I'll compare that to Sykrim on Steam. No internet connection means just not being able to sync character data with their server and not being able to get updates. So long as it's on the same computer you played it on last time a lack of connectivity is completely ignorable.
I think that's a far better approach than needing to log onto the server before you can play.

parroting feminist talking points

Where did I do that? Oh it's the strawman in your head.

If you weren't so busy seeing muh soggy knees and rapists everywhere

No mention of rapists and whatever "muh soggy knees" is supposed to mean, so once again strawman in your head.

It appears I don't have very much to do with this discussion so why don't you carry it on with yourself offline instead of the stupid fucking cowardly and childish strawman shit in my name?

Also WTF was "Why don't you take it back to jezebel" supposed to mean and WTF did it have to do with either my post or the one above - was it a reply to the strawman in your head again?

you tantrum throwing little poster child

Not the strawman this time, sounds just like you and your rant doesn't it?

It's a pretty sad case when saying something positive about Marie Curie is considered rabid feminism. Would that make me gay if I mentioned Charles Darwin?

Did you get rejected by some girl and now you are foaming at the mouth and seeing feminists everywhere? All I did is wrote about dysfunctional workplaces full of nothing but chestbeating whiney little boys under thirty in response to some really stupid stuff above and you come swinging in to unleash the torrents of childish shit. "Feminist shaming language"? Nowhere near it unless you have the delusion of seeing it everywhere you look. What really appears to have happened is you are took my words personally for some reason and consider yourself a "whiney little boy" like the idiot crossmr above with his "special snowflake" comment. I was not addressing you and do not appreciate your childish action of of kneejerk insult that makes no sense in the context. I suggest applying some effort to growing up instead of insulting anyone that suggests a varied workplace.

You are mixing that up with how many people think the idea is ridiculous on so many levels especially given that the N.K. angle was added so late in the situation. Criminals demanding money apparently was too boring so the story changed.

They used to kidnap Japanese people for information

Sadly it looks like the information was mostly how long they could live as sex slaves before they died.

They may be grade A assholes but they are ones with an abacus. I doubt they had the patience to do such a thing let alone the expertise or the will. The story as told is a convenient way for both the criminals and Sony to deflect blame and a handy situation for the FBI to point to and scream "Cyberterrorism - give us more money to fight it!"
Everybody wins apart from N.K. and whoever in S.K. lives where some shells might land if N.K. wants to use artillery again to express their displeasure.

Did he fall for it or is he getting political advantage out of it? Or of course, there could be the sheer fluke of both.

"America never bargains with terrorists."

The weasel loopholes were that it wasn't "America" but instead Reagan for months before the election, and North after.

Now the media is calling them cyberhackers.
That would be some seriously obsessed robot if it made any sense.

install puppet governments that our government likes

On that topic, that's what China did but the family of puppets went insane. How do we know that our puppets will be any better than their puppets? There is no viable opposition in N.K. so anyone we install will be either somebody associated with the current regime or a complete nobody.

NK regime is keeping its bizarrely oppressed people from flooding into China as refugees

I know someone who lived on the Chinese side of the border. They saw a lot of refugees despite the large number of N.K. troops across the river acting like prison guards trying to keep people in.

His early stuff I'd class as sort of martial arts "porn" - action scenes with a weak or non-existent plot linking them but it didn't matter because of the action.

No, it's the language of a real man instead of a whiney little boy. When you succeed in growing up you will not be "shamed" by it.
Part of being a real man is caring about the future of your daughters, nieces etc.

Been there, done that in less than four years when there was no USSR to bail them out.
The place used to export food to China and now it's a basket case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

China actually likes North Korea for some reason

Because as the sole trader with N.K. they can, and do, seriously gouge them on the price of oil and most likely everything else.
That's why they put up with such xenophobic nutcases who even hate Chinese. The mother of a friend of mine had to flee the place when she married a man from China because of a large number of death threats from her neighbours. It's probably just as well because she made it out before the place devolved into starvation central in the late 60's.

I, too, however, am beginning to wonder if this whole incident was staged by Sony as a gigantic publicity stunt.

I don't think it started that way but it's being milked as one - also the N.K. angle came in as a late afterthought to what looked like a ransom situation.