That's because they're NOT pirates, except in the most strict of senses (Meaning in the verb sense of the word "To attack and rob (a ship at sea)").

These people are KIDNAPPERS. They hold the CREW hostage until they're paid off.. In most cases, they have absolutely no use for the cargo, as you mentioned above. People that hold other people captive until they're paid off are NOT pirates, they're kidnappers, plain and simple.

Stop calling these people "Pirates" (Yaar!) and start calling them "Kidnappers", and their whole air of being rogues slips away fairly rapidly.

Nobody is going to post the obvious "SkyNet Lives" comment?

What kind of geeks are you (we)?

Meaning:

$600 (when new) PC laptop is worth maybe $200 after 2 years. $1000 (when new) MacBook is worth at lest $600 after that same 2 years.

If you believe that (And I do, personally.. based on Ebay prices of used laptops), then the whole thing is a wash.

Pretty sure Modell's is a sporting goods store in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.. :)

Because I pay X dollars a month for Y speed (and am possibly subject to a monthly bandwith cap of W).

Nothing in that equation allows them to vary X or Y because the content (Z) is one they do not approve of.

End of story.

The really neat question will be, IMO, things like the on-demand/live streaming service from places like Netflix and Comcast. I believe that they have physical infrastructure in NY, so that would mean they are impacted.

The movies and TV shows that they stream DO have a value, even if that value is calculated as a fraction of the monthly subscription one pays. How much of that monthly subscription should be the basis for the tax that NY wants to collect?

TFA is silent on this point, but I'm curious how they'd be able to implement something like that via legislation..

Where you might very well get eaten by a grue.

You know, that's exactly the thing.

I don't buy books. Yes, I'm that bastard that gets his books from the public library.. Where I live (Chester County, PA), we have an excellent library system, with the ability to request books (even from outside of the Chester County system, via an Inter-Library loan system in PA)and do renewals and other such things via the web.

They do have a service where I can download (a very few) DRM'd ebooks for a defined period of time (usually 2 weeks), at which point the "books" check themselves back in.. BUT, the vast majority of the books in the system are not digital, and probably never will be.

Before I'd consider spending $300+ on a Kindle, Amazon and the book publishers (and not incidentally, the library itself) will have to come up w/ a system where I can check out a copy of a book on the Kindle with the same ease and selection as I have with physical books. The "download the NYT every morning" thing DOES have it points, but that just isn't worth $300 to me.

Real guns, yes.

Virtual guns, no.

True enough, but I'd have to imagine that most things that could be classified as "Culture War Hot Buttons" have their origins in either very "Red" or very "Blue" states (Think Utah or Vermont). My point in the OP was to say that the population of UT is relatively small and not really all that representative of the rest of the nation's politics.

If it wasn't videogames that were "making" kids do bad things (and training them for a future in the Army, as far as JT believes), it would be TV or movies or music or whatever else the people that worry about this sort of thing would blame. "Violent Games" are just the latest (and easiest) scapegoat.

Also, Lieberman is not (in any meaningful way) a Democrat any longer. Bernie Sanders, (the other "Independent") is "Independent" in the sense that he isn't formally a member of the Democratic party.. Joe, OTOH, is more of a Republican every day.

But most ARE.

Who cares?

No offense to the nice nice people in Utah, but one state law, in a very small (population-wise) state, and will have little or no impact on the VG industry. Even IF this bill passes, there is certain to be an immediate EFF or ACLU lawsuit to overturn it.

Utah is the reddest of the "Red States", and I have to imagine that most good Mormon kids aren't playing GTA4 anyway.

Says the guy w/ the 600K+ ID.. :)

I love these tangents where people start comparing their Userids..

The last one I participated in got out some really low ones.. got down to people in the low 3-digit range..

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=560628&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=nested&startat=100&pid=0

Spot on.