FTFA:

A theologian? What?

Yeah, or until it started doing that spinning wrist thing without loosening its grip first....

Just get a fleshlight attachment. Easy.

As I recall, it's not uncommon to be able to actually track the progress of the beam with the naked eye even without a high speed camera. This is true of a bullet at long range (being able to track tracer rounds, for example), but I remember doing this with phasers sometimes when guys were shooting at each other in the same room.

I feel like it improves the pacing of combat. Spending half your time hiding and waiting for weapons to cooldown is kind of boring. On the other hand, it makes no sense in universe for guns to work this way. I'd like to see a compromise with thermal clips *and* weapon cooldowns. So essentially, you'll get so many free thermal refreshes in a mission (and maybe thermal clips themselves are rarer). That would encourage you to use them strategically.... but otherwise, your weapons will cool down on their own in time.

They could make that a perk of first class. I'd consider upgrading my tickets.

By Osama? Why would you count from 2001? It spiked a bit shortly thereafter and then dropped for several years straight before spiking far more dramatically 2008-2009. Remind me again what it was Osama did to hurt our economy in that time frame.

According to amazon, the retail price of an equivalent PS3 unit (comparing 250 GB slim models) is 50 bucks more, or the price of about a year of XBL. So that's not technically true. But really, the relative prices are immaterial.

Yes, but that money comes from revenue they make from systems and games. You *are* paying for it. It just doesn't appear on your credit card statement every month. It's like buying a lifetime subscription to something.

Well yes, they probably were. But that doesn't mean we can't expect it to be a good service. It was advertised as a competitor to XBL with the benefit that you don't need to pay for an ongoing subscription. This was a promise they made to people who were holding that PS3 box in their hands contemplating putting down a chunk of change on gaming console. We paid for this service, we just don't pay for an ongoing subscription. In the long run, we definitely pay *more* for XBL. Maybe we should also expect more. But that's not how I look at it. If they can't provide the same service as Microsoft without charging a subscription, then charge a damn subscription. What was advertised was equivalent service, and that's what I want.

So... minor nitpick, but he didn't say it wasn't high, he said it wasn't *as* high. Are you saying that the infection rate is equivalent? I mean, by pure virtue of people looking at more porn on their home computers than work computers, I'd expect it to be lower, even if you don't account for security and firewalls and whatnot that are erected as IT practices.

And is a major selling point of their PS3 system, which they, last I checked, charge for. I think they charge for the games, too. Are you really trying to argue that PS3 owners have no reasonable expectation that Sony will maintain the service and continue to support their multiplayer experiences? Are you really trying to argue that Sony has no responsibility to its customers with regard to the state of PSN?

The service is part of the package, and a customer has certain expectations of that service when the package is purchased. If you purchase a Kindle, you expect you'll be able to download books to it. That's a key selling point of the Kindle. It doesn't matter that they don't charge for the continued service; that's just how the damn thing is supposed to work. The PS3 is the same way.

Last I checked, XBL is still up. Look, which way do you want it? Do you want to argue that they are equivalent services and that Sony's is better because it's free or do you want to argue that Sony's service, due to being free, should not be subject to the same expectations as XBL? You seem to want to have it both ways.

I know what I want. I want to play my video games through an online service. I'm sick of this stupid excuse. Online multiplayer is an advertised feature and an expectation of the system. If you bought a Kindle 3G and suddenly you couldn't download any books to it for a month, do you really think "Yeah, but you don't pay extra for the 3G service" is a valid excuse?

I paid $600 for it. It came as part of a bundle with some hardware.

Awww, that's cute. A person who thinks a low user ID counts for something ;)

The person who had their card stolen was still heavily inconvenienced by the whole thing. I had my card stolen once and I felt violated. I tried to social engineer the mailing address of the purchased CDs out of an operator, but I failed. Seriously, though, I wanted to show up with a baseball bat and break some kneecaps. I only wish I had had a recourse other than letting the card company take care of it and issue a new card. They may not have wanted to press charges, but I did.

Evidently you haven't thought it through enough.

Yes. And this is because there's an actual market for it. Presumably this would stop if everyone stopped buying it, yes? Well what if people stopped paying for it, but somehow managed to continue consuming it? Would have the same effect, yes? That's the point others are making.