Quick, everyone jump on their always-on internet connections and complain about needing an always-on internet connection to play this new game! How ridiculous to expect people with a computer or console capable of running this game to also have internet access in the 21st century.

Yes. And if the Technology Fairy came down to everyone's home and gave us all magical Internet connections with literally zero latency and infinite up/down, it would STILL be ridiculous, because there's no good reason that a game needs a constant internet connection if it isn't integral to the actual gameplay.

Understand? The problem isn't that they expect us to have Internet access. The problem is that they think we should need permission to use the product we bought.

When it comes to puns, less is ore.

If the military can turn this suit into an important tool for war, then there will be laws that ban civilians from having it, no matter how useful it could be for civilian industries.

Exactly. Just like they did with:

• helicopters
• Kevlar
• GPS
• rocketry
• radar
• nuclear energy
• the Internet

The only ethical response to ubisoft is not to buy their product, not to use their product, not to infringe upon their product and then tell them you are doing it and tell your friends.

Not true. There are at least two more ethical responses:

1. If available, buy the title on a platform where the objectionable DRM isn't used. I bought AC2 for the 360 largely for this reason (Yes, I know 360 games have some DRM, but not of the intentionally-screw-the-legit-customer variety).
2. Buy the title, "pirate" it anyway, and play the pirated version in order to enjoy the product you paid for without the DRM.

In either case, telling the publisher what you did and why is a good idea, though not ethically necessary.

Done in large enough numbers, both can make them realize that DRM is a drain on profits (the $X per copy sold that was spent on DRM would otherwise have been profit). Additionally, the second option acts as further evidence that "one crack downloaded =/= one sale lost".

How does one state equal the entire country? Or even three? The answer, of course, is that is doesn't, and you're simply lying.

And a blanket ban IS unconstitutional. The fact that it hasn't been overturned yet doesn't prove otherwise. To suggest that it does is to argue that any law on the books is automatically constitutional.

Posters said there were NO laws against it. I proved otherwise.

Those posters were attacking your original claim, which was this:

You have a face that's publicly viewable when you go on the street - and you don't have the right to wear a mask to hide it, What's the problem with that?

That claim is not "there are laws against it in a small number of places". It was a generalized statement of fact which, in your ignorance, you assumed applied everywhere. Your claim was that laws against masks were the rule, not the exception. You failed miserably in supporting that statement. Upon realizing this, you started trying to move the goalposts so you could redefine your position as "there's a law against it SOMEWHERE" rather than your previous position of "there's a law against it EVERYWHERE".

It's binary - either there are or there aren't. It's like being pregnant - either you are or you aren't.

But again, your claim wasn't that some place, somewhere has an anti-mask law. It was that anti-mask laws are prevalent, which as your own evidence shows is false by a binary standard.

So admit that you're wrong.

No, for the same reason I won't admit that I'm secretly the King of the Moth People.

And if you want to go by percentages, there's a country bigger than yours that has laws against it right on top of you. And there are other countries that also have similar laws.

If you want to retroactively broaden the scope of your original claim to cover the whole world, you face some problems:

1. It's an implicit admission that your claim fails to hold true in its original context.
2. It carries a much larger burden of proof than the one you were already unwilling to shoulder.
3. It applies to a hell of a lot more than masks. For example, you could just as easily make a blanket statement of "you don't have a right to worship as you please" based on the fact that a big chunk of the world's governments have anti-this-religion-or-that-one laws. If you want your reasoning to be consistent, you either have to commit to defending positions like that, or abandon your original one.
4. It doesn't fool anyone; you're just moving the goalposts again.

I've provided a way for you to demonstrate that I'm wrong. Simply go into the nearest gun store wearing a mask.

Unfortunately for you, the ways in which I can prove you wrong are not limited to what you "provide". Even "prove you wrong" is more than I need to do; I need merely point out how you have not proven yourself right. I have shown how your cited evidence fails to support your claim, and you have not defended it. You, as the one making the assertive claim, are the one under the burden of proof. So the fact that I'm not going to do what you ask doesn't say what you want to think it does. And you know it.

One of the posters claimed that there were no such laws. I proved otherwise.

You "proved" that your claim is less than 6% true, which you would have known if you had actually read your source. Remember: three states out of fifty (and zero cities, but we'll get to that later), none of whom have been shown by you to be enforcing these laws in the context you claimed or defending them in court. Since your original claim is a blanket statement covering the entire US (assuming that you only meant the US), this isn't even remotely enough to show that your claim should be accepted as generally true everywhere.

Now, if you want to show that those laws are not in effect, do so, and pics or it didn't happen.

Again, burden of proof. You're arguing from ignorance here.

There is on constitutional right to go around wearing a mask

Well, first of all, there doesn't need to be. Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.".

But we need not fall back on the Ninth. Wearing a mask has two primary functions: self-expression and anonymity, both of which are amply protected by the First Amendment.

Therefore, any laws against masks can only pass Constitutional muster if tailored to a very narrow scope. Those of California, DC, and Florida would probably survive since they focus on the use of masks to aid activities that are unlawful anyway.

New York's did survive a challenge, but don't get excited by the headline; read the article and you'll see that the reasoning was tied entirely to safety issues arising from the fact that the plaintiffs were seeking to hold a KKK parade in their hoods, and it was held that the hoods did not convey anything that the robes didn't. Obviously the same could not be said of, say, a protest by Anonymous, and certainly not to someone just walking down the street as in your original statement of "You have a face that's publicly viewable when you go on the street - and you don't have the right to wear a mask to hide it". Note also that the court recognized that "the law could theoretically be applied in a manner that violates the First Amendment’s protection of expressive conduct, also referred to as communicative conduct or symbolic speech.". Applied to a case like Anonymous where the mask is essential to the message, or to an individual, the law is far less likely to hold up (it doesn't even apply in the latter case anyway).

And if New York's law has chinks in its armor, then those of North Carolina and the Virginias, with their broad scopes, would get chewed up and spit out like Chiclets. Assuming they even get enforced in the "walking down the street" context of your original claim, that is.

...and various states, as well as municipalities, prohibit it.

Prove it, then, and furthermore prove that said prohibition - and NOT against Klan rallies and the like, but against individuals going about their business (as in, I find myself having to repeat yet again, your original claim)- has been upheld as Constitutional in jurisdictions covering enough of the US to that it can be reasonably said to apply in the US generally. Anything less is not sufficient to support your original claim. Don't like it? Tough; you shouldn't have made such a broad claim when you couldn't support it.

It's not up to me to go through the ordinances of 10,000 cities and towns to see which municipalities also have similar restrictions.

It most certainly is. You made the claim, so you accepted the responsibility to prove that claim to be correct. If you refuse to do so, then your claim is rightfully disregarded. And you have, so it is.

People made a blanket statement that there was no such law - I proved that there is.

No, you made the blanket statement: "You have a face that's publicly viewable when you go on the street - and you don't have the right to wear a mask to hide it". You succeeded, at most, at "proving" this to be true in a narrow set of circumstances...in three states out of fifty. That's a success rate of less than 6%.

As for "unlikely to happen", tell that to the 8-year-old who was arrested for writing on her desk with an erasable marker, or the 5-year-old kid who was charged with sexual assault because he kissed a classmate.

Ignoring your failure to cite sources showing these incidents actually took place, let's look at the parallel you're trying to make. Laws against vandalism and sexual assault:

1. Exist in every state.
2. Are regularly enforced.
3. Outlaw an activity in which one person clearly violates the rights of another. An actual, honest-to-god crime, in other words.
4. Were, in the examples you (neglect to) cite, applied to situations drastically different from those they were meant to address.

None of this applies to your so-called "can't hide your face" law. Your comparison doesn't hold water.

Feel free to prove me wrong by going into your local bank wearing a mask. Better yet, go into your local gun shop wearing a mask. Do Darwin proud! :-)

So, having started from a position of "you don't have a right to hide your face in public", you have now backpedalled to "if you hide your face in certain specific public places people might think you're breaking a completely different law even though you're not". That's about as close to admitting you were wrong as you can get without coming out and honestly saying so.

And don't try to shift the burden of proof. You made the positive claim, you have to back it up. Thus far you have failed miserably to do so.

You obviously didn't read the link - it lists STATES that ban masks, not cities.

You obviously didn't read the link. Few states are listed as having anti-mask laws, fewer still support your general claim of "you don't have a right to wear a mask":

California - Illegal to wear a mask for the purposes of disguising yourself during the commission of a crime or evading capture by the police.

DC, Florida - Illegal to wear a mask for the purposes of intimidation/threats, depriving others of their legal rights, or avoiding identification while committing a crime.

New York - Illegal to hang around masked in a public place with a group of people similarly masked

North Carolina, Virgina, West Virginia - Congratulations, these have a broad enough scope to superficially support your claim...provided none of the listed exemptions apply. You also have to ignore the fact that these are essentially blue-laws targeted at the KKK and their like, enforcement of which against someone just going about his business while masked is laughably unlikely to happen in the first place, much less survive a Constitutional challenge.

Even that aside, all it shows is that there are three states currently violating your right to wear a mask in public, not that you don't have the right to begin with. You absolutely do have that right. It harms nobody, and other people are not entitled to see your face.

It's amazing how many people like you are missing the obvious fact that the paper is a joke. Has Slashdot instituted a "No Understanding Deadpan Humor" policy that I didn't hear about?

He wasn't being serious, O Misser Of Preposterously Obvious Jokes. You've basically called Johnathon Swift an idiot for not seeing the flaws in his plan to end Irish hunger through cannibalism.

Have you ever bought and ate a real steak. No... Not the kind you buy at Western Corral, but the NY cut or Filet mignon aged beef marinated over 24 hours cooked by a professional with the right blend of herbs spices and other fruity nonsense

The right blend of herbs and spices is "salt and pepper". And fuck marinating. Just let that fucker cuddle up to peanut oil and hot cast iron for a couple minutes per side and Bob's your uncle. That is a real steak. Anything else and you might as well just go watch Beaches and have a good cry with the rest of the girls.

Then let me be more clear: A camera pointed at the mayor does not justify a camera pointed at me.

I'm ok with every citizen being under surveillance - under one condition, and one condition only: those in power are subject to the same surveillance, and the surveillance is accessible by everyone, freely, with no restrictions.

No, that's not okay either. A camera in the mayor's office does not justify a camera in my living room.

I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.

Hell, I doubt many people inside Iran know the truth.