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It's intended to cause epileptic seizures, not merely nausea, dammit! I had hoped to take out one moderator or two with it, as part of my revenge. But now the cat's out of the bag... Hmm. Could use some of the green stuff myself, then. Booze and smokes just aren't my thing...

I think they may have their eyes on WoW... brace for impact.

I think you want this thread. Actually, a Doom sandbox game doesn't sound bad at all.

Errr... "The attacks [...] were first noted 35 years ago but systematic studies have only recently begun. The proportion [...] has soared from 1% in 1974 to 78% today" How do they know the increase in proportion of the attacks if studies have begun "only recently"? I's confused.

Wha-? Is there anything you don't do or haven't done? What are you, a hundred? Hyperactive? Both? BTW: genre?

I'm fairly certain that's intentional. I remember loving the game for the lingering sense of dread and loneliness that is a constant. Then... *BAM!*, I'd get mauled by bloodsuckers. I recommend you grab the Oblivion Lost mod ASAP, though. It only makes the game better... I didn't even wait to finish it the first time.

Uh huh. When most players can't seem to agree on "what is evil"... http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=45715 http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=44926 http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=40573

And that, I think, is a good example of how players trivialize evil as much as devs do. What do you want to commit genocide for? Historically, genocide has been used as a means to an end, among other reasons, because it's a logistical nightmare. You could raze cities in Rome:TW, but somehow, that never comes up when discussing "evil" in games. It has no place in RPGs because it's out of the scope of those games, not because devs don't take "evil" seriously. Organising a genocide for the sake of "being evil" is more clownish than evil. See Darth Malak.

*Krezack rolls reading comprehension* *Critical failure!* Ah, it seems I'm going to have to hold your hand through this. I am shocked, to be sure.

Just as I suspected. So you just read that news item and took it as gospel - your certainty isn't born from an intimate knowledge of the US Constitution, but from a possibility raised by your fave news site. Lemme guess... Slashdot? I guess it was too much to ask that you had, for once, shown some hint of independent thought. A quick note. The people who wrote that (obviously better acquainted with US Constitutional law than you) were cautious enough to leave the door open to the possibility that judges and courts may not agree with their interpretation. Never one to disappoint, you, once again show that you have as much sense as you do humility. Sigh. Style over substance, Krezzy? How predictable. The thing is, I have reworded that argument at least twice and explained the reasons behind the retard allusion (if, after reading the FAQ, people still don't know they are getting the files from other private computers, one can only question their intelligence). But you'd much rather ignore that and attack my lack of PC... because, unless they do the work for you at Slashdot, you have nothing to work with. Thanks for the laugh.

Heh. I would have recommended Brave New World, but I ASSumed everyone has read it. If you like dystopian stuff, it's one of the best. Also you may want to check Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 novels. I thought the movies were a snorefest, but the books I liked quite a bit.

I respect your opinion and you could probably skool me on the jurisprudence behind it, but in the end, an opinion is all you have to establish that a direct analogy between copyright infringement and theft can be established - the underlying reasons leave plenty of room for debate. But even if I were to accept the analogy, it does not warrant that an appeal to emotion sophism is used to "convince" others of your point of view. That is disingenuous. Anyone using "theft" to describe something that is quite obviously something else is trying to avoid getting into a debate about the legitimacy, viability and extent of enforcement of the rights over intellectual property on the internet; a debate that's nowhere near as simple as one about simple semantics; they are ultimately trying to pass off their opinion as fact. Yes, but how is this unconstitutional? Illegal isn't the same as unconstitutional. Further, this isn't a criminal trial, and the requirements for proving intent are not necessarily so strict, I think Enoch pointed this out already. Why are you so vehemently convinced that the ruling violates the US Constitution? Again, my specific knowledge of the US Constitution is null, so any links you can produce that show how the verdict contravenes part(s) of the Constitution would pretty much settle the matter. As I said, it's a very poor defense. Kazaa advertises not only as a file-sharing app, but as a peer-to-peer system. So one would have to be a certified retard to think that the files they are getting come from central servers. It's debatable whether that negates intent at all... and it does not change the fact that stupidity (or technical ignorance) does not preclude liability.

Isn't it enough for you that in this case "rhetorically" actually means "disingenuously"? It is an equivocation and it serves no purpose other than affect opinions on the issue being discussed by means other than arguments and logic - specifically, by exploiting how language affects the way we think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_linguistics

Because there's nothing to understand. The action being discussed does simply not comform to either the vernacular or legal legal definitions, both of which involve taking physical control of whatever's being stolen. In the case of copyright violation, what's being debated is the loss of potential sales (which, by definition, cannot be proven), and the damages derived thereof. Seriously, people need to stop using "theft" to describe what's in actuality copyright infringement, to take advantage of the social stigma attached to thievery in order to achieve a precarious sense of moral superiority. Don't you think if copyright infringement was so obviously theft, there would be no need for it to be codified separately?

The Gods Themselves? Starship Troopers? Ender's? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? We can't very well give you "new" reads if we don't know what the "old" ones are.

Oh, come now. We're grownups here. A little legalese isn't going to kill anyone. So please, explain how exactly the verdict violates the US Constitution. I'm by no means an expert, so don't assume I know anything. Precedents would help, too. That's a really poor defense and would hardly stand in court. "Why, Your Honor, how could I possibly had known that file-sharing software was in fact designed to share files?" Anyone trying to pass that off as an excuse should be fined for a deliberate insult to intelligence.

How can you stop doing something you haven't been doing in the first place? Copyright infringement is not theft. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement.

Ehm... there is no company named Bioware, it's just a label of EA, nothing more nothing less... you should know it Wrong. Bioware wasn't absorbed into EA. Why does this myth persist years after the deal was made?

Yeah. It's really disturbing that the US Treasury still uses .txt files to sort that kind of data. Seriously though, that's a nice find. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would have close to a tenth of all US Treasure bonds in circulation... some idiots moving them around is surreal. Now that I read this, I remember a gang being busted over here this month due to a fraud scheme they had set up involving counterfeit 1934 US bonds with a combined worth in excess of $16.5 bn. I wonder if that's related?

Meh. He may be fast, but is he shoe-dodging Bush-fast?

HIIK. If I had a definitive answer, I'd be writing for obscure economic journals and giving lectures in universities...

Dont you need a browser to do a Windows update? I know when I click on the update function it opens a new tab in Explorer and navigates itself to the URL. I'm using Vista Home Premium and it does it through a taskbar app which connects and downloads everything by itself.