still give them some leverage.
Likewise, if story was the same but a lot of the world settings were different again White Wolf would have a tougher case. However when both the specific story line elements and the generalized world elements are so similar, one really has to start questioning exactly what Sony was up to.
I have no idea if it was intentional or not, but Sony is clearly benefiting from the similarities between the Masquerade/Apocalypse worlds and their own.
However when writing an article or paper that you expect to be published in some format you are expected to take a little more care. If someone were to post an article critisizing someone for spelling/grammer then i would consider it hypocritical for them to have mistakes themselves. However making mistakes in a message board post while pointing out that a professional article has mistakes in it isn't hypocritical, it's just acknowledging the different standards to which the two are supposed to be held.
It's a bit early to say it will mean nothing for the GameCube worldwide since Japan is the only place where Tales of Symphonia and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles has been released so far. I don't expect the GameCube to see the same meteoric rise in the US when the games get here, but it might be enough to edge it past the XBox.
And as a secondary benefit of course more japanese support for the console means more games that can be ported to other countries to help it sell better worldwide.