While I'm still not convinced this was really THEIR fault, once again Nintendo shows how hardware flaws SHOULD be handled. I've been a gamer since the NES, and without fail, no matter how poorly the company's been performing, they were always excellent about shipping out replacement parts - usually gratis! - when needed.
Plastic controller covers, Gameboy scratch-protector screens, cracked button in the N64 controller... I've never had to pay for a replacement bit. (whereas other companies would probably make me buy a new controller rather than send me a button) Just speaking from personal experience, but this is quite possibly the #1 reason I'm still a Nintendo fanboy after all these years.
I really feel like companies these days have forgotten the old adage about "you have to spend money to make money." When I was twelve years old, dropped my Gameboy, and cracked the plastic screen cover, they COULD have been jerks and made me pay ten bucks for it. But they didn't. They even swallowed the shipping charges. And then I bought a SNES... and an N64 (sigh)... and a Gamecube...
You get the idea.
Whereas every time I've needed something from Microsoft, it's been like pulling teeth and... (looks around) GEE! No X-Boxes here!
ONE SINGLE TIME, Jesus got angry and caused some minor property damage.
And this invalidates EVERY SINGLE OTHER EXAMPLE he set? And every single word he said on the subject? It makes it OK to murder since, if Jesus overturned some tables, how could YOU be expected to hold back?
Just go away. And pick a religion you can actually adhere to.
I was about to cut & paste a whole paragraph, but I think I can just cherry pick one little bit:
The whole system is designed to discourage combat, but it realizes that in any conflict, sometimes you don't have much of a choice. If someone comes at you with a gun, you either die or your fight back to protect yourself.
THIS. IS. NOT. CHRISTIAN.
In this game, the existance of God and Heaven (and by contrast, Satan and Hell) is an established fact. If the good guys die, they go to Heaven. If the bad guys die, they go to Hell. Right? And furthermore, the game makes it explicitly clear (even though no mortal can have this knowledge) of exactly who is Good and Evil. It's all very simple.
Now, if you're (I'm using the omniscent "you" here) a good Christian, you don't WANT people to go to Hell, correct? You want to save everyone you can.
Furthermore, if the game labels you as "Good," then your in-game salvation is assured.
So then, given these conditions which the game has (farsically) set up... why would you EVER kill someone? Even in self-defense?
If you kill them, they go to Hell, and you potentially go to Hell.
If you convert them first, they go to Heaven and you go to Heaven.
If you die non-violently, you go to Heaven and - just maybe - seeing your lamb-like sacrifice inspires them to rethink their faith. This opens the POTENTIAL of them going to Heaven where none really existed before.
And finally, even if all the Christians die... that's what's going to happen anyway. Christ returns, all the evil-doers are thrown down, etc etc. The ending is pre-ordained. There is no other course. Evil cannot win.
There is logically NO REASON to risk your mortal soul in the game. If you think through the possibilites, non-violence is the only logical conclusion one can reach - just as Jesus taught.
(and, needless to say, in real life where you CANNOT know whether the person in front of you is Good or Evil, there is even LESS justification for killing them)
Yet the game allows for violence... it allows "Christians" to kill the "Evil" and get away with it scot free. It removes the moral burden of hanging onto your beliefs EVEN if it means your death. (like, you know, Jesus was willing to do.)
It pays lip service to the idea of converting people to "Good" while not really making the player behave in a "Good" way in all but the most superficial ways. And like so many others, when the chips are down, you're allowed to compromise your morals and commit "Evil" anyway... and the game lets you get away with it with just a little prayer.
And I can think of little that could be more anti-Christian than this sort of amoral evil nonsense parading around AS Christian.
I find both the book series and the game to be offensive, but is it really _worse_ than GTA or Bully or any of the other potentially offensive games that have come out?
Yes.
Bully and GTA don't tell you that God WANTS you to gun down that hooker.
This game very explicitly says, if you murder an unbeliever, all you have to do is pray and you're still a good Christian and get salvation. This conveys a moral authority that NO secular game could ever match.
Now, what if any convert who kills an enemy automatically became evil? THAT I could get behind. But as it stands, the game does send a very dangerous (and anti-Christian) message that Thou Shalt Not Kill... unless they're evil (which you can objectively tell, apparently, despite the Biblical impossibility of this) and in that case, kill 'em and then pray about it and everything will be OK.
Even as a Discordian, I cannot wrap my head around the chaos that would ensue if someone made a mass-marketed game based around the Islamic end times. What with the battle with the Jews and all. Yipes!
#1 - no, the Michael J. Fox ad was NOT misleading. That is what someone with advanced Parkinsons looks like, even on meds. (are there meds that can cut out all shaking? Some... if you don't mind insomnia and hallucinations and becoming essentially house-bound) It's much more accurate to say every *other* televised appearance he made was misleading, edited to cut out all the shaking and bobbing going on in real life.
And, quite honestly, a little research into the issue could have told you this. Don't always believe what you're told by the talking heads. Which brings us right to...
And #2 - the reason it's misleading is that people are not told it's an advertisement. For example - have you ever noticed every now and then in magazines, there'll be an advertisement made up to look as though it was an article in the magazine? And if you look closely, WHENEVER this is done, there is a disclaimer at the bottom stating that it is a paid advertisement.
That is because it IS deceptive (and illegal) to present advertisements in the guise of something else without declaring them as such.
There was little doubt in anyone's mind that the FTC was going to come down on these schenanigans. They've ruled against concealed advertisements every other time the issue has come up. Putting up a blog with someone who claims to be a regular person but, in fact, doesn't even literally exist is merely the latest version of this trick.
Fundamentally, there HAS to be a line between paid advertisements and actual unsolicited information. Or else all media as we know it becomes essentially worthless and there is no such thing as a trusted source ever again. It would be, in essence, voluntarily returning to Plato's Cave.
As an Illinois resident, I'm glad to see punishment being dealt to the idiot administration which brought this lawsuit in the first place.
As an Illinois resident, I'd rather it not be my tax dollars going to pay this fine.
Instead of punishing voters for having to make a "lesser evil" choice, I say it comes out of the salaries of the governor and legislators.
1)It would do nothing to change the current situation where, generally, whoever has the most money wins. In fact, in a lot of cases it would add insult to injury. eg, the RIAA sues you for downloading you never did, wins in court anyway due to extended litigation and a far larger lawyer pool, and then gets to hit you with thouands (or hundreds of thousands) MORE in legal fees above the verdict.
For the very rich, it could actually become an incentive to launch MORE frivolous/questionable lawsuits. Or at least remove a disincentive. If they were thinking about launching a suit with questionable ground, the idea of being able to recoup all their fees removes a reason not to do it.
and 2)it would unfairly punish people in truly contentous situations. The law ALWAYS has grey areas. There are ALWAYS cases where the law is NOT clear and both parties in a suit could legitimately claim to be in the right, depending solely on interpretation of the wording of the law. The only way to make clear those muddy issues is to have a trial and to have a judge or three determine exactly what the scope of the law is. So it would, in effect, punish the public for Congress's failure to write clearly-worded laws.
While I know it's a tempting thing to advocate to get rid of "frivolous" suits, there are just too many exceptions. Unless you can come up with a way to remove the power of money in the legal system, and then filter truly "frivolous" suits out from legitimate ones, all this would do is tilt the system even further against the underdogs and the disadvantaged.
I refer you to the late, lamented Space Hulk. It was sort of a weird hybrid of FPS and RTS, but it was an absolutely INCREDIBLE game for its time. (and really, still is, if you can get past the '93 graphics) Squad-level combat/tactics, with slavering aliens waiting to come out of the goddamn walls around every corner.
The world could really use a remake of that game (the '96 sequel sucked), and the subject matter is perfect. And it would lend itself perfectly to co-op network play.
The Aliens FPS has been done to death. Why not something a little different?
The likely scenerio is to force everone into a two or three blanket carriers with the resources to deal with the paper work. All of these bloggers like truthout have been embarrassing to governments used to controlling three or four broadcasters. It won't put a stop to kiddie porn or the other four riders of the infopocalypse but it will make it next to impossible for forums in the world of ends. It is crap like this that will turn the internet into something that resembles webTV more than a flourishing free press.
Well, the important thing would be to make sure that "obscene" is never, ever defined. Make its definition as vague as possible, and make sure to apply the rule in an inconsistant manner, so that no logical deductions as to the definition can be drawn either. That way, the only safe way to get something out there is to run it by the regulatory body FIRST, so they can let you know whether it's something that could get you in trouble.
Like - I'm sure you know where I'm going with this - EXACTLY WHAT THE FCC HAS BEEN DOING.
As long as its never MANDATED to run it by the censors first, it's not censorship.
Now, of course, the surpreme court is potentially a hurdle. On the other hand, they have no problem (it seems) with the FCC's tacit censorship of the broadcast airways. It would probably depend on the arguments being made, as well as the makeup of the court. With Roberts and Alito on there, I'd say the chances of it being ruled permissable would be quite high. They'd just say something along the lines of, there's no right to the internet and leave it at that.
No more public discussion on American servers on the Internet.
Seriously, who would risk running a public forum in the face of fines like that? Even major players like Amazon would most likely be forced to take down public comment sections lest something slip through. Slashdot, Fark, Kos, Pandagon, Redstate, LGF, whatever your online bitching kink is, it's going away.
And suddenly Americans would have to go onto foreign servers just to find a forum to exercise their free speech rights.
See, here's what REALLY pisses me off. McCain isn't stupid. He's many things (repeating many of which, at this point, could possibly get me jailed), but stupid is not one of them. Either he's offering up this bill with no intention of seeing it passed, or he recognizes the death of free speech on the American internet as an acceptible price to pay for his rise to power.
Every time I see a bill like this, I grow a little less convinced that there's any way we'll be able to reclaim our government from these assholes.
Re:The rest of the launch lineup can go to hell...
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Two Weeks with the Wii
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Uh... what, PRECISELY, do you think a judge's job is, then? There is a law saying the blind cannot be discriminated against. He found that the Treasury WAS discriminating against them. Ergo, in the interest of upholding the law, he ordered them to cut it out.
In what way is this not in a judge's job description?
In fact, to turn that around and say, "Well... they aren't being discriminated against THAT MUCH." would be TOTALLY WRONG. *That* would be judicial activism.
And they don't need to take it up with their Congressmen, because the law already exists. It is extremely bad governance to pass a tiny little law for every possible exception or instance that can crop up. The law is already on the books regarding discrimination against the blind, he found it to be violated, and he ruled to uphold it.
And if you disagree with his ruling, then YOU are the one who should be lobbying your congressman. It's not the judge's fault the law is on the books. If you feel the public interest is so compelling as to legimize discrimination against a protected group, then by all means, go tell the Hill about it. At this point, it would be on THEM to change the law, not the judge.
Yep. Exactly. Whenever I've hit someone with the price, they've sputtered like I just threw water in their face.
And it won't be in the $200-$300 range for YEARS. I'd say two at an absolute minimum, and only then if Sony is willing to continue swallowing huge per-unit losses.
The big problem is that, for 90% of consumers (or more), it offers NOTHING to justify that price tag. It is pretty. It is very VERY pretty. It is EXCEEDINGLY pretty if you have a huge HDTV... and that's about it. At regular 480, it's only slightly nicer-looking than the 360. If that.
Oh, and Square/Enix is still loyal to them. I guess that counts for something.
In the meantime, Wii has its entirely new and fun control scheme, and X-Box absolutely owns the online gaming world.
There's just no reason for the vast majority of the public to even HAVE an interest. The cheaper competition pretty much has all the bases covered. Whatever you want in a system, either the 360 or the Wii has it, unless the ONLY thing you're concerned with is absolute top-line graphics. And the subset of consumers willing to pay for that, and that alone, is exceedingly small.
Yeah, when only a tiny, tiny fraction of people had the capability to do so. I believe the "piracy" angle is way overplayed when it comes to the demise of the Dreamcast. There just were not terribly many people who COULD pirate games that easily.
Certainly not enough to sink a console. Unless it was, in fact, already going down. And piracy is a lot better scapegoat than "Our marketing dept is pathetic and let Sony lie to all our potential customers."
The problem, though, is that people en masse DON'T seem to want it. And don't talk about it "selling out," Sony made sure it was available in such ludicrously small quantities that there was no chance of it NOT selling out. Remember the Slashdot poll a few days before it launched? 10% of geeks want a console that, realistically, is being more aimed at geeks than anyone else.
And the general public? Not at the price Sony's asking. Not when, in all seriousness, they could buy a 360 AND a Wii for the same money. And the fact it's blu-ray could be a lure... except no one gives a crap about blu-ray except the high-enders.
The PS3 is *by design* a specialty high-end consumer item. It is NOT mass market, and could not ever be described as such. There are probably a million people in the country, maybe 2 mil, who would want one... and everyone else is going to buy the competition. If Sony can make money that way, good for them, but they are simply not going to see the kind of sales numbers they did with the PS1/2. Not by a long shot.
The Dreamcast was in much the same position as the 360 was last year - it was vastly superior hardware very early to market. The competition at that time, remember, was the PS1 and the N64. (oh, and *snicker* The Saturn) The N64 had already come to be regarded as a cruel joke, and PS1 was showing its age badly, so *everyone* jumped to get a Dreamcast. And for a short time, it was fantastically successful.
Then Sony started lying out their asses about what the PS2 would be like and managed to spread the FUD so thick that people nearly quit buying Dreamcasts completely. (despite the fact that the PS2 was, in reality, only incrementally superior to the DC) Sega's marketing department failed to keep up, and the rest was history.
Point of the story being, the DC situation is unlikely to be repeated in this case. It sort of came out in a weird "in between" time, generationally, rather than this situation where the three consoles have all come out relatively near to each other. (remember, people think of the SNES and the Genesis as being of the same generation, even though they were separated by two years)
So what it's all going to come down to is customer adoption and games. Personally, I think Sony is at an INCREDIBLE disadvantage, one I'd be highly surprised to see them overcome. It's going to come down, I believe, to a slugging match between Microsoft and Nintendo in a war of prettiness and grittiness vs fun and fluffy. And I predict they'll end up at something of an equilibrium, maybe 40% market share each, with the PS3 taking the high-end business but little else.
Actually, it directly relates in the case of France. EA has intimated more than once that they would really love to buy up Ubisoft - and might even forcibly take them over. France's government has declared that they *will not* let that happen, precisely for the purpose of preserving the only major French contributor to video gaming-as-art.
There's a BIG problem with continuity between the prequels and the original trilogy, and it has nothing to do with plot holes.
The original trilogy is a very black and white "good guys vs bad guys" story. There is no moral ambiguity. We have no question at any point who to root for, and the emotional satisfaction gained from the trilogy is that of the classic triumph of good over evil. You know, that Campbellian stuff Lucas is always going on about.
The prequels, however, are NOTHING BUT shades of grey. There aren't even any clear-cut good guys. Or where there might be, Lucas (intentionally?) screws it up so we can't be entirely sympathetic. Look at the Jedi in the prequels. They LITERALLY reside at the top of an ivory tower, intellectualizing the galaxy's troubles away. A student of Campbell could not be unaware of the symbolism of that. (this is, I believe, why everyone embraced the "Clone Wars" series so much. It was the only prequel material to treat the Jedi like we thought they SHOULD be treated.)
And these approaches are fundamentally incompatible. I can totally respect a decision to make a series of films about the fall of a Republic into fascism as contrasted with one good man's fall into evil. That's a DYNAMITE story. Great stuff. But it's NOT Star Wars. Not as anyone who saw the original trilogy would define it. It might be Babylon 5. It might be Farscape. But it's not Star Wars.
Having seen all three, I now know that from their very inception, the Prequels were *destined* to fail. There was no way to make them mesh with the original trilogy. Ever. And Lucas should have realized this.
Well, I lived in Texas. So it iced so infrequently that it often got cited as an "act of God" whenever ANYTHING ice-related happened. Maybe it's different in areas which regularly see ice.
OK, so Net Neutrality has more or less won, although without any legislation either way. At any rate, the tide of public opinion is massively against the ISPs.
What if this is Verizon DELIBERATELY blowing their common carrier status as an end run?
If it is, watch for them doing a lot more of this in the future. Then when they start blocking access to Google (or whateveR) they'll say, look, we're policing our own network now. We're NOT a common carrier.
And thus kill Net Neutrality.
I make no claims as to the correctness of this theory. It's just something that occured to me.
Uh... the poster wasn't talking about the pedos suing Verizon over this. It was talking about people suing because of OTHER offensive pages being hosted by Verizon.
Verizon is (in theory) not responsible for anything put onto their networks because they're a "common carrier." They take all comers who can pay without worrying about the content. Therefore, if kiddie porn is being transmitted through Verizon's lines, it's not Verizon's fault because they have taken absolutely ZERO responsibility for the content.
*Except they just did.*
By taking that step to block someone from their network based solely on the content they were providing, they have opened themselves up for lawsuit. Whether you agree this is "fair" or not, it is a longstanding legal principle. Generally speaking, NOT taking responsibility for something will get you in less trouble than taking some. In a completely random other example, I lived at at apartment complex that refused to salt their walkways in the winter. Why? Because if someone slipped, and they DID salt the sidewalks, then they would be at fault for not salting them well enough. If they did nothing whatsoever, if you slip and fall, blame God, 'cause he's the one who did it.
Same principle. See?
By taking responsibility for SOME content being broadcast through their lines, Verizon may have just made themselves responsible for ALL of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Plastic controller covers, Gameboy scratch-protector screens, cracked button in the N64 controller... I've never had to pay for a replacement bit. (whereas other companies would probably make me buy a new controller rather than send me a button) Just speaking from personal experience, but this is quite possibly the #1 reason I'm still a Nintendo fanboy after all these years.
I really feel like companies these days have forgotten the old adage about "you have to spend money to make money." When I was twelve years old, dropped my Gameboy, and cracked the plastic screen cover, they COULD have been jerks and made me pay ten bucks for it. But they didn't. They even swallowed the shipping charges. And then I bought a SNES... and an N64 (sigh)... and a Gamecube...
You get the idea.
Whereas every time I've needed something from Microsoft, it's been like pulling teeth and... (looks around) GEE! No X-Boxes here!
Customer loyalty isn't a myth.
I'm just imagining it as remade and being played on X-Box live. The cross chatter would be phenominal.
You're kidding, right? This is a troll, right?
ONE SINGLE TIME, Jesus got angry and caused some minor property damage.
And this invalidates EVERY SINGLE OTHER EXAMPLE he set? And every single word he said on the subject? It makes it OK to murder since, if Jesus overturned some tables, how could YOU be expected to hold back?
Just go away. And pick a religion you can actually adhere to.
The whole system is designed to discourage combat, but it realizes that in any conflict, sometimes you don't have much of a choice. If someone comes at you with a gun, you either die or your fight back to protect yourself.
THIS. IS. NOT. CHRISTIAN.
In this game, the existance of God and Heaven (and by contrast, Satan and Hell) is an established fact. If the good guys die, they go to Heaven. If the bad guys die, they go to Hell. Right? And furthermore, the game makes it explicitly clear (even though no mortal can have this knowledge) of exactly who is Good and Evil. It's all very simple.
Now, if you're (I'm using the omniscent "you" here) a good Christian, you don't WANT people to go to Hell, correct? You want to save everyone you can.
Furthermore, if the game labels you as "Good," then your in-game salvation is assured.
So then, given these conditions which the game has (farsically) set up... why would you EVER kill someone? Even in self-defense?
If you kill them, they go to Hell, and you potentially go to Hell.
If you convert them first, they go to Heaven and you go to Heaven.
If you die non-violently, you go to Heaven and - just maybe - seeing your lamb-like sacrifice inspires them to rethink their faith. This opens the POTENTIAL of them going to Heaven where none really existed before.
And finally, even if all the Christians die... that's what's going to happen anyway. Christ returns, all the evil-doers are thrown down, etc etc. The ending is pre-ordained. There is no other course. Evil cannot win.
There is logically NO REASON to risk your mortal soul in the game. If you think through the possibilites, non-violence is the only logical conclusion one can reach - just as Jesus taught.
(and, needless to say, in real life where you CANNOT know whether the person in front of you is Good or Evil, there is even LESS justification for killing them)
Yet the game allows for violence... it allows "Christians" to kill the "Evil" and get away with it scot free. It removes the moral burden of hanging onto your beliefs EVEN if it means your death. (like, you know, Jesus was willing to do.)
It pays lip service to the idea of converting people to "Good" while not really making the player behave in a "Good" way in all but the most superficial ways. And like so many others, when the chips are down, you're allowed to compromise your morals and commit "Evil" anyway... and the game lets you get away with it with just a little prayer.
And I can think of little that could be more anti-Christian than this sort of amoral evil nonsense parading around AS Christian.
Yes.
Bully and GTA don't tell you that God WANTS you to gun down that hooker.
This game very explicitly says, if you murder an unbeliever, all you have to do is pray and you're still a good Christian and get salvation. This conveys a moral authority that NO secular game could ever match.
Now, what if any convert who kills an enemy automatically became evil? THAT I could get behind. But as it stands, the game does send a very dangerous (and anti-Christian) message that Thou Shalt Not Kill... unless they're evil (which you can objectively tell, apparently, despite the Biblical impossibility of this) and in that case, kill 'em and then pray about it and everything will be OK.
They deserved to be in hell anyway, the heathens.
Even as a Discordian, I cannot wrap my head around the chaos that would ensue if someone made a mass-marketed game based around the Islamic end times. What with the battle with the Jews and all. Yipes!
And, quite honestly, a little research into the issue could have told you this. Don't always believe what you're told by the talking heads. Which brings us right to...
And #2 - the reason it's misleading is that people are not told it's an advertisement. For example - have you ever noticed every now and then in magazines, there'll be an advertisement made up to look as though it was an article in the magazine? And if you look closely, WHENEVER this is done, there is a disclaimer at the bottom stating that it is a paid advertisement.
That is because it IS deceptive (and illegal) to present advertisements in the guise of something else without declaring them as such.
There was little doubt in anyone's mind that the FTC was going to come down on these schenanigans. They've ruled against concealed advertisements every other time the issue has come up. Putting up a blog with someone who claims to be a regular person but, in fact, doesn't even literally exist is merely the latest version of this trick.
Fundamentally, there HAS to be a line between paid advertisements and actual unsolicited information. Or else all media as we know it becomes essentially worthless and there is no such thing as a trusted source ever again. It would be, in essence, voluntarily returning to Plato's Cave.
Instead of punishing voters for having to make a "lesser evil" choice, I say it comes out of the salaries of the governor and legislators.
1)It would do nothing to change the current situation where, generally, whoever has the most money wins. In fact, in a lot of cases it would add insult to injury. eg, the RIAA sues you for downloading you never did, wins in court anyway due to extended litigation and a far larger lawyer pool, and then gets to hit you with thouands (or hundreds of thousands) MORE in legal fees above the verdict. For the very rich, it could actually become an incentive to launch MORE frivolous/questionable lawsuits. Or at least remove a disincentive. If they were thinking about launching a suit with questionable ground, the idea of being able to recoup all their fees removes a reason not to do it. and 2)it would unfairly punish people in truly contentous situations. The law ALWAYS has grey areas. There are ALWAYS cases where the law is NOT clear and both parties in a suit could legitimately claim to be in the right, depending solely on interpretation of the wording of the law. The only way to make clear those muddy issues is to have a trial and to have a judge or three determine exactly what the scope of the law is. So it would, in effect, punish the public for Congress's failure to write clearly-worded laws. While I know it's a tempting thing to advocate to get rid of "frivolous" suits, there are just too many exceptions. Unless you can come up with a way to remove the power of money in the legal system, and then filter truly "frivolous" suits out from legitimate ones, all this would do is tilt the system even further against the underdogs and the disadvantaged.
The world could really use a remake of that game (the '96 sequel sucked), and the subject matter is perfect. And it would lend itself perfectly to co-op network play.
The Aliens FPS has been done to death. Why not something a little different?
Well, the important thing would be to make sure that "obscene" is never, ever defined. Make its definition as vague as possible, and make sure to apply the rule in an inconsistant manner, so that no logical deductions as to the definition can be drawn either. That way, the only safe way to get something out there is to run it by the regulatory body FIRST, so they can let you know whether it's something that could get you in trouble.
Like - I'm sure you know where I'm going with this - EXACTLY WHAT THE FCC HAS BEEN DOING.
As long as its never MANDATED to run it by the censors first, it's not censorship.
Now, of course, the surpreme court is potentially a hurdle. On the other hand, they have no problem (it seems) with the FCC's tacit censorship of the broadcast airways. It would probably depend on the arguments being made, as well as the makeup of the court. With Roberts and Alito on there, I'd say the chances of it being ruled permissable would be quite high. They'd just say something along the lines of, there's no right to the internet and leave it at that.
Strict constructionalism, ya know.
The irony of that rant coming from an A.C. is simply off my charts.
Seriously, who would risk running a public forum in the face of fines like that? Even major players like Amazon would most likely be forced to take down public comment sections lest something slip through. Slashdot, Fark, Kos, Pandagon, Redstate, LGF, whatever your online bitching kink is, it's going away.
And suddenly Americans would have to go onto foreign servers just to find a forum to exercise their free speech rights.
See, here's what REALLY pisses me off. McCain isn't stupid. He's many things (repeating many of which, at this point, could possibly get me jailed), but stupid is not one of them. Either he's offering up this bill with no intention of seeing it passed, or he recognizes the death of free speech on the American internet as an acceptible price to pay for his rise to power.
Every time I see a bill like this, I grow a little less convinced that there's any way we'll be able to reclaim our government from these assholes.
Bunnies! It must be BUNNIEEEEESSSSSS!!
In what way is this not in a judge's job description?
In fact, to turn that around and say, "Well... they aren't being discriminated against THAT MUCH." would be TOTALLY WRONG. *That* would be judicial activism.
And they don't need to take it up with their Congressmen, because the law already exists. It is extremely bad governance to pass a tiny little law for every possible exception or instance that can crop up. The law is already on the books regarding discrimination against the blind, he found it to be violated, and he ruled to uphold it.
And if you disagree with his ruling, then YOU are the one who should be lobbying your congressman. It's not the judge's fault the law is on the books. If you feel the public interest is so compelling as to legimize discrimination against a protected group, then by all means, go tell the Hill about it. At this point, it would be on THEM to change the law, not the judge.
And it won't be in the $200-$300 range for YEARS. I'd say two at an absolute minimum, and only then if Sony is willing to continue swallowing huge per-unit losses.
The big problem is that, for 90% of consumers (or more), it offers NOTHING to justify that price tag. It is pretty. It is very VERY pretty. It is EXCEEDINGLY pretty if you have a huge HDTV... and that's about it. At regular 480, it's only slightly nicer-looking than the 360. If that.
Oh, and Square/Enix is still loyal to them. I guess that counts for something.
In the meantime, Wii has its entirely new and fun control scheme, and X-Box absolutely owns the online gaming world.
There's just no reason for the vast majority of the public to even HAVE an interest. The cheaper competition pretty much has all the bases covered. Whatever you want in a system, either the 360 or the Wii has it, unless the ONLY thing you're concerned with is absolute top-line graphics. And the subset of consumers willing to pay for that, and that alone, is exceedingly small.
Certainly not enough to sink a console. Unless it was, in fact, already going down. And piracy is a lot better scapegoat than "Our marketing dept is pathetic and let Sony lie to all our potential customers."
And the general public? Not at the price Sony's asking. Not when, in all seriousness, they could buy a 360 AND a Wii for the same money. And the fact it's blu-ray could be a lure... except no one gives a crap about blu-ray except the high-enders.
The PS3 is *by design* a specialty high-end consumer item. It is NOT mass market, and could not ever be described as such. There are probably a million people in the country, maybe 2 mil, who would want one... and everyone else is going to buy the competition. If Sony can make money that way, good for them, but they are simply not going to see the kind of sales numbers they did with the PS1/2. Not by a long shot.
Then Sony started lying out their asses about what the PS2 would be like and managed to spread the FUD so thick that people nearly quit buying Dreamcasts completely. (despite the fact that the PS2 was, in reality, only incrementally superior to the DC) Sega's marketing department failed to keep up, and the rest was history.
Point of the story being, the DC situation is unlikely to be repeated in this case. It sort of came out in a weird "in between" time, generationally, rather than this situation where the three consoles have all come out relatively near to each other. (remember, people think of the SNES and the Genesis as being of the same generation, even though they were separated by two years)
So what it's all going to come down to is customer adoption and games. Personally, I think Sony is at an INCREDIBLE disadvantage, one I'd be highly surprised to see them overcome. It's going to come down, I believe, to a slugging match between Microsoft and Nintendo in a war of prettiness and grittiness vs fun and fluffy. And I predict they'll end up at something of an equilibrium, maybe 40% market share each, with the PS3 taking the high-end business but little else.
Actually, it directly relates in the case of France. EA has intimated more than once that they would really love to buy up Ubisoft - and might even forcibly take them over. France's government has declared that they *will not* let that happen, precisely for the purpose of preserving the only major French contributor to video gaming-as-art.
The original trilogy is a very black and white "good guys vs bad guys" story. There is no moral ambiguity. We have no question at any point who to root for, and the emotional satisfaction gained from the trilogy is that of the classic triumph of good over evil. You know, that Campbellian stuff Lucas is always going on about.
The prequels, however, are NOTHING BUT shades of grey. There aren't even any clear-cut good guys. Or where there might be, Lucas (intentionally?) screws it up so we can't be entirely sympathetic. Look at the Jedi in the prequels. They LITERALLY reside at the top of an ivory tower, intellectualizing the galaxy's troubles away. A student of Campbell could not be unaware of the symbolism of that. (this is, I believe, why everyone embraced the "Clone Wars" series so much. It was the only prequel material to treat the Jedi like we thought they SHOULD be treated.)
And these approaches are fundamentally incompatible. I can totally respect a decision to make a series of films about the fall of a Republic into fascism as contrasted with one good man's fall into evil. That's a DYNAMITE story. Great stuff. But it's NOT Star Wars. Not as anyone who saw the original trilogy would define it. It might be Babylon 5. It might be Farscape. But it's not Star Wars.
Having seen all three, I now know that from their very inception, the Prequels were *destined* to fail. There was no way to make them mesh with the original trilogy. Ever. And Lucas should have realized this.
Well, I lived in Texas. So it iced so infrequently that it often got cited as an "act of God" whenever ANYTHING ice-related happened. Maybe it's different in areas which regularly see ice.
What if this is Verizon DELIBERATELY blowing their common carrier status as an end run?
If it is, watch for them doing a lot more of this in the future. Then when they start blocking access to Google (or whateveR) they'll say, look, we're policing our own network now. We're NOT a common carrier.
And thus kill Net Neutrality.
I make no claims as to the correctness of this theory. It's just something that occured to me.
Verizon is (in theory) not responsible for anything put onto their networks because they're a "common carrier." They take all comers who can pay without worrying about the content. Therefore, if kiddie porn is being transmitted through Verizon's lines, it's not Verizon's fault because they have taken absolutely ZERO responsibility for the content.
*Except they just did.*
By taking that step to block someone from their network based solely on the content they were providing, they have opened themselves up for lawsuit. Whether you agree this is "fair" or not, it is a longstanding legal principle. Generally speaking, NOT taking responsibility for something will get you in less trouble than taking some. In a completely random other example, I lived at at apartment complex that refused to salt their walkways in the winter. Why? Because if someone slipped, and they DID salt the sidewalks, then they would be at fault for not salting them well enough. If they did nothing whatsoever, if you slip and fall, blame God, 'cause he's the one who did it.
Same principle. See?
By taking responsibility for SOME content being broadcast through their lines, Verizon may have just made themselves responsible for ALL of it.
And that is the question here.