@Ridl: How many kids know what a polaroid was?

@EdselPDX: only allow ? and !? You aren't very creative. Morse code isn't bound to .-. ?! works just fine, or ab or fu or any other pair you can type.

@BMA:
You expect the hookers to be invincible? People can be killed in game. Hookers are people. Therefore, hookers can be killed. No large leaps of logic there.

That's all there is to it in the sandbox. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is what you are reading into it on your own. Sandbox games, by definition, can't be on rails. You can do things outside the story, that's part of the point of these games. Anything you do of your own free will, not driven by the story is your own, not part of what is woven by Rockstar.

@Jack:

You've played GTA and don't see the satire? I've played the first GTA III for a few hours (have them all, haven't gotten around to playing the others, or finishing the first), and the satire jumps out at you. Spend some time listening to the radio, pay attention to the ads.

While you're at it, read some satires like Huck Finn, Modest Proposal, Candide, 1984.

@Jack: "It's far easier for kids to get their hands on games than it is to see movies and we all know it. Granted nowadays it's a tad easier to see R-rated films if you are a kid thanks to file-sharing but still."

Better tell the FTC. Games and theaters have the same level of age enforcement. DVDs however, have very pathetic enforcement. So cut with the "everybody knows it" crap, especially when it's wrong.

@Hyoscine:

I was planning on buying a new computer for HL2, as I didn't have one capable. Then I found it would only work with Steam, even the boxed edition. That computer purchase became a Mac instead.

but they gave up way more than they got in the deal, and the public (including government workers and public interest groups who need to consult this data) lost big-time.

Did they? Call me cynical, but maybe removing public access was the reason for this.

Mark,
As of 9:20 AM Central, I'm getting 404's

How does this jibe with the mail laws that say if it's sent to you unsolicited, it's yours?

Never mind the physical disk, how does that apply to the content as well?

Whatever happened to the simplicity of the Borland license? 3x5 card. One side. Large print.

@pfh:

No, there isn't a technological fix, or rather, there's a counter for every technological fix

Drop packets with too much randomness that aren't destined for https/ssh. Don't allow listening on https/ssh on residential. So what do you do to work around it now?

@JPlotz:

Well, since you can't find the right line, the code for protecting an app is ptrace(PT_DENY_ATTACH, 0, 0, 0);, right in the comments.

The company I work with will not abandon Mac, but anything I was going to do on my own will not occur. I was also going to be the project manager for one of the products, a promotion I will decline.

So, what else does Apple do in the name of DRM? Does tcpdump not report phone home packets? Is ps or Activity Monitor skipping manager processes?

@Moon: What are you using? My wife uploaded 40GB to her iPod, it took longer than I thought it would, but it certainly wasn't a full day. This was a PowerBook, the iTunes library was on an external USB drive as well, so not the fastest way to do it, yet it was still far faster.

@Antonio:

Read my comment about malware. My system is vulnerable to malware that has another mechanism to hide, all in the name of DRM. Any dtrace scripts that use timing are also thrown off.

@JPlotz:

RTFA. The code needed is right there, so any malware that wants it can use it.

As for 3, it affects more than 0.001%, by far. It may DIRECTLY affect that many, but those are the people that write software (which includes me, I have commercial Mac stuff out there). If they stop writing the software, it's a global effect, not a local one.

@JPlotz:

There is one other thing you are missing as well, as is everyone else that supports this.

This same mechanism can be used to help hide malware.

@JPlotz:

Read the original article. Because it doesn't work on iTunes, it throws it completely out of whack, proper scripts do not return the proper results. EVEN ONES THAT AREN'T TARGETING ITUNES

They would've been better off not shipping it.

@#8:

I will never rent a movie. Yet my Mac has the same DRM that is affecting the OS. Please explain how this is fair to me.

@#5: "Apple did make this bed, and now they have to lie in it. It's not going to get anymore comfortable, either."

Nope, and it looks like my next computer will not be a Mac. Certainly won't be Windows (hasn't been for years), and it's looking much less likely now.

@22: I knew about this from the stopping on the report card. This was the first time I had seen reference to audio ads on the schoolbus

@Rob,Denmark (#7):

That's not going to fly from some comments I've seen on slashdot. One of the higher up at Sears apparently came from ComScore.

A lot of the phish I get at (at least of the ones I actually look at) go to real domains. secure-ebay, various misspellings and extensions of bank names and such. This isn't anything new from what I've seen. Maybe you ended up on some different lists lately?

@15:

Doc Marten's are common in the US. They are not recognized in LA. Therefore, LA isn't in the US?

@spikeles:

You missed some of the quote from the /. summary:
"its brief (PDF) it states the following: 'It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies... Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use"

If the shared folder is for family use only, I don't have a problem with it. So if instead of a shared folder, each ripped it, it's OK? Or do you expect the husband to buy the CD *AND* the wife to buy the CD, two copies in the household, each to be ripped seperately?

How is this legal?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yes, this in Britain, but the Constitution applies to the government, and I notice it says "people", not citizen there. The Constitution uses citizen in very few places.

@BXRGUY:

You make one assumption that isn't valid - there are motherboards that once bricked can be unbricked by the consumer

I consider it a recall worthy flaw that any consumer device could be bricked by consumer actions without opening the case. There needs to be enough ROM to allow a clean flash.

Cory, I think I'm a little more pedantic than you are.

Since various other sources indicate at least some are watermarked, I wouldn't call them DRM free. They're just using a passive form of DRM instead of an active one.

JHudson: We use tasers where Iran uses bullets and we use pain beams where China uses tanks. Is that not worth a little something?

Yeah, we'd never ever do something like abuse the tasers at a peaceful political rally where the presenter says he would answer the questions, right?