My net connection is lame and I don't like time dilation so EVE is right out for me. If a game doesn't have single-player, I won't spend any significant amount of money on it.

Auto-aim shouldn't matter? Why do you even think that? It makes no sense.

IBM makes plenty of money off their patent business. Something like $1billion a year.
You can be sure IBM will be looking to monetize these patents.

This is the problem, not a solution to the problem. See my earlier posts for more details.

Yes, that's one difference. (A very important difference, as I've explained far too many times.) There are also differences, for example, in the security model.

I can only repeat myself so many times. At least read what I've written.

Like I said before, I can't help you. You ignore what I've written and flat-out deny the problems I put forward. Why you have such strong opinions on the matter is beyond me, as it's clear that you're not interested in the subject at all.

It's his own money. Who cares if it's a fallacy? The reality is, eventually we're going to need to switch to renewable energy. Non-renewable energy will run out by definition.

So if he wants to put his money into that, it might make the world a better place. And if it ends up with cheaper energy for everybody, it will make the world a better place. The cheaper energy becomes, the better.

What was the thing about suckers, birth rates and minutes?

Your ideas are intriguing. I would like to subscribe to your magazine...

This exactly shows why morons like you have no business flying without a license. You have no concept whatsoever of "airspace".

You don't seem to understand that you don't own the air over your property.

Bullshit. You own the air up to 500 feet. Commercial aircraft are not allowed to fly within that zone without permission or a really good reason.

Are you saying that somebody launching a 3-pound quadcopter into the air above their property is inherently safer at 1000' than is the person who does that from some empty lot or a wooded park in the middle of nowhere?

No, someone with a 3-pound quadcopter has no business operating at 1000' because that's federally regulated airspace, unless that person has a proper pilot's license and type rating for that aircraft. Even there, they probably shouldn't be allowed to operate at that altitude because that aircraft is too small to be seen by other human-piloted aircraft.

What I'm saying is that someone who owns the property and also the drone shouldn't need a license to operate their drone, within their airspace (up to 500' AGL), as long as they stay within that box. If they crash their drone into their house, that's their own fault and their own problem. It's exactly like how we treat farm-use vehicles: they aren't required to be registered, tagged, or have licensed drivers as long as they stay on private land. If they screw up because they let their 12-year-old kid drive and he crashes, that's their problem, and auto insurance won't cover it nor do they need to worry about hitting other drivers.

Did you miss my comment about flying over private property owned by the pilot (or presumably, where the owner has given the pilot permission to fly in it)?

It's just like driving a vehicle: if you have a big farm, there is zero requirement to register your car with the state government or get a driver's license, as long as you keep your vehicle on your own land. You can even let your 12-year-old kid drive your car on your land. It's only when you drive onto public streets that all that stuff becomes mandatory.

It should be the same with drones. Stick to your own land, or land you have explicit permission to fly over, and nothing is needed. If you want to fly in airspace shared by other aircraft, you need a license just like they do.

We kill 30,000 people per year with drunk driving, and yet the federal govt does not license or test car drivers or drinkers.

Bullshit. The state governments license and test car drivers (poorly usually). If the federal government took it over, people like you would start screaming about the 10th Amendment. The Federal government handles aviation because planes routinely cross state lines, whereas interstate car traffic isn't remotely a majority of car traffic.

For that matter, over 50 people die per year in the US doing roofing work, should we require roofers to have federal licenses and get their equipment approved by the feds?

Again, this is probably something that's regulated by the states. You can't be a professional plumber without a state license. And again, people like you would be screaming about the 10th Amendment if the federal government tried to license contractors. And honestly, in that case you'd probably be right anyway; there's no need to license contractors at the federal level, and states can manage it better themselves since there are differences from state-to-state in what's allowed (local codes and such).

Are you trying to argue that your local or state government shouldn't be allowed to license plumbers, electricians, etc?

Oh please, if you think I'm going to read all this idiotic Libertarian claptrap, you're deluded. (But then, you have to be deluded to believe this shit.)

The simple fact is that flying is extremely dangerous, and when pilots fuck up, it has serious consequences, usually worse if there's passengers, but even if there's not, they can cause catastrophic damage on the ground too. The government has every right to regulate airspace, just as it regulates roads to keep dangerous drivers off the highways so they don't kill people through their negligence and incompetence (unfortunately, the government isn't so good at identifying bad drivers, but it has the right to).

You probably think people and companies should be able to pollute all they want too.

You honestly can't see the massive differences between those things?

I can't help you.

What I find most annoying about all this is less the could of smug, and more the fact that household electricity use is such a small slice of the pie of overall US energy use. From wind power to this DC nonsense, it's obsessing on feelgood measures of little importance to the big picture.

This biggest slice of the pie is industrial energy use where electricity isn't part of the picture: "Primary energy use" by heavy industry for blast furnaces and the like. Industrial electricity use is the next biggest slice, followed by IIRC industrial transportation.

As you say, you want to feel like your economic choices have consequence, and not just for your pocketbook. If I buy all the fish in town, then not only should the price of fish go up, but the fishing industry should spend its money in predictable locations and boost other industries.

As my subject line alludes, the real place this crops up again and again is in space games. If I'm buying and selling the complete available product of a planet in some particular industry, that should have significant effects. Or, if I blow up a bunch of cargo ships carrying spaceship parts, then that should have significant and immediately noticeable effects. Instead, none of this is true at all in basically any game but EVE.

If you don't look up, the difference would be less shocking than you imagine... especially since the motorcar is so very much cleaner and quieter now than it was then.

This drone thing is a fad, it will come in waves. This is the "pretty cheap" wave, it is fairly annoying. The "practically free" wave will be even worse. Then it will settle down to a dull background murmur.