I agree with your points but I don't think that's what the article is about. The article is questioning character 'creation' making players feel God like. It also asks if the unique characters take away from a good story because you can't write a "one size fits all." I think these ideas are simply wrong. I don't think I'm giving birth or creating a new life form. I'm playing myself in the game much as an actor is playing a role in a movie.

As far as storyline goes, look at Guild Wars and Aion. They render their cut scenes with your character so you are a part of the developing story rather than just watching a character from the story. And both World of Warcraft and Aion have moments where you play in an instance (solo or just your party) where you participate with a few NPCs as key elements of the story unfolds. Your character speaks to the prince, your character is cheered for saving the town and it's your character that fights side by side with Thral. The story is just as deep and you get to play a part in it through your character.

Rather than think storyline is dead because of unique character creation, the author should consider how these interactive stories improve on standard story telling. I've played enough "you are Dr. Freedman" games. I like what is being done.

Generally speaking, I think advertisements have dropped in quality over the years. The young blood they are bringing in today have the vision and foresight of about 2 ft. past their desk. I'm pretty sure this all sounded good back at the cubicle. "Wouldn't it be funny if.." goes a long way when you're young.

Right now Sony Pictures is doing a similar thing with the fear of 2012. You can join the lottery to one of the few to be saved. If you don't pay attention, you'll miss the little link for the movie page at the bottom. There are even some commercials on TV leading you to the page. http://www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org/

This is an advertising technique similar to LOST's internet campaign.

I would really like to see the emails myself to see if either Toyota was too far out there or if she was too naive. Either could happen. In her favor, I would not expect a company that has been promoting Earth, Nature and Humanity to pull out this kind of garbage.

How much time would your abandoned patent application be viable?

I have had several ideas I've wanted to patent but thought the entire process to be against the individual. I hear a lot of stories of people who go through the process to just have it killed by a corporation contesting the patent simply to stall it in court.

A small entity like myself can not afford to battle it out in court. I'd be out of money and no longer able to move the idea forward. It is really depressing when you look up the stories of how many people this has happened to.

Very good points and well written. I'll add to it for the subject of security.

Software Piracy definitely affects security. Most people would laugh if you asked them to run a .exe file that was emailed to them from a known software hacker but when people download a torrent of commercial software, the pirates often include a KeyGen to create a serial number. For some reason people run these without thinking twice. This keygen can generate the serial number and then install whatever the heck they want on your computer. A good hacker doesn't even need a keygen. They will just attach the code to the install script so you don't even have a chance. All of the sudden your network is running slow and you blame your ISP for limiting your bandwidth but its actually that zombie software you quite happily installed.

Personally I think Pirating is old school and lazy. If a person would take the time and download Ubuntu linux live CD or Ubuntu Studio, they would get an entire operating system loaded with everything from office software to digital image editing, 3D design, 2D painting, audio and video editing, DVD burning, network management, etc. It even comes with it's own searchable database of other free software. That's where the lazy comment comes in. A person might actually have to learn something new.

If all you can think is "ya but" when people talk about linux, consider Open Office, Paint.net, Aviary.com, Google docs.. On and on. There is so much out there, there really is no reason not to at least try some of it. Who knows, you might even find something that suits your way of thinking better than the commercial product you were trying to pirate.

The difference here, you are comparing a roughly flat rate music industry to the software industry.

Autodesk Maya 3D software is $1300.00 just to name 1. It is well worth the money but some kid trying to learn it might be tempted to pirate it because there is no way he can afford it. Thankfully they offer a free version for learning but you get the idea. A $16 music CD does not compare to a $1300 software package as it relates to lost sales.

Sorry if I sounded upset. I'm having to defend a lot of my posts today.

Unfortunately I don't agree with what is going on in Afghanistan either. But I'm not looking at all of the same puzzle pieces he is. What scares me is that it feels like Vietnam without a border. It is chaos over there.

As far as GITMO, you'd be surprised how many little islands we own. :)

This site covers the first 100 days.
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1281

Here are a few more. Please read about them vs. just thinking about it. If you leave it to the media to give you correct information you'll be waiting a long time. They tend to be bias. It's odd that so few people seem to know what is going on in the White house but so many feel they know enough to comment on how little they are doing.

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Signed: Monday, June 22, 2009

Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009
Signed: Friday, May 22, 2009

Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act
Signed: Friday, May 22, 2009

Helping Families Save Their Homes Act
Signed: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
Signed: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
Signed: Wednesday, April 21, 2009

Omnibus Public Lands Management Act
Signed: Monday, March 30, 2009

Small Business Act Temporary Extension
Signed: Friday, March 20, 2009

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Signed: Tuesday, February 17, 2009

DTV Delay Act
Signed: Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act
Signed: Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Signed: Thursday, January 29, 2009

Our global reputation and relations with the united nations. Consider how much of the crash of the global economy was actually our capitalistic fault.

Bush didn't understand that we need to work with the world not set an arrogant tone and turn your back against it. Especially when you can't even pronounce nuclear correctly. He took matters into his own hands and led the US to invade another country all because he thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When I served under Bush Seinor we were there to liberate Kuwait. Correct reasons vs. incorrect assumptions.

So many of the comments here argue, "he hasn't yet closed GITMO.." "We still have soldiers in Iraq." He didn't put these things in place. He IS taking steps to rectify the crap left behind by the bush. Every time Obama signs another document moving us closer to resolution on any argued point he is accomplishing something. This isn't fast food.

Will your state house the detainees from GITMO? you want them out but NIMBY them away to somewhere else. WHERE? This has to be negotiated and logistically feasible again taking time.

If you think you can do a better job, go ahead and run for President. You'll be the first slashdotterian candidate.

The close of the nomination does not limit the consideration time for the candidate.

Since it's the prize that is being argued, read what the Nobel committee said about why they gave it to him. You may not agree with their decision but it is theirs to make.

“We want to emphasize that he has already brought significant changes,” Lundestad told GlobalPost, citing Obama’s focus on multilateral institutions, dialogue and negotiations, arms control and nuclear disarmament, as well as the environment. “All these things have already taken place and this already has had a very significant impact on international relations.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/091009/outstretched-hand-nobel-committee-gives-obama-boost

As for what has actually accomplished, please visit this page to see 100 of them in the first 100 days. There are more. I didn't feel like posting all of them. Argue what you will but if you don't bother to read and only focus on your will I suppose you'll never learn anything but faith in your own opinion. You seem to think that world events can be finished like cooking french fries at McDonlads. It just isn't that simple. Starting a negotiation between certain countries is an accomplishment at that level.
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1281

Yet another deep and personally heart felt comment by someone who's obviously never been to the middle east.

Since you disparage Mr. Obama's work you must have done something of greater importance so I'll ask...

What have you done to affect peace and stability in the world? Why do you feel you are qualified to call his efforts crap?

If someone you worked with broke something that is really hard to fix and refused to fix it themselves even with being given more time, would you hesitate to thank the person who steps forward and fixes it? When you thank them, would you be looking spitefully at the wrong doer rather than at the person you are praising? That's a really sad view.

They are praising what he has accomplished in such short a time. He may still accomplish more but make no mistake, he already has changed the negotiating environment of the world and that is what he is being awarded for.

The affect a person has on a given subject is just as relevant as the amount of effort. Don't forget Al Gore won this award for simply doing a power point presentation based on the many years of hard work and scientific deduction of dozens of people around the world. Basically, he talked in front of a screen. But the fact that HE did it brought so much attention to the subject of climate change that it moved it forward in global priority. That's what got him his award.

I agree. Having served in Germany during the cold war and served in Saudi during the first Golf war I've seen both perspectives.

The localized conflict zones that don't seem to stop fighting have been fighting since before nuclear power was a glint in Einstein's eye or Oppenheimer's basement.

We humans just seem to love conflict. Even in modern times, since we can't go to war in our little suburbia, we've taken an exaggerated interest in sporting events. FIGHT. FIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING! FIGHT ABOUT ANYTHING!! Who knows, the next big fight may even be about heath care reform. We doom ourselves.

I understand your view but don't agree because this is a special case. University level training in chemical studies provide a lab in which to experiment. The lab is filled with universal tools so your point stands.

What about astrophysicists? Universities don't have more than a standard telescope so they borrow time on other organization's hardware like a radio telescope, orbiting satellite or ground based telescope across the world. Many of these are designed to work in a specific way. Those tools are proprietary.

Such is the case with game design and special effects software. Most of these companies understand this and provide their proprietary software engines for personal and educational use either free or at greatly reduced prices, Maya included.

It is necessary. Currently, students are receiving 2 of 4 years of useless conceptual education from their schooling and have to rely on the hope of an internship with a company that happens to use the one software package they played with in school. That's why so many game designers are self taught. Why waste the money on a university to teach you something you will then spend 2 more years unlearning.

I upgraded my computer to a Core2 Duo E8500 at the start of the year. I know that's not that hot of an upgrade but I had a pretty old one at the time. My original windows XP install would not work so I give Win7 Beta a run. It had some notable issues with IDE drives and DirectX10 games that were worked out by the win7 RC. I've been using win7 RC since it came out and I am quite happy with it. I have not had any blue screens or a program lock up that the task manager could not recover from. I have 3 computers on my home network with an old netgear router. Two of the 3 are on a homegroup and the file sharing all works as it should. The only issue I still get from time to time is 'no internet' For some reason I have to unplug my router to fix this. (the solution was deduced with the trouble shooter in win7) Don't think I'm a huge MS fan. I use Firefox, OpenOffice and was hoping to switch to Ubuntu Linux when Vista came out. My family is just too addicted to DirectX based games for that to realistically happen because Wine can only get you so far. Win7 is proving a happy replacement to XP. I have pre-ordered 2 copies at the discount rate.