What did they patent? The intellectual property of the "pay-as-you-go" business model?? I certainly hope not...
I have to agree with the parent that it is so disheartening to constantly see these types of lawsuits that do absolutely nothing but fatten the pockets of the companies already in place and empty the pockets of the consumer.
He then turned and walked defiantly from the court room, only to sheepishly return and ask "Um....anyone have a cell phone?? I need to call my lawyer."
If you want to not use Google services to keep your tinfoil hat pinned tightly to your head, feel free.
I am not a Google fanboi, but I am pretty positive that most any internet related use is going to identify you and pin some type of information to you.
Thats just how it is.
Whether they know your name, address, search history, email content (using online email acct), I am pretty sure that all of this at some point so going to be available to SOMEONE with continued use on the internet.
Its scary, but I don't see a way around it. I make a pretty good attempt at disguising my usage at home, but when i have an IP address and I go out on to any web site...BAM...right there I have something that can be linked back to me.
I could go to Bob's CRAZY Search engine and hope that he knows what he is doing, and go to the 12 pages that he has indexed, or I can use Google, which has been upfront with their practices about what they'll use the information for. Someone offered a Google Search > Google News > Google Email traingulation method to try and learn more about you....well, I got news for ya, all of that info can be gained from your ISP, without all the smoke and mirrors, if there are people are so inclinded to get it.
Joe 6-Pack can't get that information from your ISP, but he can't get it from Google either, and anyone who is serious enough to want to go through the trouble of tracking you that hard, Google isn't going to be their main tool in getting to your ass.
I have had my PSP since near launch (1.5) and have just recently gotten into putting the Emu's on my PSP and I absolutely love it. I only have a 32Mb card that came with it, so this allows me Tetris, Doom, and my SNES Emu with MKII, MKIII, and Killer Instinct (man, I forgot how much I loved that game). I don't have any black bars or stretched screens when I use my NES/SNES emulators and I have run quite a few games through them. This may be the case when using the GameBoy emu's, as I haven't used any of those.
Anyway, this addition is for the people who are looking for more space and allow there PSP to be all things to them, except and interactive PDA, I'll give you that. But for people that can watch there movies, assorted videos, play the homebrew apps, play the games released for it, listen to their MP3's, look at their pics, etc....I'd say that the PSP still has a pretty damn good bit going for it.
Myself personally, I think carrying around a HD attached to the PSP does take away from the last P in the name, but to some...its not an issue.
Its quite annoying to hear the fanbois from the Nintendo side, or whatever that GP32 (or a GP2X) system is, call us fanboi's, when thats JUST what you're doing yourselves. If thats what you want, fine...honky dorey, but don't knock the PSP because your tastes are different.
The homebrew scene for PSP is doing quite well if you ask me. Its evolving, and will still take a bit longer before I think its as easy as it needs to be for the masses to come to it, but I think it will.
*I* am waiting for them to find some adapter that isn't clunky and awkward as hell that will let me use other FLASH media, instead of having to pay Sony's insane prices for their's.
I have never been to a doctor about my symptoms, but I am genuinely curious about whether or not I have the symptoms of something like General Anxiety Disorder, or if its just from the way I was raised and the tendencies my parents had, which I find myself having as well.
A lot of the...we'll call them symptoms for now, that I have noticed about myself are the following. (Once again, I don't want to claim this as an excuse...just wondering sort of if there is help for such a thing, or if I just need to 'suck it up')
A little back history is that my parents are absolutely horridly irresponsible. THey're horrid with money, meetin obligations, making promises they never intend to fulfill, etc.
Now I think that there issues have created issues of my own:
I tend to freak out if a situation is something that I can't control, or able to control other peoples actions. (i.e. people not doing what *I* consider to be the right thing in a situation, regardless if it is correct or not. An example of this is, as dumb as it may be, I will smoke on the front porch of my apartment (4 apartments share an open, but common area), and when its just me, I don't have a problem with it, but when someone else is out there with me, and they sit on the stoop, I get anxiety because I am worried about a neighbor coming out and getting pissed off because we're smoking the area out.)
I worry endlessly about bills, obligations to meet that I know are on the horizon (taxes, car tags, going to a doctor or dentist), so in knowing that they're coming, I will just ignore them completely. Which, of course, just goes to increase my anxiety that much more and cause me to spiral myself into a bit of a depression.
If I don't have something immediate to worry about, I always seem to find something. Usually this always involves money.
I will do my best to keep appearances. Its very important to me for people to think that I havemy shit together, even when I absolutely feel the complete opposite.
Basically, my conclusion to all of this is that I was just brought up in an environment where things that are normal to other people (responsibilty, confronting issues as they come) wasn't there, so I have taken on those qualities as well. I do my best to not have them, since they effected me ALOT as a child, but they still seem to creep into my life, despite my best efforts.
I won't take any responses as being straight from a doctor, but just want to get the/. feel for what I describe.
Ugh...this whole issue just makes me sick thinking about it. They deserve nothing out of this pool. Its enough that the artists that they've locked into slave labor recieve hardly anything for their works, but yet they want to go diving into other peoples pools as well?? I am simply amazed at the utterly greed ridden tactics that they employ, and have no problem at all in doing so....not one.
If I worked for the RIAA, I would have to come home and bathe in boiling water just to get the stench of greedy a$$hole off of me.
I still think.99 is too much, but its definitely a sweet spot that the american public is probably willing to live with, so the market will bare it. Charging more for songs, ringtones, etc. just turns my stomach...I think that the sleazy bastards should have to be the musicians roadies if they want to represent them, so at least the musicians are getting some type of payback for the reaming they're going to take from labels.
Ok, I have read the article and a good amount of the posts here, and haven't seen this thrown out there yet. I am definitely not an authority on this, and this may exist already out there in some form or another, but what about a subscription based model.
I'm being very vague here, but would like to see your comments into how this might be a good or bad idea.
So, lets say for $30 you get subscription to download X amount of songs / data. This could be tiered up according to whatever ratios work best for the business model.
I guess this isn't completley a subscription based model, but you get the idea. Pure subscription (X dollars for unlimited downloads a month) would obviously lend itself to abuse, since it wouldn't take long for someone to write a script to download every song available on the server, but I am sure you nerdier types could come up with a way to stop this, or a reasonable alternative.
I really would like to something like this implemented, and think it might be something worth looking into.....now like I said, it may already exist, so excuse my ignorance before hand.
FYI:
I read an article the other day about police trying to catch child pornogrpahers...
Article said that in the last 4 years, all but 1 of the peto's that they've caught were hard core Trekkies....
I don't know if its possible or how you would go about it, but I will tell you that I never had to install the game from the retail discs...the last beta build was able to be used during release, so I never had to install...
Point being, it is possible for it to be downloaded...but how and where to find it.../obvious and little value
Re:Personally, I think WoW **IS** that great.
on
Review: World of Warcraft
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
(I've played AC, AC2, SWG, FFXI, Horizons and now WoW from Open beta) I think what is different is that Blizzard has managed to pull all of these elements together in one game, and do them all succesfully.
I can't name any other MMORPG that has been able to do so, that i have played.
A few things that I have seen that I would like to comment on, that I am sure the EQ'ers will get pissed at, but whatever.
Dumbing down a MMORPG because I want to solo?? That makes me not a team player?? I have to disagree with this whole heartedly. That very thought process is what has driven me from EQ, SWG and why I won't even think about EQ2.
I don't want to HAVE to party. I should be able to level on my own throughout ALL levels. Granted, the pace should be slower, but it shouldn't be impossible. FFXI, AC2, SWG all were impossible to level after a certain point solo, and withouth the addition of "side content" for me to do, I would be bored out of mind. I think Blizzard's method here is genius, and should be looked at as a positive move in the industry. Anyone who has ever played forced grouping knows the frustration of trying to fight in a pick-up party. 1 outta 10 are succesful, the rest usually are just painful.
Another few items I would like to comment since I am on the soapbox already are:
Graphics are too cartoony: This took me a bit to get over as well, at first. But once you get into the game and see what they have done with this "style", you see that it actually opens the door to more freedoms, and lets them do some pretty cool stuff, instead of having to always measure there content on whether or not it passed the "reality look" test.
Grinding: OMG...this one blew me away. People actually stated on this thread that there was a grind WoW and that they had played FFXI and SWG before....good lord you must have missed every quest in WoW...I can't even imagine what you did to get to a grind. I am level 34 and still haven't hit a grind yet. There are a few slumps where things slowed down for me at about level 30...but that was for 1 level until i moved to a new area. SWG and FFXI felt like i had another job when i got home....absolutely the WORST grind I have ever known. I am here to tell you that WoW offers a substantial amount of quests that always seems to keep you busy with something to do, not to mention your subjobs also can keep you busy. (In addition to the 2 subjobs, you can also get cooknig, fishing and first-aid for free which all yield there own substantial benefits as well)
IMO, WoW has been able to do what no MMORPG has been able to do to date...marry all of the elements together that all other MMORPG's only had one of, and did it succesfully, and with the signature Blizzard touches that make them succesful.
Yep, it might break, but then through cycling some type of heating\cooling mechanism through the pack, you cool it back to a liquid and re-heat back to a brand new armor section. (Given that the mechanism can survive a direct hit from whatever is firing at it, but I am sure this could be resolved through heating or cooling through the chasis itself maybe...)
I am running almost the same rig, P4 2Ghz, 1Gb DDR2100 and GForce3 Ti500 (32Mb) and I found that the game played really damn well...I can count only a few times where I started to lose FPS because of 5+ baddies on the screen. Never had a problem...weird.
I would also like to point out to the flashlight whiners that I think you're missing the point...its not the fact that they never thought of the fact that holding the flashlight and the gun at the same time would be easier...
Same thing for the gamma cheaters...yeah, you crank the gamma you can see, but you're taking away the whole fear factor...no wonder you're bored. There are MANY good scenes in this game that I got me pretty good (some even got me a 2nd or third time if I had to reload a save point)
Overall - 3.5 Stars I'd say...great graphics, great fear factor in many areas...could have used more models and different baddies, and a little more depth to the levels...but other than that..i was happy.
I couldn't agree more...I hate saying, because I feel like I've read too many books or seen to many movies, but the fact that we're "getting there" sets an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
Too be honest, I am surprised more automation hasn't been done to the burger flippers, truckers, waiters of the world. The technology we have currently is more that sufficient to handle the load in one form of automation or another. Just the cost is prohibitive, and I imagine unions and lobbyists are looking out for these evils as well....just kind of scary that they're knocking a little louder these days, and going to be asking for ba-ba's soon.
If I worked there, I would just want to ride that cool elevator thing that takes me to the research lab where I get to wear the cool suit and kill alien bugs...though my first order of business would be to turn off that ladies annoying voice that keeps welcoming me to the lab.
wait a minute...maybe thats where the disks went!
Those damn alien bugs...I'm sooo tired of them eating my floppies
Funny...the timing of this couldn't have been worse.
I have been reading/. for a while now, and just the other day downloaded Mozilla, and then FF, then uninstalled FF and stuck w/ Mozilla, all on my work PC,just to see the differences between the two.
Well, I d/l'ed & installed it, and within 25 min of checking/. , CNN and Yahoo I had AdDestroyer, Virtual Bouncer and something else loaded onto my machine.
After hearing how all of the/.'ers praised the open-source marvel that is Mozilla, I figured I must have clicked an ad-banner on accident somewhere and let something in (3x accidently clicking banners?? must have been really tired). I ran ad-aware and after the 3rd time through, it found and removed everything and we're all honky dorey once more.
**Now** I know where it came from, it was so close after the install of Mozilla there is no way it could be anything else.
This goes to show me a few things.
1) Don't believe everything you read. Check it out for yourself, and download Ad-Aware right after.
2) IE is the big corporate megolith swinging its clumsy and vulnerable code all over the place, but I really hope people realize that once these browsers start to get the attention that IE has had, the same vulnerabilities will be exposed in them as well, and the whole problem that MS has had to go through will occur for Mozilla/Opera/whatever....patching patches, breaking your software with software fixes...Not that I am an MS fanboi, but it does get a little "Anything not MS" heavy on here now and again.
For now, I'll stick with IE. It does everything I need, I'm comfortable with it, and it didn't download crap from banners within the first 30 min. I used it....I did like the tabbed browsing though.
I think that Moore's style of film making is what irks me the most. His delivery of information.
He can say that the information within his films is "satire", but when it is riddled with fast editing, overly long scenes of people in pain (that he would no doubt say was used to truly show the pain they're going through, but at the same time feeding his own agenda and removing the personal nature of the moment by exploitation.) and one sides arguments that are presented as "fact", makes my stomach roll in thinking that there are people out there cheering this on as a "clear" representation of what they think is actually going on.
Create your opinion by what you know...not what you think you know, or what someone has handed you as fact.
Believe nothing that you hear, and half of what you see...
Slashdot Mirror
If just all of their customers, by some miracle, were to just use 10 minutes of their time until the 90 days is up...
10 * 2.5 * 3,100,000 = Ouch
Ouch = 77,500,000
What did they patent? The intellectual property of the "pay-as-you-go" business model?? I certainly hope not...
I have to agree with the parent that it is so disheartening to constantly see these types of lawsuits that do absolutely nothing but fatten the pockets of the companies already in place and empty the pockets of the consumer.
He then turned and walked defiantly from the court room, only to sheepishly return and ask "Um....anyone have a cell phone?? I need to call my lawyer."
If you want to not use Google services to keep your tinfoil hat pinned tightly to your head, feel free.
I am not a Google fanboi, but I am pretty positive that most any internet related use is going to identify you and pin some type of information to you.
Thats just how it is.
Whether they know your name, address, search history, email content (using online email acct), I am pretty sure that all of this at some point so going to be available to SOMEONE with continued use on the internet.
Its scary, but I don't see a way around it. I make a pretty good attempt at disguising my usage at home, but when i have an IP address and I go out on to any web site...BAM...right there I have something that can be linked back to me.
I could go to Bob's CRAZY Search engine and hope that he knows what he is doing, and go to the 12 pages that he has indexed, or I can use Google, which has been upfront with their practices about what they'll use the information for. Someone offered a Google Search > Google News > Google Email traingulation method to try and learn more about you....well, I got news for ya, all of that info can be gained from your ISP, without all the smoke and mirrors, if there are people are so inclinded to get it.
Joe 6-Pack can't get that information from your ISP, but he can't get it from Google either, and anyone who is serious enough to want to go through the trouble of tracking you that hard, Google isn't going to be their main tool in getting to your ass.
1) Lead
2) Follow
3) Get the hell out of the way
I also forgot to mention that you can surf the web, play interactively with other PS owners and use it as a handy dandy remote control!
I have had my PSP since near launch (1.5) and have just recently gotten into putting the Emu's on my PSP and I absolutely love it. I only have a 32Mb card that came with it, so this allows me Tetris, Doom, and my SNES Emu with MKII, MKIII, and Killer Instinct (man, I forgot how much I loved that game). I don't have any black bars or stretched screens when I use my NES/SNES emulators and I have run quite a few games through them. This may be the case when using the GameBoy emu's, as I haven't used any of those.
Anyway, this addition is for the people who are looking for more space and allow there PSP to be all things to them, except and interactive PDA, I'll give you that. But for people that can watch there movies, assorted videos, play the homebrew apps, play the games released for it, listen to their MP3's, look at their pics, etc....I'd say that the PSP still has a pretty damn good bit going for it.
Myself personally, I think carrying around a HD attached to the PSP does take away from the last P in the name, but to some...its not an issue.
Its quite annoying to hear the fanbois from the Nintendo side, or whatever that GP32 (or a GP2X) system is, call us fanboi's, when thats JUST what you're doing yourselves. If thats what you want, fine...honky dorey, but don't knock the PSP because your tastes are different.
The homebrew scene for PSP is doing quite well if you ask me. Its evolving, and will still take a bit longer before I think its as easy as it needs to be for the masses to come to it, but I think it will.
*I* am waiting for them to find some adapter that isn't clunky and awkward as hell that will let me use other FLASH media, instead of having to pay Sony's insane prices for their's.
I have never been to a doctor about my symptoms, but I am genuinely curious about whether or not I have the symptoms of something like General Anxiety Disorder, or if its just from the way I was raised and the tendencies my parents had, which I find myself having as well.
/. feel for what I describe.
A lot of the...we'll call them symptoms for now, that I have noticed about myself are the following. (Once again, I don't want to claim this as an excuse...just wondering sort of if there is help for such a thing, or if I just need to 'suck it up')
A little back history is that my parents are absolutely horridly irresponsible. THey're horrid with money, meetin obligations, making promises they never intend to fulfill, etc.
Now I think that there issues have created issues of my own:
I tend to freak out if a situation is something that I can't control, or able to control other peoples actions. (i.e. people not doing what *I* consider to be the right thing in a situation, regardless if it is correct or not. An example of this is, as dumb as it may be, I will smoke on the front porch of my apartment (4 apartments share an open, but common area), and when its just me, I don't have a problem with it, but when someone else is out there with me, and they sit on the stoop, I get anxiety because I am worried about a neighbor coming out and getting pissed off because we're smoking the area out.)
I worry endlessly about bills, obligations to meet that I know are on the horizon (taxes, car tags, going to a doctor or dentist), so in knowing that they're coming, I will just ignore them completely. Which, of course, just goes to increase my anxiety that much more and cause me to spiral myself into a bit of a depression.
If I don't have something immediate to worry about, I always seem to find something. Usually this always involves money.
I will do my best to keep appearances. Its very important to me for people to think that I havemy shit together, even when I absolutely feel the complete opposite.
Basically, my conclusion to all of this is that I was just brought up in an environment where things that are normal to other people (responsibilty, confronting issues as they come) wasn't there, so I have taken on those qualities as well. I do my best to not have them, since they effected me ALOT as a child, but they still seem to creep into my life, despite my best efforts.
I won't take any responses as being straight from a doctor, but just want to get the
(My apologies for this rambling)
Ugh...this whole issue just makes me sick thinking about it. They deserve nothing out of this pool. Its enough that the artists that they've locked into slave labor recieve hardly anything for their works, but yet they want to go diving into other peoples pools as well?? I am simply amazed at the utterly greed ridden tactics that they employ, and have no problem at all in doing so....not one.
.99 is too much, but its definitely a sweet spot that the american public is probably willing to live with, so the market will bare it. Charging more for songs, ringtones, etc. just turns my stomach...I think that the sleazy bastards should have to be the musicians roadies if they want to represent them, so at least the musicians are getting some type of payback for the reaming they're going to take from labels.
If I worked for the RIAA, I would have to come home and bathe in boiling water just to get the stench of greedy a$$hole off of me.
I still think
Ok, I have read the article and a good amount of the posts here, and haven't seen this thrown out there yet. I am definitely not an authority on this, and this may exist already out there in some form or another, but what about a subscription based model.
I'm being very vague here, but would like to see your comments into how this might be a good or bad idea.
So, lets say for $30 you get subscription to download X amount of songs / data. This could be tiered up according to whatever ratios work best for the business model.
I guess this isn't completley a subscription based model, but you get the idea. Pure subscription (X dollars for unlimited downloads a month) would obviously lend itself to abuse, since it wouldn't take long for someone to write a script to download every song available on the server, but I am sure you nerdier types could come up with a way to stop this, or a reasonable alternative.
I really would like to something like this implemented, and think it might be something worth looking into.....now like I said, it may already exist, so excuse my ignorance before hand.
Prolly because she got smacked by the dude with the lawn chair.
FYI: I read an article the other day about police trying to catch child pornogrpahers... Article said that in the last 4 years, all but 1 of the peto's that they've caught were hard core Trekkies....
Sigourney Weaver may be able to get her old job back!
I don't know if its possible or how you would go about it, but I will tell you that I never had to install the game from the retail discs...the last beta build was able to be used during release, so I never had to install... Point being, it is possible for it to be downloaded...but how and where to find it... /obvious and little value
(I've played AC, AC2, SWG, FFXI, Horizons and now WoW from Open beta)
I think what is different is that Blizzard has managed to pull all of these elements together in one game, and do them all succesfully.
I can't name any other MMORPG that has been able to do so, that i have played.
A few things that I have seen that I would like to comment on, that I am sure the EQ'ers will get pissed at, but whatever.
Dumbing down a MMORPG because I want to solo?? That makes me not a team player?? I have to disagree with this whole heartedly. That very thought process is what has driven me from EQ, SWG and why I won't even think about EQ2.
I don't want to HAVE to party. I should be able to level on my own throughout ALL levels. Granted, the pace should be slower, but it shouldn't be impossible. FFXI, AC2, SWG all were impossible to level after a certain point solo, and withouth the addition of "side content" for me to do, I would be bored out of mind. I think Blizzard's method here is genius, and should be looked at as a positive move in the industry.
Anyone who has ever played forced grouping knows the frustration of trying to fight in a pick-up party. 1 outta 10 are succesful, the rest usually are just painful.
Another few items I would like to comment since I am on the soapbox already are:
Graphics are too cartoony: This took me a bit to get over as well, at first. But once you get into the game and see what they have done with this "style", you see that it actually opens the door to more freedoms, and lets them do some pretty cool stuff, instead of having to always measure there content on whether or not it passed the "reality look" test.
Grinding: OMG...this one blew me away. People actually stated on this thread that there was a grind WoW and that they had played FFXI and SWG before....good lord you must have missed every quest in WoW...I can't even imagine what you did to get to a grind. I am level 34 and still haven't hit a grind yet. There are a few slumps where things slowed down for me at about level 30...but that was for 1 level until i moved to a new area. SWG and FFXI felt like i had another job when i got home....absolutely the WORST grind I have ever known. I am here to tell you that WoW offers a substantial amount of quests that always seems to keep you busy with something to do, not to mention your subjobs also can keep you busy. (In addition to the 2 subjobs, you can also get cooknig, fishing and first-aid for free which all yield there own substantial benefits as well)
IMO, WoW has been able to do what no MMORPG has been able to do to date...marry all of the elements together that all other MMORPG's only had one of, and did it succesfully, and with the signature Blizzard touches that make them succesful.
10 of 10....damn right
"And then it would break"
Yep, it might break, but then through cycling some type of heating\cooling mechanism through the pack, you cool it back to a liquid and re-heat back to a brand new armor section. (Given that the mechanism can survive a direct hit from whatever is firing at it, but I am sure this could be resolved through heating or cooling through the chasis itself maybe...)
I am running almost the same rig, P4 2Ghz, 1Gb DDR2100 and GForce3 Ti500 (32Mb) and I found that the game played really damn well...I can count only a few times where I started to lose FPS because of 5+ baddies on the screen. Never had a problem...weird.
I would also like to point out to the flashlight whiners that I think you're missing the point...its not the fact that they never thought of the fact that holding the flashlight and the gun at the same time would be easier...
Same thing for the gamma cheaters...yeah, you crank the gamma you can see, but you're taking away the whole fear factor...no wonder you're bored. There are MANY good scenes in this game that I got me pretty good (some even got me a 2nd or third time if I had to reload a save point)
Overall - 3.5 Stars I'd say...great graphics, great fear factor in many areas...could have used more models and different baddies, and a little more depth to the levels...but other than that..i was happy.
I couldn't agree more...I hate saying, because I feel like I've read too many books or seen to many movies, but the fact that we're "getting there" sets an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
Too be honest, I am surprised more automation hasn't been done to the burger flippers, truckers, waiters of the world. The technology we have currently is more that sufficient to handle the load in one form of automation or another. Just the cost is prohibitive, and I imagine unions and lobbyists are looking out for these evils as well....just kind of scary that they're knocking a little louder these days, and going to be asking for ba-ba's soon.
If I worked there, I would just want to ride that cool elevator thing that takes me to the research lab where I get to wear the cool suit and kill alien bugs...though my first order of business would be to turn off that ladies annoying voice that keeps welcoming me to the lab.
/HL Ref Off
wait a minute...maybe thats where the disks went!
Those damn alien bugs...I'm sooo tired of them eating my floppies
Its go time!
Cool...thanks for the tip.
:)
I'll check them out, although I've become pretty savvy at my own tabbed browsing...alt-tabbing.
Funny...the timing of this couldn't have been worse. I have been reading /. for a while now, and just the other day downloaded Mozilla, and then FF, then uninstalled FF and stuck w/ Mozilla, all on my work PC ,just to see the differences between the two.
Well, I d/l'ed & installed it, and within 25 min of checking /. , CNN and Yahoo I had AdDestroyer, Virtual Bouncer and something else loaded onto my machine.
After hearing how all of the /.'ers praised the open-source marvel that is Mozilla, I figured I must have clicked an ad-banner on accident somewhere and let something in (3x accidently clicking banners?? must have been really tired). I ran ad-aware and after the 3rd time through, it found and removed everything and we're all honky dorey once more.
**Now** I know where it came from, it was so close after the install of Mozilla there is no way it could be anything else.
This goes to show me a few things.
1) Don't believe everything you read. Check it out for yourself, and download Ad-Aware right after.
2) IE is the big corporate megolith swinging its clumsy and vulnerable code all over the place, but I really hope people realize that once these browsers start to get the attention that IE has had, the same vulnerabilities will be exposed in them as well, and the whole problem that MS has had to go through will occur for Mozilla/Opera/whatever....patching patches, breaking your software with software fixes...Not that I am an MS fanboi, but it does get a little "Anything not MS" heavy on here now and again.
For now, I'll stick with IE. It does everything I need, I'm comfortable with it, and it didn't download crap from banners within the first 30 min. I used it. ...I did like the tabbed browsing though.
I think that Moore's style of film making is what irks me the most. His delivery of information. He can say that the information within his films is "satire", but when it is riddled with fast editing, overly long scenes of people in pain (that he would no doubt say was used to truly show the pain they're going through, but at the same time feeding his own agenda and removing the personal nature of the moment by exploitation.) and one sides arguments that are presented as "fact", makes my stomach roll in thinking that there are people out there cheering this on as a "clear" representation of what they think is actually going on. Create your opinion by what you know...not what you think you know, or what someone has handed you as fact. Believe nothing that you hear, and half of what you see...