Yes, they were, and if Microsoft had anything remotely planned such as the comment described above, they would have made their case instead of putting their collective tails between their collective legs and retreating faster than an army out of Baghdad. Those of us that actually keep up on these things and do some gaming reporting must just ALL be fools and Microsoft is a poor, misunderstood company with the interests of gamers at heart.
"As a reminder, the article was written by Timothy Geigner, the same person who ripped into Microsoft about its XBox One console, decrying how "it's DRM". Steam uses DRM, so I'd like to know what gives between the differences of its use"
So, if I understand the complaint correctly, you feel there is some hypocrisy in writing one negative article about a gaming console going out of its way to INTRODUCE DRM and an article praising a platform that happens to use a form of DRM introducing refunds to customers? How is this supposed to work exactly? Am I supposed to refuse to acknowledge positive news from any company anywhere that uses any sort of DRM, just because I think DRM is dumb? You're not actually serious with this, are you?
"What most people didn't hear, because they were too busy screaming at the top of their lungs with fingers firmly placed in their ears, was Microsoft was going to allow people to sell their digital games."
What a crock of shit. That whole thing was a half-baked attempt by Microsoft to gauge what the reaction from the public might be to letting the monolith become GameStop. And if you think they were going to handle selling used digital games anything remotely like an actual secondary marketplace, you're high.
"Getting a refund on a digital purchase should have been a day-0 option. It should have been known by service providers and game publishers not every purchase is worth the price (but shovelware sells!)."
Did you not notice the sarcastic tone of the above article, indicating exactly this? I even put "Finally" in the headline to make it easy on you....
"also, daily Kotaku crosspost? Whats next? You start quoting foxnews?"
Eh, like most of Gawker's sites, Kotaku has its issues, but they generally do a good job as a starting point. I typically don't take their posts as gospel and click through for other links. Honestly, when the click throughs are all in Japanese, however....
As Mike said, the study didn't suggest that the ONLY cause of Alzheimer's is gaming, but that it could be a cause, or contributor, which is still bullshit.
That said, I'm enormously surprised that all the evidence isn't in the OTHER direction. As I too have a long family history riddled with Old-Timers Disease, as we call it in fearful humor, I've been keeping up on the advances that have been made in understanding how to hold off the symptoms or keep the disease at bay for as long as possible. Everything I read indicates that doing things like completing crossword puzzles and Sudoku may help. Why should gaming, especially gaming that includes puzzle-solving, be any different?
That said, I'm FAR more interested in what scientists are learning from ex-athletes diagnosed with CTE, given its close symptomatic proximity to Alzheimer's and the possible link to similar debilitating proteins that affect brain function. I may be being optimistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had some kind of way to essentially eliminate early-onset Alzheimer's within my lifetime....
Actually, the google summary is correct. Which, again, is the reason Saddam Hussein committed genocide, as did Hitler, despite their killings not being "complete"....
"Before that the region had been subject to centuries of the "Islamic ratchet" gradually squeezing out Jews and Christians. Before the time of Mohammed Jews were a major part of the population of what is now Saudi Arabia. Islam drove them out."
This is true of SOME Arab areas, but not of Islamic areas generally. The Persians, for instance, would have to be considered massively more tolerant to their Jewish population than their European counterparts.
"Christians were the majority in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Jews were a significant minority. Centuries of apostasy laws, coercion and financial incentives have gradually reduced their numbers. The flip side of the creation of Israel has been the elimination of Jews from the surrounding countries such as Egypt."
You can't have that both ways. Either Islam pushed the Jews out, or the creation of Israel caused them to leave. It's one or the other, not both. Frankly, the latter is the one that is true.
"Also ALL of the countries in the middle east are "new countries". They were all created by western fiat out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire. There is nothing special about Israel in this respect."
Now you're just being silly. While it's true that European colonialism did redraw the borders to create countries (Britain-Iraq, Britain/France-Iran, etc.), those borders never actually dealt with massive displacement of existing populations. They were drawn for economic reasons, chiefly to do with oil resources and colonial expansion. The creation of Israel and the act of dropping a non-native population in its midst, and then allowing that nation to run contrary to the NPT America signed (Israel refused to sign it and pretends it doesn't have nuclear weapons), supporting its annexation of neighboring lands, and refusing to award the Palestinians a state of their own when EVERYONE KNOWS that's the solution to the conflict is beyond cruel....
"Just out of curiosity, what would you consider the appropriate response to being invaded and having your land colonized by people who do not recognize your entire cultural/racial/religious right to exist, at all, and have been trying to wipe your people off the face of the earth for centuries?"
This could have been written for the people in the Middle East that the US decided to plop a new country on top of....
Israeli policy is at best skirting the line of genocide and at worst a policy of racism that the idea for which they seem to have gotten from their own history less than a century ago. Their overreaction to the threats they do actually face only exacerbates those threats and their complicit work with the United States to continuously veto important UN resolutions that inch Palestine closer to statehood mark them as duplicitous as they are petty.
There, I did what you asked. And I was free to do it. Anything else?
"That's the thing about the First Amendment. You have to support it even in cases where the effect is something you find distasteful"
You want to be very careful about invoking the 1st Amendment to defend a law giving preferential rights to religious groups.
If you want an argument that this law was unconstitutional, I could quite easily make one: it guarantees the rights of some citizens that can't be enjoyed by others. For instance, an atheist could never claim his right to discrimination in service on religious grounds. I would think this would fall, if anything, under unequal protections under the law, and likely violates the 1st Amendment as the government is to take no position on questions to do with religion or God.
Alright, Tim, you are not seeing the obvious here. There was a time when companies could segregate based on skin color. Do you think that should have been left alone, too? Jeezuz, dude, wtf?"
You're missing my entire point, which you would have gotten had you read the post carefully. My entire point was that society in general MAY have progressed enough when, coupled with the democratizing force of the internet, renders the blowback over this law and its amending unnecessary. I think anyone who reads me here knows quite well which side of the LGBT rights issue I'm on.
Put another way, the war isn't supposed to go on eternally. You craft civil rights laws because society can't do the work of protecting minorities themselves. But once society CAN do that work? Then you don't go on crafting new laws, because there's no need. I happen to be hopeful that, on LGBT rights, perhaps that time has arrived.
Anyone who took the post to be some endorsement of religion-based discrimination needs to read back my other work and then immediately sign up for a course in remedial literacy....
Correct, I did that once in the article, and I've now corrected it. The other suggestions of error in the post I would argue were incorrect, but this inverse job I mistakenly did was my fault and it's been updated in the post.
Blech, this is 100% my fault. I occasionally use place holder titles for posts in the form of whatever pops into my head. In this case, I was pissed about the content of the source post and used a dumb title as a placeholder which held over in the URL for some reason. Doesn't excuse it, but that's what happened.
I hope my history of posting here affirms that I'm not rapey or homophobic, but from the URL title I get how it comes off that way. This was my dumb mistake and it sure as hell won't happen again.
On the post: Be Careful Not To Hire Conspiracy Theory Nuts To Run Your Social Media: The Shaquille O'Neal Story
Re: One, that Techdirt is under constant attack by corporate shills. Actually, it's laughingstock; anything spent to troll it would be a waste.
On the post: CIA Refuses To Release Osama's Porn Collection Information To Bro Who Submitted FOIA For It
Re:
On the post: The Future Is Now: Steam Finally To Allow Refunds On Digital Purchases
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Eyeroll....
On the post: The Future Is Now: Steam Finally To Allow Refunds On Digital Purchases
Re:
So, if I understand the complaint correctly, you feel there is some hypocrisy in writing one negative article about a gaming console going out of its way to INTRODUCE DRM and an article praising a platform that happens to use a form of DRM introducing refunds to customers? How is this supposed to work exactly? Am I supposed to refuse to acknowledge positive news from any company anywhere that uses any sort of DRM, just because I think DRM is dumb? You're not actually serious with this, are you?
"What most people didn't hear, because they were too busy screaming at the top of their lungs with fingers firmly placed in their ears, was Microsoft was going to allow people to sell their digital games."
What a crock of shit. That whole thing was a half-baked attempt by Microsoft to gauge what the reaction from the public might be to letting the monolith become GameStop. And if you think they were going to handle selling used digital games anything remotely like an actual secondary marketplace, you're high.
"Getting a refund on a digital purchase should have been a day-0 option. It should have been known by service providers and game publishers not every purchase is worth the price (but shovelware sells!)."
Did you not notice the sarcastic tone of the above article, indicating exactly this? I even put "Finally" in the headline to make it easy on you....
On the post: Book Publishers Whine To USTR That It's Just Not Fair That Canada Recognizes Fair Dealing For Educational Purposes
Re: Techdirt Swearing stats
On the post: Throwback Thursday: Eat'n Park Still Suing Over Smiley Face Cookies After All This Time
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On the post: Meanwhile, In Japan: More Arrests For Cheating At Video Games
Re:
Eh, like most of Gawker's sites, Kotaku has its issues, but they generally do a good job as a starting point. I typically don't take their posts as gospel and click through for other links. Honestly, when the click throughs are all in Japanese, however....
On the post: Press, University Say Study Shows Link Between Gaming And Alzheimer's; Spoiler: No It Doesn't
Re:
That said, I'm enormously surprised that all the evidence isn't in the OTHER direction. As I too have a long family history riddled with Old-Timers Disease, as we call it in fearful humor, I've been keeping up on the advances that have been made in understanding how to hold off the symptoms or keep the disease at bay for as long as possible. Everything I read indicates that doing things like completing crossword puzzles and Sudoku may help. Why should gaming, especially gaming that includes puzzle-solving, be any different?
That said, I'm FAR more interested in what scientists are learning from ex-athletes diagnosed with CTE, given its close symptomatic proximity to Alzheimer's and the possible link to similar debilitating proteins that affect brain function. I may be being optimistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had some kind of way to essentially eliminate early-onset Alzheimer's within my lifetime....
On the post: Chris Christie: Your NSA Fears Are Bullshit And Civil Liberties Advocates Are Extremists
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On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
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On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
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Genocide means to kill a large group of people (read: substantial portion of peoples) because of their religion, ethnicity, or national politics.
Hence, Hitler committed genocide even though the Jewish people still exist. Saddam Hussein committed genocide even though the Kurds still exist.
On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
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On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
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This is true of SOME Arab areas, but not of Islamic areas generally. The Persians, for instance, would have to be considered massively more tolerant to their Jewish population than their European counterparts.
"Christians were the majority in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Jews were a significant minority. Centuries of apostasy laws, coercion and financial incentives have gradually reduced their numbers. The flip side of the creation of Israel has been the elimination of Jews from the surrounding countries such as Egypt."
You can't have that both ways. Either Islam pushed the Jews out, or the creation of Israel caused them to leave. It's one or the other, not both. Frankly, the latter is the one that is true.
"Also ALL of the countries in the middle east are "new countries". They were all created by western fiat out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire. There is nothing special about Israel in this respect."
Now you're just being silly. While it's true that European colonialism did redraw the borders to create countries (Britain-Iraq, Britain/France-Iran, etc.), those borders never actually dealt with massive displacement of existing populations. They were drawn for economic reasons, chiefly to do with oil resources and colonial expansion. The creation of Israel and the act of dropping a non-native population in its midst, and then allowing that nation to run contrary to the NPT America signed (Israel refused to sign it and pretends it doesn't have nuclear weapons), supporting its annexation of neighboring lands, and refusing to award the Palestinians a state of their own when EVERYONE KNOWS that's the solution to the conflict is beyond cruel....
On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
Re: Re: Re:
This could have been written for the people in the Middle East that the US decided to plop a new country on top of....
On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization
Re:
There, I did what you asked. And I was free to do it. Anything else?
On the post: Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Historical amnesia.
You want to be very careful about invoking the 1st Amendment to defend a law giving preferential rights to religious groups.
If you want an argument that this law was unconstitutional, I could quite easily make one: it guarantees the rights of some citizens that can't be enjoyed by others. For instance, an atheist could never claim his right to discrimination in service on religious grounds. I would think this would fall, if anything, under unequal protections under the law, and likely violates the 1st Amendment as the government is to take no position on questions to do with religion or God.
On the post: Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?
Re: Seriously?
Alright, Tim, you are not seeing the obvious here. There was a time when companies could segregate based on skin color. Do you think that should have been left alone, too? Jeezuz, dude, wtf?"
You're missing my entire point, which you would have gotten had you read the post carefully. My entire point was that society in general MAY have progressed enough when, coupled with the democratizing force of the internet, renders the blowback over this law and its amending unnecessary. I think anyone who reads me here knows quite well which side of the LGBT rights issue I'm on.
Put another way, the war isn't supposed to go on eternally. You craft civil rights laws because society can't do the work of protecting minorities themselves. But once society CAN do that work? Then you don't go on crafting new laws, because there's no need. I happen to be hopeful that, on LGBT rights, perhaps that time has arrived.
Anyone who took the post to be some endorsement of religion-based discrimination needs to read back my other work and then immediately sign up for a course in remedial literacy....
On the post: Sanity: Trademark Suit Rules That Florida Pizza Joints Don't Compete With The NJ Turnpike
Re: Re: Re: GSP not same as NJT
On the post: No Copyright Lives Forever: How The Apathy Of IP Rights Holders About Their Copyrights Killed A Game Re-Release
Re: Y'know
I hope my history of posting here affirms that I'm not rapey or homophobic, but from the URL title I get how it comes off that way. This was my dumb mistake and it sure as hell won't happen again.
Thank you for pointing it out the way you did.
On the post: BART, The Train Service, Goes After Brewery Over BART, The Beer
Re: Definetly infrigning
Introducing, from the venerable Dark Helmet Brewing Company, our Suburban Express IPA!
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