Is there a reason why nobody has patented the ability to play a game in the first person perspective? I don't know anything about patent law, but this doesn't seem any less ridiculous than other patents that have been approved and defended.

The bill isn't law quite yet. Stupid bills wanting to become stupid laws get introduced all the time and most of them don't go anywhere.

And those kids are only spending that lunch money on soda and french fries, so taking that money away from them would actually be a public service. Think of the children.

It might not, and based on the replies, it probably doesn't have anything to do with it. But, it's something I was curious about so I threw the question out there.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to imply that it was the only reason for the problems. I actually wasn't trying to imply anything. I was just wondering if it could have any part in the problem at all.

No, I wasn't suggesting anything. I know Sony is a large company with a lot of money and resources, but I'm pretty ignorant as to how they allocate all of those resources. It was something I was curious about, so I asked.

Is any of this the result of Sony's PSN being a free service? Could something like this happen just as easily on Xbox Live, or would it be more difficult since they charge for the service and are therefore able to put more money into it?

I think it's because most people understand, even if it's only on a subconscious level, that if people only follow the rules of society when they are being watched or forced to then that society won't last for very long.

Except precise controls have never been something that most people who play video games cares about. It's really not that much of an advantage except in twitch games like multiplayer COD. You certainly don't need pin point precision for rpg games, platformers, action adventure games, ect. They just need to be good enough.

The biggest perceived advantage that a console has over a PC is ease of use. There is no installation to worry about. You simply put the CD in the drive and play. You also don't have to worry about spending hundreds of dollars on upgrades in order to play the latest games. I don't know if this last point is true or not, but that perception is pretty prevalent in my experience.

I think this was my favorite quote from the article:

"Unfortunately there is deliberate jamming by Libya ... which is illegal," CEO Samer Halawi told Al Arabiya television.

I'm pretty sure Gaddafi stopped caring about what is legal when he had his army open fire on the protests.

That's a shame. I'll admit I got my hopes up a little bit that new episodes were at least being considered. Thanks for the clarification.

That's what I was confused about. I didn't know if they were buying the IP so that they could eventually make new episodes or if they were just buying the rights to show the old episodes. Apparently it is the latter.

Someone else on another board ( perhaps on this one as well ) mentioned that The Science Channel didn't buy the Firefly IP rights but only bought the syndication rights. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Those are some of the advantages that online interactions have over face to face interactions, although I disagree with a couple of the ones you listed which I'll get to shortly. However, face to face interactions also have advantages that online interactions do not have. Face to face interactions allow instant feedback. When I post something on Slashdot or a similar forum, at the very least I have to wait a few minutes for a response and often times I have to wait longer or I simply don't get a response back at all. This instant feedback leads to an overall flow of back and forth conversation which is also an advantage that face to face interactions have over online interactions.

One of the advantages that you listed for online interactions is that it is easier and more convenient to interact with those of similar intelligence levels. I would argue that unless a person is uncommonly gifted, they should not have trouble finding people who are their intellectual equals in a college environment. At a larger university that has thousands of students, I also don't see how time would be that much of an advantage. My university has 50,000 students and I can go on campus at any time of the day or night and find people who are studying or otherwise involved in academic work.

Again though, I would like to reiterate that I do not think online interactions are worthless or even less valuable than face to face interactions. I simply think they are different and each one is valuable for different reasons. And in relation to my original post, I think face to face interactions as well as other reasons justify the existence of colleges and universities.