The funny thing is that it wasn't just Saul Zaentz and the Tolkien Estate that had to sue to get all the money they were supposed to, but also Peter Jackson.

THIS! Like a million times.

The one thing that I do have to disagree with you on is that just because fans wanted a FF7 sequel doesn't mean they should have made one. It was a really good story, and if they didn't have a place to take it then I think they could have let down a huge amount of the fans by continuing it just for the sake of continuing and not because they had a great idea.

Overall, each of the games after 7 had some really fun and unique aspects to them (I liked the SeeD tests and ranking system in 8 and the weapon upgrading model instead of just buying a more powerful one each time you hit a city) and had some awful aspects to them (as mentioned 8 made it slightly difficult to get magic, and once you linked it to a stat it was more harmful to actually use it than stockpile it). It can't be said enough, each game seems to be trying to reinvent the wheel. And I think that's the real problem, you have no idea what you are going to get with each game.

The games would be much better if they had just spend more time listening to fan feedback than changing around the entire combat/leveling/saving/weapon upgrading/etc system every game. The magic system in FF7 was fantastic, why not keep it? I think starting with FF10 they started letting you swap out characters mid combat and that was a cool new feature, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there in 13. And you have to wonder why not, it was a great addition. And I'll never know why 13 had so little side content (really only on those monster hunts). I don't know if they went over on budget, time, or both because I can't imagine that they didn't realize that fans loved the chocobo breeding and hidden places earlier in the series.

For the Final Fantasy series to really restore itself to what people remember it as, they need to go back to the basics from the older games. Think about which aspects of the games fans loved the most and KEEP THEM, and then try and tweak the parts that fans didn't like.

I don't really think stealing a base is a good example here, as you're not actually taking the base with you. Nor does Team A having a player on the base stop Team B's outfielders from their use of the base.

I'd imagine this really depends on what level you're playing the sport as. If it's just a couple of people playing a pick up game of baseball and one of the players decides to bring his paintball gun and shoot another team's player while he's stealing a base (or even just do anything that's not outside usual game play) I would think that it would probably end up as a civil matter. Perhaps if the person shot was injured enough from it (get hit in the eye or something), they might decide to press charges and make it a criminal matter.

I'd assume that if we're talking about professional baseball players, then it would probably be more likely to be a criminal matter. But that's most likely superseded by a clause in the players' contracts saying that anything that happens on the game field is to be settled by binding arbitration set up by the league.

IANAL, but that's what makes the most sense to me.

But as you said, he made an attempt to contact the owner if it had some type of identification on it. I found a cell found outside a local bar once and called the number listed as Home in the contacts. Eventually the person was able to get the phone back from me. From what I recall when this story first appeared, Hogan never made an attempt to get the property back to it's owner. Though I could be wrong.

If you're referencing the case in the article, what makes this libel? Or are you just making a blanket statement about free speech?

So, it was the CIA that took down the PSN to find OBL! It all makes sense now.

Tax Haven isn't a pun, it's an actual term. Remember, English isn't the first language of all the /. editors.

Tax Haven

So what you're saying is that you're afraid we wouldn't be able to tell them apart from humans?

I have to agree with you here. This isn't about he DOJ bugging someone's phone or abducting them, they went to a judge and asked to get records which the article even indicates are a standard practice in criminal investigations. I don't see the big deal here, the CIA doesn't want people to publish books that include specific operations they've carried out against foreign nations, especially if it happened within recent memory (under Clinton, so at some point in the 90s).

I actually misread that, they're unsure which administration made the request for bank/credit records. The investigation has been going on for over 6 years, so this was originally a Bush administration case.

It should be noted that at least in this case, TFA specifically says that they haven't commented yet on which administration, Obama or Bush, was the one that actually began the investigation.

It seems to me that this has to be a very important point for music producers. Most people I know that buy music from iTunes will hear a song on the radio and decide to buy 3 or 4 songs by that artist. That $4 is split between the producers, the artists, and Apple. It used to be that you had to buy the whole CD for around $25, and even with the costs of a physical medium the CD was probably not costing them over $20 to make. I'd imagine that even if they could increase the number of sales, they're still making less money per sale.

Didn't you RTFA? The revolutionary special effects they're talking about are recording another actor's facial expressions then digitally putting them onto Keanu, giving us a realistic impression that he has a full range of emotions.

If only I was an Ophiuchus!

Clearly anyone interested in Dropbox would have already followed the blog, so I don't see why Slashdot should post any stories relating to it.