Comment Re:When going into business with Friends (Score 5, Informative) 183
All in all a classic carpetbagger move by Williams that everyone except Gygax fell for.
you got it for free if you had the promo code so can't really bitch about the DRM in it.
If I have not been (clearly) informed of it's presence and implications by the publisher I certainly can and so should any person that consider themselves the owner of their machine when it is DRM that is known to:
- Generate false positives on authentic discs.
- Create files and reg keys that you cannot access/remove as admin.
- Snoop on your software usage 24/7.
- Conflict with debugging software and in some instances even require debuggers to be un-installed in order for you to play the game.
- Remain installed after you have un-installed the game.
In turn, governments have it in their interest to pass laws that in general benefit society.
If you consider the very wealthy and corporations to be society then what you write is true for most governments. But if you consider the majority of the electorate being society, then not so. For an example of what I mean look at the recent study from Princeton University and Northwestern University that reached the conclusion that the USA is an oligarchy.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.
Amnesty International has taken over 100 first-hand testimonies of large-scale anti-balaka attacks on Muslim civilians in CAR's northwest towns of Bouali, Boyali, Bossembele, Bossemptele, and Baoro. International troops had failed to deploy to these towns leaving civilian communities without protection. The most lethal attack documented by Amnesty International took place on 18 January in Bossemptele, where at least 100 Muslims were killed. Among the dead were women and old men, including an imam in his mid-70s.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein