When my dad was in High School, he (mostly for fun) helped the school implement an attendance system where each homeroom class sent in the punch cards for the students who were present at the start of the day. Someone fed each card to the computer, and the attendance was tallied. (This was the same year he was guaranteed an "A" in his computer class on condition he stop showing up - gotta love the irony there.)

Of course, students carried the punch cards to the office, so it was easy enough to slip in a card for someone who hadn't attended.

It's actually somewhat comforting to think that, more than thirty years later, nothing has changed.

I think I'll hold out for one that lets me play Civ V.

It's fascinating that in the midst of all this spin, they haven't realized that calling it "piracy" is likely to encourage the demographic containing most software pirates, and started trying to call it something else.

A few years ago, they were running anti-piracy messages before movies in my area, and when the final text came up, saying something like "Don't Pirate Movies", most of the people in the theater would yell "ARRRRRRR!"

Calling it something awesome (not as awesome as ninjas, of course, but still awesome), and talking about how well the "pirates" are doing is just encouraging them!

It never ceases to amaze me how the company that SHOULD produce some of the best code in the world (given revenue and longevity) instead seems to almost invariable produce code based on the "quickest and cheapest" principle.

The best customer service in this case would be: "What does this malicious third-party code do that causes our software to crash, and how can we fix that bug permanently." Instead, as usual, they go with, "Oh, malicious third party code makes our software crash? No cake for you, then."

I wish I could say that decisions like this will lead to MS becoming marginalized, but history doesn't seem to bear that idea out either. Pity.

Ah, right, the OTHER Avengers movie... one of the few movies that even the presence of Sean Connery couldn't redeem.

The TV series, on the other hand, is worth a look.

Tony Stark appeared in Hulk without dying or killing anyone. There's nothing that says a few characters can't float through Avengers without changing anything, and it's a long-time precedent in comic books.

And yes, James Marsters can appear as anyone, even himself.

Ah, Ivanova.

I must spend a few hours repeating the B5 mantra now.

Posting anonymously on the internet is much like yelling something from the middle of a crowd. Most of the time no one cares who yells it. Even if they do, chances are they may not be able to track down the person who did the yelling. But if you're going to go out and shout things, you should be prepared for consequences (like the guy next to you decking you), even if there's a sign at the perimeter of the crowd saying "All shouting is anonymous."

If someone cares enough to track you down for posting something stupid online, and you've made it POSSIBLE to track you down (instead of using a disposable e-mail and an internet connection that doesn't link back to your name), then maybe you deserve to pay some price for your comments. Especially if there's no legal protection behind the "Post Anonymously" checkbox.

I've read through the visible comments, and all of them seem to miss the point: the legal system has just operated in reverse. Rather than preventing the stronger entity from stealing from the weaker, it was actually the means by which the stronger DID the stealing.

Here, so far as I can tell, is what happened: The guy pulled a bunch of PUBLICLY AVAILABLE data from Facebook, connected it in new and interesting ways, offered to sell the product of his hard work to other entities, and then had to delete it all because Facebook got antsy and sued him, and he didn't have the money to defend himself. And of course, Facebook will now take the same ideas, and build up and sell their own datasets.

This is akin to bullies using school rules to steal homework from nerds and turn it in under their own names.

The issue, at least in the US, is not that people don't get it, but that they don't have to get it to graduate.

Wow, that's a little unfriendly. This is Slashdot, aren't you supposed to say he was brainwashed by Big Energy Propaganda?

I think you're forgetting this is the middle installment of a trilogy. (At least that's the impression I've got.) That means there's going to be a lot of consequences from installment 1, and setup for installment 2. There's a lot of potential for galaxy-altering consequences to the character "loyalty" quests, and the end of the game, if Bioware chooses to make use of them, even if they mostly won't happen till the third game.

Of course, in an emergency, the rocket will transform into a giant robot and defend the Earth from alien invaders.

Raimi himself guarantees an audience. Not as much as the IP in this case, but it's still not a bad bet.

Plus I'm sure there are tons of Evil Dead fans at Blizzard.

A Chuck Norris cameo might even work in a Raimi movie. Not many could pull it off.