I'm a very religious person and this kind of stuff makes me sick. One of the foundations of my country is that it has no state-sponsored religion, or that it's not a (specific) religion-sponsored state. Governments have responsibility to protect their citizens from harm, but not at the expense of freedom. I may not agree with what you teach, what you share, what you distribute, but it is your God-given right (or as some may prefer, your natural right, or Spaghetti-given right) to believe, practice, share, and disagree. This kind of thing is a tragedy as it will hamper the rights of individuals and their ability to express themselves.

I was just about to say the same thing. Then They'll use it for further argument to fuel their DRM plans, further destroying business.

I'm not a big gamer, in fact so much so, that StarCraft remains the only game that I've continued to play many many years after it came out. I hope that Starcraft 2 is as good of a game. I've been to a few LAN parties, and they're kind of fun. However, the people I did that with have moved on with their lives. We live in distant places, and LAN parties aren't practical. We do still play Starcraft occasionally. I'm a little disappointed, but this certainly won't stop me from buying the game.

And I'll only pay $55, rather than the absurd markup you're asking...

The only thing that keeps me from going with Qwest has been the contractual obligations. I went with Comcast (sadly) because it was flexible, even though I didn't really want to.

Given the circumstance that we were in, it's really unlikely that he was anything but what he said. He had to go through a number of interviews and an application process, including a number of people who knew him personally. I admit the idea did cross my mind though :)

I don't really know the specifics though. I knew a guy who was 20, but looked like a 12-year old. He had had cancer at a young age, and (as he explained) he hadn't really grown since. He was also a pathological liar, and quite immature as well, so I'm not certain how much of his story was truth.

What is the appropriate kind of punishment? If the amount of money is reasonable, then the punishment will not be an effective deterrent of the crime. I'm not saying I find the punishment acceptable. And I agree that punishments need not to destroy a life. But where is the line? What might be reasonable to one person would be completely impossible for another person (unless you put the bar at amazingly high for anyone, has is done here.)

I admit that when I heard about Hulu, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. I also thought it was a bad idea, I thought it would never fly. I was wrong. I watched my first episodes of Firefly on Hulu. My wife and I use Hulu daily for our television. We don't own a television that we use and we don't particularly care. We liked Hulu... when we're watching actual television we're appalled at the number of ads we have to sit through. Anyway, I see this (surprise) as a bad move for Hulu. They've got a good gig going. My suspicion (with evidence to back me up) is that Hulu was doing fine the way it was going, that it was not taking away viewers from television, and that it was overall a productive means of legally watching content online. Hulu will curl up and die if people have to shell out for it. Might as well start buying the shows you care about on Amazon or iTunes.

Have you worked out the value for yourself? Is it a portmanteau? Just a funny word? A made up word? Or a common word/phrase that's going to seriously move people to your site intuitively? I know you've settled on a name, but if you're expecting to pay way more for a name than the $10-$15 it costs to register, I would seriously consider looking for a domain that is not registered. The domain name needs to pay for itself and should not be a major expense of your business. So if you see the name driving a serious amount of traffic directly, or being a significant factor in Organic search engine placement, go for it. Otherwise find another name you can get for cheap.

Reading this and a number of the comments, connected with the question posted to /. a few days ago about severe gaming addiction, I kind of wonder if, at some point, all MMOs need to die? Like a good television show, you get to a point where the show needs to be retired. It's lived it's life and been popular and made money. I think this is probably natural and needed. This gives the creators a great opportunity to move on to another MMO, or a different project entirely - flex their creative muscles in a different way.

So, there aren't any competing products out there? There aren't a dozen touch-screen phones now that have many, if not all of the same features?

I think there are few if any people who buy Apple products and don't recognize that they pay a premium.

The thing that gets me though, is you're acting as though Apple is somehow doing something wrong by charging as much as they do. It's up to them how much they charge, and if the market weren't willing to accept that, they would not be successful. Apple's not being deceptive about what you get with an iPhone, so where's the fault?

Messing around with traffic lights to increase revenue is one thing, but "violation of privacy"? Please. You're out in public. Are you going to ban handheld cameras next? Seriously. Having been caught by a traffic cam, I'm not please about them either, but I ran the red light. I broke the law, and I'm responsible for that. Traffic control is a safety concern. Cities need to make their citizens their primary concern, not their wallets, and not their popularity.

I understand the need for Taxes. I'm willing to pay taxes. There is a benefit of the state providing some services.

Your problem is that you've run out of money. Yes, you can ask the citizenry to give you more money, but then what happens when you erroneously spend that money?

Budget shortfalls are a symptom of poor budget expenditure. Yes, New York state likely is receiving less funding than it was previously, but that also means that services are not being used to the extent that they were previously. Make the adjustments, rather than piling your spending problems on someone else.