... for both Blizzard and the modding community. The reason is, this guy made this mod using tools Blizzard made available to all StarCraft II users. He didn't hack the game or add libraries.

If Blizzard's legal counsel decides to issue a C&D on the project itself (to my knowledge they've only griped at Google/Youtube so far), that will have a chilling effect on the modders, which is probably smaller than it would be had not Blizzard insisted on taking ownership of any mods made with their tools in the EULA. Furthermore, the modder who was targeted this time can probably prove in court (unless Activision Blizzard tries to starve him by stalling the court) that he didn't in fact violate the EULA and that Blizzard, should it take him to court, is acting arbitrarily. That could have consequences for Blizzard or the modders that wouldn't be good for anyone-- the EULA could be scuppered, or edited to include a "Blizzard can do anything it wants to your projects including shutting it down and banning it from the Internet" clause.

The best course of action is for Blizzard to back the fuck down. They're already going to lose this talented artist to Riot Games, and going after him may cause other artists and modders to avoid Blizzard like the plague.

And whaddaya know, Riot Games wants him aboard.

I don't know what legal counsel Blizzard has, but they've clearly told Blizzard since the days of Battle.net that if they don't "protect their intellectual property", they'll lose it. Their attitude towards the modding community is predicated on this legal argument.

No one on the planet has ever switched platforms because of the contents of these types of articles.

Tell that to the local PHB.

No one still employed in IT has ever switched platforms because of the contents of these types of articles.

If that were the extent of his accomplishments (tongue in cheek), I don't think he'd compare that well to the Pope. Although he was a sneaky and ruthless bastard as a businessperson, he's actually a better person as a philanthropist.

Of course, it would be easier to paint him in a better light if he's a philanthropist than if he's a tycoon...

That would imply that there are article editing resources available to commenters (even a subset of them, like the highest-rated mods). As far as I know, that doesn't exist, so a better word would be outsourcing.

I admit to not even having WP7 on the radar, but WTF Microsoft??

(Or is that 99 bucks for developer access? In that case... WTF Microsoft??)

Newton, the father of classical physics, became a believer in alchemy. Tesla, arguably the greatest inventor of his time, made kookish claims like being able to split the earth using a few explosives.

All this demonstrates is that even the greatest minds can believe things that are false. Perhaps they couldn't get other Nobel laureates on board because they were busy working?

One thing I'm not as fond of about Motorola's Android strategy is their penchant for marketing 6 underpowered crap Android handsets for every Droid X.

Sure, this may appease the marketers and the cheapskate crowd, but Moto doesn't have to sell both Pintos and Cadillacs, if you get my drift.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the rationalization went thus:
"If my kid dies to disease, at least I won't have to deal with him getting out of control because of autism."

It's a horrifying idea to think about, but there are parents who discover that actual parenting is insanely hard compared to whatever they thought it was like in their mind's eye, so much so that some want to give away the kids and return to relative freedom-- never mind that they're quite literally chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

It's almost as if we ought to consider requiring licenses for those who create children without considering the costs to themselves, their children, and their communities. (It won't fly, of course, so the best course of option is probably education...)

That's the nature of conspiracy theory and propaganda-- people readily believe things that are either shocking or that fit into their worldview, and resist un-believing such things because they don't like the idea that this new comfortable information could possibly be false.

If the locals don't charge him, the US attorney might-- assaulting a MoC may well be a federal crime (but IANAL). If this guy does not get convicted, it will be a disaster for justice.

They had this exact problem with Texas City-- they didn't do maintenance on the systems, so a subsystem overfilled with volatile hydrocarbons with no alarms going off at all-- and when one alert sounded at the monitoring area, they ignored it. They didn't invest the (relatively) small cost of installing a flare (to burn off excess), so the excess hydrocarbons spilled out into the open. Cost-cutting and an incredibly cavalier approach to maintenance from the London management generated a fucking fuel-air bomb in Texas.

This is one instance where the Brit management, when they changed to Hayward, should have told their investors to "fuck off-- er, give us a few years" and spend the necessary money to get their facilities up to snuff, or decommission the facilities that are too costly to maintain. Alas, profit motive proved more powerful than basic empathy or responsibility.

Unfortunately, while the barkers on the right (and to some extent the left, as they tend to exaggerate the right's messages as they beat it down) must bear responsibility, in all likelihood they will hide behind the cloak of "I'm an Entertainer, nyah! *raspberries*".

If anything, a culture of unbridled selfishness may be far more responsible than any partisan zeal.

True, and I think that would be fairly trivial should it come to that stage, because they were able to convince a judge that there is probable cause to arrest the person with the cell phone. Unless they're incredibly sloppy policemen, they should have no problem getting a search warrant for stuff stored in the arrestee's name in a datacenter.

Not necessarily-- they could tell their clients "Hey, we've got this new BitTorrent technology to make content distribution faster and more reliable", and charge a premium for the service contract.