Yea, interestingly enough Indiana University's Webmail (new beta) does some work to combat this. They make it harder for the individual user to blindly click a redirect link. You can check out the feature list here.
As 2600 says... if you see something, say something.
Another good headline spoiled by reading the summary (luckily, not the article).
Here I figured RockStar had paired with Nintendo, and come out with a new game where you shoot up the audiances that fall for the "Violence hurts children (ok, ok, only when it's real violence.... against them...)" line...
Ah! Thanks for clearing that up. In that case, yes, I agree. There's actually a few of us at my Reformed Presbyterian (as right as you get theologically) that don't fall for this belief [only our religion counts in this country]. Freedom of religion is an essential part of basic freedoms, and many Christians I know personally get that. Unfortunatly, the important ones don't. Sad really. Turn a religion into a hate machine, put words in Jesus' mouth, attempt to take away freedoms to further their own goals. Believe me when I say a lot of Christians (number wise, not necessarly percent wise) dislike this, and feel your pain.
And yes, your clarification above is both a much better definition, and something I'd agree with a lot more readily. Not that my one opinion matters that much, but still.
As a member of the religous right (theologically, not politically), I have to agree with you n part. I see all too many people that are representative of the group trying to force their ways on others. It saddens me because that is *not* what Christianity is about. You're right, a lot of the public figures would try to force their values, but not all of us, so please don't generalize.
Having said that, I agree that things come in cycles. I'm not going to decry Bush for using tactics that Presidents in the past have. Many people in the comments above have already listed such Presidents, so I'm not going to. But, these are not new strategies, nor are they the worst we've seen. Look at the prison camps we had for Japanese Americans in WWII. The Communist witch hunt, and all the rest. We happen to be on an upswing, and as a reaction, I suspect that the next generation of voters will go the other way. Then, when the country hits another time of need, someone will step up, and we'll lose freedoms again.
Does it bug me? Yea, it does. Am I scared that life just will never be the same and we'll all die in thought-prison? No. Its silly to compare this to 1984 (as so many have already), because of the term of one president. Also, its silly to blame Bush. Remember, Echelon was started in Clinton's term.
Interestingly enough, it is trivial for an Analog Computer to pick out CAPCHA text. A professor at Indiana University is making some good progress in that department, this is his home page. So... no, CAPCHA text couldn't hide stuff, assuming an implementation of this. Yea, its not automated yet (or maybe is, I dunno, I only say an hour's talk about it), but if this could be, you'd need a better way to hide. My recomendation is to go back to the basics. Dial in to a server you know is good, and don't put it online. Then they'd have to dial-in themselves, ok, probably trivial to find it, but still. At least you know you can't spider to it.
You make an excellent point! I completely agree with this, as I could pull random statistics to prove what I want and seem scary.
Such as... The amount of people killed by rabid dogs with knives went up 300% in a week. (Assume there had been one before, and this week there were 3). Does that mean that rabid dogs with knives are a danger to society? No, it means ONE rabid dog with a knife happened to do something no other had done before.
1700 out of such a big population is insignificant. Especially when you consider that some of those could be related. You might tap my cell phone, AND home phone. In fact, it'd be rather stupid to tap only one. Now, if that'd be included in the same tap, I dunno, I'm not law enforcement.
But, the other big problem here is these are the COURT-ORDERED taps.... not the special ones by Bush. Also, it's INTERNATIONAL. Many people have started talking about "revolution" and the "values this [America] country was founded on". Wrong, this is everywhere, specifically Europe. And legal, as they're court ordered. That IS provided for in the Constitution, and is not the giving up of any liberty.
Come on, can we have some good discussion about, perhaps, HOW we could automate this more, and reduce the burdon on people? Maybe think about various tech aspects of this, not a knee-jerk "Bush 15 ev1lll!!!!11" reaction that seems so childish! (No, I don't like him, but I'm not going to automatically spit when I hear his name, that's reverse brainwashing, and its just as bad. Keep an open mind people).
I'd be more impressed if it wasn't a company that seems to be struggling. Forgive me, but I'm not a fan of their new software. It has a hard time of getting rid of the bad stuff. Surprisingly, the smaller programs, each componant, works a lot better. Examples: Zone Alarm for my firewall, Adaware/a HOST of others for anti-spyware. AVG/Zone alarm for anti-virus. Boot disc called "The Final Solution" packed full of anti-virus and rootkit software.
Now, how much you wanna bet the cost is going to be roughly that of all the componants?
Also, who's to say that this'll work? If it's all integrated, and a virus turns off one part, it's all off. I take great pride of my multiple layers of defense. You get rid of my hardware firewall, I have a software one. You get rid of that I also have multiple virus scanners. Top is all off with good backups, and the ability to kill my machine, strip it, clean it of dust, and completely rebuild in 4 hours, I'm not too worried.
You may notice the quotation mark '?' between "its sequel" and "Gone in 60 seconds". This symbolizes the stopping between two different questions. The first being about "The Fast and the Furious", and the second being about "Gone in 60 Seconds". Had that quotation mark '?' been a comma ',' instead, then yes, the question would have read as you read it. However, due to the full stop provided by the quotation mark, it clearly deliminates between two seperate questions.
For the record I've (unfortunatly) seen all of the above, and only like "Gone in 60 Seconds".
Guys... lets just not do the "but... how can you blame X" comments. They don't work. We can see that... guess I better break my own advice.
There is nothing linking the game to the accident, besides the theme of the game, and the kids being idiots. So what, it's about racing. So's a bunch of movies, and a big American past-time (NASCAR). If that were a NASCAR DVD, would it be blamed? Well, I suppose it's not in an "urban" setting. Ok, what about "Fast and the Furious", or it's sequel? "Gone in 60 Seconds"? I suppose they weren't specifically stealing the cars...
NEWS FLASH: TEENAGERS DO STUPID THINGS.
As a teen myself (for another month) I can say yes, that's a very fitting description. Now, these parents have some nice money (they were racing "luxary cars"), sent them to an exclusive high school (at 35 grand a year, more then I pay for out of state tuition!), and were OUT OF TOWN.
Defence lawyer Edward Prutschi, who represents Mr. Ryazanov, said his client's parents were out of town at the time of the accident and are heading home to Toronto.
Now come on... you leave the kids at home, nice luxary car, and they go do crazy things like drive 130 kilometers per hour... oh, yea, that's only 80 miles per hour. Having played Need For Speed, I can tell you it is VERY easy to exceed that speed VERY quickly, in fact, 80 mph wouldn't win you even the first race. Hell, When I drive home, I average 85 mph, though the speed limit's only 75, and I get passed. Why? Because that's not such an unsafe speed, surely NOT racing. This is a little bit of joyriding, and the idiot driver didn't see a taxi. Now, someone is dead, and it's time to play the Blame Game.
Can we blame the boys? No, "They're very nice kids. Very quiet, soft-spoken. They both did well academically. Certainly not the kind of kids you would expect at all to be racing down a highway." If they wouldn't be expected to, something must have made them, right?
The parents then? nope, it's never the parent's fault in this day and age. Even though they were out of town. "Defence lawyer Edward Prutschi, who represents Mr. Ryazanov, said his client's parents were out of town at the time of the accident and are heading home to Toronto."
Perhaps the car then? "...Mr. Shrimpton said, adding that neither had a car at school." Damn, no history of driving a car at school, guess they weren't reckless.
Or.. wait... idea. These kids finally get out of school, feel like normal teenagers, unable to be hurt, and go joyriding. Just this once, right, since our parents are out of town. Not racing, just speeding. BAM...uh-oh... we've got a problem. Cops show up, and have to have a motive (everything has a motive). In the end, the game gets blamed.
Interesting thing to note here, no one ever says that they've played the game. No one said it was out of the package. They might've just bought it have no clue about game-play, yet that doesn't matter. Some lawyer will jump on this, make a big outcry about the horror of video games (of any genre) and politicians will all conspire and pass condolances. In the end, it'll be like every other suit, these "boys" will get sentenced, and life will go on.
Except for the man they killed. negligence, manslaughter, call it what you will, he's not coming back. That is the real travisty here, not that a game is being blamed, that's natural today, but a man died, due to stupidity. Let this be a lesson, not to game manufacturors, designers, or players. Not to lawyers, or politicians, but to parents, adults, and kids. When you do something stupid, someone might get hurt. Someone might get killed, and you have to live with it. These "boys" (legal adults, mind you) will forever have to live with the fact that they killed a man trying to earn a living, something they won't have to due to their parent's money. I hope they're happy, and I hope ya'll have fun fighting out how stupid it is to blame the game, missing the real point once again.
I once knew a guy (dunno where he is now, is why I say "once") who got out of a larceny (stealing a nice new laptop to pay off a debt) charge by "finding" kiddie porn on the drive.
Hmm... another "typical" knee-jerk reaction, huh? Word to the wise, not all republicans support this guy. In fact, I'm finding it hard to find people that *do*. Oh, and I wonder how you can call me a religious fundamentalist when you don't know me. Nor have I ever tried to push my morals on you. So please, when you judge idiots like this, don't take them for their party, take them for their own damn self.
I hate every story about the newest way to do X with technology, so if I seem bitter... now you know why.
First off, this isn't *just* using SMS, not every phone will be able to do it. You also need GPRS or 3G technology. Then, you have to take into account that SMS messages aren't instantaneous. In fact, I've done a test that took up to half an hour before (to a phone sitting next to me). Also, I've sent messages that never got delivered... I'd hate ordering an $80 ticket, and then not getting it.
Next, you're assuming the phone's display is accurate enough to display the bar code. I don't know 'bout you, but I've got friends with phone that have a bad display. Even new phones I've seen the displays go funky on. (No, I can't describe it, just loss of resolution, etc). Now, what's acceptable to human eyes may *not* work for a bar-code scanner.
As for the security side, how does this prevent fraud? They nevere say. In my mind, I think it'd be easy, as you could forward the message to all your friends, and each take a quarter of the game to watch. Or just hand off phones. What's that? The paper is easier to forge? Nope, all you have to do is take your existing knowledge of how to fake the barcode and then send it to your phone. In my mind this makes it *easier* to get more then one person per ticket, as you never have to be seen handing off the ticket. You can't be caught with proof of a forgery, as if anyone questions you, you could just delete it.
Not to mention the fact that you have to have your bank details logged with a website. Everyone that uses this service will be very vulnerable if that *one* site ever gets hacked. Phishing trip anyone? You could either just SMS random phone numbers, in hopes of getting someone to log into your site, or just target that site. Not hard at all.
Finally, to anyone who's used some web service, and had to pay a service fee, what will it cost? Hell, even ticketmaster has a surcharge on things you order completely online, and is one main reason I've stopped going to concerts. You've gotta factor in the cost of the message (either in your service plan, or extra) as well as the $5-$10 the event coordinator's are gonna charge to use this. All so you don't need a slip of paper?
When will people lerarn that digital does not equal security?! You want security, you hire guards, and take it off the internet. You want convienance, you gotta lose some security.
Now, I can't speak for everyone, but if he were impeached, and was told to leave as a punishment (side note, impeachment itself is not a problem, hell, Clinton was impeached, didn't leave, and still had followers) then I won't support him.
However, he did not completely take over legislation, et al. He had gotten courts to study the law beforehand, who found it legal. The main debate here, is not legality (in my mind) but stupidity. It was *stupid* not illegal of him to go behind FISA's back. Of course, IANAL, and perhaps the courts were wrong in their judgement, but, as I understand it, he *did* get permission first.
So, we get to do what we have the freedom to do in this country. File charges, or sue him. Because none of us know the whole story (and I severely doubt any of us will) we must put faith in the courts, and let them do their job. If the courts say it's legal, it's legal. If he acted unconstitutionally, fine, it's illegal.
Bottom line is, you can cry all you want (and I'm not saying I'm happy he's in power) but at the end of the day, you have to trust that justice will be served. I think if a court says it's unjust, and he continues it, there will be a lack of supporters in his camp. But again, let the courts decide, because no one that *can* give the whole story can, if you know what I mean. Certainly not in such an open forum as slashdot.
I don't know the law either, this is all in response to your second paragraph.
Because nothing he did would "undermine" the US government, this is not treason. Treason is defined as doing something against your government. If he had advocated the NSA to crack.mil sites, in order to know what his commanders were thinking, then tried to attempt a coup, in order to change our system of government, yes treason. However, "spying" on Americans is not treason. (This is not a political debate, this is a symantics one). If you wanted to wiretap your neighborhood, you won't be guilty of treason any more then he is. Now, again, if your motive is to take down the governement, I spoke too soon.
Take it or leave it, this isn't treason worthy. Does that mean I agree with it? No, FISA was set up for a reason. But by the same nature, I wouldn't want to see him brought up on false charges any more then I would any other person.
First, I'm not confidant enough in my spelling or grammar to pass 100%. I *know* I make mistakes, as does every speaker of every language, we're all human. Now, going just for content, and understanding the person speaking is different. That I'd pass, and I would fail at least 70% of the people I see playing. There's a reason I sit with all but guild/party chat off. I wish I was on my windows boot, I've got a screen shot of something to the effect of "kthx i lrn 1st aid l8r". Seriously, I think I'm going to *start* using this technique to weed out all the annoying 13 year olds.
Second, isn't Chine supposed to be the leading place for players? And don't they have their own servers? Pardon me for sounding crass (I've seen people even called racist for what I'm about to suggest) but, if they don't like how they're treated on one server, change. If they keep having bad experiences in America|Canada|, go somewhere where the majority will speak your language. I'm an Arabic major in school, and have been in rooms filled with native speakers who didn't like that I wasn't one. Fine... I left and studied elsewhere. To be quite frank, if you don't like something, and yet don't do anything about it your an idiot and should be treated as such. Flame me if you want, I'm not a racist, nor do I have anything against Chinese people in game (haven't seen one yet, that I know of, in fact), I just apply my approach to the real world in WoW just as much as real life.
Slashdot Mirror
What happened China? You used to be cool.
Interesting... now I do have to put a plug in for IU's tech support, who fixed both bug reports I submitted within hours of submission.
Yea, interestingly enough Indiana University's Webmail (new beta) does some work to combat this. They make it harder for the individual user to blindly click a redirect link. You can check out the feature list here.
As 2600 says... if you see something, say something.
Here I figured RockStar had paired with Nintendo, and come out with a new game where you shoot up the audiances that fall for the "Violence hurts children (ok, ok, only when it's real violence.... against them...)" line...
hmm.... idea...
And yes, your clarification above is both a much better definition, and something I'd agree with a lot more readily. Not that my one opinion matters that much, but still.
Having said that, I agree that things come in cycles. I'm not going to decry Bush for using tactics that Presidents in the past have. Many people in the comments above have already listed such Presidents, so I'm not going to. But, these are not new strategies, nor are they the worst we've seen. Look at the prison camps we had for Japanese Americans in WWII. The Communist witch hunt, and all the rest. We happen to be on an upswing, and as a reaction, I suspect that the next generation of voters will go the other way. Then, when the country hits another time of need, someone will step up, and we'll lose freedoms again.
Does it bug me? Yea, it does. Am I scared that life just will never be the same and we'll all die in thought-prison? No. Its silly to compare this to 1984 (as so many have already), because of the term of one president. Also, its silly to blame Bush. Remember, Echelon was started in Clinton's term.
Interestingly enough, it is trivial for an Analog Computer to pick out CAPCHA text. A professor at Indiana University is making some good progress in that department, this is his home page. So... no, CAPCHA text couldn't hide stuff, assuming an implementation of this. Yea, its not automated yet (or maybe is, I dunno, I only say an hour's talk about it), but if this could be, you'd need a better way to hide. My recomendation is to go back to the basics. Dial in to a server you know is good, and don't put it online. Then they'd have to dial-in themselves, ok, probably trivial to find it, but still. At least you know you can't spider to it.
Such as... The amount of people killed by rabid dogs with knives went up 300% in a week. (Assume there had been one before, and this week there were 3). Does that mean that rabid dogs with knives are a danger to society? No, it means ONE rabid dog with a knife happened to do something no other had done before.
1700 out of such a big population is insignificant. Especially when you consider that some of those could be related. You might tap my cell phone, AND home phone. In fact, it'd be rather stupid to tap only one. Now, if that'd be included in the same tap, I dunno, I'm not law enforcement.
But, the other big problem here is these are the COURT-ORDERED taps.... not the special ones by Bush. Also, it's INTERNATIONAL. Many people have started talking about "revolution" and the "values this [America] country was founded on". Wrong, this is everywhere, specifically Europe. And legal, as they're court ordered. That IS provided for in the Constitution, and is not the giving up of any liberty.
Come on, can we have some good discussion about, perhaps, HOW we could automate this more, and reduce the burdon on people? Maybe think about various tech aspects of this, not a knee-jerk "Bush 15 ev1lll!!!!11" reaction that seems so childish! (No, I don't like him, but I'm not going to automatically spit when I hear his name, that's reverse brainwashing, and its just as bad. Keep an open mind people).
rpm -e Communism
As usual, SOMEONE will find a reason to be offended, but it's a damn good joke, and I haven't met anyone who's been personally offended yet.
Now, how much you wanna bet the cost is going to be roughly that of all the componants?
Also, who's to say that this'll work? If it's all integrated, and a virus turns off one part, it's all off. I take great pride of my multiple layers of defense. You get rid of my hardware firewall, I have a software one. You get rid of that I also have multiple virus scanners. Top is all off with good backups, and the ability to kill my machine, strip it, clean it of dust, and completely rebuild in 4 hours, I'm not too worried.
Yea, but he paid with YOUR Paypal account...
For the record I've (unfortunatly) seen all of the above, and only like "Gone in 60 Seconds".
Guys... lets just not do the "but... how can you blame X" comments. They don't work. We can see that... guess I better break my own advice.
There is nothing linking the game to the accident, besides the theme of the game, and the kids being idiots. So what, it's about racing. So's a bunch of movies, and a big American past-time (NASCAR). If that were a NASCAR DVD, would it be blamed? Well, I suppose it's not in an "urban" setting. Ok, what about "Fast and the Furious", or it's sequel? "Gone in 60 Seconds"? I suppose they weren't specifically stealing the cars...
NEWS FLASH: TEENAGERS DO STUPID THINGS.
As a teen myself (for another month) I can say yes, that's a very fitting description. Now, these parents have some nice money (they were racing "luxary cars"), sent them to an exclusive high school (at 35 grand a year, more then I pay for out of state tuition!), and were OUT OF TOWN.
Now come on... you leave the kids at home, nice luxary car, and they go do crazy things like drive 130 kilometers per hour... oh, yea, that's only 80 miles per hour. Having played Need For Speed, I can tell you it is VERY easy to exceed that speed VERY quickly, in fact, 80 mph wouldn't win you even the first race. Hell, When I drive home, I average 85 mph, though the speed limit's only 75, and I get passed. Why? Because that's not such an unsafe speed, surely NOT racing. This is a little bit of joyriding, and the idiot driver didn't see a taxi. Now, someone is dead, and it's time to play the Blame Game.
Can we blame the boys? No, "They're very nice kids. Very quiet, soft-spoken. They both did well academically. Certainly not the kind of kids you would expect at all to be racing down a highway." If they wouldn't be expected to, something must have made them, right?
The parents then? nope, it's never the parent's fault in this day and age. Even though they were out of town. "Defence lawyer Edward Prutschi, who represents Mr. Ryazanov, said his client's parents were out of town at the time of the accident and are heading home to Toronto."
Perhaps the car then? "...Mr. Shrimpton said, adding that neither had a car at school." Damn, no history of driving a car at school, guess they weren't reckless.
Or.. wait... idea. These kids finally get out of school, feel like normal teenagers, unable to be hurt, and go joyriding. Just this once, right, since our parents are out of town. Not racing, just speeding. BAM...uh-oh... we've got a problem. Cops show up, and have to have a motive (everything has a motive). In the end, the game gets blamed.
Interesting thing to note here, no one ever says that they've played the game. No one said it was out of the package. They might've just bought it have no clue about game-play, yet that doesn't matter. Some lawyer will jump on this, make a big outcry about the horror of video games (of any genre) and politicians will all conspire and pass condolances. In the end, it'll be like every other suit, these "boys" will get sentenced, and life will go on.
Except for the man they killed. negligence, manslaughter, call it what you will, he's not coming back. That is the real travisty here, not that a game is being blamed, that's natural today, but a man died, due to stupidity. Let this be a lesson, not to game manufacturors, designers, or players. Not to lawyers, or politicians, but to parents, adults, and kids. When you do something stupid, someone might get hurt. Someone might get killed, and you have to live with it. These "boys" (legal adults, mind you) will forever have to live with the fact that they killed a man trying to earn a living, something they won't have to due to their parent's money. I hope they're happy, and I hope ya'll have fun fighting out how stupid it is to blame the game, missing the real point once again.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Khan.
I once knew a guy (dunno where he is now, is why I say "once") who got out of a larceny (stealing a nice new laptop to pay off a debt) charge by "finding" kiddie porn on the drive.
Hmm... another "typical" knee-jerk reaction, huh? Word to the wise, not all republicans support this guy. In fact, I'm finding it hard to find people that *do*. Oh, and I wonder how you can call me a religious fundamentalist when you don't know me. Nor have I ever tried to push my morals on you. So please, when you judge idiots like this, don't take them for their party, take them for their own damn self.
I don't know, I only plan on buying one bullet, and after I do he won't be asking for any new taxes.
Obligatory Simpsons Quote... Well, you all know it already. "Da, is fake major"
I hate every story about the newest way to do X with technology, so if I seem bitter... now you know why.
First off, this isn't *just* using SMS, not every phone will be able to do it. You also need GPRS or 3G technology. Then, you have to take into account that SMS messages aren't instantaneous. In fact, I've done a test that took up to half an hour before (to a phone sitting next to me). Also, I've sent messages that never got delivered... I'd hate ordering an $80 ticket, and then not getting it.
Next, you're assuming the phone's display is accurate enough to display the bar code. I don't know 'bout you, but I've got friends with phone that have a bad display. Even new phones I've seen the displays go funky on. (No, I can't describe it, just loss of resolution, etc). Now, what's acceptable to human eyes may *not* work for a bar-code scanner.
As for the security side, how does this prevent fraud? They nevere say. In my mind, I think it'd be easy, as you could forward the message to all your friends, and each take a quarter of the game to watch. Or just hand off phones. What's that? The paper is easier to forge? Nope, all you have to do is take your existing knowledge of how to fake the barcode and then send it to your phone. In my mind this makes it *easier* to get more then one person per ticket, as you never have to be seen handing off the ticket. You can't be caught with proof of a forgery, as if anyone questions you, you could just delete it.
Not to mention the fact that you have to have your bank details logged with a website. Everyone that uses this service will be very vulnerable if that *one* site ever gets hacked. Phishing trip anyone? You could either just SMS random phone numbers, in hopes of getting someone to log into your site, or just target that site. Not hard at all.
Finally, to anyone who's used some web service, and had to pay a service fee, what will it cost? Hell, even ticketmaster has a surcharge on things you order completely online, and is one main reason I've stopped going to concerts. You've gotta factor in the cost of the message (either in your service plan, or extra) as well as the $5-$10 the event coordinator's are gonna charge to use this. All so you don't need a slip of paper?
When will people lerarn that digital does not equal security?! You want security, you hire guards, and take it off the internet. You want convienance, you gotta lose some security.
Now, I can't speak for everyone, but if he were impeached, and was told to leave as a punishment (side note, impeachment itself is not a problem, hell, Clinton was impeached, didn't leave, and still had followers) then I won't support him.
However, he did not completely take over legislation, et al. He had gotten courts to study the law beforehand, who found it legal. The main debate here, is not legality (in my mind) but stupidity. It was *stupid* not illegal of him to go behind FISA's back. Of course, IANAL, and perhaps the courts were wrong in their judgement, but, as I understand it, he *did* get permission first.
So, we get to do what we have the freedom to do in this country. File charges, or sue him. Because none of us know the whole story (and I severely doubt any of us will) we must put faith in the courts, and let them do their job. If the courts say it's legal, it's legal. If he acted unconstitutionally, fine, it's illegal.
Bottom line is, you can cry all you want (and I'm not saying I'm happy he's in power) but at the end of the day, you have to trust that justice will be served. I think if a court says it's unjust, and he continues it, there will be a lack of supporters in his camp. But again, let the courts decide, because no one that *can* give the whole story can, if you know what I mean. Certainly not in such an open forum as slashdot.
I don't know the law either, this is all in response to your second paragraph.
Because nothing he did would "undermine" the US government, this is not treason. Treason is defined as doing something against your government. If he had advocated the NSA to crack .mil sites, in order to know what his commanders were thinking, then tried to attempt a coup, in order to change our system of government, yes treason. However, "spying" on Americans is not treason. (This is not a political debate, this is a symantics one). If you wanted to wiretap your neighborhood, you won't be guilty of treason any more then he is. Now, again, if your motive is to take down the governement, I spoke too soon.
Take it or leave it, this isn't treason worthy. Does that mean I agree with it? No, FISA was set up for a reason. But by the same nature, I wouldn't want to see him brought up on false charges any more then I would any other person.
First, I'm not confidant enough in my spelling or grammar to pass 100%. I *know* I make mistakes, as does every speaker of every language, we're all human. Now, going just for content, and understanding the person speaking is different. That I'd pass, and I would fail at least 70% of the people I see playing. There's a reason I sit with all but guild/party chat off. I wish I was on my windows boot, I've got a screen shot of something to the effect of "kthx i lrn 1st aid l8r". Seriously, I think I'm going to *start* using this technique to weed out all the annoying 13 year olds.
Second, isn't Chine supposed to be the leading place for players? And don't they have their own servers? Pardon me for sounding crass (I've seen people even called racist for what I'm about to suggest) but, if they don't like how they're treated on one server, change. If they keep having bad experiences in America|Canada|, go somewhere where the majority will speak your language. I'm an Arabic major in school, and have been in rooms filled with native speakers who didn't like that I wasn't one. Fine... I left and studied elsewhere. To be quite frank, if you don't like something, and yet don't do anything about it your an idiot and should be treated as such. Flame me if you want, I'm not a racist, nor do I have anything against Chinese people in game (haven't seen one yet, that I know of, in fact), I just apply my approach to the real world in WoW just as much as real life.
Why does Antartica have a TLD?
Well, that answers that question... note to self, never write any self-negating articles.