Oblarg

This is not only completely irrelevant, but is also unsubstantiated and, to a point, bigoted. You don't know this kid. You're automatically siding with the authority figure because he's an authority figure. You speak of respect for his girlfriend - how could you possibly know any of the details about their relationship? That's absurd. Two teenagers had sex. This is not a terrible tragedy, it is what teenagers often do. It's a natural part of puberty. The automatic assumption that this kid was a scumbag and "deserved it" is, to me at least, despicable. And even if we were to assume (with very little evidence) that this kid had less-than-innocent intentions (in doing what? having sex?), that still has very little bearing on the fact that this police officer had no place to trespass on a family's property to abuse his power for the purpose of scaring the crap out of a young teenager. That is not the type of person I want upholding our laws.

Please. This crowd was worrying about Dragon Age 2 before it was even announced. This will follow the pattern of DA:O - [Long period where we mostly speculate it will suck] -> [short period where it comes out, we play it, and mostly like it.] -> [Long period where we realize the 1,001 flaws it has and complain about them.] This sequence is as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. I seem to have missed the "mostly like it part" - it was a pretty ****ing boring game. DA2 looks no better, mind you. Crappy RPG is now crappy Hack 'n Slash.

Luckily for us, there are people who look beyond the horizons of current knowledge and try to push the barriers, otherwise we would still live in caves be scared of lightning. This isn't about having an open mind - this is about cold, hard truth. You can ramble on all you want about how believing that our current knowledge is incomplete means that FTL travel is possible, but the fact is that it is not. You're fooling yourself. You sound like you find the very idea that Einstein could be wrong offensive? It's not just Einstein, bro. Strawmanning won't help you.

Luckily for us, there are people who look beyond the horizons of current knowledge and try to push the barriers, otherwise we would still live in caves be scared of lightning. This isn't about having an open mind - this is about cold, hard truth. You can ramble on all you want about how believing that our current knowledge is incomplete means that FTL travel is possible, but the fact is that it is not. You're fooling yourself.

How does physics explain entangled photons? The university of Vienna has investigated the phenomena for years, trying to discover what makes one photon "communicate" effects to it's twin faster than light. There's no "communication" between entangled particles - that's a common misconception. Observing one simply determines the state of both - when you look at how wonky most quantum physics is, it's not all that unbelievable. It still doesn't have any relevance to FTL travel. Well, you sort of have to learn how to walk before you run faster than light... The beauty of physics is that we don't know it all, only what we have been able to grasp, observe and theorise about so far. I'm normally not a believer in anything, but I do have certain degree of faith in human curiosity. Not possible doesn't exist, only unsolved puzzles. That does not change the fact that we know enough to know that FTL travel is impossible. Discounting our current knowledge because "well we might discover that it's wrong" is simply an ignorant thing to do. Not possible certainly exists.

How does physics explain entangled photons? The university of Vienna has investigated the phenomena for years, trying to discover what makes one photon "communicate" effects to it's twin faster than light. There's no "communication" between entangled particles - that's a common misconception. Observing one simply determines the state of both - when you look at how wonky most quantum physics is, it's not all that unbelievable. It still doesn't have any relevance to FTL travel.

FTL travel does not exist. I'm sorry to burst all your sci-fi fantasies, but I can say this with 100% certainty - it's obvious to anyone with any knowledge of physics.

And I just bought several CDs about a month ago. And I'm planning to buy another in a few days. So what?

Food for thought: Stardock has next to no DRM on their games, and yet their sales are fine - SoaSE did great.

Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. All this is is a rationalization. You rationalize your piracy by saying you wouldn't have bought it otherwise. I wonder how many times you rationalize that the content isn't really worth paying for it after you've already consumed it in its entirety. Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful thing and human beings jump through hoops. Because you can't afford it all just makes me shake my head. You can't pirate it all either. Must be having a crisis over there eh? People can argue whether or not it helps or hurts. Few people supply the numbers, and the only ones that are really interested in doing so are the industries themselves. So to let themselves sleep at night people will rationalize that they are overstating it, regurgitate that one act of piracy does not mean one lost sale, etc. etc. Since we're talking about being forced to do things though, here's a fact. Because people such as yourself pirate software, legit paying customers are forced to deal with DRM in order to consume their favorite media. I don't care much for the music aspect of things, but as a through and through gamer you can be sure I'm not at all delighted at the hoops I and other legitimate customers need to jump through in response to people such as yourself being "unsure" if they want to buy it. If you don't think the game is worth the $60 when it comes out, try this: wait until the price goes down. Pirating software is purely selfish. And the selfishness of pirates is compromising the industry because now devs and publishers feel compelled to include some sort of DRM. Many feel they no longer get appropriate value specifically because of the game's DRM. Ironically they then use this to justify pirating it themselves. I could go on, but it's getting late. Enjoy trying out your free stuff. People like me will keep footing the bill and suffering for it. EDIT: As a note, I used to pirate software and music too. But I stopped because I realized I was just being a hypocrite and felt I was further compromising the industry. While I dealt with this realization my piracy continually slowed until the last piece of software I pirated. This was Jedi Academy. THe game was okay and fun enough. I wasn't sure about buying it to start, so I wanted to just try it out. I ended up beating the game, and I realized just how difficult it is to knowingly pay for something after realizing that you're likely never going to pick it up again. Went and bought it and I don't even know where the box is any more. I can't even remember the last time I downloaded music illegally. I just use youtube to try it out. Look, I don't buy music that isn't either from a band that I already know very well or that I have not listened to extensively. Given my taste in music, that's rather hard to do legally. Now how can you honestly say that in doing that I am being purely selfish and harming the artist? That's simply wrong.

I find the implication that teenage guys are evil bastards out to exploit teenage girls for sex to be somewhat childish, really. Teenagers have sex. It's a fact of life. The proper way to deal with it is to talk to your kid about safe sex, etc. It is not to go and scare the crap out of your daughter's boyfriend because you think she's too young to have sex, and it certainly is not to abuse the authority invested in you as a police officer to do so. This man was abusing his authority to aid him in an act of bad parenting - you can't really condone this ****?

That's not a valid argument, and you know it.

Hmmm. Victorians didn't buy into cars because they honestly thought that humans would literally explode if they travelled at speeds over 30mph. Scientific paradigm shifts, when they happen, are dramatic. I have to defer to your knowledge - I am hopeless at physics - but isn't it slightly arrogant for us to believe that an area of science can never advance because of theoretical recieved wisdom? Imagine telling a medieval scholar that you can travel in the air faster than an arrow and transplant a man's heart into another human being. His response might be a bit like yours, Oblarg. Except back then knowledge wasn't scientific so much as it was guesswork. Our current understanding of the basic laws of physics is pretty solid - we have heaps and heaps and heaps of physical evidence for it - much more evidence than there is in favor of alien encounters, I'm afraid.

That's a very, very ignorant view that is a huge insult to the vast amounts of scientific knowledge we've acquired.

Not if you truly have an understanding of just how improbable an alien encounter is. And consider this: There are a lot of people in the world. People like getting attention. Only a small fraction of people in the world need to make up storied for the sake of getting attention for there to be "several tons of circumstantial evidence." Except it's not even circumstantial evidence - it's anecdotal evidence, which is completely worthless. The simple fact is that due to the distances involved and the fact that you can't travel faster than the speed of light, we're not going to encounter aliens. Ever. They may exist, but we'll never find them. Well, like you can judge how fast Aliens can travel. Just because we can't fathom it doesn't mean it's impossible. Unfortunately for people who like to believe in alien encounters, our understanding of that area of physics is fairly complete. FTL travel doesn't exist.

Seems a lot more likely than an actual alien encounter. The simple fact is that due to the distances involved and the fact that you can't travel faster than the speed of light, we're not going to encounter aliens. Ever. They may exist, but we'll never find them. Similarly, they'll never find us.

Breaking news: Teens have sex! Yeah, this cop was completely ****ing out of line. I don't see how anyone could sympathize with his position.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I don't think you can classify as "not a nutjob" while honestly believing that there are extraterrestrials visiting earth.

It's so great to hear John Cyriis in Agent Steel again. Bruce Hall was by all means a good vocalist, but no one can emulate Cyriis.

Why would it hurt someones conscience if by doing it he's, overall, benefiting the person whose work he's pirating?

Question is: Why would anyone want to conquer Britain? Certainly not for the lovely weather.

I'd say that's the only valid reason I can think of. And by 'hard', I mean limited /200, where 187 albums were destroyed in a fire and the remaining ones are owned by an eccentric billionaire. Sometimes, there simply is no legal way to purchase something. (And before the weed-smokers rejoice, that is not really the point here) You misunderstand - it's not pirating something because you are unable to buy it. It's pirating something to see if you like it, because it's not worth throwing $20/album at a band's discography to see if you enjoy their music. Mainstream music gets enough exposure that people can generally know if they like a band or not before buying an album. Underground music does not.

No, it's really not. Is someone supposed to buy an album on a leap of faith? Christ, it would take several hundred dollars just to stumble upon a band you enjoy. I don't know about you, but I only buy music from bands that I already know and enjoy (exception for debut albums, of course). If you were to deny people the means of discovering obscure music, which these days is mainly piracy, obscure music would die. There are quite a few avenues to legitimately sample music. I have a hard time believing this obscure music you are talking about is only available via illegal methods. Other than youtube (which is **** quality and inconvenient), no, there really isn't. One word: Pandora Pandora is ****. Bad at approximating taste, arbitrary limit on number of song skips, pretty limited library, and annoying interface (really, I'll stick with a standard media player). Last.fm is a bit better, but it suffers from similar problems. Besides, it's much easier to get a feel for a band when you have their entire discography available in mp3 format.

No, it's really not. Is someone supposed to buy an album on a leap of faith? Christ, it would take several hundred dollars just to stumble upon a band you enjoy. I don't know about you, but I only buy music from bands that I already know and enjoy (exception for debut albums, of course). If you were to deny people the means of discovering obscure music, which these days is mainly piracy, obscure music would die. There are quite a few avenues to legitimately sample music. I have a hard time believing this obscure music you are talking about is only available via illegal methods. Other than youtube (which is **** quality and inconvenient), no, there really isn't.

No, it's really not. Is someone supposed to buy an album on a leap of faith? Christ, it would take several hundred dollars just to stumble upon a band you enjoy. I don't know about you, but I only buy music from bands that I already know and enjoy (exception for debut albums, of course). If you were to deny people the means of discovering obscure music, which these days is mainly piracy, obscure music would die.