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I didn't know about this Steam bull**** in NV. That's one less disbursement I have to plan for, then. I guess rant threads may have a purpose. Even if that purpose is only tangential to the subject, if at all.

Gio's: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/goals/video/v...9644/index.html I haven't watched all matches in the tournament, but that is by far the best shot I've seen. BOOM!

I think you should watch it again...

There is no way to establish what the people in your examples might have or not have accomplished had they not done drugs. So, their value as "proof" is, let's say, debatable, as we don't have a "zero-point" to compare against. "Сum hoc ergo propter hoc" They both also had mommy/daddy issues, and were possibly closet homosexuals. Are we to assume that means that those things also foster "creative thinking" (whatever that means anyway)? edited for extra smugness

Yeah, don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Oh, so I guess all those posts where you quoted me directly and addressed my points weren't really directed at me, but at "people in general". Heh, okay. It's interesting, because this links with what I've been saying all along: Oh, but wait. You did claim that ANY real name is at risk of being abused. That includes my own. Here, in case you forgot:

Hahaha. How else are they going to get it, pray tell? I have never made any details about myself public, except for irrelevant facts about my military career. I consistently lie in all registration forms that ask for anything more personal than an e-mail address. I don't own property. I don't appear in the phone directory. I don't have a presence in social networks. I don't have public profiles anywhere. Oh, right. I forgot about that method. Damn, foiled again!

Er, it does, because the only way one is going to get my personal data is by breaking into a government DB. Which you can't do with just "targeted datamining". It's pretty funny that you made these inane claims without having any idea about what my line of work is or how security conscious I am with regards to my personal data. But hey, you guaranteed it, so it must be true!

Uh, read your own posts? Wow, yeah. Then why aren't you mass-stealing credit card numbers? Practically they are there for the taking and, after all, it's only a crime if you get caught. The ZILLIONS you can make from this could easily cover your legal expenses! I'm sure you could also easily bribe a few judges and ministers, if push comes to shove! Is this some scam you're trying to sell here? I, for one, am not buying.

I don't know where you live, but over here, bribing public officials or servants to obtain private data is a criminal offense and will likely land both you and the official in jail. Yes, it's possible, but unlikely -- unless one lives in your nightmare world of asian elite haxors and teenage criminals that will empty your bank account without a second thought. For the nth time, there's nothing new in all this. How do you thing PIs work? Do you know how arduous and tedious a PI's work is? That's a full-time job, fyi. No, you got it all wrong. You post bull****, I call you on it. That's how this works. If you don't like it... you can stop posting balls at any time. I can accept that the WoW boards membership isn't exactly the cream of the crop... but hey, are they as a collective more inclined towards crime? Because the sort of paranoia you're putting forth involves breaking some laws... not that you'd know that, from your posts. Which is, I concede, a very real cause for concern.

Obviously, logic doesn't mean what you think it means. Ridiculous, am I? Wait, who was it that used asian elite hax0rs breaking into secure govt databases in minutes as a vehicle to support his arguments? You, sir, are a ****ing joke. This is bull****. "The truth is in the middle" is a useless aphorism and trivially easy to disprove... as is the case with sweeping generalisations. If I said "blacks are inferior" and you denied it, does that mean that "some blacks are inferior", because "the truth is in the middle"? As for people being harassed... that will continue to happen (yes it is happening already *SHOCK!!!*), regardless of policies adopted by Blizz on their boards. Stalkers aren't anything new, in case you didn't know. Sorry to break it to you, but that doesn't even make sense, mate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalizatio..._the_particular Yes, yes. The world is a really dangerous place, and it's full of tech-savvy pro stalkers with "connections"... that rely nonetheless on you leaving your personal data in the open. Seriously, that guy could not find me unless he was an Interpol agent. But yeah, I guess Interpol agents have lots of friends with nothing better to do than prank calls on some nobody on the other side of the world... But I'm ridiculous. \o/

No, I read it just fine. I just see it as one of the obvious possible consequences of posting private information in a public forum. I'm surprised you don't. I repeat the question: how is this, again, a qualitative jump in risk from having your name and phone number appear in the directory? Or posting wedding announcements on the newspaper? I find that doing that sort of things and complaining about one's privacy being at risk are incompatible. But hey, I may just be paranoid, right? Because WoW boards users are like a Biblical scourge, or something. I already admitted where this could be a real risk, and it's with regards to data mining ops by HR depts. But as another poster said, if playing WoW is going to get you fired, maybe it's time to quit.

Wow, your logic is... wow. Are you just trolling me or...? Seriously, explain to me in great detail how 1, 2 or n where n ∈ N is equivalent to "any/all", because I can't seem to solve that one on my own. What I'm saying is that you should never, under any circumstances, make personal data available to the public at large, unless it's strictly necessary OR you don't care about possible abuses of such data. Names, by themselves, are innocuous. At any rate, it's your call. This doesn't mean the end of all anonymity on the internet. Huh? What does this have to do with the topic? Those examples aren't new, and stalkers aren't either. I fail to see how posting on a message board under your real name (btw, this isn't new, I've seen it in other boards where it's customary, not enforced) is a sudden qualitative jump wrt privacy risk, unless your privacy is already exposed to some degree. Chances are that the guy that's going to rape or kill you is somebody you know, not some teen asshat from the other side of the world. You guys must all be really interesting/important people. I wish I also had masses of would-be stalkers biting their nails at the chance to get my real name.

Exactly. It's up to each person to protect their own privacy. This much should be obvious, no? *WOOOSH* So, that makes two names. If I'm doing my math right, then according to you, 2 = ∞, right?

Yes, but it doesn't matter because then I could hire a bunch of Lithuanian hitmen to take them out, so my secret involvement with the Zionist-communist global conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids remains secret!!!1 Divulging private information, even if said information is available elsewhere, without the owner's consent, can be a crime, depending on many things, jurisdiction among them. I'd recommend you look it up before you try anything of the sort. Actually, he showed just how ONE real name can be abused. I'd like to see how exactly you jump from that to your assertion that "any name can be easily abused in a few minutes". No, we aren't accepting lithuanian hitmen, asian leet haxors or ninja pirates as evidence. And keep the fearmongering to a minimum, if at all possible.

Hopefully we won't see that, because that sort of anti-football is way less entertaining to watch than a team that never stops being on the offensive. I really expected Germany to win tonight. But they just haven't been the same team I've seen play the rest of the tournament. I guess Mueller's absence really hurt them.

Exactly. It's a myth that just from your real name anyone can find whatever they want about you. I could give my real name, and I guarantee you, save for some useless facts regarding join/leave dates on my military life there's nothing about me on the 'net, because I make a point of keeping my personal data, well, personal. I'm not even on the phone directory. This thinking is also a bit paranoid. HR depts already do a ton of data mining and background checks. They are the ones most likely to engage in any sort of consistent "stalking" via the Blizz boards. So... don't say anything you may later regret? You know, like IRL? The police? If they are fishing for data on you, you have bigger problems than this... This is a bit like that Starforce cluster**** some years ago with some dev posting a warez link to a product that didn't use conventional DRM to make the point that EVERYONE should adopt SF-like tech... hilarious. On the update: looks like they are going forward with it no matter what. At the very least it'll be interesting to see how it turns out, for sure.

I was thinking more along the lines of derailing and general disruption, which could be more work for the mod team instead of less. George W. Bush: I can't believe the last pally nerf. Like, totally useless! John Doe: OMG hihi mr president u sure can dodge shoes Joe Blow: Jews did 9/11 Serious account and ID management can also keep alts to a minimum and maybe even be a useful and non-invasive DRM system. Yeah, I guess it will depend on how strict they want to get with regards to personal data. If you can use a fake name to register the account, the whole system is pointless. *raises hand* I mean, no way my real name could be more ridiculous than my current handle.

Lol, looks like people are starting to recoil at the mere suggestion of putting their money where their mouth is. I think this is a great way of dealing with trolls and general wankers. Obviously, the problem is for those who have actual reasons to want their identity kept secret (public officials, developers for other companies, media personalities), but I'm sure Blizz will find a way around that. Anonimity = unaccountability. This is bad, in case you didn't know. And, as has been posted earlier, if you don't like it... take your posting elsewhere.

What? He was? I must have missed that. Anyways that referee did try his best to let Uruquay score 3-3... Yeah, those last few minutes smelt a bit of paid-off-ref, but then I remembered he was an incompetent twit throughout the match to both teams' disadvantages. Yeah, especially how the ref managed to miss that handball that aborted the last of Uruguay's chances. Now, what were you saying just a few pages ago about cheating and the rulez? Heh.

No, they didn't "very nearly win". German planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union was flawed at the root. There's this Hitler quote about a kick on the door that I'm sure everyone knows, and it represents his thinking on the matter so well that one would be tempted to think it apocryphal were it not for the fact that Hitler held fast to his idea of a weak Soviet Union until the day he ate a bullet. Axis troops were not prepared for a multi-year operation on the Russian steppe. German military doctrine was, for all its successes, outdated, incomplete and unfit for long-term use in the vast Eurasian plains -- unlike its Soviet counterpart. The German economy not only could not cope with the needs of the military from day one despite being a command economy, but was not completely mobilized until it was already too late and the Axis had lost all strategic momentum... because the Nazi leadership was generally ****ed in the head and basically disconnected from reality (Totaler Krieg speech, 1943). As Thorton_AP has pointed out, it was thanks to the disarray and poor quality of the Soviet officer corps (and the offensive stance that Soviet western formations were deployed on in '41) that the Axis was able to win their initial victories so easily, a lesson the Soviets should have learned in the invasion of Finland, but didn't. Once competent commanders started replacing Stalin's pure yes-men, Germany stood no chance. It wasn't a question of "if", but a question of "when". The high casualties sustained by the Soviets are also at least in part, Stalin's fault, as he stubbornly refused to believe that his pal Hitler had backstabbed him so even in the face of evidence, and later on he kept demanding that his generals launch offensives when they weren't ready. There's also the (in)famous Order 227. In summary, Germany didn't very nearly win at all, not even with the substantial help that Joe Dzhugashvili unwittingly was to them. Barbarossa was a madman's gambit from its conception, if this is perhaps a conclusion that needs of a good deal of hindsight. There's two flaws in this line of reasoning that I can spot at a glance. 1. You are assuming that only Bolshevik leaders are valid alternatives to Stalin. Kerensky was left without supporters not only because he was a corrupt, weak twit but because of Bolshevik activity, for instance. This argument only has merit in the sense that it's very much a matter-of-fact one. The Bolsheviks removed all possible rivals they could find, so they only had their own to manage the country. This isn't exactly an excuse, though. 2. You are also assuming that only the level of lightning-fast industrialization achieved by Stalin's brutal collectivization was enough to hold Germany in check, and that anything below this would have resulted in an Axis victory in the Eastern front. How lucky for us that Soviet production by 1942 was just the right amount needed to push back the Nazi aggressor, no? If those two could be proven, then yes, Stalin did what he had to and may be excused... but you simply can't prove those, so ol' Joe remains just another power-crazed People's Commissar for Mass Murder.

No. In fact, Axis forces outnumbered Soviet troops during the initial stages of Barbarossa, while the Germans still had the initiative. So it wasn't a "much smaller force" at all, more like the opposite. Oh, and by the way, you still have to prove that without Stalinism, industrialization would have been impossible.

Yes, the encroachment by Spanish players in Cardozo's penalty was pretty clear, which is grounds for retaking the kick. In fact, it was clearer in that case than in Alonso's first attempt. Maybe the ref didn't remember that encroaching is verboten the first time around. I haven't seen many penalties being retaken for encroachment though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xil8dz6Uuw