This is my problem with console gaming in general. This past month I've upgraded my PC gaming rig for the third time since I bought it back in 2002. I can play with my choice of controllers, including a keyboard and mouse (which I prefer), I can upgrade RAM, processor and video hardware, and I also get to do things like look up stuff on the internet and check email. Consoles are closed systems that you can't upgrade. That mentality should have died in the late 80s/early 90s, but folks like MS and Sony want nothing more than to ensnare buyers into a forced upgrade path which requires buying a whole new console. Screw that.

> Prior to bittorrent, there was Samba sharing as enabled by several crawler-search setups. Prior to those, there was Napster. Prior to those......

Anyone else remember downloading stuff of that service called Hotline? Man, that was the [Mac] warez nirvana. You could get full versions of professional-grade software, music, MPEGs, fonts, pretty much anything you were looking for, provided you know where and how to look. Good times.

The only reason for that scene that would have made any sense would have been if Kirk were being chased by the Cloverfield monster. At least then the fans could have had a chuckle, and there's no reason to think that the events of Cloverfield couldn't have been part of "his" Star Trek's canon. I know when I saw that monster in the theater, my FIRST thought was that I hoped it was the Cloverfield guy. (Would have made Spock that much more impressive in getting rid of it, too.)

I'm going to get a little button-sized plastic lens with a pin on the back and wear it as my flair. When people ask why I'm wearing a lens on my shirt, I'll happily tell them what it is.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Episode-IV-Widescreen/dp/B000FQJAIW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1242745571&sr=1-6

Wow, that's some serious flamebait there. *eyeroll*

Drunken moderation .. it's a fun game!

EVERYONE thinks they are divorced from marketing. The younger you are, the more independent you think you are.

I once ran a focus group of Gen Yers (undergraduate college age students). At the beginning of the session I asked them how much their buying decisions were affected by advertising. Not one of them would admit to ANY such effect .. they all insisted they made purchase decision entirely independent on advertising. Then later in the session, I showed them a very simple, basic ad for Pop-Tarts. It didn't even have a photo of a Pop-Tart, just a silly hand-drawn cartoon *about* Pop-Tarts. Suddenly, these fully independent masters of their own destiny started laughing about how much they'd like a Pop-Tart right now, mmmm. Pop-Tarts.

Other sessions with older participants showed that more mature people acknowledge that they are affected by advertising at varying levels, but nobody will ever outright admit than an ad persuaded them to buy something, no matter how subtle the influence it may have had.

If nothing else, they've succeeded in making all the people responsible for their own backups just a little more paranoid, and more secure practices may actually result.

Sometimes a person's (or in this case Web site's) ultimate purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

The OUTSIDE MMO .. great graphics (if your video hardware can handle it), like AWESOME resolution, and there's billions of players. You can even make real money if you know the right cheats to use. But it's an expensive monthly subscription ...

> You don't get to tell me how to use the chair I bought from you

Actually I do; I can tell you that standing on it is dangerous, and that it's not to be used as playground equipment and so forth. But you are correct in that I do not have the right to STOP you from doing those things if you choose to. And if you break it by choosing to, well then I'm not responsible for fixing it.

I also don't have the right to use predatory legal practices--the threat of a meritless lawsuit which I know I would lose, but which you can't afford to fight anyway--to force you to use the chair in JUST those ways I intended you to. Which is basically what Apple is doing. Apparently they are so mightily brilliant that they've already thought up EVERY CONCEIVABLE USE for their iPods and they're confident that everyone else is too dumb and incapable of thinking up any other ones to let them think for themselves.

If they were just for profit, they wouldn't have made their MacBooks' displays "eco-friendly" at the cost of rendering them useless to serious creative professionals. In other words they are now in the process of letting their politics influence the quality of their product, which WILL impact sales and marketshare.

I'm not buying ANY Apple product with that hideous glossy screen.

Oh, I fully understand you. I'm not arguing that there SHOULD be toys made based on Watchmen, I'm simply resigned to the fact that there will be [in addition to the ones that already exist]. I'd only be mildly surprised if the Silk Spectre II figure had removable clothes.

Wow, I guess criticism of Watchmen is another unwelcome idea here on Slashdot. ("Troll"? Unintentional flamebait perhaps, but troll? Someone peed in this mod's cornflakes this morning .. )

> You make that money selling cheap action figures in the Walmart toy aisle. Except Watchmen will not do that.

You're not nearly cynical enough. I'd lay money they're on the shelves by Christmas.

Christ almighty. The movie was too long already AS RELEASED. You're saying there's another full hour of material they shot? I'm usually willing to sit through a nearly-three-hour movie but FOUR? They might as well have split it into two movies, "The Fellowship of the Spandex" and "The Two Planets."