I can only assume you somehow forgot about all the idiots that broke their flat screen TVs by trying to pitch and swing as hard as they good in Wii Sports baseball.
The main reasons you can't do true 1:1 action have already been laid out and are pretty obvious: 1) No physical feedback, other than maybe a vibration. There is no known technology that could actually give true force feedback for something like the WiiMote
2) By having the controls generalized, you don't actually have to be facing the TV straight on, which helps when you have 4 people playing. Also, in a confined space, it keeps people from whacking each other in multi-player.
3) 1:1 action would make it impossible for the physically infirm, or just physically clutzy to enjoy playing. Part of the point of Wii design was to simplify video games for new players, as opposed to something like the potentially intimidating PlayStation controller (10 buttons plus a control pad and two analog sticks which also double as buttons, and some buttons are pressure senstive)
4) 1:1 action would also be much more physically tiring and could eventually lead to a lot of physical ailments like tendonitis or joint injuries (such as the Wii-itis reportedly caused by Wii Sports Tennis not long after release). Since there isn't full weight resistance on the end of your arm, you can move your arm too quickly and are more likely to cause injuries.
5) To get perfect 1:1 action would likely have increased the cost of the system too much. There are a few games that have gotten pretty close to 1:1 action, but generally in puzzle solving situations, not in fast paced action; a good example would be Zack and Wiki
I think the point that most consumers would agree on is that consumer rights shouldn't be taken away in some attempt to protect copyright holders that will inevitably be unsuccessful. For example, here in the U.S. under fair use doctrine, if I purchase music in some format, I should be able to transfer it to any other format of my choice for personal use, such as ripping a CD to MP3s. Various DRM schemes have been tried to prevent this in the past, but they don't work, and only serve to frustrate consumers, especially when they actually do something really bad like the Sony Rootkit fiasco.
If you alienate the consumers too much, you're going to see a larger drop in sales than you would have ever seen from piracy, and you will in fact drive consumers to find pirated versions that they can use as they please. There will always be someone who will crack every DRM and copy protection scheme so you're better off just leaving everything open. DRM'd CDs are especially stupid - you can always just run the output into an input line and directly record the audio.
For the music industry, they really just need to look at changing their business model. I had the idea years ago for having stores where people can go in, select the singles they want, and the store will burn/press a CD for them (from high quality masters), with custom labeling and liner notes. You could charge a $1-2 a track plus extra for printing and it would probably do pretty well. It might not do as well now that CD burners are standard hardware, but people might like that they can basically make custom mixes without having to buy the stuff off of iTunes and high-quality labels could be a plus.
For the movie industry, if they want to increase DVD sales, they should do 2 things: 1) Stop releasing 2 or 3 versions of the same DVD within a year of release. I've actually stopped buying DVDs when they first come out, because I fully expect a special edition or something similar to come out within 12 months. 2) Stop remaking movies and come up with something original and worth watching for once; if you remake a classic film, you can never live up to the classic, and if you remake a film that was already known for being bad, the remake will likely never be any good. There are a few exceptions to this rule (such as 3:10 to Yuma), but in general, remakes just cause disgust in film viewers when they hear about them, especially when the original is less than 20 years old.
For software, it's a bit trickier. There are certain people who will always steal software and find a way around DRM, so it's not really worthwhile to pile on a ton of DRM. You're better off following the newer model that is starting to show up: the illegal copy will still work, but you can't get any patches or updates and it will likely block online play for games. The problem I usually have with a lot of Windows software (especially games) is that I really want to see how well it run on my system before I set down $50 for it; I know a console game will work on my system, but PC games are unpredictable based on hardware configuration, and demos are scarce or require massive downloads. There are some online tools to help with this now, like http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/, but that doesn't cover all titles. While this is technically the old model, I'd suggest software publishers offer demo versions for $5-10 (or more for more expensive software) in stores, and include a voucher in the demo version worth the price of the demo version towards the purchase of the full version.
Actually, they usually are, at least in relation to anything that could apply to the litigation.
A while back we got a company wide e-mail that there was pending litigation for a patent between us and a competitor (competitor filed the suit) and that we were not to delete any e-mails or documents or files that related to the design, development, sales and marketing of our product or to products of the competitor that were similar to it.
I'm actually a Scrabulous user myself (although not through Facebook).
The board in the application looks identical to an actual Scrabble board as I recall. They also allow you to play using either The Word List (the official Scrabble tournament word list in the US, Canada, Israel and Thailand) or the international list (referred to as SOWPODS), have options for letting the system prevent bad words, or let player's challenge bad words, and time limits always enforced, despite what the article says. The only bad thing is that sometimes it gets a little laggy due to it's popularity, so you may hit Submit for your word and watch another 30 seconds tick off your clock.
Hasbro used to have a scrabble game available on www.games.com but it has since disappeared, except for a Scrabble based game called Scrabble Blast (I believe the site was sold to AOL games, as all of the boardgames that used to be on it, including monopoly and boggle have vanished). Their version was buggy, hadn't been updated in years, didn't use either of the tournament level word lists, didn't have time limits available (so someone losing could just sit on their turn - or if they were disconnected you were stuck), it frequently crashed and overall drove players away from the game.
They should just offer the guys in India a reasonable sum for the code, or maybe even get them development jobs and back off - it will be much better for PR than trying to shut the site down.
From the TSA webpage, it does apply to some Lithium-Ion batteries.
Batteries up to 8-grams "equivalent lithium content" installed in devices or as spares are allowed. For Lithium-ion batteries between 8 and 25 grams aggregate lithium equivalent content are also allowed, but you can only have 2 total (both spare and installed).
Lithium Metal batteries just have tighter restrictions.
As for the reasons behind this (since some apparantly didn't read TFA)- it sounds like there was a cargo hold fire on one plane caused by lithium batteries and apparently the current fire control systems in planes can't handle lithium fires.
It could also be that while they fired him to appease Eidos, they also offered him a substantial severance package as long as he stays quiet about what actually went down.
The best explanation I've seen for how to pronounce the Japanese R is as follows:
1) Place the tip of your tounge against your palate just above your upper teeth - this is the same position it takes for an L or D sound in English 2) Make an R sound
I've heard of it as being described like the Spanish R but without a trill.
In any case, the Japanese know what you mean if you pronounce your R's the English way. Ryu is a single mora in Japanese, so in English pronounciation its like Roo with a little 'ee' sound after the R. A phoenetic spelling might be ReeOO, but the OO sound isn't actually accented, I'm just deemphasizing the 'ee'.
I'll definitely second Mail Order Monsters and Archon. Both could benefit from a few gameplay tweaks and new graphics and sounds, but the core concepts of both games were pretty solid, if somewhat simplistic by today's standards. Also, now that you don't need a new 5.25" floppy to save your monster on, Mail Order Monsters seems like it would be a fairly simple project to pull off. EA published the original, but I don't know if they still have the rights or not.
On a side note, a remake of Archon needs some better way to handle the Phoenix vs Shapeshifter fight - that one usually comes down to whose hands cramp up first.
The problem isn't that it's bad - I've had to use it a bit at work. The problem is that there's no compelling reason for most users of WinXP to upgrade, unless their XP computer completely dies. For users of Win98 you eventually had to upgrade because new software couldn't run on 98, and there were advantages in changing from FAT32 to NTFS (ex: Win 98 couldn't support volumes over 127 GB and FAT32 couldn't handle files of 4GB or more).
Until there's another huge leap in hardware that can't be fully utilized by XP, or there are a bunch of really great killer apps, XP users aren't going to upgrade, especially in the business world; the question is what sort of technology will this be - larger multi-core processors or some new storage technology would be my guess. The only reason we're getting upgraded at my office soon is because we develop software and plan on supporting Vista in our next release.
Well the $$ version of Rayman Raving Rabids has annoying animations you have to watch before and after every level, whether you complete it successfully or not (I'm guessing those are in this version as well); the ads can't be much more annoying than those.
The vehicles constructed to meet the PZEV requirements are called Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (SULEVs). Various techniques are used to reduce pollution in these vehicles. In order to qualify as a PZEV, a vehicle must meet the SULEV standard and, in addition, have zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system plus an extended (15-year/150,000-mile) warranty on its emission-control components, which incidentally covers the propulsion electrical components of a hybrid electric vehicle.
Basically it's a compromise for car manufacturers before they have to go to true zero emission vehicles, which are fully electric for hydrogen fuel cell powered.
Actually, considering that PS3 has been out less than half the time of the Xbox360, I would expect it to sell more, because most people that would want one of those systems would likely already have an Xbox360.
The main reason PS3 sales are sluggish (and the reason I haven't even looked at buying one) is that most households in the US don't have an HDTV, and a PS3 really isn't worth the cost if you don't already have one. Considering that raises the minimum spending to enjoy the system to somewhere in the range of $1500 (System, Games, TV, cables, etc). While XBox360 certainly benefits from having HDTV, it's not as much of a requirement to enjoy the full feature set.
There's a big difference between filming a movie (blatantly illegal) and a joking threat. I agree with you that 5 year olds charged with sexual assault, and I suspect that this woman will get a fairly small penalty, or will likely get a plea for a lesser offense, but that doesn't preclude the managers from calling police about her committing a crime in their theater. The manager doesn't have the authority to detain her, investigate the quantity of movie she has recorded, etc; the police do have that authority.
I think that most non-geeks probably know that recording a film is not allowed. Film and music piracy have both been in the news for the last few years, it's at the beginning of every home video (VHS and DVD) that you can't make copies, and the MPAA ran an ad campaign for a fairly long time both on television and in theaters (along with the previews).
In any case, ignorance of a law doesn't exonerate you of the crime.
If all citizens were allowed to carry guns on a plane 911 would not have happened.
While this is off-topic, I believe the sentence you were looking for was:
"If all cockpit doors were required to be locked during flight, 9/11 would not have happened"
Prior to 9/11, cockpit doors were not required to be locked during flight, which made forcing your way into the cockpit relatively simple. If guns had been allowed, then the hijackers definitely would have had them, while it's doubtful that more than a handful of passengers would have had them. Considering they just had box-cutters, the passengers and crew should have just taken the risk of fighting back immediately instead of assuming they were just going to make the plane land somewhere else.
I've never really understood the "if everyone had guns" argument. Mutually Assured Destruction works for nukes because the destruction is pretty much assured, which is not true for handguns. Instead we'll just end up with people pulling guns for every minor slight against them or we'll have a lot of innocent bystanders being shot by vigilantes trying to take down a lone criminal.
The problem with your argument is that the theater manager or whoever reported to the manager that she was recording the movie doesn't know how much she recorded or for what purpose, and it's not his job to find that out; that's the job of the police and the courts. They give you more than enough warnings that recording devices aren't allowed, so if you use one during the movie, you should expect consequences.
If she really wanted to "promote" the film to her little brother, she should have just brought him to the movie - a heck of a lot less hassle.
While the 2nd season and first half the 3rd season caused a ratings drop (mostly due to slow pacing, too much focus on certain characters, etc) the 2nd half of the 3rd season was much improved and the season finale generally got rave reviews. Having a game out next year might not be bad if they continue the 4th season like the second have the 3rd season.
What will hurt them is if the game is just total crap, like Enter the Matrix.
While there isn't Mario Golf yet, check out Super Swing Golf. The mechanics in it are pretty good (although it takes a while to figure out exactly how they want you to swing the wii-mote), and it has the same sort of cartoony style that a Mario Golf game would have.
I'm also an owner of Madden, and the controls are pretty cool. I'm tempted to get the 08 version when it comes out because they have apparantly cleaned up some of the problems from the 07 version, mainly that audibles are being made easier, and the only way to switch players on defense before the snap in 07 was to point and click, where as there is now a cycle button like the other versions.
I've used mine just about every night in the last 3 weeks, mostly for Wii Sports (yes, it still hasn't lost its appeal even after 6 months), since I can just turn it on, play a few games and then turn it off again. I have plenty of games for PS2 and X-Box I could work on finishing, but I love being able to just turn it on, play for 20 minutes and turn it off.
Sure there have a been a couple of stretches where I didn't use it much for a while, usually because I had a new PS2 game or something, but I always come back to it later.
I can't think of any reason for any Wii to be getting dusty, especially since RE4 was just released, unless of course you're a student or unemployed so you have more than 2-3 hours of free time a day.
Sure Wii has had a lot of mini-game type stuff released for it, but that's because its fits the casual gamer target audience. You could just as easily argue that the XBox360 has too many FPS games on it and are there really more worthy titles out for the PS3 at this point as compared to the Wii? Smash Bros and Mario Galaxy alone should be worth hanging onto your Wii for. 3rd party support is definately coming - it's just taking a while since a lot of developers anticipated the sales of PS3 and Wii to be switched and they have to figure out what to do with the new controllers.
I think a lot of hardcore gamers and PS3/XBox fanboys fail to realize that part of the reason the Wii is selling so well compared to those is because a Wii is cheaper than both systems, works on a standard TV, and just about anyone can pick up the games and play. Would I like a PS3 eventually? Maybe, but it would cost me about $1500 to make it worthwhile even after the price drop because I, like most households in the US, don't have an HDTV yet, and other expenses have to take priority. No point in paying for a system with all those fancy graphics if I can only view them at 480i.
Just an aside to anyone whining about the presentation this year being about business - that's what E3 is now. If you're looking for a presentation aimed at hardcore gamers, wait until TGS.
Also, I believe that part of what they are going for here is the cooling effect provided by the heat engine. While a Thermoelectric effect provides electricity, it doesn't do so as part of a heat sink.
Also, I think the "renewable" reference refers to the fact that this could potentially replace solar electric cells, to convert solar energy into electricity, if they can make it efficient enough or cheap enough.
he was using a free service that the coffee shop was willingly providing (and advertising!) as a free service for anyone who wanted it! The coffee shop was providing the wifi access for free to customers, which is an important distinction.
The closest analogy (that no one has used yet) would be a hotel that advertises a free fitness center, or heated pool or HBO. I can't just come in and use those services off of the the street, I have to pay for a room (same for the hotels free wi-fi). Likewise, when a restaurant or coffee shop advertises free wi-fi, even if the sign doesn't state it, it's implied that its free wi-fi for paying customers. If the people using the wi-fi don't make purchases, then there is no reason to supply it.
While its true those businesses could apply some sort of access scheme, its usually too much of a hassle for most customers if you make them enter some sort of encryption key and frankly, a lot of laptop users probably don't know how. Hotels often have one of those log-in screens where you choose the free access and get an IP, but I would guess that the service providers for that functionality are often too expensive for a small business to purchase.
It should also be pointed out that teachers generally don't get to spend the days that students have off of school as vacation. Many of those days are spent as seminar days for the teachers, and most teachers also have to take continuing education courses during those summer months in order to keep their licenses.
Link's Awakening is a good example, although it wasn't actually in another kingdom of the same world either (I'll leave out the spoiler).
I think I'd really like to see something that includes Hyrule, but as just a small section of the much larger world with other kingdoms. I believe that in the TP manual they mention Hyrule is surrounded by mountains and desert, but they've changed the exact geography in every game so far, so they could easily get rid of that natural impasse.
Two more annoying possibilties -
1) Heavy breathers who have their mike threshold way to low
2) People that don't use push to talk and are using speakers and a mike instead of a headset.
Slashdot Mirror
I can only assume you somehow forgot about all the idiots that broke their flat screen TVs by trying to pitch and swing as hard as they good in Wii Sports baseball.
The main reasons you can't do true 1:1 action have already been laid out and are pretty obvious:
1) No physical feedback, other than maybe a vibration. There is no known technology that could actually give true force feedback for something like the WiiMote
2) By having the controls generalized, you don't actually have to be facing the TV straight on, which helps when you have 4 people playing. Also, in a confined space, it keeps people from whacking each other in multi-player.
3) 1:1 action would make it impossible for the physically infirm, or just physically clutzy to enjoy playing. Part of the point of Wii design was to simplify video games for new players, as opposed to something like the potentially intimidating PlayStation controller (10 buttons plus a control pad and two analog sticks which also double as buttons, and some buttons are pressure senstive)
4) 1:1 action would also be much more physically tiring and could eventually lead to a lot of physical ailments like tendonitis or joint injuries (such as the Wii-itis reportedly caused by Wii Sports Tennis not long after release). Since there isn't full weight resistance on the end of your arm, you can move your arm too quickly and are more likely to cause injuries.
5) To get perfect 1:1 action would likely have increased the cost of the system too much.
There are a few games that have gotten pretty close to 1:1 action, but generally in puzzle solving situations, not in fast paced action; a good example would be Zack and Wiki
I think the point that most consumers would agree on is that consumer rights shouldn't be taken away in some attempt to protect copyright holders that will inevitably be unsuccessful. For example, here in the U.S. under fair use doctrine, if I purchase music in some format, I should be able to transfer it to any other format of my choice for personal use, such as ripping a CD to MP3s. Various DRM schemes have been tried to prevent this in the past, but they don't work, and only serve to frustrate consumers, especially when they actually do something really bad like the Sony Rootkit fiasco.
If you alienate the consumers too much, you're going to see a larger drop in sales than you would have ever seen from piracy, and you will in fact drive consumers to find pirated versions that they can use as they please. There will always be someone who will crack every DRM and copy protection scheme so you're better off just leaving everything open. DRM'd CDs are especially stupid - you can always just run the output into an input line and directly record the audio.
For the music industry, they really just need to look at changing their business model. I had the idea years ago for having stores where people can go in, select the singles they want, and the store will burn/press a CD for them (from high quality masters), with custom labeling and liner notes. You could charge a $1-2 a track plus extra for printing and it would probably do pretty well. It might not do as well now that CD burners are standard hardware, but people might like that they can basically make custom mixes without having to buy the stuff off of iTunes and high-quality labels could be a plus.
For the movie industry, if they want to increase DVD sales, they should do 2 things: 1) Stop releasing 2 or 3 versions of the same DVD within a year of release. I've actually stopped buying DVDs when they first come out, because I fully expect a special edition or something similar to come out within 12 months. 2) Stop remaking movies and come up with something original and worth watching for once; if you remake a classic film, you can never live up to the classic, and if you remake a film that was already known for being bad, the remake will likely never be any good. There are a few exceptions to this rule (such as 3:10 to Yuma), but in general, remakes just cause disgust in film viewers when they hear about them, especially when the original is less than 20 years old.
For software, it's a bit trickier. There are certain people who will always steal software and find a way around DRM, so it's not really worthwhile to pile on a ton of DRM. You're better off following the newer model that is starting to show up: the illegal copy will still work, but you can't get any patches or updates and it will likely block online play for games. The problem I usually have with a lot of Windows software (especially games) is that I really want to see how well it run on my system before I set down $50 for it; I know a console game will work on my system, but PC games are unpredictable based on hardware configuration, and demos are scarce or require massive downloads. There are some online tools to help with this now, like http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/, but that doesn't cover all titles. While this is technically the old model, I'd suggest software publishers offer demo versions for $5-10 (or more for more expensive software) in stores, and include a voucher in the demo version worth the price of the demo version towards the purchase of the full version.
Actually, they usually are, at least in relation to anything that could apply to the litigation.
A while back we got a company wide e-mail that there was pending litigation for a patent between us and a competitor (competitor filed the suit) and that we were not to delete any e-mails or documents or files that related to the design, development, sales and marketing of our product or to products of the competitor that were similar to it.
I'm actually a Scrabulous user myself (although not through Facebook).
The board in the application looks identical to an actual Scrabble board as I recall. They also allow you to play using either The Word List (the official Scrabble tournament word list in the US, Canada, Israel and Thailand) or the international list (referred to as SOWPODS), have options for letting the system prevent bad words, or let player's challenge bad words, and time limits always enforced, despite what the article says. The only bad thing is that sometimes it gets a little laggy due to it's popularity, so you may hit Submit for your word and watch another 30 seconds tick off your clock.
Hasbro used to have a scrabble game available on www.games.com but it has since disappeared, except for a Scrabble based game called Scrabble Blast (I believe the site was sold to AOL games, as all of the boardgames that used to be on it, including monopoly and boggle have vanished). Their version was buggy, hadn't been updated in years, didn't use either of the tournament level word lists, didn't have time limits available (so someone losing could just sit on their turn - or if they were disconnected you were stuck), it frequently crashed and overall drove players away from the game.
They should just offer the guys in India a reasonable sum for the code, or maybe even get them development jobs and back off - it will be much better for PR than trying to shut the site down.
I believe you could still reincarnate him, but he might come back as a kobold if you do that.
From the TSA webpage, it does apply to some Lithium-Ion batteries.
Batteries up to 8-grams "equivalent lithium content" installed in devices or as spares are allowed. For Lithium-ion batteries between 8 and 25 grams aggregate lithium equivalent content are also allowed, but you can only have 2 total (both spare and installed).
Lithium Metal batteries just have tighter restrictions.
As for the reasons behind this (since some apparantly didn't read TFA)- it sounds like there was a cargo hold fire on one plane caused by lithium batteries and apparently the current fire control systems in planes can't handle lithium fires.
It could also be that while they fired him to appease Eidos, they also offered him a substantial severance package as long as he stays quiet about what actually went down.
The best explanation I've seen for how to pronounce the Japanese R is as follows:
1) Place the tip of your tounge against your palate just above your upper teeth - this is the same position it takes for an L or D sound in English
2) Make an R sound
I've heard of it as being described like the Spanish R but without a trill.
In any case, the Japanese know what you mean if you pronounce your R's the English way. Ryu is a single mora in Japanese, so in English pronounciation its like Roo with a little 'ee' sound after the R. A phoenetic spelling might be ReeOO, but the OO sound isn't actually accented, I'm just deemphasizing the 'ee'.
I'll definitely second Mail Order Monsters and Archon. Both could benefit from a few gameplay tweaks and new graphics and sounds, but the core concepts of both games were pretty solid, if somewhat simplistic by today's standards. Also, now that you don't need a new 5.25" floppy to save your monster on, Mail Order Monsters seems like it would be a fairly simple project to pull off. EA published the original, but I don't know if they still have the rights or not.
On a side note, a remake of Archon needs some better way to handle the Phoenix vs Shapeshifter fight - that one usually comes down to whose hands cramp up first.
The problem isn't that it's bad - I've had to use it a bit at work. The problem is that there's no compelling reason for most users of WinXP to upgrade, unless their XP computer completely dies. For users of Win98 you eventually had to upgrade because new software couldn't run on 98, and there were advantages in changing from FAT32 to NTFS (ex: Win 98 couldn't support volumes over 127 GB and FAT32 couldn't handle files of 4GB or more).
Until there's another huge leap in hardware that can't be fully utilized by XP, or there are a bunch of really great killer apps, XP users aren't going to upgrade, especially in the business world; the question is what sort of technology will this be - larger multi-core processors or some new storage technology would be my guess. The only reason we're getting upgraded at my office soon is because we develop software and plan on supporting Vista in our next release.
Well the $$ version of Rayman Raving Rabids has annoying animations you have to watch before and after every level, whether you complete it successfully or not (I'm guessing those are in this version as well); the ads can't be much more annoying than those.
Actually, considering that PS3 has been out less than half the time of the Xbox360, I would expect it to sell more, because most people that would want one of those systems would likely already have an Xbox360.
The main reason PS3 sales are sluggish (and the reason I haven't even looked at buying one) is that most households in the US don't have an HDTV, and a PS3 really isn't worth the cost if you don't already have one. Considering that raises the minimum spending to enjoy the system to somewhere in the range of $1500 (System, Games, TV, cables, etc). While XBox360 certainly benefits from having HDTV, it's not as much of a requirement to enjoy the full feature set.
There's a big difference between filming a movie (blatantly illegal) and a joking threat. I agree with you that 5 year olds charged with sexual assault, and I suspect that this woman will get a fairly small penalty, or will likely get a plea for a lesser offense, but that doesn't preclude the managers from calling police about her committing a crime in their theater. The manager doesn't have the authority to detain her, investigate the quantity of movie she has recorded, etc; the police do have that authority.
I think that most non-geeks probably know that recording a film is not allowed. Film and music piracy have both been in the news for the last few years, it's at the beginning of every home video (VHS and DVD) that you can't make copies, and the MPAA ran an ad campaign for a fairly long time both on television and in theaters (along with the previews).
In any case, ignorance of a law doesn't exonerate you of the crime.
If all citizens were allowed to carry guns on a plane 911 would not have happened. While this is off-topic, I believe the sentence you were looking for was: "If all cockpit doors were required to be locked during flight, 9/11 would not have happened" Prior to 9/11, cockpit doors were not required to be locked during flight, which made forcing your way into the cockpit relatively simple. If guns had been allowed, then the hijackers definitely would have had them, while it's doubtful that more than a handful of passengers would have had them. Considering they just had box-cutters, the passengers and crew should have just taken the risk of fighting back immediately instead of assuming they were just going to make the plane land somewhere else. I've never really understood the "if everyone had guns" argument. Mutually Assured Destruction works for nukes because the destruction is pretty much assured, which is not true for handguns. Instead we'll just end up with people pulling guns for every minor slight against them or we'll have a lot of innocent bystanders being shot by vigilantes trying to take down a lone criminal.
The problem with your argument is that the theater manager or whoever reported to the manager that she was recording the movie doesn't know how much she recorded or for what purpose, and it's not his job to find that out; that's the job of the police and the courts. They give you more than enough warnings that recording devices aren't allowed, so if you use one during the movie, you should expect consequences. If she really wanted to "promote" the film to her little brother, she should have just brought him to the movie - a heck of a lot less hassle.
While the 2nd season and first half the 3rd season caused a ratings drop (mostly due to slow pacing, too much focus on certain characters, etc) the 2nd half of the 3rd season was much improved and the season finale generally got rave reviews. Having a game out next year might not be bad if they continue the 4th season like the second have the 3rd season. What will hurt them is if the game is just total crap, like Enter the Matrix.
While there isn't Mario Golf yet, check out Super Swing Golf. The mechanics in it are pretty good (although it takes a while to figure out exactly how they want you to swing the wii-mote), and it has the same sort of cartoony style that a Mario Golf game would have. I'm also an owner of Madden, and the controls are pretty cool. I'm tempted to get the 08 version when it comes out because they have apparantly cleaned up some of the problems from the 07 version, mainly that audibles are being made easier, and the only way to switch players on defense before the snap in 07 was to point and click, where as there is now a cycle button like the other versions.
I've used mine just about every night in the last 3 weeks, mostly for Wii Sports (yes, it still hasn't lost its appeal even after 6 months), since I can just turn it on, play a few games and then turn it off again. I have plenty of games for PS2 and X-Box I could work on finishing, but I love being able to just turn it on, play for 20 minutes and turn it off. Sure there have a been a couple of stretches where I didn't use it much for a while, usually because I had a new PS2 game or something, but I always come back to it later. I can't think of any reason for any Wii to be getting dusty, especially since RE4 was just released, unless of course you're a student or unemployed so you have more than 2-3 hours of free time a day. Sure Wii has had a lot of mini-game type stuff released for it, but that's because its fits the casual gamer target audience. You could just as easily argue that the XBox360 has too many FPS games on it and are there really more worthy titles out for the PS3 at this point as compared to the Wii? Smash Bros and Mario Galaxy alone should be worth hanging onto your Wii for. 3rd party support is definately coming - it's just taking a while since a lot of developers anticipated the sales of PS3 and Wii to be switched and they have to figure out what to do with the new controllers. I think a lot of hardcore gamers and PS3/XBox fanboys fail to realize that part of the reason the Wii is selling so well compared to those is because a Wii is cheaper than both systems, works on a standard TV, and just about anyone can pick up the games and play. Would I like a PS3 eventually? Maybe, but it would cost me about $1500 to make it worthwhile even after the price drop because I, like most households in the US, don't have an HDTV yet, and other expenses have to take priority. No point in paying for a system with all those fancy graphics if I can only view them at 480i. Just an aside to anyone whining about the presentation this year being about business - that's what E3 is now. If you're looking for a presentation aimed at hardcore gamers, wait until TGS.
Also, I believe that part of what they are going for here is the cooling effect provided by the heat engine. While a Thermoelectric effect provides electricity, it doesn't do so as part of a heat sink. Also, I think the "renewable" reference refers to the fact that this could potentially replace solar electric cells, to convert solar energy into electricity, if they can make it efficient enough or cheap enough.
It should also be pointed out that teachers generally don't get to spend the days that students have off of school as vacation. Many of those days are spent as seminar days for the teachers, and most teachers also have to take continuing education courses during those summer months in order to keep their licenses.
Link's Awakening is a good example, although it wasn't actually in another kingdom of the same world either (I'll leave out the spoiler).
I think I'd really like to see something that includes Hyrule, but as just a small section of the much larger world with other kingdoms. I believe that in the TP manual they mention Hyrule is surrounded by mountains and desert, but they've changed the exact geography in every game so far, so they could easily get rid of that natural impasse.
Two more annoying possibilties - 1) Heavy breathers who have their mike threshold way to low 2) People that don't use push to talk and are using speakers and a mike instead of a headset.