If you can turn the feature off, then it is a gimmic.

When was the last time you could turn 'color' off in a game? 3D is a gimmic, and the fact they offer you the ability to turn it off WHILE playing means it's not required to immerse you in the gameplay.

I tried that approach a few years ago (pay everything in cash)... only problem was I needed a bank account to cash my paycheque... So that's all I had it for... to put the cheque in, and remove the cash right after. Worked great... until I tried to get car insurance for a car that I paid for in cash... apparently I had no credit history and therefor was a high risk to insure.

So I hacked the credit application database and gave myself great credit.... umm... where was I going with this... ???

So basically instead of just writing a windows app, people are going to write IE-9 specific HTML 5 extended (or enhanced) pages that load only on Windows systems and pretty much perform the same things a windows app would do (hardware accelerated).

Isn't this a really long roundabout way of just allowing apps to run off the web in a sandbox? Why the smoke and mirrors?

Nobody is infallible. This friend of yours may be smart, he may be extremely good at writing bug free code, but he is worthless as a developer for a company that needs to create anything useful if he is naive enough to believe he can write totally bug free code.

I rather have someone working with me that is an average developer who does their best to write bug free code, but deals with unexpected situations than one who thinks they're smart enough to forsee every possible outcome during code execution.

This guy sounds like the 'Greek Tragedy' of programming. An infallible developer... HA!

Some how, in North America, your mentality would be viewed as admission of guilt, and they'd find you guilty of pirating software that quite probably hasn't even been written yet.

We seem to have fallen into a guilty until proven innocent beyond any doubt (no matter how unreasonable) system up here... How's the weather down there? If you guys have cheap internet, I'm willing to emmigrate...

If anything, it would help the jury decide to sentence him to death... obviously they're helping him by not letting him live, thus his horribly diseased brain won't make him suffer any longer... Really it's the humanitarian thing to do... :P

-- I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all,
-- it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware
-- receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?

-No. It's fundamentally different

I take a TI calculator, using keys obtained from internet forums I sign my hacked version (or homebrew, or whatever) and load it onto my device and expose functionality that I am not entitled to access from the hardware.
I take a Nintendo DS, using keys I obtained from internet forums, I sign my homebrew game and load it onto the device. I am now playing games on my DS that are not sanctioned by Nintendo (replace Nintendo with Sony Playstation, Apple iPhone, Microsoft XBOX, etc.).
I now take a DirecTV receiver, using keys I obtained from the internet, I load a firmware version on the device that allows me to tune into channels that I don't have in my 'package'.

Please, humor me, as I'm not seeing how this isn't a quick and logical argument that if I can do the first thing, why can't I progress to the last thing using the same legal arguments along the way? I paid for the hardware in all cases.

All sorts of companies produce the exact same hardware and then have a registry bit/flag hidden somewhere to enable the more expensive features. nVidia and their Quadro cards comes to mind... Or Intel and their underclock/overclock crap... the chips are identical, one is stamped with a different number and frozen at a different multiplier.

TI probably has some features disabled or unavailable in their lower-end models, hack the software, and lo and behold, the actual hardware can probably do most of the same stuff the more expensive model can. I can see why they wouldn't want people *SHARING* this information with the general public.

Actually, come to think of it, if TI loses on this one, I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all, it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?

Is my 12" Powerbook with 5-hour battery life now retroactively a netbook?

No, you still paid way too much for it... At best it can be a retro 'Apple fanboy' netbook! :P

What makes you think creative thinking can't be taught?

If it could be taught, it would be a multi-billion dollar industry. I know I certainly would love to attend courses that taught me to be more creative... I always wanted to write music, or create artwork... too bad all I've ever learned from the classes offered has been how to identify what sucks about what I created, but they never taught me how to actually create something good. That's always left to your 'creativity'... how convenient...

For example, almost everyone knows how to use photoshop if they play with it long enough, right? Can you show me a school that will teach any average person to be artistic? Probably not, but I'm sure you can show me lots of art schools that can teach artistic people how to use photoshop with amazing results.

You can take a creative person and teach them the correct ways to apply their ideas, but you can't take someone that knows the 'rules and regulations' inside and out, but sucks at independent thinking and teach them to be creative.

Hence why you'll get a bunch of people who have the same degrees from the same universities but they will have capabilities that are miles apart when it comes to software development. All the people were given the nuts and bolts knowledge, but only the creative ones excel in the real world think outside the box environments. That's not to say there aren't places for the 'by-the-book' developer, but it'll be maintenance coding, and not make the latest cutting edge app or game.

Hacker mentality or not, lack of creativity is why Indian developers tend to produce lackluster results. (And before I get flamed, I'm saying this in general, I'm sure there are many creative Indian developers out there, just as there are many uncreative American developers)

The original Nintendo GBA port of DOOM certainly proved that point. They ported it directly, except without sufficient processing power, and a complete lack of optimization effort on the part of the developers that did the port, the game SUCKED ASS.

Being a software developer myself, I can totally appreciate the comment about the port only take a few days (Afterall, the original engine is only a few hundred lines of code), but that a quality port will take much longer. If you need proof, again, look at the Nintendo GBA port of DOOM.

Honestly, if you want to compare American and Canadian laws, copyright laws are the bottom of the list in terms of impact and relevency. There are WAY more important laws that clearly shows Canada's are generally more enlightened and less restrictive compared to their American counterparts.

I've tried the exchange method before... the woman took my money, and gave me nothing in return... what the hell are the male chimps doing differently?