Gorth

That was actually pretty good. Constructive critique is sometimes few and far between

Looking forward to the next installment I liked the indie presentations.

That's the one indeed Sounds like you need a break?

Dusted off my Chtulhu Carols boxed set and listened to a bit of seasonal music. Trying to find a place to hang my Christmas Tentacle (which came with the set), so great Chtulhu can give me gifts when I've been a good cultist.

Why don't you drop the strawman? Nobody gives a damn about copyright in a patent thread. Nobody said anything about violating patents being Ok In fact: Somebody (me) said the suit looked suspicious because of the dates and companies involved (i.e. a company that for all intent and purposes don't exist and doesn't have a history, other than suddenly filing a few hundred infringement claims without anything specific.). If they had pointed out exactly where and how their patent had been infringed, I might have given them the benefit of the doubt. As it stands, it looks like a patent troll (see definition above). If you want to discuss patents in general, why not create a thread in Way off Topic? The only hypocrisy displayed are when morons go to great length trying to justify piracy.

Yes, we have. What's your point? Breivik, presumably, and how your (sic) tough gun controls didn't stop him murdering a bunch of kids. The point is, of course, slightly reduced by not getting the country right. Yes, Breivik, filthy Swede that he is...

Pretty much this. The tobacco lobby was once a world wide force to be reckoned with, but over the last couple of decades, targeting the message that having a cigarette hanging in the corner of your mouth was "cool" to being a social reject if you smoke is the way to go. It might still take decades for guns, but only if you target peoples attitudes and dare go against the all powerful gun lobbyists do you stand a chance of succeeding.

You can also contest a patent, if there is doubt about whether or not any invention actually took place, whether or not the patent filer is the one doing the invention and whether or not it was something too generic to actually patent. See debate about human DNA. Did you confuse yourself? You sure confused me. What does copyright have to do with patents (other than protect creators and inventors)? Typically 2-3 years (and we are talking 11-12 years after the fact here). In that case, the patent applicant can contact the users of the patent and point out that it has already been filed. I have a nice bridge in Los Angeles I want to sell you I think most pirates are low life's, but most of them aren't *that* stupid, even if they try hard to convince people of it sometimes. Which is why you have courtrooms and it's up to lawyers to decide. If MCRo is a genuine company developing lip sync middleware that they sell to video game and animated movie studio's, they are entitled to their due for their money invested in research and development. If not, I hope their next job involves asking 'Want fries with that?'. Point not found?

Just for good measure, Wiki's summary of patent trolls: Patent Troll "Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers" Basically gaming the system without contributing anything of value.

So could Australia. Impossible to get a decent Irish Coffee anywhere. Fancy, expensive hotels in Sydney? Hah, what a joke. Some of the most piss poor excuses for Irish Coffee I've ever had.

Not really. Ripping somebody off deliberately and knowingly for the purpose of greed and being fooled by companies or individuals into buying their services and products in good faith, likely paying good money in the process, isn't quite the same. If you can't see that, then nobody can help you. Besides, there are companies who never invented a thing, but has turned it into an industry searching patent office records, trying to catch companies off-guard with "Gotcha's" because somebody may have patented something in the past, that is similar enough to a common practice. Strange the "inventors" only discovered more than a decade later that video games exists? If they had actually provided any proof or specifics, they may have been worth listening to, but when using the shotgun method against any and all video game companies listed in the yellow pages in the same week (and only US ones, they probably didn't have access to overseas phone books), it comes across as gold diggers, not trying to "protect their investment", but trying to extort money from an industry. Did anybody ever claim that abusing the patent system is better than piracy? Nope, just as pathetic.

A bit of Mass Effect 1, but mostly Carmageddon (the original 'GoG' version). Nothing like a bit of Pedestricide to relax at the end of the day

Sounds like they plan to change that... Quest compasses? Regenerating health? Auto-aim? Couch Co-op?

Anybody actually watch those shows? I could understand if it had been Victoria's Secret or some such

There, fixed it for you

Edit to add spoiler tags, just because.

Q: How would you go about designing a Dread Gazebo?

Played Elite to the point of obsession on my C64. Wish I had kept the box, even if the tape would have been completely unreadable today. Had Frontier: Elite II for my Amiga, but it was a bit of a buggy mess unfortunately, but very intriguing and introducing "factions", that you could side with and accept missions from. Edit to get to the point: Following the current kickstarter Elite with cautious curiosity.

Because we breed like rabbits?

Going out with a bang would be most glorious. Yellowstone! The end is probably going to be something more quaint and probably human made, like social unrest because of over population and resource shortages. The sheer volume of food eating, energy consuming masses is going to reach critical mass some day and the system will collapse worse than the GFC.

I don't know any of the other TC movies on that list. but I thought 'War of the Worlds' was pretty horrible and 'Top Gun' was cringe worthy (only good thing was the sound track). On the other hand, I liked 'Minority Report'. Just browsing around a bit on Amazon and see if there is something that might tempt me. Haven't watched anything for a very long while.

Since they are trying Treyarch, Insomniac Games, Namco, Konami, Shiny, Sega, Naughty Dog, Sony, Capcom, Square Enix, Thq, Rockstar, 2K Games, Lucasarts Neversoft, Activision/Blizzard and a bunch of others, I would say it smells of desperation and somebody is trying to wring money out game companies. Sadly, the "exhibits", were missing, so no way to see what they think everybody else is doing that is too similar. Particularly hilarious was the bit about Obsidian keep selling the allegedly infringing games. Edit: Wanna bet Lucasarts and Blizzards lawyers are going to wipe the floor with them?

That chef got balls...

I'm sure there is a special hell set aside for me But the walking wikipedia on steroids and best friend vigilante just didn't do it for me. Maybe I really just like my party members a bit more crooked and twisted. Heck, I even liked Kasumi once I got around to buy the DLC for ME2.

I seem to have missed completely both of these aspects. *squints* Nope, still sticks out like a sore, stupid thumb. Additionally I think freddie prinze jr was horribly miscast. I seriously missed a number of my companions from ME2. Even EDI was more interesting when she was the ship At least the Kaidan guy wasn't too bad (and less whiny than Ashley) once you got him on board the Normandy. Vega was like something out of a bad comic (only Kai Leng was worse), Liara isn't my thing, nor is Garrus. Leaving those behind I dislike means Javik wins by default and the empty second party member slot becomes a toss up between EDi and Kaidan. I think I mentioned something similar a long time ago (e.g. Master Wade in DA:O and others), but the guys writing the "incidental" characters, like the refugees etc. seems to have more fun/creativity when it comes to creating characters.