LadyCrimson

Watching the Red Sox implode some more. Which makes me cry a little and reach for the beef jerky. Oh well. I had a feeling it wouldn't go well with all those changes and DL's and everything at once. Maybe it's the Orioles time to shine, now. Could be interesting!

Elder Scrolls MMO "sounds like just another fantasy MMO" http://kotaku.com/59...her-fantasy-mmo Not that this surprises me. I wouldn't be very interested anyway, since I'm not an MMO person these days, but if true, it's a shame they seemingly couldn't figure out a way to do something more interesting with this instead of same ol' same ol'. (edit)Still, just a preview. Could sound better later.

I think the circumstances of what constitutes piracy (vs fair use) has definitely become too large, and yes that's largely because of sue-happy, profit-mongering companies. Avatars, or screen captures on a forum/blog etc., in my mind, should be "fair use." If anything, that's like free advertising. "What's that screenshot from?" "Diablo3." "Cool, looks interesting, might check it out." But illegally (not paying for it) DL'ing Photoshop so you can use it to edit photos ... you're using that program to benefit you, your life, your hobby, even if you're not making a monetary profit. You're using the service, so to speak, of Photoshop's capabilities, without paying for it. To me that's like needing a screwdriver for your carpentry, not knowing how/not having the facilities to make one yourself, and then being outraged that you may have to pay (a reasonable amount) to get one ready-made. Gaming, same thing. The difference there is the service/use benefit is harder to define, because "fun" is so subjective. Agreed. If piracy became a situation where - in regards to digital piracy - it was easily discovered that "you" were doing it and/or the punishment for it was very affecting in some way, then I think you'd find the incidence of such would drop dramatically. It wouldn't go away...never does imo...but it would be less rampant. The relative anonymity of the internet/file sharing is one reason (imo) that it has exploded into such an issue now. Again...it's not like walking into a store, taking the gamebox off the shelf, and trying to walk out again. Digital piracy has removed a lot of the consequence risk from pirating, so if you brought it back, I think the results would end up implying the latter (wanting stuff can't afford).

Guess I'd need a bigger PSU then. More power, yaaarrrr. I wonder if they ran Metro2033 with all the DX11 stuff on. Not seeing a huge improvement (or any improvement really) vs. my 590 in that game. I'd still want it if I could justify the price at the moment, tho. Which I can't. Heh

I miss Arnold the "actor." I'd even go see him play a wrinkled, aged Terminator. The action hero actors of today are not nearly as much fun.

@MacMichael Oh yeah, when I was a kid, we'd all (adults and kids alike) make copies of our records on audio tape and hand them out to friends. Or lend books. As tech advanced I'd scan yearbook photos to post on a blog about my highschool years or whatever without making an attempt to contact the photographer. Or other minor and/or youth related infractions. Interpretation of law is often a flexible thing, in the minds of us humans. Especially since laws are often rather arbitrary, since you have to pick a line in the sand to "enforce" and what gets picked at any given time...well, of course not everyone is going to agree/believe it's the correct line.

I figured the biggest problem with Stallone's Dredd was the terrible over acting. But yeah, not much time was spent on knowing what went on in Dredd's head. I watched a Korean action film called War of Arrows. I'm not quite sure what to think....on the one hand, good action and cinematography, once those elements started to take off. But the story felt typical (family threatened, revenge), not to mention sparse, so I didn't feel much emotion re: the ending. Still, I enjoyed it, particularly for the idea that most of the combat action was based around the bow and arrow, rather than mystical, floating martial arts or swordsmanship. They even showed the hero retrieving his arrows a lot of the time - not that that prevented the arrow-supply from being a bit magical at times..but I appreciated the effort anyway. Heh

The issue/problem is that in terms of intellectual property rights, people never owned those things in the first place. We (usually) didn't own the music, or the TV show, or the game, regardless of whether we had a physical product. The "ownership" was/is an illusion. We owned the plastic the music was pressed into and we purchased the right to play it on a record player. We purchased the right to break the plastic disc in disgust if we hated the music or flush a book down a toilet if the words on the paper offended us. Taking away the physical doesn't alter the fact we (didn't always) own the rights to do whatever we pleased (copy/redistribute) with the conceptual product that was on that piece of plastic. One could always pirate stuff, of course. On a street corner in certain parts of town for example. I don't view piracy on the internet as being any different...it's just a much grander/huger scale, and instead of having to walk around seedy parts of town trying to find an illegal seller, without getting arrested, and paying even $5 to the pirate per item, you sit in your living room and pay nothing but internet access fees. Easier and more tempting all the time, which breeds more and more emotional justifications for doing it. Edit: please note I'm not arguing whether the legal notion of intellectual copyright is "right" or "wrong" in the first place....

Felt terrible again, slept most of the day. I think my Spring/summer allergies are starting to kick in, especially from the maples. Feels like I have a stuffy head cold/flu half the time.

Roman era, Alexander, Greece....basically any of those older "empire" periods. Medieval, mostly for their castle tactics and designs. US Civil War. Other civil wars are interesting too. Feudal Japan. ...largely, military history here as well. The reasons, the tactics, structures, weapons and sometimes the social culture/psychology that developed because of them. Artistic culture can be intriguing as well, but as a whole doesn't tend to interest me much.

Sylvestor Stallone week. I watched Judge Dredd, just to remind myself of how terrible it is. One complaint about the film (re: differing from comic) is about how he takes off his helmet for most of the movie. I've read enough to know in the comic Dredd, you never (?) got to see his face or something like that. And I can see that working in a comic. But in a movie....is he going to shower with it on? Talk to people over the vid-phone while he's at home with it on? Sure, they could and perhaps should have made Stallone keep the helmet on a lot more, but it just starts to feel a little silly and distancing in a film if the chr. never takes it off. I think I've heard the upcoming remake will have him not take it off.....I"ll be curious how that works out. I'm guessing he'll always be on-duty when the story focuses on him. No love scenes. Or keep his face in shadow I suppose.

I watched Demolition Man yet again on Netflix the other night. I don't know what it is about that movie. It's utter trash....and yet, yet...I find myself so entertained. "Armor hot dogs! The dog, kids, love, to biiiite!"

I'm not a dude, but even I'll say that looks like one cute, uh, friend. As long as a cat didn't see him wearing it, he's probably ok with wearing the doggie sweater. But if a cat saw him, he may never recover.

If you mean a voodoo based build, I'd love to know how that turns out. I probably won't have the patience/time/motivation to run the game more than once, but it did look a bit intriguing. Also, for both of you - is the DLC included in the "I'm done"? Since I see no separate DLC "button" I assume it's something that becomes available to enter at or near the end of the base game? Or is it integrated into the main game in some fashion?

There's no "after you" here. I'm of the generation that grew up without home PC's/tablets/cellphones and strict parents re:entertainment - so used to entertaining myself without. Even since my kiddie years, I've gone without those things, for weeks, months, sometimes more, and I survived just fine. Sometimes I even felt better for it (but not always). But it wasn't because I was destitute/forced to that I went without, it was by choice, so feel free to disparage me more for reasons of assumed or actual privilege, if it makes you feel better. I don't mind. At any rate, monetary privilege is not the main point, imo, since the big cry I see re: the Pirate Bay is that it's censorship. I personally don't see it as censorship. The UK is not saying you can't use bittorrent to pass information or free speech. It's saying they want to prevent access to one particular torrent web-linking website that is well known for making tons of intellectual property - that is not legal to freely distribute - easily found/discovered by the masses. All in one spot. Shutting down a middleman, so to speak (with a so-sorry to that 2% who might be using the pipeline legitly). This doesn't prevent or outlaw you from downloading what you want - it just makes it a tiny bit harder, at least temporarily, to discover where it's going to be. Hence, not censorship. But I'm sure you'll disagree....others might too. That's fine, it's just my opinion, not asking anyone to share it. Also, imo, people who constantly and knowingly abuse current copyright laws because the digital era has made it so easy that they think it's a personal right to do so - they are one (of many) of the reasons governments may end up regulating the internet (which I'm against). eg. Due to economic/political pressures (not all of which I'd agree with) I think it's much more likely they'll try regulating the internet before they actually abolish intellectual property law or even significantly change it, and I think a regulated internet would be far worse in most cases than an occasional ban or dismantlement of a single torrent site/IP. Btw, this early comment from you: I don't know how it's done in Russia, but in the US, just because a TV channel is "free" (to view/watch/get the signal) doesn't make the content then freely distributable. Perhaps it's different in Russia, but if (notice I say if) the Pirate Bay had a ton of UK programming listed on its site, that's still (by UK laws) illegal and thus not a legit torrent use...and therefore something they may try to act upon as it relates to their own country. That's it from me. Insult me and my ignorance all you want now...you can have the last word.

Oh, I agree that play/entertainment/art is/can be very important to the human psyche - to varying degrees for any individual. But there are plenty of ways to feed/nurture that side of ourselves that don't require "pirating" what is currently considered owned material. Learn to paint yourself, create your own movies, play baseball w/some buddies, and on and on. A cure to cancer, on the other hand, is not something the general population can just whip up in their basement in their spare time.

... I agree with this for the most part, actually. Copyright laws are definitely outdated and need to be re-worked to fit into this new "digital" era. And sometimes an artist may even see more long-term profit by making something initially freely available. But I still don't see an owner of something not wanting to share it (for whatever reasons) as being "wrong"....at least, not in terms of art/music/TV/games (entertainment). I would, however, object strenuously if a company held a patent/owned the cure to cancer or clean, safe, very cheap energy and refused to share it/produce it/distribute it or priced it so only the moderately to super rich could afford it etc. (edit) In fact I'm not sure such things should really be "owned" in the first place, altho I'm not savvy enough to be able to think up some kind of alternate concept that would work with current social/economical structure.

But that's the point of creative rights. Just because someone made it, doesn't mean they have to share it just because you want them to. They have their own personal right to use their creation as they see fit/feel like...whether we personally agree with it or not. You're funny. You assume people who created this material don't want it to be distributed, but I'm talking about some media company that inherited rights to the material whose creators are long dead. This kind of stuff, you can't even buy it anywhere, because those media companies aren't selling it, because there would only be a 100 buyers in the world, so it's just not worth if for them. And this way, priceless material is lost and forgotten. Just like Caliph Omar destroyed the priceless library of Alexandria, current laws are destroying all non-mainstream material. Posterity will call you ****ing idiots. You're just a bleeding heart for the rich, unable to see the difference between the law and the morality because you've been brainwashed not to. The same things applies to the current owner of something. If someone sold the rights, the current owner of said rights can do as they please with it. Now if the original creator/owner was somehow shafted out of their rights (which happens sometimes) then that can be something different, but unfortunately legally the original owner may not have much recourse outside of trying to sue/take to court...which if the sale was done legally by whatever country/state process there is, they're unlikely to win. As for bleeding heart - hahaha. If you knew me personally I doubt you'd think I was that much of a bleeding heart. But whatever, believe what you want.

But that's the point of creative rights. Just because someone made it, doesn't mean they have to share it just because you want them to. They have their own personal right to use their creation as they see fit/feel like...whether we personally agree with it or not. Edit:Oops wrong quoter...fixed, sorry.

Yeah, I know it's not a likely technical scenario to try to police everything, or even close to it, even if you had millions. But you can at least make the good jolly try, to show companies etc. that you're trying/in good faith and all of that. YouTube, for example, isn't what I'd call exactly successful (heh) at keeping copyright stuff off, but with their automated algorithm programs for music and keywords (MLB footage, for example, is pretty much yanked off YouTube as soon as it's uploaded) it's at least something. Do I always like that it means that sometimes someone's video of their baby walking around to half the length of a famous pop tune gets censored? No. But it's one of the better middle-grounds that I've seen re: this type of thing so far.

Y'know, seems like Pirate Bay and other such places that claim they don't actually have anything to do (from their business side perspective) with piracy could easily manage complaints by actually monitoring what people upload. eg, approved uploads. And then not approve anything that has region/copyright still attached to it, if they're concerned about keeping those regions active to their site. But they complain that would be too much work/cost or perhaps technically too prohibitive/less "free" (boohoo - can't afford it, maybe you should find another business/hobby) and of course would mean their sites may not get as much traffic/use as they'd like, for whatever reasons. Point being, while I do believe there are legitimate uses for torrent file sharing, there are ways to minimize the piracy-use of such claimed "freedom of expression" sites to the point where companies/specific country courts might leave them alone a lot more often. They just (seem to) choose not to. ....then again, what to do I know about such things. I'm just a dumb Western idiot who doesn't think personal rights necessarily trumps property/creative rights.

Now I want a pizza too. *attempts putting on tinfoil hat of food resistance* I keep locking hubs outside accidentally. I go out the side garage door and when I go back in, locking it is auto-pilot. Problem is hubs is often sitting in the yard in a chair under a tree, in the shade having a quiet break moment or something. He doesn't say anything to me and I don't notice he's out there (I think he's still in his office) and thus a bit later I hear rustling by my office window and his voice floating in "Hey wife, I know you want to get rid of me, but could you unlock the door please."

Playing the GW3 beta (even for the brief time I did) broke my Risen2 momentum and today I find myself sitting here at the PC, thinking I'll play Risen2 and yet not turning the game on. ....*pokes self*... c'mon LC, don't be this way yet again, turn it on. You know you want to.

If the graphical pop-in/flicker bothers you a lot, I'm told that apparently you can try tweaking the XML config file to improve things. I haven't tried it (got used to it, after a while I barely notice it anymore) but there it is. http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16967

That's a better trailer, that actually had the "meh" side of my brain perk up a little bit, if for nothing else but for some of the awesome camera/scenery work. But yeah...shows a lot. Nearly 3 minutes, that's a long movie trailer.