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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.

It was wrong because it didn't break any monopolies... arguably it made things worse, as it facilitated speculation, and diversified operations also makes any wrongdoing much harder to detect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(oil_companies) Yeah, yeah. I'm not taks. So sue me. What would be the point of that when they can have it be an optional component to install via Windows Update?

I can see why! Beyond some moderately shiny graphics and... erm, OK real-time combat, this game has "mediocre" stamped all over it. All right, so the first part was unnecessary, but I was trying to find something distinctly positive about the game. I suppose the areas are reasonably built, although again, nothing special, and the size and habit of including superfluous changes in level and random, purely decorative walls makes them a little labyrinthine. I'm really not seeing what the fuss is about, and as I suspected, the similarities between the Alpha Protocol dialogue stance system and the "dialogue wheel" that ME uses are purely cosmetic. Also, this game is about as well-optimised as NWN2, if not slightly worse. My laptop is supposedly well above the minimum specs, but the game still runs laggily even on mid-low settings. I'd turn the texture detail down further, but everything already looks fugly. The story is bland even by BioWare standards, and the voice acting, for the most part, is diabolically bad. Especially for Shepard. To top it all, the majority of the party members have even less personality or interest than usual. And the (bland-to-dreadful) dialogue is unskippable. Oh, paroxysms of joy. Seriously, why do people praise this game? Of BioWare's recent output, both JE and KotOR easily trump it, from what I've seen so far. I waited until price dropped to 20

You got it backwards. With the appropriate car, you do get to pick anyone. Four-wheel swagger:

Yes. Yes I am.

Since the reboot, WoD sucks the big fat one. So I'm not expecting much. And think of the hordes of Twilight and Underworld fans... *shudder*

Your ignorance and backward views are as offensive as they are troubling. Behold, the pinnacle of civilized urbanity and good taste. Yes, it's for real. *inserts coins*

Whatever would we do without your exuberant enthusiasm? am not certain, but am guessing that a handful o' you would be locked in a serious debate 'bout how transporter technology is plausible/implausible. HA! Good Fun! Aww, Grommy. Don't be so grumpy. We've already had plenty of that. Surely a few rabid canon deathmatches every now and then aren't that bad!

Oh, shi-

I don't care if it's men killing women or the other way around. Generalising is always dangerous, and this matter is no exception - the reasons why a person abuses or kills their partner are possibly as numerous as the crimes themselves. That said though, I do believe that an utter loss of respect, to the self and/or the other, is involved in most cases, and always when there's recidivism... unless there's more serious mental factors involved (unmedicated schizophrenic individuals can be violent). Surely a society in which the value of a woman is equal to that of a number of camels, this is exacerbated, but obviously it is by no means a necessary and sufficient circumstance. Don't drag me into a "nature vs nurture" debate, sir! Wow. Do you fulfill all those criteria yourself, all the time? I think I'd attain the rank of Jedi Master easier than your respect...

Whatever would we do without your exuberant enthusiasm?

The news item is "Some site down time". Good to know!

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Matthew_Dougherty http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Erik_Pressman http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Michael_Eddington http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Luther_Sloan Those are just off the top of my head. The last one is probably one of the darkest human characters in all of ST, and a personal favorite of mine. You need to watch more Trek my friend...