RTFA It was an obscure 3rd party controller from overseas that, according to the article, Nintendo had no idea existed. The sheriff's office could barely track it down on the web it was so obscure.
I did RTFA...and let me explain something to you....NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Nintendo is a huge company. Lawyer wants payday. Family is distraught and wants to blame somebody (except themselves). Lawyer capitalizes on this and goes to sue Nintendo, hoping that Nintendo will settle for a few million (which the layer gets 50% of).
This is manslaughter. Whoever left a gun near a 3-year-old needs locking up.
WRONG! It is clearly Nintendo's fault for making their contoller look "similar" to a gun and obviously the family should sue Nintendo for negligible homicide and reap millions.
What...you don't believe me? Just wait until the family gets a lawyer telling them practically the same thing and how the family was wronged by Nintendo.
Once they started shooting the French said "Welp, okay" and blew them out of the water.
Wait the French didn't surrender? Are you sure it was the French?
Some of my fondest coding memories were programming for an LP mud.
It gets to the point "Your body contemplates to take a breath of air....you get kicked"
I might be biased though because I started playing back in the early 90's on various MUDs which were a) free and b) a lot more creative with their game mechanics. Give me a good old tabletop RPG any day of the week.
Really? You are trying to compare muds of the early 90s (which I also played) to todays games? You are comparing "You are in a room, your exists are up, down, north, west". I played majormud, telearena, tradewars2002, and a bunch of others. They were great, but nothing compared to today. After playing Doom 1 I said "wow one day we will have a merger of this and muds" and we do.
I think your dislike of MMOS today (which is just a large graphical mud) is that you are comparing today to your youth...that's a mistake...about as much of a mistake when I rented the original transformers series, and battlestar galactica series...what a way to kill my childhood memories. Things seem better from when you were a kid because your brain fantasizes and makes it better then what it was...plus as a kid we have beeter imaginations and are more easily impressed then when we are adults.
BTW - it did cost money to play muds back in the day depending on where you played (just like today). I had to pay $20/month so I could have a monthly account with the local BBS. It did cost the guy time/money to keep the computers/phone lines up and running and he was limited to 15-25 people at a time. He paid $10/line so charging users $20/month was fair.
This is like buying a car. Every time I've tried to buy a car, the salesman has tried to make the deal more complicated. Let's talk trade in! Nope. I'm selling my car separately. Well how about financing? Nope, I'm paying cash. What about this nifty special warranty the dealer offers? I'd rather just hand you the money than going through that charade. And no, I'm not handing you the money. Well, an extended manufacturer warranty? I'll self-insure, thank you.
Really? Buying a car is that complex?
"How much is the car sales person? X you say? Ok I will give you Y. Great now that we agree on Z let's move on.
I would like to finance, what's your rates? Q you say? Well that's better then my bank, so great let's move on.
I want to sell you my car, how much are you offering? M you say? Well, M is a bit low, how about N? Great now that we agree on O let's move on.
"Finally, the warranty, how much? S you say? Ok I will give you T. Great we have a deal"
It's four fairly simple steps...if a person finds that difficult then I'd imagine Linux involves solving the mystery of the universe. At any point in the process if you are unhappy with one of the rates you can decline. If your car purchase is anymore complex then that (other then inspecting the car) then you are doing something entirely wrong.
It is bad enough that they try to use SS as one, but, I do not want a sanctioned national id.
Too late...SS has already transformed (many many years ago) into a national ID. It's how you get a job (legally), get benefits (until they run out), pay your taxes, get loans, track your criminal record, track your passport, etc. It's a very good way of tracking people because it's a huge freakin number that is used on a 1:1 ratio.
However, social security has a major flaw...our cards have absolutely ZERO ways of gauranteeing the person holding the ID is actually the person using the ID (except age....i don't think I could pass for a 75 year old person...since I am 33).
Giving this card a method to be used as an ID will help.
BTW - jsut in thought. By law we are all required to have social security numbers from birth. We are not all required to have drivers license's, but many states require people have some kind of gov't id card by the age of 18. That means if you live in one of those states you have to get a drivers license, non-drivers license, passport, military id or welfare card by the age of 18...that is an extra ID (and some would say tracking) form. By putting a picture on your social card then people who would prefer not to be tracked can live their entire lives with only ONE form of ID (social)...anyhow I digress.
My point is this id will help prevent fraud, amongst other things. I am down for a bit less fraud
Does Congress really live in a fantasy land where illegal immigrants are hired to positions where they supply SSNs, drivers licenses, etc? In my experience the vast majority of businesses employing illegal labor do so by paying them in cash. "Come work with us for a day putting up drywall, there's a few sawbucks in it for you." No amount of biometrics will stop this.
Illegal immigrants use stolen socials to get said jobs...yes it happens, and yes it is significant. Those socials are also used by criminals who are trying to avoid detection, used by people trying to steal benefits, used by people trying to get loans and defaulting on them, etc. It's a huge issue. SS theft is extremely bad - it hurts the person who had their information stolen (getting your SS changed is next to impossible). It hurts the businesses who got screwed out of loan money (which in turn raises the prices for the general public).
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn