Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
Nahhh, let's just kill people!
You have no idea how cool a national mag-lev system just on its own would be. Even more so, you have no idea how sad it makes me this country elected a leader TWICE that would do something so STUPID as to blow that much money in a foreign country under false pretenses.
Actually that's not really that bad. I still have every single 1st edition AD&D book, including the reprints with different covers, so I'm a bit of a hardcore D&D nut. If your into the collection of this kind of thing, the price is actually fairly cheap. Even if you are far in the poverty level, and unless you have some MAJOR debt issues in which case you shouldn't be buying toys anyways, 20 bucks a pop is nothing these days. Even with the growing recession.
Until recently I made a whopping 9 grand a year. Woo. I only worked 20 hours a week at minimum wage, and yes I had bills to pay. I'd still be able to afford to get these things without saving for them.
Now unless I misunderstood, the main gripe is that the same info is going to be in the core books. So your just choosing between the 'collector's edition' and the 'regular' version. It's a bit strange that they're releasing just the 'collector's edition' before the regular version I'll admit. But look at the price for these rulebooks in the past. They're always around 20 bucks at stores, and online purchases are a recent option.
Bah, ramblign now. Little distracted at the moment, but I just have problems seeing the price as a problem. It's pretty much a standard price, and not too expensive. Especially considering the other things that cost 20 bucks (eg movies) and how much value this has over them (to me at least).
Oh, and having multiple copies of rulebooks is always good. Around here, I've yet to talk to people with a gaming group that each person has their own copy of everything.
1) Who will benefit from this communication disruption?
Any business that sees the businesses in the Middle East and parts of South East Asia as direct competitors will be glad their competitors are having a rough time. Same is true for countries, and even guilds on some WoW servers (on my old server there was a 'Kuwaiti Elites' guild populated by *gasp* Kuwaitis).
2) The Outage is Not Complete
There is not one country that is entirely cut off. Traffic is slow as hell due to modern day loads being pushed onto outdated cables and overlapping routes. The 'outage' is not just Internet either, but also telephone lines.
Want proof the outages aren't total? Okay. A number of Iranian university websites are still up and running and accessible. 'Breaking News' from Sri Lanka appeared on the BBC when terrorists bombed a bus on the day a 3rd cable was reported to be broken. Sorry, communication is slow but existent.
3) No One Would Have Noticed A Tap
I'm sorry, but any moron who things that the outages are caused by a tap are retarded. As stupid as American legislation and administration can be, and how some inexperienced ground pounders fresh out of high school act, the U.S. Military is pretty damn professional. They know their crap. Almost all the 'blunders' you see in the news are from Civilian agencies.
Further more, the Jimmy Carter is DESIGNED specifically to be able to tap these lines covertly. The military doesn't actually commission and use things that are a total failure. If the Jimmy Carter can really tap wires, you bet your ass it can do it well.
On top of that, no one even NOTICED that a submarine cable was damaged until a SECOND one was hit, 3 and a half hours later. That's when traffic flow all the sudden hit a brick wall and was being funneled through a single, outdated, cable.
4) Legal Implications
Finally, for those other conspiracy nuts, the U.S. isn't going to be 'invading another Middle East country after they disrupt the communications' and is unlikely to be 'monitoring the traffic coming over it's network invasively.'
And why not? Because there is no way Congress is able to hold a secret like a declaration of war these days, and they're legally bound to inform the public as soon as is possible. If the President orders it, his ass is in a sling because he can't legally do that. Aside from that, as recent history shows, the U.S. is pretty good at quick invasions. What happens after the initial 'take over' is typically abysmal, but on the assault their very sharp. If the U.S. disrupted these communications lines in order to invade some country, they'd already be bragging that they took it over AND the resistance (which everyone outside the U.S. would probably call freedom fighters if the U.S. was stupid enough to do something like this) would have already gotten the word out BECAUSE THE OUTAGE ISN'T COMPLETE.
Now for the monitoring, that's a maybe. It's unlikely because the networks are owned by Telcos. If the bill proposing immunity for the Telcos passes, then I'd say its almost a certainty. Liberty of American Citizens would be hamstrung by a governmental party that doesn't want to admit it's a little facist, and another one that's almost apathetic. If it fails, then most Telcos would tell the U.S. government to fuck off until they get a warrant, but then there would be a paper trail. Of course, given the communication monitoring capabilities of the U.S. government, it wouldn't be too hard for them to do so anyways.
Anyways the point to all this, this is suspicious crap in these times. But insofar every conspiracy theory is working on circumstantial evidence at the best, and almost all of it is pure hypothesis. On February 12th we'll know what happened to the cables for sure. FLAG and the consortium that owns and operates SEA-ME-WE 4 have no reason to cooperate with any but their respective governments, none of which are actually the US!
So stop spreading hearsay and panic! Do some research even, it only takes an afternoon to verify everything I've said.
I was under the impression that if you owned a program you could use a "No-CD" Patch or "Crack" on it (this means not having to put the CD in the CD-ROM).
And to stop the argument that you don't have to own the program to do it or you MS would need a copy for each computer, dont forget its a corporation. Programs tend to be sold in liscences for many machines especially to schools/busnisess.
Now this doesn't mean they haven't used an illegal program but the point is there are too many variables to jump to conclusions. But unless someone can show me where it says using a crack for a application/program you own is illegal I'm not gonna assume that this is true.
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Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
Nahhh, let's just kill people!
You have no idea how cool a national mag-lev system just on its own would be. Even more so, you have no idea how sad it makes me this country elected a leader TWICE that would do something so STUPID as to blow that much money in a foreign country under false pretenses.Actually that's not really that bad. I still have every single 1st edition AD&D book, including the reprints with different covers, so I'm a bit of a hardcore D&D nut. If your into the collection of this kind of thing, the price is actually fairly cheap. Even if you are far in the poverty level, and unless you have some MAJOR debt issues in which case you shouldn't be buying toys anyways, 20 bucks a pop is nothing these days. Even with the growing recession. Until recently I made a whopping 9 grand a year. Woo. I only worked 20 hours a week at minimum wage, and yes I had bills to pay. I'd still be able to afford to get these things without saving for them. Now unless I misunderstood, the main gripe is that the same info is going to be in the core books. So your just choosing between the 'collector's edition' and the 'regular' version. It's a bit strange that they're releasing just the 'collector's edition' before the regular version I'll admit. But look at the price for these rulebooks in the past. They're always around 20 bucks at stores, and online purchases are a recent option. Bah, ramblign now. Little distracted at the moment, but I just have problems seeing the price as a problem. It's pretty much a standard price, and not too expensive. Especially considering the other things that cost 20 bucks (eg movies) and how much value this has over them (to me at least). Oh, and having multiple copies of rulebooks is always good. Around here, I've yet to talk to people with a gaming group that each person has their own copy of everything.
1) Who will benefit from this communication disruption?
Any business that sees the businesses in the Middle East and parts of South East Asia as direct competitors will be glad their competitors are having a rough time. Same is true for countries, and even guilds on some WoW servers (on my old server there was a 'Kuwaiti Elites' guild populated by *gasp* Kuwaitis).
2) The Outage is Not Complete
There is not one country that is entirely cut off. Traffic is slow as hell due to modern day loads being pushed onto outdated cables and overlapping routes. The 'outage' is not just Internet either, but also telephone lines.
Want proof the outages aren't total? Okay. A number of Iranian university websites are still up and running and accessible. 'Breaking News' from Sri Lanka appeared on the BBC when terrorists bombed a bus on the day a 3rd cable was reported to be broken. Sorry, communication is slow but existent.
3) No One Would Have Noticed A Tap
I'm sorry, but any moron who things that the outages are caused by a tap are retarded. As stupid as American legislation and administration can be, and how some inexperienced ground pounders fresh out of high school act, the U.S. Military is pretty damn professional. They know their crap. Almost all the 'blunders' you see in the news are from Civilian agencies.
Further more, the Jimmy Carter is DESIGNED specifically to be able to tap these lines covertly. The military doesn't actually commission and use things that are a total failure. If the Jimmy Carter can really tap wires, you bet your ass it can do it well.
On top of that, no one even NOTICED that a submarine cable was damaged until a SECOND one was hit, 3 and a half hours later. That's when traffic flow all the sudden hit a brick wall and was being funneled through a single, outdated, cable.
4) Legal Implications
Finally, for those other conspiracy nuts, the U.S. isn't going to be 'invading another Middle East country after they disrupt the communications' and is unlikely to be 'monitoring the traffic coming over it's network invasively.'
And why not? Because there is no way Congress is able to hold a secret like a declaration of war these days, and they're legally bound to inform the public as soon as is possible. If the President orders it, his ass is in a sling because he can't legally do that. Aside from that, as recent history shows, the U.S. is pretty good at quick invasions. What happens after the initial 'take over' is typically abysmal, but on the assault their very sharp. If the U.S. disrupted these communications lines in order to invade some country, they'd already be bragging that they took it over AND the resistance (which everyone outside the U.S. would probably call freedom fighters if the U.S. was stupid enough to do something like this) would have already gotten the word out BECAUSE THE OUTAGE ISN'T COMPLETE.
Now for the monitoring, that's a maybe. It's unlikely because the networks are owned by Telcos. If the bill proposing immunity for the Telcos passes, then I'd say its almost a certainty. Liberty of American Citizens would be hamstrung by a governmental party that doesn't want to admit it's a little facist, and another one that's almost apathetic. If it fails, then most Telcos would tell the U.S. government to fuck off until they get a warrant, but then there would be a paper trail. Of course, given the communication monitoring capabilities of the U.S. government, it wouldn't be too hard for them to do so anyways.
Anyways the point to all this, this is suspicious crap in these times. But insofar every conspiracy theory is working on circumstantial evidence at the best, and almost all of it is pure hypothesis. On February 12th we'll know what happened to the cables for sure. FLAG and the consortium that owns and operates SEA-ME-WE 4 have no reason to cooperate with any but their respective governments, none of which are actually the US!
So stop spreading hearsay and panic! Do some research even, it only takes an afternoon to verify everything I've said.
I was under the impression that if you owned a program you could use a "No-CD" Patch or "Crack" on it (this means not having to put the CD in the CD-ROM). And to stop the argument that you don't have to own the program to do it or you MS would need a copy for each computer, dont forget its a corporation. Programs tend to be sold in liscences for many machines especially to schools/busnisess. Now this doesn't mean they haven't used an illegal program but the point is there are too many variables to jump to conclusions. But unless someone can show me where it says using a crack for a application/program you own is illegal I'm not gonna assume that this is true.